My sincere and humble thanks

For all those wonderful wall-song suggestions! Even the silly ones. Maybe especially the silly ones, because I can always, ALWAYS use a laugh. It’s good to have a pile of new music, and from so many different genres, too! I am a little astonished that nobody suggested “100 Bottles of Beer”, however.

I was thinking about walls, in particular, because I have been feeling like I’ve put a wall around myself, and I don’t like it at all. I had big defensive walls when I was young, but I tore them down years ago and decided I wasn’t going to live that way anymore. Somehow, though, getting published and making this transition from “Nobody You Ever Heard Of” to “Somebody a Few People Have Heard Of” has been scary and uncertain enough that the walls went back up.

Have you noticed this blog getting more boring and impersonal over time? Yup. That was the walls going up. If you read the entries sequentially, you can see it happening, like time-lapse photography. Little by little I said less and less. It got to the point where I could barely write anything here at all, where I felt the internal censor half choking me any time I tried.

The thing about my internal censor – and my defensive walls – is that they get super zealous about their jobs. They weren’t just applying themselves here on the blog, but everywhere. My “real” writing. My life. I have been cutting myself off at the knees, truncating my thoughts, boxing myself in at every corner.

And for what? Am I so scary that I need to be contained? Are my honest words such a liability that I need to keep a muzzle on?

There is nothing terrible I want to say, but I have to feel absolutely free to say something terrible or I find I can’t say anything at all. Writing – the thing I chose to do, the thing I love – has become a misery as often as not. I’m tired of that, and I’m done suffering. It’s not necessary. I can say exactly what needs to be said. I have the power, the right, and the ability to judge rightly what to say.

The first rule of shame-Grendels is never talk about shame-Grendels — but that’s their rule, invented for their own self-preservation. They know that when the sunlight hits them they will dissolve into dust. That’s why I’m saying this here, because it will help precipitate their disintegration. It is time to stop shouting at myself and enjoy my work again.

And I really, REALLY want to get to the point where I can explain to you why listening to YES is like eating an excellent sandwich. That’s a goal, perhaps. I will know the last brick has been kicked aside when I can finally be that funny and serious — together — again.

Well look who’s here!

That would be ME, darlings. I haven’t been here in a while, and I apologize. I travelled and rested, and in the meantime my editor perused the draft and came up with twenty thousand ways I could improve it. I’ve just dipped my toe back in this week, and… well, it’s always cold at first, until you get your midriff in, and then it’s all right. In fact, I’ve found a number of things to be excited about.

So there you go. Work proceeds apace (a slow pace, maybe) and work is good.

The flowers have all come out over the last few weeks, which is helping enormously. I really ought to spend a day just photographing cherry trees and putting them up here, that I might have something lovely to look at during the long cherry-blossom-free months. They are stunning, like clouds rooted to the ground, or branches laden with barely-pink snow. The sheer decadent abundance of flowers. I walk the dog by specific routes, just so I can pass under all my favourite trees and gape up at them. Someday a blossom is going to fall into my mouth. I’ll let you know if it does.

As I gad about under the sakura, I’ve been listening to “Awaken” by YES. Also, to “Glistening Fields” by Iarla O’Lionaird.

Huh, they both start with piano solos. I hadn’t noticed until I listened to the beginning of each in close succession.

Bad timing, ulnar nerve

I had such a long, wonderful, life-affirming, idea-synthesizing blog post brewing in my brain all weekend. It’s not getting written up today, however. My ulnar nerve – the right one – has decided today would be a super nice day to start twinging ominously.

Nerve, dude, not cool. I have a lot of typing to do. A LOT OF TYPING.

Extracurricular typing is going to have to wait, therefore. Here’s an article on narration, however, that I found particularly inspired and inspiring. It was the springboard of all my thoughts. Read, enjoy, and I hope to get around to disquisition on the topic at some point.

Looking 2013 in the eye

Ah, 2012. Memorable? Yes. Fun? Sometimes. Challenging? Always. On balance, though, I’m really not sad to see it go.

2012 was great but exhausting.

A friend of mine chooses a word at the beginning of each new year that she hopes will encapsulate the year to come. That sounded like an interesting idea to me, so I tried it at the beginning of 2012. I chose the word perspective, thinking that was something I was going to need when my book came out and reviews started coming in. It was an aspirational word in some ways, a recognition of how hard it was going to be to keep my feet on the ground, of the effort I would have to exert to keep from getting overwhelmed by everything.

It turned out that perspective was important, but not exactly as I expected. I thought perspective was something I already possessed, something I had to maintain, but that was only partly true. Perspective is also something to be gained, a broadening of vision and a new understanding. That’s sometimes a painful and harrowing process, however worthwhile.

What should this year’s word be? I wanted something that included ideas of healing and restoration, as well as openness and optimism. I need all those things right now, but that’s a lot of weight to put on a single word.

Unless the word is art. I believe that’s my word for 2013. Let’s see how it goes.

And happy new year to you and yours!