About That YouTube Video…

CLICK THIS LINK TO WATCH MY VIDEO ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4ijfgaWYOQ

I recently posted a video on YouTube. It was one of the silliest things I’ve ever filmed, full of goofy jokes and poorly-executed physical comedy. I am not usually known as being a funny person, but I went out of my comfort zone, and even if some people think the end result is dumb, I am very proud of it.

The concept for this video originated when I woke up one morning, knowing that my husband would be at work all day. I sighed and made a mental list of the beauty regiments that I “needed” to do that day while he was gone. This list included: applying a mask on my face, putting coconut oil in my hair as an leave-in conditioner because I was going to wash it later, whitening my teeth, and waxing facial hair. Even though I do these things every weekend, I felt overwhelmed and frustrated. Why do I have to do all this today? I don’t feel like it. It bothered me that I felt like I was required to do all these things. I fel like if I didn’t, I would be less attractive and therefore, less valuable as a human being.

At this point you are probably thinking, “Nah, that‘s BS. People don’t have to follow antiquated social norms like that anymore. Miley Cyrus posts photos of her hairy armpits online every day for God’s sake! Celebrities post pics of their bare faces and use the hashtag “NoMakeupMonday” etc. Natural beauty is all the rage. Girls with cakey foundation and long fake lashes practically get bullied for ‘trying too hard’.“

All very true points. But what if your skin is blotchy and uneven due to years of severe acne? What if you are a naturally hairy person with excessive hair everywhere, including your face? What if you have larger-than-average teeth and your love of coffee and red wine causes said teeth to yellow at an alarming rate?

Miley Cyrus has hairy armpits, yet she shares photos where her face is covered in acne cream, meaning she feels the need to improve some aspects of her appearance. And those girls using the “NoMakeupMonday” hashtag are the ones with silky smooth skin. They also tend to have eyelash extensions and lip fillers, which means that they fulfill society’s standards of beauty with less makeup on. And of course their teeth are *naturally* pearly white.

People nowadays are just spending their time doing hair and skin treatments rather than doing makeup. Then they turn around and sneer at girls who curl their hair and apply eyeshadow.

If you weren’t aware of the civil war going on in the beauty community, let me break it down for you. The girls who are into Moroccan argan oil hair serums and organic green tea and oatmeal face masks are bashing the girls who are into contouring their cheeks and lining their lips. The girls who are Team Makeup either use makeup because they feel ugly or because it is a fun hobby for them. Either way, Team Au Natural is making them feel guilty for using it. We are not supposed to put toxic chemicals on our faces just to please others, they say. BUT you still need to look nice…. So smear some plant goo on your face and hair so that it looks better than it does right now.

But not only that, you need to be able to get ready quickly. No one likes a high maintenance girl who takes 2 hours to get ready! There are thousands of “Get Ready With Me” videos that girls post online and most of them are short and have very few steps, yet the girl looks like a supermodel by the end of the video. I have done several videos like this myself, so let me tell you my secret: I fast forward the eff out the boring parts! I spend literally 5 minutes blending my eyeshadow and probably 10 minutes applying fake lashes, but no one wants to see that, so I speed it up. I have to assume most other online beauty gurus do the same thing. But this is tricking girls into thinking that it’s reasonable to get all dolled up in a few mins. We’ve turned into a culture that says, “You have to get ready in 10 mins or less, but you have to look good.”

ARE.YOU.KIDDING.ME.

A girl can’t win!

With all this in mind, I pulled out my camera and went through my beauty to-do list, adding a comical flourish and exaggerating each item as I went.

I hope you enjoy this satire, and I’d love to hear your comments about this topic either at the bottom of this page or on my YouTube channel. Don’t forget to hit the Subscribe button on YouTube to keep up with my videos!  

Being Like Martha

I have this condition—I like to call it “being Martha”. You know, like Martha from the Bible who couldn’t stop cooking and cleaning and being stressed out that her sister wasn’t helping her when Jesus came to visit. Mary was just sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him talk, and Martha was NOT cool with that.

I am a doer. I don’t like to go to bed unless I have accomplished an acceptable amount of tasks that day. Of course, some days it’s not possible to check off all the things on my to-do list, and on those nights, I lay awake plotting how I’m going to finish everything I was supposed to do that day in addition to what I am supposed to do the next day.

I create tasks and deadlines for myself and then experience crushing disappointment when I fail to meet my unreasonable expectations. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Martha, here are a couple verses that give you a good idea of what kind of person she was/I am:

“But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” -Luke 10:40

This cracks me up because she must have been beyond stressed out to think that the Son of God, her houseguest, was an appropriate person to ask her sister to help cook food. It’s so ridiculous, and yet I admit, I have probably been that flustered before. I haven’t necessarily asked highly respected teachers to get my relative to help me in the kitchen, but I have snapped at people when I felt like I was scurrying around at a necessary speed of Mach 3 and they weren’t doing enough to help.

Like I said, I’ve been this way for years and I didn’t even realize this until about one year ago, when my mother in law brought it up and suggested I pray about it. When she and I talked about my unreasonable expectations, I was suddenly aware of how much my daily accomplishments (or lack thereof) influenced my moods. If I drink tons of coffee and tick off several items on my To-Do list, I’m elated. It kind of gives me a high. I feel like a rockstar or something. But if one task takes a long time and it’s the only one checked off, or if something comes up or I get sick and can’t check anything off, I’m in a pit of despair. This correlation between my accomplishments and mood is so obvious now but for most of my life, I was clueless.

You may be asking, “Ok you’re a little extreme, but what’s so bad about being driven and wanting to get things done and then feeling good about it?” I’ll tell you. IT DOESN’T LAST.

Just like any high, it goes away. For me, it resets every morning. I often feel like I don’t want to get out of bed because as soon as I do, I have to start the daily race against the clock—a race that is emotionally and physically exhausting, and often, not winnable!

Here is what Jesus said in the next couple verses in reply to that crazy Martha:

“But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her." –Luke 10:41-42

Martha’s sister wasn’t doing anything helpful. She wasn’t cooking, or cleaning, or being a very good hostess. But Jesus defended her, saying that what she was doing was way more important and permanent than hostess duties. She was living in the moment, taking advantage of an incredible situation. She was listening to the Lord speak. We don’t know what He said because that’s not in the Bible, but guess what? She knows. Because she wasn’t in the freaking kitchen, like her neurotic sister Martha!

At the end of my life I want to be able to say I enjoyed the little moments. I don’t want a lifetime of memories of running around doing kind of pointless activities just because I like the feeling of doing stuff. I need to learn to sit and listen. To be still and know that He is God.

It’s a process but He’s helping me slow down when I need to and not beat myself up when I choose to sit around and spend time with my family. I hope that if you are going through anything similar you can reach out to the One person who is really worth losing the Rat Race for. He doesn’t want us to be “worried or bothered about so many things.” “Only one thing is necessary”, He said. I, for one, would like to shift my focus to pursuing things that matter and highs that don’t fade away.

Celebrity Worship Instilled at Birth?

From the time we are born, we are encouraged to idolize and revere celebrities. Not actual humans yet, no, that starts a few years later, after the initial behavior is programmed. But when we are infants and toddlers, we’re inundated with images of lovable characters like Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and Curious George. 

Maybe it is our parents who plant feelings of adoration in our hearts for these cultural icons. Perhaps it’s because they remind parents of their own childhoods, or maybe they like that their children are calmer when they are engrossed in the TV, allowing parents to focus other things, like breathing. Regardless of why parents are fond of cartoon characters, the fact is, children love them.

Kids’ faces light up when they see an object featuring one of their favorite TV shows. The two-year-old that I nanny for can spot a Doc McStuffins lunchbox on the other side of Walmart. Or we’ll be walking through the grocery section at Target and she’ll start squealing with delight because she sees Minnie Mouse gift bags a couple hundred feet away in the greeting card/gift section. Today at the library, another little girl picked up a Dora the Explorer book to take home and the look of fierce jealousy on my little buddy’s face was unmistakable. She insisted that we put back all the books we were reading and look for a Dora book right away.

Let me backtrack and say that maybe parents aren’t necessarily the ones to blame for this phenomenon. I remember being obsessed with characters (and later, actors and singers) my parents weren’t familiar with.

Anyway, a child’s love of The Little Mermaid or Buzz Lightyear soon turns into a love of Disney Channel or Nickelodeon stars.  If you were like me, you were really into the Olsen twins movies. Once kids get  older, they start obsessing over movie & TV stars or singers.  Teenage girls pore over images of female celebrities, mesmerized by their “perfection”, and often become distressed about their own bodies.

Two year old girls want to wear bows like Minnie Mouse and fifteen year old girls want to get lip fillers like Kylie Jenner.  We look at the fifteen year old girls and are dismayed, but we forget that they aren’t behaving any differently than they did when they were little. Their idols changed as they got older, but the point is that they are still enamored by public figures.

Fortunately, not everyone chooses poor role models. There are a lot of wonderful, positive influences out there. So I am not saying it is bad to look up to celebrities in general.

I am just intrigued by the idea that young children do the same thing I do: They get excited when they see a famous character featured on a product at the store, and they want to have it.

The more I think about this, the more I think that this behavior is not instilled by parents. I am no expert, but it seems like maybe we are born with an innate desire to look up to famous people.  

“Is there a point to this?”, you may be asking yourself. No. This concept of celebrity worship in youngsters just occurred to me at toddler storytime at the library, and I wanted to write about it, ok? Lol. If you have any thoughts on this subject, please let me know in the Comments section. I’d love to hear what you guys think!

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

I’ve always envied people who knew what they wanted to do with their lives since they were children. You hear people say things like, “I always knew I would be a doctor someday” or “I’ve been working towards a career as a singer since before I could speak”.  Of course, if you asked a young Elena what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had an answer. But I usually offered the stereotypical girlie answers: princess, singer, dancer, actress; although I distinctly remember that I once told someone I wanted to be a cashier when I grew up… Well, I did work as a cashier in high school so I guess my dreams came true? Lol.

Anyway, when I went to college I didn’t know what I wanted to get a degree in so my major was Undecided for one semester. After that, I double majored in Economics and Psychology (yeah, I was very confused). The Econ major fell through after I took a few econ classes and my grades got progressively worse. In the end, I graduated with a major in Psychology and a minor in Business.

Most of my classmates applied to graduate school (because that’s what one does when they have a bachelor degree in psychology) and since I was passionate about the subject I figured that’s what I had to do too. Several failed GRE exams and hundreds of dollars later, I faced the painful realization that not only was I going to miss all the application deadlines, but my desire to go to grad school was wavering. My biggest problem was that it was not replaced with a desire to do something else. This uncertainty led to a few years of working temp jobs doing data entry. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but for someone in their early 20’s who is educated and driven to do something important (even if they don’t know what it is yet), that type of job is merely a stepping stone.  

At one of my jobs, I had a lot of free time (but it was one of those situations where you pretend to be busy so the boss doesn’t think your position is unnecessary… But to be honest, it was). I spent hours perusing Pinterest and Facebook, and even reading novels.  My coworker, who has fantastic taste in books, insisted that I read The Hunger Games. I NEED you to know that this was way before The Hunger Games was popular. I don’t know why it’s so important for me to tell you that, but it makes me feel better somehow, like I wasn’t jumping on a bandwagon; I was simply taking the advice of a savvy reader.

That being said, I read The Hunger Games at work when I had nothing else to do, and one day, out of the blue, an epiphany shot into my consciousness so violently that I became teary-eyed. In that emotionally overwhelming moment, I set down the book and repeated the realization to myself over and over until the words began to make sense: I can do this. I can write books.

The most incredible part of it all is that I was thinking “I can” rather than “I want to” (like I had when I thought about being an actress, singer, princess, etc.)

Side note: This in NO way implies that I think that I can write like Suzanne Collins! Not for a second! All I’m saying is that while reading her incredible book, some dormant, hidden talent within me awoke and urged me to pursue a similar goal.

Well this revelation came as a shock. Writing make a person incredibly vulnerable to public opinion and judgment.  I mean, people read things that writers write, and I have always been shy! I hated the idea of pouring heart into writing something only for someone to read it and critique it. (And look at me now!!! Hahaha). I tried to push the disconcerting idea out of my mind; it was too scary to think about.

Long story short, that didn’t work. I knew what I knew and I couldn’t forget it no matter how hard I tried. I was supposed to become a writer.

The first time I told my sister-in-law/roommate, I had a nervous breakdown. Maybe it was just a big panic attack, but I felt like I was completely losing it. Sobbing and shaking, I confessed that I felt driven to be a writer. I expected her to laugh, then feel guilty for laughing and try to gently explain to me that being a novelist was probably a really bad idea and I should just quit before I wasted my time writing something. Her actual response was much more unnerving. She thought it was a wonderful idea. She thought it suited me. She thought I’d be great. I didn’t want to hear that. I wanted her to tell me to forget the whole thing, because that would be so much easier than venturing into the unknown.

A series of fortunate events led me to my current job as a nanny of an adorable toddler. My job is a godsend. It is making my dreams come true. Why? you may ask, especially when I just told you all this stuff about wanting to needing to write. Well, my friend, most writers don’t get paid to write. At least not for a very, very long time until they’ve gotten really good at it. So that means I need to spent a lot of time honing my craft without getting any monetary compensation. When I am at work, after I put the little girl down for a nap, I get a heavenly gift: Getting paid to do whatever I want. Sometimes I read, sometimes I write, sometimes I edit my Youtube videos. But I always make the most of my magical free time.

God bestowed upon me several passions, none of which earn me a penny, except for childcare.  But He found a way for me to sort of get paid to post videos and write blogs and write my novels and take notes on books about writing. Even as I type this I can’t believe how ridiculously lucky I am. Do I make a lot of money? Of course not. If my husband left me, I’d be broke as a joke, but God gave me my husband so He’s in charge of keeping him in working order!

It just occurred to me that this turned into a braggy brag session. Bleh. Not what I wanted. I wanted this to be inspirational. My aim is to tell those of you who don’t have an effing clue what you’re going to do with your life that you will eventually figure it out. You will. And when you do, it’s your job to take action and chase that dream that was put on your heart. Don’t quiver in terror like I did. Or, go ahead and freak out for a little while, but then stop, take a cleansing deep breath, and bravely do whatever makes you scared. Yeah, it might be really hard to get into a new field or career path. That feeling of dread might bubble up now and then. But the harder you study or practice or do what you need to do to pursue your goal, you will get better; you will get closer to achieving it.

You better believe that there will be roadblocks and challenges. Something or someone will stand in your way or tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t bother. Time and again you’ll have to take that cleansing breath and push forward.

Chances are, it’ll all be worth it. 

In a Moment of Senility, Elena Bear Buys The Worst Makeup Product... Twice

Awhile ago I bought a Wet n' Wild matte lipstick in the color 901B, Think Pink. It was one of the worst lipsticks I've ever put on my face. The color itself was ok, but did not compliment my pale skin tone at all. The real problem was the texture. Even though I usually exfoliate my lips and apply chapstick before applying lipstick, this product made my lips look incredibly flaky. It sat on my lips in huge chunks even if I applied it evenly. It felt like (and looked like) I was rubbing a piece of chalk on my lips! It cost about $2 so I just laughed it off as a lipstick fail and stuck it in a container with a bunch of other sub-par lip products that I own.

I'm not just saying this... The photos below DO NOT do this lumpy lipstick justice! The awfulness refuses to be caught on camera but trust me, it's the worst.

Recently, I went shopping and, on a whim, decided to buy a new lipstick. When I try out new colors, I tend to buy very cheap lipsticks just to see whether that color looks ok with my skin, and if I love it, I'll buy a more expensive lipstick in that color. I found a really cute Barbie pink lipstick that looked different than what I normally wear and I bought it.

When I got home I looked at it more closely and thought it looked kind of familiar... Holding my breath, I rummaged through my container of rejected lip products and lo and behold, there it was... Wet and Wild. 901B. Think Pink. FML.

That's right. I bought that damn lipstick AGAIN! After the self-hatred subsided, I laughed. A lot. I mean, what else can you do? Thankfully, I still had the receipt and you better believe I marched over to Target to get my $2 back! 

I can only hope I learned my lesson. If I ever accidentally purchase this lipstick again, each and every one of you has the right to slap me. Repeatedly. 

I should add that if this lipstick is your favorite and looks great on you, congratulations! You are my hero, and I hope you are not offended by this rant. As for me, I will probably avoid Wet n Wild's matte lipsticks from now on, for everyone's sake.

People Aren't Monkeys, Apparently (Part 2 of 2)

In my previous post, I told a story of a little girl who was very misunderstood when she asked her classmate to stop behaving like a monkey. Now I will tell a story of a very misunderstood young adult in a similar situation.

In the summer of 2007, when I was nineteen, my father got remarried. The wedding reception was held in a beautiful local park. There was a playground right by the pavilion where the food was served so the children were having more fun than children generally have at weddings. I brought my roommate, Kate, as my “plus one” since I didn’t know many people there and was single at the time. She and I ended up on the playground reveling with my new step-cousins. I need to back up for a second and explain that I have very few biological relatives. I have one cousin (who is an orphan), one estranged grandmother, and possibly a great aunt or something.  The trouble is, they are all in Belarus, which is the country where I was born and from which my parents escaped when I was 2 years old, never to return. So I don’t know any of those relatives and we don’t speak the same language anyway. The point is, I grew up without relatives other than my parents, and all of a sudden, thanks to my new stepmother, I had aunts, uncles, and cousins.

So there I am, on a playground with my friend and my little cousins, having a blast. One of the boys (about 5 or 6 years old) was incredibly energetic and shockingly skilled at going across the monkey bars. Kate and I marveled at his speed and upper body strength, and this kid was soaking up all the attention and beaming with pride. As he climbed all over the playground and zoomed across the monkey bars, he shouted, “I’m a monkey! Look! I’m a monkey!” and Kate and I cheered him on. He even started climbing some small trees nearby to further prove his monkey-like skills.

Another thing I ought to explain is that there were several children and in the chaos I didn’t catch their names (I was literally introduced to 100 people that day). So the jungle-gym king was simply known as “monkey boy”.

When Kate and I rejoined the adults in the pavilion, I started small-talking with one of my new uncles, the father of the playful, tree-climbing enthusiast. I told him how impressed I was with his son, the “monkey boy”, and what a lovely time I had playing with him on the playground. Well, suffice it to say, that man gave me an earful. I couldn’t believe someone I’d just met could be so offended and angry with me!

“My son is not a monkey!” He spat. “I can’t believe you would say such a thing! He is a very special boy and just because he is different, that does not give you or anyone else the right to call him nasty names!” After several similar statements, I eventually closed my mouth, which was agape in astonishment, and walked away to tell my friend about the strange encounter.

We tried to figure out what made him fly off the handle, and the only thing we could come up with was that my uncle didn’t hear me when I explained that his son was climbing trees and monkey bars, making monkey noises, and repeatedly shouting “I’m a monkey!”

I finally told my dad and stepmom about it, just in case my uncle told them first and painted the picture all wrong. They wanted to know what the little boy’s name was but I couldn’t remember. Then they explained that his son was mentally handicapped, which confused me because I was certain he was not. 

I think it took several conversations like this where I adamantly disagreed that the boy on the playground had any disabilities before a lightbulb went on in someone’s head. My uncle has several sons. For some reason, everyone assumed I was talking about a different one.  

The whole thing was so ludicrous that all we could do when the misunderstanding was cleared up was laugh. The moral of the story is that you should never call someone a monkey, even when they are claiming to be one.  I probably should have learned this lesson the first time someone got the wrong idea about what being a monkey meant, but I thought surely there would be no harm in saying that a little white boy, who was climbing trees and saying, “Ooh ooh, aah aah!” like an orangutan, was being a cute monkey. Well, I was wrong.

So please, do not, under any circumstances, say that someone (regardless of age, race, or number of siblings with disabilities) resembles or is behaving like a monkey or any non-human primate species!

People Aren't Monkeys, Apparently

(This post is Part 1 of 2 monkey-related stories)

Racial slurs and hate speech are the most deplorable, inexcusable types of insults anyone can make. I believe that people who make such statements should be held accountable for their caustic words. But what happens when, in a Seinfeld-esque miscommunication, someone is accused of making a racial slur when in fact, they did not? How do you convince others, while they glare at you, their faces ridden with offense and astonishment, that they got it all wrong?

What if you’re seven years old and your friend, someone who was in the same small, 12-student class with you for the past 2 years, is repeatedly puffing up his cheeks like a blowfish, crossing his eyes and then, alternately, making high-pitched whooping, screechy noises at you? He was an energetic boy who liked getting a rise out of his classmates, and I was especially easy to annoy. So he kept filling his cheeks with air and screeching at me until I thought I was going to have an aneurism. Don’t ask me where the teacher was at this point. As you may remember, grownups were not capable of understanding the complexities of elementary school drama. It must have been recess though. Anyway, I finally asked this kid to stop being a monkey and stop annoying me. Big mistake. An argumentative girl turned around and informed me that it was not only incredibly rude but also quite racist to tell my friend, who was being monkey, that he was being a monkey. I thought she clearly didn’t see what he was doing. So I told her. And he denied the whole thing.

At this point several other kids were listening to our quarrel, which made me feel even more defensive. I don’t know what the rest of them had been doing but no one noticed him making funny faces and incredibly irritating noises just moments before.  The argumentative girl, holding a pitchfork in one hand and a torch in the other, declared to the rest of the class that I was bullying that kid because of his brown skin.

Now I know that some holier-than-thou white people say things like, “I don’t see color” and claim to have no idea whether someone is of a different race. Uhhh sure, whatever you say. But you know what? Up until that moment in Mrs. Eckhart’s second grade classroom, I didn’t have a damn clue that that boy was of a different race. Seriously. Maybe children see the world differently or maybe I was just very dumb or unobservant or whatever. But when that girl accused me of being racist toward him I about passed out from shock. I remember staring at him and shaking my head, not wanting to question his skin color but having the veil of innocence ripped from my eyes. And I saw for the first time that he was different than me. 

Despite this revelation, I stuck to my guns about the monkey thing, and I still will stand up for myself on that one because, folks, he was legitimately pretending to be a monkey just to annoy me, ok?? Well I spent the rest of recess all alone because the other 11 people in the class refused to talk to me. I suppose I should be impressed that those young children were intolerant of prejudice (or perceived prejudice in this case) but as a very misunderstood second grader, I just felt devastated.  I remember kicking up the tiny rocks in the gravel parking lot in frustration. Every time I looked up from my dusty shoes I’d see eleven tiny humans on the other side of the lot with their chins up and their eyes narrowed. I just realized that maybe this experience is why I liked Lord of the Flies more than anyone I know.  Poor Piggy.

Anyway, my best friend eventually told me that everyone would be my friend again if I apologized to the boy. I vehemently protested, explaining for the 100th time that I was not being rude or derogatory (I’m sure I didn’t use that word) but was simply telling him to cut it out. And the “it” was his monkey-like behavior.  I couldn't believe how the whole thing had gotten blown out of proportion. My best friend looked like she wanted to believe me, but kept glancing over her shoulder at the others with a distinct look of fear. She didn't want to be exiled like me. “Just say sorry, ok? It’s not a big deal. Just say it.” She whimpered.

A large piece of my innocence disintegrated that day. My first approach was to lie like a successful politician.  I approached the mob and apologized for hurting his feelings. That was not good enough. They insisted I specifically apologize for calling him a monkey. At this point I had to take my lying skills a step further so, like a lawyer, I looked in his eyes and said I didn’t mean to call him a monkey. And the spell was broken. They were all my friends all of a sudden and the strange event was never mentioned again. I completely forgot about it until recently, but I have wondered why I feel overly paranoid about what I say when I’m talking to and especially when I’m joking around with someone of a different race.

Stay tuned because in my next post I will tell you another story involving a typical sitcom miscommunication, an unusual wedding reception, and another lesson about how people are not monkeys.

Has anything like this ever happened to you?? Let me know in the Comments section!

"Listen To Your Broccoli"

“Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.” – Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

I just finished reading the chapters called “The Moral Point of View” and “Broccoli” in Bird by Bird. They both really hit home for me. I am currently writing my first draft of my second novel and there are some ethical and moral dilemmas I am trying to write as sensitively as possible. The problem is, I’m not entirely sure where I stand on these issues!

Anne Lamott says that reality is complex; right and wrong may not be opposites. I think that in my current situation, instead of chastising myself and not getting any writing done, I should present both sides to my readers, offer them the pros and cons, and let them decide for themselves.

Generally, the goal of writers is to communicate what they have learned about life in an effort to help society improve.  However, I feel like I am not the only person who rolls their eyes whenever they read something preachy with a booming moral message. The message of a story should not be encased in a single sentence because truth cannot be packaged in a few words. Instead, the entire story or book should shed light on the ethical concepts that the author wants to reveal. Although I am on the fence about a couple issues, there are many others that I feel strongly about and want to share with my readers.

Ok moving onto “Broccoli”, which I found highly entertaining. Broccoli is the term Anne assigned to Intuition—the soft, little voice that tells you what’s real. Your rational mind won’t get you far in creative enterprises such as writing, so it is incredibly important that you learn to quiet the harsh, logical part of your brain and allow your subconscious to perk up, possibly for the first time since you were a child. A fabulous quote from Bird by Bird that I keep re-reading is: “The rational mind doesn’t nourish you… Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.” So stop doubting or second guessing your hunches. If you tell yourself that something that you want to write/paint/draw/dance/sing doesn’t make sense or won’t be popular or well-received by the masses, please tell your brain to shut the eff up.  You must allow yourself to be weird. "Listen to your broccoli."

Write Pages of Nonsense! Make a Mess!

{This post is part of an ongoing series that chronicles my thoughts/reactions to a book about writing called Bird by Bird written by Anne Lamott}

Today Anne Lamott told me that perfectionism will ruin my writing. “Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up,” she said. As I read that line, I can imagine the redundant words, the poorly used punctuation, and the unnecessary adjectives having an embarrassingly loud party all over my manuscript. 

I know that I’m supposed to embrace the notion of writing “shitty first drafts” as Anne so poignantly puts it, but I still fear that the grammar police are going to show up before I get a chance to edit anything and I will get in huge trouble for the mess and the noise that my nonsensical sentences and poorly thought-through phrases are having. It comforts me to know that Kurt Vonnegut said, “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” If he, as a literary icon, felt like his first drafts were ridiculous, then certainly I, who can barely use Microsoft Word effectively, can be excused for having a few run-on sentences.

Perfectionism must be conquered, because to write, you must write. This means that even on days when you are convinced that you are the worst writer in the world, or if your mind is utterly blank, or if you have a to-do list a mile long and your phone keeps buzzing and distracting you, you write. It might all be garbage, but that is ok. Somewhere deep in the dirty, smelly pile of garbage you wrote that day, there might be a diamond. There could be one sentence, or one concept, or one character that is absolutely brilliant, and the next time you write, you delete all the garbage (and exhale with relief because you evaded the grammar police again) and start polishing that diamond.

In the next chapter, Anne provides an example of how writing pages and pages of nonsense can get you to something valuable, something you can actually use. She had her writing students write everything they could remember about their school lunches. Surprisingly, they have a lot to say. She did this exercise along with them and shared bits of what she wrote. At some point, amid ramblings about bologna and lettuce, she mentions that there was always a strange kid against the fence. This kid by the fence was at the bottom of the totem pole, and as long as he was there, the other children felt safe from becoming social outcasts. This proved to be a very thought-provoking concept, and in essence, the gold nugget for which she was dredging dirt. All the descriptions of sandwiches and carrot sticks got her to remember the kid at the fence and gave her a unique character to explore.

The following chapter was about creating great characters. When I was preparing for National Novel Writing Month, I did tons of research on character building, so this chapter was a bit more of a re-cap for me than entirely new information. However, I like that Anne spelled out some specific characteristics that make narrators likable and believable, as opposed to just abstractly saying that they need to be likable. She cautioned against specific faux-pas to avoid. Despite having some knowledge in the art character building, I still learned a lot.

"Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life"

On January 10, 2015, I started reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It was in the Pandora’s box of writing books that my dad gave me for Christmukkah last month.

By the second page of the Introduction, I was hooked, but what I did not realize until several pages later, was that this woman I’d never heard of before would rip carefully placed bandages off my well-guarded heart.  

When I finish each page, I feel like an open-minded but vulnerable onion that's had a layer ripped off of it. It's enlightening, but kind of hurts. Every couple pages she states that writing won't bring me glory and fame, which I keep telling myself is fine (but in the back of my mind I know I am lying and will probably spend a couple years pouting about this), but she insists that all the hard work (the self-doubt, the hours spent looking at a blank screen, or worse, a screen filled with words you hate and don’t want to ever see again, much less meticulously edit) is not only worth it, but necessary. Writers need to get their thoughts out, so despite how terrible a writer one is, they need to do this. They need to pointlessly ramble on for pages and pages to eventually achieve something. For very few, that something is publication, but for others it is a sense of temporary relief because their stories, whether real or imagined, have finally flitted from their birdcage minds to the freedom of the open page.

Often, that page in their notebook or on their personal computer is the furthest those freedom-hungry words will ever go. And Anne Lamott says that is perfectly fine.

My goals during this journey of self-discovery through reading a mountain of books about writing are:

• To gradually improve my [poor] writing skills by forcing myself to write often, even when I don’t feel like it (which is what I did just now, and boy am I glad I did because apparently I had a lot to say about the 30 pages I read today). Learning to write is like learning to… well do almost anything – play a violin, or tennis, or World of Warcraft. You gotta practice. A lot. (Yes, gamers have to spend hours upon hours playing video games before they’re able to effectively pwn n00bs. It is a relevant example. So shut up.)
• To accept the very real possibility that I will probably never, ever get published, at least not traditionally. And if I do decide to self-publish, my novels may not do well. At all. Basically, I have to come to terms with the fact that E.L. James will always be a richer and more famous author than I will ever be, despite that, in literary terms, the 50 Shades of Grey series is completely and utterly…. (need to stop myself here because I could write a whole book about my thoughts regarding of the quality of the writing in her colorful trilogy). However, this isn’t to say that my dream of being published traditionally or at least, enjoy similar success from self-publishing, will ever vanish, regardless of how many rejection letters I receive.
• To learn as much as possible about the old, mysterious, magical art of writing from experienced, talented people who love it. To swallow and absorb every word so I can remember what I learned. And keep doing that, page after page, book after book.

What This Blog Is About

As I explained in my recent YouTube video "Book Haul + Exciting New Writing Project!" (which you can see here: http://youtu.be/Sm27aZoadkw ) I received a large box full of books about writing from my father for Christmukkah (Christmas + Hanukkah). I am determined to absorb every morsel of writing advice these books have to offer and this is how I'll do it: I am going to pretend that I am in a writing class and take notes on important passages or ideas that really speak to me, and every couple chapters or so, I am going to do a little write-up on my thoughts and what I need to remember from what I read and post it on here. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that maybe you lovely, internet-browsing people might like to see what I'm reading and what I think about it.

This blog will not only be about books and writing, though!! I absolutely hate the idea of reining myself in like that. I am going to post about all sorts of things such as: DIY craft projects, beauty products, fashion, cats, Jesus, movies, tattoos, anxiety disorders, my job as a nanny, and I just know there will end up being at least one embarrassing drunk post...

So if you are interested in any of those things, please Follow this blog and get a glimpse into my bear brain as I encounter new things and attempt to process them!

List of Books in the Box Dad Gave Me for Christmukkah:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block

Writing the Novel by Lawrence Block

Algernon, Charlie and I by Daniel Keyes

Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan

The Cat on My Shoulder

Roget’s Super Thesaurus

Roget’s Thesaurus of Phrases

On Language by William Safire

Writing for Magazines by Cheryl Sloan Wray

A Treasury of Tips for Writers from Writer’s Digest

Under the Duvet by Marian Keyes

Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See

Anybody Can Write by Roberta Jean Bryant

Stirring the Waters by Janell Moon

What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter

The Midnight Disease by Alice W. Flaherty

On Writing by Stephen King

The Fiction Dictionary by Laurie Henry

A Writer’s Paris by Eric Maisel

No Plot? No Problem! By Chris Baty

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Sing Me the Creation by Paul Matthews

Fondling Your Muse by John Warner