Posts Tagged ‘confidence’
I shipped the babies off to their grandmother’s for a few hours, which left me free to catch up on my SONA case studies and watch one of my favorite movies ever:
STICK IT!
The beauty of STICK IT! is that you don’t have to be a fan of women’s gymnastics or teen movies to appreciate its content (though I will admit, it does help). Because at its core, STICK IT! is all about being alienated in a world where it’s less about who you are and what you know, and more about who you know and what you are.
Like when Haley gets a low score on floor not because of how she executed her routine, but because the judges are still annoyed with her for walking out on Worlds two years ago. Or when Mina gets blasted on vault because her bra strap was showing (allegedly), even though we all know it was because Burt Vickerman was her coach, and the judges are annoyed with him, too, for going rogue.
I guess this is something you can chalk up to life not being fair, but this past week it’s really gotten to me in a way I haven’t felt since that time in fifth grade, when Sarah Williams got chosen for the smart class and I didn’t, even though she totally plagiarized her scary story assignment and I made mine up from scratch. Then when I told Mrs. Sade what she had done and asked why – WHY? – I couldn’t go learn French and Latin and algebra like they did in the smart class, she wrote my name up on the board and told me I was being a sore loser, and it wasn’t Sarah’s fault I was stupid…that’s just how God made me.
Talk about devastating. I went through the rest of my grade school experience thinking, God made me stupid AND fat, and Sarah smart AND skinny? How the hell is THAT fair?
And after last week, that’s how I’m feeling again – stupid and fat. And stupid. Like it’s not bad enough that my hormones are so screwed up that my chin looks like a losing Bingo scorecard. That’s too easy. Let’s throw on a heaping helping of toxic advice and a double dose of kitten diarrhea!
YEAH!!
I realize at this point I’m being vague in an annoying sort of way, and I would elaborate if I knew how. Truth is, it’s not just any one thing that’s put me in a funk. It’s all the little things piled up on top of one another that do it: a critique that borders on condescending, a rejection (or two), a frustrating psychology professor, a history exam disaster, a kitten who won’t stop crying, the drink machine that won’t take my dollar…the list goes on and on.
It’s silly to be overcome by those kinds of things, because if you zoom out and look at them individually, they’re insignificant, like grains of sand compared to the entire freaking universe. But right now, they look big. And what’s more, they make me feel small. Like I can’t do anything right. Like everything I do is wrong. Like there’s no point in even trying anymore.
Like I’m stupid and fat.
And sometimes it’s hard to not throw in the towel, or worse, conform to what everyone else is saying is good, even though I can tell that it sucks. Big time.
Then I think about how at one point someone told a pre-Gaga Lady Gaga that she would never be Norah Jones, and I wonder if it was as funny then as it is now, because I doubt it was. Probably it hurt. A lot. Like she was doing everything wrong, just by being different.
And that makes me feel a little better, like maybe I’m not wrong at all. Maybe I’m just different, and someday other people will see that, too.
As for Sarah, I later found out that she wasn’t really as smart as she wanted people to think she was, and that her parents had donated a shitload of money to the school to secure her spot in the smart class. A few weekends ago, I saw her working the till at the Dollar Tree in Dandridge, and let me tell you, she looked more confused by the numbers on her screen than I did looking at my history exam this morning.
So now I’m thinking, maybe God has a sense of humor after all.
I’m on day four of Book in a Week, and my brain feels like it’s been put through a juicer. But it isn’t the writing that’s taking its toll, it’s the other stuff.
The stuff I keep telling myself I shouldn’t be doing.
Like editing.
Or avoiding.
Or fixing.
Or scrapping.
Book in a Week is all about dumping. You start typing and you DO. NOT. STOP. And at the end of the week, BOOM! A book!
(OK, so maybe it’s a little more complex than that. But you get the idea.)
In order to make my word goal (which I only managed to do on Monday so far), I’ve had to let go of a lot of stuff: timesuckers, like playing games online or watching TV reruns; friends I talk to on the phone every day; food that can’t be microwaved; books I want to read; even the cats are feeling the pinch, since they’re used to the Human Belly-Rubbing Machine being on call 24/7.
And on top of all that ‘real’ stuff, I had to get rid of some of the ‘fake’ stuff, too.
Like fear.
And insecurity.
And frustration.
And self-pity.
It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done, because after the norepinephrine wears off, you really only have enough energy left to focus on one or the other: writing or making excuses why you can’t write.
It’s your choice to make. Which would you rather be known for?
When it comes to writing, there’s one rule I try very hard not to break, and that’s the rule about the ice weasels.
What is an ice weasel, you ask? Here, I’ll tell you.
Or better yet, I’ll let Meg Cabot tell you:
“…when you ‘have the weasels’ or are ‘weaseling,’ it means you’re worrying about things like ‘Why Did I Say That Bad Word In Front of My Grandma at Brunch Last Week?’ or ‘Should I Have Held Onto the Film Rights to That Book?’”
You know how sometimes you only think about certain things because you’re trying so hard to NOT think about them? Those are ice weasels.
And they totally suck.
Which is why every time I send something out for submission, I make sure I don’t read it again until I’ve heard back, that way I’m not weaseling for however long it takes for whoever-it-is to get back to me.
Instead, I move on to something new. Something weasel-free. Something I can send out on submission and then forget about. Otherwise, I would be so worried about potentially looking stupid that I would never write more than 3 pages of anything ever again.
(Those of you who never get past page 3 because by that point you think you look stupid know I’m telling the truth.)
It’s a rule that’s served me well for many years. Until last week, when I broke it.
And now I’m weaseling like you would not believe.
Fortunately, ice weasels will usually go away if you give them something else to gnaw at.
For example, whenever I cringe at the scene where Frank uses his cell phone as a flashlight (which is admittedly lame, even though I do it a lot), all I have to do is remind myself that just because I think it’s stupid doesn’t mean everyone else will. And besides, it’s not as stupid as when I wrote the book about the girl werewolf who did not like to get wet:
“I do not mean to be ungreatful but fear I must go before the rain falls,” Mayrnagh said as she looked grimly toward the mouth of the wide open cave.
“Yes child, if you must.” said Wolfguard understandingly in his nature. “For I know you do not like to get wet.”
In my defense, I was thirteen years old when I wrote that. Unlike when I wrote this gem, after having read Ben Bova’s MARS:
Do not fear me, for I am from the planet MALIFON…
Do I even need to complete that sentence? I DID NOT THINK SO.
Here’s another doozie:
Doug was sitting at his desk, drinking expensive whiskey out of a glass made of elaborate crystal. It had come in a set of four, along with a longneck decanter and a complimentary bottle of Crown Royal. He was halfway through the bottle when Rupert knocked on his office door.
“Go away,” Doug slurred, his motor functions slowed by his recent intake of high quality alcohol.
“It’s me man,” Rupert said. “Don’t make me break the door down or I will.”
All of a sudden, using a cell phone as a flashlight doesn’t look so stupid anymore. At least, not compared to all of the OTHER stupid things I’ve written.
Because the thing is, if you embarrass yourself enough, eventually you won’t be embarrassed anymore. I learned that the hard way, when I was sixteen and lost my shirt in front of a gymnasium full of people.
And that’s a story you will NOT get to hear.
