This is the season for change, isn’t it? At the start of a new year, don’t you feel as if you have a clean slate, a brand new list, and fresh enthusiasm? It’s time for dreaming about big new accomplishments. [Read more…]
Any Shiny Thing - Life after 50
Midlife Fiction
This is the season for change, isn’t it? At the start of a new year, don’t you feel as if you have a clean slate, a brand new list, and fresh enthusiasm? It’s time for dreaming about big new accomplishments. [Read more…]
But first, I have a confession to make.
I started this blog as a way of marketing my book. There, it’s out. If you feel like dropping me now, I understand.
But something interesting happened to this blog a couple years ago. I found my stride, opened my soul and started pouring out my thoughts about wanting to age powerfully instead of apologetically. The more I called out, the more you answered. We’ve gathered around this electronic campfire in increasing numbers. Some days I get hundreds of visitors, all tuning into the issues that you and I find compelling.
Although most of us are women of middle age and older, we are men, too. We’re wondering how to navigate these last twenty, thirty, forty (God willing) years. How to find the joy and not crumble under the onslaught of change. How to savor the journey, and stop apologizing for our age.
I was at a writing conference a while back, and I was moved by a couple of speakers, one old, one young. The first spoke about accomplishing something in older age; the second, about selling your stuff without selling your soul:
Frederick Ramsay started writing in his mid-sixties. After two bouts of cancer and one stroke, this human dynamo produced 13 books in 10 years – or maybe it was 10 books in 13 years, but who cares? It’s taken me 10 years to write ONE. Anyway he stood up on stage at this conference and said, in effect, I have to hurry, man. I don’t have a lot of time. He said it plainly, with a strong voice, and it didn’t sound sad or pitiful. It was real, and powerful. This awesome, thoughtful, funny man is using his age to fuel his fire.
On the other end of the age scale is Jeremy Lee James. He gave a voice to my emerging hesitation about marketing my work via social media. Jeremy was teaching a workshop called First Principles: A Writer’s Website and Winning Tactics. He said he worked on the preso for three weeks, but a couple of days before the conference, he trashed it all because, as he said, it made him feel dirty.
This dude knows everything about SEO optimization, Google analytics, and all the tricks to get a high return on your internet marketing efforts. And he was prepared to share those tricks with us. Instead, he came to that workshop and told us about a different path he wanted to follow instead. Make your blog – make your online presence – art. Give a gift to humanity. The business, the income, the commercial success will follow if it’s meant to. If it doesn’t happen, you’re not on your true path and you should find something else to do. I couldn’t believe this commercial wizard was telling me something so organic, but it resonated. I appreciated him for it.
Although I only met these men that one time, I consider them mentors. They provided thoughtful guidance, and I feel empowered as a result. Don’t you love when that happens?
Yikes. I’ve been lollygagging. I haven’t worked on my ms for a week, and it’s turning feral on me. (Tell me if you know which writer said if she doesn’t visit her manuscript daily, it lurks in her office and morphs into such a fearsome beast she is afraid to open the door.) I don’t have little kids or a fulltime job, so I have no excuse. And have you found that the longer you stay away from your writing, the less you want to go back to it? But Kristen is languishing out in the Black Hills of South Dakota with Frieda, a 90-year-old crank. If I don’t get in there and move the story alone, K will never figure out whether she’s going to go back to her high-pressure job in Newport Beach CA, or give it all up for WHAT MATTERS and make a 180 back into Curt’s arms.
After I brush my teeth and shower I’ll go into THE ROOM and set the timer for 30 minutes. I know from past experience that I won’t even notice the bell ringing a half hour later. It’s a simple, maybe even stupid, strategy but it motivates me. Something about having a deadline.
But here’s another motivation: my friend Sepi Richardson (Her Honor, the Mayor of Brisbane, California) has promised she’ll have a book signing for me when the sucker is published. Holy crap, I need to get to work!!! Let me know how YOU motivate yourself, and I’ll post it as a guest post on this blog. Thanks!
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