Tuesday, March 23, 2010
I have....*what* now? @ 12:47 PM
When I checked last night, I had sixteen fans on Facebook.
That doesn't sound like very many to you, maybe. I know authors personally who have maybe ten thousand, maybe more.
But I made a Facebook site for myself - as an author - just a couple nights ago. Having sixteen fans is incredibly humbling - having fans at all is humbling! I know, like I said, you're probably thinking "what's the big deal?" The way I see it is...that's more people than I can count on both hands that are pulling for me, waiting to see my work...that's a lot more people that I feel like I'd let down if I failed to write mind-blowingly amazing prose.
That might sound a little melodramatic to you, but I can assure you that this is a whole new motivation for me to succeed. Before this, I was just writing for me, tinkering with drafts with no real consequences if I failed to make a chapter awesome.
Fans...even if they're all mostly your real-life friends...even if there's only a handful...even if I'm still a nobody (!)...do make *all* the difference.
Thank you all so much.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Lesbian Resentment. @ 9:26 PM
Anna can flirt with girls, and they like it.
I flirt with girls, and they look afraid. Or put off. Or awkward.
This has been the way it's been since we've been together. I'm really starting to get fed up with it.
Why are some girls able to flatter other girls with attention...and some girls aren't? Is there something wrong with me? Is my only option to reserve my attention for men? I'm not going to accept that.
At this point, a girl in my place has two choices. She can a) give up or transform into a straight girl or b) get more confident.
Part of my problem might be in that I look more serious than Anna does when I say things. Possibly women don't mind the attention...so long as they don't think it's sincere. When it's serious.....erm....yeah that's kinda weird. You don't have a penis, so...you're kinda freaking me out.
When we grow resentful at the hypocrisy of others, do we change ourselves to assimilate more successfully into society? Or do we give them the proverbial finger and give newer, fresher energy into being ourselves, world be damned?
A dilemma indeed, but one I think I've solved for the moment. :)
I want to be a published author. So do a lot of people. That's why encouragement is so unlooked for....but so welcome.
A very nice old lady sitting beside me here in the cafe at Borders got wide eyed and excited when I happened to mention that I aspired to be a published author. She and another lady sitting nearby asked about my recently-finished novel with rapturous interest, and Anna sat nearby and helped explain the plotline, dancing around the lesbian love story at its core like a cautious engineer around a minefield.
"When you're a big famous published author, what name do I look for?" She asked. I balked in genuine humility. I didn't feel like I deserved that compliment, especially on top of the host of other compliments I was given on the quality and fascination of my budding novel.
"I'm thinking about writing under a pseudonym. Amanda Cassandra Davenport."
And that did it. It was out. I said my pseudonym for the first time in public, and someone responded to it with interest and awe. I felt like a star already. I want to hug that dear old woman for her compliment.
But Anna's description of my novel, the project I love so much, really got me thinking. Is it so objectionable that the love story happens to feature two members of the same sex? Is it love any less, and if it's not, would the public find it so repelling to miss my attempt at creating a work of beauty and a statement of transformation? I don't doubt that I'll have to show the draft to more people before I find the answer to this vexing question, and I hope that my optimism in my generation at least isn't unfounded. I am hoping in the name of all I hold dear that there are other people that can enjoy the story for precisely what it is instead of getting hung up on superficial things.
I don't "pray" for much....but I'd be willing to for the sake of Mary and Caitlin, who deserve to be loved for who they are and for the message they can give to everyone.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Little Revelations. @ 12:51 PM
It's funny....there's a difference between the things you know and the things you internalize. I think that in order for a piece of information to truly become a part of our lives, we have to have our own little personal revelations about it. We all have to individually go "ah ha!" and have a light come on in our heads, illuminating the thing we thought we knew.
I had one of those moments today.
Everything is energy. I know that, and you probably know that. All around us at any given time is every kind of energy in existence, spanning the spectrum of human experience. Every single person's interpretations of wealth or laughter or joy or suffering or sorrow are right there in front of our faces all the time. That's because at the finest level of reality, space doesn't matter. Space is only one dimension.
I guess it occurred to me like this: you've felt negativity or something in a room. You've felt sadness or anger so thick it strangled you, so thick you could not only touch it, but it would hinder your movement. You have two choices: you could adopt that negativity, letting it become a part of you and work through you and charge your every word and deed and thought with rage and destruction. OR you could...not! You could try to ignore it and cleanse yourself of it later in favor of more positivity, which is also yours to summon.
You can summon negativity to you at any moment by thinking of some retarded thing someone said to you or a rude glance or that person you're sure hates you. It's really that easy. You can also get a craving for ice cream, have the intention of getting it, feel yourself having it, and that knowledge that you're going to get it turns into a carton of ice cream in your hands (maybe on the way back from work, then you can enjoy it in front of the computer just like you imagined). Thoughts turn into actions turn into things. It all orchestrates itself.
Anyway, what I really realized was that vibes like prosperity and success are here too, right in front of you, all the time. You just have to vibe on its frequency, and you can manipulate that energy, let it become part of you, just as easily as you can any other kind of energy or vibe in the room (or anywhere) because no form of energy is any greater than another.
It's your choice what to do with it.
I could have read this post a year ago and said "yeah, I know that. I'm working on it." But it's one thing to know it....and another entirely to have that light bulb come on in your head, that moment of transformation when that piece of information truly becomes
yours.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Confidence, The Journey. @ 1:15 PM
Confidence isn't something you gain overnight, and to use the old cliche metaphor, it's a journey rather than a destination.
If we're talking *real* confidence, confidence you keep with you, that becomes a part of you (rather than a momentary spur of confidence brought on by some guy asking you out, for instance), then it starts with a decision...an intention. You have to look around at where you are and realize that it's not good enough, that you deserve better, and that you're going to *get* it.
To ascend to any higher state of being means that countless changes all have to be made simultaneously, a lot like what happens in the body to fight off an infection or to have a baby. Some of these changes are changes you can preside over, but most of them happen outside your sphere of direct influence. You have to actively decide what you want to look like. You have to decide what you want to feel like, to sound like, to act like. You have to decide exactly what you want other people to see when they look at you, what they feel when they look at you. You can control all of this. Once you decide these things, you can introduce them into your body and into your awareness.
You have to be a little bit detached....but you also have to *feel* it. This is key.
What I've seen is that changing bad self esteem to good self-esteem and powerful confidence is sorta like pushing a really huge snowball. Bad self-esteem is like that really big snowball sitting still at the top of a hill. You have to get behind it, throw all your weight behind it, and coach it along as it slowly gains speed. You can't expect it to fly down the hill at sixty miles an hour the second you *think* about it, but after just a little while, you can clearly see a difference. It's moving. Now it's easier to just touch it, coach it along, and it moves faster and faster with less and less of your influence. Soon you don't have to act at all and it moves faster on its own, getting bigger and bigger. Once it gets big enough, it would be harder for you to get in the way and stop it than it was to get it started to begin with.
The really amazing thing is that our bodies actually respond to our thoughts. Your brain and nervous system is wired in a specific way to transmit chemicals and electrical impulses most efficiently based on the sort of thoughts you think and the sort of emotions you routinely feel. That's why a certain imbedded way of thinking always seems to get its way.
Like...say for instance this is the way you think on any given day:
I look fat
I look fat
I look fat
I look fat
If you try to insert a "hey, I look good!" in there, the "I look fat" will probably cancel it out.
I look fat
I look fat
Whoa, I look goo-
I look fat
But all that is is conditioning. You can just as easily begin to counter-condition. Like I said, it's like getting a snowball moving at first, but as your brain literally rewires itself to accomodate the chemicals and electrical impulses associated with that particular mindset, it gets easier.
I look fa-
I look-
I lo-
I look good
I look good...!
I look good!!!!
The work takes care of itself after a while, and your brain isn't called the "central nervous system" for nothing. Those chemicals and impulses rewire the neurons throughout your body, and those neurons carry information to every tissue and organ in your body, every cell. Your cells - every last one of them - have receptors for certain chemicals produced by your brain, associated with different emotions. With time and with changing those neural patterns, you can also change the receptors. So you can literally teach your cells to think the way you yourself want to think. That means your body will start to back you up, you'll get more powerful...and your appearance will start to change.
Are you ready to work at it?
Friday, March 12, 2010
Mary, Revision. @ 12:49 PM
So the moment has arrived. I can look back and see a hard copy of the rough draft of "Mary, Everything", sort of like looking numbly at a sunrise in disbelief after fourteen years in a hospital bed.
I honestly never thought I'd finish a novel ever again. I'd resigned myself to some idea that maybe I wasn't fit to be a writer, that maybe I wasn't good enough, that it might *not* be the ideal way to express myself.
As it turns out, it was the *only* way to express myself.
And now that it's done, I don't know what to do next. I mean I've been writing since I could pick up a pencil, but I've never been faced with the serious prospect of getting published before, and so I guess I'm a new writer in that sense. How is a second draft done? Where do I start? Staying motivated to work on a revision is different than staying motivated to finish a rough draft. I don't have images of an amazing, beautiful finished work of literary splendor, really...all I have are quick impulses, momentary flashes of a life that *could* be. And it's at least keeping me inching along.
But I need more serious conviction. I feel myself pausing at the edge of some precipice...what precipice that is or why I'm pausing I'm not sure. But I think I've been pausing at every inching step for the last three or four years. Something traumatized me somewhere...something made me afraid of progress.
I want to be liberated, and I want to go forward with conviction in my life and in this novel. This is what I seek...
The things you realize on an impulsive, ten minute blogging session on lunch at work...
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Promises. @ 7:33 PM
Promises.
I promise to always see myself as beautiful.
I promise to always be my own greatest ally.
I promise every day to feel the beauty I want others to see, for I must feel it for them to see it.
I promise to love myself unconditionally.
I promise to be unapologetic about the things I once considered flaws in my appearance.
I promise to expect - nay, demand - that the world accept me as I am, because who I am is lovely.
I promise to see myself as the sex icon, the goddess, the visage of loveliness and beauty, that I am.
I promise to remember that it's totally not the minutiae of a woman's features that makes her beautiful...or not. It's something far more intangible.
I promise to never lose sight of these principles, but carry them with me every day for as long as I live, to always go forward to new heights of confidence, awe-inspiring beauty, and loveliness.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Love Starts Here. @ 5:27 PM
I learned recently that the way you see yourself is often the way other people see you. It's true.
I'm starting to wonder if the human body is only the mind's way of trying to externalize itself. The problem is that making profound changes in the way you think and the things you take for granted is more difficult than it sounds.
When people say "I can't do that", what they really mean is "it's way too hard to alter the way my mind works."
So....I took a while and thought about exactly the kind of girl I'd fall in love with, exactly the kind of girl that would make me gaze in awe, the kind of girl that would earn my admiration and envy. Then I promptly started trying to see myself as exactly that girl.
It's really hard, and that's precisely the reason that so many young women have issues with their bodies or the way they look. These insecurities go deep....very deep. But I hold myself differently than I did a week ago. I hold my shoulders back and look people in the eyes and feel a sense of happiness...if only a tiny one...in the girl that I am, in the potential I have for love and beauty, in the potential I have to inspire admiration and awe in other people.
It could take weeks, it could take months. But I know from experience that even the strongest thought patterns in our awareness can be changed. All it takes is a willingness to work at it.
It's totally worth it, and I really do deserve it. =)
Promises.