Dealing with the Crazies

The first month of the new year isn't over yet, and the country is dealing with a pandemic, an attempted coup, ongoing social injustice, and an economic collapse. That's only the beginning.

 I won't even get into what a group of Redditors did to Wall Street hedge funds this week. Which personally, I find hysterically funny that a group of nobodies played the stock market better than the brokers.

However, there's a lot of fear in the air because of the chaos. I'm a writer and publisher, so I see a lot of it in the my industry, even thought the fear exists in all fronts. Remember Yoda's line from The Phantom Menace? "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."

What Yoda left out is how the three emotions can also drive people crazy. You see it in people's refusal to wear masks even though they've been proven to save lives. You see it in the people who attacked the U,S, Capitol because one man suggested they march down to Congress and show the senators and representatives how they feel. Oh, and let's kill some cops while we're at it. You see it in Wall Street bitching because day traders manipulated the stock the same way Wall Street did to the tune of $3B a la Trading Places.

So yeah. The Crazies. Being cooped up in our houses for the last year hasn't helped any.

What am I doing? I'm living in other worlds at the moment. The Justice Universe in particular. I may not be able to do anything here, but Anthea...

Nevermind. This is the book where she goes crazy, too.

I'm Still Alive...

...but today's the first deadline, and I have to have files to my formatter before the end of the day. See you all on the other side!

Still Chugging

As I said Friday, I have two books to finish in roughly seven days. I've got my Pepsi Max, my ice tea, a bag of potato chips, and a box of Little Debbie Peanut Butter Pies. Screw the calories, and full speed ahead!

Power Writing!

I've got to have A Matter of Death finished and edited before June 26th. Yep, in five days. Because the gal who does my formatting will be out of the office from the 4th of July through the rest of the month.

Hey, at least she warned me.

So this is a little note saying I'm writing my butt off! Have a great weekend!

Too Much Pressure on Ourselves

Perfectionism. It's such an insidious little parasite, especially this time of year.

I'm not sure what's worse, watching my sisters-in-law get irate over not having their version of the perfect Christmas or my colleagues fret over not having the perfect book. And to top it off, there was a letter in one of my favorite advice columns this morning from a mother tied in knots and burning out because she thinks she's not providing the perfect childhood for her preschool-aged children.

The perfect Christmas. It's an unobtainable goal. Someone's feelings always get hurt over some trivial matter. Whatever happened to taking turns and sharing and kindness? People should have learned those things in kindergarten.

The best Christmas ever for our household? When we stopped playing our mothers' games of proving who loved who more. Seriously, it was a major battle between my mother and DH's every frickin' year! It included stopwatches timing how many minutes we spent at one parent's house or the other. Instead, we stayed home for our fourth Christmas. I made chicken phyllo and apple pie with cinnamon ice cream. We played DH's new games on his Nintendo 64. We watched movies. It was quiet and peaceful and we had fun for the first time since either of us were elementary students.

This Christmas, the perfectionism has spilled into the indie realm. No, let me amend that. A certain level of perfectionism has always existed, but it seems to have intensified lately. Writers are lamenting that sales are down, but as Kris Rusch pointed out in her blog over the last couple of weeks, indie publishing is finally hitting a level of maturity, instead of its initial gold rush days. Now, we  need to work on sustainability.

However, I see a lot of indies still searching for that perfect genre, perfect plot, or perfect cover that will send them back into the stratosphere. It doesn't exist, and these folks are driving themselves just as crazy as my sisters-in-law drive themselves in their search for a perfect Christmas.

As for your kids, I take the Roseanne approach. If they make it to eighteen alive, then I'm a successful parent. Yeah, I know there's a little more to it than that. But you know what? At a time when my teenage son and I agree on so very little, we can both sit back with our pie and laugh at the sisters-in-law (his aunts) insanity.

Because there's nothing better than cozying up on the couch with our Christmas blankies, a good snack, and It's a Wonderful Life. Now, that's perfection.