VIRB

People are gorgeous. I love them. The wizened old munchkin with his giant ears and illuminating smile, the wannabe superstar singer with her amazing shoes and pixie haircut and her crowd-pleasing charisma, even the reverend with his young eyes in his well-worn face. My children, their friends, my friends, my boss, my family ... I see mind-boggling beauty everywhere I look. Everywhere except the mirror.
Which doesn't bother me so much. Mostly I can cruise on, numb and oblivious, if I don't spend too much time looking and don't see a picture of myself.
What DOES bother me is why. Why am I so willing to not see flaws in anyone else, but so incapable of seeing anything but flaws in my own form? Further, why am I so gentle and understanding with my friends and family, and so picky and exacting with myself? Why is it so difficult to see myself through the same eyes I see the rest of the world?
I have this theory that if I can figure out WHY I dislike my looks/skills/choices/whatever so much, then I can change my gut reactions and train myself to avoid such negativity. But trying to do that without understanding the situation in the first place is like ... painting a black room white without using primer. The black is going to show through.
*sigh*
In other departments, my great big plan was to revise Death's Daughter this month. (Death's Daughter is the 50,000 word novella I wrote in November for NaNoWriMo, and which I honestly think has the potential to BE something. I was writing it back the last time I was on Virb, and I remember being all jazzed about it - I came up with the idea and characters while I was laid flat with a back injury.) I was going to edit and clean it up in April, and devote May to working on getting it the attention it deserved, be it with an agent or editor.
HOWEVER.
My muse, unpredictable little sprite that she is, has instead handed me the answer to one of my other stalled novel ideas instead. What had previously been mildly interesting (sparked by one of phil's campaign settings - picture 18th century London only with an overabundance of cheap, mass produced magic) with characters that intrigued me has now become something bigger. Something with a title, and 90% of a plot (still not sure how it ends.) I can't decide whether to call it "The Potter's Apprentice" or "The Last Royal" and I don't actually know my main character's name yet, but I've got copious notes because let's face it - I don't do much with my brain all day. I work with my hands, and I am a craftsman, but sewing is not brain surgery and someone smarter than me figures out the math of everything. :) So while I am sewing, my brain acts like a radio transmitter for my muse, who sends me scenes and characters and ideas, which, if I don't write down, swoop into my dreams and plague my every waking thought until I HAVE to get them out of my head.
Inconvenient, since there are several other projects I've been thinking of working on and people I should be communicating with and well, all the other pieces of a life that ordinary people can handle without thinking about but that I have to force myself to deal with because my brain spends 85% of it's time somewhere else, with fictional people. I need an assistant.
Mmmm, wouldn't that be lovely. To live in my one bedroom apartment over the coffee-shop by the ocean on that touristy stretch of cobblestone road, to smell the fresh flowers on the table and see the white sheer curtains waving in the ocean breeze as I sat, curled with my macbook in an overstuffed chenille chair-and-a-half, and just wrote ... and for an hour or two each day, some wonderful human would come in, tidy the pile of mail forgotten by the door, pay my bills on time (from that huge account of money that I would be paid for my books,) answer my email at the desk I hardly ever sit at, feed my cat, book my appointments, and see that I knew what day it was and make sure I hadn't forgotten to do my laundry or eat. And then that human would insist I come outside for a walk, and make tea when we got back, and keep a tiny percentage of me grounded. That human's job title would probably be "Reality Liason," they'd be like some sort of diplomatic advisor, negotiating terms between the author and the real world. And then they would go away and leave me alone. That would rock.
I do not, however, have a Reality Liason at this time. I do have a full time job and a family to feed. Hence, my email goes unanswered, my bills get paid just under the wire, my blog gets sporadically updated, and thank heavens the children feed the cat.