"Women With Clean Houses Do Not Have Finished Books." ~Joy Held

The Great “Company Is Coming” Deep Clean...

I have to admit, I don't have the cleanest house. Between my dog, who is a cross between a Jack Russell terrier and something much taller than the corgi I was told he was, and my two cats, my house tends to have enough pet hair to produce whole animals by the end of the month. I also happen to live in a drafty old house, so dust just waits to land as soon as a cloth is swept over the furniture.

My house usually isn't too cluttered, but I'm usually way too busy to keep it really clean. Being single has its advantages, like the only mess being my mess, but my lack of regular cleaning does not bode well when it comes to visitors coming over. It’s usually a marathon cleaning, right when I’m worn down from either getting all the big item events done before the holidays, or, when my dad comes down in June, I’m usually just getting out of school (thankfully, I’m not at the school where I had to bring everything home or it would be stolen…out of my locked office…over the summer). Living a writing life, or even a reading life, does not give much time to think about dust or hair hanging off the ceiling fan!

This afternoon will not be an exception to this rule for me. I did start working on the guest room this summer, so it will be the most organized that it has ever been for The Visit. I’ve actually already washed the sheets, duvet cover, and curtains. I probably have about an hour or less worth of work for that room. The rest of the house…ugh. Thankfully, my mom always comes to the rescue for me on the cleaning. She knows I have higher expectations for how my house looks for other people than it does for myself. It’s a pride thing. Without her, my house would be a mess.

So, I have to say, without a doubt, that I am eternally grateful for my Mama. She cleans a house so that her ex-husband and his wife have a clean place to stay while they are in town. How selfless is that? I think the lady definitely deserves a day at the spa for her upcoming birthday!

Check Out This Weeks' Fort Worth Weekly Blotch Blog for Xs & Os!

It's been quite a week of writing for me. I’ve been working away on my novelization of The Bookmobile, though I'm pretty sure, even now, that I won’t finish the 1^st draft by the end of November. It will be done when it's done.

THE BIG NEWS is that I finished my guest columnist duties for Fort Worth Weekly’s blog Xs & Os! My theme was being a 40-year old, never married woman dealing with being exactly that- a single woman on her love journey. I was nice to the Exs, so they need not worry.

You can read it here.

Thank you for continuing to follow me! I'll be checking in at least once a week with my random ideas and progress on my novel!

NaNoWriMo for Grown-Ups?

Besides working on my entry for next weeks’ Fort Worth Weekly Xs & Os blog, I’ve been slowly adapting my screenplay, The Bookmobile, into a novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Now, that may be seen as cheating on NaNo, but I see the screenplay as an outline only. It’s mostly complete, but I think this story is better served as a novel.

I’ve tried several times to work with the local NaNoWriMo groups, but they’re either meeting too far away, or have more of a child-like spin on NaNo that I just don’t fit into (or tend to write more in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre, whereas I’m more in the Realistic realm). I host Write-Ins at the Boot Camp, but to become an official “host,” I have to win at NaNo (meaning, in the 30 days of November, I have to have written 50,000 words). I want to have a NaNo group for grown-ups, writing about grown up things. It’s not that I don’t see the other groups as writing for grown-ups, but…their style is just not my style. A quick Google search of groups who aren’t going the playful route brought up nothing.

Maybe NaNoWriMo as a concept is just not what I need to spur on my writing? It may just be a gimmick for those who need that one time a year to get going. I want to make writing a regular part of my life. Perhaps I just need to do my own thing by creating my own brand of writing challenge? I do have a workshop I teach at the beginning of every year, Write Fearlessly- Kick Off Your Writing Life in 2016 (check it out on the Boot Camp scheduling page), so maybe that’s how I’ll get the grown-up writing done. It’s something that will help people transition their lives into writing daily.

Now, if only I can get to writing on MY NOVEL daily…

"There's Only One Reason for Lack of Creativity: Fear." ~Elizabeth Gilbert

Due to my unique perspective of being a 40 year-old single woman who has never married, I have been asked to guest blog in November for Fort Worth Weekly’s romance column Xs & Os. At first I was thrilled with the idea of being published in a local, well-read publication. Then the fear set in. I can't do this. No way. What if I write something embarrassing about one of my Exs? What if one of my students reads it and starts thinking of me as the old hag cat lady librarian? Okay, well I am the cat lady librarian, but definitely not the old hag!

I soon realized the total irony of the situation. You see, one of the classes I teach at Fort Worth Writer’s Boot Camp is called Write Fearlessly (which, coincidentally, I will be teaching  December 5^th). In the three hour session, I guide my writing students through whatever is holding them back in their writing. That irony struck me this morning, while journaling, that I need to take a dose of my own medicine. I teach a class on working with fear, but I'm letting my own fears block me.

When it all comes down to it, I have a fear that most emerging writers have: what will everyone think? Unlike many of my students,  I don't have a problem journaling about it. I don't have a problem writing out what I think in a Word document and saving it. I do have an absolute fear of actually making this information known to the world. Posting it on a blog is opening my world up to the entire planet. That scares me.

I worry about how people I may be writing about will react. I am concerned that maybe my perception of a situation may be different than what actually happened. Like all humans, I am an emotional creature and sometimes I will respond to a life event in an emotional manner.

What snapped me out of this fear was the quote above, by Elizabeth Gilbert, showing up in my Facebook feed this morning. The only thing that is stopping my creativity is fear. I can't worry about what I may say about others in my writing. I can only worry about not writing.

This is really the problem that I've had with all of my blogging efforts in the past. I’ve wanted to be as authentic as I possibly could, but putting it all out there was just too much for me. So, it is absolutely time for me to re-think my writing and remind myself that my story is too important to be held back. I also need to revisit my favorite Anne Lamott quotes, one that I use in class to break the ice with my students over their fear of what they have to say about others in their writing:

When I Do Not Care to Share

I try not to be a negative person. I strive to be a happy, compassionate person. I'm usually pretty open for an introvert, but there is one thing that I just can’t stand doing...I am not a sharer of my things. I never have been. My mom blames it on my being an only child (um, that's kind of her fault), but I think it's psychologically deeper than that for me: I don't like the expectations it creates in the person I share with.

Expectations get set when you share. People expect you to continue to share with them. Letting someone use your microwave once does not mean that will be the only time they'll want to use it. They get the expectation that, because you have a microwave, and you let them use it once, they can come use it any time they want! Same goes for storing items in the fridge, or making a cup of coffee.

You'd think, being a librarian, I would have a problem with the inherent business of my job: sharing books. When they aren't mine, I don't have a problem. When they are…well, there is a reason I am hesitant to loan books out to people, even my closest friends! I rarely ever get them back! I have to hound! I have to beg! Even after doing so, the friend has either: loaned it out, dropped it in the tub, left it in their trunk (where trunk gunk destroyed it!), gave it away during a clean out, or just doesn't bother to respond to the request. I love my friends, but I don't trust them with my things. They don't usually come back in the same condition as they left.

Professionally, while I have no problem sharing library books, don't like it at all when someone asks to borrow something else of mine- even tape. I once had an administrator who would come into the library for meetings and never have a pen on him. He would always ask to borrow my pen. The one I was writing with- I use good pens, usually gel ink, which I purchase for myself. It wasn't just so he could sign off on something, he would take it for the whole period! Sometimes he'd try to sneak off with them. I would hunt him down, though. That's when I learned…pick up the free, give-me pens and give one of those every time he asked for one. I also started keeping boxes of red pens to hand to anyone asking for one. They didn't always like having a red pen, and some still wanted to use mine, but when I explain that it's a pen they can keep, they tended to not have much of a problem with it.

Sad to say, this sharing problem I have even happens with my romantic relationships. One ex-boyfriend still has a set of folding chairs, an outdoor table and a hair drier. Okay, I admit, I left all those in my rush to get out of the relationship and cut them as a loss. The one that really hurt was the ex who ended up losing two Pyrex dishes and three writing books. How do you lose this stuff in your own house?

There are some things, like those with the Exes, that I know I will never get back. I loaned a small rolling table, with stools once, to a “friend.” The relationship ended, but my stuff stayed at her place. No offer to give it back. I work with her now and I still don't get acknowledgement of the loan. It's as if she felt she earned that in the friendship. 

It's not that I don't want to build relationships. I do. I just wish it didn't involve me sharing my things. I think, because I am so conscious of making sure things get returned in a timely manner and in just as good of shape as they were when I received them, it hurts that people I care about or need to develop relationships with don't do the same. I respect others property. I wish they respected mine, as well.

What I've been doing professionally all this time...

Let's just say that the last two years have been very busy for me. It's been quite cyclical, in more ways than one!

First, I quit my job as a librarian in May of 2014. I was just burned out and felt that my soul was being destroyed by standardized testing. How does this happen to a librarian? Easy, when the librarian is used as the go-to test proctor for every test on campus...147 hours of it...you really learn that the library is not all that important to your administration.

I knew I had to have something to escape to, so my dream of starting a writing workshop happened much earlier than retirement. That's how I came up with Fort Worth Writer's Boot Camp. It has kept me extremely busy, in finding instructors, scheduling classes, teaching some myself, and figuring out this whole marketing thing.

Two months after I quit, I got a message from a librarian friend at the school where I had taught many years ago. It was basically one of those, "I found another job, now I'm scared to leave this great school to whomever comes along." Did I want to go back? Yes, please!

So, I'm in my second year as a librarian at my dream school, as well as my second year running a business. With all of that, how could I possibly have time for anything else? Well, I did get a book written and self-published called Tips and Tricks for Classroom Management in the Real World. It is pretty much all the organizational tools I used to keep my classroom functioning without going insane! It's all about being real and offering realistic solutions to problems you'll be presented with in a real situation. The focus is mostly for secondary schools, which helps because there is so much out there for the elementary level, but very few for the bigger students.

That's it on the professional level. My other writing has not fared as well, but I hope to turn that around soon.

At the Bottom Step of 40

Today I am 40. What a perfect time to revive the blog.

The women in my family tend to live long lives, well into their 90s. I'm not even to my halfway point yet. Not even middle aged, by the numbers. I don't feel 40, but really, how is that supposed to feel?

I used to say that I can't wait til l'm old enough. Now I say that I probably won't ever be old enough if it's based on a number. 

Bring it, 40s.