Monday Morning

I'm back! I bet you didn't even know I was gone. My daughter and I packed up for the weekend and went off to enjoy the solitude. While I would have been happier with brighter skies and warmer weather, overall it was a great weekend. I got my edits done, I reevaluated my present frame of mind and I discovered some pleasant news while weighing in. The sleeping accommodations left my back in a twist, but long soaks in the hot tub totally made up for that.

So it's Monday morning and I am about to embark on finishing the second draft of my novel. I've got the file open and I'm ready to charge at it later this evening, but first I have errands and a some freelance work to do. I will say that tentatively, on top of everything else I've got going on right now, that I would like to have this second draft completed by the last day in the first week of June. That is June 6th. I can do it. I've won NaNoWriMo once and JulNoWriMo once, and I've already got a pretty strong skeleton to build upon. So that is what is on my agenda.

I am also planning to start piecing together some of my poetry into a chapbook, so be on the lookout for more details to come there.

On top of all this exciting news, I am also preparing to move. Over the next few weeks I will be packing up my life into boxes and by the second week of June, I will be moving into a new place. Wish me luck.

So as I stand on this precipice of change, I leave you with this poetic thought I had:

Fearless
atop the world
looking down
up here
it all seems small
Breathe
sense of knowing
being, eclipsing
exhale
and fall.

I hope you enjoy your Monday, and it isn't too manic for you. Take some time to pop over and visit the awesome people in my blog roll, like James Melzer, J.C. Hutchins, Nicole Ireland, Matthew Wayne Selznick, and Ray Onativia just to name a few. You won't be disappointed, I promise!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...Turn and Face the Strange...

It's been a gorgeous last couple of days, with plenty of sunshine and a gentle breeze most days. I spent some serious time outdoors contemplating things, and just enjoying the fact that I am alive. As I mentioned in my previous blog, things have been busy, and my life is heading for some major changes. As I step into the precipice before me, I feel like I am wearing a blindfold. I don't know where I am going, only that I am about to drop off into the unknown. It is both terrifying, and liberating.

I have always operated under the philosophy that we are interactive participants in our own destiny. Life is what we make it. When it comes time to making the hard choices, if we shy away out of fear, then we create regret. Regret festers in the soul, and for many people it becomes an infectious disease that eventually overruns their life.

Despite the things I have done in my life, I have no regrets. Regret is not even a word in my vocabulary. There are things I look back on and shake my head at, but I would not ever take a single one of them back. As I step forward, into that which awaits me, it is with trepidation and curiosity. I leave behind aspects of my life that no longer serve me or my future. It is hard to let them go, but I know that if I am to grow into the person I am meant to be, I must sever those ties.

More poetry to come this week, and maybe even some special news. Stay tuned. This is Major Beans to ground control.

Shakespeare in Repose

Shakespeare in Repose
Originally uploaded by jaochang

Times... they are changing. While some of us sit back and shudder in fear at the horrific possibilities for what's to come, others are fearlessly paving the path into the future.

I have blogged before about my decisions in college. I went back to school at 26 with the intention of getting a "real" career education in forensic psychology, but once I was on campus and taking my first writing class, the gloves came off and I fought back against that societal voice that told me I would never be able to sustain myself or my family as writer. I was told that there were only so many great writers in the world and the chances of becoming one of those who makes enough money to survive are slim to none.

The thing is, like many writers, I have known since I was a little girl that if I didn't write, I would die. Not some lame bodily death, not suicide, but a much more dramatic, inner-death. When I entered the workforce at 21 (yeah, I tried desperately to avoid conventional work even then,) I worked nights and came home every night after work and wrote my heart out because I would not allow the shackles of convention to hold me down.

It wasn't until college that I really started to find myself and my voice as a writer. With college came the confidence I needed, the awareness and that extra push to start sending my work out. The internet has reinforced all of that, and while it seems that the conventional literary world is crumbling down around us I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

That light has come in the last couple months, as I've been fortunate to have become acquainted with some incredibly talented and creative people through the internet. As I explored the worlds they created, I realized that those people had taken all they had inside them and pushed it back out into the world where it belonged. Conventions are no longer an option, whether it is in light of publishing or music. They've exhausted all resources available to them to get their work out there, working conventional jobs by day and pushing themselves hard by night to share themselves and their vision with the world.

Because that's what you do when you're creative. You put yourself out there and you shake the world into submission. I know in my heart that we have passed the brink and a new revolution in creativity is rapidly unfolding before us. Old cities of convention crumble beneath new boots, and a new empire rises from the rubble.

For those of you I know who have stepped into the chaos of this strange new world without trepidation (coughJames Melzercough}, your bravery both inspires and compels those us of still standing on the brink. Know that I am right behind you, both as a supporter and a fellow creator, ready to join in and help in the process of building this strange, new world.

It may not be the world we expected to grow up into, or that we dreamed of as children, but I think it'll be better.