On How Retail Prepared Me for My Career as a Writer

Le Principe du Plaisir - Rene Magritte (1937)

A friend of mine was posting on her Instagram earlier all about the twisty, winding path she's taken in life to get where she currently is. Today, she has her own highly successful wedding photography business, but years ago, when I first met her, she was a waitress.

In her post, she talked a bit about why she was a waitress for so many years despite hating the job -- the easy money and the way food service requires you to "hustle" a bit for your supper. She also touched on how being a waitress back then prepared her in many ways for what she's doing now, as the two businesses are a lot more alike than they probably seem at surface value. 

It got me thinking back on the many years I spent in retail. Aside from an extremely brief period of less than a year where I worked as a vet tech, pretty much all of the traditional time clock jobs I've had were ordinary retail jobs that are a dime a dozen. Like my friend, I absolutely loathed what I was doing, and just thinking about doing it for the rest of my life depressed the shit out of me. I don't know that I'd be as good at working for myself (or at writing) as I am without that as part of my background, though.

The Sunset of Another Year

I can't believe Christmas is on Tuesday, nor does it seem possible that it's nearly time to say good-bye to yet another year. My relationships to both my biological and extended families are strained at best (where they're existent at all), so the holidays always bring up some weird feelings for me. However, this year I also have this wonderful feeling of accomplishment to help balance some of that.

I'm realizing that at one point, I got pretty used to feeling like a fuck-up. Every December usually finds me painfully aware of the fact that yet another year has slipped by without my accomplishing anything of note. Anything to be proud of. Nothing I've done to make my life better or truly move forward toward any of the long-term goals I like to claim are so important to me.

But not this year. This year, I can look back on a year I spent diligently improving myself. I've been exercising every day. I've been eating well. I've been taking amazing care of myself, both inside and out. I've been learning, reading, praying, and worshiping. (I am learning German, among other things!) I feel beautiful, and confident, and strong. I can honestly say I am finally growing into a woman I am proud to be and cultivating an image I'm unashamed to show to the rest of the world, either casually or in regards to something that's more serious.

Take last weekend, for instance. I've sort of made friends with one of our Instacart shoppers over Facebook recently and she asked to meet me in person last Saturday. (Normally I do the shopping and handle the orders, but Seth gets the door for the shopper in the event the delivery includes alcohol and needs to be signed for.) I'll probably never be the most voluntarily social person in the world, but it was really nice not to feel like I literally can't show my actual face to anyone because I've let my weight, hygiene, and grooming routine slide too far out of control for too long. Despite wearing boxer shorts and absolutely zero make-up, I felt like a normal human being saying hello to a friend who wanted to see me and that was really nice for a change.

On Transformations, Pride, and Self-Love

It looks like Blogger finally got around to purging the old, extraneous blogs I deleted a few months ago. I certainly wasn't planning on reviving them or anything, but it still feels a little bittersweet to actually see that they're really and truly gone. With them go the fractured little pieces of me that they contained back when I was still not really sure who I was or what I wanted to be going forward.

To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure, but I do know I no longer have the time or energy to try to be all things to all people. I like that there is really only one of me these days. I'm still the reader, and the writer, and the lover, and the passionate home cook, and the closet spiritualist. I'm just all of those things at the same time now. It feels like a right proper place to be. Grounded, stable, and lots of other words I never would have used to describe myself a few years ago.

My phone's image gallery is full of selfies these days. I don't even share most of them with anyone else, but I consider it a very good sign that I've felt moved to take them at all. Historically speaking, I photograph things I'm proud of or pleased by. If I'm taking pictures of myself, that must mean I've reached a place where I feel proud of how I look again. I'm certainly proud of how well I've been taking care myself so far this year. My fit body and my beauty were things I never fully appreciated the last time I actually had them, so it's nice to feel the way I imagine other people would feel about those things. I love the ways I've been changing and I get excited every time I realize that things will only get better from here.

Writing Lab: Tell or Be Told

Prompt: "Do you like to observe things for yourself, or do you prefer people to tell you things?"

I prefer to observe things for myself. I don't trust other people's ability to be observant enough to paint an accurate picture of something that's happened. I really don't trust others not to embellish or twist facts to suit agendas of their own. Far too many people get creative when telling stories because they want to look like a hero or seem better than they actually are.

When I really want or need to know something specific, I probably don't have the time or the patience to sort through whatever was said and make guesses as to how much of it was bullshit. I want to know the facts so I can get right to work making decisions, writing articles, or whatever else I may be looking to do based on the situation. If I do my own homework and make my own observations, I never have to doubt the reality of the situation, as I trust myself implicitly.

Writing Lab: Full of Stories, Full of Stars

Head of a Young Woman - Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Prompt: "Do you have a lot of untold stories inside of you? How do you feel carrying them around?"

Well, any writer is full of stories to at least some extent and I'm certainly no exception. I don't get writer's block as far as ideas go. I'd even go so far as to say that I come up with at least a couple of viable new ideas a week. However, I'm not terribly disciplined about doing much with any of them. Some of that has to do with how much of my writing energy gets poured into things for my clients these days, but the rest of it is just sheer laziness and apathy.

That said, I do have a lot of untold stories living inside of me to one extent or another. How does it make me feel? Perpetually bloated and full, like a person feels when they overeat at Thanksgiving. On the one hand, there's a satisfaction to feeling that full, because when you're full you're the very furthest thing from empty. On the other, it can be incredibly uncomfortable at the same time. You know it's not normal or healthy to be overstuffed to that extent. I do talk about ideas and whatnot to some extent, which helps. However, verbal conversation and Facebook are really no substitutes for proper stories and poems written on the regular.

The Best Things in Life

Goldie Hawn with Hamburger  in 1964

Sometimes I legitimately forget that I have blogs I can type in when I have thoughts I'd like to share or little tidbits of what I'd like to think of as wisdom to pass on to anyone that happens to be listening at the time. I still have lots of thoughts. I still share them. I guess I just did the thing and started doing most of my everyday sharing on Facebook like everyone else.

My thoughts tend to come to me spontaneously, usually while I'm busy absorbing someone else's content. Watching a movie, reading, catching up on the news, or looking at images that roll through my Facebook feed. If I have more to say on a topic, It doesn't occur to me to use them as jumping off points for longer posts somewhere else. I'll just add a two-sentence comment of my own and share it on Facebook.

But since today found me reading part of something brilliant penned by an extremely talented friend and immediately thinking "why doesn't he share this someplace other people can actually read it", I thought I might try practicing what I preach for a change. So here I am. Today, anyway.

........

This picture of a young Goldie Hawn rolled through my Facebook feed a little earlier today and I liked it, of course. I always seem to like photos of people enjoying good food. Especially vintage photos. Especially vintage photos of beautiful, vivacious people enjoying what I like to think of as "real food". Most get a share from me without a second thought. It's more for personal reasons and less because I'm a connoisseur of great photography though (although I do appreciate that too).

Quality Over Quantity

As usual, the beginning of another month has simply sped by and I'm just kind of left wondering what happened. I can't believe we're already ten days into November. Really, I'm going to take too long turning around one of these days and it will be Thanksgiving. Such is life when you keep relatively busy, I suppose.

As you may already be aware if you ever check in with me at my freelancing blog, The Creative Cat, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year for the first time in several years, as I finally have time for it, at least in theory. I'd been trying for some time to get my entire client base to a point where everyone I work with is paying premium pricing for my content and earlier in the year, I finally succeeded. I've been able to cut my overall workload in half as a result, meaning I now have actual time for creative endeavors of my own. 

I have to say, actually having time for something like NaNo in particular has been really pleasant. I'm working on a short story and poetry collection called Jar of Lies and so far it's going pretty well. I'm really happy with some of the ideas and think quite a few of them have some real potential. Others are just plain fun to work with, which is also OK. I'm a little bit behind on my word count at present, but it's nothing that I won't be able to easily make up this week. I don't actually have a deadline on the books for today, so should be able to make a nice, big dent in it this afternoon sometime.

On Emotional Honesty, Priorities, and Being True to One's Self

It always seems that the more I have on the agenda for work on a given day, the more I actually feel like writing something of my own instead. A blog entry, usually, or a bunch of shorter social media updates... but occasionally a snippet of a longer story, a piece of flash fiction, or a poem. Usually, I react to those thoughts the way I was taught to -- by telling myself I need to get "the important stuff" out of the way first and then if I have time later on, I can spend what's left of my energy doing things I actually want to do.

The trouble with that approach to writing is that nothing expressive or passionate ever actually gets written. There's always something else to do that "needs" to get done or that society would label as more important. By the time I get to the point in my day when I'm out of things to do, it's the wee hours of the morning and I'm exhausted, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. The last thing I want to do at that point is write some more.

In fact, I'm constantly wondering if maybe that "work first, play later" is actually the wrong approach. For me, anyway. It certainly feels like the wrong one. One of these days, maybe I'll learn that it's OK to be someone that makes decisions based on how they feel and not how good they look on paper or how many of the right people sign off on them. When I just allow myself to give the first hour or two of my writing day to something that I'd actually like to write, I don't resent having to work as much as I normally do. I resent the need to earn money less, since it no longer encroaches upon my self expression.

Music on the Wind: A Yearly Tradition

This past weekend, the First City Music Festival was in town. Seth and I briefly considered getting tickets months ago when I first found out Beck would be headlining, but at the end of the day, we decided we'd be better off saving the money for other things. We attempted to see if we could get press passes, as we did want to cover the concert for some of our media outlets, but things didn't quite come together in time. 

That said, we decided to engage in something that has honestly become a much loved tradition for us. Something we affectionately call our "Music on the Wind" concert series. We're lucky enough to live so close to the fairgrounds that when there's a concert down there major enough to warrant a spot on the Redwood stage, we can totally hear it from our porch. And when I say we can hear it, we can totally hear it. It's loud. You can hear all of the lyrics well enough to sing along if you want. Especially when the wind from off of the bay is blowing in the direction it normally is -- right toward our house.