Let it be wild. Let it be weeds.

Oh honey, you don't need anything tidy - that's for dang sure. Let it be wild. Let it be weeds. Time to paste some tears to the bathroom floor. and Time to burn some stuff. Make some ashes and roll in them.

, "Let it be Weeds," by akka b.

For my 13th birthday, I asked for, and received, one of my favorite gifts ever: a canary-yellow, two-drawer, metal filing cabinet.

I am a lady who likes order. Control, some might say. (They'd be right.)

But you cannot control everything. I may take stabs at doing so, I may play at it, but if there are two things I learned during my bloody epiphany, they are that (1) no one can control anything, and (2) this is a good thing, as generally, human beings do not dream big enough.

This bit of wisdom, received within hours of my 41st birthday, was almost as good as the filing cabinet.

Almost.

* * * * *

I spent most of last week alternately hiding and putting myself front-and-center. And of course, most of what I was hiding from was having to put myself front-and-center.

It is not so much that I dislike being front-and-center as it is that I quake at the thought of doing it imperfectly. Which, well, you know.

But now it is time, or almost time, to announce that Big Scary Thing I've only alluded to up until now. It will mean putting myself front-and-center, nay, hanging my ass out in the breeze, as I have never done before. It will mean committing to a degree of work that's daunting even to someone who enjoys work. It will definitely mean doing things a whole lot less than perfectly, and ceding wide swaths of control.

It will also mean asking for help, far, far more than I've asked for already. Which is where (hopefully) you come in.

* * * * *

On September 13, 2011, I will be 50 years old. To mark the occasion, I am planning rather a Big Thing. Not a party, exactly, nor a trip, and certainly not a present in the traditional sense. For now, best to leave it at "Big Thing." Or, as I've already said, a "Big Scary Thing." A thing so big, I cannot get my arms around it.

Will it be a fun thing? I think so! Fun and scary are not mutually exclusive, and if you don't believe that, you haven't fallen in love lately. Or ridden in the front seat of the front car on Space Mountain. Or spoken before a crowd, or asked to pet a passerby's dog (did you know that sometimes they say "no!"?), or put it all on black.

So. If you'd like to get in on this probably fun (for everyone), definitely scary (for me) thing before I announce it to the world, sign up here. I could use the moral support, if nothing else, and really, I'm not asking for anything yet. The only thing I'm asking for now is that you not divulge anything before it goes live. In two weeks from today.

Two weeks. From today.

I think I just made myself sick.

xxx c

Image by Andrew Currie via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #59

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

"Simply put: you do not get to build a magazine around making women feel inadequate and then express astonishment and pity when they comply." Outstanding and articulate rant. [Facebook-ed, via jaime wurth]

Michael Caine sounds just like this. Or, wait, maybe like this. [YouTube-d, via delia lloyd]

Replace "writer" with "small, creative business" and this is pretty much my whole rationale for why I will not do someone's marketing for them, only with them. [delicious-ed]

Sebastian Marshall makes a great case for forums (fora?) being the finest places on the web in which to actually learn things. [Stumbled]

xxx c

Image by elswatchoboracho via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Advice to a young aspiring writer

As I love getting email, I respond to pretty much all of it. I mean, fair is fair, and as long as I can manage it, that seems fair.

What I almost never do is share my replies with anyone but the sender. This is not, after all, an advice blog, nor am I an advice blogger. With the exception of my correspondence with actors, most of whom find me via my monthly marketing-for-actors column, and whose questions I solicit for the express purpose of helping as many of their fellow performers as possible, I expect people write to me with the assumption that what we talk about will remain between us.

So when this young, would-be writer emailed me about writing, and without expecting a reply, which is the only way to write someone for advice cold, I began my reply to him and only him. Until at some point, probably 75-85% of the way in, I realized not only that what I was saying to him was potentially applicable to all kinds of other people, but that it was really the advice I wish I'd been sensible enough to ask for and fortunate enough to receive when I was a young, aspiring writer.

Which is why I'm sharing it here. There is no shortage of advice to young, would-be writers, just as there is no shortage of older, somewhat-established writers to give it to them. Most of it boils down to the same thing: write a lot, read a lot, don't quit your day job, pursue your truth relentlessly.

Then again, there are only seven stories in the entire world, yet we seem to want to keep hearing new takes on them. You never know what version of the story will work for you, just like you never know whose Heathcliff will finally make you understand Cathy's despair. (This one, for now.)

For now, I've removed all identifying features. If the young, aspiring writer in question wants to wave, he'll do so; he's been welcomed, privately, in a note with a few additional, private words.

But the message serves even with the particulars removed. At least, that is my sincere hope.

Pass it on.

* * * * *

Dear Young Aspiring Writer:

You ask me how you're doing as a writer. You ask me to review the pieces you sent me (which you sent as links, not attachments, for which I thank you), or one of them, and to give you my assessment of your writing talent.

Essentially, what you are asking me is whether or not you should be a writer, something you have no training in, but a hankering for, or whether you should, as you put it, "stick with business and be mediocre."

I don't need to look at the pieces you sent me. Your note tells me all I need to know about whether you should be a writer or not: you want to write, ergo you should be a writer. Done! (Wasn't that easy?)

However, I suspect you may actually have asking me something else, something along the lines of "Do I have the talent to make it as a writer?" where make it equals getting money, attention, beautiful ladies (or gents) (or both) throwing themselves at you. The answer to that question is, "I've no idea." Most of whether you'll make it as a writer has to do with how much you want it, and how much that translates into you working your ass off, i.e. reading enough (hint: there is never "enough" when you want to be a writer) and writing enough (hint: you should write every day, as much as you can, with 250 words a rock-bottom minimum) and busting through of your own blocks enough (hint: take a good acting class and/or get into therapy).

Also, experiences: you need lots of them. Along with time, to let them stew and simmer together and become a part of your very being. And fellow travelers, both of the writing variety and other folk who are equally passionate about whatever their "thang" is.

If you want to be a writer, you will write. You will write regardless of anything else you're also doing. Being a writer and being a business dude (or lady) are not mutually exclusive, viz. Wallace Stevens, among others.

If you want to be a journalist, well, you will have to immerse yourself in that particular end of the writing pool. And work your ass off, and do all of the things I mention above. As my gal Beverly Sills so wisely said,

There are no short cuts to any place worth going.

But this I will say for sure: no matter what you end up doing with your life, do not go into that thing thinking being mediocre is okay. It's not; it's the worst kind of bullshit. Mediocre isn't mediocre: it sucks. It's close to planned, intentional evil, because it's a pissing-away of potential, a waste of life. And life is precious, young man, not a thing to be wasted.

You can have a survival gig and still pursue your dream of supporting yourself doing something you love more. I would prefer you start thinking of it now as "having a job that is satisfying in some way that writing is not" as opposed to some crap job. Even the crappiest crap job should be feeding you somehow: with experience, with a practice. You can learn a lot about patience or humility or managing up or any number of things from a Stupid Day Job. Sometimes you can learn that and a bankable skill: I learned as much from my job as a low-wage glorified gofer in a media-buying agency as I did from my 10 years as a highly-paid copywriter.

So, again, if you are a writer, you will write. You will also read, voraciously, because that is writer-food. Read crap, so you know what it is, and read in the area you want to write for, but also read the best of the best: the novelists, the playwrights, the essayists, the poets, the columnists, the philosophers who are enduring. Don't ever let me catch you anywhere without reading material. (If it is helpful, think of the world as a giant bathroom, and you as always having to go. You're welcome.) And you must always make certain that a certain percentage of what you read is books. They need not be physical books, the definition of "book" has changed much in the past five years, and will continue to change much in the next five, but they need to be of substantial length, and read offline, with some concentration. This will help your brain knit itself together properly, get those neurons fired up and linking.

Okay, one small note on the pieces you sent me. Well, one of the pieces. Or rather, a part of one of them, I did not get all the way through. Because the one I read a bit of was imitative of a thing you think you want from where you're standing now, instead of the thing you really and truly want, which is to WRITE. To connect with other human beings through words.

That desire, to WRITE, came through clearly and strongly and plainly and simply and compellingly in your email to me. It came through so compellingly, in fact, that I ended up writing you this long-ass reply when, arguably, I didn't have to write you any reply, and when I most definitely had a lot of things to do before I had any business sitting down to write a reply. Any writing that triggers a response that is both passionate and considered I would argue is good writing. Sensationalist writing, the kind that is done merely to incite passion (or to garner attention and page views), is not something to aspire to, unless you're looking for short-term successes and an anxiety-ridden life from constantly chasing something outside of yourself.

Now. A note on imitation. There's nothing wrong with imitating other writers. If you peeked in my old 1980s journals, you'd find writing that reeked of Oscar Wilde or Frederick Barthelme or whatever other writer I was obsessed with in the moment, along with every short-story writer for the New Yorker from 1975 - 1988, emphasis on "reeked." We learn by imitating. Hell, sometimes we learn by outright copying: there's a whole school of Writing Thought that prescribes writing out the contents of your favorite book in their entirety, just to have the feel of making something great. I'm not saying this isn't worthwhile, either; I think there has to be some benefit to copying out The Great Gatsby, if only that it slows you down enough to really take in the story.

But my point is this: imitating other people is the place to start, not to finish. Imitating other people for too long, or as more than an interesting exercise, makes for disposable writing. The work of finding your voice is work. Not altogether unpleasant work, but effortful and time-consuming and...well, weird. Because it's you, hacking through the wilderness rather than you, following a well-lit, well-paved road with plenty of markers and traffic. There's no GPS for finding your own voice except your own inner voice, how things resonate within your heart, and this can be kind of crazymaking along the way. Never fear! Or, fear and sally forth, regardless! This goes for whether you want to write "serious" stuff or what certain stuffy serious writers might call "fluff" or even "crap." There's plenty of fun, interesting writing with a strong voice in pop journalism; that's what makes for great reviews and commentary, for great food writing, for great humor writing, for great sports writing. There is great writing in every genre, although you may have to do some work to ferret it out. (Hint: it's not always what's the most obvious and/or popular.)

So the answer to your original question, Young Writer, as to whether you have a talent for writing, a gift for writing, is really more "who cares?" than "yes" or "no" or "who knows?" It's immaterial. If you have a talent for writing and don't write, you will never be a writer, much less a great one. Whereas if you have no talent for writing, you may well find out that you have a talent for something else through writing, because by really applying yourself to writing, you'll find your truth. And either that truth will be "Hey, I'm a writer!" or "Hey, I'm not a writer!" You won't know until you've slogged away for a bit. As a girl I liked writing and drawing and performing pretty much equally, but over time, it became clear that I was a writer. How? Because I wrote and I drew and I acted, and guess what, I wasn't a draw-er or an actor!

Given the handful of details you've shared in your note to me, especially that you lit on the idea of being a writer at age 9 and gave it up as impractical at 18, I suspect you are a writer. In my experience, the things people believe they are when they're about 9 or 10 end up being the things they truly are. Some of us may take the long way around the barn (raises sun-damaged, vein-y hand), but we circle back to it eventually. I think it might be that at 9 or 10, we have the perfect balance of awareness and freedom in between being a blob-like mass and feeling the need to conform and be sensible. As an adult, you do need to be sensible if you want to keep that Great Finish Line in the Sky as far away as possible.

And that goes double for adults who want to live the long life of a writer. The starving-artist myth is bullshit, as are the myths of the tortured artist, the crazy artist, and the hopelessly-drunk artist. It's the reasonably-well-fed, clothed and housed artist with some love, peace, fun and sanity in her life who makes it to the end. Along with my Beverly Sills quote, I am recently loving this one from Gustave Flaubert:

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

In other words, yay! for dental hygiene and a good night's sleep. And for day jobs, while we're at it.

For now, see if you can apply yourself to your writing and your day job. Pick a reasonable mix, 25/75, 15/85, and go for it. If you can't do even that much of your own writing on the side, you may need to find another clock to punch. If that happens, try to pick one that will either teach you some valuable skill (there are many!) or that will free up your brain to work ideas out in your head while you do your job (and that doesn't make the world a worse place, those jobs will kill you).

And write, every day. Read, every day. Find support from fellow travelers to build up your tolerance for dealing with people who may be less than supportive.

You can do this. I hope you will.

xxx c

UPDATE(s): My buddha-tea-boy in PDX, Jason, invoked the canonical bit of writer-to-writer handoff advice/encouragement, Letters to a Young Poet.

Also, I just finished listening to an outstanding episode of Back to Work that addresses a lot of this sort of doubt-and-keep-going stuff. It's not up on the 5by5 site yet, but it will be Episode #23, possibly named "Failure is ALWAYS an option" (you'll have to listen for context, and there's a lot of nerd stuff that may or may not be interesting, depending on how you hoe your row. If I listen again, I'll try to remember to mark the salient bit.)

Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #58

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

The best (to date) in Kirby Ferguson's outstanding "Everything Is a Remix" series, if this 10-minute video on The Elements of Creativity doesn't get you fired up about making something, I don't know what will. [Facebook-ed]

What would happen if you overlaid an a cappella soundtrack to the lobby scene in The Matrix? Something exactly like this. [YouTube-d]

Best part of being at the tail end of a bulging demographic? All of those front-end baby boomers are looking for cues that being old does not mean giving up being stylish. [delicious-ed, via Marilyn Maciel]

The "over-under" debate dissected and diagrammed. Although anyone knows that the correct answer is "over." [Tumbled, via Sean Bonner]

xxx c

Image by gelatobaby via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

On becoming a reliable conduit

Once upon a time in a dingy Hollywood studio far, far away, I took my very first acting class.¹

I was there because it had been suggested to me by my improv teacher that while my writing was passable, my ability to convey actual human emotion onstage was somewhere between "painful to behold" and "chair", and that if I wanted a chance at surviving the increasingly brutal cuts up the ladder, I should hie my civilian ass to an acting school now.

I wanted that chance, all right, and a whole lot more. Things I wouldn't admit out loud: to be rich, for example, and famous, and the envy of anyone I'd ever envied. But also things I couldn't articulate yet because it would be years until I understood them: to tell the Truth, to serve with meaning, to live. I'd wanted all of these things, the ignoble and the good, so very much and for so very long that when I stepped up to work on my very first exercise in this new acting class, I was like a human funnel for raw, super-concentrated desire. It was, by all accounts afterward, electrically exciting to watch.

The next week, I got up in class to do the same exercise again and I sucked. Hard.

And continued to suck, over and over, week after week. Well, that's not completely true: occasionally, something...magical happened, and I did not suck. On certain of these rare occasions (and, significantly, when I was either exhausted, well-coached, or both), I could move emotion as well as the most skilled members of the class. The difference was that, unlike them, I had zero control over this ability; it would either be there or it wouldn't. The experience was not unlike showing up every week for a bus that might take you on a champagne-and-donut-filled ride to Disneyland, or that might drive you to the wrong side of town, strip you down to your underwear, dump you by the side of the road and make you find your way home. At night. In December.

Finally, after about a year, I became reliably good at the exercises. Never brilliant, like that first day, not once, ever again, but good enough that people didn't shrink from being assigned me as a scene partner. One of them even suggested it might be time to move to another class, a more advanced class at a different studio.

I checked it out, enrolled, and promptly reverted to sucking. Immediately, this time, without even the whispery hope of a first, great at-bat to see me through the humiliating 18-month slog to the next plateau.

* * * * *

Here is the mission statement I came up years ago, sometime after my bloody epiphany but before I started dating things so I could place them later:²

To be a joyful conduit of truth, beauty and love.

I've since been taken to task by my more focused friends (i.e., all of them) for establishing an overarching goal of the mushier variety, my goal does not stand up well to the heat and pressure of daily life, nor does it offer many clues as to what "done" looks like. (If you spy any, let 'er rip.) It's even difficult to hold opportunities and projects up against a "goal" like that to see if they're a good match. Or rather, too many things end up being a good match, and I miss out on the kind of focused intent required to build empires.

Then again, I'm coming around to the idea that empires are a lot like boats, vacation homes, and fancy cameras: it's nicer to have friends who have them than to deal with the upkeep yourself.

* * * * *

There is a wonderful novel I read last fall that haunts me still. It's called All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost, and if the horrible title doesn't put you off of reading it, maybe this will: it's about the life trajectories of two students of a masters program in poetry. (I know, right?)

Maybe after I've read it a few more times, I will be able to write a real review that does it justice. For now, the salient point is this: the author uses these two intertwining stories, one of a graduate who achieves early acclaim and concomitant financial rewards, the other of his friend who does neither, to paint as fine a picture as I've ever seen about choices, consequences, and the day-to-day costs of "success" (deliberately left in quotes). This is a chief gift of art, its ability to bypass logic and pierce the heart of the viewer, or reader, with truth through the use of meticulously crafted obliqueness. Great art may be the ultimate in teaching a man to fish: when someone connects the dots themselves, the resulting pattern truly belongs to them.

Communicating on this level, like any kind of deliberate transfer of emotion, requires off-the-charts levels of mastery. In order to do it well and consistently, provisions must be made. By the artist. At what sometimes look like extraordinary costs.

Don't kid yourself, though: there's a cost to everything. It's only the currency that varies, and the payment plan.

xxx c

P.S. Looking for links to old posts I could not find did turn up this and this (from 2008!) on the rather annoyingly sloggy slog this kind of work can be. Then again, I also found this (from 2005!) and this, which provide some actual, concrete steps one can take to ease the pain of conduit-refinery. The blog giveth, and the blog taketh away.

¹I'd actually taken some acting classes as a kid, and even one in college. But this was the first one I'd taken where I wasn't, you'll pardon the pun, just playing around. I really and truly wanted to be an actor. Stakes change the game.

²I worry sometimes that this portends a future for myself fluttering with yellow sticky notes placed on everything, like that man who mistook his wife for a beret or just a garden-variety Alhzeimer's victim. Given how much I fear winding up with a faulty mind in an unbroken body, you'd think I'd be better about floating it in warm baths of alcohol, caffeine and sugar. Let us just say that my capacity for tricking myself has grown right alongside my other abilities.

Image by Matalyn via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #57

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

A writer plays with Instagram. [Google Reader-ed]

Why "funfeminism" is neither fun nor feminism. Great, great true-life stories in the comments thread. [Stumbled]

Minimalism and frugalism can overlap, but they're two decidedly different things. [delicious-ed]

Blowhards, exposed as "humblebraggers." [Facebook-ed, via Mike Monteiro]

xxx c

Image by aless&ro via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Love, communist style

Several years ago, during the dawn of the Social Media Age, I ran into someone I knew ever-so slightly from the blogging circuit at one of the nerd conferences people on blogging circuits tend to run into each other at. A kind of a celebrity-hero of early Web 2.0, albeit an accessible one.

Many of us were new to the internets back then, but I was also a neophyte in the ways of networking. As I got out from behind my keyboard, along with the introverts, freaks and social misfits I'd been expecting, I also discovered these odd hybrids: pseudo-nerds, or nerd-friendlies, who in their previous, pre-Internet lives had picked up the interpersonal skills I'd somehow managed to avoid acquiring in over 40 years as a human being. These people were upbeat and genial and welcoming, and I always sank gratefully into their company. They knew what to say and what to do; they were able to move through the world with at least outward confidence while putting other people at ease.

So of course I paid attention to the things they did and said, absorbing and parsing constantly: What things did they inquire about? What things did they offer up? How did they introduce mutual acquaintances? Or new topics? Or sustain a conversation? Or exit one?

It was exhausting, but useful.

I began engaging people this way myself, with...unusual results. My heartbeat would speed up. I'd feel dizzy, like the world got wobbly or a haze suddenly descended. It was a little unnerving, sure, but I wrote it off as inexperience, change is hard!, and resolved to try, try again.

Which is where I was at when I finally met my kind-of celebrity/hero: nervous, but trying. Awkward, but trying. I screwed my courage to the sticking point and said "hello." Clearly not one for small talk, he generously put up with my wobbly attempts at it. Until finally, when I had wandered so far of the res of my own groundedness that the room was practically spinning around me, I asked the question that was so foreign to me just the thought of saying it could trigger an out-of-body experience:

"So, (Celebrity-Hero of Web 2.0), tell me: What can I do to help you?"

Whereupon he sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, "Seriously? 'What can I do to help you?' Seriously? This isn't you. What are you doing?"

I froze. And then two things happened.

First, I wanted to disappear. Because I was humiliated and angry and humiliated. This produces in me an urge to make everything go away, starting with myself.

Second, I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him. Because he was right, and I was free. I never had to ask that stupid fucking question again as long as I lived.

* * * * *

Before the rock-hurling and/or tribal shunning commences, let me make myself very clear: helping is a good thing. I am pro-helping. I help people; you help people; Celebrity-Hero of Web 2.0 helped (and probably still helps) people. We'd better all be helping each other, or every last one of us is doomed.

There's also nothing wrong with asking what you can do to help someone, if that is what it takes for you to really help someone. Asking is a marvelous way to gather useful intelligence with which to shape your loving and generous impulses. I mean, who hasn't gotten a crappy graduation gift from Uncle Fritz, right? Or attended a pot luck with four desserts and no casserole?

Where it gets tricky is when the helping is "helping": asking how you can help as your secret judo way of soliciting it for yourself, or asking when you have zero intention of following through. This is the kind of "helping" that gives helping a bad name, and unfortunately, it's as rampant as hollow, meaningless inquiries into the state of one's health.

Additionally, let me say that the first two people I heard ask me this question meant it. 100%. Short of my asking for a pony or other unrealistic deliverable, they would have agreed and come through (and possibly never asked for anything else, ever.) Both of them are people who are much in the world, who have exceptionally large hearts and energy to match. They are hardy. They are robust. If they have hidden agendas, they're being served with scraps from the main table. It works for them.

I, on the other hand, don't work that way. And by that I mean I seem to shrivel up with too much giving, the same way I do if I have too much social interaction. I have to be judicious in my offers of help if I want to make good on them, which I do, if only because violating Agreement #1 makes me feel so rotten. So I am careful about how I offer help, and to whom, and when. It is not as much as some people would like, and it is even less than that on Twitter.

Do I wish I could do more? Oh, yes.

I also wish that I could be 5'9", eat anything, and sing like Ella Fitzgerald. I don't think those are going to happen anytime soon, either.

* * * * *

People love to make a great noise about the importance of hewing to your path. There is a fair amount of literature out there on the noble struggle involved. But rarely do we get into the gruesome details of how doing your own thing will make you feel on a day-to-day basis.

Like crazy, for starters. Alone and crazy. Mean and crazy. Selfish and crazy. Stupid and crazy. Wrong and crazy.¹

Part of the reason you feel these things is because people will intimate that you are these things, if they don't say it outright. Most of the time they do this because it makes them feel less crazy, less alone, less mean and selfish and stupid and wrong and fallibly human. On a good day, I can get down with this and even approach something I suspect might be what compassion feels like. On an average day, I rise to the bait, real or implied, and beat myself up. (On a bad day, I attack...and then beat myself up.)

The other part of the reason is the always-on, 24/7, city-that-never-sleeps effect of the Internet. That thing that brought you together with fellow travelers whose existence you only dreamed of before Usenet or AOL.com or whatever point you plugged into the matrix can also make you feel very alienated from the rest of the world. Here, someone is always up, always happy, always shipping. It's a dangerous place for comparing insides (yours) to outsides (theirs) and subsequent mimicry. It gets loud up in this bee-yotch.

* * * * *

Right now, I am liking this definition of help: love, externalized. Love in motion, love in action. One reason I like it is that it takes help out of the land of tit-for-tat transactions. I grew up with both plenty of love and plenty of help, possibly more than my fair share, but trust me, a strict accounting was kept at all times.

Today, I am having fun, actual FUN, noticing how help flows out and shows up. As free guest rooms and rides to the airport. As secretly-picked-up tabs and comped coffees. As database advice and emotional support, as quiet letters and cheery introductions, as tomatoes and tips, as labor and hilarious jokes. Maybe someone with a very, very high up view could make sense of this strange economy, but down here, it starts to look like magic.

Am I done forever with mutual backscratching? Probably not. I wouldn't even say there's not a place for it, again, my view is myopic and low to the ground.

But I am increasingly in love with the idea of love flowing from each of us according to our abilities, and to each of us according to our needs. This is the kind of help I want to give and to get: love, communist style.

I think it can happen in business. I think it can happen on Facebook. I think it could make for an amazing world to live in, if can let each other let each other.

If I can let myself be myself.

xxx c

This piece was inspired in part by an incredibly helpful and well-written little book by Bindu Wiles about how to write for the Internet. Yes, really. As I read it, I kept saying "Yup" and "Yup" and finally, "Well, I guess now I don't have to write an incredibly helpful book about writing for the Internet; Bindu already done did it." And it's yours for the price of an email address. See? Helpful.

¹And I'm not talking about the big things you might be called "crazy" for, like leaving a marriage that isn't working, or quitting a good job to go out on your own, or sailing across the ocean on a sandwich bag. Do something that's big enough and people will at least applaud your audacity while they call you crazy. As with most things, the devil is in the details. Boring, stupid, unseen, important daily details.

Image by schipulites via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #56

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

On girl-on-girl hate, gender double standards and other really super-tired patriarchal horseshit we should have retired with the corset. [Google Reader-ed]

For anyone who's leery of Groupon, sick of relentless IN-YOUR-FACEBOOK marketing, or in need of a terrific underdog story, how one little pizza parlor made magic. [delicious-ed, via Dave Seah]

Bewitching little music-making squares. It's great fun, pretending you're Brian Eno! [Tumbled, via].

Finally, my favorite take on Weinergate from New Yorker writer Amy Davidson: it's about the foolhardy taking of risks, not morality. Here's hoping it's the last word. Or the almost-last one, anyway. [Facebook-ed, via kottke]

xxx c

Image by Armosa Studios via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #55

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

Jesse the Jack Russell Terrier is pushing Nylabones these days. Oh, that one could come in every package. [Google Reader-ed]

Part of getting down with the tremendous time of bounty we're living in is that we won't have time to see it all. [delicious-ed, via Madeline Mann]

Sadly, this list of what you should really, really think about before emailing someone has not changed in the three years since Seth Godin posted it the first time. Even more sadly, it will probably hold three years from now. [Stumbled].

This may not be the kindest way to deal with obnoxious moviegoers, but it's right up there with the funniest. Warning: totally curse-filled. By the obnoxious moviegoer. [Facebook-ed, via David Avallone]

xxx c

Image © Tsilli Pines, from her desktop wallpaper series.

What's up & what's gone down :: June 2011

A mostly monthly but certainly occasional round-up of what I've been up to and what's in the hopper. For full credits and details, see this entry.

Colleen of the future (stuff I'll be doing)

• June L.A. Biznik Mixer at Jerry's Famous [Los Angeles; Wednesday, June 22]  Fun, free, low-key networking plus great tips, tricks and ideas from your fellow indie-biz folk, which of course includes me. Duh. All that, and Happy Hour specials, too. My co-host this month, photographer/creative director Josh Ross, may or may not be taking excellent shots of the whole affair. Join up here (free membership, which is nice), then sign up here.

Colleen of the Past (what I have done for you lately)

• World Domination Summit [Portland, OR; June 3-5] This fantastic conference put on by my friend Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity and his crack team of dedicated volunteers exceeded even my loftiest expectations. (Bollywood dance lesson! Group crying! Free, Oprah-style fortunes taped to the bottom of our chairs!) There are photos available to view on Flickr (and my June newsletter shares one lesson learned). There will also be a documentary assembled eventually. What can I say? Get on the list for 2012; I've already bought my ticket.
• ASMP's Strictly Business Blog I'm an occasional contributor now, because dammit, I just can't talk enough about marketing. This post covers the use of personal work in portfolios, written for photogs, but applicable to any artist whose life and work overlap.
• The Suitcase Entrepreneur Podcast The already-high-spirited Natalie Sisson got rip-roaring drunk on cider and asked me my thoughts on how to build your audience as a blogger. And she did it all from a café somewhere in the world with really spotty wifi. God bless the internets!
• World-Changing Writing Workshop 2011 My special poetry feature bonus thingy gets released later this week. If you're a member of this year's WCWW class, please be sure to join the forum dedicated to my bonus feature. It's the place, and the only place, where I'll be discussing aspects of the pieces, and answering questions.

Colleen of the Present (stuff I do, rain or shine)

• communicatrix | focuses :: My monthly newsletter devoted to the ways and means of becoming a better clearer communicator (plus a few special treats I post nowhere else). This month: How to talk FAST (or, pulling a talk for 500 people out of your ass the night before). Free!
• Act Smart! is my monthly column about marketing for LA Casting. Nominally for actors, there's a ton of good info in there for any creative business person. Browse the archives, here.
• Internet flotsam :: If you suffer from a surfeit of time, you can always look for me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, StumbleUpon and delicious.

xxx c

Image by Armosa Studios via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #54

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

A wonderful little story about the twists and turns on life's journey, and finding true satisfaction, and doing it with quiet grace and patience. [Stumbled, via Chris Glass].

You're never too old, or too much of a lady, to pump serious iron. [delicious-ed, via Paula J. Kelly]*

Finally, some half-decent ammo to have on hand when helpful folk email me about my EGREGIOUS MISUSE of punctuation. [Google Reader-ed, via Daring Fireball]

Roger Ebert apparently calls this lip dub, by the entire city of Grand Rapids, MI, the greatest music video ever. He may have a point. Watch clear to the end; it's really that good. [Facebook-ed, via Kirk Wilson]

xxx c

*Who sent it to me in response to my plea last week. Thank you, Paula! Keep 'em comin'!

Image via My Daguerrotype Boyfriend on Tumblr [thanks, Neven Mrgan!]

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #53

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

Two things I want: to be this cool when I am 76, and to find as many stories like this between now and when I turn 76. [Facebook-ed, via Marilyn Maciel]

More of a marketing-type post than I usually share of a Friday, we're all a little work-weary, especially heading into a holiday weekend here in the U.S., but this piece by photographer Billy Sheahan on how and why giving it away is good for business is one of the smartest things I've read on the topic, from a civilian or an expert. (Guess he learned something at that SB3 conference, huh?) :-) [delicious-ed]

The Grapes of Wrath, ultra-condensed version. [Stumbled, via Roger Ebert].

Wonderful art from a remarkable young Brooklyn artist.  [Tumbled, via Expresh Letters]

xxx c

Image by mathiasbaert via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The danger of 10% evil

Many years ago, I was in the world's worst acting class.

Its badness was made possible by its goodness. Much like a relationship where you're slowly gaslighted into madness until a gigantic Acme mallet (or Joseph Cotten) shows up to snap you out of it, about 90% of what went down was fine, excellent, even.

Which is precisely why the remaining 10% was so dangerous: plenty of inert matter to make the poison go down smoothly.

* * * * *

Do you think about money often? I think about it quite a bit, just before I shove the thoughts from my head in a holy panic.

My lifelong attitude toward money mimics my childhood attitude toward adulthood: Lots of power; too much scary. RUN! The thing is, of course, you really can't avoid either. Or at some point, you just realize that avoiding them is more exhausting than giving in. And when you do finally settle into one or the other (or both) a bit, when you start handling your money with respect or learning to delay gratification in favor of prudence and responsibility, you see that it's not really dollars or years that you're scared of; they're just dollars and years.

You're scared of that part of you that you think is incompetent. Or vain. Or maybe flat-out evil, you devil, you.

You're scared that the small, not-so-good part of you will override the big, pretty-okay part of you and ruin everything. That you will be left alone, reviled and ridiculed for the incompetent/vain/flat-out-evil devil you are. That you will die.

It doesn't matter that it won't, you won't, and you probably won't for a long, long time. That 10% of you puts on a really convincing show.

* * * * *

One thing I learned in that horrible-wonderful acting class was that a well-drawn character wants something more than anything else, and over the course of a well-played scene, will use every trick in her personal playbook to get it. (We call the wants "intentions" and the tricks used to get it "tactics." Now you can impress your actor friends with your inside knowledge.)

Here's the conundrum, the strongest want is nothing without an equally strong obstacle in the way of that want: Al Pacino thwarting Robert DeNiro in Heat; the survivors racing against the water in The Poseidon Adventure; Ray Milland battling himself in The Lost Weekend. It can exist without or within, but if you take away the immovable object, the unstoppable force whizzes frictionless through nothingness, fizzling out somewhere far, far past our interest in watching it. The tension between the two is what fuels the creativity of the characters and heightens the suspense.

More tension, better show.

No tension, no show.

* * * * *

I'm working on a huge (HUGE) project for my upcoming birthday this September. It's the kind of project that could be astonishing and life-changing and crazy, crazy fun if it comes together, not just for me, but potentially for a lot of other people, you included. And if it falls apart, of course, it is one of those things that will make me, and only me, look stupid. The flavor of fail I am more afraid of than anything.

Here's the hilarious (and predictable) part: as the deadline for each part of the project has approached, I've balked. You're coming off of a five-month Crohn's flare. You need to focus on your business. You'll have to call in every favor you have and rack up debt in the favor bank, to boot. The scale is ridiculous. The time frame is insane. You're insane, even if you pull it off, there's no assurance it will make any kind of difference.

All of these things are true. Mean to say, but no less true for it.

But what is also true is that so far, all the drama has come from me, myself and I playing out a three-person scene; the universe has been an extraordinarily compliant scene partner.

So it's 90% good that I'm 10% evil. Otherwise this sucker might never get liftoff.

* * * * *

I don't know how you discern between regular shadow and the toxic kind in the moment. These sorts of calculations almost always benefit from some time and/or distance. Seth wrote an excellent book about knowing when to stop (and when to plow through) that I should probably re-read. Byron Katie came up with those four questions that do a pretty good job of rooting out untruths.

If you put a gun to my head, I'd say the danger of 10% evil crosses over from frisson to "Warning, Will Robinson!" when you feel yourself starting to disappear. The point of danger, this kind of danger, is to make you stronger. There were people in that horrible acting class who were well served by it. I was one of them for a while, and then I wasn't, and then I left.

But I don't think you should wish away evil any more than you should wish away time. Instead, wish for the alertness to stay on your toes. Wish for help from the muse finding creative ways to slay your dragons. Wish for courage. Wish for vision.

Then get that show on the road.

xxx c

Image by downhilldom1984 via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #52

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

No matter how you felt about Roseanne during her heyday, you'll find her behind-the-scenes story of what it was like to fight the Hollywood machine fascinating.  [Facebook-ed]

A wildly inspiring commencement speech that addresses the crazy world of change any aspiring creative artist is graduating into. [delicious-ed]

If this man's story doesn't make you feel like you can accomplish anything you set your mind to, I honestly don't know what will. [Tweeted, via Brian Clark].

A lucid and gracious discussion about inheritance that I wish my family had read.  [Google Reader-ed]

xxx c

The young Mizzone brothers kicking booty on an old Earl Scruggs tune via YouTube [1:20]

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #51

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffoxiest things I fffffind stumbling around the web. More about the genesis here. Every dang Friday Round-Up here, you procrastinating slacker!

Nothing gets people's righteousness fired up like a good, old-fashioned discussion of the moral implications of spending.  [Facebook-ed]

The delicate art of approaching influential people. [delicious-ed]

Imagined conversations between Sean Penn and Scarlett Johansson. [Tumbled, via The Urban Sherpa].

Why "how to invest your money for the coming collapse" is a trick question. (Warning: buzzkill!) [Stumbled, via Dave Pollard]

xxx c

Video of John Cleese discussing creativity [10:37]

C*cksucking boulder update for Wednesday, May 11

After a banner week that for some reason came to a screeching halt at the stroke of midnight on Monday, I bow to no man and no calendar, I spent yesterday doing the digital equivalent of wrassling alligators.

Emails that were supposed to go out but didn't. On multiple fronts.

Cell phone outages, Skype SNAFUs and a very exciting full-on cable outage.

Even my chicken wouldn't poach properly, for crying out loud.

Which means there's no cheery video today (although there's a growing catalog you can amuse yourself with).

The spectacular nature of my week was not public-facing enough to share in a fresh forward/backward post (although last week's is still fairly fresh, and has details on an event happening tonight, if you're L.A.-local).

There will not be a poem tomorrow, although BOY HOWDY, if you decide to take Pace & Kyeli's World-Changing Writing Workshop, there is a doozy of a poem by me in there, plus a doozy of a deconstruction.¹ You know, in case you're interested in how a completely non-poetry-writing person becomes someone with dozens upon dozens of not-half-bad "poems" that people seem to enjoy reading. (Free hint for you non-poetry-writers: do not even think of the word "poem" without quotes around it.)

So I thought I would share two things:

First, the AMAZINGLY AWESOME shot that Shawn Henry took of me at SB3 Chicago. He is a genius photographer and super-nice and has totally cute legs (he's got this thing about wearing shorts, which I would, too, if I had legs like that). If you're in or around San Diego, you should hire him. I mean, look at that shot! I look fantastic, and still like myself!²

And second, my newsletter. It is also AMAZINGLY AWESOME. Well, most of the time. This month's is especially good, I think. Or maybe it's just especially long. But it occurs to me that since I took down the newsletter signup link from the front page and anywhere else it might be easy to find, you may not have found it, so how would you know whether it's good or bad or even if it is at all?

If you're looking for stuff of a more explicitly useful nature, how to market yourself, how to improve your writing, how to not want to stab your eyes out when you go on Twitter or Facebook, that's the place. One highly useful article plus three "treats", once per month. I get more good feedback on my newsletter than anything else I make. Someday, I might even share it with you, like I do those crazy rotating kudos on the website.

Until then, trust me, and sign up for it. You'll get the latest issue, and every issue after that until you unsubscribe, which you can do at any time.

Thanks, and feel free to leave kind and loving notes to me in the comments, or just raves for Shawn's work.

I mean, really, look at that!

xxx c

¹Oh, and that's an affiliate link, by the way. Because damn straight, I'm gonna make bank on that "poetry." Plus Pace is kind enough to go through great machinations so that I am an affiliate solely for the WCWW among all of their other stuff. It's a long story I'll get into at some point when I'm ready to reel off my affiliate-linking policy. Until then, just trust me: I do not recommend anything I wouldn't buy myself, and if you're looking for some sound schooling on how to become a better writer at a really reasonable price, I think you should buy this.

²Because you are my pals, I will also share with you my favorite-favorite shot from the group. I mean, come on, does that not make you laugh out loud? We are an unstoppable combo, Shawn Henry and I!

Photo © 2011 Shawn G. Henry