So, a lot of time, I have to remind myself that I’m a writer.
And to do that, I’ve started drafting poems each morning. They are poems that I will probably never actually look at again. But poems are actually why I started loving writing when I was little. Poems are the things that made my life better again and again and again. They saved me in second grade, in high school, junior year of college.
But, I never felt like my voice was refined enough to fit in the poetry world.
So, I stopped writing them for a long time. I became afraid of the things that had saved me over and over again.
I’ve decided to not do that any longer. So, now I write a poem when I wake up in the morning before I do anything else. They don’t need to be approved by poetry gatekeepers or even get likes on Instagram. It’s good enough that I know that they are there.
Here’s this morning’s.
I hope you find a way to embrace the things that save you. I hope you find a way to realize that you deserve those things and the embrace.
xo
Carrie
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
I’ve been working on this painting a bit this week, but mostly staring at it and trying to figure it out. It is a bit of a homage to my cousin and her little girl (who isn’t so little now, but just so beautiful) and then it branches out into something bigger.
It gives me so many questions that I don’t have answers to yet. Do I even out the color, the brush strokes? Do I go into the trees? Do I paint it all over and start new?
My life is a bit like that, too. I feel like I’m staring at it, not really seeing the full thing, trying to figure it out.
And there’s this constant pull, right?
Do I take action steps? Do I visualize what I want?
Do I let go, tune into the vibe of the universe and let it take me where I’m meant to go?
Life is so full with those one or the other choices. We’re pushed into this or that. As a novelist, I do the same thing to my characters, put them in situations, lean into their choices that make the story happen.
So, the question becomes how do we do that for life? How do we make life happen in a way that’s good for us, for our bodies, brains, heart and soul?
That’s my big ponder this week. Maybe it’s not so brave to ponder it. Maybe it is. I’m not sure. And that not being sure? I guess that’s my point this Be Brave Friday. It’s okay to not be sure.
Maybe it’s okay not to be focused on always being right.
Maybe it’s okay to admit that you have no freaking clue what’s going on about everything all the time.
And in a world where everyone is so adamant that their opinion is the true one, the only correct one? Maybe it’s even a little brave to not be 100 percent sure.
Yes, people might say you waffle. Yes, people might say you’re milquetoast. But that only matters if you let it matter. Maybe don’t let it matter, be unsure, look for facts and truths, embrace that journey toward being sure rather than insisting that you always are.
Also, I’m really into this hydrangea in our front yard.
FREE WORKSHOP
I’m teaching a FREE workshop (live) at the Writing Barn. The link is in the bio. The photo is very very old.
In real life, I can kind of be a lot if you know me. I’m pretty enthusiastic and exuberant like a puppy and this? Well, this is not for everyone.
And just like real life, sometimes book beginnings can be a bit too much.
So, when we writers talk about hooking readers, we talk about how to draw them in to the beginning of the story. It’s usually a lot of do’s rather than don’t, which is lovely because it’s lovely to be positive.
But one of the big things about hooking your reader is that you don’t want to be too much. Yo
What’s that mean?
It means that you don’t want to
1. Confuse them
2. Overwhelm them
3. Purple prose the heck out of them
4. Not have context
So, what would an example of too much be?
It might be this:
Carrie’s an anchor. She’s something that pulls me down into the netherworld of an abyss and gets me set to implode and stuff. Get it? Netherworld. Ha! That’s a great thing about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right? How they have the netherworld, which is so Chabon of them. Did you know that once Carrie took photos for the Democrat party for a fundraiser for Obama (Bethany asked her to or maybe it was Heather) who wasn’t president yet and she went to a rented out place in Blue Hill with all these linen shirts and Michael Chabon and Ayelet Wadman who had just been on Oprah and she walked through the house and all the wind slammed the doors behind her, one after one, after one, like some sort of poltergeist, unless she was the poltergeist or, you know, (Hahaha) channeling Carrie from the Stephen King novel that his wife threw out. Man, I love that this happened.
It’s just a lot, right? And Carrie isn’t even the narrator, someone nameless is. And there are asides and jokes and a backstory and random details and namedropping, and what is going on.
Don’t do that.
EXERCISE
Judy Blume has a MasterClass on writing and in it she talks about how ideas area all around us. Her assignment for students is below.
PLACE TO SUBMIT
1. AGNI
According to Reedsy, “On the lookout for distinctive voices with fresh perspectives, AGNI magazine proudly showcases talented writers from all around the globe. Judging by its recent issues, this magazine focuses on stories from writers in the early stages of their careers 一 making it an invaluable platform for emerging literary talent.”
Submission window: September 1st – December 15th | February 15th – May 31st Compensation: $20 per printed page Word Count: No set word limit Submission Guidelines: Here
FREE WORKSHOP
I’m teaching a FREE workshop (live) at the Writing Barn. The link is in the bio. The photo is very very old.
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
We both peered into the sewer grate, me and a nice older man who was off a cruise ship. There near the edge, submerged in the water, was the padlock.
“It made a perfect arch when it fell off the cart,” I said.
“What’s the lock for?” he asked, his back a bit crooked, shoulders a bit slumped, face a little sweaty like he’d had a hard day exploring our little national park.
“We’re starting a new business. Down here.” I motioned at the cruise ship tender line, the series of small out buildings that people like me had staked a claim in for a rental fee, trying to make a business, to become something different or become something more.
“Let’s see if we can get the grate off,” he said, bending and grabbing the heavy metal bars. He tugged. “Nope.”
We tugged together. It didn’t move even an inch.
“That’s so nice of you to try,” I said. “We can buy another.”
“It flew off perfectly,” he said, laughing.
“I wish someone had videotaped it. It was a beautiful fall.”
He kept laughing. “It just went perfectly in.”
We stopped staring at each other’s laughing faces and back down at the lock in the murky water.
“It’s not a bad omen,” he said. “It’s a good one.”
“How is that?”
“Because you’re laughing. If you can laugh? You can get through anything.”
“Even failures?” I asked.
I think I might have made him pause for a second, maybe taken him aback, but then he smiled again, standing up really straight. “Failures especially.” He winked. “But you won’t fail.”
Shaun goes fishing
Shaun’s pretty amazing, honestly. Just like that cruise ship guy.
We have a lot of new things that I’m afraid of failing at and it would be awesome if you checked them out.
First there’s a new LIVING HAPPY blog where we talk about our journey toward happiness despite all the chaos that is our life. We delve into a bit of psychology, too. Also, all the writing tips are over there.
And I have a local news blog.
Finally, we have a super cool new true crime podcast, DUDE NO! I hope you’ll check it out. Our second episode comes out tomorrow. It’s always on Tuesdays.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:
My spoken voice
My raw poems.
Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!
For Anne & Maxine
Why is it that the dead
Never listen to my pillow talk?
I am tired, but can’t sleep
Again and again and again.
You snore next to me
And occasionally twitch
As the dog snuggles in between us,
Released from her crate
Because she cries so much.
Again and again and again,
Why is that my whines
Never wake anyone up?
Not even myself.
Holes and Vettes
Bar Harbor. Maine. 2022. A baseball field.
Corvettes line up in rows, engines still
For once and owners preening
From their folding chairs, legs poking
Into the same grass that supports Life
Flight helicopters in emergencies
And soccer cleats. This earth withstands so much.
It’s a yearly gathering that’s paused two years
Thanks to global disease, but now the drivers
Are all maskless and showing off
Their cars to locals who wander
Between the lines, marveling.
“I will never be rich enough
To own one,” says a man
in a black t-shirt to a guy
with a firebird red model.
“I thought that too,”
The guy says. “Work hard.
You’ll get there.”
The first man moves to run
A finger across the car’s hood.
The owner flinches like it’s some kind of assault.
“Try hard,” he repeats. “You’ll get there."
We all try hard
To get there,
Inventing monologues
Of worth based on materialism,
Who owns what, how shiny
Our skins are, our hair, our cars,
Houses. We pretend like any of this
Fills up the holes we dig inside ourselves,
Inside the ozone, inside the earth.
Darkening faces,
Double visions. Horror.
The Vettes represent adventure
And freedom. Not being beholden
Despite the car loans required,
The interest rates. The American Debt.
“There are eight
Generations of car here,”
Says an organizer
With a yellow sunhat
Perched on her head.
“This is the car of dreams.”
American Dreams.
And that’s the thing.
Have you ever hit your head
On a poem or a wall
Or something else hard
And realized that your dreams
Aren’t actually yours?
Have you ever felt like you’re falling
Though you are standing still on a field
Surrounded by excess and shiny paint
Jobs and pride, merciless, assaulting,
And begged for stable ground
Before realizing you’re just making holes, too.
Maybe the holes are in a ball field,
Or in the Earth or the ozone
Or maybe—just maybe—in your own damn heart.
“The term “burnout” was coined in the 1970s by the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger. He used it to describe the consequences of severe stress and high ideals in “helping” professions. Doctors and nurses, for example, who sacrifice themselves for others, would often end up being “burned out” – exhausted, listless, and unable to cope. Nowadays, the term is not only used for these helping professions, or for the dark side of self-sacrifice. It can affect anyone, from stressed-out career-driven people and celebrities to overworked employees and homemakers.”
That NIH article also has some nice rundown of symptoms:
“Exhaustion: People affected feel drained and emotionally exhausted, unable to cope, tired and down, and don’t have enough energy. Physical symptoms include things like pain and gastrointestinal (stomach or bowel) problems.
“Alienation from (work-related) activities: People who have burnout find their jobs increasingly stressful and frustrating. They may start being cynical about their working conditions and their colleagues. At the same time, they may increasingly distance themselves emotionally, and start feeling numb about their work.
“Reduced performance: Burnout mainly affects everyday tasks at work, at home or when caring for family members. People with burnout are very negative about their tasks, find it hard to concentrate, are listless and lack creativity.”
It’s a lot like depression, right? But it’s not the same. Typically, people with burnout don’t’ feel hopeless, suicidal or have low self-esteem.
So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, how do you get some down time when you’re working so hard that you’re either burnt out or in great danger of getting there?
GETTING A GRIP AND GRATIFY YOURSELF
First you want to look at the patterns of us overachievers who tend to burn out. We often were the ‘good kids’ in school who learned that in order to get praise (and not get in trouble) you had to get all your assignments done and on time. We’re all about the goals and completing those goals.
Chilling out? Resting? That doesn’t feel goal-oriented.
We think that we can delay our gratification and keep delaying it and keep delaying it so that we can get all our goals done. Delayed gratification, we all learn in our beginner psychology classes, means we will have better success in our life. They test children about this. It’s a thing. But when we’re super focused on achieving, we burn out because that delayed gratification equates to us not realizing that we are breaking down physically and mentally.
BE CHILL AND LET GO OF THAT DAMN GUILT
And it’s not just that. We want to get a lot done and to do it well. If our work isn’t awesome, we feel like we aren’t awesome. Resting, we foolishly think, keeps us from getting all our awesome things done. It keeps us from writing, running three miles, finishing the project for work, making the perfect lunch for our kids.
It’s worse than that though. We feel guilty. If we rest, we feel guilty.
We should be working, doing, creating. We should be better than this. We don’t need naps.
TAKE A NAP, DAMN IT
Here’s a secret: Alexander the Great took naps. He still got to be called ‘great.’ Ben Franklin? Took naps.
So, the first step is to realize that.
People who have changed history actually rested. That means you can, too. If you don’t, your performance starts to get kind of crappy. You don’t want that, do you, super goal-oriented one? No, of course not.
Then you have to remember that everything doesn’t have to be a goal and everything doesn’t have to be your job and responsibility.
Make a to-do list, sure. But in that make a top priority list and focus on those.
And remember, it’s okay to not be amazing all the time, to not be reliable all the time, to not do everything for everyone all the time. It’s so hard especially when you’re struggling to survive, but you have to remember it’s okay to suck sometimes. We all do. And it’s okay to nap.
DOG TIP FOR LIFE
Take naps! Only get off the couch for food. No, not really. But do take a nap if you need one.
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
