rant

{Confession} I don’t like fall

Don’t freak out…

I don’t like fall.

The way the whole world goes crazy for beanies and cable-knit sweaters and hot chocolate and picking apples…

Nope. Not for me.

Sure, I see the appeal of COZY. And maybe if I lived in a place that had an autumn like that, I’d enjoy the change from summer to winter.

Here in my corner of Arizona, we have a lot of elm trees. Elms don’t change colors. MAYBE a few leaves turning yellow. Nope, elms wait until the first frost, turn brown, and drop all their leaves.

Fall means stickers in my socks as all the grassy, prickly things die back and desperately try to spread their seeds before our short summer rainy season.

Apples were harvested in early September.

And I dislike bulky sweaters, I don’t wear slouchy boots, and beanies – while I do love hats of all types – squish my hair.

But the thing I dislike the most about the change of season is the way the nights get longer. I finally realized, it’s not that the DAYS get shorter… it’s that the nights get LONGER.

Why does this bug me?

Simply put:

I’m afraid of the dark.

Yep, I’ve never really outgrown it!

A few evenings ago, while I was lamenting the fact that longer nights ALSO means more time inside and trying to do things (paint) under artificial light, God put an interesting message in my heart:

The healing darkness.

It honestly surprised me. I’ve never thought as darkness as healing. Sleep, for sure…

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This One Question Will KILL Your Book

This is what I call The Killing Question, the one that will completely derail your book, mute your voice, and end your message – all before you even start to write.

And guess what?!

I’m not even being melodramatic!

(Okay, maybe I am I little bit.)

I have had thousands of phone calls with authors over the years. We talk about their book and how they want their message to change the world. And, almost without fail, there comes the moment in the conversation that I just hate. It goes like this:

Author: Have you read XYZ book by so-and-so author? I want my book to be Just Like That One.

Me: No, I haven’t read it. (Heart sinking.)

My heart used to sink in my chest because MOST of the time I’d never even HEARD of the book, let alone read it. I was worried that the author would judge me and my literary choices.

But then I realized something more important:

When the author wanted their book to be Just Like That One –

it meant that they were willing to do ANYTHING to emulate their hero.

In love with a memoir but writing a process book? They’ll write a memoir about a story they don’t really want to tell.

Delighted by a sparse book with just 50 pages? They’ll pare down their message to the point that it doesn’t make sense, just to hit that magic page count.

Enamored by a process book? They’ll try to bring meaning, or worse and acronym, out of their life story so the reader can have a five-step system to follow.

Here’s how the Killing Question derails the book:

As an author, you’re suddenly trying to shoehorn YOUR story and YOUR message into someone else’s format or formula.

I once worked with an author as a ghostwriter how decided that all her chapters had to be exactly four pages long. The problem? One of her important concepts was actually much quicker to explain. I had to pull out all my old college tricks to pad the word count.

Two OTHER of her concepts were important but hard to explain. It was impossible to cut it down to just four pages. It didn’t make any sense at all.

We both left the project frustrated. Her readers never got to read the book because it is, to this day, unfinished. Keep Reading!

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What is overwhelm costing you? (And your message!)

I’d like to think that I know a thing or two about overwhelm…

When I was a junior in high school, my mom had to leave her shopping cart in the middle of Walmart to take me home – too many people after too long a day and I started crying. I was overwhelmed and we had to leave Right Now.

042616-SinkLast week I started crying before breakfast because the dishwasher was full of clean dishes, the sink full of dirty, and I couldn’t get my tea kettle under the faucet to make a cup of tea. Ben saved the day by filling a mug with water and pouring it into the kettle.

It took me nine months to completely unpack after we moved – and I still have boxes in the spare bedroom that were stuffed (full) into the closet. (And I “packed” in three days before I moved because I couldn’t figure out how to pack and still live/work in the house.)

The first four seasons I spent working in the family tax practice, I’d break down crying at LEAST once a week because there were three phone lines ringing, a waiting room full of clients, and I couldn’t find my stapler.

Here’s the thing about me: I actually rarely procrastinate. Because I’m always busy doing something – and it’s usually some activity that is getting me closer to a goal. But there are just so many moving parts at any one time, I get stuck knowing where to start, what to do next (or what to do first!), and how to keep everything I’m doing moving forward.

This is a classic definition of overwhelm.

All too often I think that we wear “overwhelm” like a badge of honor. Like the person with the biggest To Do list, the most amount of projects in progress, the most chaos in life wins.

Are you living an overwhelmed life? 'Overwhelm' is NOT a badge of honor! Click To Tweet

So I get it that the idea of adding “Write A Book” to an already overwhelmed life feels heavy. Like there’s an elephant sitting on your chest. And the desire to write it battles with everything else that life requires and before you know it, you’re overwhelmed, behind, and crying at the sink because you just want a cup of tea and all the steps required to just get water into the kettle are more than you can handle.

And I don’t even have kids yet!

Sweetie, I get it. I know what it’s like to be on the perfectionist scale – the one that says More Is Better (not the one that creates a Pinterest-worthy life!). And I know what it’s like to bite off more than you can chew – regularly – and then wonder if you’re a masochist or just dumb because you’re not learning from your past “mistakes”.

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Rant: When People Want Your Book For Free

062315-GrrrrLast month, I released an anthology that I edited. 44 authors (myself included) came together to create the book. While I don’t know how much time each author put it, I know that my time alone was somewhere pushing 100 hours.

Not to mention the time, money, and effort involved to fly from Arizona to Maryland to release the book at a live event with 3,000 people in attendance.

And when I got home, I had to mail out a copy of the book to each and every contributor. While SOME of these costs were covered, most weren’t.

But it’s been all worth it to see picture after picture appear in the last week on Facebook as authors received their contributor copies. For nearly 40 of them, this was their first-ever publication AND their first book.

Pretty huge stuff, right?

The authors have been tagging me when they are showing off the book so I get to revel in their successes and share their joy.

And then this…

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How a Personal Rant Can Engage Your Readers

I have a confession to make: I love to rant.

I love to really get on a tear and get it all out. I love to give voice to everything that is making me crazy – raise my blood pressure, turn the air purple, be irrational (right, but irrational) and get really loud.

The only people who get to hear these012015-Rant rants, however, are my three awesome dogs, fantastic man, and best friend. (And if I’m being really honest, my long-suffering parents get to ‘appreciate’ them as well.)

There’s just something so liberating about letting it all out. Getting it OFF my chest, into the air, where it can blow away. And yes, I do sometimes worry that the negativity of ranting just breeds more things to rant about. I’m more positive than I am rantful. (I know that isn’t a word – it should be!)

I think it’s those rants that allow me to blow up and then let it go.

I’d love to be that type of person who can just smile and let it roll off her back. Truth is, I’m not. I take it personally, I get offended, I think about it – and I rant. Let’s just say that stuff DOES roll off my back but that I just have to jump up and down, stomp my feet, and maybe yell a bit to help it along.

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