“Is your life what you pictured a year ago?”

For the first time, I am going to use the prompt of the day that WordPress has recently been supplying: “Is your life what you pictured a year ago?”

My life is exactly what I pictured a year ago, mostly because I did not have wishes or aspirations of where my life would be. This is sad because I had nothing to push myself toward; I just had to make it day-to-day. This is also happy because I was pretty satisfied with life last year and pretty satisfied now.

Would I have liked it if my writing career blew up? I think so, but I don’t know if I’m up to two full-time jobs at this point in my life. I’m almost 60, after all. (NOTE: If the bluebird of happiness drops me a successful writing career, I will gladly suffer.)

Would I have liked a lottery win? I’ll be honest — probably not. My husband wants to win the big Powerball; I just feel like the changes inherent in winning lots of money would be destabilizing. Yes, I would like to retire early, but I don’t want to be obsessed with money, which is an idiosyncratic result of having a lot of money.

But those are extraordinary happenings, and so I didn’t dwell on them. My life is almost exactly as I figured it would be (except for my father dying, and even then it wasn’t unexpected at his age).

What do I see my life like next year?

I suppose this is a legitimate question at this time of year. I see my life being a lot like this year. Hopefully, another novel or two; a few more readers, but not much changed. No sweeping changes. I have my fingers crossed for no big changes, because at my age, many of those can be catastrophic.

Here’s hoping for another cozy, uneventful year.

Writing What You Don’t Know

A common piece of advice given to writers is “write what you know”, which is why there are so many books about writers. (This suggests to me that we need to get more variety in writers, because I’d like to read something with some detail about wait staff or electricians, but that’s off topic.)

handful of potatoes — Photo by R Khalil on Pexels.com

To grow, however, a writer has to write about what they don’t know. This requires research, not just assuming that you do know. For example, Nora Roberts wrote a novel where, in the prologue, a character in Ireland is cultivating potatoes a long time before potatoes arrived in the Old World, being a New World vegetable. It’s natural to assume “Ireland = Potatoes”, but Ireland didn’t have potatoes till 1589. As much as I like Nora Roberts, here’s a historian’s take on what she gets wrong in one book.

Another example was a Jayne Ann Krentz novel (forget the name) whose male protagonist owned a winery. In this case, she got the details right, but the details were so sparse that the book didn’t have to have a winemaker protagonist at all. In this book, he strolled through the winery, and there was a little detail about a room with big barrels. I, as an amateur winemaker, expected at least a bit about him checking in with his chemist and taking a sample from a barrel to check out the taste. I expected my winery owner to be involved with the winery somewhat, for the sake of romance.

The takeaway is that your reader is going to know the details if you don’t. And the inaccuracy is going to take them out of the story.

Back when I was young, I wanted to write a story based on a long dream I had while sick with a kidney infection. My problem was that it took place “in the desert” and doing the level of research I would need just to show the characters’ interaction with the desert (wherever that was) would have been immense. I didn’t have time for immense research because I was trying to finish up a PhD. So I wrote a couple character sketches and segments of scenes and put it away.

Years later, the Internet made it possible for me to do the level of research I needed to finish the book. I chose the Owyhee desert (alternate future with demise of the US makes it no longer Bureau of Land Management land) and studied the flora and fauna as well as what food animals and crops would do well there for small landholders. I could not have researched that, nor could I have researched experimental underground habitats and water recollection. The book is named Whose Hearts are Mountains, and I’m going to publish it someday.

My advice for writing what you don’t know:

Look up basic facts, making sure that your sources are reliable. For the sake of writing, Wikipedia is usually concise enough, and its footnotes carry more information that will be helpful.
Provide enough detail that your readers are satisfied. This can vary, depending on who your readers are. But assume they want at least some accurate setting and background to feel engaged with your story. In romance, setting and background are one of the ways novels distinguish themselves with their time-honored plots and tropes. In fantasy, believable setting and background help you build a consistent world.
Ask yourself “what are my readers going to poke holes through?” Reinforce those areas with more real information.

Right now, I’m struggling to research the logistics of small town fire departments, fighting fires, and combustion in general. Luckily I live in a small town with a volunteer fire department, but I’m having trouble coordinating with the fire chief. I’ve been reading a lot online, especially things about fire trucks, firefighting gear, uniforms, and mutual aid. I have a couple small details I still need to find out. And this is just background to make sure the firefighting feels right. But I don’t want to write the book that people say “That’s not how it works” about. So it’s time to research.

Self-care in the Christmas Season

Chronic stress is not a badge of honor. In fact, it’s a life-shortening problem. Stress is, however, inevitable, because there will always be conflict. Without stress, humans would not survive because they would not recognize danger. It’s just when stress gets chronic that it eats away at the mind and body. Therefore, we need to resolve stress and get past it.

I teach human services to students. They move on to case management careers, often transitioning to some sort of counseling after a while in the labor force. One question I ask them in case management class is what their self-care routines are. It’s important to take care of oneself when you work with other people in high-stress situations which sometimes hook into someone’s personal hurts. It’s important for everyone to decompress and let go of stresses.

As for my self-care, I’m off work until early January, the biggest perk of being a faculty member. I’d argue that I need the 3 weeks at Christmas to recuperate from dealing with students day in and day out. It’s a privilege, I know.

Because my fall semester is rough and my spring semester rougher, and because I manage bipolar II (when it doesn’t manage me), I try to cram in my self-care over the Christmas season.

On my self-care list:

Muscle soak baths
Plenty of water to drink
Christmas scent spritzed in the living room
All the Christmas lights on
Christmas music
Occasional naps
Hot Chocolate

So far, so good. I think I’m up to writing some on my novel today after a week of recovering (and maybe writing 500 words a day).

I hope you get at least a few moments for self-care this season.

Being bipolar means saying “Well, I got through that” a lot. An awful lot.

Remember that I am relatively stable right now and have been for a few years. No giddy, voluble mania; no draining depression. I almost wonder sometimes if I never really had bipolar at all, I’ve been comfortable for so long. Life gives us an amnesia when it comes to strong emotions; otherwise no woman would have a second child. So I know that my bipolar isn’t a figment of my imagination, even if I forget how traumatic it’s been.

My bipolar sits below the surface, waiting for its chance. It likes to boil up when I haven’t had enough sleep; I guard against that with a regular sleep schedule and supplemental medication for bad nights. It bursts out of quiescence when I face a lot of stress, and it roars into my life during crisis. Not always; that’s the tricky part. It’s not even predictable in crisis.

So I find myself saying “Well, I got through that” a lot lately. As in, “Well, I got through my dad’s death” and “Well, I got through all that grading” and “Well, I got through finals week” and even “Well, I got through carrying that heavy Nespresso machine down a flight of stairs without dying”. I feel relief that I haven’t gone on a three-day rant or begun tripping over my words in racing thoughts.

Sometimes I’m so relieved I feel like crying, and then I worry that a depression threatens to emerge. I shrug and promise myself that I will get on top of any threatening moods. I know the drill: Get enough sleep, talk to my psychiatrist, journal. Well, I got through that rocky patch.

Halloween is for Adults

It’s Halloween, and I’m running around town dressed like a cat, with a tail and paws and a big cat head.

I stand out, and I’m in my element. Although I’ve become an introvert in my middle age, and although I don’t feel totally comfortable drawing attention to myself, I revel in watching the faces of people as they look amused and puzzled. I guess adults don’t dress for Halloween in the middle of the workday. They should have come by my workplace (an academic building on a college campus), where a dozen of us took a group picture in our costumes.

I never had as much fun at Halloween as a child as I do now. First, the costumes we had as children were pretty abysmal. Plastic masks with tissue-paper “outfits”, so incomprehensible that the garment identified what the mask was supposed to represent. So the monster outfit had a picture of a monster on the front. My imagination was much better on details than those costumes. Second, Halloween seemed like another one of those days where my classmates would gang up on me, probably because I got into Halloween a bit too much. Didn’t everyone pretend to be whatever was on the front of their costumes?

And now there’s a thriving market for adult Halloween costumes, although many of them are “adult” Halloween costumes (“Sexy vampire”, anyone? And why are there no sexy male vampire costumes? Male vampires can be really sexy.) And there’s even more of us pulling together our costumes from odds and ends — a black shawl here, a witch’s hat there. Or the colleague of mine who dressed up as a soccer mom, complete with snacks. Or people like me who have a small closet of outfits.

So I’m going to have fun while it’s Halloween. I sit at Starbucks, and if I see someone I know, I put on my cat head again and say hi. Tomorrow I can be an adult again, or as much of an adult as I ever am.

Lady of Storms

There’s a pink sky this morning painting the maple leaves across the street apricot. No sailors in landlocked Missouri to take warning and no storms in the forecast, bringing the lie to the old saw about red skies at morning.

I crave more rain. It’s a part of my being that I have forgotten for too long. Once, I may have walked through lightning unscathed; I do not know if I believe my perception anymore. I am an unreliable narrator unless I speak from science.

Before I spoke from science, I spoke from storms, feeling the sodden leaves dragging at my feet and a cold rain lashing my ears.I need, I, the storm shouted. I need more.

I have grown past that part of my life; I do not need so much and I know how to get what I need. I speak in measured sentences that psychology tells me are the right ways to communicate. But I miss the ferocity of the storms and the power I felt when I hid in them.

Constructive Arguing

I’ve been married for fifteen years to a very stubborn man, and we’re still married. We get into arguments, and sometimes we get into big arguments. Although I’d like to tell you I’m always right, that’s not the case. But our arguments don’t last longer than an hour, and this list is what I credit to it. (The sources are Irving Gottman’s works and a few other things that have circulated around the internet enough that they are without attribution. If someone can find attribution, I will add.)

Here are the rules we argue by:

Soft startup. This is one of Gottman’s best contributions. It means “Don’t start arguments with jabbing your finger into the other person’s chest and demanding that they fix their problem.” I have been guilty of starting arguments by jabbing my finger in the other person’s chest for years.
I statements. This helps us own the problem. The formula is “I feel x when you do y.” “Feel” should be an emotion and not “like you are wrong”.
Finding the truth in the other person’s statements. It seems like manipulation, but it’s really a way of defusing the situation while letting the other person know they’re valid.

Anyone can use these tools. They don’t work instantly, but they can shorten the length and reduce the severity of an argument. It helps if both parties know the skills, but one person can use these with great effectiveness. I highly recommend this method of arguing, as it helps us to communicate to get their needs met, which causes an argument.

Thoughts about Death

When I was younger, I used to be so much more outspoken. If I was upset by something someone did, I let them know in the most forthright (and sometimes belligerent) terms. My friends christened me “Our Lady of the Two-by-Four” for the force with which I would address a problem.

I have lost some of that as I’ve grown older. I think this is for several reasons; first I have gained some consideration of others’ feelings and believe that the two-by-four is less effective than the — I have become trapped in my own extended metaphor and will get back to you later. Second, I understand the complexity of situations enough to know that I don’t see the complexity with ease, and especially when I’m in the emotional state where I want to express myself right away. Third, because society has conditioned me to keep quiet about what is bothering me, because that’s a sign of something not right.

I have let the latter rule me too long, having spoken obliquely in my post yesterday, not talking from my heart.

My dad is 86. He’s in hospice. I don’t think he is doing well. He’s … fading. Logically, I know that 86 is a good old age, and that people die. I would not stand in the way of a good, humane death and I know hospice does those well.

But I think about death and its starkness and my reluctant belief that there’s nothing on the other side. Not that I mind that too much; I will not be around for it, so to say. It’s just that looking at the finity of life from this end is jarring; the very notion that there will be an end to my cognitive and sensory partaking of the world chills me.

Maybe I’m wrong and we get another chance in the afterlife, but then, what would distinguish it from this one? I know I have many stupid things left in me; what is an afterlife for if I keep my stupid deeds? Alternately, if we became all-wise in our transition from the world, what would we live for? And doesn’t life, by definition, include pain that our dreams of the afterlife exclude?

I’m almost 60. I maybe have 30 years left; probably less. This is the life I get, so if I’m unhappy about anything, I get to settle it here. If I want to experience moments of bliss, I have to find them here. It sounds like an Ebenezer Scrooge epiphany; it feels like a trudge through dusty clay. Outside there’s a perfect autumn day beckoning me, and that’s where I need to be, away from the corridors of my mind and into life.

Thoughts about What Comes After

I don’t believe in life after death, not in reality. But in my head, my mother told me she understood the things I was unhappy about and apologized for them, as the universe detached her spirit from the vortex of thought about the world of humans and worries. In my fantasies, I see Heaven as a dinner party where everyone I have loved mingles in my dining room, where all the wonderful conversations happen. I sometimes play with the concept of reincarnation, but I’m not too happy with that, because I would have to go through the pain of life again.

The Heavenly Choir leaves me cold. In my theoretical explorations of Heaven, I recognize spirits go to heaven and bodies stay in the ground or scattered or whatever. I can’t, however, imagine my spirit being thrilled singing in a choir, no matter what key we’re in. To me, God is people — the guests at the dinner party.

Realistically, I believe all these musings are metaphors for that of God on earth, the wish to bask in the unalloyed goodness of people without the quibbles and sins that get in the way. Heaven is unity, what we only glimpse tantalizing moments of in our life among humanity. Will the vision resolve in the moments before I die? Probably not, but it’s comforting to think about.

Little Hiccups of Happy

This is how I’m feeling these past few days. The weather is finally trending cooler, and autumn has arrived. A gentle rain fell yesterday, and I traveled in its chill. I love Autumn — even the rain, especially the rain.

Missouri Hope last weekend was successful, and I’ve heard lots of good feedback, which makes me feel like I’m doing something right.

A couple of things have happened this week to make me chuckle. The Interim President of the university missed me at coffee the other day. I never thought I’d be able to say that. An acquaintance of mine ordered a paperback copy of my latest romance. He’s a retired Brigadier General. So, yes, a Brigadier General is reading one of my romance novels. I should offer to autograph it.

I’m (or rather, my husband and I are) making progress on the latest Christmas romance. He’s supposed to do some background research for me and I’m looking over our notes. Things are going well, and I feel a hiccup of happy in my chest.