I've been thinking about this whole Twitter thing for awhile, about how effective it actually is, and then when I had a conversation with a fellow writer today, I cemented my belief system about marketing via Twitter. I'll be using novelist as an example, because I'm a burgeoning author, but needless to say, novelist are not the exception. Lots of people are doing this, for a myriad of items, from acne cream to classes on how to promote yourself on Twitter.
On Twitter, I see so many people advertising their books, including myself, and I've been wondering, a lot, if it is the least bit productive. There's all kinds of pitches. There's the READ MY BOOK pitch, the one that is in your face. There's the I've just written the Great American Novel and you should read it pitch. And then there's the So-n-so said This is the Greatest Book since the Iliad and you'd be a fool not to read it pitch. These can all be interchanged or combined. And none of these are bad, until someone decides to tweet it flood-style. Buy my book. Buy my book. Buy my book. I've gotten to where I ignore certain tweeters almost immediately because they've saturated my sense of appreciation for their message.
I usually pitch once a week and try to add some humor. For example, I'll tweet something like What better #read on Good Friday than a story about obsession and #voodoo? Ok, maybe a stretch. Read COUILLON anyway.
And that brings up a question I've been pondering. Do people actually read other people's tweets? I don't think so. I am following less than 350 tweeters [I have very few compared to most, some in the 100K range], and I can't even read a tenth of the tweets I get. That's when I have time to read tweets. So if I'm not reading their tweets, they're probably not reading my tweets. Which begs the question is this worth doing.
I even asked the question, in a tweet, if any of the authors I am following feel like they have sold books based on Twitter pitches. I got zero response. Which, to me, emphasizes both of my points: pitches don't really work and no one reads other people's tweets. Unless you're already a celebrity. I'm never going to have a real following until I'm a celebrity, but I'm never going to be a celebrity without a following. Kind of like the old credit catch-22 [it was like this a long, long time ago], if you don't have credit, you can't get credit. [Now days, anyone can get a credit card, even my ex-husband.]
Now, I'm not dumping on Twitter. I've built a hand full of relationships there, and I enjoy a lot of the tweets. Just not the marketing ones. Besides Twitter, there are also tons of Facebook pages out there that do same. And blogs. For example, many FB pages are centered around indie authors. I liked several of those pages when I was told I needed to get into social media if I'm going to be somebody. My problem is that all I see on those pages are posts from other authors pitching their books. No readers. Just writer.
So am I going to dump Twitter or FB? No, absolutely not. But I'm also not the type to flood the twitter-verse with Buy my Book messages. I don't know what it'll take for me to start selling books, but tweeting to other authors ain't it.
I'd love to hear from other authors, not represented by agents/publishers, as to how they market their work. But just finding those people is a job in and of itself. I followed GoodReads discussion groups for awhile, too. You know what I found? I found that with all this tweeting and group participation, I didn't have time to write.
So if you have some sure fired way of marketing your books, please please please share the information. I'm not looking for the easy way, but I am looking for the most effective way.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Jealousy, Despondency, and Ennui...
First of all, I got the ennui term from Henri, the Chat Noir. Ennui is one of those words I see frequently but that I never seem to be able to remember the meaning of; so I decided to use it more often. If you're like me and sometimes can't put your finger on the exact meaning of a word, ennui means a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest. Boredom, in other words.
And that's what I've been feeling lately, along with jealousy and despondency.
The jealousy is from seeing so many new authors doing well. I want to be wanted, to be the next great author, to be in demand. Which leads to despondency, which is only exacerbated by knowing that there's tons more work ahead of me before I'm in demand, if ever, and that there are literally thousands of authors out there in Indie land, competing with me, all trying to build a market just like me. All wanting to be the next great author. It feels overwhelming at times, seeing all these people pitching their books on Twitter and FB and blogs.
And finally the ennui is a natural result of experiencing the first two for long periods of time. I feel so tired all the time. I hate Maggie at times. I just want to shake her and say, Why can't you figure out your own problems. I have enough of my own. That's the literary schizophrenia leaking out. Because you know what Maggie would say, if she ever got up the nerve to confront me. She'd say, You made me this way, bitch! Okay, she'd think the bitch part. She'd say, You're the boss of me, so make it right.
I'm working on it... I really am. Sometimes I'm drowning in it, but this is going to work if it kills me. [Famous last words!]
And that's what I've been feeling lately, along with jealousy and despondency.
The jealousy is from seeing so many new authors doing well. I want to be wanted, to be the next great author, to be in demand. Which leads to despondency, which is only exacerbated by knowing that there's tons more work ahead of me before I'm in demand, if ever, and that there are literally thousands of authors out there in Indie land, competing with me, all trying to build a market just like me. All wanting to be the next great author. It feels overwhelming at times, seeing all these people pitching their books on Twitter and FB and blogs.
And finally the ennui is a natural result of experiencing the first two for long periods of time. I feel so tired all the time. I hate Maggie at times. I just want to shake her and say, Why can't you figure out your own problems. I have enough of my own. That's the literary schizophrenia leaking out. Because you know what Maggie would say, if she ever got up the nerve to confront me. She'd say, You made me this way, bitch! Okay, she'd think the bitch part. She'd say, You're the boss of me, so make it right.
I'm working on it... I really am. Sometimes I'm drowning in it, but this is going to work if it kills me. [Famous last words!]
Monday, April 1, 2013
Psychic Faire - the Results are In!
This past Saturday I went to a psychic faire that's hosted here in the Seattle area once a year. And I had my cards read. [Sorry, no pictures this time.]
Don't dismiss this right off the bat. If nothing else, I think psychics [tarot readers and palm readers] help people get in touch with themselves or at least with how they view themselves. I think a lot of it is based on reading the persons appearance, on intuition and empathy. The cards, or whatever, just help them figure things out about you... or me. I view readings as a sort of pagan psychotherapy, like seeing a therapist, and at a much reduced fee.
Even I read tarot cards. Yes, I do. I'm not good at it because I don't have the ability to just talk about what I see. I'm too analytical. I second guess myself too much. I see things and then think, no that's not right, that's not what the card is supposed to say.
Anyway, there were no great revelations that came from this reading, but it put me back in touch with me, and reassured me that I not delusional, well not all the time.
I had her do a general reading for me.
Of course there was lots of back-and-forth conversation while this was going on. We talked about my mother a bit. But I never give away all the information up front. I like to see if the reader is sincere. She said someone was with me (not a physical being) who is demanding and opinionated. I thought great, even after she dies I can't get rid of her. But then again, I know she's the voice in my head, the one that says if you try that you're going to fail and then what will everyone think of you.
And I thought about that, and have been since Saturday. I told her about how several people have suggested I write a memoir, but that I find it too self-indulgent and don't really want to deal with all the tittering that would go on behind my back. I told her that I do try to suppress my emotions, that I do not like to let people in.
On the other hand, today my friend LisaP asked if Maggie is Nellie.
Here's what I told her: "Yes, Maggie is mostly me. Desi and Liz are also parts of me, as well as Rose. My mother's in there too, and my grandmother. All mixed up. There is no straight one-to-one character. But you know, with fiction even though it isn't memoir, the best fiction comes from inside. People who know me will see the correlation. People who don't know me well may guess, and everyone else will get whatever they bring to the story."
So who knows. I may never become an internationally acclaimed author, but I'm going to give it a try. My characters will be as messed-up as I am, and I hope people will find it interesting. The ones who amaze me are the ones who don't get it, and I say to them, be glad you don't understand, that your life has been so good you can't grasp the underlying theme.
With that said, I'm going to go read someone else's work for awhile.
And post a comment!!! please...
Don't dismiss this right off the bat. If nothing else, I think psychics [tarot readers and palm readers] help people get in touch with themselves or at least with how they view themselves. I think a lot of it is based on reading the persons appearance, on intuition and empathy. The cards, or whatever, just help them figure things out about you... or me. I view readings as a sort of pagan psychotherapy, like seeing a therapist, and at a much reduced fee.
Even I read tarot cards. Yes, I do. I'm not good at it because I don't have the ability to just talk about what I see. I'm too analytical. I second guess myself too much. I see things and then think, no that's not right, that's not what the card is supposed to say.
Anyway, there were no great revelations that came from this reading, but it put me back in touch with me, and reassured me that I not delusional, well not all the time.
I had her do a general reading for me.
- She said some stuff about work, that someone [a gray haired man or a dark haired woman] who has been duplicitous will get their comeuppance
- I thought, humm, I think I know who she's talking about, could even be both, and I said it's about damn time
- She said money or a promotion is coming my way
- I said it's about damn time
- She said you're exhausted and need some down time
- I said that's true
Of course there was lots of back-and-forth conversation while this was going on. We talked about my mother a bit. But I never give away all the information up front. I like to see if the reader is sincere. She said someone was with me (not a physical being) who is demanding and opinionated. I thought great, even after she dies I can't get rid of her. But then again, I know she's the voice in my head, the one that says if you try that you're going to fail and then what will everyone think of you.
- But She said she [my mother, the being following me around, whomever] wants me to be happy, to do well
- I said I hope so
- She said you're a perfectionist, can't stop editing that book
- I said And?
- She said learn to accept that done is done
- I said hard to do
- She said this novel [Counting Crows] will be good but not great, that what I write needs to be more raw.
- She said my third book will be great. [I believe KenS said the same, that this book is good, but it's my starter book, that I can do better.]
- She said that I need to make it raw, show emotions in it, don't suppress them like I try to do in my life.
And I thought about that, and have been since Saturday. I told her about how several people have suggested I write a memoir, but that I find it too self-indulgent and don't really want to deal with all the tittering that would go on behind my back. I told her that I do try to suppress my emotions, that I do not like to let people in.
On the other hand, today my friend LisaP asked if Maggie is Nellie.
Here's what I told her: "Yes, Maggie is mostly me. Desi and Liz are also parts of me, as well as Rose. My mother's in there too, and my grandmother. All mixed up. There is no straight one-to-one character. But you know, with fiction even though it isn't memoir, the best fiction comes from inside. People who know me will see the correlation. People who don't know me well may guess, and everyone else will get whatever they bring to the story."
So who knows. I may never become an internationally acclaimed author, but I'm going to give it a try. My characters will be as messed-up as I am, and I hope people will find it interesting. The ones who amaze me are the ones who don't get it, and I say to them, be glad you don't understand, that your life has been so good you can't grasp the underlying theme.
With that said, I'm going to go read someone else's work for awhile.
And post a comment!!! please...
Good Rules for Blogging???
So now that I'm on Twitter, I see all these posts fly by like "7 Things to Never Do on Twitter" or "5 Things to Make Your Blog More blahblahblah", replacing blahblahblah with any number of things, from popular to professional, from appealing to successful.
One of the tips that really annoyed me at first, until I examined my own reading habits (for magazines at least), was to have pictures in the blog post. My initial reaction was that this is supposed to be a blog about writing, not about photography, but then I thought about how when I buy or read a magazine the first thing I do is flip through and look at all the pictures. BTW, the post with the picture of my cat quilt got quite a few hits. So, good idea. And I'll try to add more pictures. Maybe like this one...
Now this picture has nothing to do with what I'm writing about in this post, other than it's a picture, but it is kind of cool since my maiden name is Stark and I'm using it as my pseudonym.
BTW, if you haven't been to Portland, Oregon, they have made an art of street vending. The little trailers and trucks behind me are everywhere, hundreds of them.
There are several suggestions that I'm going to have to pass on, especially the start a controversy suggestion. People who know me may not believe this but I try to avoid confrontation. That's not to say I won't get confrontational, but only over something I strongly believe in, and I am certainly not going to try to stir people up just to get their attention. Besides, there's enough of that on Facebook already. You don't even have to try to start something on FB. People are just pissed-off in general.
So at this point in my career, I don't think the old adage that any publicity is good publicity works.
Another crazy one is share some secrets. Like government secrets? Like high school crush secrets? Like my super power is my blindingly white skin. Whenever I put on a bathing suit and go out in the sun [living in Seattle hasn't help with the tanning], my skin blinds people. And hey, they can't see all my wrinkles and rolls.
Oh, time for another picture...
This is a picture of my friend Patti's two dogs, Honey Girl and Kemo. Again, it has nothing to do with the blog post (other than it's a picture).
Sorry, when I get tired, I get a little snarky.
As you can see, they are extremely mistreated dogs. That might be a controversy, if it were true.
Next, suggestion is to post frequently and regularly. I don't post frequently, as in four or five times a week, but I do try to post regularly. So another good idea.
Finally, and I've attempted this, but right now, I believe most people are reading my blog posts either on a google/yahoo page or via email. The suggestion is to start a conversation, to encourage people to post comments. I think this is also a pretty good idea, and I'm going to try to start doing that. So friends, who read my posts, don't email me directly, put it in a comment. To which I'll reply.
So what do you think? And what would you like to see me change/enhance on this blog site?
Post a comment!!!!
One of the tips that really annoyed me at first, until I examined my own reading habits (for magazines at least), was to have pictures in the blog post. My initial reaction was that this is supposed to be a blog about writing, not about photography, but then I thought about how when I buy or read a magazine the first thing I do is flip through and look at all the pictures. BTW, the post with the picture of my cat quilt got quite a few hits. So, good idea. And I'll try to add more pictures. Maybe like this one...
 |
| Me in Portland on Stark Street |
Now this picture has nothing to do with what I'm writing about in this post, other than it's a picture, but it is kind of cool since my maiden name is Stark and I'm using it as my pseudonym.
BTW, if you haven't been to Portland, Oregon, they have made an art of street vending. The little trailers and trucks behind me are everywhere, hundreds of them.
There are several suggestions that I'm going to have to pass on, especially the start a controversy suggestion. People who know me may not believe this but I try to avoid confrontation. That's not to say I won't get confrontational, but only over something I strongly believe in, and I am certainly not going to try to stir people up just to get their attention. Besides, there's enough of that on Facebook already. You don't even have to try to start something on FB. People are just pissed-off in general.
So at this point in my career, I don't think the old adage that any publicity is good publicity works.
Another crazy one is share some secrets. Like government secrets? Like high school crush secrets? Like my super power is my blindingly white skin. Whenever I put on a bathing suit and go out in the sun [living in Seattle hasn't help with the tanning], my skin blinds people. And hey, they can't see all my wrinkles and rolls.
Oh, time for another picture...
This is a picture of my friend Patti's two dogs, Honey Girl and Kemo. Again, it has nothing to do with the blog post (other than it's a picture).
Sorry, when I get tired, I get a little snarky.
As you can see, they are extremely mistreated dogs. That might be a controversy, if it were true.
Next, suggestion is to post frequently and regularly. I don't post frequently, as in four or five times a week, but I do try to post regularly. So another good idea.
Finally, and I've attempted this, but right now, I believe most people are reading my blog posts either on a google/yahoo page or via email. The suggestion is to start a conversation, to encourage people to post comments. I think this is also a pretty good idea, and I'm going to try to start doing that. So friends, who read my posts, don't email me directly, put it in a comment. To which I'll reply.
So what do you think? And what would you like to see me change/enhance on this blog site?
Post a comment!!!!
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Champagne and Twitter
[Didn't realize it until today, 02 April 13, but this is my 100th post.]
I started the day by attending a champagne brunch at a friend's home, which means that all productivity flew out the car window on the way home, or maybe out the kitchen window after that first mimosa.
The food was delicious: fresh fruit, assorted muffins, two types of quiche, and bacon wrapped dates. I brought along a loaf of French bread and two home made flavored butters (brown-sugar/pecan and peach/lavender). We ate and talked and drank, and then ate and talked and drank some more. It was pleasant, and that's what I need right now, the company of good friend, delicious food, excellent conversation, and nay I say it, champagne. Not because I'm celebrating, certainly not, but because champagne is my favorite wine and should be consumed on a regular basis. Especially with breakfast.
My friends have been the best. Even my crazy work family has been supportive.
And I'm okay. Sad and tired, but okay. It's something I've dreaded for years, and now it's over.
Last week was a total bust, writing wise. I did nothing except lay on the sofa and read or watch old movies. But that's what I needed to do. I didn't even leave the condo until I had to go back to work on Thursday. A couple of days were what my friend, Patti, calls pajama days. I didn't quilt; I didn't write; I didn't blog. I allowed myself some downtime.
That doesn't mean I didn't feel guilty about it, but I just couldn't muster the energy to care enough to make the effort.
Yesterday, I re-doubled my efforts at editing, and slogged through eight chapters. And this editing isn't just looking for typos. I went through and highlighted words that I tend to use a lot like look and turn, and in the case of Maggie's PoV chapters, I used the word maybe and okay a lot. Of course, I tried to cut some corners with the highlighting, and ended up kicking my own butt. I though this is easy. Every time ok shows up, I'll just highlight it red. Replace all. Do you know how many works have the letters ok in them? Let me just say, A LOT. And that wasn't so bad, except when I tried to back it out, then I ended up with words like loOk. It was a mess. And remember that this book is approximately 120K words, 214 MicroSoft Word, single-spaced, pages.
So I spent a lot of time dicking around with find/replace for nothing, but I did manage to get those eight chapters re-worked. And I was going to work on the next section today, but a champagne brunch and Twitter got in the way.
But I consider Twitter, and the relationships I'm building there, as part of the marketing process. But for me, I'm marketing myself.
I don't really understand Twitter yet, but I do know that the many many people there who only want to sell stuff, they annoy me, and I don't want to be like that. I have mentioned Couillon about six times in two weeks, but there are people out there hawking their book every hour. The problem, for me at least,is that they turn into an advertisement, like a commercial on TV which I ignore. I see the tweet and think, or it's X again, selling his book.
I also don't understand how people are supposed to read all these tweets. To be honest, I don't think they do. They can't. Some of these people are following thousands, tens of thousands of people. Right now I'm following 268 people and have 158 followers, but is pretty normal, the skew that is of followers to following. I find it interesting, all the things that are being pushed, everything from what not to do on Twitter to acne solutions. It's crazy. And it makes me feel so self centered, because even following only 268 people, I've gotten to where I just look to see if someone has tweeted, favored, or retweeted me.
On the good side, there's a ton of information out there about anything and everything. I found the @Crowtographer [http://instacanv.as/thecrowtographer] on Twitter. He focuses on photographing of crows, almost exclusively. Duh, right. He's the Crowtographer after all, but he also posts facts about crows. My kind of guy, cause you know I love crows. I'm trying to build a business relationship with him. I want to use one of his photographs for the cover of the Counting Crows novel.
There's also another person, @Streetcrow, who mimics crow behavior. A typical post from @Streetcrow is something along the lines of "Alley. Peck at undefinable goo" or "Branch. Rub head." and usually once a day something like "Murder. Highway." He's entertaining to say the least, and he gives me plenty of ideas about how crows act.
And then there's just the purely entertaining tweets. The @DrunkCatLadies posted "Hey, who drank half the bottle of the wine I bought? Asshole." to which I replied (and gained a favorite from @DrunkCatLadies) "hey, i found it on the counter. if you're just gonna leave un-drunk wine around, well... i'm just sayin'".
I don't know if this is correct Twitter etiquette, especially if -- to use the recent jargon -- I'm trying to build a brand, but if I can't have fun along the way while I'm building my brand, then it's not me. It's not a good representation of me.
With all this said, I had a good day. And that's all I'm really after.
I started the day by attending a champagne brunch at a friend's home, which means that all productivity flew out the car window on the way home, or maybe out the kitchen window after that first mimosa.
The food was delicious: fresh fruit, assorted muffins, two types of quiche, and bacon wrapped dates. I brought along a loaf of French bread and two home made flavored butters (brown-sugar/pecan and peach/lavender). We ate and talked and drank, and then ate and talked and drank some more. It was pleasant, and that's what I need right now, the company of good friend, delicious food, excellent conversation, and nay I say it, champagne. Not because I'm celebrating, certainly not, but because champagne is my favorite wine and should be consumed on a regular basis. Especially with breakfast.
My friends have been the best. Even my crazy work family has been supportive.
And I'm okay. Sad and tired, but okay. It's something I've dreaded for years, and now it's over.
Last week was a total bust, writing wise. I did nothing except lay on the sofa and read or watch old movies. But that's what I needed to do. I didn't even leave the condo until I had to go back to work on Thursday. A couple of days were what my friend, Patti, calls pajama days. I didn't quilt; I didn't write; I didn't blog. I allowed myself some downtime.
That doesn't mean I didn't feel guilty about it, but I just couldn't muster the energy to care enough to make the effort.
Yesterday, I re-doubled my efforts at editing, and slogged through eight chapters. And this editing isn't just looking for typos. I went through and highlighted words that I tend to use a lot like look and turn, and in the case of Maggie's PoV chapters, I used the word maybe and okay a lot. Of course, I tried to cut some corners with the highlighting, and ended up kicking my own butt. I though this is easy. Every time ok shows up, I'll just highlight it red. Replace all. Do you know how many works have the letters ok in them? Let me just say, A LOT. And that wasn't so bad, except when I tried to back it out, then I ended up with words like loOk. It was a mess. And remember that this book is approximately 120K words, 214 MicroSoft Word, single-spaced, pages.
So I spent a lot of time dicking around with find/replace for nothing, but I did manage to get those eight chapters re-worked. And I was going to work on the next section today, but a champagne brunch and Twitter got in the way.
But I consider Twitter, and the relationships I'm building there, as part of the marketing process. But for me, I'm marketing myself.
I don't really understand Twitter yet, but I do know that the many many people there who only want to sell stuff, they annoy me, and I don't want to be like that. I have mentioned Couillon about six times in two weeks, but there are people out there hawking their book every hour. The problem, for me at least,is that they turn into an advertisement, like a commercial on TV which I ignore. I see the tweet and think, or it's X again, selling his book.
I also don't understand how people are supposed to read all these tweets. To be honest, I don't think they do. They can't. Some of these people are following thousands, tens of thousands of people. Right now I'm following 268 people and have 158 followers, but is pretty normal, the skew that is of followers to following. I find it interesting, all the things that are being pushed, everything from what not to do on Twitter to acne solutions. It's crazy. And it makes me feel so self centered, because even following only 268 people, I've gotten to where I just look to see if someone has tweeted, favored, or retweeted me.
On the good side, there's a ton of information out there about anything and everything. I found the @Crowtographer [http://instacanv.as/thecrowtographer] on Twitter. He focuses on photographing of crows, almost exclusively. Duh, right. He's the Crowtographer after all, but he also posts facts about crows. My kind of guy, cause you know I love crows. I'm trying to build a business relationship with him. I want to use one of his photographs for the cover of the Counting Crows novel.
There's also another person, @Streetcrow, who mimics crow behavior. A typical post from @Streetcrow is something along the lines of "Alley. Peck at undefinable goo" or "Branch. Rub head." and usually once a day something like "Murder. Highway." He's entertaining to say the least, and he gives me plenty of ideas about how crows act.
And then there's just the purely entertaining tweets. The @DrunkCatLadies posted "Hey, who drank half the bottle of the wine I bought? Asshole." to which I replied (and gained a favorite from @DrunkCatLadies) "hey, i found it on the counter. if you're just gonna leave un-drunk wine around, well... i'm just sayin'".
I don't know if this is correct Twitter etiquette, especially if -- to use the recent jargon -- I'm trying to build a brand, but if I can't have fun along the way while I'm building my brand, then it's not me. It's not a good representation of me.
With all this said, I had a good day. And that's all I'm really after.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Needless to say...
...I haven't done any editing the past couple of days. I think about it a lot, but my mind is just wandering right now, figuring out what my life means now that I have no nemesis, not that I have had for a long time. Right now I'm dealing with dis-orientation. Probably not a good place to do editing. Or maybe it is.
I've taken several days off of work. I hope to get my feet back under me and get Counting Crows edited the last, hopefully, time.
I'm also in a dilemma. Now that I've been calling the story Counting Crows, for real, I don't know if I like it or not. So titles are still floating around in my head.
I've taken several days off of work. I hope to get my feet back under me and get Counting Crows edited the last, hopefully, time.
I'm also in a dilemma. Now that I've been calling the story Counting Crows, for real, I don't know if I like it or not. So titles are still floating around in my head.
A Face for Daughters
What happens when a person who has forged the way you think, the way you see yourself dies?
My mother died this past Saturday, you know, the one I blame for how fucked-up I am. I hadn't spoken to her in nearly ten years, and even though most people don't understand it, not speaking to her didn't mean that I didn't love her. I loved her too much. And I wanted her to love me, but at a point in my life I was forced to choose to survive our relationship. Therapist now days would say that my mother was a narcissist, an extreme case. She was the center of the universe. And how can you not love someone like that?
Her death doesn't feel real. How can the center of the universe cease to exist? I feel disoriented, numb. Sad. But not guilty. I tried so hard to be what she wanted me to be, but in the end, I couldn't do it. So, yes, I let her down. Instead I chose to have a life I could live, not one I constantly wished was over, not one where I would never be good enough.
And I mourned the loss of our relationship, a long time ago.
When I was a young girl, I would have given her my last breath. I almost did a couple of times because I couldn't live up to what she needed/wanted/expected. When I was a teenager, I contemplated suicide, and there were several times I came very close to doing it, but then my mother beat me to it. She survived her attempt, and I hate to say it, but I don't think she really meant to kill herself. She wasn't that type of person. I could see her killing someone else, but not herself. I think it was something she knew she could use as leverage. If you were better, prettier, smarter, more helpful...worthier of my love, then I wouldn't have tried to kill myself. No, she never said that in so many words, but it hung in the air like a foul smoke, clouding everything that happened in our home.
I grew up confused. I thought everyone's mother was like mine, that week-long silent treatments were normal, that everyone's mother read in bed all day while their family forged for themselves on week old leftovers, that every mother had a whole pharmacy in her handbag. And that her crushing need was as commonplace as going to the grocery store, that it was something I just had to learn to live with. I thought I was deficient because I didn't deal with it as well as my friends dealt with their own mothers. Like my mother, I thought their mothers had different faces. A face for the public and a face for family. A face for daughters who disappoint.
You see, everyone loved my mother. They breathed in the self-worth saturated fog that surrounded her and believed it. She was charismatic. She was funny. A joy to be around, even for us many times. A more saintly human never drew breath. She could be your best friend, could be generous and kind. And loving.
Until you did something to cross her.
Once you angered her, for whatever reason -- often reasons that only made sense in her head -- once you angered her, all bets were off. And not only did she make an effort to make you miserable, she enlisted support. My brother, my kindhearted, easy-going brother, my handsome brother who believes himself to be the ugliest person on the planet because of our mother's words, was accosted in the local grocery store by some woman he didn't even know, a friend of my mother. Right in the middle of the grocery store, this woman walked up to him and gave him the what-for about how badly he treated our mother.
People believed her because she believed what she was saying.
I even believed her, for years and years and years. I easily fell victim to the guilt she spread like rancid peanut butter, so thick and sticky that you couldn't shake it off. The sickly smell of it stayed in your nostrils, smothering and strangling. Not only were her children a disappointment to her, my father, according to her, was Satan incarnate. [Poor man was a saint, if you ask me, for staying with her long enough for me and my brother to get out of high school.] His family, dairy farmers, were beneath her which was a constant source of stress for her, and hence for anyone around her. She had every ailment known to man and God. She had been dying since I could remember from one thing or another. She would complain of problems that I had been dealing with for years, like sciatica, but for her, it was debilitating. In her late forties, she quit working just because she didn't want to work anymore, fully expecting me and my brother to picked up the slack, money wise. Which we did. I paid her rent and mine, and at that time, it meant me doing without a lot of things what I should have had. I would wear shoes until they fell apart so she could have cable TV, which I didn't have.
I was in my forties before I started pushing back. I just couldn't give any more. I realized that she would have taken my last breath if I had let her. I had turned into her personal ATM, her whipping-post, her sweet darling when she wanted something and a terrible daughter when I refused to submit. She would call me at work and rant about how awful I was because... I don't even remember. Too many becauses piled up over the years for me to even try to think of a specific one. It got so bad that I had my phone number at work set such that I couldn't receive outside calls. Imagine the humiliation of explaining that to a manger. When I changed my home phone number, she started writing letters. When I moved, swear to God, she wrote me c/o Boeing Company, Seattle, Washington. And it got to me. She was relentless when she wanted something or needed to let me know just how badly I had let her down.
And yet, there are so many things that she gave me, good things. She and my dad gave me my intelligence, my good looks [not], my history. She taught me survival techniques, tons of them. The ability to bend to the breaking point, but to not break. The ability to look at things from many different angles. Generosity [well, she demanded that from me].
And she gave me a wealth of things to write about. If you read Counting Crows, or whatever I end up calling it, you'll see me in there. I don't want to write memoir, as it seems very self indulgent [like this blog], but there are themes in a person's life which carry into their interpersonal lives, into the way they deal with others or with their own problems. Into what they write. I have chosen to play out some of those themes in my fiction.
My protagonists aren't easily likable people, much like myself. They have complicated lives because they try to hide the things they find lacking in themselves, to hide the thing they hate about themselves. They try to be someone, something they're not. They try to be happy all the while swallowing sadness until their lungs are bursting. They wear many masks.
I don't know how my mother's death will play out in my life, but the story line that develops will be fodder for my writing. I have a good life. I've made a good life with what I was given. I've used the gifts I was given to build a world filled with loved ones, with pleasure, with experiences, and should I say it, with happiness.
I loved my mother. I still love her. And somewhere inside, she loved me too. I don't believe she understood what she was doing. I don't believe she meant to make our lives a mess. She was just trying to survive her own fucked-up life. And in doing so, she gave me a leg up on dealing with my own fucked-up life.
Wherever you are, Momma, I love you.
An old friend gave me this piece of advice regarding my mother's death: A friend told me that sometimes our bodies can't deal with the idea right away and that's why it doesn't feel real. As your mind/body can handle the idea, it will seem more and more real. The main thing is to respect how you feel. Nurture yourself.
That's what I'm doing, nurturing myself until my world turns right-side up again.
If you're interested in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, there are tons of books out there. I found this one insightful and readable: Trapped in the Mirror, by Elan Golomb http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00851M798/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title
My mother died this past Saturday, you know, the one I blame for how fucked-up I am. I hadn't spoken to her in nearly ten years, and even though most people don't understand it, not speaking to her didn't mean that I didn't love her. I loved her too much. And I wanted her to love me, but at a point in my life I was forced to choose to survive our relationship. Therapist now days would say that my mother was a narcissist, an extreme case. She was the center of the universe. And how can you not love someone like that?
Her death doesn't feel real. How can the center of the universe cease to exist? I feel disoriented, numb. Sad. But not guilty. I tried so hard to be what she wanted me to be, but in the end, I couldn't do it. So, yes, I let her down. Instead I chose to have a life I could live, not one I constantly wished was over, not one where I would never be good enough.
And I mourned the loss of our relationship, a long time ago.
When I was a young girl, I would have given her my last breath. I almost did a couple of times because I couldn't live up to what she needed/wanted/expected. When I was a teenager, I contemplated suicide, and there were several times I came very close to doing it, but then my mother beat me to it. She survived her attempt, and I hate to say it, but I don't think she really meant to kill herself. She wasn't that type of person. I could see her killing someone else, but not herself. I think it was something she knew she could use as leverage. If you were better, prettier, smarter, more helpful...worthier of my love, then I wouldn't have tried to kill myself. No, she never said that in so many words, but it hung in the air like a foul smoke, clouding everything that happened in our home.
I grew up confused. I thought everyone's mother was like mine, that week-long silent treatments were normal, that everyone's mother read in bed all day while their family forged for themselves on week old leftovers, that every mother had a whole pharmacy in her handbag. And that her crushing need was as commonplace as going to the grocery store, that it was something I just had to learn to live with. I thought I was deficient because I didn't deal with it as well as my friends dealt with their own mothers. Like my mother, I thought their mothers had different faces. A face for the public and a face for family. A face for daughters who disappoint.
You see, everyone loved my mother. They breathed in the self-worth saturated fog that surrounded her and believed it. She was charismatic. She was funny. A joy to be around, even for us many times. A more saintly human never drew breath. She could be your best friend, could be generous and kind. And loving.
Until you did something to cross her.
Once you angered her, for whatever reason -- often reasons that only made sense in her head -- once you angered her, all bets were off. And not only did she make an effort to make you miserable, she enlisted support. My brother, my kindhearted, easy-going brother, my handsome brother who believes himself to be the ugliest person on the planet because of our mother's words, was accosted in the local grocery store by some woman he didn't even know, a friend of my mother. Right in the middle of the grocery store, this woman walked up to him and gave him the what-for about how badly he treated our mother.
People believed her because she believed what she was saying.
I even believed her, for years and years and years. I easily fell victim to the guilt she spread like rancid peanut butter, so thick and sticky that you couldn't shake it off. The sickly smell of it stayed in your nostrils, smothering and strangling. Not only were her children a disappointment to her, my father, according to her, was Satan incarnate. [Poor man was a saint, if you ask me, for staying with her long enough for me and my brother to get out of high school.] His family, dairy farmers, were beneath her which was a constant source of stress for her, and hence for anyone around her. She had every ailment known to man and God. She had been dying since I could remember from one thing or another. She would complain of problems that I had been dealing with for years, like sciatica, but for her, it was debilitating. In her late forties, she quit working just because she didn't want to work anymore, fully expecting me and my brother to picked up the slack, money wise. Which we did. I paid her rent and mine, and at that time, it meant me doing without a lot of things what I should have had. I would wear shoes until they fell apart so she could have cable TV, which I didn't have.
I was in my forties before I started pushing back. I just couldn't give any more. I realized that she would have taken my last breath if I had let her. I had turned into her personal ATM, her whipping-post, her sweet darling when she wanted something and a terrible daughter when I refused to submit. She would call me at work and rant about how awful I was because... I don't even remember. Too many becauses piled up over the years for me to even try to think of a specific one. It got so bad that I had my phone number at work set such that I couldn't receive outside calls. Imagine the humiliation of explaining that to a manger. When I changed my home phone number, she started writing letters. When I moved, swear to God, she wrote me c/o Boeing Company, Seattle, Washington. And it got to me. She was relentless when she wanted something or needed to let me know just how badly I had let her down.
And yet, there are so many things that she gave me, good things. She and my dad gave me my intelligence, my good looks [not], my history. She taught me survival techniques, tons of them. The ability to bend to the breaking point, but to not break. The ability to look at things from many different angles. Generosity [well, she demanded that from me].
And she gave me a wealth of things to write about. If you read Counting Crows, or whatever I end up calling it, you'll see me in there. I don't want to write memoir, as it seems very self indulgent [like this blog], but there are themes in a person's life which carry into their interpersonal lives, into the way they deal with others or with their own problems. Into what they write. I have chosen to play out some of those themes in my fiction.
My protagonists aren't easily likable people, much like myself. They have complicated lives because they try to hide the things they find lacking in themselves, to hide the thing they hate about themselves. They try to be someone, something they're not. They try to be happy all the while swallowing sadness until their lungs are bursting. They wear many masks.
I don't know how my mother's death will play out in my life, but the story line that develops will be fodder for my writing. I have a good life. I've made a good life with what I was given. I've used the gifts I was given to build a world filled with loved ones, with pleasure, with experiences, and should I say it, with happiness.
I loved my mother. I still love her. And somewhere inside, she loved me too. I don't believe she understood what she was doing. I don't believe she meant to make our lives a mess. She was just trying to survive her own fucked-up life. And in doing so, she gave me a leg up on dealing with my own fucked-up life.
Wherever you are, Momma, I love you.
An old friend gave me this piece of advice regarding my mother's death: A friend told me that sometimes our bodies can't deal with the idea right away and that's why it doesn't feel real. As your mind/body can handle the idea, it will seem more and more real. The main thing is to respect how you feel. Nurture yourself.
That's what I'm doing, nurturing myself until my world turns right-side up again.
~o~
If you're interested in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, there are tons of books out there. I found this one insightful and readable: Trapped in the Mirror, by Elan Golomb http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00851M798/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title
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