I’ve been so busy that I haven’t updated in a while.

But I have 1) worked on my painting

2) worked on my fiction writing

3) done some crafty stuff that I’d been putting off for no good reason

and 4) traveled! I took a trip to Oregon. Portland was lovely, warm, and blooming. Here at home it’s beautiful, as always, but cold. I’d like to know what kind of community regulations Portland has to guide their housing renovations, because they had the most spectacular, sensitively rehabbed older homes. Lots of lovely Victorians, and some great examples of the sorts of Arts and Crafts homes that are particular to the West Coast.

Perfectionism, in my case, has not hurt me in work or school. It manifests itself in my free time, in the form of unfinished paintings or craft projects. When I’m writing something for work, I can sit down and get it done with a minimum of fuss. But when I’m writing for pleasure, for myself, I compare my high expectations with my actual efforts and I despair of ever fulfilling them. Thus, my resolution to do things, to enjoy the process and not focus on the results.

Yes, I have turned to Hip-Hop for my mantra. (As opposed to Zen Buddhism or Deepak Chopra.) But I think it works, because unlike “Stop Dreaming” or “Stop Thinking,” it is against something entirely negative. Fronting is faking something, and it involves projecting an false identity. What do you think? Do you have a mantra?

The “Year of Doing” title is obviously inspired by hackneyed advice phrases like “Stop Planning, Start Doing,” and “Stop Dreaming, Start Living.” But does anyone really think that cessation of all dreaming and planning is helpful? “Stop using planning and dreaming to avoid actually doing anything, but rather use them to do something, of some sort,” is not exactly snappy. “Just Do It” would work, but I don’t have that kind of legal defense money.

This book nearly sat on my shelf unread, amongst the other paperbacks that my mother recommends. She drops them off in stacks, and I usually ignore them for awhile and then return them during a rare borrowed-book purge. (Note to friends: My apartment is a paperback black hole. Do not lend me treasured books. Actually, a black hole isn’t the greatest metaphor, because the paperbacks do actually re-emerge, albeit unpredictably. But I believe you take my point.)

I typically don’t read the books that my mother brings me, because they tend to fail my “no dead babies” standard – meaning that I don’t like unsubtle attempts at pathos and sentimentality, of which the “dead baby” plot device is an especially egregious example. Also, this book was made into a recently released movie, and thus had small pictures of the involved actors on the front cover, including Greg Kinnear. (They can’t all be “Little Miss Sunshine,” people.) But I took a chance on it during a novel drought, and I am glad glad glad.

Fiction writers, read this book, and marvel. Charles Baxter is a uniquely kind and gifted writer, with a rare respect for his characters. I did not think that a novel could simultaneously be so funny and so immensely humane. He brings together a disparate group of Ann Arbor residents and has them tell their stories to a mysterious fellow named, yes, “Charles Baxter.” But this is no meta-exercise – it’s an incredibly wise and entertaining meditation on love and its place in our lives.

Now, when I am trying to write, I think of this book and his characters and am a little bit discouraged, but mostly inspired. I almost missed out on this book – and I hope that you don’t.

How To Make a Living Writing, Part Two « Suddenly Christian

Today, however, I have what I think is a promising entry that I hope to submit in, yes, two days. It’s about my recently deceased cat. I remind you that I am aiming for completion, and not perfection. Or quality.

Fellow perfectionists – isn’t it time we gave ourselves permission to create? Perfection isn’t a prerequisite for beauty or meaning. My resolution for 2008: start doing.