Celebrations Barriers

What do you know about the psychology of barriers?

The summary goes like this: We all know what we *should* do - let me illustrate using one of my barrier issues - vacuuming (keeping the living quarters clean and tidy). The mental script goes like this: I should vacuum. What happens: Nothing. Why? There's a barrier. Possibly several. The psychology comes in when you look at the gap between what you say you want and what you actually do. The goal is to identify the obstacles keeping you from acting and remove them so that you take action.

It's actually applicable to this week's topic of celebrations.

Something odd happened when I hit some major milestones. For years, people who weren't writers had told me 'the process should be it's own reward, not getting published'. When I got the call and my first contract, those people were some of the first to congratulate me. My sister and her daughter decorated my birthday cake that year as a book with my name on the cover. My husband took me to dinner at a restaurant we love but choose to afford only once ever few years. The first book came out. It won an award. It finaled in the RITAs. I was invincible. And unhappy. I mean, how the hell do you follow THAT? Especially when you aren't entirely certain how you did it the first time? Still, it took awhile for the unhappy to sink through the buzz. After all, I was riding high on people who weren't related to me saying nice things about my work.

But just like a steady diet of chocolate cake loses it's appeal after awhile, the buzz started to wear off. I needed more and more celebrate-y stuff to feed the 'I'm a princess' delusion. I don't know when I figured out that celebrating major milestones was dangerous. For me, it had become a barrier. I chased after the ego-boosting, distracting high and then wondered why I wasn't writing much anymore.

I did the barrier psychology analysis. I embraced being mortified by my behavior. And I went cold turkey on the celebrating. Briefly. Because in the analysis I found out a few things. 

1. There are good 'drugs' and bad 'drugs'. Writing, for me, is good. Celebrating, for me, has a few issues.
2. Each day has a gift to offer if you're awake enough and willing to look for it.
3. Major milestones *can* be celebrated - but on a small scale.
4. Big celebrations belong to the family, not the individual.

That first one, for me was a game changer. There comes a point of immersion for me - in every story I tell. The sooner that happens, the easier the words come and the less work the job of writing the book becomes. It was the best thing on earth to figure that out and swap that 'seeking immersion' drug for the celebration, ego-stroking one. The second? Notice those things that give you energy - for me, it may be a crow with a single, snow-white feather in her black wing. Or the tiny Chihuahua who comes out of her apartment building every morning with THE biggest 'It's ALL MINE' chip on her shoulder. A perfect cup of tea. Or a great evening spent with friends yelling advice at the Walking Dead characters. Those daily celebrations feed the writing. Especially if I can engage in them with a clear conscience because I made my word count goal for the day. Number three is about removing expectation from my poor, innocent family members. They want to be excited for me when things go well, but this whole 'writing a book' thing is an alien planet. Just like being a quantum mechanics physicist is another whole dimension for me. I want to understand. Chances are really high I won't. Not in this lifetime. Not with the brain I was allotted this go around. So major milestones - like a second contract - get WAY scaled back celebrations, if they get celebrated at all. A movie. Or a trip to the bookstore for a new read. Getting a contract may feel to me like I landed on the moon, but it's really 'hey, you're gainfully employed, congrats!' No more. No less. And the last? The best way for me to stay grounded is to make big celebrations not about me (you know, unless it's my birthday - but I'm going to share that birthday cake with everyone). The ego is insidious and likes the taste of that 'all about me' candy. Our culture supplies plenty of opportunity for major celebratory episodes if we want them - holidays, weddings, births, birthdays. It helps me to keep those parties about hanging out and enjoying everyone's company. Before I go back to burying myself in making stuff up and putting it on paper. . .

My Shameful Secret - Why I Don't Really Celebrate Writing Milestones

This week the bordello is sharing how we celebrate writing milestones - how, when, what, with whom?

I'm a little surprised to find this topic is bit fraught for me.

In fact, I feel like I'm kind of emo on this issue, so I hope you'll all bear with me while I try to explain how I feel.

I used to have a crit partner who would ask me how I was celebrating this or that writing milestone. Usually the question would take me by surprise, because it wouldn't have occurred to me to celebrate. She and her husband would typically go out to dinner, for her various celebrations.

Not that I don't love to go out to dinner - hell, I live in the city with the most five-star restaurants per capita in the US - but there's a few reasons that doesn't appeal to me:

1. Going out to dinner is expensive.
2. Restaurant food isn't good for us, in general, and blows the calorie budget I follow carefully for many reasons important to me.
3. We use going out to dinner to celebrate other events, too, like holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, etc.
4. I've become a bit wary of using food as a treat.

So, yes, I know this list sounds unfun, but weight and health-related issues have become more important as I near that mid-life milestone. I'm more and more careful of my health - keeping the body fat and blood pressure down. Part of that is uncoupling the idea that unhealthy food is an emotional reward.

There's that then. Also, I have a lot of writing milestones. I don't mean that in a braggy way. We all do, if you count them up:

1. Hitting daily word count. 
2. Getting a scene/chapter/section to work.
3. Finishing a draft.
4. Completing a revision - can be multiple recurrences.
5. Finishing developmental edits
6. Finishing line edits
7. Finishing copy edits
8. Getting the cover
9. First review
10. Great review - can be multiple recurrences
11. Release day
12. Getting an award - can be multiple recurrences
13. Making a sale
14. Getting an agent
15. Achieving some other form of recognition

Probably we could think up more. I've been really lucky to have a lot happen for me in the last couple of years, which means multiple iterations of all these things. Am I going to deviate from healthy eating every time?

No, no, no.

Okay, Jeffe, I hear you saying - you don't have to go out to dinner to celebrate. And you're right! I don't. Still that part of me that does couple food with emotional reward then goes to cupcakes or expensive wine or the like.

Also, there's this.

My deep, dark secret.

In the end, I find most of these "celebrations" ultimately unsatisfying. I tend to come away unfulfilled. And I think this is why.

Writers talk a lot about the loneliness of the job and the many long hours we spend alone with our worlds and characters, and then often years of rejection before we ever get any kind of positive feedback. That's just how the job works. It's one of the few professions where you have to work for no one for a long time, before you can convince someone to "give you the job."

Worse, even the most loving and supportive spouses, family and friends rarely get what it's like. They can say devastating things with the best of intentions. Things like "maybe you should try writing a more popular book." Or "if you haven't succeeded in a year, you should probably just give it up, instead of putting yourself through this suffering for no reason." (I know a woman whose husband said that.)

In order to make it through this, we learn to rely on ourselves. It's a survival skill.

When we complete a draft? INTERNAL BOOGIE FOR A SOLID 24 HOURS. There are few better feelings that I've encountered in my life. That rush of finishing is out of this world. And, when you run to even that loving, supportive spouse (the one who might have once implied that you weren't good at finishing things - I mean, look at the dishes) and tell them that you FUCKING FINISHED IT! They smile and say, "that's great - good for you!"

No, no, no.

This is not "good for you" material. This is shower-me-with-confetti-I-want-a-goddam-ticker-tape-parade moment.

But, like the person who scales the unclimbable peak, really we stand there alone - admiring that view that drove us to get there, savoring what we overcame to make that effort and do it. It's a moment of sheer joy in ourselves.

Maybe that's how it has to be.

The photo at the top is me at a beach bar in Puerto Rico. I was in San Juan for the day job and it happened to be release day for Sapphire. That felt like a bigger-than-usual milestone for me because it was my first Carina Press book, which was a step I'd laid out for myself in my overall goals. I went swimming in the ocean (one of my very favorite things), sat at the beach bar (love them ALL) and treated myself to a celebratory drink. The bartender, upon a bit of conversation, offered to take my picture.

I like having it. I look happy in a way that reflects how I feel inside at those moments.

However, if we don't count the bartender, it's notable that I was alone for this little celebration. Which works for me.

The thing is, once we get good at that being enough - and believe me, it's a necessary acquired skill - then anything else becomes superfluous. Even disappointing, if we expect more than that.

So, all of those 15+ milestones I reeled off above? I absolutely celebrate all of them. I give myself a pat on the back and take a moment to enjoy the view and the bubbling exhilaration of having scaled that particular peak.

Then I get back to work.

Which is its own reward, too.

Celebration - Catching Our Breath

By Kerry Schafer 

 The Holidays for me are an odd mix of bustle and relaxation, celebration and winding down. I love Christmas - the light, the color, the music, the secrets, the food, the family. Pretty much all of it. And we had it all this year, in abundance. Between us the Viking and I have four sons - we've never had them all here for Christmas before, and this year we did. In itself, this was a celebration - nothing like having all of your offspring together under one roof. But Christmas is over now, New Years is waiting in the wings. It's a quiet space for me where the tree begins to look a little sad and I have nagging guilt thoughts that I should maybe take it down, which is just so much less fun than putting it up. The last few dark mornings I forgot to turn the tree lights on. Denial at work - if it's dark in that corner, maybe it isn't really there requiring my attention. A few random packages still linger beneath it, things that need to be put away, and I'm not ready to do that yet either. It will keep until after the New Year, which is the next round of celebration. Not that we do much with it here, I'm afraid. The Viking and I, who seldom sleep past 5 am no matter how late we stay up, have a tendency to fall asleep before the New Year rolls in. We don't have a party, or go to one. The kids like to set off fireworks in the snow, which is actually really cool to watch. The real celebration for us is in having time off work to be together, gratitude for the blessings of the last year, and in wondering what awaits us in the year ahead. I wish for all of you a year full of goals achieved and dreams come true.

Floating Celebration

The holidays this year were a great unknown. It was our first winter living aboard the boat. We'd always been in a condo or a house to this point. We had no clue what to expect. Here's what we got:

The lighted dinghy parade. Liveaboards throughout the marina (and this is a BIG marina with lots of people living aboard their boats) gather, deck out their dinghies and then parade through the marina, up and down all the water ways, blasting Christmas carols, waving and hollaring up to the rest of us who aren't in the parade about 'where's your dinghy?' First: no motor. Not rowing the entire marina. Second: no battery in our dinghy - see the first excuse - we'd have no lights or visible decorations without those things. Third: I'd have had to inflate the silly thing to make it sea worthy again. That's gonna have to wait for spring.

Boaters throughout the marina, regardless of liveaboard status (though mostly the liveaboards do this) light up their big boats, too. Here's a selection of Christmas Eve photos when we went walking the docks to look at lights.

Christmas light strung up the mast on the sailboats.

One overachiever wired a lighted Christmas tree to the top of his mast - that's the bright blob. I liked the lighted circles someone else has run up their rigging. Nice effect.

This one ran his lights along his rigging and spreaders so the lights formed Christmas trees. That's a prelit star at the top of the mast.

And this is our boat with LED snowflakes around the lifelines and red LEDs going up the backstay. The blue LEDs are a boat across from us. It's been festive - especially since darkness gathers at around 4pm in our area. Lots of hours to look at the pretty lights. Naturally, now that the season is over and I contemplate taking down the lights, I find the box insert for the snowflake lights. "Indoor Use Only" it says. Uhm. Oops. I do not want to celebrate by being a short, horrifying reel of cautionary footage on the evening news. Perhaps I'll unplug those very, very carefully before I take them down. Wonder if those lights have anything to do with why the electricians came around today load testing all of the power sockets on the dock...

What's the saying? It's not a celebration until someone blows something up?

Needless to say, all of this holiday lighting (let's make the marina visible from SPACE!) is compensation for our lack of traditional decorating options. Few of us can swing the space for trees - with the exception of the guy wiring one to his mast...A few people wired trees up on their foredecks, but a tree out in the marine environment which means seagull poop and otters doing obscene things to tree branches? I'll pass.

We made up for it with food. Each week in December, we picked a holiday favorite and made it. Crab dip. White chocolate, Clementine and Croissant french toast, Cherry Ring for Solstice and cinnamon rolls on Christmas Day. We spread out the holiday. Had to do that - I have a two burner stove and an oven the size of a bread box. For holiday baking, my mother and I scheduled a bake-a-thon weekend at her house. Between us, we went through 10lbs of sugar and way too much butter and flour. It was fun. It was contained to a single weekend and then, we were done. Worked beautifully. So how does one decorate a boat for the holidays where there's limited power and space?

We strung Christmas cards along the bulkhead and hung our stockings from the hatch handles. Naturally, no holiday is complete without a geek setting up his World of Warcraft characters for their holiday presents in game. It was fun. All of it. Even the wind storm that blew in Christmas morning just as we were washing up breakfast dishes. We were able to catch a ferry across to go visit my family and have Christmas dinner on dry land. Everyone was tired, but happy. And ultimately, that's what counts.

Wicked Celebrations at the Zoo

By KAK 

The end of the year brings the lull between Christmasallmighty Chaos and New Yahoo’s Debauchery. These five days of the work week are the most quiet of the year … unless you work in a “save the Stupids from themselves” business. (I’m looking at you customer service reps, law enforcement, and health care professionals.)

On the home front, we’re scraping charred gravy off the burners, washing red wine out of the curtains, sorting recyclable wrapping paper from plastic wrap, and watching “Best of 2011” shows. Some of us are headed back home from the holidays, some of us are extending our leisure.

This week, we sneak in the final gluttonies before committing to dreaded New Year = New Me resolutions.

However you say goodbye to the time that was, be certain you greet the time to come with today’s fabulous releases by two of your beloved Word Whores:

James R. Tuck’s new eNovella “THAT THING AT THE ZOO"
Shredding monsters is his stock and trade. He sniffs them out, tracks them down, and corners them. End of story. But when the tables are turned, expect the unexpected.

Knowing his enemy is a rule Deacon Chalk swears by. But he's never seen anything like whatever is leaving the Atlanta Zoo's most dangerous predators bloodless, skinned, and hanging high in treetops. And he’s only got till sunrise to keep it from turning the entire city into a slaughterhouse. Now Deacon is in zoo lockdown with a handful of staffers to save. His zookeeper backup has more guts than monster-hunting experience. And the only chance Deacon has to run this thing to unholy ground is to risk unleashing his darkest, most uncontrollable instincts.
Click here to read yesterday’s post for an excerpt.




Linda Robertson’s WICKED CIRCLE, Book 5 in the Persephone Alcmedi series:
Is a little time alone with the man you love too much to ask?Well, it may be—when you’re Persephone Alcmedi, Lustrata of the witches, and your lover is Domn Lup of the wærewolves. For once, however, the disturbance is not Seph’s foster daughter, Beverly, her wacky grandmother, or her newly rediscovered mother. This time, it’s the ancient and incredibly sexy vampire Menessos, bearing bad news: because the vampire council fears he is plotting a power grab, Menessos is being hunted by a trio of truth-seeking vampire sisters so dangerous they are usually kept locked in stone.His dreams imperiled, Menessos needs Seph more than ever . . . and she needs him. Now, Seph has magical promises to fulfill for the wæres, multiple mundane family challenges to meet, vampire politics to confront . . . and into the bargain she’s balancing two sexy supernatural males. It’s enough to drive any woman insane, especially when you throw in a dragon and—even worse—a government investigator. As danger threatens, Seph isn’t sure she can stay alive for the rest of the day . . . let alone long enough to accomplish all that needs to be done.


Buy at BN.com            Buy at Amazon.com

Go forth. Purchase. Imbibe. Do all those naughty things whilst you can before the New Year Infant demands constant attentions.

I have spice balls and Yuletide brandy to savor whilst I read.

Celebrating

by Jeffe Kennedy

I get Christmas Day??

Somehow this sums up my whole year. So many good things have happened. So many awful things have happened. It's far from my usual Christmas that I'm sitting here, at nearly midnight, writing a blog post.

And yet...

I'm celebrating.

Had tonight gone as planned, I'd have been out late and tumbled into bed, hopefully to fling this post up in the morning. Tonight, though, my mom wasn't feeling well enough to go do what we had planned, so we stayed in and opened gifts instead.

I was glad.

Glad because ten days ago, she nearly died. She had pulmonary embolisms and the doctor said if she'd been any less healthy, she would have dropped dead. She didn't.

And so we celebrate.

I think of all the years, all the Christmases she made special. Every Christmas morning filled with magic and love came so much from her. And now, thanks to the technological miracles of clotbusters and blood thinners, she's alive and well. A little tired is just fine.

Christmas gets a bad rap, and maybe it should. For the commercialism, the tawdriness, the bottom line. But it's also about the love and togetherness. It's the bright lights and the colorful ribbons. The thoughtful gifts. I took this photo of the tree with my amazing new camera tripod from my thoughtful aunt.

I may also have a new telephoto lens that goes up to 600. For reference, my previous best lens went to 140. Oh yeah - I'm gonna be rocking this new lens from my mom and stepdad.

Most of all, though, it's planning menus with my mom. Shopping the store and making the food.

Every time together is a celebration.

As it should be.

Merry merry!