Are You My Friend?

Have you ever sat down in your only free 5 minutes in the day, logged into facebook only to have the stark realization that you have no idea who any of your “friends” are?  I’m to the point now that I know their names, their dog’s names, and what they cooked for supper tonight.  I celebrated with them when they got that job they’ve been wanting, and smiled at pictures of their children; yet I have no memory of ever meeting these people in my life.  Was it an acquaintance from high school or perhaps I sat beside them at some meeting I went to 3 years ago?  Who knows, but here’s the strange part; in some odd way I feel connected to these people, intertwined in their lives, engrossed in their dramas.  In some ways I’m closer to them than any real life friend I see occasionally or wave to as I drive through my neighborhood. 

Which leads me to my question of the day: has the internet brought back the idea of the pen pal?

Every day I sit down with my laptop on the sofa, my two year old driving trucks up and down my legs, Super Why with the power to read playing in the background on the tv, and I check my email.  I tell myself that this is one of my responsibilities as a small business owner, staying on top of all correspondence.  But, in reality, I have a friend that I email every day about anything and everything.  There have been really hard days when that email message was the only ray of sunshine in my dark and stormy life.  We talk about the men in our lives, her dating madness, and my crazy Mr. Alpha Male husband.  We talk about our dreams and deepest desires for the future, our children and the joys and struggles involved with them.  And, because we are forced to put what we are thinking and feeling into black Calibri type face and fill a screen with it, we say more than we would on the phone or, if we lived closer, over a glass of wine.  I cherish those few minutes every day when I get a new message and have a brief glimpse into her daily life.  And, in essence isn’t that what having a pen pal is like?

It seems like everyone has a blog these days, cathartically purging themselves of all of their innermost struggles into print and sending it out online.  And, now I have a blog where I write my personal thoughts on life and put them out in the world for everyone to see and examine.  Do we have that same level of openness and honesty with friends that we see in person regularly?   There was a time when people were friends in real life; and now it seems like all friendships stay firmly planted in cyber space, while we lock our doors and close our blinds to the outside world.  Which leaves me wondering both in real life and online, “Are you my friend?”

Express Yourself ... or not.

One of those lists that go viral around the internet hit my Facebook page last night.  This time it actually interested me.  It’s the “Top 20 Reasons Writers Make Great Lovers” list.  It wasn’t the list that captured my attention though.  It was the snarky commentary that an actual writer wrote back in response.  I really did LOL a few times.  The response to #9 made me think (as well as giggle):

9. Writers can think through their feelings.  So don’t start an argument unless you’re ready for a very, very lengthy explanation of our position, our feelings about your position, and what scenes from our recent fiction the whole thing reminds us of.

For me, this is so true.  I have no problem examining or expressing my feelings.  I probably express myself a little too well and too often.  Most of the writers I know are the same.  I keep hearing about these introverted writers, but I’ve yet to meet one.  Maybe it’s my genre, but every writer I meet is more than willing to share his or her life story, current WIP, past failures and triumphs, tips for success, etc. etc. etc.  We love words and it would seem we like to speak them as well as write them.

Our characters, however, usually have a heck of time expressing their feelings.  It’s sort of a “must have” in a romance.  We couldn’t have a hero that was immediately in touch with his emotions and his longing for the heroine.  He can’t think only of her, regardless of how it might affect his job/family/fortune/title.  If he were so self aware, he’d have the whole book sewn up by chapter five.  Same goes for our heroine.  If she could quickly admit that she really did want to know more about the roguish duke no matter what her family thought, she’d march right up to him at the ball/party/park/dinner and express that feeling.  The End would probably come after only one or two meetings.

This wouldn’t do!  We like the unspoken words.  We love the longing glances and touches laden with meaning.  We live for all the unresolved sexual tension.  For romance writers, while we may be able to think through it and tell you exactly how we feel on pretty much any person, place, or object you offer up, we are NOT going let our characters do the same.

Bringing Home the Bacon Bits

I was asked today what I do for a living, and I found myself floundering for a moment not knowing which job title to give. A year ago I would have replied, ”Stay-at-home Mom,” without blinking an eye. But sometime in the past year, I became an owner of a construction company, an interior designer, and an aspiring writer, all on top of my career as a stay-at-home mom. My brief blunder caused me to step back and take note of all of the women I know that are working two and three jobs while raising children. The more faces that crossed my mind, the more I realized that everyone I know moonlights on their job as a stay-at-home mom these days. On-line business owners, tutors, aerobics instructors, seamstresses, and waitresses, all fighting for the survival of their families in a time filled with slim profits, coupons, and dwindling bank accounts.

Then, I began to think of all of the success stories that have happened in the face of adversity. They surround me every day. The small victories of purchasing back to school clothes for the kids, or simply keeping the bills paid for another month, small victories that keep families clean, fed, safe, and together. When the storms of life are swirling around us and fighting for survival is the only goal, it’s difficult to stop working long enough to look around and appreciate all that hard work. So, I would like to take this opportunity to applaud my fellow moonlighting stay-at-home moms for their perseverance in holding life together while life seems to tear itself apart at every opportunity. Even as I’m writing this, I’m waiting for water to boil on the stove for supper, kicking a soccer ball back and forth across the kitchen floor with my little boy, paused once to answer the business line, and now I’m looking around my normally clean house at paperwork piling up on table tops and the accumulating dust bunnies in the corners. So, what’s a girl to do? When does a working stay-at-home mom get the 5 minutes necessary to sit down and congratulate herself on a job well done? I’m declaring the time is now! I challenge all of you amazingly strong women out there to celebrate in some small way today. I will be celebrating today with a new shade of lipstick and some stolen writing time on my front porch!

We moms need to remember that we are worth being taken care of too. And, while my contribution to the household may be more like bringing home the bacon bits, than bringing home the bacon, we’re happy to have those delicious salad toppings every night at supper time! So, be proud of your many job titles! Brag with pride about your list of official and unofficial job titles, and celebrate everyday with every success.

GMC IRL

As writers, we hear so much about the goals, motivations, and conflicts of our characters. It’s such a frequently used phrase that we’ve condensed it down to the acronym, GMC. “What’s the hero’s GMC? My heroine’s GMC isn’t straightforward enough.” There are entire reference books dedicated to GMC.


My question is, what about GMC In Real Life?

Because I can tell you, more often than not, “real life” is almost always at Conflict with my writing Goal and Motivation. Simply put, my Goal is to be published. My Motivation is the love of writing and a desire to entertain people and capture their imagination. My Conflict is pretty much everything else in my life.

You name it. Job. Family. Friends. Responsibility. Exercise. Yard Work. Grocery Shopping. The list goes on and on. We all have our list and, unlike in our novels, this is the one place we don’t want conflict. So what do we do? Well, we face the reality that we may never get hours of quiet time in some remote location, with a cup of coffee (or other beverage of your choice), a computer, and a brain free of distraction. We carve out whatever time we can, five minutes here, an hour there, and we write. Don’t worry about how little time you have, just write what you can until the next conflict arises.

How do I do it?

I used to get up early and write while everyone else was asleep (I’ve heard of many a successful writer doing this), but now I have to have myself and my little guy (who we’ll call SJ here) up and out the door by 7:45am. I also have to squeeze in a work out or some Zumba before 6:45am, so the morning is shot. I can’t write late at night because my brain after 9pm is 99% ready for sleep, 1% able to remember the words “brush” and “teeth”. For weeks I made no progress until I finally decided I was going to write and that time would just have to be found. I set a weekly goal of 5,000 words and I began writing in small bursts. It worked! Now, during my lunch hour at work, I write. During nap times on the weekends, I write. On Friday afternoons, after 4pm, when everything has slowed to turtle’s crawl at work, I write (Shh, don’t tell). If SJ goes to bed early and the Dear Husband is working out, I write! I sneak in my writing time like a dieting woman sneaks chocolate.

The other day I knew I’d have no time, but the DH started feeding SJ dinner, so I whipped out my lap top with plans to tap away on some dialogue stuck in my head. I ended up writing over 600 words. Nothing huge, but it’s still progress. Yesterday it was 1,000 words on my lunch hour.

It can be done. I’m getting closer to my Goal because I finally stopped focusing on my Conflict. How do you reach your goals?