Time for Change

For a long time now I've been thinking of upgrading this hidden blog to a full fledged real life writers website. I think I've hesitated because that means I'll actually have to be connected to it and responsible. No more family secrets exposed in the tiny wrinkles of the internet I've let in. No more pretense. No more flirting... well maybe a little. A writer's website should reflect the writer after all.

So what has changed? A couple of things. I'm no longer embarrassed by the things I've written. Part of that comes from getting older and that don't give a damn attitude that comes with age. Part of it comes from reading and reading and reading and realizing that my words may not be the best ever written, but they aren't the worst, at least in my opinion, either.

And I have time now. I've stopped taking new legal clients. I don't find the thrill in law I once did. If I could represent only writers and artists all the time, and could separate my right brain functions from my left long enough to stop sighing around them and actually give them the answers they need AND make it pay for the overhead, I would. But that doesn't seem likely, given that I don't live in New York or L.A.

So I'll keep doing my pro bono kind of work, and keep writing, and just own what I do.

I promise to make this prettier soon. I'm taking a workshop!

p.s. here is a duplicate site I'm experimenting with too. http://rosesrefuge.tumblr.com/

Focus

Anyone who knows me knows me to generally be the kind of person who gets hold of something and then chews it up until all the flavor is gone and its completely "handled." The problem is that i can't stay in any one subject area for very long without getting bored. So I'll hit writing hard for months at a time, then disappear from the writing world, reappearing at bar meetings and taking on pro bono clients and proving that yes, i still can change the world! This characteristic makes both law and fiction good options for me simply because the facts always change. Maybe not the rules or language or laws, but the facts always have new twists.

Overlap is hell though. If you are the "last client" on my desk before the creative writing monster grabs hold, I resist finishing your work, not because it is hard or I don't want to, it is just that my focus has already moved on.

This week is the last week of October, so NaNoWriMo starts Monday... which is a creative sprint for 50,000 new words of fiction. I really like Nano months, because they fit my personality.

But I really like the two clients on my desk, too, so discipline must set in and i must get their work sent off before the week ends. And hope they are satisfied and happy so when writing loses its tartness in a couple of months, I'll have work to come back to.

And what I have really lost my taste for is virtual worlds, so if that is where you've found me in the past, you might want to go to twitter or facebook or even... gasp... email! Who knows if that will light back up for me? Some things i guess we just outgrow.

profile subjectes

Read some advice about Twitter tonight that suggests that one should be focused and actually post about the things she is focused on. But I'm a scavenger, always scouring others words for the one that makes me stop and reflect. Wouldn't it be funny to be always retweeting someone's quips because I like the words? Embarrassing.

I got to listen to Mary Karr read from Lit last week. I enjoyed her presentation a lot... and part of it was her Texan-isms, about which I wrote when I first moved to Texas... more of the plethora of essays and stories that are in my personal slush pile, unpublished and un posted with yet another breakdown of websites. The one she added to my collection of colorful phrases: "Signing doctor to your signature when you can't write prescriptions is like being a General in the Salvation Army." She recommended that writers watch for metaphor like this in everyday speech, and with northern jealousy, I realized how much more color there is in the south, in so many respects.

My profile says, mom, lawyer, writer and virtual world personality. See above re expansion on writing thoughts.

Law, well. I still believe that my clients confidences include not telling anyone they have a lawyer, especially if it's me. Not getting much from me on this, perhaps I should take that reference down. But .. I work alone most of the time, and most of the time I don't even come across lawyers in opposition. But I LIKE lawyers. Might come from having gone to law school when the men exponentially outnumbered the women... but I still find lawyers to be great friends. So I'll leave it in. And break rules. Heh.

I'm debating my scavenger role in life as well, as we contemplate buying a condo on the beach in Galveston. I can't decide if it is a negative, particularly in light of the tragedy in Haiti... doesn't it make more sense to send more aid? Or positive... Galveston needs investments to recover.

But this is a longtime dream, to fight saltwater spray on windows that I can open and leave that way if i choose. Couple the sad real estate market with the last hurricane and you find a depressed buyers market for a resource that there will not be more of. We would keep it for the time when we are ready to sever ties with suburban real estate, and not yet ready to sever ties with the children we've launched into this part of the world.

And I've got a terrible case of land lust. I've quenched it the last couple of years with virtual land in Second Life, but this is not a lust that knows satisfaction.