The beauty of a detour

Sometimes the best route is the one you didn’t plan on. When I was in NYC in 2004, I worked at an advertising agency in midtown Manhattan and I was living was on 125^th and riverside.

I walked from work twice that summer and it was amazing how wonderful it is to simply wander.

No route, no set path, just live the moment and enjoy.

The same probably applies to all things in life.

I’ve learned that detours often yield wonderful surprises and that the more flexible you are with your route, the better the journey often becomes.

Companies and people always focus on the fastest, the most direct and the most productive.

The thing is that the most enjoyable often needs a release of that stuckupness.

Sometimes the process is more important than the result. Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination. 

So next time you get sidetracked or lost, laugh it up. You might be stumbling onto some of your best memories you never knew you’d enjoy.

A-tonement

Tone often defines message more than content. Emotions deal in tone and not in wordcount and as a writer, I always do my best to pay special attention to tone. If you also happen to love music, the importance of tone gains even greater significance. 

In the barest of terms, to a guitarist, tone is everything.

Writers are similar. 

Regardless of the genre, some people have a particular tone to them and they can play with tone in countless ways. It’s not the same to hear a bubbly secretary say “hi!!!!” than it is to see Ross waddle into Central Perk and say “hi…….”

In life, we often catch or miss someone’s tone which leads to either confusion or understanding.

As a very audio oriented person, I am fascinated by tone because things we don’t want to say or things we want to say but can’t manage to spit out are all over our tone. It’s all about listening instead of hearing.

Hearing is just having something wander around your ear.

To listen requires paying attention, and that is one of the most human gifts you can give anyone. 

The two sexiest words to any author

The End.

When you are able to write down those words and know you’re done with a story and publish it, it is one of the greatest reliefs you could ever imagine. Mind you, you don’t need to write THE END, you just need to truly and fully finish something.

When you finish writing, it’s rewarding, but when you’re done with a project? Wow… just amazing.

For me, Only Human was an intense learning experience when it comes to truly being able to say I finished something.

I finished writing. Then came transcribing.

I transcribed. Then came editing.

I edited. Then came formatting.

Then registering copyright. Then submitting to the website where I sell my work. Then copy proof. Then receiving the final shipment. Then searching for reviews.

Before you know what’s happened, the book is live, it’s out there, you finished it… but you have to get it in front of people and you realize that there is never an end and that realizing such a thing is marvelous. 

So here’s to our neverending stories.

I love my mom’s boobs

Anyone who has read a dedication to one of my books knows I love my mom. If you’ve read Only Human, know that one of the characters is based on her (Mrs. Fawn)… and if you know me on a personal level, you know she’s truly one of the shining lights in my life and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.

Earlier this year she was diagnosed with breast cancer. So when I say I love my mom’s boobs, I mean it, sincerely. 

She went through months of chemo keeping a spirit, joie de vivre and elegance about her that only she could pull off. I saw her offer other patients love and support when she herself was feeling less than fantastic. I saw her at her best times and saw her at her not so best times. Throughout, she stayed focused and showed that you don’t need to be made of metal to be an Iron Woman.

A week and a half ago she underwent surgery, 5 hours of waiting to see if everything is Ok with my Mom. She came out of it in pain, though alarmingly lucid and aware. She wasn’t drugged out or out of it, she was just annoyed by the pain. She answered all questions asked as if it were the most normal thing. She drank water, asked for food and told me to get some rest. Then more waiting until we got the results to pathology tests. 

You don’t know how long a minute is until you have someone you love under the knife and you don’t know how much a day can drag until you’re waiting for results from a test that basically says, you’re done, you’ve won, or you still have three more rounds to go.

In her fight against cancer, my Mom just got the TKO Victory in the tenth. 

The tests came back negative.

She is a winner. 

She’s my winner. 

She’s my mom. 

When I say I love my mom’s boobs, I mean it. Part of me would say because they let my Mom live… the reality is that there was no mulligan, no easy route, no anything… my Mom won and she did it all while smiling.

So when I say I love my mom’s boobs, it’s because once again life’s adversities invited her to bring out the best she has to offer, to shine and to conquer… and she did just that.

Here’s to you Mom, 

Cheers

Method to Madness: the catharsis of emotional alchemy

When writing, we can receive inspiration from a myriad of sources. We can be reading or watching something or a song can catch our ear. Still, there’s nothing more powerful than experience and life itself… unfiltered, straight from the tap. Each of us has multiple wells from which to obtain the flow of our stories. Some are lovely, fun, sweet and caring, some are angry, some hurt to the bone.

In my life, I’ve lost many people I love to life and I’ve seen death up close many times. The closest was dad. I saw his process in his condition, the ups and downs and how eventually the final tide didn’t come back up. I saw his body and mind go through so many phases, so many processes, so many fears and doubts and I did what I could to do my part to help him.

During his final days, several things happened that may or may not be related to when he was able to get the release his soul demanded. One thing was that in his room, even with the AC on full blast, there was heat exuding… intense, profound heat… it wasn’t anything I’d ever felt before. It was raw energy swirling in that room. He was semi-conscious by this point and trying to be there for him was really all about being there for me. That’s the thing about taking care of a terminally ill person. You end up doing it for yourself, because part of you needs to know someone will be there if you’re ever in this state. Throughout this process, Mom was amazing and showed fortitude that still impresses me even though she continues to up the bar because that’s what Moms do apparently. The other thing that happened was that two days before he passed, we had a cage with two love birds that for no reason fell, the cage door flew open and both birds flew off. When my father passed away, his room was as cold as I think it’d ever been.

I’m agnostic by choice and a writer by need. I doubt in my existence and all that surrounds us while I use words to tell stories in my search for meaning. That week I found solace in my ability to commit my feelings onto paper and I still do to this day.  That’s because hindsight doesn’t only afford me perspective and the opportunity to learn, it is also a deep well of inspiration I dip into.

We all have our brand of pain and it’s healthy to express it somehow. It needs to be released because if we dam it in, it’ll slowly work its way through and crack your spirit. For me, occasionally visiting and understanding pain has been wonderfully rewarding and intensely healing. It’s not that I stop missing my dad, it’s just I can deal with it a bit better. The same with the rest of life, it’s not that I’m not frustrated, or sad, or melancholic or angry, it’s just that instead of being a burden, these are colors for the stories I paint. They’re there and it’s no surprise my life peeks through the pages of my stories, even if it’s in full makeup and hard to spot.

So next time you find yourself facing a block… think of life and allow yourself to remember the good and the bad, process it, feel it all around you, let it wrap your arm and let the ink of your soul flow onto the page.

Peace, love and maki rolls.