A) I love this song. Nacie Carson talked about your personal code on her blog today.  while this may sound kind of like your pin number, it’s not that at all.   She says, “It is a set of 7 core values that sums up what is important to you as an authentic individual in life and work. “  So you know what?  I’m going to write out my personal code!

Here are my values:
1.  Belief. I believe in belief–it sounds a little redundant, maybe, but it’s also a fundamental part of my life.  Doubt is crippling, and self-doubt is just worthless.  Instead, I assess, I take stock, and I move forward, believing that success or fail, it all has a grand purpose in my life.
2.  Optimism. Nothing is so bad that it can’t be made worse by a bad attitude.  I’ve gotten through a lot of crap in my life, and the very worst parts of it were when I convinced myself that life was awful and I was at absolute rock bottom and I would never get through it.  It’s important to me that when I’m in bad situations, I do my best to look up, look forward, and get moving.
3.  Honesty. This is one that gets confusing for me.  I don’t understand why people bother to lie, exaggerate, or falsify information in daily conversation.  I generally avoid it because I don’t see the purpose.  I do understand why they do it to protect someone, to prevent someone from pain, or for commercial gain.  I don’t think James Frey is a bad person, I think he wrote a NOVEL and you knew that going into it.  Get over it.
4.  Reserve Judgement. A) judgement is spelled both with an “e” and without it.  I resent that my spell checker tells me this is wrong.  b) I disagree with the biological response to instantly judge a situation.  I think that it’s primordial and doesn’t appropriately assess the complexity of the human condition.  Mostly because, I hate when I judge people.  I hate that I make snarky comments about the teenyboppers walking down the street in tights that they mistook for pants; it may be insignificant and harmless, but it counts. I just feel that I cannot judge someone until I am them.  I can’t look at their choices and judge them; I’m incapable.  I lack the capacity.  And I refuse to give anyone the right to judge me.
5.  Love Helplessly. I lose my heart ten times daily, and yet in some senses, I suppose, I haven’t lost it at all.  It’s more complex than just loving helplessly, but I think a heart grows stronger by loving other people more.  I think giving your heart is easy, but sharing it is thrilling, dangerous, and nearly singular.  I haven’t had the opportunity to really share it yet.  I will.  See #1.
6.  Pay it Forward, Often. Call it a karmic bank account deposit, call it doing a good deed, call it plain old good will.  I think that much in the vein of #5, when you give more often, you open yourself to receive.   Sign me up for that!
7.  Be Open to Revision. I don’t know everything.  Not even close.  And if everything, every action, every moment has a purpose, then any moment could be the one to change everything.  With life, with writing, I’m open to change, to feedback, to rewriting history or opening a new chapter.  Looking back, the best moments are the plot twists, so I don’t resist them.

i’ve been thinking about something lately, as I go down this road with an agent again, knowing that it might not end up the way i want, and even if it does its no guarantee of anything (like contracts, fame, or fortunes).

I’ve been thinking about it as i come back to massachusetts from scotland; its been a whole month, if you can believe it.  I haven’t unpacked my bags yet; i don’t know what that says.

i’ve been thinking about it as i apply for the writer in residence program, and get excited about it, and invested in it.

and i’ve been thinking about it as i attempt to take control of some medical issues and fight the good fight.

all are roads in which i’m facing down failure, and trying to look ahead to the future and move forward.

in the past, my rock solid belief has always gotten me through anything.  you’ve heard about the believe ring; it’s more than legend, its my personal philosophy, my attitude toward life, religion, spirituality, and hope.  believe.  believe.  believe.

but as i said, i’m facing down failure.  I know, sadly, that things won’t work out just by trying, just by gumption, just by wanting them so.  fortune may love being taken by the lapels and being told “I’m with you, kid”, but it doesn’t mean that will get you anything.  it doesn’t necessitate that it will work out with every pitch of the dice.

but i think that might be a micro managed view, not quite big picture enough. i’m a long haul kind of girl, and sometimes i think that failure is like building a house.  If you just start from the ground up, your house isn’t grounded and secure.  if you, instead, lay a foundation, go below ground before you build above it, every brick you sink into your house will lead to the beautiful part that you have above ground.

that’s the big picture i have to believe in, that even when i fail it’s leading to an ultimate success, and that success will dwarf the failure.  that’s why i can’t, won’t, and haven’t given up.  and I won’t give up if any of these dice rolls fails again.

so that’s my message, my mantra, my life.  when you try, and you fail, and you’re faced with the opportunity to try again, do it. when you lose that sense of surety, that absolute belief that everything will work out because it has to work out, just be patient, and remember what a big adventure your life is.  when you’re unsure, when you might fail, try anyway.

I made up my mind, no need to think it over. If I’m wrong I am right, don’t need to look no further.

Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements?

I’ve had a tough week.  It hadn’t seemed that way until it was over.  Coming home from Scotland took this kind of insidious toll on my heart.  I felt dejected for almost two weeks.  More than, I suppose.  Today was the first day I woke up without a vague headache, woke up feeling like myself, and it wasn’t until I did that I realized what I cloud I was under.

The thought had occurred to me lately that maybe it won’t happen.  Maybe I won’t get published, soon or ever.  Maybe my dreams won’t happen.  Maybe I won’t be able to support myself.  Maybe this financial situation will never get better.

Hogwash.  Bull.  Shut up, you monkey pants.

Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements, even if they lead nowhere?

I’m as sick of the financial situation as the rest of us.  I’m sick to death at the thought of losing a tiny bit of my idealism.  It doesn’t matter if I get published, if I make a million dollars (or a thousand….that would be nice…).  I’d like all those things, sure, but it doesn’t matter.

I feel like I’m blessed.  I’m really, truly blessed, because I’ve found something that I love.  I really love writing.  It comforts me, it excites me, it enthralls me.  Right now I’m lucky enough to have found something that at least starts to finance that. I have something to think about while my mother is getting coffee, while I’m sitting at a traffic light, while I’m on the subway, while I’m trying to fall asleep.

It may be the worst time in the world to try and get published, but I’m trying anyway.  I’m hoping anyway.  I’m putting everything I have into it anyway.  Because it’s never been about success, it’s about creation.

And I just can’t get enough.

So, really, how can I be stressed, frustrated, or anything else? I have everything I need.  I have my faith back.

You don’t want to hurt me,
But see how deep the bullet lies.
Unaware that I’m tearing you asunder.
There’s a thunder in our hearts, baby

There has been a disturbing trend this week with two tv shows i love.  grey’s anatomy and i are old loves, we’ve been true for years.  private practice (another shonda rhimes confection) i passably enjoyed in it’s first season because nothing else was on, but it didn’t have the bite that grey’s has.

this week i watched greys and twice wanted to wretch due to the unmitigated horror of it–once for really graphic gore, and the next time for violent psychological disturbance.  and now i just watched private practice and practically screamed at my computer, and cried helplessly for the next ten minutes.  now i’ve teared up at a show before, but never bawled uncontrollably as a father abandoned his two year old so he could be with his daughter as she died (and thus die himself).

now this is not only something that i’m shocked at shonda rhimes for (i don’t exactly watch tv to be confronted with the worst possibilities of life, nor do i expect it from the tame private practice.  24, yes, PP, no), but something that is actually a great segue into life as a writer.

as a young adult writer, when confronted with violence, hard facts, and grim social realities, should you pull back, and present a gentler truth, or should you commit and take the big risks, being realistic to the point of distaste? young adult spans both sides, some like adam rapp (actually a personal favorite, i liked little chicago), known for his gritty stories and take-no-prisoners attitude to even middle grade fiction, and meg cabot w(another personal favorite!) who is notorious for pulling her punches in favor of fluffy, happy, and wildly popular stories.

are we becoming so desensitized that we need our drama to be gut wrenching, and our conclusions to be epic?  our goods extraordinarily good and our bads shockingly bad?

as a writer, do you have to up the stakes to be noticed?  and is there a certain point at which upping the stakes makes you not a realist, but a sadist?  should we shelter our youth, or should we be honest with them in gentle media like books so that they face the difficult truths in contained doses?

my last novel, tarian, was a difficult one to write, because part of it deals with abuse. for me, it was something that defined the character, and i couldn’t move away from it, i couldn’t not talk about it.  tarian was who she was, and i had to write that.  i didn’t know how to handle it; some of my test readers (friends and family) couldn’t read it for a while after getting to the part where the abuse is confirmed, though not in any kind of graphic detail, merely by a statement, an admission.  it is tough, and horrible, and as a writer, it really is an impossible choice.

i look at films like slumdog millionaire, with some of the most horrible inferences of violence i’ve ever encountered.  some of those scenes will always haunt me, but at the same time, the triumph and transcendence of the end will stick with me too.  i think about novels like speak, that changed the face of young adult literature and by discussing a horrible topic, gave it a voice and a lifeline.

i think that its a choice that defines yourself and your career as a writer, and there’s no shame on either side of it.  part of me agrees with meg cabot’s philosophy that there are enough sad books out there.  part of me loves a happy book–and hers in particular–more than anything.  but every now and again there are books like Q&A (the original title of the Slumdog Millionaire book), Speak, Little Chicago, that challenge our culture, shock and horrify, and then help us to move forward.

what choice do YOU make?

And if I only could,
Make a deal with God,
Get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
If I only could.