Looks like rain
The morning started out really lovely (around 5:45, that is), but now it looks like rain. Sort of a glum day. (When was the last time anyone used the word glum in a sentence, or a sentence fragment, as it were?)
Well, on the work, career-related front, can you say "absolute and utter exhaustion"? And if you can say it, can you assist me in saying it? I am absoutely & utterly exhausted, fried, burnt-out, etc. Luckily, I am at long last taking a week off beginning this coming Wednesday. Yes, it will hurl me even further behind schedule on the new novel but meeting that deadline is so stupidly hopeless at this point, I have ceased trying.
And I have also ceased waging the 3-week battle that had been going on between me (and the contributors of my upcoming anthology due in July) against the publisher of the said anthology. Creative differences. The publisher won -- big surprise there, right? But christ those kinds of fruitless wars are exhausting, yet at the same time they need to be waged because you can't just roll over and play dead all the time. Sometimes you have to at least try, right? So I at least tried.
So, as I watched most of my other publishers fold like a house of cards around me, and tried as politely as possible to wage war against one of my few remaining publishers, to no avail, and tried to somehow slog forward toward that ever-elusive deadline for a 350 - 400 page new novel, I went and bought ABBA's Greatest Hits. I am so not an ABBA type of gal, but suddenly the lure of Muriel's Wedding was too great, and I knew that the only thing that would get me through this current quagmire I (still) refer to as "my career" would be hearing songs like "Waterloo," "Dancing Queen," and the all-time emotional volcano "Fernando" at top volume.
(Oh, I forgot to mention that I also managed to assault myself, or my left arm at least, with an amazing amount of poison sumac while pulling weeds. Poison sumac is a lot like poison ivy, if you aren't familiar with it. Nothing like a bunch of oozing sores that itch beyond belief to just sort of help you relax...)
Anyway, ABBA played at top volume has been very therapeutic. Especially while driving the car at sunset on a clear night. It really does work. You should try it. Play it just a little bit louder than you think you can stand it and that's when it kicks you into some other stratosphere far, far away from this one. Especially "Fernando." (You stop wondering how they had the nerve to sing something so corny and instead you get sucked up into the intensity of that battle they waged and lost that they don't regret, and in fact would, if they had to, do the same again. My friend.)
Another song that also works is "White Flag" by Dido. ("I will go down with this ship and I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door, I'm in love and always will be..." ) However, the one drawback about this song is that if you actually do care about stuff in a big way (as I am prone to do), "White Flag" will kind of rip your heart out...but give you courage to keep on keeping on at the same time. So it's a toss up. What matters more to you? A non-ripped heart or courage to keep on keeping on while your heart hangs by a gristley thread?
I know, it's a highly subjective question, so I will leave you to quietly ponder that on this glum Sunday. But not before I assail you with this image. Can you say "age before beauty"? Can you believe it?
Well, on the work, career-related front, can you say "absolute and utter exhaustion"? And if you can say it, can you assist me in saying it? I am absoutely & utterly exhausted, fried, burnt-out, etc. Luckily, I am at long last taking a week off beginning this coming Wednesday. Yes, it will hurl me even further behind schedule on the new novel but meeting that deadline is so stupidly hopeless at this point, I have ceased trying.
And I have also ceased waging the 3-week battle that had been going on between me (and the contributors of my upcoming anthology due in July) against the publisher of the said anthology. Creative differences. The publisher won -- big surprise there, right? But christ those kinds of fruitless wars are exhausting, yet at the same time they need to be waged because you can't just roll over and play dead all the time. Sometimes you have to at least try, right? So I at least tried.
So, as I watched most of my other publishers fold like a house of cards around me, and tried as politely as possible to wage war against one of my few remaining publishers, to no avail, and tried to somehow slog forward toward that ever-elusive deadline for a 350 - 400 page new novel, I went and bought ABBA's Greatest Hits. I am so not an ABBA type of gal, but suddenly the lure of Muriel's Wedding was too great, and I knew that the only thing that would get me through this current quagmire I (still) refer to as "my career" would be hearing songs like "Waterloo," "Dancing Queen," and the all-time emotional volcano "Fernando" at top volume.
(Oh, I forgot to mention that I also managed to assault myself, or my left arm at least, with an amazing amount of poison sumac while pulling weeds. Poison sumac is a lot like poison ivy, if you aren't familiar with it. Nothing like a bunch of oozing sores that itch beyond belief to just sort of help you relax...)
Anyway, ABBA played at top volume has been very therapeutic. Especially while driving the car at sunset on a clear night. It really does work. You should try it. Play it just a little bit louder than you think you can stand it and that's when it kicks you into some other stratosphere far, far away from this one. Especially "Fernando." (You stop wondering how they had the nerve to sing something so corny and instead you get sucked up into the intensity of that battle they waged and lost that they don't regret, and in fact would, if they had to, do the same again. My friend.)
Another song that also works is "White Flag" by Dido. ("I will go down with this ship and I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door, I'm in love and always will be..." ) However, the one drawback about this song is that if you actually do care about stuff in a big way (as I am prone to do), "White Flag" will kind of rip your heart out...but give you courage to keep on keeping on at the same time. So it's a toss up. What matters more to you? A non-ripped heart or courage to keep on keeping on while your heart hangs by a gristley thread?
I know, it's a highly subjective question, so I will leave you to quietly ponder that on this glum Sunday. But not before I assail you with this image. Can you say "age before beauty"? Can you believe it?
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