Personal

A per­son I feel very for­tu­nate to call my friend, the suc­cess­ful and tal­ent­ed Kevan Atte­ber­ry, recent­ly wrote an arti­cle in the Chi­nook (the quar­ter­ly newslet­ter from the West­ern Wash­ing­ton region of the Soci­ety of Children’s Book Writ­ers and Illus­tra­tors) enti­tled, “On Being a Fraud.” I won­der if he’s read about the imposter syn­drome, because he described it quite eloquently.
I have to com­mend Kevan for out­ing him­self and for shar­ing feel­ings that we can all relate to, even though many of us might not care to admit it. I total­ly get the ques­tions of tal­ent and self-worth, the irra­tional sec­ond-guess­ing of skills and tal­ents, the yearn­ing to pro­duce mean­ing­ful results that we can tru­ly feel proud of. I cer­tain­ly have my share of those emo­tions, too.
But writ­ing, indeed doing any­thing cre­ative, also feels, to me, like the great equal­iz­er. More years ago than I’d care to admit, I was rid­ing the wave of a pret­ty suc­cess­ful career in soft­ware engi­neer­ing. At its peak, I was the tech­ni­cal liai­son between Intel’s graph­ics chip divi­sion and Microsoft’s Win­dows. Not bad for a small-town girl from cow-town Wis­con­sin! But talk about feel­ing like a fraud. I felt like I was sup­posed to han­dle all the tech­ni­cal details and all the politics—all while mak­ing it look total­ly effort­less. It wasn’t effort­less, of course, but it was a heck of a lot eas­i­er than writ­ing, and I sus­pect I was bet­ter at it, too.
Why, oh why, then, do I write? I write pre­cise­ly because it’s so darn hard. Yes, I like a chal­lenge, and I’m stub­born, and I want to con­tin­ue to improve and find ways to make it eas­i­er. But I also love know­ing that it’s hard for every­body. What joy, what freedom–it’s not just me! How can I be a fraud if we’re all strug­gling in this togeth­er? Even mul­ti-pub­lished, award-win­ning authors (and artists) say every time they sit down to cre­ate it’s the same feel­ing of dread. No one prances around pre­tend­ing it’s easy (if they do, we all KNOW they’re robots!). There is a huge com­mu­ni­ty of like-suf­fer­ing souls out there. And of course, self-pub­lish­ing notwith­stand­ing, one hopes there are some very tal­ent­ed and wor­thy gate­keep­ers bar­ring the path to pub­li­ca­tion until our efforts are ready for prime­time (now THEY must feel some pres­sure, don’t you think?).
I think that the beau­ty of writ­ing, or attempt­ing to mas­ter any oth­er cre­ative endeav­or, is that it is so clear­ly a life-long appren­tice­ship. Even the mas­ters feel there is still much more to learn. We all strive to enhance our skills and per­fect our craft. We are all on a hero’s jour­ney that will not end until the very last breath. We have all been forced (I hope) to switch from a fixed mind­set (tal­ent) to the growth mind­set (prac­tice). Now we just have to work at it, indi­vid­u­al­ly, yet all together.
Many thanks to all my cre­ative friends who are walk­ing this road with me, and to the ones who slap me upside the head and tell me to “knock it off” when­ev­er I feel like giv­ing up!

Wow, I’ve been tagged! I don’t nor­mal­ly do this kind of thing, but I’d do just about any­thing for Jolie, so here goes:

1. What are your nick­names?
One of my best friends called me Spoory Laur (since my maid­en name was Lau­rie Spoor). I guess I’m not real­ly a nick­name kind of gal, though.

2. What was the first movie you bought in VHS or DVD?
Dirty Danc­ing. I still have it! 

3. What is your favorite scent?
Pump­kin pie.

4. What one place have you vis­it­ed that you can’t for­get and want to go back to?Whistler, B.C., my favorite (bor­rowed) “cab­in” in the moun­tains. Thanks, dear friends, for all the won­der­ful moun­tain get­away trips!

5. Do you trust eas­i­ly?
Yes, prob­a­bly too easily.

6. Do you gen­er­al­ly think before you act, or act before you think?
I think before I act, way too much. I just fin­ished read­ing Chris Eboch’s Well of Sac­ri­fice, and I think I need to take a les­son from Eveningstar: some­times you need to act before you think, or the oppor­tu­ni­ty is lost.

7. Is there any­thing that has made you unhap­py these days?
Pol­i­tics, neg­a­tive ad cam­paigns, lies and manip­u­la­tions of the truth, the deep divi­sions and dis­agree­ments in our soci­ety and around the world.

8. Do you have a good body image?
Good? No. Suf­fi­cient? Yes.

9. What is your favorite fruit?
Hmmm… tough call. Peach­es or straw­ber­ries? (You decide; I hate mak­ing decisions.)

10. What web­sites do you vis­it dai­ly?
My Google cal­en­dar, Google read­er, Face­book (in that order).

11. What have you been seri­ous­ly addict­ed to late­ly?
Cof­fee, the all-impor­tant pro­duc­tiv­i­ty enhancer. Face­book, the fun but insid­i­ous pro­duc­tiv­i­ty killer.

12. What kind of per­son do you think the per­son who tagged you is?
Deter­mined, mod­est, gen­er­ous, glam­orous, won­der­ful mother. 

13. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head?
The theme song from I Dream of Jean­nie (no, I have no idea why it’s in there).

14. What’s your favorite item of cloth­ing?
Paja­mas, the fuzzi­er the better.

15. Do you think Rice Krispies are yum­my?
Yes, with or with­out but­ter and marsh­mal­lows. Snap, crack­le, pop!

16. What would you do if you saw $100 lying on the ground?
Just lying there, with no one around and no idea who it belongs to? Well, in that case, I’d pick it up, silly!

17. What items could you not go with­out dur­ing the day?
Cof­fee. Hugs and “I love you”s from my fam­i­ly. (Okay, fam­i­ly comes first, but they don’t come any­where near me until after I’ve had my coffee.)

18. What should you be doing right now?
Clean­ing the car out for the dri­ve down to the Sec­ond Annu­al Kidlit Blog­ging Con­fer­ence!

Now, to tag eight more who haven’t yet been tagged. I’m going to tag a few Face­book friends since they don’t have active blogs that I know of, but hope­ful­ly they can post their answers on their wall or pro­file or something. 🙂

Bernie, Chris, Rob, Jim, Peg­gy, Kir­by, Joni, and
Mol­ly.