How to Have a Successful and Rewarding (Writing) Life

May 22, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis 11 Comments

Oscar Wilde, 1882

So a number of people have written to ask me for tips for a successful writing life. (Yes, believe it or not, they have. Why they’re asking me and not JK Rowling is a puzzle, but there you go.) In response, I thought I’d post my rules for doing that here. In fact, on pretty much every point, the points below are most likely the way I’d lead my life even if I hadn’t chosen to be a writer:

1)    Work hard.


2)    Have a supportive spouse/partner and family. If he/she is not supportive consider that this person may not be the person for you. (I’m serious.)  If your family (parents and other relatives) are not supportive, ignore them completely. If your children are not supportive, unless they’re under age 18, ignore them, too. Don’t let other people’s discontent with their own lives taint your perspective, even if you happen to love those people. You giving up your dreams will not make them any happier.


3)    Work even harder.


4)    Remember every single person who helps you get a step up ─ the people who give you blurbs, the people who leave comments on your blog, the people who review your book, your agent, your fellow writers who show up at your book events, the book seller who hosts your events, the local newspaper columnist who does a story on you, the editors who critique your work (they’re your friends not your enemies) ─ and even if that person never does another thing for you, try to help them at least twice as much as they helped you whenever you can.


5)    Keep working hard.


6)    Take no notice of anyone who is jealous of you and/or seems to wish you harm. Don’t be offended by those who trash your work, who say “no” to any requests, who ask to be taken off your mailing list, who give you an *unrealistically negative review. If you expend energy worrying about these people, that is that much of your energy used up in a negative way and ─ believe me ─ you will need all your energy. (See points 1, 3, 5, 7, 9.) Also, don’t be jealous of other people’s success. Don’t compare yourself to others, ever. Because what you’re comparing are two very unalike things; what you’re comparing is your inside to what somebody else’s outside appears to look like to you. Again, a big fat waste of energy.


7)    Keep working. Now is not the time to get discouraged.


8)    In point six, I say ignore the “unrealistically” negative review. But if someone takes the time to critique your work and make a criticism or two that you keep hearing over and over again, it’s time to silently thank those detractors and look over your work with a more critical eye. They took time out of their busy lives to write about your book. Heck, they even spent money to buy your book, and if they’re telling you something, perhaps you ought to mull over. This is a positive, not a negative thing.


9)    The more successful you get, the harder you work. Yes, that part sucks, but that’s the way it is. If you have one book out, you should be marketing it, but at the same time, you should be at least thinking about your next writing project. Can you say, “10-hours-a-day workday, 6 days a week?” Better be able to do more than say it.


10)    On point #9, if you want to have a life outside of writing and still be successful at it, plan every moment of your day to get the most out of your time. 10 hours a day includes your marketing time as well as your writing time. The rest of the day includes your sleep, your dinner time, exercise, your hobbies, your chores, your time with your family and friends. So plan it out well. Savor it. Don’t waste it.


11)    Embrace your workday, don’t resent it. You will be extremely unhappy if you can’t do this one thing.


12)    Take time off when you need to and do not feel guilty about it, ever. Want to spend time with your young children, even several years of time? Do it. Want to go away with your partner or some friends? With few exceptions, don’t make it a working holiday. (Unless, of course, you’re in the middle of book tour. Ahem.) Embrace your time off as much as you embrace your work day. Because the definition of “success” is being able to look back on your life without too many regrets.

Anyone care to add their own ideas on the above? I’d love to hear them.

:-D

(P.S. Isn’t this a wonderful photo of Oscar?)

Filed Under: On Writing and Publishing, Social Commentary, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

When I Was Eight

May 18, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis 12 Comments

When I was eight, in the summertime my mother had to call me in from playing outdoors at least twice before I even acknowledged I’d heard her voice. Then I’d beg her to let me stay outside for a while longer, until she issued dire threats if I didn’t “come in right this minute.” It was only at that point that I would petulantly stomp back into the house.

Once inside, she’d grab onto me and try to hold me still as she “pre-cleaned” me before setting up my bath. She knew if she didn’t, my bathwater would turn muddy within minutes of my being placed in it. That was because when I was eight, I played in dirt ─  sat right down in it, made mud with it, dug up some very fine rocks and wiggling earthworms hiding beneath it. And so, my mother would put my hands and arms in the bathroom sink and attempt to shake off some of that dirt which had caked onto my arms, into the crevices and lines on the palms of my hands, around my cuticles and under my fingernails. After that, she’d lean down and attack the skin on my knees with a washcloth. My knees were literally black with grime, sweat, and tan. In fact, my skin was so dark from my playing out in the sun so long that she could never tell when she’d rubbed hard enough to get down past the dirt and just onto bare flesh, so I’d end up with raw skin from her efforts. I’d never even heard the word “sunscreen” back then, and when I was eight, I wouldn’t have cared if I had.

When I was eight, I wore my hair to my shoulders the same as I do now, except back then I was too busy being a kid to keep it neat. It stuck out and up in the way only coarse, thick hair can, and I was forever pushing my dirty hands through it to keep it out of my eyes. That’s why my mother also had the nightly task of pulling bits of branches out of my hair that I’d picked up from climbing trees or crawling through the woods in the “forts” we made. My hair was so wiry and tangled that once, a brush my mother was trying to force through it snapped right in half at the handle. In frustration, she had my hair cut pixie short. It did not look trendy, but it was convenient, and instead of being traumatized, I loved how my shadow now looked on the cement patio when I moved my head back and forth and wiggled my arms out to my sides ─ sort of like one of the dancing skeletons in my favorite cartoons. I looked like a shadow skeleton somewhat, because even though I ate three healthy meals a day and all the sugary candy I could buy with 25 cents a week, (which was a lot) I was downright skinny from moving so much, using my body so much for the things it was meant to do.

When I was eight, boys were just more people with whom to climb trees and have racing contests or rock-throwing contests. They were sometimes annoying because they were stronger and could beat me more often than not, and of course, I wanted to win. Some of them seemed to like bugs more than I did, too, and most certainly they often smelled bad. So, why would I care if creatures like that thought I was pretty or not? Why, with so much fun to be had, like running and climbing and sticking my hands in dirt, finding baby birds that had fallen out of trees and nursing them back to health, would I care myself, if I were pretty or not?

When I was eight and if for some reason we couldn’t play outside, my sister, cousins, and I made up games like “Spy” or sang songs out loud in the basement so we wouldn’t bother our parents who were upstairs, smoking, drinking coffee, and talking about stupid, boring stuff we had no interest in knowing about whatsoever. We held plays, and sometimes we could get our parents away from their stupid, boring stuff to come downstairs to watch them. My cousins, sister and I were all bossy, and we all argued about who was going to play what part. Our mothers would tell us to behave. We didn’t listen.

We didn’t meekly submit. Not to our mothers, not to our friends, not to anybody else’s idea of what we were worth. In that world it would have been unfathomable to know of another eight-year-old  girl who would hold in her tears while her mother put needles filled with poison in her face, just so she could “be beautiful.” In that world it would be unfathomable to want “boob jobs and nose jobs”, because we felt we were perfect the way we were.

We were real. Life was real.


Filed Under: Contests, Divas and Harlots, Food for Thought, Parents and Children, Social Commentary, Telling it Like it Is, Women's Issues, Women's rights Tagged With: , , ,

What’s So Great About Being A Kid?

March 29, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis 12 Comments

You know those emails that start with “Remember When…?” I don’t like those emails at all. Not only are they B-movie, nostalgia-in-a-can ─ “Milk delivered right to your door by the milkman!”, “Coca-cola in a glass bottle!” ─ they’re out and out dishonest, albeit in a ingratiatingly syrupy way.  They mean to have us remember a reality that didn’t exist, that US life in the 50’s and 60’s was much better than it is today. From my perspective, that’s just not true. Yeah, the air was cleaner then, portions were smaller then and people were leaner then. Blah blah blah.

But am I the only one who remembers this:


Or, this:


Besides the racist and sexist actualities which permeated the 60’s and 70’s, my own reality was that it was just not as much fun to be a kid as it’s cracked up to be. Looking back I see that most people my parents’ age were more naïve than they should have been about many things. The world wasn’t any safer, our parents just perceived it to be.  Regardless of their level of education, they were also a lot more provincial than even the least educated American today. And as a whole, that generation certainly seemed to be a lot less educated on how to parent. Below is my list of all the stuff I hated about being a kid, and I know I couldn’t have been the only one who had experiences like these:


1. Being forced to eat ALL that was served to me of my mother’s soggy macaroni and broccoli (a dish that had no cheese, no seasoning at all, was over-boiled and dripping with corn oil) while under threat of the wooden spoon she kept next to her plate.



2. Having to go to bed earlier than all my friends, who got to watch all the fun shows. They’d talk about them the next day at school, and all I could do was listen and seethe.


3. Getting punished on the weekend and not being allowed to see my one favorite show that was on before my bedtime, which was ─ yippee ─ a whole hour later than on weeknights.


4. Having to watch younger sibs. Having them hate me for that. Having to referee their arguments. Having them report to our parents what a lousy job of referring I did. Getting punished for doing a lousy job. (Wooden spoon again and, just for good measure, see number three.)


5. Having to come in the house in the summertime before it got dark.


6. Being forced to sit out in the backyard in the summertime for “a nice outdoor meal”, while caterpillars from the overhanging oak tree branches dropped onto the table, sometimes into my plate, and crawled under the bench where we sat, onto the backs of my thighs. And I was wearing shorts.


7. Not getting to pick out my own clothes. (See “wearing shorts.”)


8. Having someone else brush my hair. (Ouch!)



Now let’s move on to the teen years:


9. Being too fat to get picked for sports.  (I guess fat is what happens when you’re forced to eat a half a pound of limp macaroni that’s been floating in oil.)


10. Being too fat to get invited to the prom, which was maybe for the best, because…


11. Not being allowed to go to the prom. Or to babysit. Or to attend sleepovers. Or go on school trips.


12. Having to wear those big ol’ round coke bottle glasses they made back in the day, until I was eighteen and old enough to buy a pair of contact lenses on my own.



And finally at Lucky 13─


13.    Meeting my first husband at age 19, and getting married looong before I should.


Need I go on?


So when people my age talk about how much better things were when they were young, I think, “Seriously?”  That just wasn’t my experience.


Sure, there are plenty of things I miss about being a little girl, but now that I’m old enough to eat what I want to eat, watch what I want to watch, and go to bed when I say I’m tired, now that the only things I have to live with are the decisions I make for myself, I, for one, am enjoying my life much more today than I did then.

That’s why for me these days are “the good old days.” Because I’m old, but I’m feelin’ good.

What about you?

Filed Under: Civil Rights, Family, Italian Culture, Marriage, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog, Social Satire, Telling it Like it Is, Women's Issues, Women's rights Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Breaking Up is Hard to Do — Especially if You’re a Schmuck

February 14, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis 17 Comments

As the TV ad says, "These things always tell the truth"

Those who read my blog regularly know that when it comes to love and Valentine’s Day, I can usually be pretty sappy. Like in this post here. But this Valentine’s Day, I decided to play devil’s advocate and ask people to please contribute  the worst break up or parting line they’ve ever had to hear from a lover. Those of you who read my first book already know what mine was. (“Have you got time to do one more load of laundry before you leave?”)  But the ones below top even that. If you’re feeling blue or lonely today, these lines will remind that there are far worse things than being alone on Valentine’s Day. Read ‘em, weep, and feel free to add your own:

___________________________________

Sharon: After becoming a platinum blonde in the 70′s….”Wow ─  you look gorgeous…I told you you’d look good as a blonde.  I want a divorce.”

Jessica: “I was thinking maybe you could be the stepmom.” (I’ll let you guess the situation that led him to say that!)

Jeanne: It was Valentine’s Day, and I drove out to Cornell to surprise my boyfriend. I got the surprise. I saw him walking down the street holding another girl’s hand. He saw me, said something to her, and she kept walking. He then crossed the street to me. When I asked him what was going on, he said, “Life’s a bitch” and walked away.

Eat My Heart Out

Mark: “Don’t worry about your money…I’ve already emptied all the accounts.”


Brenda: ‎”I could never marry YOU … do you know how big your daughter would be??” (Ha! Joke’s on him … had no daughters and my only son is 6’7″!)


Mike: I have two. “It’s not you, it’s me.” (Which it was.)  And,  “I’ll give you a call soon.”


Tiana:  ‎“I’ve been bad. I’ve been seeing Peggy.” (Oh, and he eventually married her, too. …On Valentine’s Day.)

Take another little piece, now, BAY-BEE

Karen: Not the final line, but the one that lead to the inevitable ending: when asked why he was being so mean to me after my mom had just died, my charmer’s response was,“She didn’t *just* die. It’s been nine days.”


Leigh Anne: He worked at a local ski shop. Picks me up on his motorcycle to spend the day riding up Independence Pass. Without hardly a hello plunges ahead with, “I just helped Stevie Nicks buy her ski boots. I think I’m in love…” Proceeds to rave on about her for the next 2 hours… Gahh! I was trapped. When we FINally got back to my place, it was all I could do not to dive off the bike and run screaming for the house! (Ok, so a bit more than a one liner.)


Alexander: All I can remember really is that two or three times they ended with, “But I was hoping we can still be friends”. I hate that line. Seriously, you tear out my heart and expect me to like you for it? If that line ended with “friends with benefits”, I would be very torn. I think I would have an aneurysm after five minutes of standing there thinking very, very hard.

I Have Your Heart. (Feel the pressure on your chest yet?)

Persia: Unfortunately I heard this same line twice ─ “She isn’t half the woman you are, but I love her.”


Dora:  ‎“You don’t deserve me, you deserve better.”


Christos: Okay, here goes— (And this beats George Costanza’s ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ line):

She: I met someone else. You guys are so alike. He has 95% of the great qualities that you have!”
Me: But I have 100% of the great qualities that I have!!!
She: Yeah, but…ummm…well, whatever. See ya!


Jerry: ‎

She: I’m pregnant!
Me: OMG! Really!?!
She: It’s not yours…



You've really caught me in your love trap

Carina: “I’m in love with two women at the same time…” (Gag)

Teresa: ‎”Sorry I didn’t call, but I met up with my ex-girlfriend and we had an erotic experience.”  (True story.)


George: …Break up line?   ;-)



And you…?

Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Love and Sex, Marriage, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog, Social Satire, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Just One More Thing to Worry About

March 9, 2010 By Patricia Volonakis Davis Leave a Comment
Gwen Conliffe and Lon Chaney Jr.
Gwen Conliffe and Lon Chaney Jr.

“What are you thinking?”

Men say they cringe when women ask that question, because very often they’re thinking “nothing.”

What they probably don’t understand is that most women can’t imagine what it’s like to be thinking ‘nothing’. Much to our chagrin, we’re always thinking ‘something’, and more often than not, that ‘something’ has a worry attached to it.

I thought I’d grow out of my penchant for worry, but I finally have to come to terms with the fact that that will just never happen. My knack for worrying hasn’t diminished one whit; it’s only adjusted itself for my age bracket. Instead of staring in the mirror at my outfit, worrying whether or not it’s ‘trendy’, which if it weren’t, would invite social ostracism, I now stare in the mirror at my back, to see whether or not its ‘curvy’, which if it were, would indicate osteoporosis. Instead of worrying about whether or not I’m ‘making a good impression’, I now worry about whether or not I’m making a good enough living. And instead of worrying about whether or not I’m going to survive a group of idiot politicians putting us through a nuclear war, I now worry about whether or not my children will survive a group of idiot politicians putting us through a nuclear war.

At least, I can contain my worry a little bit better than I used to when I was younger, but it’s sort of like restraining myself from eating too much. As with that hard-earned discipline, every once in a while, I succumb to my old habit of worry; just like every once in a while, I succumb to that nachos-with- guacamole-and-two-margaritas urge. And then, I’m in big trouble. Because if I lapse back into worry, it can, if I let it, obliterate all else that is wonderful in my life, just like that extra weight that seems to show up on the scale immediately after the nachos.

For example, I don’t know what triggered it ─ maybe it was a hormone imbalance, maybe it was those margaritas ─ but Thursday of last week was my “Worry Day.” I woke up absolutely ballooned with worry, a bloat which lasted for no more than 24 hours, until it just as inexplicably dissipated. But over the course of those hours, my worries ranged from the tiny to the colossal:

I worried about the fact that I still hadn’t replied to my sister-in-law’s email. Would she think I was snubbing her? When did she send that email, anyway? Actually, now I was thinking of it, there were a lot of personal emails to which I still hadn’t responded. How could I be so selfish, so self-absorbed, so busy with work, that I hadn’t responded to my friends and my family in a timely fashion?

In fact, I’d been neglecting my husband, too. Hadn’t I? I’d had such a busy week, and I’d been so exhausted at night, that I just fell straight to sleep. Oh migosh ─ when was the last time we’d made love? Had it been three days already? He must feel so unwanted, so dismissed and lonely. The poor man. What a lousy wife. What if he gets fed up and leaves me? I’d miss him so much if that were to happen. How could I be so inattentive, when he is so important to me?

I must be the only wife who’s woken her husband out of sound sleep to make love. Clearly he didn’t mind, but look at the motivation – it wasn’t that I was overcome by lust or love, but worry.

Certainly not the best aphrodisiac. (Not that he seemed to notice.)

And, after we were done, and my husband fell back to sleep, I couldn’t. I lay there, and continue to worry.

I worried about the fact that we hadn’t heard anything recently from our son about his upcoming wedding. Was something wrong? Was the bride getting cold feet? He’d be devastated if she called things off. Was everything okay? Why hadn’t he phoned?

While I was on ‘sons’, I started thinking about the other three. One was just laid off and not happy about it at all. One was in a job he liked, but living in an area he wasn’t keen on; one was still in school, but conflicted about his course of study. Were they depressed about these things? Would they be alright? What could I do to help? Should I ring them and ask, or would they resent that, as they’re all grown men? Maybe it was better if I didn’t phone, and let them sort it out themselves. On the other hand, if I didn’t phone, maybe they’d think I no longer cared about them. What should I do?

My anxious thoughts suddenly switched tracks from the personal to the professional. Which offers to speak should I accept? Or should I accept them all? I probably should. But… realistically, I couldn’t accept them all…could I? Alright then ─ which ones, and what would I say to those I had to turn down? And then, there was my new book – was that first chapter the ‘grabber’ I thought it was? I should look at it again. Should I look at it again, or wait until the entire draft was completed? Maybe I should wait. But, maybe I’d miss something important if I waited. Then there was the magazine. Some of my writers were over deadline. Should I send them an email, or leave them be? They all had their own lives, too, after all. But…wouldn’t they feel left out if their work wasn’t in the upcoming issue? I know ─ I could send a friendly, light-hearted email, so as not to make them feel pressured. Then again, it’s hard to read tone in an email, isn’t it?

Professional segued to political. Congress was making me sick. I hate Congress. Congress was keeping me awake. Do those emails we all sign have any effect at all? Was Obama going to restore habeus corpus, and do all the other things he’d promised, or had he duped us? I wouldn’t be surprised if he duped us. He’s a politician, after all. I sure hope he didn’t dupe us.

On from political to global. How terrible for those people in Haiti. Just terrible. What if I lived in Haiti? Do those donations we make ever really get to those poor people? It’s just terrible. I shouldn’t ever complain about my life, really. I have it so much better than the people in Haiti right now, I really do. And those in Chile. I mustn’t forget about them.

Eventually I switched back to personal again. I needed a haircut. But Maria, the girl who did my hair, was away, and she’d be very hurt if I made an appointment with someone else. But I really needed a haircut. Should I go to another salon, and just not say anything next time I saw her? She’d notice…wouldn’t she? Don’t hairstylists recognize their own work? Yes, she’d know. What if I just told her the truth? Then again, I could just not say anything, and wait to see if she brought it up.

All this worry, all in one day.

Elizabeth Berg has a great collection of short stories, titled, The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation. My collection could be titled, “The Day I Worried over Whatever I Wanted: And Other Giant Acts of Self- Flagellation.” For the reason that worrying like this, as we all know, does nothing for the worrier or those around her, other than to cause sleeplessness. And possibly pimples.

My husband, who’s been through interludes like this with me before, knew I was having a particularly bad one, when in the middle of that night, the lurching and pitching from my side of the bed woke him up.

He: What’s wrong, hon?

Me: I can’t sleep.

He: That’s obvious. Why not?

Me: I’m worried about Maria.


He thought about that for a minute or two.

Finally, he said, “Hon – you come from a big Italian family, and a lot of your friends are Greek. Not to mention that we live in California, where there’s a large Mexican community. That means we know a lot of ‘Marias’. And it’s two o’clock in the morning, so you’ll have to help me out ─ was there a specific Maria you were worried about, or is it all of them, in general?”

And so, for the men who are reading this, I hope this has helped decode what’s going on in a woman’s head when she asks, “What are you thinking?”

Note: VOX has messed up on the software on this page, which is why the comments are switched off. (Sorry.) Please feel free to remark on this post (or just say “hello”) at http://patriciasopinion.com Thank you!

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Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Parents and Children, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2009: The Year That Ended Dangerously

January 1, 2010 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Happy New Year, Everyone!  Today I have some significant news to share.

On December 17, 2009, in the very early hours of the morning, I nearly bled to death.  I’m afraid I’m serious ─ by the time I was admitted into hospital from the emergency room, I was down to about a quarter of the amount of blood needed to sustain life.

The irony of this situation is that I was under a doctor’s care at the time, and that’s one of the reasons that I’m going public with this today. The second reason is because since I have been off Facebook, my blogs,  and other social networking sites, I’ve been getting emails from ‘fans’ asking questions such as: “Are you in rehab? You can tell me! My brother was in rehab last year at this time.” and “Did you have Demi-Moore-head-to-toe-plastic-surgery? Please post pics!”

I was inclined to let these strangers think what they would, but I’ve also been receiving messages of genuine concern, and those are why I’ve decided to write about this very personal experience publicly.

As boring as this probably makes me, a drug habit and/or a craving to own gravity-defying boobies had nothing to do with my absence from the internet.  What actually happened was that on November 9, I had what should have been routine uterine fibroid surgery. I wanted to keep the knowledge of that fact limited to my family and closer circle of friends, because to me there is nothing more cringe-worthy than people announcing these things on their Facebook status updates:  Jack is …”getting out of jail this week!” Jane…”’s a husband is a lousy cheat!”  Patricia…”had a fibroid the size of a baseball removed from her uterus.”

Yuck.

So, I didn’t announce it, (until now) and only made vague references to “not feeling well”, and even those mentions were only because I’d missed some social and business events. However, the “not feeling well” stretched on and on, and when I questioned my doctor, he went from voicing some concern to being brusquely irritated, “You must be patient. You’re not a patient person.”

And that’s where he got me. I’ve heard that more than once.  Even my own husband seconded it. So, I tried to be patient. And, as it turns out, I can be patient. Actually, I was so patient, I nearly died of it.

I’m sorry, I still squeamish about writing the specifics, but suffice it to say that I was bleeding, but in such an unusual pattern that it didn’t raise any alarm bells with the doctor. To be fair to him, the symptoms were atypical. Coupled with this detail was my enormous energy level that was only somewhat depleted by the anemia that was increasing weekly. In fact, the day before I was driven to the Emergency Room by my panicked husband, I attended a business meeting, then went to the market, and ended the day with a walk on the treadmill at my gym!

So, I can’t completely blame the doctor and others around me for missing the signs. But I do blame myself. For the reason that I knew something was wrong, and yet, I allowed myself to be talked out of that gut feeling, because an authority figure’s opinion on that was different than mine. I allowed my criticism of myself for my renowned lack of patience to cow me into accepting advice I knew I shouldn’t have accepted.

This really galls me. In the aftermath of a surgery from which I was not even remotely recovered after six weeks, followed by near-death in which I could literally feel ‘things shutting down’ on the way to the ER, a frantic blood transfusion of six units of blood, a second surgery to correct the problem that was causing the internal bleeding, and a stay in hospital that was like a Saturday Night Live skit (they actually woke me up at 2 a.m. after this ordeal to weigh me), and now looking at another few weeks before I’m able to resume all my normal activities, that one fact that I conceded precedence is what still disturbs me most about this experience. Because if I hadn’t, if I’d trusted myself, none of it would’ve occurred.

Usually, I am confident, capable, and secure in myself. In my writings, especially my political ones, I’m constantly stating how we must all think for ourselves, not cling to an ideology or allow some rhetorical speaker to do our thinking for us.  And yet, it took this illness to discover that on some levels, I am still trying to be that ‘good little girl’ who is liked by everyone. Given the right circumstances, press the right buttons, and I will still defer to the instincts of others rather than my own. This was a more shocking realization than the ER doc’s words, “Wow- your blood counts are dangerously low. Lucky for you, you’re so fit. You wouldn’t have made it here otherwise.”

And now, because I’ve been so sick for so long (close to two months, now) I have to work twice as hard just to get back to that fitness level I worked so hard to attain in the first place. I also left the hospital with a cough that makes me sound like a TB victim, due to the second surgery temporarily diminishing my lungs capacity, and am short of breath just walking up a flight of stairs. I have to drink a horrid iron potion that tastes like rotted prunes and old coffee grinds. My skin feels like sandpaper, and I have been warned by my hairdresser that some of my hair might fall out due to the trauma.  Pitiful, right? You bet. And stupid, too.

But I did learn some lessons, and oh, boy ─ they were big ones. And I think they might be important enough to share:

First is that this year has been an amazing year for me, and not just because it was almost my last one. I didn’t know when I first published my book that there would be a number of people who’d dislike me as a result. Never thought of that aspect of it, but there it was. So that was a lesson, if not learned for the first time, reiterated:  Your true friends are the ones who stick with you not only when times are bad, but also when times for you are really, really good.  A sad thing to realize, but an important thing.

On the plus side, there were yet a far greater number of people who were tremendously pleased for me and supportive of my first book. Friends I hadn’t seen in years contacted me to offer sincere congratulations, and new people I met through my writing groups, blogs, etc., were equally enthusiastic and complimentary. I feel truly blessed by this. I’ve always thought that the media overhypes the evil of humankind, and now that the average person has his/her own way of communicating globally through the internet, I find that this is true ─ humanity is mostly good, not mostly bad. It’s a shame that we only get reports about the bad from our mainstream news sources. This was a terrific thing to discover.

I also understood from being ill, that my husband and children, to borrow a phrase from Sally Field, “really do like me”. My son slept at hospital with me the first night I was there, and my husband, whose idea of cooking is to make a sandwich, delivered hot, homemade meals to my bedside every night once I got home. And then there were my friends who rallied ─ Thanksgiving dinner, two Christmas dinners, flowers, get well cards, and phone calls. Messages on Facebook and emails from my colleagues, new friends and former pupils, (who feel like nieces and nephews to me) all meant so, so much.

I’ve always valued my friends and my family, but I admit it was wonderful seeing the tangible proof that they value me, too. It was one more reason to get well, so that I could appreciate and enjoy them all the more.

But the biggest lesson I learned is from now on, with no worries about how others will feel, I’m going to embrace my impatience, rather than try to change it. It’s full speed ahead for me, now and always, because I’m made that way. And never again will I not trust myself. Never again will I feel intimidated by others’ opinions, be they valid or not. And when I find myself wavering from this resolution, I’m going to remember the bruises on my arms from IV needles, the feeling weak and dizzy, the crying as the questions ran around in my head as to why I wasn’t recovering, and all the other momentous experiences of this illness now burned in my memory.  They all happened because I still haven’t completely shaken the “Good-Girls-Don’t-Make-a-Fuss Syndrome.” Screw that.  From now on, I AM MAKING A FUSS.  And it will be your choice to like me for it or not, however you please.

I challenge everyone reading this to do the same. If we do one thing differently this year, let’s embrace ourselves, even with all our faults. I don’t mean ‘be a sociopath and proud’. I mean that while not deliberately causing harm to others, let’s acknowledge that we will make mistakes, that we are not perfect, but we are still worthwhile human beings who have something to offer our friends, our family, and the world. Let’s acknowledge that we can and should have faith in our own selves, even with those imperfections. If we start with that attitude, the year ahead will open us to new encounters. Since we’ll feel more confident, we won’t be afraid when one of our beliefs is challenged, because if we learn that that belief is wrong, it will make us feel empowered, not weakened. We’ll have the courage to fail, not feeling that we are “failures”, but rather human beings on a journey to ever-increasing knowledge.  And while none of this will necessarily make the year ahead be filled with all the health, happiness and success we all wish each other every January 1, it will certainly help it be filled with less anxiety and self-doubt.

So, look out 2010 ─ here we come!

Patricia and son, Niko at San Francisco’s Litquake Black and White Ball, 2009
Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Telling it Like it Is, Women's Issues Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Angel and The Ladder (For Kzinti and Baria, with much affection and many thanks for your comments here)

September 23, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Roger Moore as The Saint


Once upon a time, a man died and went up to Heaven, where Saint Peter was waiting for him at the Holy Gates.

“I’m very sorry,” said Saint Pete, “but I can’t let you in.”

The man was shocked and very disappointed.  “Why not, Saint Peter?” he asked. “Wasn’t I a good man on Earth?”

“You were a very good man, indeed,” replied Saint Pete.“But here’s what your problem was – you could not stop yourself from telling other people how to lead their lives. If they were making a mistake of some kind, you felt compelled to point it out to them.”

Once again, the man was shocked by Saint Peter’s words. “But I don’t understand, Saint Peter. Why was this a bad thing? I was just trying to help them. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do on Earth -  help people?”

“Not in this instance,” replied Saint Peter sternly. “You never learned to mind your own business. And for that reason, I’m afraid you’ll have to go to Hell.”

The man pleaded with Saint Pete. “Please, Saint Peter, I didn’t mean any harm. I was just trying to help, that’s all. I didn’t know I was doing a bad thing. Please, please, give me another chance?”

Saint Peter looked at the man and could see that he honestly hadn’t meant any harm. Because that was so, he thought that perhaps he might bend the rules…just this once.  However, before he did, he would test the man’s sincerity. Unbeknownst to the man, of course.

“All right,” decided Saint Pete. “I’ll go to the Higher Ups and see what I can do. In the meantime, you wait in that room over there. Just go in, and close the door behind you.”

The room to which the man had been directed was large and empty, save for a bench. As directed, he closed the door as he went in, and sat on the bench, waiting for his verdict. And as he sat, he noticed there was a narrow, open archway which led to an anteroom at the far side, opposite to where he was sitting.

As he was pondering what might be in the anteroom, the door he’d closed opened, and an angel came in. He was carrying a very tall ladder.

“Hello,” said the angel. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. Do you mind if I come through? I’ve just got to take this ladder and leave it in that anteroom over there.”

“Please, go right ahead,” said the man. “You don’t need my permission.”

And then, an odd thing happened. The man watched as the angel walked across the room towards the anteroom, turned his ladder horizontally in his arms,  and attempted to walk through the narrow archway with it. Naturally, he was unable to get through, as the ladder held horizontally was now much too wide.

The man observed with incredulity as the angel made attempt after attempt to get through the archway while holding the ladder thusly. Each time, the ends of the ladder banged against the wall on either side of the opening, propelling the angel backwards, and making quite a mess of the walls it kept hitting, in the process.

Naturally, after about fifteen minutes of this, the angel was winded and perspiring.

“Whew!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t realize this was going to be so difficult.”

The man couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you serious?” he blurted. “If you want to get through, hold the damn ladder vertically!”

The angel shook his head and looked at the man regretfully. “My friend,” he said, “this ladder’s not damned, but you are.”

And the next thing the man knew, he was in Hell.

_______________________

I can’t remember how old I was when my father told

me the story above, but I was still young enough that

my questions were only just starting to become

annoying to him.  Those questions were on every

subject from “Why do you support the war in Vietnam?”

to “Why don’t you ever do anything to stop all the

terrible things going on in this house?”

Since he couldn’t seem to come up with any reasonable

answers for me, the parable above was an attempt to

stave off the inevitable, which was that my

questioning of him would eventually go

from annoying to unbearable… for both of us.

Even my response to this story was not what he’d

hoped. He thought I’d feel forewarned that my quixotic

nature was taking me closer to Hades every day.  But

ironically, all it prompted was another litany of

questions: “What kind of angel is stupid enough to

behave like a human?” and “What kind of God would

send a man to Hell for questioning human stupidity?”

It wasn’t until many, many years later that I recognized

that my father had a point, though perhaps not in the

way he’d believed. Anyone at all, with an average

human intelligence, understands very well which

way one needs to hold a ladder in order to get it

through a narrow archway. But pretending that he

doesn’t, he accomplishes one thing – he can tell himself

he tried to get through with everything he had and

just couldn’t succeed.

The fact is, he doesn’t want to succeed. He says

he has to get through a door and deposit a ladder in

an anteroom, but he doesn’t truly want to.

He just wants to pretend to himself and everyone

else, that he really, really tried.

And because this is actually what he wants – that

illusion of the attempt of a completion of a ‘task’, which is

another word for a ‘change’ – rather than the actual

change – he doesn’t want anyone to point out to him

that his ‘attempt’ is in actuality no attempt at all.
He doesn’t need anyone getting in the way of
his self-deception. Like my father, it will more
than irritate him,  because by pointing it out, making him aware that you are aware that he’s lying to himself, you will make him hate himself and, as a result, (especially if your own attempts at change are real, and your desire to help him  is motivated out of genuine caring, rather than smug superiority) – he will hate you, too.

A fast way to hell, indeed.
Remember that the next time you

(metaphorically) observe an intelligent adult holding a ladder horizontally, trying to get through an archway.

Say nothing. Wish him “good luck,” and get out of his way.

Filed Under: Food for Thought, Friends and Relationships, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , ,

Why Can’t They Just Ignore Each Other?

July 7, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

For those who don’t know him, please let me introduce my blog ‘neighbor’ and fellow writer for HS Radio magazine, Tommy Hames.

Tommy Hames and wife
Tommy Hames and wife

Tom and I disagree on almost every current issue, I’ve noticed. And when we disagree politically, socially, economically and spiritually, well…I won’t sugarcoat this ─ I think he’s wrong. Dead wrong.  And I think that I’m right.  And my guess would be Tom thinks I’m wrong, dead wrong (can you imagine?) and he’s right.

And yet, it’s a funny thing…I still like Tom. And he likes me. Based on replies to my posts, comments he’s made on his, I know he thinks about my perspective, even if he will never agree with me. And I do the same about his.

In fact, sometimes, at dinner, I will tell my husband some of the things about which Tom and I disagree, and my husband almost always says I’m right and Tom is wrong. (He’d be a madman not to, wouldn’t he? After all, Tom doesn’t cook  dinner for him.)

But, my husband and I talk about what Tom thinks and writes. And not once have we ever thought that Tom didn’t have a right to his beliefs, or perspectives. Not once have I ever thought him a person unworthy of my  regard. Not once have I ever called Tom a bad name.

“What about Tom?” you might ask. Since he’s so wrong, he must get angry at me for being so right, right?

Wrong.

In fact, the one and only time Tom displayed public annoyance over something I wrote on my blog was because it personally involved him.

That one time, Tom was right and I was…well…wrong. And I apologized.

But guess what? Tom felt I didn’t have to apologize, and also felt I had a right to my thoughts. And then, he forgave me and forgot about it. Gracious and right, that was Tom, all in one day.

It was a bit hard to swallow.

Nonetheless, though I didn’t enjoy the taste of crow, I am so glad Tom disagrees with me and I with him, because he makes me think. He helps me remember that there are many sides to an issue, and that just as it’s happened in the past, someone will come along with a fact – a perspective- a news flash- that just might make me revisit my stance. Or at least, understand another stance more.

(Oh- it’s happened and I’m not ashamed to admit it.)

The fact that Tom and I are often diametrically opposed also teaches me to deal with my frustration over those oppositions in the same way that Tom does- with civility.

Here’s another thing. We’re friends. Yes indeed, Tom and I have become friends.

Here are some of the things Tom has done to show his friendship that in fact, some others who agree with me have not:

1) He has sent me emails congratulating me on the success of my book. He not only ‘friended’ my book fan page on Facebook, he got his daughter to do it, also.( Who also sent me a very nice note.)

2) He has asked my advice on his writing (which is very good, by the way) and thanked me for all of my help.

3) He compliments often on my work and thanks me for my friendship.

So from these, I also learned that just because someone disagrees with me, it doesn’t mean s/he can’t be my friend and wish me well, and just because someone does agree with me, it doesn’t necessarily mean s/he will be my friend or wishes me well.

Yeah- Tom and I are very odd, apparently, because we don’t hate each other’s guts and say disgusting things to each other. Because we believe that we live in a country where it is our constitutional right to disagree,  and where that very disagreement keeps a balance against the zealots and fanatics on either side of Tom’s perspective and mine.

And, because, despite the fact that we disagree, we share a love for ourselves, that spreads out to our fellow human beings.

And that, I think, is the root of it. People who hate and spread that hate, whether they are on the right side of any issue (mine, of course) or the wrong side of an issue, hate themselves first. Their reason for vehement, violent and nasty disagreement is not really fueled by frustration, but by a terrible fear that they are not respected, or worthy of respect.

Do I sound smug about all this? Well, maybe that’s because I am. And a little disturbed, too, by some of the things I’ve been reading in my VOX neighborhood lately.

So thanks, Tom, for respecting yourself enough that you don’t have to be mean to me when you’re always wrong and I’m always right.  You and the family should come over for a barbecue at our place sometime.

You do eat meat, of course, Tom – right?

Send to a friend

Filed Under: Bigotry, Civil Rights, Food for Thought, Social Networking, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , ,

Part II – I am No Longer A Person, Now I am Officially a Writer: Getting The Literary Agent

May 21, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Now that you have your newly-edited manuscript down to 143,122 words, (not including the 36,310 words of the ‘Back Section’ which includes recipes, a guide to additional reading, a history lesson, a wine list, and other information you deemed pertinent to your readers as addendums to your manuscript), you start looking for a book publisher. The only problem there is that you have no idea how to find a book publisher. Someone wiser than you, or maybe someone who just overheard someone else talking to another someone about this, suggests you get a “literary agent”. But you’ve no idea how to find one of those, either.  So:

1) You go into your husband’s office and ask him, “Have you any thoughts on how I can get an agent for my women’s empowerment memoir?”

Your husband, a stockbroker who reads the financial pages, baseball biographies, and P.G. Wodehouse, and is at that very moment trying to make an important stock trade, replies (quite flippantly, you think), “None whatsoever.”

2) Unreasonably irritated, you leave his office, go back into your own, and type, “How to Get A Literary Agent” into the search engine on your computer. This is when you discover that Google has approximately 818,000 articles on how to find a literary agent, and amazon.com sells more than 50 books on the subject.

Surely you don’t need to read a whole book and all those articles? After all, how hard can it be to get an agent? Aren’t they like realtors? Don’t they want to sell your work? That’s how they make their money, after all, isn’t it?

Thus, assuming that selling a work of literature is like selling a house, you choose to follow the directives in a concise, one-page article you find on ehow.com.

3) The ehow.com article says that you need to first write a ‘query letter’ to an agent. Again, you are clueless. So again, you rely on Google, typing in, ‘what is a query letter?’ to find out on Wikipedia, another of your ‘unfailing’ information sources, that “a query letter is a formal letter sent to magazine editors, literary agents, to propose writing ideas.”

This seems simple enough, so you sit down and write your first ‘formal’ query letter, which goes something like this:

Dear ____________:

My name is Patricia Volonakis Davis, and I have written a women’s empowerment memoir called, “Amerikanaki”, which is my story about being raised first generation Italian-American, marrying a Greek national, and moving to Greece with him.

I hope you will be interested in reading my manuscript. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,

Patricia Volonakis Davis

Address

telephone number

email

4. After formulating your concise query letter to match the concise instructions which you followed to write it, you make a list of the top ten agents in the United States, finding their names through Google, too, of course.

You go to the agents’ individual websites and discover the particularized instructions on each. Some want you to post your query letter, along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Others will only accept queries submitted by email. Some ask you send the first 30 pages of your manuscript, to also be included in email, pasted, not attached, in “WORD format only”, or “RTF format” (a format you assume is an anachronism for RUT the F*ck?!). Some want you to include any three random chapters, to be sent along with your SAE. And yet others ask that along with your query letter, you send the x-rays of your teeth your dentist took during your last exam.

Following all these instructions diligently (you were a teacher, after all) you send out your ten query letters/emails to your ten top choices of agents, and expect to hear from them all within a week or two at the most.

5. Three months later, you’ve written and emailed over fifty literary agents and received two replies detailing further instructions, and after having complied with those, you never hear from those two again. You now have six of those fifty available books sitting on your desk, with one more on order from amazon.com, and have taken five writing courses. One of those includes a three-day class given by a literary agent, (who shows no interest in your manuscript at all, by the way), simple titled, “How to Write a Query Letter”.

It was during this class that you learned how pathetically inadequate your first query letter was,  and you rewrote it so many times that it actually took longer to complete than the manuscript itself.  You also learn that apart from your manuscript and your query letter, you need to write something called a “book proposal”, and you have a new list of books written down and ready to order on how to write one of those.

You’ve spent hundreds of dollars on postage, photocopies, books, and classes. Additionally, you suspect your husband is seriously considering moving his office from home, so that you can’t barge in every day to cry over the latest rejection or out-and-out disregard from literary agents. You know these suspicions are well-founded when he suggests that you go to a writers’ conference where you can meet agents in person.

“But, writers’ conferences are very expensive,” you point out to your beleaguered husband.

“True, but a lot less expensive than my having to move my office,” he replies.

(You see? You were right.)

6. And so, you register for BEA (Book Expo America) in New York. You need to pay the conference fees, flight, hotel, meals, and transport to and from BEA, so that once there, you, along with hundreds of other hopeful writers, will have two hours to meet with as many agents as you can, who will give you three minutes each to pitch your manuscript to them. You have no idea who any of these agents are, you only read a short blurb description of them, and of whether they are looking for ‘fiction’ or ‘non-fiction,’ ‘children’s’ or ‘adults.’ You can also clearly see, as you stand on a queue waiting to speak to them, that all of the ones you’ve chosen are already annoyed at and/or bored with the writer who’s talking to them at the moment. And you’re up next.

7. You’ve spent thousands of dollars and another three months up to now, but guess what? ─ you walk away from the conference with seven business cards from agents who have told you to send them your manuscript! A month later, of the seven, two actually offer you a contract! Once again, you have no clue which of the two you should choose, so you go with the one who shows the most enthusiasm for your work. She turns out to be the less experienced of the two; as a matter of fact, you learn that you are her very first client, but no matter. You have an agent! You’ve done it!

8. You run into your husband’s office again, this time with excitement, kiss him and thank him for his brilliant suggestion. You then ring your best friend joyously, informing her that you finally have a literary agent! You will be published within weeks!

Or so you think.

(To be Continued.)

Filed Under: On Writing and Publishing, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

I am no Longer a Person; Now I am Officially a Writer

May 1, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

 

Agatha Christie

May 2009 marks two years since I wrote my first blog.  These two years have been an extraordinary writing journey for me.

I started ‘blogging’ because my literary agent recommended it as a way to build my writer’s platform , but discovered that it offered me much more than that. Blogging helped me make friends from parts of the world I’ve not yet even had the opportunity to visit, taught me how much more alike across the globe we all are than I’d even suspected, and made me think about my perspectives on so many social and political issues. All because of comments left for me on my written posts by other bloggers, and comments left on the posts of others whose blogs I loved to read.  Blogging even introduced me to some extraordinary writers who add so much quality work and enthusiasm to my online magazine.

And then, my dream came true and my first full-length work was finally published.  And ─  boy, oh boy ─ did life change. Yes, “getting a book deal” is the golden ring all writers are trying to grab on the merry-go-round of the publishing world.

So, for those who dream of it, or for those who know someone who dreams of it, let me tell you what it’s really like once you’ve obtained that objective. Sit back, as I go through it all, step-by-agonizing-step. I promise you every word following is true:

1)     You decide to write a book. You write every day for two years; some days you actually put some words down in a document. You then put manuscript away for one year, because:

a) you move

or

b) your children move

or

c) one of your children moves back in.

2) You pick your manuscript up again, and write for two more years. You’ve now finished your first draft. That’s right ─ your first draft.

3)     You give it to your husband and your best friend to read. You wait impatiently, feeling unloved and neglected, as for unfathomable reasons, they do not drop everything to read your manuscript, which is over 400 pages, single-spaced.

4)     After finally reading, your husband and best friend both gently suggest that you might want to get a professional editor. You thank your friend sweetly, but argue with your husband bitterly for that heartbreaking and insulting insinuation, and then you put your manuscript away for another three months, because you have no idea where and how to find a good editor.

5)     A man whom you’ve never seen before is on the treadmill next to you at your gym. You blurt out to him that you are a writer, and are looking for an editor. It turns out that he is a writer also, and he recommends an editor he knows. This is not the sign from God you think it is. The man on the treadmill next to you is a writer because you live in Marin County, California, where everyone, including George Lucas, thinks, for better or worse, that he or she is a writer.

6)     You phone the editor and she quotes you an eyebrow-raising hourly rate. You say you will ring her back. You walk into your husband’s home office, and tell him the fee the editor wants to work on your manuscript. Your husband asks, “Is she a good editor?” You say, “Yes, of course.” Your husband tells you to hire the editor.

7)     Your new editor takes two months to edit 80 pages of your 400-plus page manuscript. Then she goes on vacation and returns after two weeks to tell you she won’t be able to work on your manuscript for another four months. You spend three sleepless nights trying to decide what to do about your new editor, whom you like as a person, but are very impatient with as an editor. On the fourth morning, you go into your husband’s home office, exhausted, and tell him your problems with the editor.

He says, “I thought you said she was a good editor.” You leave your husband’s office, annoyed with him once again, go in your office and sit down at your computer to write an email to your editor, terminating your working relationship as professionally as possible, your stomach churning the entire time. She sends you a polite acknowledgment back, returns your manuscript, and with it, her invoice. You sigh with relief, and send her the money, a hefty sum. You are depressed and sleepless for three more days.

8)     You go back to your gym, where the man who recommended your former editor is never to be seen again, but another man, whom you know a bit better, recommends his wife to edit your manuscript. You grab her email address and send her an email.

9)     Man-at-the-Gym-Whom-You-Know-Better’s wife meets you in person appropriately at the local bookshop to discuss your needs and her credentials. She sounds qualified to you, but then, what do you know? The price she quotes you is even more eyebrow- raising than the price the previous editor quoted, so you excuse yourself to use the Ladies’, where you ring your husband on your cell phone, interrupting his work once again, to ask his opinion again. Your husband again asks, “Is she a good editor?” And again, you say, “Of course,” to which he replies again, “Then hire her.” You go back to the table where your now cold coffee and your new editor are waiting patiently, and hand over your manuscript, and Mrs. ‘M-A-T-G-W-Y-K-B’ promises to have your work back to you in one month, edited.

10)  Your new editor returns your manuscript in one month, as promised. On it she has penciled in the margins dozens upon dozens of questions and comments. She also encloses a three-page document of her own that offers more suggestions, her invoice, and her doctor’s bill for the carpel tunnel surgery she needed to have after editing your manuscript.

11)  You quickly glance through some of the notes your so-called editor has smeared across your manuscript, outraged and upset by every one of them. You walk into your husband’s office again, crying this time. This time, he wisely says nothing, and just keeps working. Disgusted with him, your editor, your work, and yourself, you walk out of his office, and phone your best friend for sympathy. She says she’s glad you found an editor that finished the job she promised to finish. Really disgusted now, you make an excuse to get off the phone. You leave your edited manuscript untouched for two weeks.

12) After two weeks, you look at your manuscript again, and decide you might as well try making some of the edits suggested, since you paid so much for them. You realize as you work that most, if not all, are not nearly as brainless as you’d first supposed. You type diligently and fruitfully for two solid months. Your manuscript is down to 337 pages and is much, much better. You run into your husband’s home office and tell him how exuberant you are over your brilliant editor. You run to your gym, hoping to meet up with her husband there, so you can congratulate him profusely for his choice of life partner. You now love him and her both equally, as a couple, as though they were old, dear friends.  You ring your best friend joyously, informing her that your manuscript is now ready to be presented to literary agents. You will be published within weeks.

Or so you think.

(To be Continued.)

Filed Under: On Writing and Publishing, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: ,
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