Opinionated me: Knock off the insecurity

Hey, I'm as insecure as the next artist. I used to be far more insecure than anybody I knew.
My sister-in-law said her husband felt guilty for even being born. Move over, brother-in-law: I did too.
And nobody gave me enough reason to feel otherwise until I turned 40. That's pathetic -- The great Scarecrow might have said: I should've thought of it for you. The Tin Man might have rejoined: I should have felt it in my heart.
But apparently, like Dorothy's return home, this is one of those things one must find alone.

It's still a struggle. I still think I sometimes don't deserve good things. (When my kids were little I used to cry at night because things were so good -- my kids were wonderful and healthy, I had a good job... and I was sure it couldn't last. I cried over what might happen. As my kid would say, that's messed up)

The best way to get rid of the insecurity is to do something you love -- and keep doing it, and do it so well that others notice.
Suddenly you have an excuse to still be alive.

I've done it. My Ellie McDoodle books are a modest success. Thank you, Universe and everyone in it, especially my fans, my agent, the wonderful people at Bloomsbury, handsellers at bookstores, and all the writers and illustrators who nudged, pushed, yanked, prodded, bumped me up along the way. And the teachers who didn't write me off as an insecure mess, which surely I was.

So now I am happy.

But now I get these fellow illustrators and kids' book writers bawling in my ear, "We don't get any respect for what we do! The world despises us! We're not real writers!"
Well, speak for yourself.
At this point in the game I'm calling it artificial insecurity.
If someone's not respecting the hard work and education it took to get to the skill level you're at, then
1) they have an axe to grind (a spouse wishing you'd bring in more money, perhaps?)
2) they are jealous, wishing they could do what you do, better than you
or
3) they are ignorant and in need of a whack on the side of the hea-- no, a little education.

So what's your answer to them?
Here are some responses you may use, free of charge.
- I'm sorry honey that my work in this field didn't pay off yet. Disrespecting my work and my goals isn't going to bring you and me closer together and it's not going to help pay the bills faster.
- I deserve a shot at a career that makes me happy. So do you. This is mine. Find yours.
- Children's books teach our next generation. Don't even suggest that's not a worthy and honorable goal.

But please don't tell me and your fellow creatives that this constant insulting of our industry means the crabbers are right. Because they aren't, and I refuse to be brought down by ignorance.
When you walk around with a "Kick Me" sign on your back, people will gladly kick you. They think you want it, so they're just being helpful -- and besides everyone's got a little bit of a sadistic streak aching to come out in socially-acceptable ways.
Just don't extrapolate your personal insecurity onto everyone else in the profession.

My work pays my bills. Nobody gets hurt from what I do. I'm breaking no laws. I'm not inspiring evil, or even bad manners.
Some schools and libraries treat me very well. From reading my books, some kids are inspired to write and draw and read more, and to sketch in nature. Some adults are inspired to find a new career or create something unusual. That's impressive. You can't tell me kids' book writing and illustration is an inferior profession. I just plain don't believe it.

I know you're concerned, now. Just my raising the issue makes you wonder if I am truly at peace with this. Well, I'm developing the ability to reason my way out of insecurity.
For example, to my kid who's weirded out seeing me in my studio in a cami with too wide an armhole and "seeing the whole situation" as she puts it so delicately, I say:
Hey it's your fault. I gave up my body for you. If I'd never had kids I'd still have a nice body, perky and cute. I accept my decision, you should too.

There's no point to insecurity. It doesn't make anyone feel better. So stop it.
Over the rainbow is now, if you let it be.

Legacy of love

In researching what I hope is the next Ellie McDoodle book, I've found tidbits of information that relate to some of the characters. One is this: Some animals live a very long time in captivity. An iguana in Aruba is 41 years old. Blue and Yellow Macaws live to be about 80.
These are people years, not dog years.
This struck me: What sane person would willingly take on an obligation that will last most of his/her life, nurturing a little creature that is totally dependent for food, love and socialization, even knowing the little creature would outlive the owner? How would you plan for its safety after you die?

Who takes over? It reminded me of something that happened 17 years ago: An elderly neighbor lamented to me that she worried not about her own future, but about her little dog. Who would take care of him when she was gone? Would they even find her dog in time to help it, if she keeled over and died at her house, alone? In my youthful idealism, I assured her we'd check on the dog and make sure he found a good home. Two years later we moved away. I sometimes wonder about that dog. I prefer to believe that, since they lived in the townhouses with lots of neighbors very close by, someone noticed when the woman died and someone took in the dog.

My own family adopted a dog after its owner died. It was not an easy adjustment but we figured it was the right thing to do.
So, who would knowingly acquire a pet that will long outlive them?
For that matter, who would lay the first brick in a cathedral, or set in a trust the first dollar for a benevolent foundation, or embark on a painting career in their 80s, knowing they wouldn't be around to see how it all turned out?
And then I thought, it gets even more mundane. Each of us who is a parent has done exactly that, as has every person in history: We start something hoping it's of sufficient value that the next generation will see it through.
We prepare for the future on faith.
I used to worry that the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 meant the end of the world as well. My husband says maybe it only means the end of Mayan civilization: Maybe an archeological dig will unearth the last of the Mayan culture at that time. Maybe an earthquake will reveal the last lost burial grounds of the Mayan and we might even find we have more in common with them than we thought (calendar aside).
Maybe we'll look back in 2016 and laugh, the same way we laugh at Y2k hysteria.
If people are still having babies and buying Macaws in 2011, that'll be a nice show of faith. :)
As for me, I'll keep building toward a future I won't live to see. I'll keep creating books for generations that don't exist yet -- and I'll somewhat reluctantly keep taking time away from creating books, to nurture the next two generations that do exist right now, my kids and grandkids.
It'll probably always be a struggle to maintain balance, but somehow it'll pay off, eh?

4:24am: Do you know where your pillow is?

When I was a kid, our Detroit NBC tv station (or was it CBS?) used to announce at 10 every evening: "It's 10 o'clock; do you know where your children are?"
I found it amusing. Where else would kids be but in the living room fighting the directive to go to bed, or in the bedroom already snoozing?
Even more amusing was the spin given to the by-then-well-known announcement, a few years later: "It's 10 o'clock; do you know where your parents are?"

So it's almost dawn. I'm up way past my bedtime. I blame the kids.1. Oldest daughter had a baby shower today, plus she moved to a new apartment. I know -- that's a lot for one day. It's crazy. All it does is make me feel old.2. Second kid's fiance' hosted the baby shower party, so I had to help out. (It was very kind and generous of her)3. Third kid needed to be driven to college (3 hours round trip) after the party. And before that, she needed groceries because she's having trouble getting a student loan to pay for classes and a meal plan. I have no idea what's going to happen, but as a show of support I bought her lots of peanut butter, tuna fish, oatmeal, cherries, broccoli and chicken. Real food. (real expensive food)
On the way home from the other end of the state, I consumed mass quantities of caffeine just to stay awake.4. Fourth kid was entirely reasonable and unhormonal. I guess I only blame some of the kids.

Upon getting home from college, wide awake, I checked the computer. It was stuck in an almost-turned-off mode. Scary. An automatic update didn't quite update, and my computer insisted the date was Feb 24, 2004 and the time was 11:34pm. I was sent back in time 4 years, 6 months, 4 hours and 10 minutes.
I thought about staying there, because it'd make me a bit younger (more energetic?), but 02-24-04 was a whole year before I signed with my agent, a whole year before I finally got a great, marketable idea for a book (Ellie McDoodle) and a whole year before that fateful first trip to NYC with a sketchbook in hand.
I prefer what I've got right here, right now.

Harry Potter 6 and 7

~no spoilers, but I can't guarantee others' comments~
I just finished book 6 and 7 within the past 2 weeks.
Wow.
Say what you will about the adverbs, J.K. Rowling is one fabulous writer.

Things I loved:
Snape
The underlying message of love
The richness of her fantastic world
Harry isn't perfect
Neville's and Draco's roles
Ginny

Things that surprised me:
The ending
Teddy in the epilogue
Albus's middle name in the epilogue
Less "dumbing down" to American English of British idioms and slang in the later books















Things I guessed before they were revealed:
Snape
The exact location of the last thing Harry sought
The eventual roles of two major locations
Why two of his friends disappeared near the end

Things that angered and disgusted me:
the revelation about Harry's destiny
Harry's plan against the goblin

Things that annoyed me:
Albus Dumbledore's constant referring to his own apparent brilliance
How a character would say, "This must be the answer" and it was -- when I could think of a half dozen other plausible answers.
"He said, sycophantically." Come on. Who talks like that?

Things I wonder about:
Did JKR tell filmmakers what items or characters would be important in later books? Or did she leave it to chance that they would include the most significant bits of her incredibly long stories?













Right after reading book 6 I was depressed for a day. I dreaded the ending of book 7 and the end of the series.
The recurring theme of death in the Harry Potter books reminds me of my own losses, some of them connected to Harry, actually, and it's painful. And the world has put a huge investment of time into reading the books. I'm a slow reader (despite doing well in speed reading in college) and my list of books to read is longer than my list of books I want to write.

I can survive in a world without a new Harry Potter book on the way, but it'll take me a little time to get used to it.

Now, back to my own writing...

A keener sense of fairness

That's what this world needs: Fair play. I hope I never get so successful that I forget where I came from or what fair play is.

Why is it the people with the least amount of money have to pay the most for things?

Phone company deposits. Utilities deposits. Insurance penalties. Those aren't paid by rich people. They're paid by people who have trouble paying their bills -- the very people who have trouble coming up with the money are forced to come up with the money.

If you're rich and famous (or an influential politician), people are happy to give you things for free: couture gowns, jewelry, appliances. If you're broke, pay your own way.

Three times on her tv show on Bravo, Paula Abdul asks ordinary citizens around her for a few bucks because she's hungry.
1) Does she pay these people back? Or do they forever bask in the glory of having helped a rich person get something for free?
2) Can't she pay one of her entourage to always have 20 bucks of her own money on hand, for such impulse buying?
I'm sure she's a good person. Maybe she should make an effort to show compensation so that people like me don't get the wrong idea.

Rich people can buy their way out of jail and prison. Witness that French-named inheritor to the hotel fortune. Does access to such riches and special considerations build character? No -- in fact maybe it makes it harder to be good. TV shows seem to glorify the wild side of the rich and famous and their progeny.

Bookstore returns? Simply rip off and send the covers back to the distributor, to get credit for the books. Be sure to destroy the remains: Don't give away books without their covers, not even to poor people who might really benefit from them. It's against the rules.
I learned this when my husband worked at a college bookstore 25 years ago and it still grinds me. Surely there's a better way to handle this.

Leftover restaurant food? Don't give it directly to the hungry. It's unsafe!

Can't afford to buy a tv or a new couch? Just rent one, paying by the month until you own it. But -- it'll cost you extra. Maybe twice as much as if you had the money to buy it in the first place.

Need a couple hundred dollars to get you through until the next paycheck? Simply take out a loan -- those paycheck loan shops are proliferating around here! You'll pay back the loan... plus a hefty rate of interest.

This is the American way.
But if you ask me, it's twisted.