You Are Your Own Luck

Have you ever wanted something so badly and for so long that you figured if you ever actually got what you wanted, you'd probably die within the week because life has a sick sense of humor like that? 

That was how I felt about the long road to publication. It got to the point that I nursed the secret fear that I'd get one book published and that would be it. My life's pathetic purpose would be achieved and my number would be called. The neuroses weren't just mine. Shortly after I got word that the first two books had sold, my husband started having nightmares about me abandoning him, either via divorce or because I up and died on him. Yeah. We were a mess. Alternately going out to celebrate and cowering in some superstitious kind of terror.

Humans, man. We are an odd lot. Riddled with unfounded fears, superstition, irrationality and an innate desire to control forces over which we have absolutely no sway. Fortunately for me, I seem to still be alive. So does my partnership. I guess that's a kind of luck. But it was also hard work. Some days, keeping anyone or anything alive is a tough go. So, yes. Superstition? Check. Rituals? You bet. Totems? Sure. Luck? Well, maybe. After a fashion.

"Fortune favors the prepared mind." Louis Pasteur 

Short way of saying, if you don't show up and put in the effort, luck can't show up, either. Let's assume that part's a given, though. Nobody writes who isn't compelled to for one reason or another. There are too many other, easier ways of earning a living in this world. Up to and including becoming an ax murderer.

I do have rituals, though they shift and adapt over time. I used to have to have a certain desk and a certain time of day and perfect quiet in order to write. Then I had to have all my chores done, a cup of tea, and a cat lounging beside me before I could do my thing. I had my very own room in those days - filled with all of the THINGS I believed I needed in order to succeed. Then a dear friend became terminally ill. Before he died, he suggested that everything I needed in order to write was inside of me. It took some time before I could absorb the message, but he was right.

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, external, material items aren't going to change the fact that you are your own best source. Doing what you love, how you love to do it while surrounded by more things you love? I call that a win. But realizing that you're living every After School Special you ever saw about kids losing whatever 'lucky' trinket they had just so they could learn they had the power to succeed all along? It may be cheesy, but the lesson is invaluable and you'll always be stronger for it.

Still. The stuff of imagination is dangerous work. No one should go alone. It pays to have friends.

It's in the Blood

I'm in San Diego this weekend, doing a training for my day job. This is the view *outside* the convention center where I'm spending most of my time, alas. Fortunately it's an excellent training and I've learned some great stuff.

That said, I don't have much time to write this post. I might be pulling a bit of a James here. ;-)

Which is too bad, because the word of the week is one of my favorite things: BLOOD.

No, really.

I even did a paper in college about the religious significance of blood rituals.

They are there, throughout the various pre-Judeo-Christian ("Pagan") religions, in the Torah, the Qu'oran, the Bible. Elaborate practices and beliefs have been built around the letting of blood.

Some examples:

• Virginity and the evidence of blood
• Menstruation along with those taboos and rituals
• First blood as a signifier in a duel
• Kosher practices for clean blood-letting
• Blood sacrifice
• Jesus giving wine to his disciples to drink and calling it his blood

When you start paying attention, you'll find the concept comes up over and over. Why?

Now we understand how blood can carry disease, but so can other bodily fluids. I haven't seen many religious rituals built around pus or snot, for example.

Blood is the life-giver. It takes the place of the sea that used to surround us, that we took inside, to go on land. It is the internal primordial ocean.

Magic. 

Capturing Creativity

Creativity is a lovely, elusive creature that likes to be wooed. Not with chocolates or with expensive bottles of wine. It wants time and attention. Nothing more, nothing less.

How much time? How much ya got? Attention? ALL OF IT.

The monkey on my back prefers a daily word count goal - well - the five days a week I commit to give to the care and feeding of writing. Some weeks, it's seven days, others, it's six, but I move heaven and earth to make sure that at least five days a week find my butt parked on a bench at a local tea shop pouring out English Breakfast and 2k words.

Creativity swoons for ritual. It doesn't have to be chanting in dead languages or wearing funky robes, though those things would certainly work if you're into that kind of thing. Not that I can say much about the robes, since Wiccans have more than their fair share, generally speaking.

In my case, ritual is all about getting the blood moving. The creativity summoning begins when I pack up my bicycle bags, layer up the Goretex, and hop on the 12 speed (yes, I do still live in the stone age, be quiet) and ride into town to the tea shop. Bonus points to me if I can arrive before the shop opens. The bike ride shuts down the hypercritical portions of my brain. The ride leaves me more awake and alive. Once the shop opens, I unpack the netbook and the MP3 player. Order tea. Plug in the headphones to pipe creepy music directly into my brain, boot up the netbook, and start typing.

It's slow going at first. Words and ideas come hard. The first hour is frustrating. But then I realize two hours are gone and look, I've blown past my halfway point and I'm going faster. The scenes are coming together and the ideas are flowing. And the funny thing? Even when I stop for the day and ride home, creativity sticks around. The ideas keep showing up, as if my characters and their world are reluctant to let me go. I jot down bunches of notes for the next day's word count.

Success begets success. It's not a surprise that research shows that the more you succeed, the more you succeed, therefore, set goals you can achieve more often than you fail, and you increase your chances of achieving those goals over the long term. The same can be said of creativity. Show up. Sit down. Focus. Do the writing, even if it sucks (or you just think it does). Repeat. Keep repeating. And one day, you'll look up and that lovely, elusive creativity critter will be sitting across from you, winking at you.