It’s too short to do surveys too, but that’s another subject.
But I don’t like giving bad reviews, as in reviews on bad books, speeches, etc. I don’t do it. It doesn’t make me feel good doing it. And it can destroy the recipient.
I might give a friend feedback, and I’ll be honest too. But at least then, that person asked and knows that I’m trying to help and not tear down.
But an unsolicited, negative review, I’ll pass. I don’t need it, they don’t need it. I’ll just move along to the next book, presentation, speech. Whatever.
If I like it, on the flip side, unsolicited good reviews is what life is all about!
I love to tell an author how much I loved his or her book. It’s encouraging. For both of us. I feel good doing it. I know the recipient enjoys it too.
And we can all use more time feeling good.
What’s the Point?
What’s the point?
To climb a mountain. Why?
To exercise? What for?
To work hard? For what?
To deal with life? To what end?
When it comes down to it, there really is no answer that works for everyone. And there’s really no reason at all to push yourself. In fact, life would that you don’t. Don’t believe me?
Tell someone you’re on a diet. See how long before you’re told that it won’t work, or you’re not doing it right; not giving up enough stuff, eating the wrong things.
Start a new exercise program. You won’t be doing it long enough, at the wrong time of the day, or you’ll hear some story about someone who, despite being fit, died at a young age.
Set a goal. It’ll be too high, or too low.
Write something. You spelled it wrong or you’ll be told how they should do it too, you know since writing is so easy- a monkey can do it.
You see, no one wants to see you do something out of the ordinary or accomplish something.
I don’t think it’s always mean, but it’s discouraging. And ultimately, the naysayers are right.
There’s always a better way to diet and exercise. There’s always a taller mountain. There’s always someone who worked less and got more. There’s always a better way, someone more accomplished, or a threat of failure and total humiliation.
So what’s the point?
What is it? You know what makes you feel good. You know whether a challenge is rewarding to struggle for. You’re the one that has to tough it out; do the work. You’re the one that has to live with the results.
Don’t let perfection stop you. Go for it. For you. For your reasons. Climb your mountains, set your goals, do what you want to do and do it because you want to. Just be prepared to be asked, “Why? What’s the point?”
You don’t owe anyone an answer, but if you don’t know, ain’t no one going to be able to explain it to you.
Expectations vs. Reality
For the second year, I have anxiously looked forward to the “ice-off” at Strawberry Reservoir.
It has been famed and legended that as the long winter’s ice recedes from the shoreline in the early days of the high mountains’ spring, these channels between the shoreline and the darkened ice covered depths, warmed in the direct sunlight, attract small fish in big numbers. And small fish in turn attract hungry big fish.
The legend says these times are the time to find the fish concentrated within casting distance of the shore and eager to take minnow imitations. And as most legends go, the stories are too tempting to not to want to participate. And I, like others, watch for the word, like the beacons of Gondor, to take up our arms and seek the broad-backed, gluttonous, monster Cutthroats of Strawberry Reservoir. Friday afternoon, the torch was lit and on Sunday I arrived at the 7,600 foot elevated lake.
The promise is that so long as your arm can cast and your presentation reaches the water, the fish would be in-line to take your offering. A fish on every cast is what I had been conditioned to expect.
Well, as the day progressed, it became apparent that it would take more than one cast per fish.
I endured the wind, the snow, and the hours of standing on a cold shore, casting in various angles and using various speeds to attract the fish that prowl the slim channels in search of their spring buffet. But these fish do not get large by being caught every spring. They still possess their smart, suspicious hunting prowess.
In all I spent 8 hours for 6 fish landed. Legendary? Not exactly. Worth it? Oh hell yes.
You see in reality, at least for me, the fish made me do exactly what I like to do: to use my own skills. I had to change colors, change speeds, depths, and action. I fished. 6 fish in 8 hours? Yeah, I’ll take that. I’ve done much worse. And the quality of the fish was incredible. All 18-21 inches. All hefty and all hitting the jig with no doubt. They expected a juicy stray minnow and instead were completely fooled.
All my fish landed yesterday returned to the reservoir and are most likely plundering the warm-water-seeking little fish again today. No harm done, but perhaps making them a bit wiser and tougher to catch next time.
In reality, if the fish were as easy to catch as legend promised, there would be many more people there and many more fish removed from the lake. In reality, I’m happy to put in the hours to be rewarded as I was rewarded yesterday. Am I adding to the legend? No. But in reality, that’s a good thing.
On Writing and Making Sandwiches
This is so right on to how I think about it all, I had to reblog. Writers, take note. Or not. Whatever.
The Work in Progress- April 26, 2014
So I thought I would take Saturdays and use them as updates to where I am in the writing/publishing process. I know boring stuff, but I get asked every once in a while so why not.
I am still struggling along in the edits of the second book the OPR series currently titled Cursing Black’s Gold. I just can’t seem to get it just right. I’m very pleased with the ending, but the middle part needs some work. After attending a writer’s conference, I did get some insights in what was stalling my progress. I refocused and things seem to be moving now just a bit. By next week I hope to have more progress and maybe an estimate on the publish date.
Ain’t Dead Yet continues to sell at a slow but steady pace in the kindle store. The most common thing I do hear from those who talk to me about the book is “When is the next one out?” (see above). It’s a nice thing to hear.
Under the category of “Pay more attention to your reports”, I learn upon reading a few of those reports that Twice the Christmas during the December special, was down loaded in Great Britain, Denmark, and Italy. I think that’s rather cool.
I can’t wait to get started on the finishing touches of this year’s Christmas story. I won’t talk much of it right now, but it is waiting for me as soon as Porter II is done. I’ll shed more light on the story once I get back to work on it. The working title is The Biggest Little Christmas in the World. Some out there might recognize the origin of that tag line. And yup, it has to do with there.
OK. That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more riveting writing news next week.
mmj
Searching for Life’s Mysteries
I’m not sure if it’s the nearer to death one becomes as one gets older in age, or that I realize now that I am beyond dying young and with no assurance to grow older than what I already am, but I find myself weighing each decision I make with more gravity and spending more time wondering if it is the “right” thing to do. I find that, instead of savoring my time and experiences, I have fallen into the trap of overthinking the value of everything.
The problem with the pondering and assessments is that it rarely leads to more time “doing”.
I feel some important things have fallen to the wayside or have slowed down to speeds unacceptable.
Not unacceptable because of no other reason than I want to do more stuff. Not as a rush against a two-minute clock or anything. Instead it’s more like: “Why do I care what it’s worth if it’s what I want to do?”
My writing has slowed down. This blog is a great indicator of a general lack of committing enough time to wrte as much as I want to. One of my main goals for this blog is to leave a record of my thoughts. Remember when Blog meant Web Log, or Web Journal. Now too many times, Blog means marketing. Not exactly why I started my first blog years ago and not exactly enough reason to make me want to write posts. When I blog, I blog because I want to.
I write posts in my head all the time while riding my motorcycle; however, it’s not very condusive to taking notes, or leaving behind a posted entry. I write posts in my head because I enjoy it. How have I allowed life to take place of writing posts for real? I know it’s mostly for me anyway. It’s time to write more blog posts. If any of you read them, I hope you enjoy them. And if you like the posts, maybe I can interest you in a book. *Eye brows raising up and down*. Seriously, do as you wish, that’s what I’m doing.
And Fishing. I really need to fish more.
Ice-off is coming soon to my favorite lake. I will be fishing it. And then I will not stop until it’s frozen again. I will set a goal of how many times my waders need to be wet each month. There’s always something more important than fishing. At lease in other’s eyes, and yesterday in my own. That has to change.
There was a time that I dreamed of being a guide. The big reason I decided not to pursue that dream was that I worried about feeding the family and the thought of leading others to that fish of a lifetime and then being the one at the end of the net and not at the end of the fly rod just didn’t seem right.
And with that dream lost, I somehow also gave up my effort to be as good as a guide, to think it was important to keep the pulse of my waters, to be the expert, to always know where the fish were, what were they hitting, and to always be into many huge fish. I let things more important dictate skilled fishing wasn’t worth the time and effort.
Life is short. It flies by so fast. And when one is looking at the last stretch of forty, one never knows just how short the remainder might be.
But a lot can be stuffed in a very little. And if God grants me anywhere near as many years in the future as he has in the past, and I fill, no, stuff them with the things I want to do, I have a feeling I won’t feel cheated or wanting.
Here’s Spit in your Eye!
Just doing a routine procedure of opening and discarding old expired laundry detergent, I had a stray drop of liquid soap missile-shoot me in my unprotected eyeball.
Soap. That’s all it was. But soap’s job is to break down biological components and release them from where they are held bound. Well it went straight to work on the biological components of my eye ball.
It stung. It stung a lot. The thought of the possibility that I had ruined my eye forever more than passively occupied my thoughts.
I flushed the eye with water at the eye wash station, just as we’re told to do so. I flushed again and again.
Eventually it stopped stinging and just became sore, swollen, and goopy.
I went to an eye doctor the next day and had the eye checked out. I found I had burned part of the white of the eye but no real permanent damage. I did, however, had to endure yet another, but professional, eye flush.
The eye still hurts today and it will for a short time; it already shows signs of improvement. But I have to sit back and wonder what I should learn from this.
Wear eye protection? That would seem logical, but I doubt I would hunt down a pair for just opening buckets of soap. So maybe, just look away when the pull tab pops off. Old dog-new tricks thing, I guess.
Don’t take your vision for granted? (Granite for some people out there). I did wonder what it would be like if I lost my sight in that eye. Made me re-think the eye protection thing for a few minutes. I feel grateful that I have vision. I think I already try to take a healthy note of the things around me now, but maybe I should take even that few extra moments to soak it all in a little deeper. There’s no guarantees that my vision will always be with me, with or without my stupidity.
I believe the true lesson to take from this episode is more obvious than the other two.
Delegation.
(I kid of course)
On the Subject of Olympics and Being Fourth
Shaun White finished fourth in the Half Pipe event. The event in which he has won Gold for the past two Olympics.
Fourth.
That would be fourth in the world.
Am I fourth best in the world in anything? No.
Is anyone that has since spoken like fourth in the world is a disaster, fourth best in the world in anything? Probably not.
I, of course, mean all the people who talk of Shaun White’s fourth place, “non-medal” finish with a tone of disgust, a hint of ridicule, or the scent of failure.
He’s fourth best in the world after reigning for the past 8 years as #1. I still say Wow! That is incredible! Congrats!
If you are not still in awe, check yourself. Fourth out of 7,000,000,000 ain’t too bad and a whole lot better than I could have done.
Thanks Shaun. Thanks for going for it on that last run. Thanks for congratulating #1,2, & 3 when it was all done. Thanks for the fun over all these years.
BTW- Everyone rightfully went nuts for Erin Hamlin who finished third in the women’s Luge: the first American Individual Luge Medal ever. I guess according to some, we can only be happy for Silver and Gold in those events now.
To Be Olympic
I love the pageantry: the drama: the emotions.
So much is on the line, every run, every performance, every moment.
The leader board rolls in constant change. Sometimes underdogs winning from behind, sometimes expected leaders winning it all as expected. We get to watch it all.
Actually we don’t.
We, the viewers, only see one version of one finished project. Many do not see the qualifying rounds. Even less of us see the National qualifications that select the teams. And fewer still, the competitions, the trials, the practices, or the training. In fact, I bet less than 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 of 1% ever see anything other than the NBC nationally broadcasted, primetime events. I’ll raise my hand and admit that I’m one of them that only sees the Olympian during the free-TV broadcasts.
It doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the efforts. But it is so easily lost in the heat of the moment that it’s only a moment.
I like sports because of the humanity that it displays; the conquest of the human spirit. I love this stage of Humanities, of will, of might, of determination, of success and of failure.
I love the application or perspective that the Olympics provides for me.
I write books. No one sees the hours I spend by myself struggling over this word or the other. These sentences this morning have been changed a few times, even this one. But no one, but a few, see anything but the finished product. My writings are then read and the moment is over.
My moments continue.
How much I put into these other moments are mine and mine alone. No one cares whether I do it or not. I know, however, that these moments will determine whether the finished product is good enough to win literary Gold or not. Maybe they will only add up to be good enough for a passing “not bad”; perhaps only meriting to some to be barely worthy of a “one-star” brutal review. There will be a point where my talent, my efforts, and my end results can only take me so far. There are others out there doing the same thing and the competition is tough.
Some are better writers than I am. Some are better funded or supported. Others may even be lucky. Those are factors over which I have little control. I can only put in the work and hone the craft the best I can. When I have taken my training, my practice, my qualifications; as far as I can, I then can only put it out before my judges, the readers.
I will not be on NBC. You might not be either. But we can watch those athletes that are performing before us. We can cheer and cry with them. And then mimic their efforts as they have mimicked our lives.
To stand on the Podium must be a wonderful feeling, but to have a chance to even compete for the chance to do so; is not an accident.
Neither is yours or mine.
The Muse
Who is this Muse of which I speak,
That enters my thoughts at will?
She is the one that forms the verse
And words that make me feel.
Sometimes like a big brass band
She sounds within my head.
Other times I must stand still and listen
When she whispers it instead.
Sometimes She speaks in words
Or views,
Or scents,
Other times she hides from me.
I, the writer, have but no choice
To wait,
Pen ready,
Until told what words shall be.
I watch the world and tales untold
Dancing and taunting before me.
But not until Her music plays aloud
Can I hear the song of the story.
I pray she’ll always stay with me.
And always try to make her smile.
For she is the one worth writing for;
The one that gives my form, its style.
Mike M Jensen 