27 Year Pause

I've written so many things in the last two months but my Vigilantes don't know it. So I'm writing this at work just to say hi, and of course, the phone is ringing. This ringing phone, my loves, is the reason for my great absence from this blog. I put the caller on hold just so I can finish this paragraph. Just a second...

The are times I wonder if I'll only be able to write consistently when I retire at 65. Assuming I can retire. Then I think, "But then I won't be sexy." As if it makes a difference that I'm a sexy writer, but apparently I equate writers with leather-clad rock stars and I just can't imagine myself with high heel boots and spike-studded leather when I'm 65. Though I guess it's good to have long term goals.

This is what I've accepted about myself recently - I hate self care. Regular bathing, cooking, cleaning, budgeting, lawn maintenance, and not quitting my job on the spot are things that just don't jive with my nature. Most of life is the daily maintenance of self and space, and I've just got to face the fact that I fucking hate it. I do those things, but I despise those things, and I can't make myself stop doing them but I'm going to stop expecting to suddenly enjoy or appreciate them. I would like to think that I could evolve into a functional human female who thrives off of pruning, preening, filling in calenders, and praying thanks to God for my 8-5 job every day, but that shit just ain't gonna happen. If left to my own devices I would shower twice a week, never clean, quit my job, take a bat to my cubicle, and spend the rest of my waking days writing, falling asleep, and then going out at night to hear music. I wouldn't even take a lover, and really, with the two showers a week that problem would solve itself.

But since I've committed to the day routine care of my self, space, and those around me, the blog has suffered. I don't have time to do all of those things, finish my book, and blog. The miracle is, even though I'm doing the practical thing for my kids, I don't resent my kids. This is just the time in my life when I have to remain a functional adult for them so that they have the things they need, and that's ok. That's actually the thought that keeps me from taking a bat to my cubicle.

When I turn 65, I promise you guys, more work will pour out of me than you can handle. In 27 years, when I am sitting on my couch, curled up with my laptop, in my spike-studded leather, that's when the work will happen without pause. Right now I have to work around the pauses.

Which is why I'm excited to tell you THAT I FINISHED THE BOOK!!! The Water Door Magician is done! I'm having a locksmith friend read it and make sure I got all of the technical details right, but it'll be ready to send out after that. Everybody get out your leather high heels and celebrate!

No More Webantics!

Before I launch into the website discussion, can someone tell me why when I search for "meditation music" on youtube "Underground LSD Palace" comes up as one of my options? Which features a blonde chick in some kind of leather bra? This is not the kind of serenity I had in mind so I clicked on "Chinese Bamboo Flute" instead. Serene though it is with it's flutiness and birds a'chirping, I still see a picture of a woman in a leather bra in my mind and I imagine her telling me to relax using words I don't say like "chillax."

I was looking for soothing music because my website shopping has made me a bit frantic. There are just too many options. I become like one of those lost-looking customers who go into Starbucks and are overwhelmed by the menu.

"I - I just want coffee," they say, knowing that somewhere in that confusing jumble of words like "grande" and "caramel macchiato" is the thing that they want.

I look at other writer's websites and I ask myself questions. How do I want mine to look? I don't know. What kinds of things do I want for readers to click on? I don't know, how about everything? Just let them click on everything. Let them do searches for Underground LSD Palaces if that's what they need. Do I want a picture of myself on it? All of these other writer websites have pictures of themselves. Goddamn it, I don't like pictures of myself. My Facebook profile picture is one of Dorothy Parker sitting in front of a type writer, I can't use that in a site where I'm promoting myself. I am not a famous dead woman. Not yet, anyway.

"Well, Gen, what DO you want?" I think to myself.

"Um...a grande caramel macchiato?"

My inner voice sighs deeply. She does that a lot. "What do you want on your website?"

"Do I HAVE to have a website?"

"To be a professional writer? Yes. Everything you read about the business side of things says you need one, every writer that you like has one, and you know this because you, as a reader, have looked them up because you wanted to see what they're working on. It's what readers with computers do."

"Ok, ok. I know. Oh! Here's what I want. I want it to have a cool picture. And I want music on it and updates about concerts because I want it to be very rock n' roll, and I want it to maybe have bread recipes because I think my readers might like that. And I want there to be surfers and links to pictures of puppies."

"GENEVIEVE!"

"What?!"

"Don't you think it might be a good idea to feature your writing?"

"Well...that might be a little showy, wouldn't it? Like I'm bragging, like here's all my writing and I want you to read it?"

"But you DO want them to read it! That's why you're building the site!"

"Yes, but I don't want to make someone do anything they don't want to do. If they don't want to read my stuff they don't have to bother, really, it's ok. In fact, I'll read their stuff. Yes! Yes, I'll have a place on my site where people can submit their writing and-"

"GENEVIEVE!"

"WHAT?!"

"Your website is going to be about YOU! People aren't going to go there because they feel like they have to. There are a hundred million writers in the world, and you are struggling to be noticed. You have to take this seriously if you want to be popular before you're dead."

I consider this. "I always did want to be popular."

"There ya go. Now - you should have a bio, contact information, a list of your books, which is only one at the moment but that's ok, and a link to your blog, and your writer Facebook page."

"Can I do a link that says 'gay stuff' and 'not so gay stuff?'"

"Yeah, you do have some gay stories out there, don't you? Yeah, that's fine."

"Can I have a Panic! At The Disco video on it?"

"HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING TO ME?!"

"Yes! It's just that those things are so boring. It's just like a list of information. There's no car chases or songs that I dance to or firecrackers."

My inner voice sighs again and starts rubbing her forehead. She would take a break from me, but she lives inside of my head and there's no place for her to go.

"Gen, focus and do what I say," she says.

"Alright, fine, chillax."

"What did you say?"

"I said that Liz Braswell's website is pretty cool. Though the print is kind of small, and I don't want my readers to strain their eyes. Of course, that could just be my old eyes."

"Oh thank goodness! You're looking. You might actually have a following in your lifetime."

Which is the goal. So I will keep looking and decide what I want some time this weekend because my deadline for this is coming up soon. The barista is tapping her foot waiting for me to make a decision and I can't keep agonizing over the menu.

And so I have come to the end of this post and as promised in my last post, I believe I have incriminated myself five times. I said that I have gay writings, I admitted that I'm a Panic! At the Disco fan, that I sometimes use the word "chillax," that I talk to myself, and...let me scroll through and see if there's another...there isn't one so I have to add one now. What can I tell you about me that's incriminating?

Oh! I know one. This morning I danced around my kitchen like the girls in this video. I'm thinking that might be my author's photo for the website.

Gen's had a good shot of adrenalin

Saturday night I actually did something other than go to a 12 step meeting, or lie in bed and wonder what my kids were doing at their dad's house and if they were ok, or where the hell I went wrong with everything, and what the hell I'm doing with my life. I mean, I still managed to fit those things in over the weekend, but intermingled with my self-torture I also went to see Roller Derby. I wasn't sure if I would like it. I was hesitant about going at first. But when the announcer described the skaters as "a tangle of fishnets and skulls!" I knew I was in the right place.

Really, I thought I would have grown out of my dark side by now. When I was a teenager I painted my fingernails black and listened to Agent Orange and The Misfits, and that was fine. But I never imagined that at 34 I would be sitting in a college gym full of people who still dressed like I did in 1991, AND ME dressing kind of like I did in 1991 with my Creep Show T-shirt and cut-offs, and getting a kick out of watching grown women with names like "John Cougar Menstrual Cramp" knock each other to the ground. There's something cathartic about the whole thing. And the music! I wish I had the soundtrack to that fucking game! They played Agent Orange, Blondie, The Ramones, and The Runaways! That's the music I try to get away with listening to at work! But I don't!

Anyway, my friend Tricia and I came up with our own Roller Derby names, even though neither of us have skated in years and we don't like getting hit in the head. She is The Velveteen Grabb-It and I'm Gen-O-Cide. This doesn't mean we'll be joining the team, these are just the personas that we'll adopt the next time we go to a game.

Then to complete my juevenille delinquent weekend, last night I saw the movie "The Runaways." It is the story of the all girl rock band in the mid 70's with Joan Jett and Lita Ford. I liked.

When I got out of that movie I started thinking. I'm way too cautious with the way I write. In the movie, when The Runaway's bizarre manager was trying to coach the girls in the band about playing like tough-as-nails rock n' roll chicks, he gave them this constructive criticism, "You ladies need to start thinking with your cocks!" I think it's high time I started doing this with my writing. I'm always afraid of pissing people off, or talking about how I really feel about things.

Inside of me there is a saucy, punchy girl. So far the only way she comes out is in fiction, or when I'm playing a part. If I wore scary face paints, called myself Gen-O-Cide and wore a bad girl clothes then I probably stand up straight, talk unashamedly about how I feel about politics, excessive Facebooking, and how I think that Crocks are the ugliest shoes ever made. Also, I would look like an over-30, mother of three who's trying to look 18. But I don't have to disguise myself to talk or write about how I really feel about things and people in my life. I can just go balls out. Most of my friends do this and people still talk to them. Of course, none of them have published their thoughts. For some reason, that's a little different.

Today when I write I'm just letting everything out. I'm a little afraid of what I might say. Perhaps for the first few days that I do this I should wear fishnets, roller skates and a leather jacket. Just to arm myself. That would be an interesting sight for the kids to see when they wake up in the morning. They'll trudge into the kitchen rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, hear the familiar sounds of the coffee brewing and the clicking of laptop keys, and then the quite unfamiliar sight of their mother in a roller derby helmet and leather pants as she writes at the kitchen table. One of them will say to the other, as she shakes her head, "Mom's thinking with her cock again."

What got me about the movie and really made me think about what I'm doing with writing was Joan Jett's attitude towards music, even as a teenager. She knew what she wanted to do and she was serious about it She still is, I read a little bit about her today. That chick is 52 and she's still performinging live all over the world because she loves to play guitar.

I want to write how that music sounds. Raw and alive. I want someone to open my book, rest their ear against a page and hear one wailing electric guitar.