Toeing the Line

There are those who say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Which leads me to wonder, is being a writer insane? Or, rather, is trying to build a sustainable career out of writing insane? I self-published my book Hello Morning in 2014, and it was such an amazing feeling. To get to hold a physical copy of a book I'd worked on for years in my hands. To see other people reading it. To hear their feedback. To go on Amazon and see my book for sale. It was all incredible. 

The book did not sell the way I hoped it would, but I learned a lot from the process. So I took what I learned, wrote another book and decided to submit this one to some agents, and try that route toward publishing. None of the agents I queried felt my project was right for them, but I got some good feedback along the way.  

So, I wrote another book earlier this year called A World Between and after running it through a few rounds of edits, have begun the process of sending out query letters to agents and publishers. Everything I've heard back at this point has been a rejection. They have been the kindest, gentlest rejections, but they are rejections all the same. And so it occurred to me this morning that I might be insane. 

I have been calling myself determined. Committed. Driven. I have been telling myself that in order to succeed on this path I must persevere, but at what point does perseverance become madness? If I take a step back, I can rationalize that I am probably not at that point given how early it is in my writing career, but where is that line in the sand? Is there a line in the sand? Or is a certain degree of insanity required to succeed? 

Unmistakable

Washing dishes is a meditative practice for me. My hands go on autopilot, lift, scrub, rinse, repeat, and my mind is free to wander. I have had some amazing moments of clarity with my hands covered in suds, fingers all wrinkled up like little prunes. Sometimes I'm so deep in my thoughts, that my husband or kids will come into the kitchen to talk to me, and I won't even notice they're there until they wave both of their arms over their head, or raise their voices just enough to break my trance.

On occasion, I want something more than the intermittent rush of water, and clang of pan on pan to accompany my thoughts, so I'll listen to a podcast while I wash. I will admit I got in the podcast game a little late. My husband had been urging me to do it for years by the time I finally got on board. And while I listen to a few different podcasts fairly consistently, my favorite podcast is still the first one I ever tried, Unmistakable Creative. I don't know that I've ever come away from an episode without some new insight or expanded sense of possibility. 

One of my favorite parts of the podcast is the very last question, Srini Rao, the host, asks, "What makes someone unmistakable." I always look forward to hearing how the guest will answer that question, and then analyzing how the way I live my life fits (or doesn't fit) within their answer. 

I don't know why it had never occurred to me to do this before, but yesterday as I was finishing up with the last of the dishes, listening to an episode featuring Neil Pasricha on the "Role of Intrinsic Motivation in Our Happiness" (great episode by the way), it occurred to me to pose that question to myself. 

What do I think makes someone unmistakable?

 

I thought about it for a few minutes while wiping down the counter and drying my hands, and came up with one word. 

Honesty.

 

I shared my Personal Principles Declaration about a month ago, and my second principle is, "Be honest with yourself and those around you," and the more I thought about it yesterday, the more I felt that if you are always striving to uphold that principle, you will be unmistakable, because authenticity is unmistakable.

If you are honest with yourself and others about who you are, about your intentions, motivations, aspirations and passions; if you are honest, even when it is not easy, especially when it is not easy and transform the power of that honest knowing into honest action, the result will be an unmistakable life. 

We Shift With the Seasons

I was looking through old pictures this morning, and stopped at a photo of the first purple crocuses I saw this spring. I've made a game amongst my children and me of pointing out those first sentinels of spring, and am always excited when one of us notices them. Those little flowers, sometimes purple, sometimes white, occasionally yellow, are a sign that while the mornings may be crisp, and I may not have entirely been able to pack up my winter coat just yet, warmer, greener, longer days are in fact coming. I look forward to these spring feelings, and welcome them every year, but my body greets all of the seasons with distinct emotions. 

With the turn of each season I am aware of a change inside myself that mirrors the changes nature is going through.

Winter signals a need to slow down, to be still, quieter. During winter I spend a lot of time reflecting on the time that came before. 

Spring always feels like waking up from a really long, restful nap. It feels like the best of mornings, when you greet the day bright-eyed, fully refreshed and ready for just about anything. Spring is for planning and organizing and beginning. 

Summer is a time infinite possibility. The days stretch out before me, long and seemingly never-ending. By the time July rolls around, it feels like there is time enough for everything. Summer can be a double edged sword though. The illusion of so much time can be startling when the days begin to cool and shorten. 

Fall. Oh, fall. If I lived somewhere with more temperate (read non-existent) winters, fall might be my favorite season (don't tell spring). Fall comes in with so much urgency. Sunset creeps up minute by minute with each passing day, and even in September, when nature is still slowly relinquishing the heat of summer, my body still knows what season it is. It urges to me to double check to-do lists, bring projects to completion and pack my days before winter comes. 

I definitely have my preferences, but I have come to appreciate the place each season has in my life. 

Artist's Prayer

I give thanks for all of my blessings

and all of the wisdom life's experiences have afforded me.

I give thanks for the love in my life and

my ability to reciprocate that love. 

I open myself up to creativity.

I welcome new ideas.

I trust my path though I may not always

be able to see it under my feet,

or know where it leads.

Please help me to recognize my flaws as

parts of my humanity and as opportunities

for growth.

Please help me to recognize the beauty within myself

and please help me to order my words in a way

that will touch someone else's life

and make them feel less alone. 

Hear my prayer.

 

I got the idea to write this while reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, which is a really amazing program by the way. I try to read my Artist's Prayer at least once a week, but I seek it out especially when I'm experiencing writer's block, or am feeling discouraged. It helps me to center myself, and put things in perspective. 

Navigating My Identity With Words

My husband says I grew up like a gypsy. He says that's why I get uncomfortable when we live in a single place for more than a few years. I'm not sure if that's true, but I do know that for as long as I can remember, I have been searching for my place; searching for somewhere my spirit will recognize I belong.

My writing has always accompanied me on my journey to find my voice.

The characters I create and the stories I tell reflect that. I write about women, mothers, sisters and children. I write about subtle traumas and catastrophic ones. I write about relationships and love, both the ones that hurt and the ones that heal. I write about the intricacies and politics of identity and I write myself into places and spaces where I and others like me can belong. 

In my first three years of life I lived in Washington, DC, New York City, Puerto Rico and New Jersey. After that I bounced back to New York, then on to New Hampshire, Connecticut, Texas, Hawaii and finally landed in Pennsylvania where I currently reside, but geography was not the only aspect of my life that made me question my place. I grew up with a fair-skinned Black mother, two very fair-skinned sisters who shared an Irish-American father, and a transient stream of my mothers boyfriends and husbands. 

I only had a vague notion of who my father was, aside from the fact that he was "dark." I now know this to mean that he was darker than my mother, though not necessarily dark-skinned, but growing up my father's "darkness" was used by my mother to highlight my difference from both her and my sisters. I was always aware that I was browner than them, that my lips (particularly my bottom one) were larger than theirs, that my hair was coarser than theirs, and that my nose had a "pug shape," as my mother called it.

As she pointed out all of these things, though they each stung in their own way, the overwhelming feeling I was left with was that I was different, and different was not a good thing. 

I have spent my life navigating my space. Living in the in-betweens. I found solace in the television shows, movies and books where I found characters that mirrored my experience, but found those stories to be few and far in between, so I began writing my own. 

Story telling at its best allows us to not only connect with charactersacross the spectrum of human experience, but it allows us to find ourselves.

The worlds I create spring from the world I come from.

They are diverse, challenging, blended and heart breaking, but they differ in that I help my characters find power in their difference, a power I wish I had recognized growing up.

To read more about how my experiences growing up shaped my identity, read this piece I wrote for mater mea magazine.

A Year of Toni Morrison

If you asked me what my favorite book was, or even what my top 5 favorite books were, a pained expression akin to what might happen if you asked me pick a favorite child (I have 3 children) might cross my face. I would briefly consider whether the entire Harry Potter series could count for one of my 5 favorites (though I am partial to Prisoner of Azkaban and Half-Blood Prince) and then struggle with how to fit the library of books I feel I can not live without into the other four entries. 

However, if you asked me about my favorite writers, that would be far more simple. The spot for my favorite writer of all time is a tie between two Black women.

Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison.

Rounding out my top 5 would be JK Rowling (of course), John Irving, Edwidge Danticat and Shakespeare.

I recognize that there are actually six authors on that list, but I'm taking some liberties because Butler and Morrison occupy the top spot together. 

In any case, given that I already read Butler's Parable of the Sower on a yearly basis, Fledgling whenever whenever the mood strikes me, and stories from Bloodchild as occasional bedtime stories, I decided I wanted to do something to honor my love of Toni Morrison. I wrote down all of her books in my notebook, and as soon as I realized there were 12 of them, I decided I would do a Year of Toni Morrison.

Aside from the first selection, I am reading the books in the order they were published.

July - Playing the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

August - The Bluest Eye

September - Sula 

October - Song of Solomon

November - Tar Baby

December - Beloved 

January - Jazz

February - Paradise 

March - Love

April - A Mercy

May - Home 

June - God Help the Child

I was also really excited that July marked the second half of the year,  because it seemed like a best starting point  for a year-long project aside from January. If you'd like to join me, you can search #yearoftonimorrison on Instagram, and feel free to post your own entries using the hashtag as well. 

Happy Reading!

Give Dreams A Chance

A Couple years ago, I heard this amazing commencement speech that Jim Carrey gave at Maharishi University of Management, and I listen to it every so often when I'm having one of those moments where I'm second guessing my decision to pursue the life of my dreams. In my favorite part of the speech, Carrey talks about his father. He talks about how his dad held down a job that he didn't have a passion for, for most of his life, and then one day he was let go. Carrey said the lesson he took from that was, "you can fail at something you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on something you love."

We come up with so many reasons why we can't even try to go after our dreams. We tell ourselves it's not the right time, we tell ourselves it's too risky. We come up with reasons why we will fail where others have succeeded. We stack all of these things up in front of ourselves as proof that our dreams are not worth the gamble, but they are.

We can not know what we are truly capable of if we don't try. We can not know what could have come of our dreams if we don't live them. We can not have the life we've always wanted doing the same things we've always done.

This is not to say it won't be hard -- because it will. This is not to say it won't take time -- because it may take a while. But when you come out on the other side and your life reflects your dreams and passions -- when you look around at the culmination of all of your hard work and perseverance, won't that be worth it?

You will never know what your life could have been if you don't take that first step and give your dreams a chance.

Personal Statement Plan

This is the last exercise I will be sharing from Lewis Howes book, "The School of Greatness." You can check out the other exercises I did here. 

The Personal Statement Plan (PSP) is exactly what it sounds like. It is a roadmap for your life. In the plan you create goals and steps toward achieving those goals for every aspect of your life from family and relationships to business and inner growth. If I were to share all of that here it would be pages long, so I'm just going to share my favorite parts.

Who Am I?

When I think about who I am, the first thing that comes to mind is all of my labels: writer, creator, mother, wife, friend, sister, woman, Black, etc. But when I think about who I am beyond all of those things, I believe that I am a unique expression of divine energy that is both separate from, and a part of all energy. My labels are merely channels for that energy.

What Do I stand For?

I stand for creative expression and love and community building and nature and maternal rights and human rights. I stand for a world where everyone can find a place to be happy, healthy, whole and loved. 

Who are you? What do you stand for?

Personal Principles Declaration

Here's another one of my favorite exercises from, "The School of Greatness," by Lewis Howes. Check my previous post for another favorite. 

The Personal Principles Declaration (PPD). The PPD is a statement about who you strive to be and what you will stand for in your life. It's a set of guiding principles you create for yourself to live by. Here are mine:

1. Come from a place of love 

2. Be honest with yourself and those around you

3. Believe in abundant possibilities 

4. Choose happiness

5. Change what you can, accept what you can't, learn and move forward

I expect these principles will be easiest to live by when everything is running smoothly, but I will make a point of reminding myself of them when I'm having a rough time, because that may actually be when I need them the most. 

Perfect Day Itinerary

I had the best time last month reading Lewis Howes, "School of Greatness." My husband first shared Howes podcast of the same name with me, and while I enjoy listening to it from time to time, the book really blew me away. There was an exercise at the end of every chapter, and so I decided I would share some of them with you. 

First Up! Perfect Day Itinerary (PDI)!

Perfect Day Itinerary (PDI)- In this exercise you map out what your perfect day would look like when you're on the path to the life you've envisioned for yourself. Here's mine:

On my perfect day I wake up to sunlight streaming through my window and the gentle sounds of quiet. My husband, the love of my life, my best friend, is still asleep beside me. I kiss him on the forehead and tip-toe out of our room. I go outside on our porch and sit in the rocking chair as I sip a cup of tea and begin journaling. I meditate before walking through the garden, stopping to feed and visit the chicken, and collect fresh eggs for breakfast. After spending time with my children and husband over breakfast, I got to my office to write for a while. After that I check email and make sure that all benchmarks and action items have been taken care of for the upcoming camps I have created to foster creativity, build community and empower. I send my editor the latest draft of my latest book, and figure out which stops my family will join me for on my upcoming book tour. I am done with all of this no later than 3pm in the afternoon, and the rest of the day is spent reading, coloring, cooking, watching movies and spending time with those I love. When I lay my head on the pillow that night, I feel incredibly grateful and blessed for all the happiness and fulfillment my life holds. 

What does your perfect day look like?