Joy is a signal you can trust -- #Joy #Satisfaction #Insight

By Lisabet Sarai

About a week ago, I had an “aha!” moment. I’d been feeling terribly stressed due to increased demands at my job and my author commitments, plus some impending travel that will make it all the more difficult to fulfill my obligations. I was obsessing about everything, when it hit me: even though I have way too much to do, I enjoy almost all of the tasks on my long list —writing, teaching, research, making covers, reading, writing reviews, creating blog posts, entertaining friends, sending birthday cards, cooking, even exercising. When I asked myself what I’d give up, if I had to make a choice, I really didn’t have a good answer.

That realization flipped my thinking and drained some of the stress. First, I felt a surge of gratitude that my life is so full of meaningful activity and so rich in joy. Second, I understood that joy is a reliable signal as to whether you’re on the right path.

If it’s not fun, you’re doing it wrong.

Am I talking about sex? Yes. Writing? Yes. Keeping fit? That too.

The Calvinistic/Puritan tradition views life as bitter and hard, an exercise in self-denial, a continuous series of trials one must endure in order to reach the promise of Paradise in the hereafter. I just don’t buy that. It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t match my personal experience.

For me, life is something to celebrate, a continuous unfolding, a twisting and often surprising path. And when I’m wondering which branch to follow, I’ve learned to turn within first, to ask myself how the path feels. Does it feel right? Does it generate joy?

I remember when I got my first job in my second career. (I’ve had several since.) I had no prior professional experience in this field, just a couple of university courses. I got hired on the strength of my academic credentials. When I started working, though, something clicked. I really “got” the concepts. I found I had an aptitude that I would not have expected. The job tapped into my creativity and developed my interpersonal skills. It was definitely the right path at that time.

When I met my husband (at a technical conference), I tried to give him the brush-off. We lived on different coasts and I didn’t want a long-distance relationship. Besides, I was already juggling four lovers. When he persisted, however, I discovered that being with him felt inexplicably comfortable. We spent the first three weeks of our life together driving across the US, a trip that could strain even a well-established couple. We had a fantastic time—and despite the newness of our relationship, the whole process turned out to be incredibly easy and natural.

Thirty nine years later, I understand: it was so much fun because we were obviously doing it right.

Note that joy is not exactly the same as happiness. It’s not about pleasure or entertainment. Joy is something deeper, a spiritual quality, a sense of satisfaction, order and symmetry. Sometimes it’s a quiet, soothing warmth humming under your solar plexus. Sometimes it’s laughter bubbling up out of nowhere, an urge to sing or to dance. Joy can be wordless, or it can spill out in poetry or paint.

I believe we are meant to feel joy and that when we do, we can trust we’re being our best and truest selves.

The fact that something kindles your joy doesn't mean it will be easy. Climbing a mountain, running a marathon, getting a degree, raising a child, or writing a book all take a huge amount of effort, but joy is the ultimate reward. And of course every life has its pain and its tragedies. But joy makes you more resilient.

Writing can be tough, frustrating work. We all complain when the words don’t flow or the characters don’t obey. We fight with incompetent editors, flinch at poor reviews, feel discouraged when our royalties don’t even begin to reach the level of minimum wage. In the face of all these negatives, why do we—why do I—keep writing? Out of love. Because of the joy.

Almost nothing compares to the sense of delight when I am in the groove, the words are flowing and the story is unfolding just as I’d imagined. It’s worth every bit of aggravation and every ounce of effort.

At least that’s how I feel. Your mileage may differ. But if you are truly suffering for your art, why bother? If what you're doing doesn't fundamentally satisfy you, give you that deep level feeling of rightness, maybe you are doing the wrong thing.

Not that I’m counseling my fellow authors to give up. Just stop and ask yourself: is it fun? And if not, what can you change so that it will be?

Into the Woods with a Good Book #amreading

by Giselle Renarde

I have a little ritual I repeat from year to year.

Every year when we arrive at the cottage, the first thing I do is peruse the bookshelves.

The cottage is not our cottage, and so the books are not ours. The owners of the cottage are avid readers (of literary fiction in particular), and their new books quickly carve a path to the cottage bookshelves.

But, among the newer books are a host of older ones, the jazz standards of the cottage bookshelves. They're always there and I never tire of seeing them. Plenty of Canadian fiction: Robertson Davies, Stephen Leacock, Margaret Laurence.

A few years ago I read A Bird in the House. This year it was A Jest of God.

There's a reason I don't bring my own books to the cottage: I'm generally a slow reader, and choosing a book from the owners' shelves challenges me to read the entire thing in the span of a week.

You can't take it with you--the book, that is. This isn't a lending library.

So I spend the week reading.

At home, I start every day with a book. Now that I've kicked coffee, I brew a cup of tea and I sit and read for a while. But at the cottage that while stretches out, fills much of the day. Reading, eating, board games, DVDs at night. That's a family vacation at the cottage, and it's really something special.

If you'd like the inside scoop on this year's cottage vacation, I invite you to read my second book of correspondences, Hi Babe. It's just a little book of letters, the ones I wrote to my girlfriend while I was away.

This year's vacation was more eventful than relaxing--not at all what I'm looking for at the cottage. As much as I complain about the city, our family getaway proved that life follows you wherever you go. It even follows you into the woods.

Thank you, technology.

If you're at all interested, grab a copy this month from Smashwords, where you can get it for free during July's big ebook sale: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/879056?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica

Enjoy!

Avoiding Close Calls (#deadlines #stress #dreams)

By Lisabet Sarai

I dream about missing deadlines. My plane has already boarded, while I’m not even finished packing. I’ve got to teach a class in ten minutes, starting with the quiz I use to make sure everyone arrives on time, but I’m still half an hour from the university. Then there’s the classic anxiety dream where I realize I have an exam scheduled today, yet somehow haven’t studied or attended class for a full term —astonishing given how long it’s been since I graduated!

While these aren’t exactly nightmares, their regular recurrence testifies to my concern about the issue. In the real world, I work hard to avoid this sort of close call.

My DH and I are the kind of people who arrive at the airport more than the recommended two or three hours prior to departure, just in case we encounter some unexpected obstacles. I’ve spent a lot of time hanging around in airport restaurants, gates and lounges. On the other hand, in four decades traveling around the world, I’ve never missed a plane (though we almost didn’t make a connecting flight on a recent trip to China, due to poor planning on the part of the airline).

I spent sixteen years in school and university. In that entire period, I don’t remember ever turning in a late assignment—or “pulling an all-nighter”, as we used to call it. I’d start tackling homework or term papers the very day I learned about them. Now, when I have a commitment to produce some sort of work, I plan my schedule way ahead of time in order to make sure I can fulfill my promise. Occasionally I’ll experience problems and discover my effort estimates were too optimistic. I don’t react well to that sort of stress, as my long-suffering DH will attest. And when I have a challenging deadline, one I fear I can’t meet, I seriously suffer.

Not everyone is like me. (My students, in particular, seem to feel little distress about upcoming deadlines.) I’ve met people who seem to get a thrill out of living on the edge, cutting their margins to the absolute minimum, gleefully living one day at a time without concern for tomorrow’s looming responsibilities. I’d like to say that I envy them their lack of tension, but honestly, the prospect of being like that fills me with horror!

Our topic this fortnight is “Close Calls”. Some readers might argue that almost missing a deadline, or a plane flight, doesn’t capture the real meaning of the term. A close call, they’ll say, is a near-disaster that could not have been anticipated or avoided. My experience with the landslide in Peru, the subject of my post here when our topic was “Near-Death Experiences”, might qualify. Almost being discovered in flagrante by a parent or authority figure could be an equally good, though less severe, example. Having the condom break the day before you ovulated would definitely fit the topic. If you have any control, though, it’s not really a close call.

I’m not completely convinced. Obviously external circumstances cannot be predicted. The drunk driver who almost but not quite totals your car may be beyond your control. The earthquake that levels the town while you happen to be away on business; the fanatic who barges into the movie theater to mow down a dozen people, after you decide at the last minute to see a different film; the brick tumbling off a building that lands on the sidewalk two feet ahead of you; these all represent lucky escapes from dire events that could easily have impacted you. No deliberate action on your part could have prevented the terrible outcomes you barely avoided.

However, I think that some “close calls” are the direct result of the choices people make. People take risks, choosing to ignore the potential consequences. Indeed, risk can add to the excitement. I considered writing a quickie for this topic about having sex in a public place and nearly being caught. (I refrained, figuring Daddy X could do a much better job.) Without the danger of discovery, public sex wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

Some people prefer to push things to the limit. They don’t start on assigned work until the night before it’s due. They show up at the exit gate five minutes before it closes. They enjoy tempting fate.

Not me. I’m a pussy when it comes to stress. I recognized that I can’t control the universe, but I’ll do whatever I can to avoid close calls in situations where my actions make some difference.

Then I’ll write stories about those of you who dare to thumb their nose at danger. You’re much more interesting.

A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven

By Lisabet Sarai

I started this article, on the topic of procrastination, nine days before its post date.

Lest you think that I am showing off, let me assure you that if I hadn't written it today, it might not have been written at all. On the day this post is supposed to go live (April 1st), I'll be on a plane to France, headed for a nearly three week vacation, with uncertain access to the Internet. During the weekend prior to my departure, the 30^th and 31^st of March, I have to finish a novella that is due before I return – not to mention dealing with all the last minute tasks that crop up before a long trip and the always harrowing ordeal of packing. Friday the 29^th I have appointments with my lawyer, my banker and my hair dresser. (I am definitely not going to Paris with gray roots!) From Monday the 25^th through Thursday the 28^th I have a full day of teaching responsibilities every day. So you see, today (Sunday the 24^th) was pretty much the only time I had available to work on blog posts.

Actually I have to produce another Grip post for the 15^th of April before I leave as well. But that's not my current task. Right now it's time for me to discuss the all-too-common propensity for people to resist or delay undertaking tasks they know they should be doing.

I will admit that I'm less susceptible to procrastination than many people. I never did an all-nighter in college. I was one of those annoying people who started researching term papers the week they were assigned. During grad school, I was the first student in a decade to complete her dissertation within the nominally standard four years of study. In my writing life, although I have sometimes asked editors in advance to extend submission deadlines, I have yet to miss one to which I've committed. I occasionally fail to show up for guest blog appointments, but that's due to spacing out, not procrastination.

God, how absolutely obnoxious! you are most likely thinking. Before you close your browser in disgust, however, let me assure you that my focus on accomplishing assignments and meeting deadlines has nothing to do with virtue or capability. It's simply a reflection of how anxious and neurotic I am – and how averse I am to stress.

I absolutely hate pressure. I don't do well at all when I have tight time constraints. I tend to get panicky, which seriously interferes with creative thought or productivity. The more stress I'm under, the more poorly I perform. I like to feel that I'm in control of my world (except of course, when I'm the bottom in some kinky scene) and I am ridiculously eager to please (to be expected, I guess, from a sub). Hence I flounder miserably when external circumstances almost guarantee that I'll fail due to insufficient time.

My coping mechanism, my method for avoiding the extremely negative experience of time pressure, is advance planning. I break up my week, or my day, into time segments and schedule the various activities that are on my list into various time slots. Then, during each time period, I try to focus only on the activities I've planned to work on. By keeping my mind off all the other commitments I have to fulfill, this reduces my stress level. If thoughts of another task, allocated to another time, creep into my consciousness, I actively squelch them.

Please understand, I'm not obsessive about this. Mostly, my schedule isn't even written down, though I usually have an active to-do list that gets revised on a daily basis. And if a situation arises such that I can't follow my plan, I try to stay cool. Today, for instance, I'd planned to finish that novella (I only have 2500 words to go), but my first priority was reviewing the edits for my upcoming novel Rajasthani Moon. I expected to finish that by around two PM, but it ended up taking nearly all day. So I took a deep breath, forced down the panic, and decided I could slip in this blog post instead.

I do understand procrastination, though. There are certain things – things without definite deadlines – that I can put off forever. Making phone calls, especially business calls to people I don't know. Going to the dentist or having my annual physical. Straightening out the mess in my desk drawers. Cleaning the refrigerator. Exercising. Exploring new promo sites.

One downside of my time management approach is that there's always something more urgent than these recurring or background tasks. I can all too easily justify avoiding them, because hey, that's not what I've allocated to this time slot – and the task I should be doing is clearly more critical than something without a deadline!

I actually never realized this until this moment. If I were to give myself a deadline for these tasks, I'd probably have no difficulty fitting them into my schedule.

Okay, let's see if that works. It's about seven in the evening now. I have to format and schedule this post, and then send out announcements for my Sunday Snog excerpt, and then, let's say from seven thirty to eight fifteen, I'll commit to going down to the gym.

I'll let you know how it goes!

My Not-So-Evil Day Job

By Lisabet Sarai



I complain a lot. Anyone who's been in touch with me lately has heard about how I'm busier this term than I've ever been; how I'm teaching two brand new courses and don't have time to breathe with all the preparation, let alone write; how I leave at 9:00 AM and don't get home until 9:30 PM some nights; how I feel like Alice in Through the Looking Glass- I have to run as fast as I can just to stay in one place.

You might assume, listening to me, that I hate my work and would rather be writing every day. Indeed, for many writers, that's the ideal: to make enough money from book sales that you can quit your ordinary, boring day job and write full time.

Honestly, I don't feel that way. Perhaps that suggests that I'm not a “serious” writer. So be it. Despite the stress I sometimes feel – especially when I try to balance the demands of writing and marketing with the requirements of my public profession – I'd never want to give up my “real world” job.

My work requires a huge investment of time and energy, but it also provides great rewards. I don't mean financial rewards – I make just enough to meet my needs – but I've never aspired to wealth . I'm talking about less tangible benefits: the opportunity to be creative, the freedom to try new approaches, the respect of my colleagues and (sometimes, at least) my students, the satisfaction that comes from knowing that I've been a positive influence on the lives of at least a few young people every year. I also enjoy the fact that I'm able to use my long years of study and experience in positive and productive ways. And finally, my day job is just plain fun.

Writing is fun too, of course. I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it. (I think the secret of happiness may be to only do what you enjoy, or conversely, to enjoy whatever you do.) One reason I don't have much of a desire to make my living off my writing is that I suspect that might kill the joy. If I were forced to write, day after day, I strongly suspect that the stress would leach away any creativity I can claim now.

I believe that I could support myself, at least at a basic level, by writing erotic romance or BDSM smut. I think I know what sells, and I could churn that out if I had to. I write quickly and my first drafts are generally in a lot better shape than many authors. I could put out one or two 15-20K novellas a month, if I had to.

I really would rather not. In fact, I find myself deliberately choosing to write genres and styles that don't sell as well, out of a kind of perversity, I guess. My M/M books have outsold anything else I've written, by several times. I find myself shying away from writing more because I don't want to make money my object.

Plus I hate stress. I can function when the chips are down. I can make tight deadlines if I have to. But the pressure takes its toll, draining me of psychic energy and basically making me miserable. Yes, my day job is stressful, too, but it provides enough variety to keep me excited. It also includes natural breaks, for midterm and final exams, vacation periods and so on. If I were writing full time, none of that would be true. I know authors who support themselves with their work, and you really can't take much of a break. You have to produce that three or four or five thousand words per day, rain or shine, in sickness and in health, or you'll fall behind. You'll miss deadlines. You'll lose readers.

My husband tells me that much of the stress is of my own making. I think there's some truth in that. I'm the one who agreed to do a new column for ERWA, who signed up to edit the Coming Together Presents series, who was willing to take on the course orphaned by the other faculty member who's on sabbatical in order to “help out”. Probably I need to learn how to say no. Maybe my unwillingness to refuse requests can be traced back to my submissive nature. Hard to say!

In any case, I'm not a wage slave. I'm not oppressed by my employer. I work long hours, but not at some repetitive, meaningless occupation. I'm incredibly lucky.

I tell my students that money will not make them happy. The first key to happiness (according to what I've learned in my close to six decades of life on earth) is having a partner whom you love and whose company you enjoy. The second key, almost as important, is finding work that feeds your soul, work that ignites your passion. I'm fortunate to have succeeded in both these areas. Really, I have no right at all to complain.