Play music. Cook. Write. Focus.
The title of this post is a line from the movie Something’s Gotta Give. And it’s a line that even before I saw the movie, was part of me, was part of my make up, was part of how I get to that place of creativity, that state of just…flow.
Diane Keaton was one of my favorites. I didn’t know much more than her name before I saw her in Father of the Bride in 1991. There was something about her smile, her facial expressions, her laugh, her side-eye glances that caught and held me. From then on, I was a fan. Causal for a while, but a fan and if she was in it, I wanted to see it.
When Something’s Gotta Give came out I fell in love with her, the movie, Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand… It was funny and heartfelt and I felt connected as a writer and as a person who likes to dream of reinvention and that lovely effortlessness both Diane Keaton brought to the character of Erica.
I was deeply saddened when I learned over the weekend that she’d passed away. It was like a light went out in the world at the same time we desperately need those lights to shine brighter and more brilliant in the current darkness.
Since Sunday, I have been watching some of her rom coms that I loved… I know there are the classics like Annie Hall and The Godfather movies, but her rom coms are where I found her…
Father of the Bride
First Wive’s Club
Because I Said So
Morning Glory
Book Club 1 & 2
Something’s Gotta Give (this one will make me laugh and cry at the same time)
She was one of a kind. That glorious smile. That incredible individuality and style. That infectious laugh.
From Something’s Gotta Give: “Do you know what this is, Harry? This is heartbroken.”
Lissa
The Great Instagram Escape
And man, it’s true what they say… No one really cares.
The caveat is that for most of us, that is true. No one really cares if we’re posting or not. For some, yes. For most, no.
That’s not a pity party. It’s a truth. A realization. Possibly a freedom.
I have been off Instagram for 6 weeks. I haven’t posted. I haven’t scrolled. I haven’t shared a story or reposted anything.
The first few days, were like going through withdrawals. At least, what I imagine withdrawals from addiction of any kind feel like. And I can say it was an addiction of sorts for me, enough that I’d been trying since August 1st to get off the app, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t make myself log out and pull away. But I could ask for help and that’s what I did and was able to not only log out, but delete it from my phone.
I’ve done these kinds of things before, going offline for a month or two, for whole seasons, and none were ever so hard.
I deactivated and deleted my Twitter/X account without a second thought.
I haven’t been active on Facebook or Threads in I can’t even tell you.
But Instagram was hard without help. I was addicted to the scrolling, to the information I was seeing, to the fact that I thought maybe in some way I was helping by sharing and commenting, that maybe I was adding to it all… In hindsight, I don’t think I was. I was validating my own thoughts and beliefs and stances.
And I wasn’t creating. I wasn’t writing or crocheting or playing around in the kitchen or learning anything new or… I was deeply stressed and unhappy and began feeling it inside my body and my mind. I was tired of the ads, of the amplification of horror and law breaking and disingenous comments and ignorance and even more ads and not seeing things from people I actually wanted to see stuff from and only being followed by people trying to sell things and comparisonitis and ads. Always with the ads…
I call it an escape because in the thick of it, it felt like being held down, being kept, coerced, pulled in without conscious thought or making a conscious decision. It was a habit. A really, really bad habit, a really really bad place for me to go everyday…
I logged back in yesterday to check a local group that I was trying to be part of that only updates on social media. And the stark realization that no one had missed me hit me square in the face. There were no messages asking if I was okay, where I’ve been, that I hadn’t posted… There was nothing. Not even from people I considered friends.
We’re all busy, I know. We’re all deep into our own lives, our own things, just trying to make it through the day.
But seeing that there wasn’t anything, which hadn’t even been the reason I’d logged in so that expectation, that need for validation is unfortunately still there, but it reaffirmed for me that I’m not missed. I’m not missed on Twitter. I’m not missed on Facebook. Granted, I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving Instagram, either, so I do know it goes both ways. Sometimes we think we’re more important to people than we actually are. We expect them to care about us in the same ways we care about them. The reality that I’ve found for myself is that they don’t.
It’s both sad and liberating. Again, not a pity party. The healing that I’ve been doing, the deep dives into why I have been the way I have always been has helped. Learning about myself, working on my mental and emotional health has helped in ways I can’t express yet.
I want close friends and I want good friends. I want to laugh and have fun and create and make things and be there for people who are there for me. I want to write stories. I don’t know if they’ll ever sell again, but I want to write them. I want to be present, to notice, to listen, to discuss, to connect.
I feel worlds better being off Instagram. Yesterday when I logged in, I wasn’t the least bit curious to see what’s being talked about or shared. I wasn’t the least bit interested in scrolling. So, that’s progress.
How I’ll get the information from the local creative group, I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.
Social media has never been fun for me. I’ve stated that before and I’ve always been scared, though, to let it go completely. It wasn’t helping me sell books. I wasn’t about to give Meta any access to my bank accounts or credit cards. I wasn’t going to pay to play the games of visibility. Not a good business strategy, I know, but the games were exhausting and I’m just not interested. What that means, I don’t know. A friend and I are looking into alternative things to do that aren’t social media, so maybe we’ll both find our ways that work.
Anyway… I made the Great Instagram Escape, and I can tell you it’s been totally worth it.
Have a good one.
Lissa
Come on, Autumn! I’m ready…
It was a miserable Summer. In more ways than one and I’m very glad it’s officially over.
Today is the first day of Autumn. The temperatures might not reflect it, but the matcha latte in my pumpkin mug, the pumpkin chai wax melt making my office smell amazing, the little lights with the pumpkins and acorns and maple leaves and pine trees that wrap around the television, and You’ve Got Mail playing… In my little room here, it’s Autumn.
I’ve been working on new books for a few weeks and I’m not sure when anything will be out. I should have a new cover soon for one of them… Sugared.
I told my newsletter readers that I’d taken August to sit with the abject failure of All That Glitters. I wasn’t sure I would continue writing. It really was the worst in terms of sales. Not even my very first book, Educating Rose, all those years ago with Cobblestone Press sold as poorly as All That Glitters. I’ve never had one do so terrible and I had to do some thinking about what I could or would change if I continued. But then, September came and I’d been off social media for a few weeks (the detox is brutal) and I found myself writing a few hundred words a night.
I worked on a few different stories, started taking notes on another couple of stories and soon realized that yes, I am going to keep writing.
I also realized that I want something different than what’s normal. Hell, I don’t even know what’s selling for romance authors now. I know jack shit about the market anymore. I didn’t know anything about the market when I started out in 2008, either.
With the changing of the seasons, Autumn especially, I always feel like there’s something more, something different, something that I can learn, that I can change, that I can step into that isn’t where I’ve been in the months prior. Winter can feel like that for me, too. Sometimes Spring… But Summer always feels like the dregs, like I’m slogging through life and nothing new is possible. It’s felt like that this year, too, especially this year.
So, with this first day of Autumn and with this breath that almost feels renewed and with the anticipation of leaves changing from green into brilliant reds and yellows and oranges, warm spices filling the air, cooler temperatures enough that the windows can be opened, cozying up with blankets and books to read, and the writing not feeling like a chore, but a discovery… I’ll find my way.
Lissa
Life, Change, and Writing
In the midst of this pandemic so many lives have been turned upside down. People have been thrust into new ways of living, existing, coping. I haven’t. My life hasn’t changed much because being home, working from home, homeschooling was my life and to a point, still is. The most I’ve struggled with is finding toilet paper and finding focus. The degree of change has varied with each person, with each family.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I know there are people struggling with getting anything done at all when the house is full of people, when normal routines have been disrupted, when there’s no certainty when things might go back to some semblance of the way they were. I wish I had some tips and tricks to help others figure out how to navigate this, but the way I did it was to just do it. I didn’t have any other choice. I didn’t have the privacy of a home office the way I do now. I didn’t have the dedicated time to do what I wanted to do. I had to make it or I just had to do it in little swatches of time.
And one thing I learned by doing it the way I did is that I’m a high stress person. I’ll stress about the smallest things and I’ll stress about big things and I’ll stress when something impacts my family and I’ll stress when something may impact my ability to get coffee the way I like it… But I’ve found, in general, that I can actually thrive and make progress when there’s a lot of stress, outward stress, at least. Inward stress and I’m done for. But the outward stress… That’s what I thrive in.
I didn’t always believe that and here is what this post is actually about. I thought having a nearly empty nest, and all sorts of time in a day, and a dedicated home office, and a chore schedule, and pretty much zero interruptions that I would be productive as shit, cranking out books left and right and upside down and right-side up… And well, I was wrong.
I can’t speak for anyone else. There are writers who need that, who need to not be on the verge of pulling their hair out. They need dedicated space and quiet and to be left alone. I get that. For instance, when my books are in editing and when I’m formatting them, I am that writer. But otherwise, I am not. I get distracted and unfocused and even…bored. God, I hate that word. So fucking much. And I’ve tried the schedules. The morning routines. The plan everything. The set my intentions.
Maybe the quiet gets to me. Maybe the walls get to me. I don’t know. But I do miss the chaos of all the things happening and going on.
And there’s definitely a piece of this that is mourning the near empty nest. I am in mourning that my kids are grown and don’t need me as much. I am in mourning that those magical years are over. I am in mourning that a new stage of life is here and I wasn’t emotionally or mentally prepared for it. Sometimes I’m not sure what to do with it all and maybe that’s what most of my struggle is. What do I do with it all? The mourning and the new? I spent so many years working and writing and living one way that I’m not sure how not to work and write and live another way. This is the inner stress. This is upheaval of life as it once was but isn’t anymore and I know a lot of people are going through it, just on the other end.
I worked a job. I homeschooled. I did the cooking and cleaning. I wrote in the wee hours.
Then… I homeschooled. I cooked and cleaned. I wrote in the between times and in the wee hours.
Then… I dropped off and picked up. I cooked and cleaned. I wrote less and less and not in the wee hours.
Then… I wandered aimlessly and the concept of time got skewed in my head.
I miss the chaos. I miss the way things were. I miss being pushed against the walls of all the things that needed to be done.
Now, none of that is to say that chaos is the only thing that helped me or that peace and quiet and time are the only things that I’ve struggled with. I’ve struggled jealousy. Envy. Compairisonitis. Too many things. Not enough things. Inconsistency. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Humiliation. Embarrassment. Lack of confidence in myself. Lack of belief in my writing and the stories I’m trying to tell. These are all pretty serious things in and of themselves, but put them together and it’s one big fucked up show.
But when there was chaos in my house, when there was normal life in my house, I didn’t have time to think about all those other things that throw wrenches. I could only throw myself into the writing in the windows of time I had at my disposal. I wrote at the kitchen table. On the couch. In bed. At baseball games. At band rehearsals. In the pick-up line at school. In coffee shops. At restaurants. In bookstores. In the middle of the hotel lobby at a conference. Those things worked for me, worked like a fucking charm for me. I can set goals until I’m blue in the face and with the best of intentions and for a couple of days, I’ll get all over them. Then, I’ll fall off. I have time. I can start again later. I can do that tomorrow or next week or whenever. No one is waiting. No one cares. And those things are just fucking lies. People are waiting. People do care. I am waiting. I care.
For a long time now, by this point in the year, I’d have given up already. The goals long forgotten. The planner collecting dust. And I’d be in the… Well, I’ll try again next year frame of mind and beating myself up. I had time. What’s wrong with me? But this year… through the writing of blog posts and journaling and not giving up and plugging along and trying to learn about myself as I am now, as life is now, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t do well with a planner (that post is HERE), and I don’t do well with word count goals (that post is HERE). I need pressure and a little chaos, even if it’s manufactured. And when it comes to my writing, a deadline does that. It gives me an end. It gives me an ultimatum. And I will thrive in that. Telling myself that I need to get to 50,000 words by the end of the month does absolute shit for me. I’ll let the end come and go, and I’ll wave as it passes. Set up a pre-order and have a deadline… Dude, I’ll get that done. I’ve let one lapse over the years, but my mindset game wasn’t strong at all. It’s stronger now. It’s better now. It’s not to be fucked with now.
It’s kind of like when my mom is coming for a visit and my house is a wreck the way it always is… I’ll start off doing little things here and there a few days before she’s due to arrive. Then, the day she is supposed to get here, I’ll talk to her throughout the day to find out where she is and how much longer it’ll be until she pulls into the driveway… When she’s an hour to an hour and a half out, my ass is in high gear and this place is spotless and things are put away and the toilets are cleaned and the floors are mopped and the clothes are hung and the surfaces dusted and the kitchen is gleaming.
The writing for me, with a deadline, is like that. The writing for me, in small pockets of time with all the things going on around me, is like that.
The writing with all the time in the world to get it done, is not like that for me.
The writing with peace and quiet and time, is not like that for me.
It’s probably why I also like and need and have conditioned myself to use a timer when I write. Not blog posts, obviously, but my books, definitely.
Life is a bit of a struggle for me. I’m not ready for all the changes that are here now or that have been coming. I can’t control any of it and I can’t stop it. I can’t make my life go back 10-20 years even though I wish I could. I’m jealous of all the people who are homeschooling now and who have all their kids around because I miss mine. Because I miss those years. And I know some people are jealous of the situation I find myself in…kids pretty much gone and time is now my own. The only things I can control right now is my writing and my output and I’ve not done well with it. I’ve lost a lot of time trying to find what box I fit into now.
How do you cope with changes in life and stress? Does your writing soar or suffer? Let me know. I’m curious. Always.
Lissa
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