Must, Want To, and Should

As the holiday season approaches and I receive requests for more and more things (shopping, parties, extra work, and so on), I begin to get overwhelmed by it all. At first I toss another ball into the air, fill up another blank spot on the calendar, and make a note to myself.  But very soon, the air is thick with balls, the calendar has no more empty squares, and I've run out of note paper.

You have to say no sometimes. But when? And what to say no to?  Well, it occurred to me that there are really 3 categories of things: those we MUST do, those we WANT TO do, and those we SHOULD do.

The MUST do's: attending work parties, buying gifts for Mom and Dad, making a visit to the grandparents.

The WANT TO do's: attending a new movie, buying gifts for friends, arranging a trip to Disneyland.

The SHOULD do's: attending a relative's party way out in the Valley, buying a gift for the boss, visiting a friend's new baby.

Sometimes they overlap - you may want to do the same thing you should do, like visiting that friend's new baby, for example - and sometimes they are at utter odds with each other, like when that relative's party is at the exact same time as the only day the museum is holding its free exhibits that you really want to go to.

So where do you begin? Do you start with the MUST's? Or the WANT TO's? Are you a SHOULD do person?  I know plenty of people who start and end with what they WANT TO do and have no care for anything society or family/friends may tell them they SHOULD or MUST do.  That takes courage to disregard others' opinions as well as a healthy ego that says "My WANTS come first."

Me? I start with the MUST do items and then go to the WANT TO. I am independent enough to ignore what I SHOULD do but let's be honest, I often run out of time and money just completing the MUST items on my calendar/list/inbox. I rarely get to the WANT TO's!

This is the way I plan to approach my gift-giving, party-attending, subbing requests, and so on this month. If it's not a MUST, then it ain't getting done.

But what about writing? Well, I think you can apply these categories to writing as well.  As writers, we all feel we MUST write, that is not in doubt, but whenever I feel like I SHOULD write - whether it's on a particular day or at a particular time or about a specific subject or theme - then my writing ends up terrible. That's happened when I tried following a trend I wasn't crazy about or chasing an editor who kind of liked a book I submitted but wanted to go in a different direction, or even when I wasn't finding anything to write about at all. Each time I did the SHOULD rather than the WANT TO, my work suffered.

I have to find the WANT TO in every SHOULD in order to do it. Otherwise I will resent every ounce of energy I am spending on it.  Life is too short for SHOULD.

Holiday breaks

Over at the fab blog, YA Fresh, a whole slew of amazing YA writers weigh in on their plans for the holidays, specifically whether or not they will get any writing done. Some, like Tina Ferraro and Melissa Walker, use the time to take a break from their work to enjoy some relaxation with family and loved ones or just catch up on reading. Others, like Stephanie Kuehnert and Heather Davis, say they will continue to write, either out of habit or simply because they don't have a house full of relatives visiting!

This made me think about the importance of daily writing in my life. As it is with dancing, I think I physically and mentally suffer when I'm not writing every day. For the past six weeks, for instance, I haven't been writing anything - only outlining - and it was brutal. I felt crabby and anxious and just plain out of sorts.

Now I'm at the start of a new book and it's - fitful - heaven. I'm excited to get to my computer every day, excited to think about words or phrases or scenes I will use. It's fitful, though, because I have to ramp up my speed. I normally write between 2k and 2.5k a day when I'm in the throes of a book but I have to get there! I can't jump in at that pace.

So, while I will take a very short break over Thanksgiving when my parents are in town, I won't over the Christmas holidays. I will keep working, keep writing, keep dancing every day. Maybe dancers and writers are strictly creatures of habit and that's the only reason we get anything accomplished!

Big bargains on all things LEIGH-related at Amazon!

Another big sale at Amazon: LOVE, MEG hardcover for less than 5 bucks! Wowsa!

Check it out here.

And ALL ABOUT VEE still has a separate bargain price: less than 4 dollaroonies, yo.

Here's the VEE link.

I wonder if I should take these markdowns personally. Don't you like my books, Amazon gods?

So get a jump start on your holiday shopping. Tell your friends. Buy a copy for your school or library. Add it to your Amazon cart and be sure to get the free shipping!

2-Fer Halloween

I love fall. I love everything about it: the weather, the temperature, the quality of the light in the afternoon. In LA, I love how it's warm during the day and chilly at night. In New England, I love the crisp leaves and morning frost.

And in both places, I love breaking out the apple pie recipe and whipping up a pie or two for friends and my Ninja Webmaster. It's about the only decent thing I can cook that people actually ask me the recipe for (it's surprisingly easy and just about the best pie recipe out there - just make sure you pick the right apples!).

But more than any of that, I love the feel of Halloween in the air. I'm not a Halloween fan per se. I mean, I don't dress up or host parties. I'm not a fan of candy or chocolate bars or even those sticky caramel-covered apples and frankly, no child has ever rung our doorbell either here or in Brooklyn. But I like Halloween on other people.

And I like scary movies. I'm not crazy about gore in my movies, unless it's in something like "Shaun of the Dead," which is one of the most brilliant zombie movies of all time. But I do appreciate a well-told horror movie. And here are two I highly recommend:

"Shutter" - no, not the American remake. Get the original Thai version. This filmmaker must have been studying the J-horror trend of movies like "The Ring" and "The Grudge" where dead people appear in ghastly pale fashion with long, stringy (and usually wet) hair. A couple hits a woman in the road and then leaves the scene. Soon after, her image appears in the guy's photographs and she herself pops up out of nowhere - in the dark room, in a lab room...just when you think they've settled her spirit and the movie has to be over, it goes one - no, two - steps farther. The last image is freakin' brilliant.

[Watch this one with Sliver-Vision.]

"Trick R Treat" - you know those movies that go to video after a brief limited theatrical run? 99.99% of them usually suck. Not this one. Great acting (what a cast! Dylan Baker, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin and more), great directing, great cinematography, great editing. Very well-written and tightly constructed, it's a collection of intertwined stories told about Halloween night: the guy who seems nice but poisons kids, the girl who appears innocent yet may be a creepy supernatural being, a group of kids playing a trick on a weaker girl...all the cliche Halloween tales are nicely tweaked. Not gory but definitely creepy-scary and beware, a few kids meet their end so if that bothers you, well, skip this one. But in general, good guys get their revenge.

Random Thoughts on a Friday

Red - is the color of Dexter, the best show on Showtime you're not watching because you think it's really creepy that a serial killer could be the good guy. If you have Netflix, you can watch the first season instantly on your computer. Will you do that?



White - is the color of the blank screen, the virtual sheet of paper that both excites and scares me whenever I'm faced with it. I have a brand new project in my brain that I can't wait to work on but I'm not sure if I'm ready.

Blue - is the color of my fingertips after I've eaten a handful of seedless black grapes, my favorite summertime fruit.

Happy Fourth of July!