I know there are plenty of problems with me, this piece, I know there are always people ready to tell you not to write for free, or not to write about X or Y, but so be it. I'm taking life and writing one day at a time. I have so many things I want to write about, or think I want to write about, and lists upon lists upon lists and clearly, this year has taught me that money is not the motivator, success, approval - I turn those away again and again. I'm trying to change my ways on all fronts, truly, to become someone totally different who I can like and admire, because I have not been someone I like or admire for quite a while. Anyway, just a preface that could go on forever. I'm not proud of myself or my behavior or my faults, but I also, especially this month, have realized that ignoring them and not facing them won't make them go away. Maybe nothing will, but sometimes writing, calling yourself out in public, helps. I'm hoping to write about Cheryl's memorial last weekend, which I've been pondering bigtime. So many things it brings up, about her, about how we are perceived and want to be remembered.
Sometimes I just have to remind myself, on the personal and professional fronts, I can't change the past, and every second I wish I could is a wasted second. I can only live in the now, can only try to live up to my ideals, not anyone else's. I wrote on Twitter that so much of 2011 is, for me, trying to tune out the outside noise, and there's a hell of a lot of it. It's all too easy to get caught up in trying to win other people's approval and breaking out of that bad habit has been tough for me, but I know it's vital. I know I have to work on repairing the damage I've done in the last few years and figuring out how I can meet my goals, and what those goals are. Some are clearer than others, but they are getting clearer. The path to them isn't quite yet, but it will be.
"My Do Not Call List" at The Nervous Breakdown
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Modern Love Rejects has launched
My Modern Love rejection, from The New York Times Modern Love section, but of course, goes up tomorrow at Modern Love Rejects. I hesitated over giving permission, even though I'd submitted it, but then I realized, once again, that fear is the ultimate self-sabotage. That even if my essay is foolish and stupid, even if one could say the same about my actions (feel free), I wrote it. I finished it. I tried. The not trying is what makes me despise myself. So, yeah. It makes me feel a little squeamish, but maybe that's a good thing.
So check out the first three Modern Love Rejects, by Samara O'Shea, Kiri Blakeley and Alisa Bowman, and submit your own!
So check out the first three Modern Love Rejects, by Samara O'Shea, Kiri Blakeley and Alisa Bowman, and submit your own!
The $90 message I most needed to hear this week
I will be posting more about last night's wonderful reading at Coco de Mer, also about nausea, goodbyes, a mystery missed call, Virgin America and adjusting, here from today's home base in Silverlake. I've been taken in by some very kind friends until I can fly home. Today's project, in addition to hanging out with an adorable baby and a huge to do list of writing I've been neglected in this surreal week, is trying to reconfigure my belongings so they'll fit into my bursting-at-the-seams suitcase.
For now, though, I will tell you that I bought this $90 blindfold, not because I will be getting blindfolded anytime soon, but because it was beautiful and I thought that I, so full of fear in so many matters, needed to own this message. "The only real freedom is freedom from fear." Indeed. It's called the "Bondage for Freedom" Blindfold and Cuff Kit, and indeed, on my receipt, it said "Bondage for Freedom." Fitting as I contemplate both bondage erotica and in the more broader sense, the idea of freedom and how that is a blessing and a curse in so many ways as I try to work on starting over this month on my personal goals and, ironically, trying to remove myself from the world of sex and dating so I can accomplish them with minimal heartache.
But the fear is something I live with every day. Just a week ago I faced a lot of my biggest fears and it wasn't all perfect. It was bittersweet in a lot of ways but I think every time we don't face our fears, we give them a way to control us.
And this is what the bag looks like:
In other news, I'm excited that my book Obsessed: Erotic Romance for Women, out in August, is available for pre-order on Amazon (no cover yet). It'll also have a foreword by the wonderful erotica writer Caridad Piñeiro®, whose new e-book Aztec Gold, just out from Harlequin's digital imprint Carina Press, I'm looking forward to reading on my phone tonight. I'll post a review when I'm done, but I started it and if you like paranormal romance, it's a steal at $3.19.
Official description:
Six months ago, Cynthia Guerrera's lover and fellow archaeologist Rafael Santiago trekked into the Mexican jungle in search of one of the fabled Cities of Gold—and never emerged. Guilty over their parting, Cynthia won't rest until she knows what happened. When the discovery of a conquistador's journal corroborates Rafe's intended path, Cynthia is determined to finally leave the safety of the museum to rescue him, despite the conquistador's dire warnings, and her own traumatic past.
Arriving at a remote village deep in the jungle, Cynthia is both elated and angered to find Rafe alive. But he is far from well, having watched his team be decimated by a bloodthirsty demon-goddess. When Rafe reveals he has been gifted with supernatural powers—powers he plans to use to kill the beast and save his brother, still held captive in the temple—Cynthia must face her own inner demons to fight alongside the man she loves.
35,500 words
My call for Going Down officially ending, but you can get the guidelines for the kinky couples and erotic romance anthologies as well as Best Bondage Erotica 2012 here. Earlier submissions are always preferred as I work on anthologies on a rolling basis.
For now, though, I will tell you that I bought this $90 blindfold, not because I will be getting blindfolded anytime soon, but because it was beautiful and I thought that I, so full of fear in so many matters, needed to own this message. "The only real freedom is freedom from fear." Indeed. It's called the "Bondage for Freedom" Blindfold and Cuff Kit, and indeed, on my receipt, it said "Bondage for Freedom." Fitting as I contemplate both bondage erotica and in the more broader sense, the idea of freedom and how that is a blessing and a curse in so many ways as I try to work on starting over this month on my personal goals and, ironically, trying to remove myself from the world of sex and dating so I can accomplish them with minimal heartache.
But the fear is something I live with every day. Just a week ago I faced a lot of my biggest fears and it wasn't all perfect. It was bittersweet in a lot of ways but I think every time we don't face our fears, we give them a way to control us.
And this is what the bag looks like:
In other news, I'm excited that my book Obsessed: Erotic Romance for Women, out in August, is available for pre-order on Amazon (no cover yet). It'll also have a foreword by the wonderful erotica writer Caridad Piñeiro®, whose new e-book Aztec Gold, just out from Harlequin's digital imprint Carina Press, I'm looking forward to reading on my phone tonight. I'll post a review when I'm done, but I started it and if you like paranormal romance, it's a steal at $3.19.
Official description:
Six months ago, Cynthia Guerrera's lover and fellow archaeologist Rafael Santiago trekked into the Mexican jungle in search of one of the fabled Cities of Gold—and never emerged. Guilty over their parting, Cynthia won't rest until she knows what happened. When the discovery of a conquistador's journal corroborates Rafe's intended path, Cynthia is determined to finally leave the safety of the museum to rescue him, despite the conquistador's dire warnings, and her own traumatic past.
Arriving at a remote village deep in the jungle, Cynthia is both elated and angered to find Rafe alive. But he is far from well, having watched his team be decimated by a bloodthirsty demon-goddess. When Rafe reveals he has been gifted with supernatural powers—powers he plans to use to kill the beast and save his brother, still held captive in the temple—Cynthia must face her own inner demons to fight alongside the man she loves.
35,500 words
My call for Going Down officially ending, but you can get the guidelines for the kinky couples and erotic romance anthologies as well as Best Bondage Erotica 2012 here. Earlier submissions are always preferred as I work on anthologies on a rolling basis.
I am not a creative badass, but I aspire to be
Ever since reading her essay in Marie Claire about her divorce from Elon Musk, I’ve been following Justine Musk, and even though I haven’t delved into her fiction yet, her blog is a constant source of inspiration. Lately I’ve been thinking so much about self-sabotage and what the source of it is for me, because it’s not any isolated incident. It’s a consistent, repeated process, a way of drawing myself back from the brink of success whenever it dares wave at me. I shrink away as if it’s something horrible, as if I don’t deserve it, and I think part of it for me is the fear of being different. That might sound ridiculous because, the fact is, by dint of doing what I do, by having dropped out of law school, a safe, seemingly easy but actually crazy hard path, and then not only writing about sex, but writing about my personal life, exposing truths and my flaws and my body along with my fears, I have chosen an unconventional path.
And I have a love/hate relationship with that path. I have trouble seeing the good in the things I do that are different. I am constantly looking for mentors and people to emulate, and sometimes it takes those very mentors coming to me and asking questions, or telling me they are proud of me, for me to unravel all of that not-so-deep-down self-hatred and realize that the unconventional path is not necessarily a bad one.
It’s confusing in so many ways, not least of which because there are no true roadmaps. I don’t necessarily feel like I’m floundering, but every once in a while I look around and think, “How the hell did I get here?” I really don’t know, and I’m back to being that girl who worked at 2 Park and got in trouble for wearing sneakers or talking on the phone. Sometimes, though I hated that job, I want to be that girl because she was anonymous. Much as I’d like to think I am, I’m not, not really. And that’s at the heart of my discomfort: It will never sound anything but self-aggrandizing to me to say I’m not anonymous. And of course a writer wants to be read; of course…and yet, not always. Not always with the level of scrutiny I am. Not always when the joy of creating something new from a blank page morphs into feeling like I need to defend not just my body of work, but myself. Not always when it creates a very clear disconnect between my “persona” and how I see myself.
Justine Musk writes in a post on how to be a creative badass*:
To produce good work, you need to dive beneath the surface of things. You need to “go there” in a way that we specifically train ourselves not to do in day-to-day life. We believe that if we reveal too much, we’ll expose ourselves as unworthy. Shameful. But it’s shame that keeps us isolated, silent, and disconnected from each other. Part of believing that you have something to say is flying in the face of all that. When you lean into what discomforts you, what scares you, you’re getting to the good, original stuff.
I get that, completely. I feel like sometimes I live and breathe that shame and have no idea how to get rid of it. It’s confusing because on the one hand I am go go go, trying to get people to write about me at, say, my college paper, where I was once rejected as a columnist, where I wrote letters to the editor, where I never ever ever thought I’d be writing about sex for a living. I am happy when I’m at the post office sending out dozens of copies of my new book; that feels healthy, familiar, something I know how to do: give things away. Or, to use a horrible word, marketing. Horrible because that is part of the “persona” and me, well, I like to think of it as creative, as taking a tool that the big people use, like Amazon Prime, and scaling it down to my level.
I am rambling, I’m aware, but my point is that I can see so clearly that there’s a moment, a moment I keep missing, where you have to push that shame aside. Where you have to, in order to succeed, truly not care and not want to be “normal.” And I’m really not sure I know how to do that. I know that I produced some work last year that I’m very proud of, that I went places I couldn’t have gone before. I wrote stories like “Espionage” and “Punching Bag.” Now I’m coming up with all sorts of titles that tickle me so much I flesh them out. I’m getting back to the non-fiction that is what I really want to be doing. But still there is a part of me that is always tempted to just hit delete, not just on this blog, but on this creature I’ve created who I can’t seem to get away from. She’s me but…not entirely. Maybe that’s why one of the people I love spending time with the most is one who’s created a truly new life for herself, one that is so far removed from what I could read about her online it’s like she’s two different people.
I know that there are plenty of people out there, because I know them, I’m friends with them, I’ve gotten to know them, who get that there is more to anyone than what you read about them online, who can make sense of the fact that someone like, um, me, might be fearless in some ways and scared as can be in others. I am working toward getting toward a place where I don’t want to be like everyone else, because even if I did, I think it’s too late for that. I can’t really put the sex writing genie back in the bottle and ultimately I don’t want to. That genie has opened so many doors for me and has also pushed me to grow and embrace this person I never expected to become. I want this to be the year I don’t fuck things up, the one year with no regrets around assignments, no burned bridges, no horror stories. Maybe not everything will work out, but it won’t be because I was so afraid of being different, looked at, noticed, that I didn’t try.
*I don't think it's a coincidence that this quote is from her instruction to "be vulnerable." See my "Be as vulnerable as you possibly can."
And I have a love/hate relationship with that path. I have trouble seeing the good in the things I do that are different. I am constantly looking for mentors and people to emulate, and sometimes it takes those very mentors coming to me and asking questions, or telling me they are proud of me, for me to unravel all of that not-so-deep-down self-hatred and realize that the unconventional path is not necessarily a bad one.
It’s confusing in so many ways, not least of which because there are no true roadmaps. I don’t necessarily feel like I’m floundering, but every once in a while I look around and think, “How the hell did I get here?” I really don’t know, and I’m back to being that girl who worked at 2 Park and got in trouble for wearing sneakers or talking on the phone. Sometimes, though I hated that job, I want to be that girl because she was anonymous. Much as I’d like to think I am, I’m not, not really. And that’s at the heart of my discomfort: It will never sound anything but self-aggrandizing to me to say I’m not anonymous. And of course a writer wants to be read; of course…and yet, not always. Not always with the level of scrutiny I am. Not always when the joy of creating something new from a blank page morphs into feeling like I need to defend not just my body of work, but myself. Not always when it creates a very clear disconnect between my “persona” and how I see myself.
Justine Musk writes in a post on how to be a creative badass*:
To produce good work, you need to dive beneath the surface of things. You need to “go there” in a way that we specifically train ourselves not to do in day-to-day life. We believe that if we reveal too much, we’ll expose ourselves as unworthy. Shameful. But it’s shame that keeps us isolated, silent, and disconnected from each other. Part of believing that you have something to say is flying in the face of all that. When you lean into what discomforts you, what scares you, you’re getting to the good, original stuff.
I get that, completely. I feel like sometimes I live and breathe that shame and have no idea how to get rid of it. It’s confusing because on the one hand I am go go go, trying to get people to write about me at, say, my college paper, where I was once rejected as a columnist, where I wrote letters to the editor, where I never ever ever thought I’d be writing about sex for a living. I am happy when I’m at the post office sending out dozens of copies of my new book; that feels healthy, familiar, something I know how to do: give things away. Or, to use a horrible word, marketing. Horrible because that is part of the “persona” and me, well, I like to think of it as creative, as taking a tool that the big people use, like Amazon Prime, and scaling it down to my level.
I am rambling, I’m aware, but my point is that I can see so clearly that there’s a moment, a moment I keep missing, where you have to push that shame aside. Where you have to, in order to succeed, truly not care and not want to be “normal.” And I’m really not sure I know how to do that. I know that I produced some work last year that I’m very proud of, that I went places I couldn’t have gone before. I wrote stories like “Espionage” and “Punching Bag.” Now I’m coming up with all sorts of titles that tickle me so much I flesh them out. I’m getting back to the non-fiction that is what I really want to be doing. But still there is a part of me that is always tempted to just hit delete, not just on this blog, but on this creature I’ve created who I can’t seem to get away from. She’s me but…not entirely. Maybe that’s why one of the people I love spending time with the most is one who’s created a truly new life for herself, one that is so far removed from what I could read about her online it’s like she’s two different people.
I know that there are plenty of people out there, because I know them, I’m friends with them, I’ve gotten to know them, who get that there is more to anyone than what you read about them online, who can make sense of the fact that someone like, um, me, might be fearless in some ways and scared as can be in others. I am working toward getting toward a place where I don’t want to be like everyone else, because even if I did, I think it’s too late for that. I can’t really put the sex writing genie back in the bottle and ultimately I don’t want to. That genie has opened so many doors for me and has also pushed me to grow and embrace this person I never expected to become. I want this to be the year I don’t fuck things up, the one year with no regrets around assignments, no burned bridges, no horror stories. Maybe not everything will work out, but it won’t be because I was so afraid of being different, looked at, noticed, that I didn’t try.
*I don't think it's a coincidence that this quote is from her instruction to "be vulnerable." See my "Be as vulnerable as you possibly can."
