How To Be An Optimist

There's a saying: We make plans; God laughs. Whether or not you believe in God, truth of the matter is that we're not in control of our lives. If you think you are, just wait. One day you'll see what I'm talking about. Certainly we have to make plans and decisions to tackle day-to-day life, but occasionally the gods/stars/planets/marshmallows fall out of line and all goes astray. Marshmallows? Ok, who knows what has to align, but how you respond to unfortunate situations is what really matters. It is possible that once or twice in mylifetime I might have been accused of being a pessimist. Only in the last few years (under the loving tutelage of my husband) have I learned how to turn limes into margaritas. In the past three years, we have spent about six months in Costa Rica. In the past few weeks, I have had several chances to whip up a pitcher of optimism. Let me offer you a taste test: 1) If you hate tarantulas, but happen to find a fine example of one in your bathroom when you are home alone, killing it with a broom handle will give you an enormous sense of accomplishment. 2) If you have trouble digesting gluten, you will find that a caveman's diet (meat and fruits and vegetables) is very healthy. Man lived like this for thousands of years--yes, without pizza or beer. 3) If you create anything (e.g., a novel) on a computer, and said computer gets stolen, you will learn the absolute necessity of backing up your work. 4) If said thieves steal ALL your electronics, but spare your life and limbs, you are one lucky sonofabitch. 5) Once said thieves have fractured your sense of goodness in the world, you will learn to be safer and smarter. In fact, you will learn to hire a security guard with a shotgun. 6) If you love, love, love to sit quietly in the morning, sipping amazingly delicious coffee while over looking the Pacific Ocean, but said security guard wants to tell you all about his life and his country-in Spanish--because he has spent the last 12 hours walking the perimeter of your villa while you watched David Letterman in subtitles and got eight refreshing hours of sleep, then you will learn that your guard might be the best Spanish teacher you will ever have. 7) If you wake up one morning to the smell of smoke from the wildfires approaching your villa, you will learn how the infrastructure of a country such as Costa Rica actually works: Do it yourself, and help your neighbors. What did you think the damn garden hoses were for anyway? And lastly, 8) If you think that The Good Life involves a villa, an ocean, tropical weather, and tequila, you will learn that there's no place like home. AND, all of the above can be excellent material for your next novel. Adios, Costa Rica.

The Trouble With Blogging

Do you know me? If you've been following along over the past year, year and a half, two years that I've been blogging, you probably know me better than some of my friends (can they really be called friends if they're not reading my blogs?). I tend to reveal too much. I don't have many secrets or evil thoughts—and the ones I do have I save for my novels (which you haven't read yet because I'm too much like Salinger: I like to write too much to stop long enough for publication)(yep, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). But back to my point. If you know me, then you know my trouble with blogging.

I talk too much!

Especially after my coffee, which I call Truth Serum. Which I have just drank drunk consumed.

Take for instance my last post, below, How To Write A Bad Review. It's not a bad post, but I could have gone on for hours about how it might apply to bosses: How to give a bad review to an employee. Or to parents: How to straighten your kids out without alienating them. Or even to friends or spouses: How to tell someone you love something they're doing wrong and still have them walk away from your conversation knowing you love them and making them think they're good people who can do better. But then I just stopped writing because...

When I get deep into a really good thought for a blog post, it makes me crazy that I'm not working on my novel! It's the same with reading a good book. I want to read, but more importantly, I want to write! I know the experts say we're supposed to blog 3x/week, but I'd usually rather spend that time writing.

Allison Scotch Winn wrote an excellent post about how she does it all: writer, blogger, mom, wife. She is whom I aspire to be. But for now, I'm going to go work on my novel which I love and can't stop writing.

Does anyone out there feel they have found a good balance with all the activities they like to do? Please tell me your secrets!

Day 1, Blog 1, Followers 0

Ah, the freedom of anonymity. My first entry is like writing in a secret diary, right? If anyone out there reads this... sorry for the young winding stream of consciousness. I've had my coffee this morning, so I have officially crossed the laconic/loquacious line. That can be good or bad, depending on so many, many things.

I sit, in my usual spot, at a public library... just the homeless, the jobless, and me. Outside my window is an enormous building under construction. It is the visual equivalence to my current novel: That Changes Everything. With any luck at all, I can finish (and PUBLISH) my novel before the worker ants are done and the employees move in and spill their coffee on the new carpet. Coffee, to me, is like communal wine... if I spill it, I'm likely to get down and lick it up. Do they still have to do that in Catholic churches?

All right, to make this official, I should tell you about my novel. It's the story of an ex-hedge fund manager who goes broke and moves to Brooklyn to rebuild his life. But it's really so much more than that. He, Danny King, is searching for a new love, a new life, and answers about what really happened to his mentor who died in a suspicious car accident. Think: Wall Street meets Serendipity.

Enough for today. I need to save my fingers for the real thing.

Until next time, Karolyn