Recommended Watch: Chef

In 2014 Jon Favreau released one of my favorite films, Chef, which he wrote, co-produced, directed, and starred in. I think it’s safe to say this is Favreau’s movie.

Coming on the heels of his hits like Elf, Iron Man, and Iron Man 2, Chef might be described as a small movie – though it has a spectacular cast - one without thousands of extras, or spectacular effects, or a single superhero. Don’t get me wrong, I love all those things, and will happily spend a long afternoon watching the exploits of Tony Stark and his ilk. Those movies, and several others, had already alerted me to the talent and creative sensibilities of Favreau, and made me willing to watch most anything he did.

Chef does not disappoint. It’s hard to believe the budget was only $11 million (as compared to the hundreds of millions spent on Favreau’s superhero films), especially considering the talent such as Sofia Vergara, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr., and Scarlett Johansson that were part of the film.

More important (for our purposes), it delves into the creative life of the main character. Favreau plays Carl Casper, a celebrity chef with an attitude problem. Or maybe he’s just burned-out at chasing the accolades and commercial success that come with his position. Whatever the reason, in the opening scenes he battles with the owner of the restaurant where he rules in the kitchen but is overruled in other areas by the owner, gets into hot water with a food critic, and generally drops his entire life in the dumpster. The rest of the film is his battle to get himself back out of said dumpster and re-discover his mojo.

Along the way we meet his family and friends, and we watch as this train wreck of a man finds his way back to the life he truly wants.

It’s a simple plot, and I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it. Let me just say that this movie dives into the ways we separate ourselves from our creative lives, and how we can find our way back. There are many stories within the movie: a love story, a father-son story, a story about the bonds of friendship, and a story about loving what you do every day. And honestly, if you don’t tear up (at least a little) by the end of this film…

Chef has a happy ending, and is a feel-good movie. It’s a warm hug of a film, designed to give you all the feels. In some ways it reminds me of The Great British Bake-Off, where the contestants, hosts, and judges are absolutely lovely to each other, and creating something both tasty and beautiful is the goal.

I have watched Chef several times, and I will probably go watch it again. Soon.

But I think I need to have a Cubano at the ready – it will make you crave that perfect sandwich!

Medical Matters

This is a post from a week ago. Lots of personal business matters eating up many hours of the day over the last couple weeks, but we should be back on track soon!

As you may have noticed, I have been a little scarce around here this week. As in I didn't make a post on Sunday, and it's already Wednesday. You night guess from the above title that it was because of a medical matter.

Well, it was and it wasn't, and I'm going to get into some personal stuff for a few minutes today. So if you aren't here for that, then I apologize and ask you to come back next week. Okay?

As some of you know, my husband has some issues with medical matters. He avoided doctors for years, then when he finally thought he might have pneumonia and agreed to see a doctor he ended up spending a month in the hospital and having open-heart surgery. (There's a LOT more to that story, but we don't need to go there!) Then last year he went to get a Covid test before Thanksgiving dinner with friends in Las Vegas and ended up in the hospital for a week and came home with a new stent.

To say that he has some trepidation about medical visits is an understatement - and actually kind of understandable at this point.

So... we have been dealing with a couple things this fall, and he was scheduled to get his first cataract surgery this week. As a result the medical anxiety was kicking into high gear, and I've been trying to keep him distracted from focusing on the impending surgery, which can be a big task.

Then on Monday we called to find out what time the surgery was scheduled for (they only give you a time a day or two before, due to scheduling issues) and found out that he had to be at the surgery center at 8 AM. Anyone who has ever met us knows that we are Not Morning People, and the surgery center was a 90-minute drive from our coastal home.

All this is to say that Tuesday was shaping up to be a complete horror show for both of us. We were up at 6, on the road by 6:30, and reached the surgery center a couple minutes before 8. They took Steve in and I went to wait in the car for the duration. About 90 minutes later they called me to come get him, and I took him to get some breakfast.

There he is with the surgical eyepatch in place.

His post-op check wasn't until 2:30, so we took our time eating, went for a short drive, and finally went back to the center with time to kill. I should have written up a post while we waited, but I didn't. Instead I played stupid games on my phone and listened to podcasts while Steve reclined his seat and slept off some of the drugs.

After the post-op visit we stopped to get him a pair of wrap-around sunglasses, and grabbed a quick lunch before heading home.

Steve, rocking the wrap-around shades over a late lunch.

I had to do all the driving, and by the time we got home we were both exhausted. I went to lay down "for a few minutes" and woke up four hours later!

But Steve was too excited to sleep.

He had discovered almost immediately after the surgery the joy of actually being able to see - even if only from one eye. He could read signs, see vibrant colors, and watch the world around him in glorious detail. At one point he opened up his lunch, took a look, and exclaimed, "Food looks so good!"

Right now the only downside is that he will have to wait a month for the second surgery. I think if he could he'd head back up there tomorrow and get the other eye done. 

Even more important than the actual vision improvement, though, is how the results have made him feel. He is thrilled with the outcome, and the change in attitude is heartening. I know the next one will be much less anxiety-inducing.

Why should any of this matter to you? (Aside from the hope that as my friends for the last 2+ years you will share me joy and relief at such a wonderful outcome, of course.) Because at some point all of us, if we live long enough, will probably have to face this same procedure. (I already have, getting one eye done in March of 2020, just before they suspended ALL non-emergency procedures, and I had to wait months for the second surgery.) Please take reassurance from the medically-averse guy in the pictures above, it's worth it!

And the aftermath? We both were able to relax last night and get a good (long) night's sleep. With a little luck the next one will be a breeze!

Old Dog, New Tricks

As we ramp our publishing efforts back up I find myself tackling new tasks. This old dog is learning some new tricks, and it’s honestly kind of fun.

I'm an old dog - a little gray around the edges - but I can still learn new tricks!

I talked about this a few months ago, but I ran into another example just this week and it was brought home to me that we need to be open to new ideas and new experiences.

An old friend is considering dipping their toes into the indie publishing scene. In order to do so, they need to make some changes in the way they do things. They need to learn some new tricks. Their response?

It’s too expensive.

It doesn’t make sense to learn this piece of software for a single project.

The return on investment for this project doesn’t work for me.

I need the help of a professional and I can’t find anyone I want to work with.

The list goes on, a lot of it boiling down to “I don’t want to spend the money.”

This might be carrying penny-pinching a bit too far!

Now, I know this person and have a pretty good idea of their financial position. The financial outlay is more than pocket change, but it is not so high as to be a serious impediment. It feels like the financial arguments are a cover for something deeper - something we all can relate to.

Fear.

There is financial fear, to be sure. Fear of making a bad investment, of spending money on tools we won’t continue to use. That the shiny new tool will become what Alton Brown refers to as a “unitasker,” useful for only one thing.

But there are other fears here. There is the fear that we will make the wrong choice, choose the wrong tool or the wrong collaborator, and waste time, money, and energy on a process that will never meet our needs. This is especially true when we are in unfamiliar territory. It’s pretty easy to tell if we like the color or feel of a particular material (be it wood, fabric, yarn, food, or whatever), but not so easy with a less straightforward factor, like the interface of a piece of software, or the performance of a microphone - things that often can’t be determined until we have worked with it for a while.

Case in point: We replaced our thermostat just before we left for California. Thought it was working correctly when we left, but came home to a cold house. It took a couple days and a different set of instructions to discover that what looked like a yellow wire was actually a white wire with discolored insulation, and that that particular wire controlled the heating trigger. Changed wires and suddenly we have heat - but in the process we discovered that we really are not happy with this thermostat, and there are some functions that don’t work the way we want them to. We will be exchanging it for the next model up. Thanks to the retailer’s guarantee of satisfaction we won’t have to simply toss the unsatisfactory model, but we were prepared to take that loss.

As we age and put more years between us and our school years, there is another fear that we must face: the fear that we won’t be able to use that new tool effectively, or that we can’t learn to use it at all. 

I understand that one; I am often hesitant to buy something if I’m not sure I can learn to use it correctly, even though I know I am completely capable of learning anything I set my mind to. Doesn’t mean I won’t struggle with it - I might or might not - but there is still that little voice that says it could become an expensive paperweight. 

If we haven’t been in a classroom for a while, or continued acquiring skills in other ways, it can be daunting to face a steep learning curve. Especially without a teacher or trainer or mentor to walk us through the necessary steps to learn a new process.

This weevil is from outside some kind of school. Not sure how much any of us would actually learn from them!

We need to remind ourselves that as creatives we are lifelong learners. We may tell ourselves that we’re just dabbling in something to fill our days. But we cannot completely dismiss the urge to improve our work, to learn a better way of doing things, to acquire skills that complement our endeavors.

Like learning how to publish the work we have written, or how to frame a picture we painted, or how to preserve the bounty from our garden.

We live in an age where the learning for these things, and many more, are at our fingertips. A simple search on the internet will turn up hundreds, or thousands, of articles, pictures, videos, lectures, demonstrations, and recommendations around any subject we want. There are websites that specialize in online courses in almost anything you can imagine - many of them are free, or have a small subscription cost. Schools across the country offer distance learning for everything in their catalogs, including many top tier institutions. For instance, it is possible to take a course in copyright law from Harvard Law. For free! That’s just one example I know about.

Only you can rightly determine what level of financial commitment is appropriate to your circumstances. Our purchase of a new computer for some specific publishing tasks was one example: the cost was not trivial, but the purchase was the best option for getting some of the functions we needed. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. But don’t make money an excuse.

If you want something, if it will bring you some measure of satisfaction, or enjoyment, or a sense of accomplishment, don’t be afraid to learn about it. Don’t create artificial barriers for yourself. Don’t deny yourself that joy (in whatever form) because of fear. 

You may be an old dog, but you can always learn a new trick or two.

Mischief Managed

I didn't set out to do a recommendation for the Mob Museum, but we have thoroughly enjoyed several visits to the Museum and I wanted to share this amazing space with you!

At least for now, but who knows what might come along!

We are not home yet. We are at our son's for the weekend, then heading home. We try to plan our drives so that we can spend the weekends with our son while he is off work (he's a professor) and avoid the higher weekend hotel rates. 

If we are going to a tourist destination - like Las Vegas - we try to arrive on Monday and leave on Friday, when the crowds swell along with the room rates. It has worked well for us, and it does mean that the sites we want to visit are less crowded, even if only marginally.

One of our destinations, as I mentioned last week, was the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. I can highly recommend it for anyone wanting to find out about organized crime and crime busting over the last decade.

This image from the Museum website shows the beautiful neoclassical architecture of the historical building.

The building itself is full of history, even before it became a museum. Built in the early 1930s and opened in 1933, it was originally a Federal Courthouse and Post Office. The Kefauver hearings - a traveling series of Congressional hearings in the 1950s - held hearings in a courtroom which has been preserved and is used as a theater.

Starting on the 3rd floor,  the exhibits trace the history of organized crime from the turn of the last century, through Prohibition, gambling and a wide variety of vices, into current-day drug trafficking and cybercrime as you work your way down through the 2nd and 1st floors.

On the first floor are several interactive special exhibits (at an extra charge) including a hands-on crime lab simulation, and a gift shop where I could have dropped an obscene amount of money on research books.

The final level is the basement, which houses a speakeasy and distillery where the Museum actually makes their own moonshine!

There is a wealth of information in the Museum, a fascinating dive into a piece of history that reached into every community in one way or another. 

The building is packed with tidbits like this. I took a bunch of pictures of the displays and saved the hassle of scribbling notes for later use.

There is much more to report about the research we did, the meetings we had with other writers and editors, and the plans we're making for the coming months.

One other note - somewhere a few weeks back we passed the second anniversary of this channel. It went past without fanfare, basically I didn't even realize we had made it through another year! So let me take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support. I truly appreciate all of you!

Dispatch From the Road

Looking up into the canopy at one of our stops along the way. We had nearly perfect weather for the drive with the windows down to enjoy the sounds of the forest.

We are back in the Redwoods for a day or so on our way to Central California and then on to Las Vegas for a research visit to the Mob Museum. Steve and I are both working on crime stories that touch on Vegas in the 70s, and the museum is a great resource!

For a sense of scale, that tiny bright spot in the center of the picture is a bicyclist in a high-visibility shirt. We saw lots of cyclists on the drive through the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Narrow, winding road, but we were in no hurry and happy to share the road.

We allowed an extra day for dawdling through the various Redwood state and national parks, but every time we come here we want to stay longer and have some time to just soak in the peace and tranquility of the big trees. Which is one of the benefits of retirement - the opportunity to simply stay an extra day (or two or three, depending on your budget). Lucky for me my creative outlets are primarily writing and knitting, both of which can come with me wherever I go!

We also found a little place with amazing food! That's a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and tomato (I had Swiss, Steve had cheddar), and an order of garlic fries from Lighthouse Grill in Trinidad, California. Soooo good! Also homemade ice cream, but I was too busy enjoying to take a picture. The crows recognized an easy mark, and we threw many fries over the patio wall for them. Affordable and delicious, with half a sandwich left for later so we had room for ice cream. We will go back next time we are through that area!

There will be updates over the next few days, but I did want to get a Sunday post up to show you where we are!

Here's to a week of fruitful research, the peace and tranquility we got from the Redwoods, and the delights of new discoveries!

The Value of Community

During the pandemic we forgot how to be social.

We stayed home, we avoided gatherings - social and otherwise, and we gave up gathering with anyone outside our tiny bubble.

For many of us, already introverted and uncomfortable in large groups, it started out as a blessing. We didn’t have to force ourselves out into the world, or ration and schedule our social interactions to avoid psychic overload. 

But over time the isolation damaged even the most solitary individuals. The lack of interaction in any way scraped away the layer of social grace that lubricated our day-to-day social contacts. The casual greeting in the grocery store was replaced with a masked-and-distanced pickup. Non-emergency medical appointments were canceled. Office chitchat, often a source of rudimentary social contact, disappeared as we increasingly moved to working from home, our only contact with co-workers being all-hands Zoom calls that were tightly focused on the job at hand and left no room for idle chatter. Even if we did interact with another human we were both hidden behind a mask, our voices muffled and our expressions obscured.

In short, we were adrift.

Social interaction requires a certain level of civility, of give-and-take, of reading clues in tone, expression, and body language. Two-plus years of isolation, years spent not exercising those social muscles, allowed those skills to atrophy.

It was the ultimate example of “Use it or lose it,” and we lost it.

How that loss affected my creative life was brought home to me this week in rather dramatic fashion - because I spent a few days at a creative gathering and OH MY GAWD have I missed it!

Humans are social creatures. I’ve talked about this before. Even my seriously-introverted husband needs to see people now and then. In the Before Times that might be nothing more than a couple minutes small talk with the checker at the supermarket, or greeting an acquaintance he passed while getting his daily walk.

The pandemic took all of that, and left us floundering, trying to find new ways of getting a minimum of human - and creative - interaction.

Steve and I were luckier than many because we had each other. Having another writer to talk to helped, but it was still only one other person. The same person you lived with all day, every day. It didn’t offer a lot of variety.

In the past we had a community of writers who we saw every week. Sometimes we talked writing, sometimes we talked business, sometimes we just talked about whatever goofy thing came up, as friends do. However, shortly before the lockdowns started the people who held our group together moved away, and the group wavered. Before we could rebuild the pandemic hit, and our gatherings evaporated.

And that’s where we have been ever since.

Until this week.

A few weeks ago two of our extended group of writers proposed an informal retreat. Come stay at the coast for a few days, have your own personal retreat, and gather in the evenings to talk about whatever topic the group found interesting.

They were careful to keep the group small, and to invite only people who already knew and were comfortable with each other. It was honestly a curated gathering, designed to give us all a chance to test our social limits.

The first night was a bit frenetic as we saw friends for the first time in literal years. There was the initial awkwardness as we tentatively worked out the tolerance for being unmasked in a group setting, and clumsy greetings. Can I hug this person? Shake hands? Mask on or off? Share snacks? So many things that we had become comfortable with before were now new and awkward again.

An 'artsy' photo with reflections (to respect everyone's privacy) of our group. Having a bunch of unrelated people in a room, sharing a discussion, is something that's been missing for too long.

Things had changed. WE had changed - and sometimes not for the better.

We quickly slipped into a lively conversation, but there were points where it seemed to lose focus, where a single individual dominated a topic, where everyone tried to talk at once.

We had forgotten how to have a conversation in a group of people without a leader to guide and curate the discussion. We were all so anxious to share what we had learned, our experiences, successes, and failures, and our social interaction muscles were so atrophied, that the conversation sometimes threatened to careen out of control and plunge over a cliff.

And yet.

Everyone was so happy to be there, to be having ANY kind of conversation that touched on the creative endeavor that was central to each of our lives, that no one seemed upset or unhappy. We all were anxious for the next night.

We gathered the next night, and the social lubrication returned. Perhaps not in full force, but it was clearly evident. The dominant voices of the previous night were somewhat muted, their manic enthusiasm dampened slightly as though the previous night’s discussion had breached the mental dam and then subsided. The quiet members found their voices, found the courage to speak up, and made space for themselves in the discussion.

I am writing this while sitting with some of the friends who were here for the retreat. I have a perfectly lovely office at home, but I eagerly accepted their invitation to join them for their afternoon writing. Being in this place, with these people, with the energy of four writers each in their own space putting words into our stories and essays, feels like a long drink of cold water after days in the desert. I can feel my creativity, my soul, unfolding with each passing minute.

There is another gathering tonight, before everyone packs up and heads home, and I for one cannot wait to be in that room. The energy, the generosity, the shared passion, has been lacking for a long time and it fed me in ways I didn’t even know I needed.

And just for fun, here's the view from the deck of the house where we gathered.

A week ago I would have told you I was looking forward to seeing old friends and getting a chance to catch up on their lives. I would not have predicted my actual reaction, the feeling of feeding my creativity just by being in the presence of other creatives.

But that is what happened. I have gained an immeasurable amount of  psychic energy from the last three days. I have had the need for this kind of connection brought home for me in unblinking reality.

I need my tribe.

I would bet you do, too. Reach out, find your tribe, the people who provide energy, comfort, insight, and information. Make time for your tribe, for the interactions that feed your creativity. 

It may be one of the most important things you can do for your post-pandemic recovery. I know it was for mine.

Shiny Pebbles

Have you ever watched a small child who just found a shiny pebble? They are thrilled with their discovery, and they cannot contain their enthusiasm and desire to share this wonderful discovery with you.

Lately I have been trying, in my own limited way, to support other creators. I want to admire their shiny pebbles, and encourage them to find more.

Not a shiny pebble, but a balloon jellyfish. This was someone's shiny pebble, and I was happy I got to see it.

Even though we are now fully on a fixed income, and our budget sometimes strains a bit, I keep coming back to the concept of sharing the wealth in whatever way I can. I've talked here about some of the challenges we've faced with medical bills and the like, but for the most part we are comfortable.

That's a term we each define for ourselves, just as we each create our own definition of success. For me it means that I don't worry where the car payment is coming from this month (though I truly wish I didn't have a car payment), or if we can afford to grab a meal at the local (inexpensive) Mexican restaurant. It also means that I do have to give serious thought to travel, or large purchases (see above, car payment). It means I am facing the project of re-examining our insurance coverage and trying to find ways to reduce our monthly premiums, I watch for sales and specials at the grocery store, and that Mexican dinner probably won't include a margarita (seriously, have you looked at the price of cocktails lately?!?).

It was my birthday!

Even so, I am looking around me for the opportunity to help other creators realize their dreams.

In the last few months that has meant subscribing to the Patreon channels of people whose work I enjoy. Even a dollar of two can help, and I know I appreciate that small cash flow that comes into my account each month. If you are interested in knowing who I support my current subscriptions are to Justin Scarred, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Debbie Mumford. I heartily recommend each of them, all for different reasons.

In addition I have backed a few publishing Kickstarter campaigns for things that sounded interesting. While the ones I've backed have all finished, I urge you to spend a little time looking around Kickstarter - you may be surprised at the things you'll find. The publishing category is relatively new, with a growth spurt giving us a wide range of fiction and nonfiction to choose from. Gaming is a well-established category, as are music and visual arts.

One of the most unusual campaigns by far was the Potato Salad project in 2014.  You may remember it, it got a lot of media coverage. Silly, maybe, But it does show that Kickstarter really is for everyone.

Over the summer I have backed humorous fantasy, paranormal cozies with corgis, fantasy romance, Scandinavian noir, and science fiction, in addition to a couple nonfiction projects. I've already identified at least two new authors who will be on my "must read" list going forward.

Go wander around Kickstarter. Search for projects you might enjoy. Many campaigns can be backed for a few dollars for a digital reward. Or pledge as little as a dollar just to support something you think looks cool. Your support, even at the $1 level, will mean a great deal to a creator looking for an audience.

And isn't that what we are all looking for? Someone to share our work with? Someone to admire out shiny pebbles? I've talked about the creators who simply put their output in a drawer or a closet and never show anyone, but I think most of us do want to share our work, and are looking for that recognition.

Speaking of recognition (shameless self-promotion) here's the cover for the short story that's part of the rewards for my Kickstarter campaign. I'll remind you all when it's available at your favorite ebook retailer.

So be that audience to whatever extent you can. Drop a buck in the virtual hat of another creator via the tip jar on their blog or vlog, a Patreon subscription, or by supporting a Kickstarter campaign. Throw your change in the basket of a street performer if you like their music or dance. Buy a handcrafted piece at an art fair or holiday market.

You say your budget has absorbed all the support it can already? Then lend a hand by sharing the creators work with friends and family. Post a link to their blog or vlog or Patreon page. Tell a friend about their artwork. Share their Kickstarter campaign with someone who might find it interesting. Post a favorable review online - likes and follows and positive reviews feed the algorithms that move books and music into favored display positions, and they cost you nothing but a few minutes time.

Each one of those things recognizes the shiny pebble the creator has shared with you. It acknowledges their courage in putting their creations where you can see them, and it helps them fund their next project. Your recognition just might provide the support that keeps them going when their faith in themselves is faltering.

Be the reason a creator keeps creating.

Project or Process?

Lately I have noticed something about the way I create. On any given day, I will choose to approach creating from a project view, or a process view. I will devote my time to a specific project or participate in a process based on time and place, commitments, and a bunch of other factors - most of which I couldn’t even pinpoint or describe. I just know that - for me - there are two separate and distinct approaches.

Here’s what I mean. 

A few months ago my son asked me to make a special knitted blanket for a friend of his. I agreed, we went shopping, and I came home with a giant bag of yarn. That’s a project. When I sit down with time to knit I pick up that project. The goal is to complete a particular piece.

But before I embarked on that large project, there were times when I wanted to knit and watch TV, or listen to a podcast or audiobook. On those days I was looking for the process. When that specific project is finished, I will have a day when I want to knit, and I’ll dig out some yarn and needles and knit. I will be looking for the process again.

Another example. A couple weeks ago I was helping a friend with transportation for a medical procedure. That involved making two long round-trip drives on back-to-back days. On the first day I noticed a local fruit stand had peaches. By the second day I was absolutely jonesing for peach cobbler. Of course I stopped the next day for peaches. That was a project. A delicious project.

I also decided to make fresh pico de gallo. Now, I do live in a small town, but there are several places around town where I could have bought fresh pico, and let someone else do all the fine chopping and mixing. But sometimes the process of preparing the tomatoes, onions, and chili peppers is an exercise I enjoy. (Except for that part about remembering not to touch anything until you thoroughly wash your hands. That was definitely NOT enjoyable!)

I find myself doing the same thing with my primary outlet: writing. Some days I have a project in the works, or a deadline, or a specific thing I want to share with you.  Some days I just want to sit down at the keyboard and see what happens.

I don’t know that I have some deep insight to draw from this realization. It’s just something I noticed and wanted to share. To remind you, and to remind ME, that there is no “right” way to do this thing we call making. 

There are no rules to creativity.

There is only the joy that comes from doing something you love, in whatever way you want.

May your coming week be filled with creativity. And joy.

The Everyday Not-So Routine

Difficult as I may finding it to believe, I think I am starting to adjust to truly being retired. One reason for that optimism? I am finally starting to develop a few habits that are not rooted in some holdover from my day job.

Early in this journey - long before I knew it would take three tries to finally retire - I talked about the imbedded schedule I followed, and how it affected my daily and weekly routine. In particular I talked about Sunday night: the weekly chores like curling my hair, and laying out clothes for the coming week, and how those preparations ramped up my anxiety about the coming week. That anxiety marked the beginning of every work week, often resulting in poor sleep that reflected in my Monday morning attitude.

Now, after three months with no Monday mornings, I am finally starting to relax, to sleep in, and to jettison that anxiety habit. This is a different adjustment than the one I had with that during my first, abortive attempt at retirement. This time it feels permanent. There is not a lingering possibility of returning to the office.

One last look. After 23 years I am going to really miss this view every day. The new guy will let me come visit at least!

This is especially strange since I worked three days about a week ago. But that may be precisely why this does feel permanent.

Those days were for my old company’s on-site financial audit - the same thing that pulled me back in the first time. An audit is like the final exam for an accounting department, the chance to prove that you’ve been giving the right answers all year.

Participating in that exercise felt like a conclusion of all the work we have been battling with for the last two-plus years - and I think we passed with flying colors. We answered the questions, provided information, and generally acquitted ourselves well.

And then I walked away. I did three days on my own schedule, set up a final archive project, and then instead of doing the work myself (as planned) I decided I could hand off the actual implementation and did so.

I knew I was done.

I am finally on my own path. Perhaps not as smooth and straight as the road I was on before, but it's time to find my own way!

I still hear a little voice in my head, saying “You said that the last time,” and I keep trying to tell that little voice to shut up, but I know it’s right. I have said this before. And I’ve failed before. Still, I am trying again and I do believe it will take this time.

So, now that I taken my final exam, I can move ahead and try to get some kind of new routine, some schedule - or no schedule at all! - that will work going forward.

After a few weeks back on the retirement path I am pretty sure I will need some kind of routine. I am a creature of habit, as are most humans. I need a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and some deadlines so chores and projects continue to get done. I have to fight against the inertia that says “You can do that tomorrow” every day. Sure, I can do it tomorrow, but a week of tomorrows can pass almost without notice that way.

For now, the schedules have yet to be discovered, but I’m willing to let them develop over the next few months. I have found a simple, very basic, morning routine. Morning pills, teeth brushing, make coffee, feed the cat, scoop the litter box, and wash any dishes left from the day before. It isn’t much, but it gives me a foundation for the rest of the day. If there’s coffee, and we start the day with a clean kitchen, that’s something to build on.

The office is ready for me. Desktop for writing, Mac for layout and publishing business, recording equipment when I want to try audio, and a Peace lily, a going-away gift from the boss who called me "Supergirl." Time for some new habits!

We have one short road trip planned in a few weeks, and then I expect to have several uninterrupted months to build the next layer in that routine. My top priority is to reinforce the habit of writing every day. Beyond that there are practical necessities like time for cleaning (a necessary evil, in my book), and I know there will be business matters to deal with at least a time or two each week.

Things are in flux, new routines will replace old ones, and I am sure I’ll find new forms of anxiety to replace the old ones. Habits will be tested and broken, routines will be adjusted time and again. All of this will build on so much of what has gone before, and I’m sure we will circle back around and talk about it some more in the coming months.

The best part, for me, is knowing that at least one of the early issues has resolved itself, and I am no longer finding Sunday nights a cause for anxiety and sleeplessness. There are a lot of other things that still disrupt my sleep patterns, but that is no longer one of them.

Know Your Own Value

This week I saw a cartoon that was supposed to be funny. At first I kind of chuckled, but as I thought about the message behind the image and caption I became horrified. It was everything that is wrong with how we treat our creative selves.

I will not post the cartoon itself because it is not mine to share, but allow me to describe it:

A middle-aged man lies on the couch in a counselor’s office. His clothes, a polo shirt and casual pants. are rumpled, his hair sticking out at odd angles, five-o’clock-shadow covers the lower portion of his face. Next to him another middle-aged man sits in a high-backed chair, a notebook and pen in his hand. He’s dressed neatly with a tie and V-neck sweater over a dress shirt. A potted plant sits on the floor below the window, and illegible certificates adorn the wall behind the sitting man.

The picture is clearly supposed to be someone in a counseling session; so far so good. Often the foibles of emotional entanglements can provide fodder for amusement, even if we do our best to be sensitive to the difficulties of others. Then there’s the caption:

I’m a self-publishing author who keeps sending rejection letters to himself.

That! That right there is what is so terrible about how we treat ourselves. How we treat our creativity, our attempts to make something from nothing, our baby steps toward creating and sharing our ideas and images with the world.

We reject our work before we ever even try to share it with someone else. We judge our output, our ideas, to be worthless before they are even fully formed.

Can I just say to each and every one of you - Stop That Shit!

Do not let your mental rejection letters derail your creativity!

Knock off the negativity. Stop the self-talk that tells you you aren’t good enough. Stop sabotaging your efforts before they get off the ground. Stop letting your inner critic silence your creative voice with negative comments.

I think what got to me about this cartoon was that my first impulse was to chuckle ruefully and nod in recognition. “Oh,” I thought, “I know that feeling.”

All I had to do to validate that exact sentiment was to look at the false starts and half-finished manuscripts on my hard drive. In an earlier time I might have had drawers full of unfinished (or at least unsubmitted) manuscripts. We all know the stories of painters and writers whose work was only “discovered” after their deaths, after someone else found those stories or poems buried in a forgotten desk drawer, or paintings stored in a musty attic.

Why not let those stories out into the world?

And those are only the ones we know about. The ones who had someone to champion their work after they were gone. Imagine how many more were never discovered. Or whose work was in a less-easily preserved or stored medium. A clockmaker’s work might last for centuries, even when neglected, but a cakemaker’s? Not so much!

That response made me angry. Angry in the way unearthing the bedrock sexism of my childhood and young adulthood made me angry.

(One example: For years I couldn’t figure out why I was such a bad financial manager that I was struggling to pay my bills, while the men in my same job had houses, and families, and boats. How could they have a boat on what we made? They could do that because it was 1966 and their salaries were three times what I was paid, because I was a naive young woman and nobody talked about how much we made. It was years before I realized how thoroughly we were being exploited.)

Angry in the way that questioning  - really questioning - an underlying, foundational belief makes you angry. Having to face the unpleasant truth that something you simply accepted as fact is not can leave you shaking, as this cartoon left me shaking.

Why? Because it brought home to me that I - like so many other creative people - had simply accepted and internalized rejection, had taken on the gatekeeper mentality for my own work, and taken the path of rejecting my creative efforts without even giving myself the chance to succeed.

I was sending mental rejection letters to myself.

There is a silver-lining in this cloud, for me. Just this last week, after the rush of house painting and clean-up, I had a submission deadline for the mystery co-op I recently joined. I had accepted that the painting had eaten my life and I wouldn’t get a new story written, and I didn’t have anything in my inventory that fit the theme of the current issue. I was going to have to miss this one.

But on the day of the deadline I realized there was something, a story long-buried and never submitted anywhere. A story I had rejected and never published, even self-published. It might fit, if I did a little tweaking.

I told myself it was a lost cause. In my memory the story was bad and the writing was worse, and any attempt to fix it would be doomed to failure. I sent myself a mental rejection letter.

Then I threw caution to the wind, decided the editor could choose not to include it, but I had committed to sending a story at least twice a year, and I really shouldn’t blow off this deadline. I might not have a hope in hell of publishing this story, but I could at least let it see the light of day.

I am sure you’ve guessed by now that the story in question is going to see print later this year.

This is issue #12, available for preorder on November 15. Don't worry, I'm sure to remind you when it's out!

The tweaks cleaned up a couple things, brought the story in line with the theme of the issue, and the editor chose to include it.

It’s a small step, but it’s a step. I threw away that mental rejection letter and sent my little creative piece out into the world. I let it be seen.

Years ago I was in a group with several editors. We were discussing submissions, and what did or didn’t “fit” their vision of their magazines. Someone in the group commented that such-and-such wasn’t right for a particular editor. The editor in question turned around and advised the speaker, “Don’t edit my magazine for me. Let me decide what fits and what doesn’t.”

I thought I had taken that advice to heart all those years ago, but I now realize, in my response to this simple cartoon, that I hadn’t. Not really. And I probably haven’t completely taken it in yet. But at least I have been reminded to stop sending myself mental rejection letters.

I hope you have been, too.