Maiden Voyage: An Author's First Publication

Someone asked me a few days ago about what I've been writing for the last three decades.  They'd read my Twitter memoir and the story of how I decided to become a writer when I was a child.  This person figured that even an unpublished author should have written a dozen manuscripts by now.
It's a reasonable enough assumption except that life is so rarely linear.

I have, indeed, written several thousand pages, but you will never get to see those “early manuscripts”. 

                                                                
During my school years I wrote a moderate amount, mostly poetry and stories about wolves.
I majored in liberal arts and creative writing in college which, naturally, kept me writing.
Then, after college, I caught a major case of life.
I got side tracked and within a few years found a new passion; working in human services.  I worked in mental health, developmental disabilities, substance recovery and with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Alaska. I was head over heels in love with these jobs and the work was deeply rewarding; my enthusiasm for human services work easily rivaled my love of writing. Every single day, I knew that I was doing something that made life a little bit happier or better for the folks I served. And what amazing folks they were! People outside the field sometimes think I'm being disingenuous when I tell them that it was an honor to work with folks experiencing disabilities. Nope. Not a drop. I'm entirely sincere. If you want to meet people who have led interesting lives, are deeply courageous and reject superficiality, spend time with the chronically ill and disenfranchised.
Day after day, year after year, I was given teachers, some of them in the form of superb supervisors and colleagues, most in the form of my clients.
Why is it so difficult for writer's to gauge the quality of our own work? Maybe some find it easier than I do. I know I'm a good writer but I can never decide if I'm a good enough writer and this unanswered question has sent me into a tail spin more times than I care to think about. Not so with the work I did in human services. I'm by no means a miracle worker, I don't even have the education of a social worker, but I always felt a deep certainty, like a ship with good ballast, that I was more than good enough at helping people.  On the days that I made mistakes or errors in judgment, I always fell asleep knowing that in spite of my human flaws, I was making a palpable difference in the world.
Meanwhile, I was writing.  I wrote thousands of pages. I wrote treatment documents and progress notes and I did a dang fine job of it, too. Auditors and Medicaid employees praised my writing.  Reviewers at Yale praised my writing.  Supervisors praised my writing, though sometimes in exasperation because they would have gladly traded some of my writing talent for better time management skills.  Nonetheless, if you were looking for someone to interview a client, review assessments and develop a cohesive, person-centered plan of action that included achievable and measurable goals, objectives and interventions, I was your girl!  I am not the fastest writer and I'm nowhere near the most prolific but, by golly, I wrote dazzlingly beautiful treatment plans!

Now, though, I am finally writing for you.  Will the skills that I’ve honed over years of service provision and healthcare documentation add depth to my creative writing? Will I have what it takes to earn a paycheck as a self-published author? We have yet to see, you and I.  Now, you are my client, my supervisor, my reviewer and my auditor.  I can only do my best; offer to you what is in my soul and await your response.

Last night I uploaded my short Twitter memoir Head Buckets & Hashtags: An Alaskan Childhood In Tweets to Amazon Kindle.  I am giddy and thrilled and scared spitless.  You and I are shipmates and this is the maiden voyage of a newly built vessel.  Let’s see if we’re seaworthy, shall we?

If you would like to download my memoir, here's a link:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00C5UZ0AI/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/178-3211354-6725835

If you don’t have a Kindle and want to read Head Buckets & Hashtags on your computer, smart phone or tablet, here’s a link to a free application that you can download to make that happen:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

I hope that you will give me feedback in the form of Amazon reviews, comments here and even tweets or email. If you appreciate what I’ve written, please recommend it to others.

By the way, my memoir is only $.99 now through next Wednesday, April 10th but the price will go up on April 11th!

A Change Of Pace 4/2/13

Today we will have a change of pace!  In other words, I'm bizzybizzybizzy like a bee.
On the agenda:
Spend time with a grieving friend who needs a few hugs and laughs
Supervise a doggy play date
Have dinner with husband and Mom
UPLOAD MEMOIR TO AMAZON KINDLE

It will be a fabulous day for me, filled with people, dogs and activities I love! I'm not, however, going to post Perfect Moments or Amazing Factoids today. Not to worry, I'll return to our little routine tomorrow.

In the meantime, collect those perfect moments, folks! And if you'd care to share them in the comments, I'd be over the moon!  Yes, that would be me, leaping about the solar system with joy!  ;-)

Happy New Year...In April!

Perfect Moments:

Instead of giving you a detailed description of a perfect moment today, I’m going to demonstrate an abbreviated version of my nighttime listing ritual for you…written instead of conducted only in my head!  If you’d like to refer back to the post where I described this ritual and why I started it, here’s a link!  http://mpeska.blogspot.com/2013/03/collecting-perfect-moments.html?m=1

Perfect Moments Past:

1-Fingers of mist entwined in tree branches in back yard two nights ago
2- Discovery that butt ends of sliced white onion that I planted in my indoor scrap garden are sending up green tendrils 
3-Sucker hole opened up and sent rays of sunshine through the window and the seven prisms hanging there which filled the living and dining rooms with dancing rainbows
4-Waking in bed to listen to the rain drum rhythmically on the roof
5- Placed several drops of cottonwood essential oil in a pot of water on the stove and filled the house with marvelous smell of spring

Looking Forward to:

1-Dinner and visiting with husband and mom tomorrow

2-Eating those homegrown green onions
3-Seeing recently planted thyme, basil & cilantro seeds germinate and grow
4- Uploading Head Buckets & Hashtags to Amazon
5-Smelling the cottonwood outside

Perfect Right Now:

1-After several days of knee pain, today am entirely without pain or discomfort anywhere in my body
2-Sipping and sniffing warm mug of spicy ginger “tea” made from fresh ginger root
3-Gazing out the window at bunches of small birds hopping around the yard
4-Listening to cell phone softly playing Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World
5-Warm snuggly feeling of wearing my favorite red sweater that used to belong to my husband

Funny Factiods:

·         In 1962 Tanganyika (now Tanzania) had a laughter "epidemic" which began among a small group of boarding school children. Laughter is contagious, but this laughter was far more contagious than your typical case of the giggles.  Roughly 3/5 of the students at the school caught the hilarity!  The ongoing laughter was so disruptive that the school had to, temporarily, close down and send students home...where their contagious chortles infected even more people.
Some people laughed for days. Some people laughed for weeks.  Those affected complained of all the side effects you would imagine and one you wouldn't; abdominal pain, respiratory problems, fainting, weeping and rash.
Ultimately, more than 1000 people were "infected" and 14 schools were shut down (the original school re-opened & had to shut down a 2nd time!). Then, somewhere between 6 months and 2 1/2 years later (apparently, nobody can agree on exactly when) the epidemic evaporated.
 Scientists and experts don't know what caused this outbreak of mirth but many hypothesize it was mass psychogenesis. Psychogenesis is a collection of physical symptoms brought about by mental or emotional stress.
Laughter reduces stress hormones (cortisol, epinephrine & dopac) in the body so it seems to me like a particularly effective response to stress.

·         Many cultures around the world have celebrated the vernal equinox (spring) as the new year.  In fact, the Roman calendar observed New Year’s Day in March until 153 BC when Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar, forming the Julian calendar.  When the Roman Empire fell, many folks returned to celebrating the turning of the year during the spring equinox and continued to do so until the Gregorian calendar was adopted.  Some historians suggest that people in rural areas were slow to get news of, and implement, the Gregorian calendar and were referred to as April Fool’s and that this may have been the origin of the modern April Fool’s Day. On the other hand, a variety of cultures and traditions have celebrated prank festivals for millennia, some of which coincide with the vernal equinox.  

 

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR!   

Perfect Moment & Cover/Blurb Reveal

Perfect Moment:

One piece of mindfulness practice that I find challenging but fascinating is observing my emotions.  This morning I observed a heavy, grouchy feeling.  It’s the same feeling I get when I push, push, push and get very little move, move, move.  It’s a complex, conglomerate emotion made up of equal parts frustration, weariness, impatience and that snappy fearfulness you see in cornered animals.  I began mentally listing my physical sensations.  I always learn a lot about my mental and emotional life by paying attention to my body and I often discover phenomenological expressions of emotion that surprise and enlighten me.

Achy knees, tight jaw muscles, shallow breathing, itchy dry skin on my arms,  blurry vision.  Blurry vision?  Yup.  Blurry, fuzzy, obscured vision.
Ohhhhhh!  I delight in these minor epiphanies.
I cleaned my glasses.  Put my glasses back on my face.  The world, my feet, the needles on the spruce trees, moss in the yard; it all jumped into sharp focus.  I took a deep breath and sighed.  Relaxed.  Grouchy gone.  Perfect moment.

I have news, today.  I am nearly ready (aiming for April 2^nd or 3^rd) to upload my short memoir to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.  Here’s a sneak preview of my cover and the blurb.  By the way, I’ve discovered that blurb writing for oneself is an odd bit of mental torture.  Never before have I put so much time and energy into four sentences.  I’m sending out a special thanks to @PetSpeakArt for suggestions, support and encouragement during the blurbing process!

 

 

Originally written in a series of candid tweets, Head Buckets & Hashtags unfolds in tantalizing snippets of 140 characters or less.  In turns amusing and harrowing, this gritty recounting of a childhood in the Alaskan “bush” captures Ms. Peska’s spirit of resilience as she copes with poverty, illness and abuse.

Each day at noon, for 15 days in March 2013, Ms. Peska took to Twitter and shared her story with “tweeps”.  Now, in this short memoir, she’s sharing it with you! 

 

If you have any last minute suggestions for the cover or blurb, I welcome your input. 

Thanks!

P.S. I’m going to take tomorrow off from blogging but I’ll return on Monday.

Extra, Extra Sensory Perception

Perfect Moments:

Oh joy! I’ve just had a wonderful, delightful and perfect moment of fairly large proportions!

Prelude To A Perfect Moment: We share fence, in our back yard, with four different neighbors.  Two of these neighbors have dogs and one of the neighbors has two small yappy dogs that fence fight with all the dogs around them.  Jeb has, alas, picked up this nasty habit, though only with the two dogs that taught it to him.  As you can imagine, I DO NOT APPROVE!  The neighboring terrors are encouraged to behave in this fashion, but Jeb is not.  The trouble is, teaching a dog to stop fence fighting and come on command isn’t something I’ve ever done before (never lived with a fence before! J) and I’ve been finding it difficult.  Prevention is the most effective tactic but it’s hard to predict when the neighbors might let their dogs outside.  Once the disturbance starts, I attempt a voice recall then leap from the back porch in my bare or stocking clad feet (I always think about putting on shoes when the dog is in the back yard but never do it) and high tail it across snow and puddles to the scene of the canine crime.  Then, using my deepest and most resonant tone (and an occasional smack on the haunch), I escort Jeb back to the porch and inside the house.

Perfect Moment: Now, here’s the part that’s wonderful and delightful; are you ready?  Just now, a few minutes before I began writing this, a fence fighting ruckus broke out and my brilliant boy Jeb responded to my voice (after only about 10 seconds of me roaring in my faux deep voice), broke away from the encounter and CAME PRANCING BACK TO THE PORCH!!!

Well!  As you can imagine, the instant Jeb started towards me I dropped my roar and shifted to enthusiastic praise in my normal girlish tones, so by the time he arrived at the porch, Jeb was wagging and shimmying.  There was a hop in his gait & we greeted each other with unabashed joy!  And that, ladies, gentlemen and pups, was a thrill and undeniably perfect.

I’ve had several perfect moments in the last 24 hours, but there’s one other that I’m bursting to share with you.  Yesterday, a friend who’s been reading my blog (Hi, Babs!) called me to share her perfect moment.  I listened as Babs told me about her moment and I giggled, grinned and tried to hug her right through the phone!  I was, and still am, tickled pink!                                                           

If you have a perfect moment that you’d like to share, I welcome your comments and/or tweets!

 

Amazing Factoids:

You have a sixth sense, an extra sensory perception!  Not only that, you have a seventh sense, too!  Extra, extra sensory perception!  Yes, you really do.  No, I’m not yanking your chain and no, I’m not talking about the way that you always know when to show up at a friend’s house when there’s birthday cake. 

Vestibular Sense: Your vestibular system is in your ears.  I know; you thought those funny looking fleshy attachments to the sides of your head were just for hearing and fashion, but noooooo.  Actually, the vestibular system is in the inner ear, so it’s not really all that fashionable but there would be a lot more accidents on the Paris and New York catwalks without it.  Here’s what it does: your vestibular system allows you to perceive gravity, motion and your physical orientation.  Need a second to get your equilibrium?  You’re using your vestibular system!

Sense of Proprioception:  Say it five times, fast.  No, that doesn’t have anything to do with proprioception, I just think it’s a fun word that’s a bit tricky to say.  If you’ve ever had a basic neurological test, you’ve had your sense of proprioception tested.  Stand with your arms raised out from your sides so that they are parallel to the floor, close your eyes, point with both your index fingers and, bending your elbows, bring your index fingers together in front of you.  Did they touch?  Did they come close?  That is proprioception; it’s your sense of where each bit of your body is, that bit’s relative location to other bits and the speed and force with which that bit is (or isn’t) moving.    

 

Have a happy day!

Diagrams & Puppy Zooms

Yesterday, I shared with you how my out-of-control, negative thoughts contributed to my unhappiness and how I began my journey towards changing my thoughts. 

Here’s a nifty way to visualize the dynamic interplay between our thoughts, our actions and our feelings:

 

• Our emotions are impacted by our thoughts and by our actions.
• Our thoughts are impacted by our emotions and our actions.
• Our actions are impacted by our emotions and by our thoughts.

The outside environment can also impact our emotions, thoughts and actions, but only when we let it.

Of course, we can, through our actions, impact our environement and we do all the time. We don't have full control, however, over what that impact will be.

 

Today, I challenge you to put this diagram to the test!

-First, try changing your emotions. You know, just decide you're going to go from feeling one emotion to feeling another emotion. :-) Good luck with that!

-Second, try changing your emotions by changing your actions. If you feel lonely, angry or sad, try singing and dancing along to some upbeat and happy music or read or watch a comedy. How does this work for you?

-Third, try changing your emotions by changing your thoughts. Lots of folks are familiar with the idea of affirmations but not everyone finds affirmations comfortable. This is where collecting perfect moments comes into play. Be alert; notice and think about any perfect moments that come your way.

 

These ideas and experiments are the basis for cognitive behavioral therapy which is simply a way of working with our thoughts and our behaviors to make our lives more enjoyable, effective and satisfying.

 

Today’s Perfect Moment Brought To You By Happy Dog Jeb!

This morning, Jeb invented a new game.  Here’s how it works, I stand at the foot of the stairs and heave his ball (yes, I throw like a girl so this is a big deal for me) into the upstairs hallway.  Jeb retrieves the ball, sits on the top step and drops the ball so that it bounces down each step until it reaches me.  I pick up the ball and we start from the top.  Today, we played this game for about 10 minutes until my husband came out of one of the upstairs rooms, at which point, Jeb tucked his butt, laid his ears back and broke the sound barrier flying up and down the stairs in a fit of puppy zooms.  Dale and I laughed, Jeb zoomed and life was filled with joy!

Facts to elicit Marvel:

Our autonomic nervous system (ANS) is what keeps our bodies running, second to second, day or night, year after year.  The ANS regulates all those automatic but vital functions that we rarely think about like digestion, circulation, breathing, blinking and more.  Although illness can impact the functionality of the ANS, most of us take for granted how much work our bodies do for us all the time. 

·         The “average” person’s heart beats about 3 million times over the course of a 70-year lifetime.  Let’s name our “average” person; we’ll call her Average Jill.

·         Average Jill will take about 600 million breaths during her 70 years, breathing a total of 75 million gallons of air in her lifetime.

·         Average Jill will blink about 250 million times in her life and her eyes will be closed from blinking (not from sleep) for over 5 years in total.

·         The hair on Jill’s head grows about 6 inches each year and although many hairs will break and all will fall out every 3 to 7 years, she’ll grow 35 feet of hair during her lifetime.

 

 

 

Did you take my challenge? If so, what were your results?

Do you have a puppy zooom story to share?

Please feel free to comment!

 



 

Collecting Perfect Moments

I began collecting perfect moments out of desperation about 17 years ago.  I’d been in therapy for several years and was working hard but still struggled almost every day.  I was sad, irritable and intensely self-critical.  Each evening at bedtime, I ruminated about my endless failures, shortcomings and imperfections.  I imagined that every incomplete project, snippy attitude and weeping fit spread out behind me like the wake of a boat, in far reaching waves of chaos.  Not only was I miserable, but I was convinced that I made other people miserable, too, just by being in their lives.

One night, as I snuffled into my blanket I decided that I needed to make a change.  I needed to change my brain. I decided to change what I was thinking.  Dwelling on negativity wasn’t inspiring me to become Mary Poppins (you know, “Practically perfect in every way”) and it wasn’t helping me rest peacefully through the night.  I determined that I needed to accept my terrible flaws and deliberately think about something else.  That night, I devised a new bedtime ritual for myself.  It was a three-part process:

1-      List ten perfect moments from my past

2-      List ten things I was looking forward to without reservation

3-      List ten things that were good, happy or worthy of gratitude in that very moment

Mentally listing these thirty positives was a tremendous challenge but integrating the practice into my nightly routine was not.  The rewards of going through this list each night were immediate.  I stopped crying myself to sleep, I slept better, and this ritual launched me into la-la land almost as fast as an IV drip of anesthesia!

Over the next year, I made other changes in my life that contributed to a MUCH happier Marcy; I started an anti-depressant medication, I adopted a dog and I moved.  That first step, though, that moment of epiphany when I realized that I had to actively change the way I used my brain; that was my first step down a new road of happy and it was the first step I took towards mindfulness practice.  With time and daily work, I began noticing more perfect moments and I became increasingly able to stay fully present and aware of what was wonderful in life as it was happening.

In an odd way, it doesn’t sound like much of a big deal to simply pay attention to what kind of good stuff is going on in life.  Our brains, however, have a powerful tendency to focus on the dangerous, negative, alarming and difficult stuff, it’s called Negativity Bias.  We process negative stimuli faster than positive stimuli, remember it more vividly and give it more weight or import than positive stimuli.  This quirk in our wiring has likely played a pretty big role in our survival, as a species.  It’s also impacted all of our various cultures.  I think that it’s been a powerful force in shaping modern media. 

Perhaps for some imaginary person who is born without any propensity towards depression (not to mention paranoia), who is raised in a family and community that is largely positive, validating and safe, Negativity Bias does not impact mental health.  For those of us living in a less than rosy-ideal reality, however, it poses a major barrier to happiness.

All these years later, noticing the positive has become far easier for me.  Still, it’s a deliberate practice that I must consciously engage in.  All too often, I find myself caught up in negativity and it takes awareness and self-discipline to disengage.

I’ve neglected this blog for nigh onto seven months.  Every time I wrote a potential post, I rejected it.  None of them sang to me.  They all felt wrong in one way or another.  Some of them were funny and some were serious.  Yesterday, I realized that each of them had negativity at their core.  And now, I’m glad that I didn’t publish those posts on this blog. But, it’s spring time and spring is famous for new leaves, so it’s a great time for me to turn over a new blogging leaf!  I am going to strive to post on this blog every day or two.  My aim is to keep my posts positive and I expect I’ll be sharing a lot of my perfect moments with all of you.

Here’s a perfect moment from today to get us started:

This morning as I prepared a meal to go in my crock-pot, I used my marble mortar and pestle to grind black peppercorns, sea salt and fresh garlic together and then to mix them into olive oil.  The aroma was succulent and I dipped my finger into the mix for a taste, spicy but not too hot and also marvelously earthy.  My tongue tingled and I bent over the mortar to inhale the delicious aroma before adding the blend to the crock-pot.  I closed my eyes and reveled in the lingering flavor and mouthwatering smell.

Facts to elicit marvel:

The average human adult is made up of about 7 octillion atoms! Yup, octillion is a real word, too. 

Every cell in your body carries 6 to 8 feet of DNA!

What do you do to stay positive and happy?  Have you collected any perfect moments today?

Please feel free to comment!

UPDATE:

• For information about my short memoir Head Buckets & Hashtags: An Alaskan Childhood In Tweets, please visit my Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/Marcy-Peska/e/B00C632QOW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1