Someday Syndrome

Flaunting My Imperfections

I strive daily to destroy my ego, that part of me that whines when things don't go his way, that looks to push himself forward at every turn, and sings "lalalalalalala" when people offer criticism of any kind. You know what I'm talking about, I'm sure. We all have ego-issues.

When I approach a situation without ego, I don't get offended, I don't get stressed and I do end up feeling a lot more joy in my life. Everything goes much more smoothly and everybody's happy.

However, I've been doing something very British recently. I haven't been destroying my ego. I've been suppressing anger and I've paid pretty for it with a stomach full of acid. From here on in, therefore, I will continue with the ego-destruction for spiritual growth, but I'll start expressing anger, resentment, fear, and all those other "non-polite" emotions and comments when I feel them start to burn in my gut.

In fact, I'll revel in it and use the emotions to improve my writing. But of course I'll do it without being a bitch.

After all, there's no reason to be rude.

Someday Lessons:

• There's a big difference between letting anger go and repressing it.
• We are all imperfect people – it's okay to enjoy being petty sometimes.

Making Progress Happen

I don't like to work. Since the worsening of my acid reflux, my desire to work has totally died. I do, however, want the results of working. I want the finished products, which means I have to work, no matter how much I don't want to.

Fortunately I have a plan for when I'm in this "I don't want to work" mode. I work for 20 minutes then do something else for 10, like watch a bit of a TV show, or shower, or wash dishes. I try to mix up getting away from the computer in the non-working time so that I don't become a complete sloth.

My easily distracted self can cope with 20 minute work intervals and actually once I get into something I often work for 30 or 40 minutes without stopping.

Someday Lessons:

• Future-goals and now-desires might conflict. Decide which is more important and change the other.
• If you struggle staying focused, break the day into chunks and ignore everything but the chunk of the moment.

A Proud Parent

I know know what parents must feel like when they see their children grow. You think you've raised your kids a certain way but then suddenly they're independent being with their own opinions, influenced and shaped by things over which you have no control. You're full of pride, but you also feel a bit stunned – “How did that come from me?”

Today www.OrganizingConnection.com launched, which means the scripts I've been working on for the last two months have premiered as well. I've read enough scripts of TV shows and movies that I've seen to know that a script often has only a passing relationship with the final product. Fortunately this is not the case with Organizing Connection. Yes, after an edit by the site owners and a comedian, the filming, and the editing what people see differs from what I wrote, but I can see the original work their underlying the whole structure. It's especially exciting when I see my words coming out of an actor's mouth.

As for the site itself? Info-rich, gorgeous colours and super easy to navigate.

 

I encourage you all to visit the site, take a look around using the free membership they offer. Once you're hooked, I know you'll want to buy a subscription and continue to watch my scripts comes to life month after month.

Someday Lessons:

• When a strong creative team comes together, the results are spectacular.
• As always, remember to celebrate and share your successes.

My Wonderfully Silly Man

I go to bed most nights laughing. It's Raul's fault. You see, I have this teddy bear (named Notae – he's from the former Canadian department store Eaton's) and he's the perfect size to slip under my shoulder when I'm sleeping on my stomach (he keeps the shoulder from hurting). In other words, yes, I still sleep with a stuffed animal.

Raul, however, thinks it's quite fun to move Notae about the room. For example, one night the bear was hanging upside down from the curtain rod. I asked Raul if Notae was being a gymast. “No,” Raul said, “he thinks he's a bat.” Last night Notae was sitting on his head, perched on the edge of the bookshelf: “he's doing yoga and meditating” Raul told me.

Someday Lessons:

• There's no better way to end the day than falling asleep with a smile on your face.
• Let yourself be silly – get creative with your surroundings.

Fishing the Text Sea

In Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, the third book is called the Well of Lost Plots. It's the place where writers go to when they are creating stories. These are all the unpublished books, all the fragments of ideas that authors have had. And if they are left unpublished too long they are broken up for parts and the leftover letters go into the Text Sea to be reused by someone else.

I love this concept.

As part of my writing routine I've started doing daily writing exercises. I don't do them every day, but I'm aiming for most days. On the FM Writers forums I'm given a writing prompt. It can be anything, from having to write about a character needing to get past a vicious dog, to someone having the ability to shift at will.

The interesting thing is that I'm never at a loss for ideas. Sometimes when I'm feeling lazy I don't respond to a particular prompt, but I know that if I made a bit more of an effort, I'd come up with something. The pieces are always short, under 500 words, but they are enough to give me an idea of a world, of a situation that I could explore.

Every day I fish the Text Sea. With patience I catch enough letters to create an idea. Each idea then goes into the Well of Lost Plots and stay there until I decide to explore them further, or until I no longer want them and they go back into the Sea, ready for the next fisher/writer to come along.

Someday Lessons:

• Your creativity is boundless. It's just a matter of finding the right metaphor to access it.
• If you want to pull yourself out of routine, practice creativity regularly.

Freeing the Inner Diva

After all the recent travel, Raul and I decided to do nothing this weekend. Yesterday we didn't even get out of our pyjamas. It was a great day (then again, any day spent with Raul is a great one).

We cleaned a little, organized a little, cooked a lot and spent a several hours playing Singstar (karaoke for Play Station 2).

Now, I can't sing very well. I sing in the car and I sing with my sister songs that I've been singing since I was a little kid. But Singstar requires that you sing the RIGHT notes. Fortunately there are enough songs from the 80s and 90s that I know well, so I don't totally embarrass myself.

Ah, hell, who am I kidding – I completely and utterly embarrass myself. Raul almost always wins (yes it's competitive karaoke), but I don't care. It's great fun belting out tunes while standing in the living room in my pyjamas.

Because if I can't be foolish with Raul, when can I be?

Someday Lessons:

• Just because you're bad at something, it doesn't mean you can't do it anyway.
• This week make a commitment to do something foolish that would normally embarrass you.

The Organizer Lives

As I said before, our apartment is small – very small (in Basque the word is txiki, pronounced cheeky). IKEA is perfect for txiki homes. So off Raul went to IKEA. He came back with a tiny sofa-bed, two wall-like floor lamps to divide the living space from the kitchen, three chairs, and a whole bunch of accessories.

Then last Thursday we went back together, spending two hours looking at TV/Computer storage options. After much discussion, we decided on two armoire extensions, four floating shelves and yet more accessories. By putting the armoire extensions on wheels and buying Raul a wireless keyboard and mouse, we've created a multimedia console in the living room that can be controlled from the sofa.

In January once everything is just right, I'll do a photo-post showing off how happy we are in our txikihome.

Someday Lessons:

• Small spaces require creative planning. Take time to think it through.
• Don't go for the first solution that comes to mind. The less obvious is often more fitting.

The Last Day

Today was my last day of Spanish class. My introduction to Spain is over. As of Monday the job hunt officially begins.

Yesterday I was panicky; today I'm excited. Tomorrow I might be terrified, Sunday super happy and Monday in tears.

I've decided to just let the emotions do their thing. I'm not going to analyze them. I'm not going to stop them. I'm going to enjoy them. I've never immigrated to another country before. France was an extended holiday; Spain is an immigration. It's unlikely that I'm ever going to emigrate again to a different country, so I'm going to fully enjoy the emotions I´m feeling during this experience.

And there are a whole whack of emotions waiting to be enjoyed: fear, eagerness, alienation, frustration, joy, excitement, anger, love. Up until now I've been fighting my emotions, trying to focus on only the positive ones. But we all know what repression does. It just makes the repressed emotion strike back with more force. So when I'm afraid, I'll let myself be afraid. When I'm happy, I'll be really happy without worries. And when the world seems like a dark lonely place, I'll cuddle up next to Raul and ask for help.

Someday Lessons:

• Emotions exist for a reason. Feel them, don't bury them.
• Life is meant to be enjoyed, even the negative side of it. Whatever happens in your life, good or bad, savour it.

Discovering Patience

A friend asked me what I want. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Today. What do I want at this moment?

I considered telling her that I want an apartment but that's not true. I don't want it right now. I have a place. I want the apartment in January. I then thought of telling her that I want to get published, but that's also a lie. I want to work on getting published, which I am doing right now. So I'm fulfilling that desire.

I want to be loved and to love, which I get with Raul, friends, and family. I want a job, and I will get one, but not today. I want to learn Spanish, to enjoy food, to explore Spain, to strive towards happiness, all of which I'm currently doing.

In other words all my current desires have been fulfilled. I want other things, but they are future wants.

Patience is recognizing the difference between current and future desires and setting aside the future desires until you are able to fulfill them.

Impatience is living in the future, desiring things now that will come later.

No wonder I've never had much patience. I've always lived in the future.

Someday Lessons:

• Separate current and future desires and you'll find you have succeeded in a lot more ways than you think you have.
• Many complicated issues in our lives have simple answers, if we find the right way to ask the question.

Slightly-Obnoxious Opinion Week Day 4

This one is in honour of the season premiere of America's Next Top Model.

Statement Four: Sometimes dreams don't work out. Deal with the loss and get a new dream.

Book Tease

Instead of sending out query letters to agents today, I'm going to treat you to the first bit of my book, called An Extraordinarily Ordinary Life. It's fictional blog. (The full excerpt available after the jump).

Enjoy!

Welcome to the Boring Blog
Posted: Monday September 29, 2003 at 6:45pm

Hello. My name is Gail McCain. I'm 34 years old. My life is boring. I'm boring.

What I'm about to tell you isn't boring, however. It is the first exciting thing to happen to me in years, maybe ever. And, if Amanda is to be believed, it won't be the last.

On my home way from work this evening, just after I had just parked my car, this cute little beige field bunny hopped towards me. I was just registering the weirdness of a rabbit in an oil-stained underground parking garage in uptown Toronto when it turned into a gorgeous six-foot tall blonde woman. I've always considered myself totally straight, but even I couldn't help getting lost in her cleavage. Think a real life blonde Jessica Rabbit. No pun intended.

"Hi Gail," she said.

An Almost Ideal Man

The other day I met my almost ideal man (AIM). I say almost because he was married with two kids. I heard him before I saw him. His voice (although I couldn't understand the words) was smooth and confident. When I did see him I drooled, literally. I was gardening and looked up, seeing him walking and talking with the host. When I returned my focus to the weeds in front of me, saliva dropped from my mouth onto the ground.

My reaction to the AIM was purely pheromonal. Not looking at him caused me to feel slight nauseous, but looking at him made me slightly dizzy.

This man is the type of man I came to Spain for (except gay). Picture a less plastic Antonio Banderas that has allowed himself to age. The AIM teaches yoga and is a carpenter and osteopath. His comfort within his body radiates from him in waves of pheromones. His skin isn't dark, but isn't pale either. His black hair has streaks of grey in it and is styled like a teenage Peter Brady – that slightly long curl of seemingly untended hair (yes I developed my idea of what's attractive in the 70s – shoot me!). Plus on top of his beautiful image and aura, he was a truly open and nice man. In Spanish one would say simpatico, which really applies here much better than the English nice.

Normally when I meet a man like the AIM, I feel sad, envious and slightly bitter.

• How come I can't find someone like this?
• Why are they always taken?
• I'm never going to meet someone like that at my age.
• Etc, etc, etc…

Meeting the AIM, however, has nothing to do with my own journey. My physical response to him has nothing to do with my emotions. So, instead of being sad, envious and bitter, I chose to be:

• Glad because it's not every day I get to experience such a fun rush of hormones;
• Grateful because it's not every day I get to see such an all-around attractive man; and
• Appreciative because like most people, I enjoy looking at things that please me.

Someday Lessons:

• Look for moments of beauty and treasure them.
• When feeling something negative, try to find a way to turn the experience positive.

Facebook Takes Over My Life

After submitting to peer pressure, I finally joined Facebook. I resisted registering for the site because I already spend too much time online. Once I did give in, however, I reaped some immediate benefits.

I reconnected with some friends that I have spoken to in about twenty years. I've also made some new friends (through other friends). In other words, I have become addicted to this latest form of Internet-based procrastination.

This chat/time-waster/shared-photo service has even influenced my non-Internet life. A few days ago I explored the city of San Sebastian (near the French border). Wandering around I thought of a photo group created by one of my Sauveterre friends, called DOORS. This group exists for the sole purpose of sharing photographs of doors people have seen on their travels. (You must be a Facebook member to see the photos.)

As I snapped pics, I looked for different doors to photograph. I ended up viewing the city in a different way from how I usually look at cities. Instead of seeing streets hemmed in by buildings, I saw a series of passages with entrances into different worlds, each world defined by the door opening into it.

Someday Lessons:

• It's very easy to look at the world through a single point of view all the time.
• Your opinion of one thing is often influenced by thoughts of supposedly unrelated things.

P.S. If you are a Facebook member, stop by my profile (search for me under Alex Fayle) and say "hi!"

A Hint of What I Do

Recently, I wrote about my novel-editing procrastination. Janet Barclay, in a comment, told me something she does when she is blocked. Her comment sparked a realization as to why I was stalling, and got me started again. (Thank you, Janet!)

While procrastinating, I wasn't totally unproductive. I did write the query letter I will eventually send out to agents as I begin my publication quest.

Since beginning the novel, I've talked about the writing process, but I've never mentioned the storyline. Because I'm an organizer and like to make things multifunctional (see fellow organizer Jacki Hollywood Brown's comment about coffee tables), I thought I'd add a piece of that letter here. I also hope the excerpt teases you enough into wanting to read the book, which will send vibes to some agent out there who will agree to represent me.

Enjoy!

Some curses turn men into frogs, others make teenage girls sleep for a hundred years. Not so for thirty-five year old Gail McCain. Gail's curse just makes her boring: no man, no kids, no social life boring. Then she meets her fairy life coach (godmothers are so last millennium) who promises to find Gail a life.

This means throwing Gail into the world of celebrity gossip and blogs, where she develops a fanbase who love her way of bringing the boring to Hollywood. With her fairy coach's help, Gail's blogging turns her into a media star. The curse doesn't stand a chance against all the attention she receives as a result. Gail, however, finds that a non-boring life might be too much to handle. But she can't just fire her fairy life coach, or she just might end up a frog after all.

In The Boring Blog, a paranormal ChickLit novel told in blog format, Gail tries to break her curse, get a life, and fall in love, all while describing it daily online for the world to read (and comment on).

Someday Lessons:

• Procrastination can be productive - just don't kid yourself about how productive you are being.
• Whenever you can, reuse work in other ways to avoid having to recreate everything.

Fierce Winds

I am made of sand.

My skin has become multihued and glistens like a Mediterranean beach. In the shower, I shed sand, not skin. Grains of finely ground rock fall from my head like dandruff. Sneezes are gritty and earwax comes out like sandpaper.

A Jordanian friend of mine always says "My people come from the sand." He says it like that makes him a different sort of creature from the rest of us. I understand him now. I can feel the change begin. Soon I too will say "I come from the sand."

I will return to Toronto a different creature. I won't feel comfortable there. Very quickly I will feel too wet, muddy, dissolving. I will need to return to Spain to dry out and to replenish the sand I will have lost, my body transformed into an hour glass running out of time.

Until I experienced the Catalonian winds full of sand, I did not know that a place could so thoroughly get under my skin.

Someday Lessons:

• Where you live changes you, so choose your home carefully.
• Are you aware of the choices that have created the current you?

Ending the Trilogy

The woman from Facing Real Fear and Toxic Relationships Are Two-Sided is back. Alone. She made the decision to leave the alcoholic boyfriend.

I can't say that I'm thrilled.

Don't get me wrong. Yay for her leaving the relationship. And I totally understand why the homeowner offered the woman a temporary place to stay. I would have done the same.

However, this means my calm has been disrupted. Yes, I'm being selfish here, but not completely – I have let her use my computer and the Internet when I'm not around.

I was pulled into this couple's relationship unwittingly and I choose not to let it happen again. I ask her no questions and I invite no confidences. I've also spent very little time at the house. I'm eating out more, but maintaining my calm is so worth the extra money.

Someday Lessons:

• Choosing not to be involved in someone else's drama does not make you a bad person.
• Don't let others make decisions for you. Make them yourself and accept the consequences.

An Unwelcome Frown

I can't smile right now and it sucks.

For the first time in my life I have a canker sore inside my lower lip and it hurts to smile. So I've been expressionless as a model nearing her expiry date. The pain is irritating, but I can deal with that. It's the accompanying crankiness that I can't deal with.

I spend most of each day smiling or laughing. Even if I'm feeling down, I smile and feel better. When I don't smile my mood plummets and I end up blue for no reason. The only sort of smile I can muster up at the moment is a melancholy one which means I've been feeling wistful and sad the past few days.

It's on the mend, however. And if it's not better by tomorrow, I'll go to the pharmacy and see what they have to offer.

Someday Lessons:

• How you act creates how you feel.
• When you're feeling down, is it because of your emotions or your physical state of being?