How do I look?

Perception

Something I learned very young is perception is super important in our lives. It's a powerful motivator with influential and invasive minions which can be detrimental or powerful.

Depending on who you speak to or what the application, the minions of perception are the tools that any self-help guru, marketing professional or sales coach teach. They are the basis of "fake-it til you make-it." These minions are also the key to "professionalism", which includes dress codes -written or not, phone etiquette, vocabulary expectations and diplomacy in the office. We want and need clients to view us a certain way. Public Perception can make or break a company. Much more so now than 10, 20, 30 years ago since we are now required to have a digital world-wide presence.

Again, the way people view us will either propel us forward or leave us hanging.

Family is also a game of perception. It is important to the heads of family how outsiders view the family as a whole because of course that is how they view the head of the household. It is even more important how the extended family views the nuclear family. Weird right? However, this plays out over and over again. There's an underlying competition within families which is won by the parents/guardians who have the most successful and exemplary children. Once again the minions - dress code, circumstantial etiquette, vocabulary expectations and diplomacy within the family are important. The need to maintain the perception of a well-adjusted family sometimes becomes toxic.

Yes, I said sometimes.

The reason behind the "fake-it til you make-it" mantra in business is that it creates productive habits. Keeping a calendar with penciled-in fake appointments creates a habit of maintaining your calendar. Once those appointments are actualized you are already in the habit of consulting your calendar and keeping it up to date. Faking a receptionist until you can hire one, creates an expectation for your clients of going through appropriate channels. Keeping an eye on appropriate fashion and replicating it, (within your means), creates a habit of presenting yourself the best way possible. All of these are equivalent to the productive habits for a healthy family model.

The perception game becomes destructive when its minions are suppressed or when they are let to run rampant. The minions body image, hygiene, self-worth, self-care, competition, etc., when used too often or not often enough create the monsters of Anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorders, Sleep Disorders and Addiction. These monsters can take years to tame, however, they are never truly conquered.

How are you using the minions of Perception? How have they been used on you?

Are you fighting the monsters they create? Did you tame these monsters?

It would seem that this is just the opening of this particular rabbit hole.

Dusting Off the Keyboard

What an adventure!

To answer the burning question, yes I stopped writing. Life hit some whitewater and in order to stay in the game I had to specialize. When there are only so many dice to roll, you gotta be picky about what oars to keep. (Now how's that for mixing metaphors?)

My old nemesis the Time Thief gained some allies. However, those allies worked for me as well. I have gained the ally of Knowledge, while strengthening my ally Tribe.

After a lengthy game of strategy with several losses and a few gains I find my weapons sharper, stronger, and seasoned oh-so-well with the sweat and tears of my efforts as well as the efforts of my Tribe.
However, the color of my thoughts, the flitting pictures in my mind continue to want an outlet. I have been told countless times, "You should start a blog." I had one. I have one. No. I abandoned one.
Hemming, hawing, thinking, overthinking and finally coming to the conclusion that I suck... at diary keeping. But I love to play with the random sentences that fly through my mind.

So what's next?

When something hits me as funny and no one else gets it, I'll post.
When my soul feels the ripping sensation of truth, I'll post.
When I need to make fun of my moody self, I'll probably think about posting, then think better of it, then write it, erase it, and...  I'll post.
In between all this I might fill in the gap of my abandonment of this lonely page.

Why shouldn't we all have fun as I try to herd butterflies?

So much STEAM!

... and dust and cowboy hats too!

The big show that our troupe worked so hard on premiered at the Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention.

Well to be honest in its beginning it was to be a show specifically for this Con, but it grew to be so much more. But this is what happens with you get a writer like Erin Lausten involved. In short this show is now the beginning of so many more with Short Stories to match!

Walking around on the first day we fell in love with all the creative costuming! Watching different acts and listening to some awesome bands, we drooled with excitement at the possibilities that lay before us. In finding locations for pictures we were awed to be standing in the same places that so many Westerns were filmed. (We giggled when someone behind us noted that one section looked like Tatooine.) In short we were overwhelmed with the ideas swirling around us and we needed to FOCUS!

The Slumber Party Returned

The first night found the three of us that had bunked together at Estrella War bunking together again! Let the giggling ensue...
Oh you bet we were giggling when we were trying to fall asleep. We were so tired from the preparation, packing, traveling and doing some last minute costuming that we were a bit Punchy. We were outright laughing when we thought of Estrella and Ms. DT!

The Giddyness continued

The next day because we stayed up late and got up early. (Early enough that three females could get a shower, get mostly ready for the day and get to breakfast by 9am. Amazing right?) That as we were finishing the last minute grommeting in the hotel room we couldn't help but giggle. AND when we were walking around the the Convention we were not as shy as we normally are when handing out promotional materials. I think we scared a couple of folks at Old Tucson Studios.


Of course the giddyness disappeared when OTS and the directors of WWWCon got their wires crossed with our performance times. We did take it in stride and got the consolation prize of attending The League of S.T.E.A.M. dinner theater. What a hoot! Especially after attempting to eat a 2 foot pizza. (I wish someone had gotten a picture.)

Not a total bust for the first day of our first Steampunk Convention.

There was, of course, two more days left!

You would think...

that I am crazy!

Well at least if you saw my schedule lately. I am certainly getting a lot of things accomplished and helping quite a few other people. Sadly, this is leaving my free quiet time much more scarce than usual. This is bad for getting these stories done and off to readers. This is also bad in that I am getting way more ideas for other stories that I shouldn't be worrying about yet!

Last night was the first meeting of our new writing group. I decided it would be a good idea to get together with other writers for support and a little accountability. The three of us that showed had a good time getting to know each other. We certainly had plenty to say and different types of questions to ask each other. What we didn't talk about was the idea of setting a deadline. Or scheduling time to get done what we want to do. I did state, when we were on the topic of cover art, that artistic types tend to not understand deadlines. I told my husband I had to really work on my art. Hmmm... (You see where I am going right?)

This makes me wonder how many other writers have issues with deadlines. Are there authors out there that can realistically set their own deadlines and schedules? Is this the much bigger role that having an agent and/or publisher provides? Because in all the research we have done looking up the pros and cons of self-publishing or working with a publishing house, this one point has not come up yet.

I could probably be over-thinking things a bit, again.

Well back to the poetry that seems to be flowing from my personal angst and disappointment!

Truly Blessed and Ready for World Domination

(Warning: Some seriousness may ensue, proceed with caution)

Yesterday I mentioned that I had a couple of friends help me by keeping me from going Total Harpy on folks at an event. Today I am online AND will get to work a bit on my fiction due to a friend's help and generosity. (This laptop has a Huge screen!) I find myself repeating to myself and anyone that will listen that I am totally blessed.

Mind you, life is tough. There have been some serious ruts and bumps along the way. Don't get me started on how many times being helpful has ended up costing us. We are who we are though and changing would be worse than just taking our lumps and continuing to fight our way through.

All in all it's been worth it. Slowly but surely I have found true friends. People who have been there when Chaos strikes and Nemesis decides to have a little fun. My friends have become my fellow warriors when it's time to fight, my support group when it's time to lick my wounds and my partners in crime when it's time to let off steam and get into just a little trouble. (We haven't ended up in jail saying those four words yet.)

Even better lately, I have found myself surrounded by not only great friends but friends with similar passions and desires. We have formed a group of complementary talents. What an exciting time! So long as we continue to work well together and have fun helping each other there is nothing we won't be able to accomplish.

So I repeat that I am blessed. Good friends. Great partners. Forward momentum. Limitless Generosity. These are the things that the Brain was missing. This is why his genius plans were always foiled and why we, Oh Goddesses of Raven and Red hair, will prevail.