Brilliance before bed...okay mediocrity before bed

My blog is losing pace and going all over the place. This probably isn't really a bad thing since I have oh all of three readers out there in blog land. But you three...you're my favorite, oh yes you three you three rock! Anyway, back to my point. So first I'm told that all your best ideas and creativity happen before you go to sleep. I'm getting ready to go to sleep and I am still looking for the direction that I wanted to take this blog. But I think maybe right now it's just a matter of organizing thoughts and putting things in perspective...so this blog may end up being longer and more mediocre than I had originally intended it to be...I suppose with only three readers, most of this writing is just for me anyway...which again is probably just as well. I have a dream though. I dream that there will come a day when I am read by many and most of the many enjoy what they read. Hopefully, this reading will be on more than my blog..but I'll take what I can get.

I started this blog to write specifically about the challenges of being a stepmother, I had hoped to share some intimate thoughts as well as funny stories. Ultimately, that process has been stymied by the fact that the path through step parenting has been so intimate that I have not been willing to open myself up even to you my three wonderful readers. I am getting there though and I imagine there will be plenty of interesting reflections on step parenting past present and future issues. My point about the initial focus of my blog and my current lack of focus on said topic is that it's starting to occur to me that this journey into being a step parent isn't just about the step parenting, it's so much more about maintaining and cultivating all of the things that are me while incorporating the new identity of step mother into myself. It's a freaking big job. I think that I wasn't writing a lot because I didn't want to share some of the more intimate feelings I have been having about step parenting, and now I realize that it's just as important to write about all of the other stuff that I am doing to maintain my identity while I walk down this path. So with that said I think that it's not just okay but it's necessary and worthwhile to write about all of the other adventures that I am taking on while I take this journey.

I have spent the last few days not really working on my second novel but kind of cyber stalking in a not scary way, the authors that have had an impact on my writing and have stocked my book shelves. I have learned some good things and have been given hope that there really can be a future for a newbie author. I try not to get to hung up on the fact that I didn't start seriously contemplating writing as a profession until now, but really spending too much time dwelling on that won't lead anywhere good, so let's just forget I even brought it up here.

My point about all that I have been "researching" aka "cyberstalking" is that it has been an enlightening experience and given me a lot of good ideas about organizing my writing and setting some real goals for myself. Writing is hard work when you are trying to say more than a few snarky comments in a blog post. I have all but given up editing my first novel, i can't even get my mom and sister to finish reading the darn thing, so that pretty much tells me all I need to know about how much it sucks. I came to the conclusion today though, that I am okay with that. I think that for a first novel it has thus far served its purpose. First and foremost it has shown me that I am absolutely capable of writing a full length novel and that above all else has helped me to feel empowered in my writing. I think that putting it down and letting it stew or collect dust is just kind of where it's at in its own evolution. I have so many other projects in my head that I am excited about that it seems almost wasteful to put that effort elsewhere. My husband pointed out to my today that there have been many successful projects that were taken down and dusted off after their creator had had time to let the ideas settle and reinvent themselves. So I am deciding to stop thinking about my first novel in terms of it needing to be finished in the sense that it needs to be polished and edited. Obviously I still need practice with such things, but really for now I think that my energies are better placed elsewhere.

I began reading and following Amanda Hocking who is a USA Today bestselling author who has never traditionally published a novel. All of her books have been self published through CreateSpace. This gave me hope because I was pretty skeptical about the potential that an author could have by going through CreateSpace. I'm not by any means unaware of how unique her situation is, but I also know that she has broken a publishing barrier for many newbie authors. In the end as far as writing goes, I want to be read and loved like all writers, but mostly I just want to do it, I just want to write, I want to finish projects and I want to become proficient in the writing and editing process. So I guess no matter where the writing adventure leads me in the end I may not be paid by doggonit I'm gonna be personally successful.

Putting the 'A' in YA

I read young adult paranormal fantasy novels...and I LOVE them! Yes, there I said it! I like to read books written for people 15 years younger than I am. I have been trying to pretend like I only read them for easy reading options. That is true, but the bigger truth is that I love the story lines, I love the writing, I get sucked into the sucky emotional angst of teenage life. Oh yes, yes I do and I gobble up all the woe and heartache and go back for seconds, thirds and fourths if they are available. Reading YA urban fantasy novels for me is like being able to sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner smorgasbord every night of the week. I love it! There I said it. I think that there is something very validating in reading the YA novels, it's not about wishing I was young, though I would be lying to myself if I didn't occasionally say to myself, "damn, I wish I had been that much of a bad ass at 17" but seriously there are very few bad ass 17 year old girls. Most of us are or were so totally absorbed in whatever personal drama we had created or imagined or imagined and then created that we didn't have time to be that bad ass. It's a little bit about reminiscing about the emotional angst and turmoil, it's a little bit about staying in touch with the fires and passions that meant so much, it's a little bit about reading a great romance book and having enough left to the imagination that the relationship tension in the book is palpable as I read. I think there is a little bit that is about being able to read about the stupid decisions that characters make, remembering the stupid choices that I made and reflecting on how those experiences made me a better person.

I run into people who will haughtily pronounce that "they do not read YA novels," and they say it with such superiority that I have to wonder if they aren't secretly hiding stacks of YA vampire novels under their bed. It's not a bad thing to read YA novels and I suspect, actually I think I know that there is a large and very proud population of readers that troll the YA section of library looking for the next Richelle Meade novel, wonder if Stephanie Meyer will come out with something new, put their name first on the hold list for the last book in Alyson Noel's Immortal's series, are counting down the minutes until they can download City of Fallen Angels by Clarissa Clare, are excited when Amanda Hocking produces a new eBook. They are wondering if the next YA urban fantasy novel that they pick up will satisfy their craving for the fantasy and drama the way that the Vampire Academy Series did or keep them up reading til 5 am the way that Harry Potter did.

I read the mature adult reading too, and when the adult books are good they are amazing, but I have a special place in my heart for the YA novel and I think it has a little to do with a lot of things, but primarily I think it's often a reminder that I don't ever want to be a teenager again. But there were good things about being a young adult and reading YA novels is a safe way to stay in touch with that passion and youth while still being mostly sane grown up me.

I know you're out there, you adult YA readers...don't be shy hold your Richelle Meade and Clarissa Clare novels up high! Read proudly and don't forget to sleep every so often!

The Hard Stuff

It's hard to imagine that I'm not the only person feeling exactly as I feel about so many things, step-parenthood is just one of those things. Sometimes I feel so resentful, which only leads me to feel guilty because I chose this life. Who should I resent more than myself?

Sometimes I resent my husband because of how much his job requires him to travel. It feels like he gets to escape when things get difficult because his job takes him out of town so much. And there I am left to deal with all of his parenting responsibilities for a child that I am still struggling with belonging to. I who have thrived on my ability to always do what I wanted when I wanted am now caged and clipped to someone else's decisions. I'm angry, I'm depressed and I'm trapped. These are not good feelings to base parenting decisions on, so then I'm guilty too.

The irony of the whole situation is that in some ways I really do want to want to do these things, somewhere inside of me I want to enjoy parenting and the responsibilities of it. But I can't seem to get past my pride and resentment, because I wanted to be able to choose those things. I feel like all of my powers of choice have been removed and replaced with action out of necessity. My husband isn't available so regardless of my wants or needs I have to step up. The removal of that choice seems like such a small thing, I should just be able to get over it right? I mean I just said that I wanted to want to do those things so why does it feel emotionally and physically impossible to find enjoyment in the responsibilities that are being put on my shoulders. It seems so stupid because I think even if I had the illusion of choice I would be able to find some peace in doing what needs to be done. That seems so shallow that I don't know how it can be that simple. Is it that simple? Is it just the illusion of choice and not the choice that I need? And if that's the case then what does that say about me?

My husband and I work through these things delicately. There are so many things that can go wrong when trying to sort these things out. These are emotionally volatile subjects because we are all so deeply invested in the outcome. I could pretend not to know what the outcome will be, but that would imply that I don't believe whole heartedly that my husband, my step-kids and I are strong enough to come out of this as an intact family. I believe that we are strong enough. I believe that we can take care of each other and take care of ourselves. I believe that the only thing that could cause our efforts to fail is silence. That's a hard thing to say because I have spent the better part of my life valiantly protecting the thoughts and emotions that make me most vulnerable. But I see how communication has improved my marriage and my self and I know that saying the hard things with love hurts less than the interminable silence of not saying anything at all.

I'm scared, and I'm hurting but I'm never as lost as I feel because wherever I go, there I am. I just have to allow myself to be seen and I have to allow myself to see others. But I have to allow myself to see others as they are and not through the veil of my own emotions, I can't see that clearly if I'm holding onto my emotions like they are some kind of precious currency.

I am trying to teach my step daughter about what actual strength is, and it took me a long time to realize what true strength was, it's not having the strength to stay silent about what hurts. The most powerful strength is in being able to be vulnerable when your the most scared that what you might say could be used against you. True strength is knowing that even if opening yourself up leads to being hurt you are going to be okay and getting hurt won't be the end of the world. You might cry a little you might feel a little bit angry, but in the end the strongest people aren't the ones who can't speak when they hurt. The strongest people are the ones that can look at someone else and say "Ow, you hurt me" and be okay if they aren't strong enough to apologize.

The best thing is that people are much better than we give them credit for. Sure people fail us from time to time, and that hurts, but people for the most part are willing to apologize when they hurt us. When it's all said and done and the tears have dried and the bruising ego's and hearts begin to feel less tender, many times we find that if we acted with love not only are we better as individuals, our friendships, marriages, relationships are better too.

Extra Terrestrial Life Forms

There are times in this step-parenting journey when I think to myself, "OH MY GOD WILL THIS NIGHTMARE EVER END!" I know that's all kinds of dramatic and over the top, but so am I, so it's really what goes on in my head. I find myself feeling like I have an alien life form wandering the halls of my house and I can't quite figure out what to do with the strange little beings who look at me so expectantly that I feel guilty that I don't seem to quite get it. I don't seem to quite speak their language, and then suddenly it's not them that's the outsider, it's me. I'm an alien in my own home. There are two people who share a bond so definitive and so deep that the best I can do is to recognize that it's there because I don't feel it. It's not that I don't love my family, I love them all and yet sometimes it just seems so completely inadequate that I find myself feeling guilty for my inadequacies. And then I'm angry. I don't know why I'm angry but I am because I am home and somehow I still feel like the puzzle piece that got put into the wrong box. And then I feel guilty again, I mean, I chose this life and these aliens. I walked into the family with my arms, eyes and heart wide open and yet there are so many days when it just doesn't feel like enough.

Sometimes I feel like I have lost a sense of me and the things that used to ground me. Those are probably the hardest days because I have placed so much value on my individuality when I can't find it in the chaos of our family I just want to sit down and bury my head into my hands and cry. But then I am angry again, and then guilty and round and round it goes until I am so dizzy with conflicting and antagonizing emotions that it's not just my mental state that feels nauseated it's my whole being. Sometimes I try to analyze how I let it all consume me so quickly but that only makes me feel worse and I know the only thing to do is to stop fighting it all, to just let it be what it is. I finally let things go, stop trying to control every aspect of the world around me and suddenly the connections reappear, the aliens become the family that I love and I realize that maybe just maybe the only alien in the house was me.

Stuck

I started this blog so that I could write about all the things that are hard to talk about as step-parents. I wanted to be a voice of honesty about the overwhelming emotions that are tied to being someones parent, but not totally being someones parent. I wanted to say the things that I hope I'm not the only one feeling. I wanted to be bold and intrepid....mostly this blog is turning out to be more tepid than intrepid. I don't know if it is that I don't want to write those emotions, I don't know if I'm still afraid to say them. I know that I am afraid because they are constantly evolving as my relationship with my step kids evolves and I am afraid that if I write something now that later turns out to be untrue, it might be held against me. But then again just because it's not true later on down the road doesn't change the fact that it might be true today, and I guess that's what's important. I'm working on it....till then to my three little followers my mantra will be "BE BOLD, BE INTREPID".

Honesty

Most writers have probably already discovered and accepted the fact that in order to be a good writer, in order to really say what people want to read, you have to be willing to say what they are thinking. This inevitably means that you have to say what you are thinking and ultimately someone is going to get hurt. I pussy foot around a lot of writing because the things I want to say, the things that people want to read are things that nobody wants to think about or admit to themselves. Writing is the physical equivalent to standing stark naked in all of your flawed glory with a kool aid smile plastered across your face in Time Square.

Anyone who has known me for long enough has figured out that although I seem open on first meeting, I'm probably one of the most emotionally guarded people that they will ever have the pleasure of meeting. I once had a guy I was dating tell me that dating me was like trying to scale the Great Wall of China. You can feel sorry for my husband, he deserves it! Anyway, I'm moving away from my point.

Writing, at least writing well requires a level of exposition that is just a little bit terrifying. I am learning that writing fiction is not any easier because the fiction is mixed with the truth about me and the mixture of the two has the potential to be highly volatile. People are going to twist the truth and the fiction it will be hard to tell what is me and what is my imagination. I mostly worry about this with my husband. Which is why he has yet to read my almost finished novel. I'm not even sure that he will ever be allowed to read it. Then again writing is how us emotionally challenged people are able to participate in the world around us. Hiding the finished product from the world would be pointless and yet, I'm just a little bit scared. Okay maybe petrified.

New Year...Same Me

It's 10 days into a brand new year and I wish that I could tell you I was full of vim and vigor to live differently, to be more wise and all of that other nonsense that goes with the seemingly pointless tradition of making New Years Resolutions. It's not that resolutions don't have a valuable place in this world, it's more that I find their best value is in breaking whatever resolution I made. These days I try more for daily resolutions than yearly resolutions, it makes it feel slightly more attainable and much less depressing when I break whatever resolution I have dedicated that 24 hours to...I can always go to be knowing that tomorrow I will wake up and I can just make the same resolution all over again. It's much less time consuming than having to wait a whole nother year to make another resolution that I am likely to break within the first week of the New Year.

So anyway, here I am, not doing what I should be doing, and doing what I know I shouldn't...essentially wasting time playing horrible facebook time killing games. It seems that the beginning of a new year should put some sort o f time urgent need to be diligently accomplishing the important things in life...but that just sends us back to the discussion about New Years Resolutions. And now that I am back where I started I find it necessary to stop and get back to the writing that I wake up every day promising myself I will do for myself because I love to do it, but for whatever reason keep putting off...delving into the why of that is another blog topic for another day. Happy New Year...I think...