Archive for the ‘Informational Stuff’ Category
Hope: Just Do It
It’s Sunday, and I was in need of spiritual sustenance. So I started thinking about hope, and its necessary qualities.
See, when you’re down, it’s hard to believe that anything matters. Life has given you a bunch of lemons, sour ones at that, and your attempts to make lemonade out of them don’t seem to be working…and it’s hard to believe in hope.
But you have to, because that’s when you need hope the most.
There’s a reason that hope was in Pandora’s Box. That one thing can make the difference between success and failure, because it reminds you that it’s all right to fail once in a while, just so long as you get up again.
It’s because of hope that I keep writing.
I realize that hope alone is not enough. But if I believe I have a good story idea, and do my best to flesh it out, I can use that hope and weld it to my will and work ethic to get something done.
I know this works. Because today, finally, after several weeks of illness and frustration, I did what was necessary and finished up my final edits with regards to my novel CHANGING FACES. My publisher has the file now, and aside from proofreading the PDF advance reader copy when it comes out (I’ll keep you posted on that), my work is now complete.
While I was feeling poorly, it was very hard to hope that I would be strong enough to do what was required. But I held on to my hope that I would do it, and I did it.
So that’s why the title above.
You need to believe in hope, because without hope, it’s nearly impossible to believe in yourself.
If you remember only one thing today, believe in this: Hope. Just do it. (For me. Please?)
Holidays, Grief, and Disappointment
Folks, as we all know, the holidays are upon us.
As I have written before (most recently last year, here), this is an awful time of year for anyone who has suffered losses. You can’t help but think about those you miss, especially when you have happy memories of better days when they were alive, well, and completely themselves.
I don’t have the answers for how to deal with this, despite having to deal with it for so long. As time passes, I know I’ll be grieving more and more people, and that’s the way life works — some of us keep going, and remember those who have passed before us, and try to honor their memories as best we’re able.
But that doesn’t make it easy.
In addition, because this is a highly-fraught time of year, any disappointment you receive at this time seems magnified. By a hundred, maybe, or even a thousand…it’s an illusion, mind, borne of the fact that you’re probably already under stress for various reasons, you’re expected to be “happy happy, joy joy” all the time at this time of year, and maybe you’re expending energy you didn’t realize you were using to stay on an even keel.
When I’m disappointed, whether it’s in someone else, myself, the world at large, whatever, I try to take a step back. Will this matter in a week? Will this matter in a month? Will this matter in a year?
If the answers to all of those questions are “no,” it’s a little easier to push past the disappointment.
“But Barb,” you say. “What is it about this time and people getting on each other’s nerves?”
Believe me, I wish I knew.
What I do know is that I try hard not to get upset by what other people do. Sometimes I observe this more in the breach than in its keeping, but I honestly do try.
OK, not everyone is going to be be what you want them to be. (Maybe no one is. Maybe you, yourself, aren’t, either.) Maybe you don’t have the life you want. Maybe nothing went right for you this year. And maybe, just maybe, you are having trouble hoping that tomorrow will be better than today.
That is normal, human, and you have to realize that other people feel the same damned thing.
So, yeah. This time of year is very hard for me. I feel almost as if I’m a chronic observer rather than completely in the mix of life and all its pleasures (and annoyances), and that’s only partly because I’m a writer and my observational skills have been heightened by years of practice.
All I can do, quite frankly, is endure the holidays. Get past them. And hope that 2017 will be a whole lot better than 2016.
Anyway, may we all treat our loved ones, friends, and co-workers gently at this time of year, and throughout the year…and may we all be richly blessed, one way or another.
Catching Up…
Folks, I realized I haven’t been here to let you know what’s going on for a few days…so I figured I should try to catch up.
What’s going on with me? Mostly, I’m spending my time editing, with a side order of writing…and the Racine Concert Band free summer concert season is about to start, so a little of that, too. (I play alto sax in the band.)
I’m also trying to work my way through a few problems, and it’s like gnawing on a particularly dense bone. It’s hard for me to know what to say, what I can say, what I should say…as I’ve said before, not all of the story is my own, and I don’t want to infringe upon anyone else’s privacy.
That said, my living situation remains in flux. I don’t know from day to day what’s going to happen — how this is any different than any other time, I can’t really tell you. (If you want to be philosophical, none of us knows from day to day what’s going to happen.) Except to say that I’d prefer a bit more stability in my life, that is…I think that would be highly conducive to creativity, at least in the short-term. (Then again, maybe I wouldn’t know what to do with all that serenity if I had it. Though I did well enough with my late husband, who exuded serenity, at least in my estimation…my hope is that I still would know, even after all this time.)
There have been many things that have caught my attention over the past week, including the death of college basketball coach Pat Summitt (one of the true icons in the field, and a pioneer in women’s history, someone who helped put women’s college basketball firmly on the map and gave it the same status as men’s basketball), a horrific bombing in Turkey, Donald Trump bloviating in Scotland about things he knows nothing about (in this case, the British vote to leave the European Union), and a nagging at the back of my mind that I really should write something about the Milwaukee Brewers of 2016.
So, don’t think I have lost interest in the world, or in blogging. It’s more that my focus is sharply directed elsewhere for a time. And because of that, I don’t have much to say…except that I’m glad you’re here, reading my blog, and paying attention to what I’m trying to do.
Have an enjoyable holiday weekend, folks.
SBR Is Back Up and Running…
Folks, the WordPress issues have been resolved, and Shiny Book Review (SBR for short, as always) is back up and running. And I will have a review this Thursday, which not-so-coincidentally is New Year’s Eve…
As this post says, the main difference for anyone following along with SBR is that our domain name has slightly changed. It’s now shinybookreviews (with an -s ending) dot com. But we’re not changing our name; this was done to fix the problems we were having, and for no other reason whatsoever.
Anyway, see you all on Thursday over at SBR!
Barb Caffrey's Blog 