Self-discipline or lack thereof

In September, I took an online class called "How to Write 50 Books a Year." Not that the instructors actually expected you to write 50 books--the idea was increase your productivity by setting very specific, ambitious goals and then creating year-long spreadsheets, calendars, and various other businessy tools to track your progress toward them.

It seemed like a grand idea. So I did it.

And now I look at the damn calendar and feel so intimidated that I'm tempted to write fanfic, or read fanfic, or clean the bathtub, or do anything other than work on my books.

I'm coming, slowly but relentlessly, to the conclusion that I need an element of playfulness and mystery mixed in with the business of writing. Need to make time for poetry and other types of writing I love, but don't get paid for. Need to clean my altar and start lighting candles for the White Goddess again.

I still need to keep to a schedule, track my deadlines, and do all the appropriate businesslike things. But somewhere along the line, it's become such a business that I sometimes lose the joy. Sure, bad days are to be expected, but I've had too many lately. All too often I want to goof off, like I used to at my day job, when I'd often spend a lot of time surfing the internet or visiting the penguins and otters. (I worked at an aquarium. Awful job in some aspects, but wonderful people and of course fascinating and cute critters.) And really, if I'm making damn little money and working crazy hours on something that isn't bringing me joy more consistently than not, I ought to go back to non-profit management, where the damn little money at least arrived on a predictable schedule.

And since I don't want to do that (frankly I think my husband would chain me to my desk to prevent it, since I was so miserable at the job after the Aquarium)--time to find the joy again.

Next to consider: Am I working on the wrong projects? Too many different projects? In the wrong genres? I love the idea of erotic romance, but is it the right genre for me? Logically I think yes...so how come I can't finish a bloody novel?

Stay tuned!

Readings are always interesting...

A small crowd on a rainy Tuesday night at Good Vibrations (which is definitely not Grand Openings anymore, despite my continuing wish to call it that. More spacious, tidier, yet colder somehow). We had 8 people reading and maybe twice that number in the audience, including my brave husband, as far as we could tell one of two bioguys (for want of a better term to distinguish them from the several transmen) in a room mostly full of queer women of various flavors.

I read my burlesque-and-lingerie-love story, got a lot of appreciative laughs for my delivery (and possibly for my dress--I went in "high femme" mode in a slinky black velvet dress with a dragon print, fishnets, and bright red lipstick). Wide variety of stories, most good--almost all of them with a butch-femme twist, which I found interesting. I really felt like prefacing mine with "Here's a telegram from the land of Femme-Femme love." But I didn't.

It's tempting to digress into a huge essay about "dressing your part" in queer/alternative circles, which I find quite fascinating, but that, I think, belongs on the personal blog. Not being part of any "circle" except my own, I dress as I see fit, which ranges from pjs to haut-femme.

But anyway...the reading. Great fun, but as I was leaving, I checked out what people were buying. All sorts of fun toys and lotions and potions, leading me to believe that our reading was "effective" and that many people were going home to enjoy exciting evenings with their lovers--but not a single book.

Sigh!

Reading tomorrow at Good Vibrations in Brookline, MA

Heat Between the Sheets: Lesbian Erotica Reading
Tuesday, October 17,
8-10 pmfree
Good Vibrations (Formerly Grand Openings)
308-A Harvard Street (enter from rear parking lot)
Brookline, MA 02446
(from their web site)

Looking for some new one-handed reading? Want some stories that will take you from a simmer to a boil? Come join us for an evening of lesbian erotica that’ll be sure to inspire! Hosted by Sacchi Green, coeditor of Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Lesbian Cowboy Erotica and the upcoming Hard Road, Easy Riding: Lesbian Biker Erotica and Lipstick on Her Collar, this evening features authors Rakelle Valencia, Amie M. Evans, Chuck Fellows, Alicia E. Goranson,Val Murphy, Jake Rich & Teresa Noelle Roberts. They’ll read selections from their work and will definitely get your blood moving.

(from me)
Bring your friends. Bring your lovers. Bring your friends' lovers and your lovers' friends. I'd say bring your dog, but I'm not sure the store allows that. Buy books and support the alternative press, your friendly local toy store, and not incidentally, your friendly local authors!

Needless to say, this is an adults-only kind of deal. PersonallyI think teens should be free to read erotica and hear about/talk about sexuality, and that any barring of such should be done by parents, not laws--but we're stuck with these laws, so I'm giving my disclaimer.