by Laura K. Curtis | Apr 19, 2015 | Stuff!, Writing |
Recently, I was talking to a woman I met several years ago at RWA. I don’t remember who introduced us or how we became friends, but even though we rarely see each other, even though on the surface we have little enough in common beyond being writers, we follow each other on Twitter and Facebook and chat now and then about writing things and regular life stuff. On Twitter, in Direct Messages, I said to her that I was really glad we were friends.
It was a strange moment because not too long before that, there had been one of those incredibly unhealthy things that happens in the publishing world in which the whole definition of “friendship” came into question. What makes someone your “friend?” How much communication, how many secrets do you have to share? What are the limits on friendship? How much can a “friend” go against your ethical code before you no longer consider yourselves friends? Is it possible that I am your friend, but you are not mine?
I’ve made some of my closest friends online. I started working for AOL in 1993, when I was living a very isolated life in a tiny town where I had no friends. In those days people were writing and talking about “Internet Addiction,” but most of the people I knew who spent hours and hours online weren’t addicted to “the Internet,” they were addicted to the relationships they found there. Depressives, insomniacs like me, we found support systems and communities of people who understood us as no one in our everyday lives did.
Even today, I am friends with the people I met on the night shift at AOL more than twenty years ago. I don’t see them often, but we are absolutely friends. In 2007 when I was really sick and needed someone to stay with me, one of my AOL friends lived with me for several months since he was on disability. Yes, when you meet your friends digitally, you can put your trust in the wrong people. But that can happen when you meet them in person, too. Still, friendship is a bit like porn—hard to define, but you know it when you feel it.
In all the years since I started at AOL, the Internet has become more and more social. And I, well, I have gotten less so. I moved from jobs where I dealt with the public to jobs where I see almost no one. I am a writer in the world of publishing which, as I discussed with someone on Twitter just yesterday, is an extremely unhealthy ecosystem. My friendships develop in that world, the world where insane levels of arrogance are set off by the deepest insecurity and even self-loathing, where sometimes it seems that the “happy medium” does not, cannot, exist. I have found good friends in the writing and publishing communities, people that I met in person. But I have met more of them online.
In a discussion online about the most recent brouhaha, someone told me that “exchanging a few emails and direct messages doesn’t make you friends. Friends are people you show pictures of your children to.” I left it alone because I knew we were not going to agree, but it raised a question for me. I don’t have kids. Although I am private and don’t share pictures of my lunch on Facebook, I don’t have secrets in the way most people think of them. What would I share with a “friend” that I do not share with the public?
I would contend that friendship is defined not by the quantity of communication but rather the quality. My conversations with friends go deeper, last longer. Which means that, indeed, that you can give your friendship to someone who is not your friend. You can believe that someone is your friend because you communicate freely and openly with them on the assumption that they are doing the same with you. The things they are hiding are things you don’t think to ask about because you don’t notice the absence. And yes, the Internet makes this easier. But liars and cheaters were around before the Internet, and they’ll be here when our computers crumble into dust.
Friendship, however, lasts forever.
by Laura K. Curtis | Jan 22, 2015 | Prompts 2015, Stuff! |
Photo by Randy Robertson, used with permission
One of the questions one of the prompts2015 contributors asked was: “If you could eliminate one thing from your To Do list without actually having to do it, what would it be? How would the task get accomplished?” That’s an easy one for me: Laundry.
Here’s my issue with laundry—you can’t ever get ahead. Even if you do it stark naked so that you can wash every item of clothing you own, you’re just breaking even.
When I lived in St. Louis, I went to a “Duds ‘n’ Suds,” a Laundromat that was also a bar. This is a great idea except that by the time your clothes are dry, you’ve lost any urge to fold, which means your clothes get shoved into the hamper and then you go home and pass out and wear them wrinkled.
Nowadays, I have my own washer and dryer, but I still hate folding. And putting away. Honestly, it’s easy enough to shove the clothes and linens in the washer and dryer, but then you have to deal with them.
As to how the task would get accomplished if I didn’t do it…well, once in a very long while my husband does the laundry. But if I had a lot of money, I’ve always wanted to have one of those services that washes and irons your linens. I adore the feeling of ironed sheets, but I am certainly not going to do that myself! Heck, I don’t even fold my fitted sheets. No matter how many videos I watch showing how to do it, they always end up like a ball. And they’re going to be stretched out on the bed anyway, right? RIGHT?
So, yeah, if I could afford it, I’d have someone else do my laundry. Preferably someone who came to the house so they could put everything away once it was clean and folded.
And just in case you didn’t realize that you could fold fitted sheets flat, I leave you with this video explaining how it’s done (in theory).
by Laura K. Curtis | Jan 15, 2015 | Prompts 2015, Stuff! |
One of the things I wanted to do this year was to keep in better touch with my pals who follow the blog. So I reached out over social media and asked whether anyone else wanted to get together and write up some blogging prompts that we could all share. We came up with a long list that I hope will allow me to chat with you all even when my own well is running a bit dry.
One of the prompts was “do you journal” and I figured it would be a good place to start since I talked a while back about my planner.
I don’t journal in a formal way, though I have in the past. My most successful journals used tarot readings as prompts. But two weeks into 2015 I have found that I spend time with my planner every single day. I decorate it, fill it out, check things off, and generally review my day’s accomplishments and…lack thereof. I think about what I need to do the next day, or next few days, and try to keep my to-do lists up to date.
I have also found some friends on Twitter who are almost as planner-obsessed as I am. So we swap links to cool stuff for our planners, etc. It’s fun! And productive!
What about you? Do you journal? Use a planner? Do morning pages? Track your life in any way, shape or form?
(I hope to get a page up with all the folks who are doing #prompts2015, but I have to collect their blog addresses.)
by Laura K. Curtis | Jan 10, 2015 | Stuff! |
I have learned, through years of therapy along with a fair amount of self-observation, that I am extremely susceptible to emotional manipulation. For example, I cry at the bloody Christmas ads where the kid comes home and makes coffee. Books do it. Movies do it. Television does it. News stories do it. Emotional manipulation is everywhere in modern life.
When people say something I’ve been involved in—even tangentially—has hurt them in some dreadful way, it always makes me feel guilty. Even if that guilt isn’t reasonable. And I’ve learned that I have to examine everything to see whether that guilt is or is not reasonable. Lots of times, that leads me to take time off from the parts of my life where the flare-ups occur. It’s the only way for me to stay on any kind of even course.
I went to an all-girl’s school from kindergarten through senior year of high school and that was the first place I experienced “it’s your fault I feel like crap” manipulation. (As an aside, I’ve had a number of jobs over the years that plunked me into groups of women and I have to say that as much as I hate gender stereotyping, I’ve experienced it a lot more often in groups made up of women than in groups made up primarily of men.) Once I realized what was going with these people, I got angry.
Emotional manipulation still makes me angry when I recognize it. (I am still not good at recognizing it, but I am getting better.) Every time I see one of those Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercials, I get a rage bubble in my chest. Yes, I also get weepy, but it doesn’t make me want to donate, it just pisses me off and upsets me.
Increasingly, I see this manipulation happening in the worlds I belong to both online and off and I cannot figure out exactly why. Everything from “if you don’t do more [volunteering, giving money, whatever], this organization will cease to exist” to “I got a bad review so I am never going to write again and I may kill myself.” Now, it’s certainly a fact that without volunteers, most of the organizations I belong to would cease to exist, but the way that information is presented doesn’t pass the stink test. The other, well, that’s not even worth commenting on.
So what is causing this escalation in manipulative tendencies? Is it because it’s happening so much everywhere else that people just adopt it as their go-to? Is it because privacy is decreasing everywhere we look, so people shove their emotions up front as a shield? Is it because people don’t think they can be heard over others’ wails and beating of chests unless they do so themselves?
Whatever it is, I don’t like it. And I don’t think I can be the only one seeing it out there. But I also don’t know how to put a brake on it. I wish I did.
by Laura K. Curtis | Dec 30, 2014 | Stuff!, Writing |
Dropped the ball again!
Last year, I wrote a little about why I don’t believe in resolutions.
A long time ago I gave up making New Year’s resolutions and switched over to giving myself goals. That may sound like mere semantics, but the two things seem fundamentally different to me. A resolution is a destination; a goal is a journey. If I make progress on my goal, I can count that as a win whereas all I can do with a resolution is fail. I mean, I suppose I could succeed, but I haven’t yet.
2014 was not a good year for me. In many ways both personal and professional, I leave the year feeling decidedly worse off than I began, and I don’t see a particular end to the problems that have cropped up.
So, yeah, if I had set a bunch of resolutions for myself, right now I would would be feeling even worse. But I made it through and now I have some goals for 2015. But I also have new plans on how to achieve more of what I want to achieve for the year. I was fascinated when my friend Bria mentioned “Flexi-Goals” and begged her to talk about it. So she did. And I think it looks great. I am totally stealing it.
I also bought myself a planner. For years I’ve used a Filofax A5 size planner, but I don’t love the paper (in fact, I hate it, so I took to printing out my own calendars and cutting/ punching them to fit) and after the ruptured discs in my neck in 2013, I gave up carrying it because it was so heavy with the leather cover and all the stuff I would stick in. This year, I bought myself an Erin Condren planner. I don’t love the paper in this one, either (I know, I am picky), but I do really like the layouts. For those of you who also want to get organized and productive this year, you might want to check out my Pinterest board of planners and organization.
Someone also suggested a bone-simple way of organizing your goals/tasks that I love. Write them down on sticky notes, one per note. Then in your notebook/planner/whatever, put the most urgent ones on the left page. Everything else goes on the right. As you accomplish the things on the left page, you can toss the notes, making room for the ones on the right.
This is an example of a system, which brings me to the last thing I am going to say on this topic. One one of the pins on my board of organization, one of the pieces of advice is “create systems, not goals.” That is, focus on the journey, and not the destination.
And have a happy, healthy, productive 2015.
by Laura K. Curtis | Dec 2, 2014 | Books, Stuff! |
So loads of people are saying “buy my book, it would be a great present.” And many of them are probably right. But in case you are in search of something a little different, here’s a list of things that might strike a chord with the creative types of all ages in your life. The links go to Amazon (because I have an affiliate account), but I encourage you to buy from your local independent, especially since the vast majority of these books need to be paper, not e.
One of the coolest things about this is that the guy who created it also has a website on which you can get a PDF of the book, so if you want to print out the drawings over and over to color in depending on your mood (or if you have multiple children or want to use them as a party game), you can do that, too.
I freaking love this book! The pictures are gorgeous, the coloring is fun and there’s a “can you find it” game, too, with caterpillars and suchlike. And a little garden maze, too. Perfect for young and old.
One of the more entertaining “unleash your creativity” journals with exercises, prompts, etc. (Also would be fun for those looking for a way to blog more often–scan and upload what you do in the journal each day!)
You know I couldn’t leave a book about crochet off the list, right? Especially when it’s called the Happy Hooker. For anyone looking for a new hobby, I highly recommend crochet. Versatile, easy, and they’ll let you take a hook lots of places you can’t take knitting needles (airplanes, jury rooms…) If you have problems learning from books, I highly recommend YouTube. It’s great how many free tutorials there are out there nowadays!
The Flavor Thesaurus is not a cookbook, but if you know someone who’s a real foodie and loves to cook, it might make an unusual and appreciated present. It explains what flavors go together and why, and it’s just delicious reading.
Try something new! This workbook will help you learn to draw manga-style characters.
So there you go. A few books for you or another creative type in your life. I’d love to hear your suggestions if you have any!!
