Addressing my absence
Hey people, blog readers--especially you people who have been reading for years and years, who I honestly adore--I wanted to take a moment to address the silence on the blog.
There have been stretches in the past when I've disappeared for one reason or another--having a child, birthing a book, moving across country, etc--but my recent patchy-lame-blah content-blogging is by far the worst/longest stretch I've ever experienced. And it isn't because I have nothing to say or can't make the time to blog or yada yada.
I can always make time for things. I'm pretty good at juggling an assortment of tasks, if I do say so myself. I mean, this is the woman who learned how to sew, make patterns, and play the electric ukulele in the past year, all while getting back in toe shoes and writing 2 books and spending lots of board game time with her spawn. So yeah. I have a lot of energy and can get it done. And I could have made time for this blog.
But the truth is, I haven't felt safe to speak from my heart/be myself on the blog in a while. A pretty long while, actually.
It started with an email I received from a blog reader several months ago. In it, she critiqued one of my posts, telling me that I sounded desperate and that my tone led her to infer that my books weren't very good. She also encouraged me to study up on good business/promotional practices, and generally pull my act together and quit being "made of fail" (this last part was my inference, not stated in the text.)
That email hit me HARD, yo. I wept. I felt pathetic and loser-ish and exposed and sad and it didn't matter how many times I told myself that this woman was a newly agented author and hadn't been down the road I'd been down and hadn't had the "publishing is hard" experiences I'd had and that she didn't understand that reaching out to readers to ask them to support a book that might not be hitting its sales goal isn't being a loser. It's asking for help from the people who send you emails telling you they love your work and begging you to "keep writing." I can only keep writing if I keep selling books, right? That's sort of how the whole "professional writer, I use this money to feed my children" thing works.
I knew she didn't understand that, and that she didn't really know me (or my books), and that she was probably an Athena type, one of those girls who have internalized the patriarchal values of our culture and are repulsed by traditional feminine qualities like vulnerability. Vulnerability, which I believe is a strength and a brave risk and the only way to become a better person than I was yesterday. I like my vulnerability. It makes me a kinder person and I would never want to lose it.
But still, I took her words too much to heart, all too ready to believe she was right and I was a lame ass loser who was doing it all wrong.
This has been a theme in my life. I have often been far too willing to believe that I am a lame ass loser. I only need someone to hint in that direction and I will lay down on the ground, expose my soft underbelly, and wait for them to walk all over me in their heaviest pair of boots.
(So more about my goddess archetypes, which have become a helpful way for me to empathize with other women whose actions I don't at first understand: In this situation, an Athena would tell me to get over it, get up off the ground and quit being a victim, a Demeter would give me a hug and tell me I was a valued creation and worthy of love, and an Aphrodite would tell me to roll around on the floor until I get all the FEELS out and then get up, find my husband, and pounce him until the sadness is gone.)
After that email, I perversely began to seek out every negative thing I could find about myself on the internet, a practice my good friend, J, calls cyber-cutting, and which is positively the most painful, spirit killing, agonizing thing I've done to myself in years. Seriously, I thought once I got out of my early twenties I was done making a punching bag of myself, but apparently not. That email was a trigger for my crazy and set me down a self-destructive path for several months.
Finally, in the past few weeks, I've managed to break some of my new, destructive habits, and get myself back on track, feeling better about myself and my work and being more productive than I've been since last fall. But I wasted way too much time helping the world beat me up, when really, we all know it doesn't need any help.
Now, I could make some sweeping statement today about "NEVER AGAIN!" or "I HAVE SEEN THE ERROR OF MY WAYS AND AM HEALED FOREVER!" but in all honesty, this won't be something I fix now and never deal with again. This is a part of who I am. But I can take steps in a more healthy direction.
The first for me is sharing this on the blog--even though traditional wisdom, and the woman who emailed me last year, encourages only posting positive things about myself/my work/my success here, but I disagree. Bear with me, because I think revealing the real reason I've been absent is important and I'll tell you why:
I get emails every day--lots of emails--telling me that I'm an amazing writer. I hear good things about my work every day. But it's still not enough to kill that "ready to believe the worst" part of me. I used to think a certain amount of success would kill it, or a certain number of friends, but I have had more success than I dreamed I would have when I started writing in 2006. I can't believe I've had 20 books published by NY publishers (my goal in 2008 was 1 and that felt like asking for a lot), had a series optioned for television, or had my work translated into 5 different languages and counting. And I have wonderful, amazing friends who love me and tell me I am sweet and good and worthy and talented and a damn good person and reach out to help me when I need them. I have so many reasons to feel invincible, but I don't.
I share this because I know there are others out there like me, dreaming of that "some day" when everything will be all right inside of them and they will finally stop being so ready to believe the worst about themselves. I'm here to testify that the external will never do that for you. You have to be able to stop, be still, and shut out the cruel voices whose critiques are not meant to help you grow, but to tear you down or criticize you for being different--both the voices from the outside, and the voices from the inside. It's a lifelong battle that requires work and bravery and tenacity.
I let my tenacity and my bravery slide and that led to the silencing of my voice, not just here on the blog, but in real life situations as well. But yesterday, a friend told me that a bit of advice I'd given her (that I'd nearly NOT given her because I was worried she'd think I was being bossy or overly personal) made a real difference in her life and that felt so good. And it made me realize that I can't let myself be silenced, because for every Athena who just doesn't get me, there are other people who speak my language and when I tell my truth they will feel less alone and what is better than making another person feel less alone? Not much in my book. Except maybe sharing a cheese platter, because that is fellowship at its best, my friends.
I have love for you all--even the woman who wrote me that email because I know she had no intention of sending me into a downward spiral, and was probably legitimately trying to help from her POV--and I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful weekend.
Sincerely,
Stacey, the feeler of all the FEELS, who will attempt to be braver and less absent in the future.
There have been stretches in the past when I've disappeared for one reason or another--having a child, birthing a book, moving across country, etc--but my recent patchy-lame-blah content-blogging is by far the worst/longest stretch I've ever experienced. And it isn't because I have nothing to say or can't make the time to blog or yada yada.
I can always make time for things. I'm pretty good at juggling an assortment of tasks, if I do say so myself. I mean, this is the woman who learned how to sew, make patterns, and play the electric ukulele in the past year, all while getting back in toe shoes and writing 2 books and spending lots of board game time with her spawn. So yeah. I have a lot of energy and can get it done. And I could have made time for this blog.
But the truth is, I haven't felt safe to speak from my heart/be myself on the blog in a while. A pretty long while, actually.
It started with an email I received from a blog reader several months ago. In it, she critiqued one of my posts, telling me that I sounded desperate and that my tone led her to infer that my books weren't very good. She also encouraged me to study up on good business/promotional practices, and generally pull my act together and quit being "made of fail" (this last part was my inference, not stated in the text.)
That email hit me HARD, yo. I wept. I felt pathetic and loser-ish and exposed and sad and it didn't matter how many times I told myself that this woman was a newly agented author and hadn't been down the road I'd been down and hadn't had the "publishing is hard" experiences I'd had and that she didn't understand that reaching out to readers to ask them to support a book that might not be hitting its sales goal isn't being a loser. It's asking for help from the people who send you emails telling you they love your work and begging you to "keep writing." I can only keep writing if I keep selling books, right? That's sort of how the whole "professional writer, I use this money to feed my children" thing works.
I knew she didn't understand that, and that she didn't really know me (or my books), and that she was probably an Athena type, one of those girls who have internalized the patriarchal values of our culture and are repulsed by traditional feminine qualities like vulnerability. Vulnerability, which I believe is a strength and a brave risk and the only way to become a better person than I was yesterday. I like my vulnerability. It makes me a kinder person and I would never want to lose it.
But still, I took her words too much to heart, all too ready to believe she was right and I was a lame ass loser who was doing it all wrong.
This has been a theme in my life. I have often been far too willing to believe that I am a lame ass loser. I only need someone to hint in that direction and I will lay down on the ground, expose my soft underbelly, and wait for them to walk all over me in their heaviest pair of boots.
(So more about my goddess archetypes, which have become a helpful way for me to empathize with other women whose actions I don't at first understand: In this situation, an Athena would tell me to get over it, get up off the ground and quit being a victim, a Demeter would give me a hug and tell me I was a valued creation and worthy of love, and an Aphrodite would tell me to roll around on the floor until I get all the FEELS out and then get up, find my husband, and pounce him until the sadness is gone.)
After that email, I perversely began to seek out every negative thing I could find about myself on the internet, a practice my good friend, J, calls cyber-cutting, and which is positively the most painful, spirit killing, agonizing thing I've done to myself in years. Seriously, I thought once I got out of my early twenties I was done making a punching bag of myself, but apparently not. That email was a trigger for my crazy and set me down a self-destructive path for several months.
Finally, in the past few weeks, I've managed to break some of my new, destructive habits, and get myself back on track, feeling better about myself and my work and being more productive than I've been since last fall. But I wasted way too much time helping the world beat me up, when really, we all know it doesn't need any help.
Now, I could make some sweeping statement today about "NEVER AGAIN!" or "I HAVE SEEN THE ERROR OF MY WAYS AND AM HEALED FOREVER!" but in all honesty, this won't be something I fix now and never deal with again. This is a part of who I am. But I can take steps in a more healthy direction.
The first for me is sharing this on the blog--even though traditional wisdom, and the woman who emailed me last year, encourages only posting positive things about myself/my work/my success here, but I disagree. Bear with me, because I think revealing the real reason I've been absent is important and I'll tell you why:
I get emails every day--lots of emails--telling me that I'm an amazing writer. I hear good things about my work every day. But it's still not enough to kill that "ready to believe the worst" part of me. I used to think a certain amount of success would kill it, or a certain number of friends, but I have had more success than I dreamed I would have when I started writing in 2006. I can't believe I've had 20 books published by NY publishers (my goal in 2008 was 1 and that felt like asking for a lot), had a series optioned for television, or had my work translated into 5 different languages and counting. And I have wonderful, amazing friends who love me and tell me I am sweet and good and worthy and talented and a damn good person and reach out to help me when I need them. I have so many reasons to feel invincible, but I don't.
I share this because I know there are others out there like me, dreaming of that "some day" when everything will be all right inside of them and they will finally stop being so ready to believe the worst about themselves. I'm here to testify that the external will never do that for you. You have to be able to stop, be still, and shut out the cruel voices whose critiques are not meant to help you grow, but to tear you down or criticize you for being different--both the voices from the outside, and the voices from the inside. It's a lifelong battle that requires work and bravery and tenacity.
I let my tenacity and my bravery slide and that led to the silencing of my voice, not just here on the blog, but in real life situations as well. But yesterday, a friend told me that a bit of advice I'd given her (that I'd nearly NOT given her because I was worried she'd think I was being bossy or overly personal) made a real difference in her life and that felt so good. And it made me realize that I can't let myself be silenced, because for every Athena who just doesn't get me, there are other people who speak my language and when I tell my truth they will feel less alone and what is better than making another person feel less alone? Not much in my book. Except maybe sharing a cheese platter, because that is fellowship at its best, my friends.
I have love for you all--even the woman who wrote me that email because I know she had no intention of sending me into a downward spiral, and was probably legitimately trying to help from her POV--and I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful weekend.
Sincerely,
Stacey, the feeler of all the FEELS, who will attempt to be braver and less absent in the future.