Maybe paper is the new digital?  Check it out…

Thanks to Grant for this find!

Exercise 1: Past Performance
What did you once fear?  What did you have to learn to overcome it?  When did you doubt your abilities, but pressed ahead anyway and succeeded?  List a few of these victories to get you started, then write about one time when you challenged and defeated your own limiting status quo.  What were the circumstances?  What were the steps?  What did you gain?  What did you learn?  Who did you meet along the way?  How did your success feel?

Exercise 2: I would be happy (happier) if only…
What are constraints and conditions that you place on your happiness?  For example, I would be happier if my co-worker wasn’t such a jerk.

Exercise 3: The Best Things in Life are Free!
What are the moments, experiences, things you received for free or gave away freely?  Think of kind words, acknowledgement, recognition, laughing, gifts, favors, prizes…

Exercise 4: Don’t forget to say thank you…
Gratitude brings us into the present.  Be present and say “thank you” by listing all that you are grateful for in this moment. 

“A grateful heart is like a magnet drawing toward it a wealth of abundance.” – Cheryl Richardson    

Again, I would love to hear how these exercises work for you.  See you next month!

Malasadas are also sold as fundraisers in Hawaii and, well, I’d never pass one by.  Hey, it’s for a good cause.

But I’ve now learned that there is a dedicated day to one of my favorite foods…check out Kim’s post at outriggerhawaii.com.  I want this to be my second birthday.

Thanks to Kirsten for sending this great find!

To give you lots of power over what you’re about to read, come to the piece understanding whether you are the “the instant score” writer, an MFA student or post-graduate writer, or somewhere in between.  It doesn’t matter which one you are, just be ready to look at the writers she describes and say, “That’s not me,” or “OMG, that is totally me.”  Yes, it takes a long time to learn how to write (well) and cultivate a network to get your work noticed and published.  And ten years sounds about right.  This is what I was told at my MFA program and coincides with the 10,000 hour rule from Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers.” 

And I write anyway. 

Second, identify what you want your writing to do for you.  Do you want adoration, respect?  If so, from whom?  What is your criteria for success?  If money is a desired outcome, be clear and honest about the relationship between your writing and money, the risks you’re willing to take, the compromises you’ll accept, and the time you’re willing to commit. 

Shapiro calls upon the “miserable trifecta: uncertainty, rejection, and disappointment” to expand upon why the brilliant may have given up.  Newbies, look at me, don’t look at Shapiro.  This trifecta applies to everything in life, including writing.  If anyone’s life today is untouched by this trifecta, then they live in a bubble and heaven forbid, if they’re writers, they aren’t writing anything interesting.  Don’t get sucked into this pity party, it will not make you write better.  If you quit writing because of this trifecta, you’ll have to live with them in another context.  There is no escaping uncertainty, rejection, and disappointment in a grown-up world.   

Another problem with the piece is Shapiro’s loosely constructed non-example assumes a lot about doctors and lawyers after they graduate from school.  She might be surprised that writers don’t corner the market on suffering or debt.  She needs to do some research about how life after law school, med school, and business school panned out for these professions.

And speaking of professions.  Writing is a profession and as such, this means producing under any circumstances.  I was surprised by Shapiro’s question, “How, under these conditions can a writer take the risks required to create something original and resonant and true?”  I would never approach the vice-president at my day job with a question like this.  He would tell me to get back to work.  Professionals just get things done.

And, yes, Shapiro is absolutely right, it’s hard to get published. 

And your audience doesn’t care. 

As Jack Grapes tells his workshop, “No one walks into the bookstore and asks to buy the book that was hardest to write and get published.”  Keep your hands on the keyboard, your fingers wrapped around the pen and keep writing things that will move your readers.  Honor your commitment to yourself and your writing under the terms you defined at the beginning of this post.  Write on your terms not to someone else’s.  And even though writing is the hardest thing I do, I know why I stay and why I won’t give it up.  And you shouldn’t give up either.

Thank goodness for my heroes at the Reduced Shakespeare Company!  At tonight’s performance, they performed Hamlet four times, after performing all of the tragedies, comedies, a few sonnets, and even the questionable plays.

So, on to Lost!

The Los Angeles Derby Dolls opened their 2010 season this past Saturday with the Varsity Brawlers defeating the Sirens.  The Doll Factory was sold out.  Grant and I sat with Siren Jessica Ravage’s family who had come all the way from Maine to see this bout.

It’s Wednesday and I’m still hoarse.

My calendar is marked for February 13th when the Tough Cookies face off against the Fight Crew.  Krissy Krash is tough to beat, but one of my friend’s sisters skates for the Fight Crew.

Yes, Jeff, there are rules…

…and, it’s real…