In which the frog jumps out of the pot, or see you in September

I have been thinking about taking a sabbatical from my blog for a while now, and it seems I'm not the only one who is stepping back. Lady Glamis is closing down her blog, Innocent Flower, Miss Rumphius is stepping out for a little while, Lotus girl is going through a purge-a-palooza, and Corey at Thing 1 and Thing 2 has lost her mojo for her blog.

My reasons? Several. First, summer is a time to be with my children, to do spontaneous things like make crepes or go for a bike ride or hang out with the neighbors. It is a time when fresh vegetables and fruits abound, and this year especially, I am looking forward to making wonderful meals from the produce I will receive from a local farm through an CSA program. It is also a time when, if I don't pay attention to the backyard for a few days, it will be overrun by weeds and over-exuberant ground covers.


Here is another reason, one which I'm not even sure I can articulate properly. The best I can do is with the metaphor of the frog in the pot of boiling water.


In my version of the story, I somehow become aware of the water getting hotter than I can handle and I jump out (hopefully not into the fire, but that's another metaphor, isn't it?) before I boil into a lovely frog broth.

Let me explain. I love interacting with writers and people who love the arts on blogosphere. I enjoy participating in different activities: commenting, following, joining Ning groups, entering contests. But without realizing it, I've gone too far.

It's not just that I am spending too much time or energy, it's also that I am doing some things I am not entirely sure about.(This is the part that may get me some flak, but I hope you understand I am describing my struggles, not passing judgment.)

Take contests, for instance. Most of them now offer a point system to reward readers for publicizing the event. This has made me wonder: is this for me? If something is done by the majority and I choose not to do it, does it mean I am intentionally leaving myself/my book behind? When will the saturation point hit, i.e. if and when I do decide to engage in publicity this way, how can I be sure that people will not have become sick of them/blase/overwhelmed by too many people doing the same thing?

I guess the underlying reason, for me at least, is that there is something about those actions that is one step removed from the real motivation--following or blogging because I want to qualify for a contest, or requiring people to follow to qualify for my contest--that makes me ever so slightly squirmy. Lots of things in life are done for extraneous reasons, I realize that. But I still wonder.

Other issues relate to how this blog fits into my writing life. I know many bloggers re-evaluate their decisions periodically and I'll be joining them. Thoughts and arguments will brew in my mind as I fly kites and weed and grill. When I see you again, I hope to have a clearer mind, whether or not I resolve all my questions. I already have an idea of what I can do about my blog when I return.

Hope you'll join me on my journey again. I may even throw in a couple of contests and devise a new point system.


Enjoy your summer, if you're in my hemisphere, or winter, or monsoon season, and see you in September. (Anyone else thinks of this song when they hear this phrase?)

Tricia made me do it

Write a haiku, that is.

Tricia is celebrating her one year anniversary at Talespinning. If you have not visited, I hope you will. It is one of my favorite blogs. Not only does she write from her heart, she also has the most gorgeous photographs and touching haiku.

As part of her celebration, Tricia is holding a contest and asking her readers to write haikus. With spring in the air, along with the sense of renewal and quiet excitement, it was easy to find inspiration.

This picture is from my backyard. When we bought the house, we were told the steep slope at the back required a retaining wall, but that seemed so cold and uninviting. Then we found out boulders could do the trick. And I am so glad. And so are our resident monkeys, who got their mountain-goat footing by climbing and jumping on these rocks since they were mere tots. (And in the process, training their mom to deal calmly with heart-attack moments.) Even in the winter time when all is gray and brown, the boulders provide their own brand of stoic beauty.

Right now, the petals from the flowering fruit trees are giving way to the vincas and phlox. Colors are beginning to dot my backyard again. And here is my humble tribute to it:

Petals in the breeze
Phlox brims over stoic rock
Spring and hope collide

Happy spring and renewed hopes to all!

Say nay to naysayers

In her post yesterday on Writer Unboxed, Ann Aguirre exhorted her readers to think big, to believe in six impossible things before breakfast. An uplifting message.

What stayed with me the most, however, was this list:

(1) Graduated college
(2) Moved to a foreign country
(3) Got an agent
(4) Sold a debut SF novel written in first person, present tense, that one agent called unsellable
(5) Became a national bestselling author
(6) Sold nearly 20 books in three years

These were the things she was told she couldn't do, that she'd gone on to achieve.

That shows courage and confidence and determination.

Why did the list make such an impression on me? Because these qualities:

• courage
• confidence
• determination

don't come easily to me. I am much more incline to:

• fear rather than to brave the unknown;
• discount and second-guess my abilities and decisions;
• refrain from committing to anything I am not absolutely sure of.

I look back and remember one dream that I'd given up because I'd believed in naysayers. When I was fourteen and was completely captivated by the orchestra, my desire to become an orchestral conductor met with "girls can't be conductors" and "if you're not a highly-trained string player by this age, you'd never be a conductor." I was devastated and no longer dared to dream that dream. *

These people were not necessarily trying to be discouraging. They were probably just throwing out considerations. And most likely they didn't expect someone to falter so easily.

I've given up on a few other dreams such as this and still cannot think about them without that twinge of regret in my gut. Even though I am committed to living a life without regret, and objectively I know that my life is good, I do allow that twinge to surface as a reminder not to step on the well-worn, much smoother path of giving up, but to take out my machete and cleavers and chop my way through the brambles and thorn bushes of the path I need to travel on.

Now I write fiction. This pursuit is understood only by those others who are engaged in similar activities--artists, musicians, authors. To the pragmatic and uninterested, what I do is pure foolishness. But the post yesterday helped me realize that I've come a long way, baby; I've learn to say "nay" to the naysayers, especially the one from within myself.

So, I invite you to join me in standing tall, holding strong to your beliefs, and say a loud, NAY (don't you think its old-fashioned quality makes it even more effective?) to the naysayers who assault you from without and within.

*I chose these two conductors because the first one, Alondra de la Pana, formed her orchestra single-handedly and the second one, Shi-Yeon Sung, broke into the all-male ranks of conductors of the Boston Symphony, one of the most prestigious of orchestras. And oh, she started her music career as a pianist, as did so many other conductors. Read the story of de la Pana's Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas. From the story of Sung's debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, I find the following passage particularly inspiring:

...she admitted the difficulty of the situation, pointing out that 50 years ago there were almost no women playing in orchestras. "Nowadays, nobody says 'a woman musician' in an orchestra. And the situation [with conductors] is changing," she wrote, noting not only [Marin} Alsop but the Australian opera conductor Simone Young and JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

"I really hope that soon I won't get this question [of being a woman conductor] any more," she added.

An update

Those of you who've come by recently (thank you so much for visiting and leaving comments; I love hearing from you) must have noticed I am now blogging more regularly. Since I've received so many good wishes when I first told you of my husband's diagnosis, I feel I should let you know what's going on in that part of my life.

Big news: treatments are OVER. Six+ months of chemo and surgery and related complications are finally behind us. He is now going to be observed regularly. The first set of scans seem good. So it's upward and onward from here.

We are learning how to live normal lives again, meaning lives that don't revolve around schedules for doctor visits/hospital stays/blood work/medicine/temp-taking. It's remarkable how tricky that can be!

During my hiatus from the blog, I've been thinking about how blogging fits into my life. It would be great if I had a succinct and profound point to make right now, but I don't. I do have some ideas though and hope to share them with you.

I was going to re-start my blogging with some of these ideas or thoughts about the new year, but what with all the news and contests, I have chosen to delay those posts. I will get to them, soon, and I hope to see you back.

Tomorrow: my favorite books of 2009.

Milestones

[Ring of life by forgetfulio]

Another ring on the bark,
another year of living out "I do",
another year of receiving and giving grace.

It's my wedding anniversary today. Here is a poem that I've posted on Poetry Friday before, but it is so perfect, I'll post it again:

Superbly Situated

by Robert Hershon

you politely ask me not to die and i promise not to

right from the beginning—a relationship based on

good sense and thoughtfulness in little things

i would like to be loved for such simple attainments

as breathing regularly and not falling down too often

or because my eyes are brown or my father left-handed

and to be on the safe side i wouldn’t mind if somehow

i became entangled in your perception of admirable objects

so you might say to yourself: i have recently noticed

how superbly situated the empire state building is

The rest of the poem is here.

Do you have a favorite poem or passage about love and marriage and commitment? Would love to read it.

Poetry Friday: Ecclesiastes

Eccelesiastes 3: 1 - 8
(New International Version)

These is a time for everything
and a reason for every activity under the heavens

a time to be born, and a time to die
a time to plant and a time to uproot
a time to kill and a time to heal
a time to tear down and a time to build
a time to weep and a time to laugh
a time to mourn and a time to dance
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them
a time to embrace and a time to refrain
a time to search and a time to give up
a time to keep and a time to throw away
a time to tear and a time to mend
a time to be silent and a time to speak
a time to love and a time to hate
a time for war and a time for peace

Poetry Friday today at Kelly Herold's new blog, Crossover

Hiatus

I'll be taking a week off from the blog during Spring Break to enjoy our beautiful weather with the fam but I'll be back next week with book reviews under the categories of:

• How Could You Not Have Read It Till Now?
• Cybils Finalist
• Carl Hiassen Doesn't Disappoint
• "Oldies" from the Nineties
• Favorite Books For my Early Middle Grade Boy Reader.

See ya!

Pep Talk Week: No Regrets

The subject today: Regret

Regrets come in two flavors:

• "I wish I had told the guy I admired him."
  
• "I came within 0.2 points of getting my summa cum laude."
  

The first has to do with a decision, made differently than what we think we should have. The second has to do with something outside our control. We could have studied a bit harder maybe, but in the end, the 0.2 points are not our say.

A few years ago, I realized I've prevented myself from a lot of good things because I didn't have enough guts to pursue them. All those opportunities forgone!

Faulty thinking: if I didn't go for it, at least nobody could say I've failed.

It's sad enough that appearing good in front of people had so much power, but sadder still that it wasn't even the whole story. The real reason was that I didn't want to find out for myself if I really had what it took, and didn't know if I could handle it if I had to admit I didn't have what it took. So I simply took myself out of running. All because I didn't want to face a possible truth about myself.

I decided then that I wanted to live a life of no regrets. It hasn't been easy, nor has it been totally successful, but I can say I'm pursuing more scary things now than before.

In my recent funk as a writer, I wondered if it was all worth it. I toyed with the idea that I should just stop pursuing the dream. I am not going to get published anyway, why spend all that energy and time on a dead end? This blog offers me an outlet for my writing, and maybe that should be enough.

Old habits, especially thought habits, really do die hard.

New mantra: It is always better to try and fail than not to try at all.

If I were to have any regrets, let them be of the second variety. I will not allow myself to fall back into forgoing dreams out of fear.

Twenty years of unexpectedness

This week, my husband and I celebrated twenty years of marriage. In our wedding picture. We look bright and hopeful, as newlyweds tend to, and I remember feeling that way as well. We dreamed big, but our life together gave us experiences much bigger than we could imagine. Some of those have been the very ones I'd secretly hoped we'd never have to experience. Yet through them came complexity and richness that gave our life meaning and depth.

As this poem by Arthur Conan Doyle writes in his poem, Retrospect

All that we ever dreamed, dear wife,
Seems drab and common by the truth,

To the unexpected. And to loyal and courageous companions!

Poetry Friday Roundup at Author Amok this week.

Poetry Friday

I'm thinking about failure and success, in our pursuits as well as in our relationships, and about what really lasts. Here's a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.

What Survives
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Who says that all must vanish?
Who knows? Perhaps the flight
of the bird you wound remains,
And perhaps flowers survive
Caresses in us, in their ground.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Please visit Picture Book of The Day for this week's Poetry Friday Roundup.

A Mom's first conference

I am getting ready to go to a 3-day writers' conference tomorrow. This will be the first time I will be gone overnight. My children are 7 and 5 and I am sure will enjoy their time with Dad. In fact, when I did a trial run a few weeks ago and went to a one-day workshop, they had a blast. So why am I nervous at all? For one, my daughter isn't feeling well. Second, a fun-filled Saturday may be a novelty but a Friday-Saturday-Sunday may stretch the novelty factor a bit too thin. And third, did I say I've never left them overnight before? Well, actually, I did have to leave for a week when my son was almost one. It was during my previous life as a musician. I had a conducting gig in a different town. I talked the organizers into flying my 2-and-a-half year old daughter with me and hiring a babysitter for her while I rehearsed and performed. And while I was gone, grandma and grandpa flew over to dote over the baby.

Fast forward five years and only now am I brave enough to attempt another time away. They are so much older now, I have nothing to worry about. What's the worst? They mope around all weekend? Nah, not likely. They watch too much TV? Probably. My husband getting exhausted and become super appreciative of what I do? Hmmmm...

What's in a name?

Each of my sibling's names is based on a Chinese proverb. My older sister and I share a four-character proverb that means being wholehearted and single minded. My sister's name, Yat-Sum literally means "one heart." My name is the "single minded" bit, but the literal translation is less straightforward. Yat-Yee means "one intention/mind/desire." The "Yee" part of Yat-Yee is a character that doesn't have a firm meaning but takes on different shades of meaning depending on context. Many characters in Chinese are like that, it makes the language so much more fluid and rich but also ambiguous at times. I secretly believe (not so secretly anymore) that the fluidity and ambiguity of the language has affected how Chinese people relate and talk to one another, but that's the topic for another day.

My parents probably had high hopes that we would grow into our names, and my sister is indeed a passionate person who pursues her dreams wholeheartedly. Good ol' One Intention over here, however, er, can't decide which one of her passions to focus on. So far, the solution has been to pursue one thing at a time. Although I've always loved books and art as much as music, it was music that hooked me first. I threw myself into music beginning in my teens and went to college and grad school as a musician. In the early part of my career, I was one of those fortunate people who loved what they did for a living (although financial wise, it wasn't much of a living.)

Twenty years and a child later, the itch to write began to intensify. I had been writing all along, of course, but always on the side. With a fussy sleeper in a house built in a open floor plan (read: whatever sound you make in one room is heard in the entire house), I couldn't practice much. The timing was perfect.

These days, my work is done on a different keyboard, but it is the same slogging over mechanics and technique, nurturing the creative mind, judging the results as an objective third party, booing the failures, cheering the progress, second guessing the choices, walking the fine line between control and freedom, all in glorious solitude.