Putting Yourself Out There....

Yes it's me....yes, I've been MIA. Mostly for good reasons - as in I haven't been writing here as I've been doing more writing elsewhere. When I look back I realize that was my whole reason for beginning this blog in the first place. So it is a good thing that I've been absent, but I still feel guilty and like I need to apologize. So I'm sorry :)

So, back to that writing thing. I took a big step (for me) and joined a critique group a few months back. I took the first couple of chapters of my story and sent them off to small handful of strangers for a round robin group edit. They in turn sent me their work and we passed them off to each other and at the end we received our work back with four sets of edits, notes, and feedback. 

To say I stressed out during that time would be an understatement....a HUGE understatement. Now don't get me wrong. I never once feared they would be cruel in their critique. I like to believe writers are a kind group, who are out to bolster other writers, not knock them to the ground. But all the same, I was taking something that was near and dear to me, something I had invested a huge amount of time and emotion into, and handing it off to perfect strangers. I was putting myself out there in the most exposed way possible. I'm pretty shy by nature, so talking to someone about what I'm writing gets me tongue tied. Actually showing someone what I've written takes that fear to a whole new level. What if they didn't get what I was trying to convey? What if they didn't get the funny parts, the sad parts, and everything in between? Even worse - what if they just had no interest in reading it at all? All of these were real possibilities. I'm not going to kid myself. I know just how difficult this writing thing can be and the likelihood of ever actually being published. (It's a wonder anyone puts themselves through this.) But I also know that in order to learn and grow as a writer I need to show my work to other people. I have to open it up to scrutiny, and yes, criticism from others. 

I'm happy to report that all the breath holding these last few months was not necessary. Their feedback was incredibly generous. They got the humor, they teared up at certain parts, and they were (I hope) genuinely interested in the story. One of the best compliments came when someone said it made them hug their husband and child a little tighter that night. Now, they also pointed out my issues with punctuation. I'm pretty sure I was absent during the lesson on comma and semi colon use. They also found the holes where a piece of information was left out. When you read something over and over and you know the story so well in your head, you tend to overlook when certain things are missing. They pointed out times where the humor was too soon, the drama needed to be ramped up, and when a piece of dialogue didn't ring true for a character. The cool thing about that is that in only a couple of chapters they already knew who my characters were. They understood their personality and they immediately picked up on something that seemed out of character for them. The other cool thing was that they disagreed with each other at times. One pointed out not loving slang in dialogue, while another said they felt it was true to they way people speak in real life. Sometimes it's just a matter of personal preference and has nothing to do with whether you can write. Overall their feedback was constructive, and reaffirming. The other cool thing? I got to read four other pieces of work and experience their creativity process too. These could be the first drafts of really amazing books and I got to be one of the first to read them. 

See, putting yourself out there can turn out to be a really good thing. 

Have you tried it lately?

~Adrienne

Pruning - Part II

 

When last we met, I was rambling discussing my issues with giving up/making changes/cutting back on things that weren't working in my yard/life/etc..... When I finally agreed to one major change, I slowly started to see that change didn't always have to be a bad thing. Especially when change meant taking something like this:

 

and getting something like this:

As lovely as it was and as nice as it made things, I still fought against other changes. I wanted to continue to struggle with the overcrowding of flower beds and runaway ground cover. To add to the madness of thinking I could do it all, I was also still trying to plant new annuals every year, which added even more to the upkeep. So this spring, I finally said enough is enough. I couldn't do it all and I couldn't deal with the guilt of not being able to do it all. So in a couple of weekends with a very helpful hubby, we cleaned house yard. We kept some Hostas (which we transplanted) and the rose bushes as I believed they were the item that meant the most to the previous owner. We removed all traces of the Pachysandra, added Hibiscus, more Hostas and a couple of new rose bushes. We collected rocks from Lake Ontario to add some character to the gardens and mulched the heck out of them to fight back the determined weeds. I'm not a professional gardener (or photographer), but I'm learning........

BEFORE

AFTER

(Please excuse the sad siding....that is a future project and as they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day..")

BEFORE

 AFTER

 (Again ignore the siding. Apparently the previous owners decided to begin siding the house and only did one half. I call it quirky chic.)

 

 BEFORE

 AFTER

 

The lessons that I learned from all of these changes are something I need to apply to my everyday life. How often do we continue to do the same things over and over, afraid to make a change; whether it's as simple as changing your hair style, to something as big as ending a relationship that is no longer healthy for you? I think you need to let go of something wrong in your life in order to make room for something that is right. My favorite example of this was hubby taking a risk to flight instruct full time. He let go of the security of a full time job that prevented him from his real love of teaching others to fly. As soon as he made the decision to make that change he had new students coming from every direction. 

For me, I had to learn to give a higher priority to what is most important to me in my life, not what I think is most important to everyone else. As I have said before - to my friends who have children, I have no idea how you do it all. Some days work, cleaning the house and maintaining all the relationships in my life, are all I can handle. Add in my love/need to write, 2 pets, and an attempt to exercise, and.....well I don't think I need to tell anyone how there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. So I needed to figure out how to protect those things that are most important to me (family/friends/writing) and how to weed out (pun intended) the lesser things......like having a perfectly clean house (no hubby I am not going to stop cleaning) or maintaining a full blown garden. My friend and I began scheduling a weekly night to get together and write. The funny thing is that once we did that, I realized how much I needed to write, which in turn made me say, "I need more time to write." An added bonus is that I get to also spend time with my friend and maintain a friendship that is so important to me. From all of this I'm more willing now to say I'm going to take a couple of hours on the weekend to work. I've made myself say no to a couple of things (nothing that was extreme and nothing that hurt anyone), but it was still hard for me nonetheless to not feel guilt over not doing it all. But I found the more that I ask for the time that I need, the easier it has become and the more readily it has been given. Change is hard; don't get me wrong. This isn't something that I came to overnight and it's not something that I won't struggle with, but my experience with pruning has shown me that sometimes you have to make changes to make something beautiful........

What changes are you contemplating?

Get out your pruning shears......

~ Adrienne

Pruning - Part I

When hubby and I first began our house hunt 5 years ago, we knew the house itself would need to be modest due to our budget. A couple of bedrooms, a garage and a nice neighborhood, were our main goals. I myself had only one concern. I wanted flowers in my yard. All the years leading up to this moment, first in my own apartment and then in our condo, were filled with a simple desire to plant something.....anything.So when we came upon our house it was pretty much what we were looking for. Three bedrooms, a garage (2 car!), and it was in a cozy neighborhood. In addition the house came with......some...ummm.... lovely.....bushes. As you can see from the picture above, these were no small bushes. No sirree. These bushes were apparently planted shortly after the house was built and they were, (according to legend) only trimmed once during that time. What you are looking at folks is actually the top of the bushes. They had grown so much over the years that they essentially tipped over, hence the top became the front of the bushes. What you can't see from the picture is the space behind them, which was large enough to house a small village. Not being fond of the idea of someone or something hiding out in them, we made pulling them out our first priority. Neighbors told us later that they had no idea there was an additional bedroom window on the front of the house until then! In fairness to the previous owners, the woman was elderly and too proud to ask for assistance, so she had done what she could. 

Now what the front of the house lacked in color and aesthetics, the back of the house made up for. Primroses, cone flowers, rosebushes, evergreens and a number of other bushes and shrubs. It was obvious the woman loved to garden and this was her pride and joy. I was thrilled. I could see that some work would need to be done to bring things under control, but it was what I had wanted right? Fast forward a couple more months to the actual closing/moving process and reality sunk in. Knowing the home owner had been ill, it made sense that things would be a little neglected. What we had failed to realize was that the neglect had actually gone on for a couple of years and things were in serious decline. Flower beds were overflowing with flowers that were planned and those that had simply moved in on their own. Not to mention the weeds that had infiltrated, each and every one of the beds. Shrubs were overgrown or half dead, and the others grew at odd angles, competing for sun with a large neighboring tree. The main eyesore ran along the entire length of the back of the house. The area (again due to the large tree), didn't get sun but for about 2 hours a day. Therefore the ground never dried completely, resulting in a soggy, mossy mess. The bushes and plants that attempted to grow there had about an inch of foliage at the top and about 2 feet of dead branches underneath. What did flourish in this area was pachysandra, an insanely fast spreading ground cover. It had spilled itself right over the borders of the flower bed and was threatening to take over the entire yard.

But, again this was what I had wanted right? So I dug in (literally). We dug out the front bushes and replaced them with small (manageable) box woods and rose of Sharon. We removed dead evergreens and cut back anything that stood still. We then took a wait and see approach with everything else. With some pruning and patience we hoped that most of the yard would regenerate itself in a healthy fashion. But the following year brought much of the same. No matter how much had been cut back, some things were just too old and had gone too long with out care to revive themselves. So we removed the shrub that couldn't grow straight and dug out the rampant pachysandra. I was stubborn about a lot of things though. Hubby and I fought discussed saving some things.Trust me, I held onto things that were well past their prime, including a miniature rose bush that had been choked for years by a pair of evergreens. The bush literally produced about 5 flowers in its last year of life, being more of a stump than anything else, but I felt the need to continue trying to save it. He wanted to clean things up and make the yard neater, while I felt an odd sense of loyalty to the previous owner, a gardening kinship if you will. I felt extreme guilt at removing anything she had planted and obviously cared for. I also felt like a failure for not being able to keep up with it and make it look better. 

After a couple of years of the ongoing struggle with things, I agreed to some small changes. We began with the swamp behind the house. Knowing nothing would grow there we decided to turn the space into a patio. That went extremely well, but even seeing those improvements, I was still reluctant to give up - give up my guilt over not being much of a "natural" gardener and my belief that I could do it all. So it took until this year for me to finally say enough is enough. We needed to make some real changes. As much as I loved the idea of gardening, I was not retired nor a trained horticulturist. There were not enough hours in the day that were required to keep everything maintained. I loved summer, but I wasn't being allowed to enjoy it because I was always trying to fix something in the yard. 

I realized that gardening is a lot like life. We hold onto things that aren't working far past their time. Relationships, jobs, addictions, and most of all guilt. Guilt that we aren't doing everything right, that we're not getting everything done, or worse, that we aren't living our life as someone else is expecting us to. Sometimes we need to say enough is enough and start cutting back. Look at things in a different light (especially those areas that don't get sun), rethink the layout of your life.....and most importantly, get a pair of good pruning shears.

~ Adrienne

Next up.......Time for change........