They Say It's Your Birthday--Hitting 55

I usually tend to associate the number 55 with the speed limit in some places. This year it means a little something different.

On Tuesday the 28th, I am turning 55. I know--I'm not sure how that's possible either! I could swear that it was only a couple of years ago that I was an adorable little kid. Jeez.

Even then, I was all about the books.

55 seems to have a kind of "Here there be dragons" feel to it. Mind you, I don't have a problem with getting older. (It sure beats the alternative.) I didn't have a crisis at 50. In fact, I had such an amazing birthday that year, thanks to my incredible friends and the terrific folks at Llewellyn Publishing, I ended up saying, "Gee, if I'd known turning 50 was going to be this great, I would have done it sooner." And this year I'm mostly not doing anything at all except my yearly lunch with friends Ellie and Bobbie (whose birthday is May 1st) and  possibly bringing cupcakes to my book signing at Imagicka in nearby Binghamton.

On the other hand, there is something about that number that gives one pause. For instance, in theory, I am ten years away from retirement age. (Feel free to insert hysterical laughter here.) Unless I miraculously become a bestselling author, I will probably never actually be able to retire, but still, I'm suddenly much more focused on getting my financial ducks in a row.

And then there's the body. Oy. I don't so much mind the silver strands in my hair that have, in the last couple of years, become silver streaks. I just tell people it is nature's highlighting, or that I am going blonde one hair at a time. I think I look pretty good for my age (thanks, mom and dad--really appreciate the good genes!), but I'm starting to feel the effects of spending the last few years mostly sitting in a chair in front of a computer. I've been saying for ages that I was going to get back to exercising. Looking 55 in the face seems to have motivated me to actually do so.

Mostly, it makes me think about priorities. Nothing lasts forever. At 55, I have to acknowledge the fact that my parents are getting older. (They're like, 60 now, right? They had me VERY young.) My nieces and my nephew are getting on with their own lives. If I want to spend time with these people, I'd better get around to it.

My maternal grandmother lived to be almost 100--my other grandparents died much younger. Even if I want to take her as the best case scenario, I am now over halfway through my life. That's okay--big huge swaths of the earlier years stunk out loud. I plan to make the rest of them count. Starting with this one.

Mostly I'm just kind of amazed by that number. But hey, it's just the speed limit in some places. Nothing to get all worked up about, right? Please pass the cake...if you dare.

Don't forget to enter my 55th birthday 5 book giveaway HERE -- it's on until Monday the 27th at midnight, EST.

Owning Your Success

It occurred to me recently that I've had the same basic conversation a number of times over the last few months. Maybe even years. It goes something like this:

Other person -- "I'm impressed by how well your books are doing. Congratulations, you're a success!"
Me -- "Uh, no, not really. I mean, I'm doing okay, but I wouldn't call myself a success."

When I had this conversation with my mother recently, she scolded me. "Of course you are," she said. And you know what, she was right. (Duh, she's my mother. Of course she was.)

After all, I've published nine books with Llewellyn and I'm working on a great tarot project with them that will be out next year. (If you're thinking you missed a Llewellyn book, #9 is the Midsummer book in the Sabbats series, and it will be out soon.) My Baba Yaga series with Berkley seems to be doing well. I just found out that I've earned through the advance for the first book (which is a good sign) and both the novels seem to be doing reasonably well as far as I can tell. The most obvious sign of success is probably the new book deal with Berkley for three more books and a novella in the series, as well as an eBook version of the first book in a new series. But I was also on the front cover of Witches & Pagans Magazine recently, which was pretty damned cool.

So that brings us to the question of why it is so hard for me to own my success. I know it isn't just me, either, which is why I'm bothering to talk about it here. Many of the writers I know are quick to downplay their success, no matter where they fall on the spectrum of number of books published or awards won. But this issue isn't limited to authors. How many of us have a hard time accepting a compliment or admitting to success in one form or another? Quite a few, I suspect. Maybe almost all of us.

There are probably a number of reasons for this and they are likely to vary from person to person and situation to situation. Culturally, we are taught that bragging is bad. Saying, "Yes, I'm successful," can feel a little bit like bragging. Maybe we're afraid to jinx things. If we admit to success, the universe might punish us by coming to take it away again.

For those of us who had critical parents or partners who put us down for year after year, it can be hard to see ourselves as successes no matter how well we are doing. It just doesn't feel like it could be true, no matter how much evidence there may be to prove it. After all, if you know you are just not good enough, how can what you do--whatever it is--be successful?

Then there is "imposter syndrome." This one is so common among authors, you'd be amazed to find out who suffers from it. Imposter syndrome is that horrible suspicion in the back of your mind that no matter how successful you are, any minute now people will figure out that you are an imposter (you can't write, your art is actually dreck, your achievements at work were all flukes) and they will make you leave the room with your tail dragging as they all laugh and point. If you say you are a success, then later when everyone figures out you actually suck, it will feel all that much worse.

And of course, success is a moving target. What seemed like success at one point (getting an agent, selling that first book, getting one positive review, earning a certain amount of money, getting a raise or a new position at work, achieving a goal) doesn't seem all that impressive once you've done it. Most of us keep adding new goals--and that's a good thing, since positive forward movement is part of what helps us to grow as human beings. But if we are too focused on the next achievement, moving the bar always higher, the things we've already achieved may no longer seem like success, just the steps on the way to the next goal.

I think all of these things are part of why it was so hard for me to say, "Why thank you, yes I am a success." I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, and frankly, it all seems kind of impossible, like maybe it is happening to someone else and any second now it will all be snatched away again and someone will say "Whoops, just kidding!".

And, of course, if you are a success, then there is the expectation that you will continue to succeed, always doing as well if not better at your chosen path than you have done already. No pressure, right? Yikes! This is especially true for authors, who are expected to make each book better than the one before. Oy. Who the heck can live up to that?

But here's the other side of the coin. I worked REALLY hard to get to this place. Wrote all the books, including a number that never saw the light of day (and yet still took months to write). Pursued agents until I finally got one. Honed my craft with practice, practice, practice. Learned to roll with the blows from repeated rejections, bad reviews, and years of waiting for someone to say yes instead of no. Spent virtually all my free time for the last nine years working towards this point in my life.

So what does it mean if I finally achieve at least some measure of success and then deny it? Doesn't that belittle all that hard work? At what point is it okay to finally say, "I am good at what I do. There is a lot for me to be proud of"?

I'm calling that point today. And not just for me. Do you do something well? Are you good at your job, a hobby or craft, caring for your family, surviving in the face of life's difficulties? If so, you're a success. You may or may not have money or fame, but success means a lot of different things to all of us. I'm willing to bet that you're a success at something...probably a bunch of things. We can probably all come up with a long list of the things we're not good at or haven't achieved, but just for today, let's own our success.

I will if you will.

So, I am a success at writing. I am good at my job running The Artisans' Guild. I take good care of my cats. I keep my house from falling down around my ears, despite its best efforts. (Snort.) And the bad review of Wickedly Dangerous I read earlier today hardly made me twitch at all.

What are you a success at? Come on, tell me. I want to know. Own your success--you earned it!

The Price of Water

What is the price of water? At my house recently, it was $2,400—a rather large sum of money to deal with a rather small problem (tiny iron bacteria in my 340 foot deep well, which while harmless to humans, makes the water smell and taste bad, and builds up gunk inside pipes and appliances, all while staining everything it touches a charming reddish-brown). The money was to treat the water and then filter it. 

It wasn’t fun to hand over all that cash, but it got me thinking about the price of water. Most of us, me included, tend to think that water is free. After all, it can be found just lying around in lakes, streams, and oceans, and falls from the sky as rain. If you turn on your faucet, water comes out. What could be easier?

True, if you own a house in a city or town, you will probably pay some kind of water tax; essentially paying the city to take make sure that the water is clean and safe to drink, and doesn’t have nasty little critters like iron bacteria in it. Folks like me who live in the country sometimes have to pay to have a well dug, if there isn’t one on the property, or the one you have runs dry.

But that’s not the real cost of water. When I started really thinking about it, I realized that in our modern world, there are all sorts of hidden costs, many of which our ancestors never dealt with.

Not that water came without a price for them—on the contrary, they were well aware of how precious it was. If they wanted water to drink, they carried it by hand from wells, or used pumps that required actual muscle. If the rains were scarce, they irrigated their fields by hand, dragging water from nearby sources if they had them. And there was no guarantee that there would be water for crops, or even to drink. Little wonder that they prayed to gods who controlled the weather, and prized water as one of the four great elements.

These days, we don’t have to work nearly as hard for our water, but that very fact has led us to disconnect ourselves from the price we pay to have our modern lifestyle. We have polluted many of our precious sources of water with runoff from chemicals from manufacturing, as well as chemical fertilizers (not just from huge factory farms, but also smaller farms, and regular folks who want perfect lawns).

And then there are the manufacturing plants. According to the World Wildlife Federation, “It can take more than 20,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of cotton; equivalent to a single T-shirt and pair of jeans.”[1] That’s a pretty pricy outfit.

One of the hot-button topics these days, especially in upstate New York where I live, is fracking—hydraulic fracturing, which is a technique which is used to access natural gas in shale deposits under the surface of the land. Fracking uses many poisonous chemicals, and the natural gas itself can end up breaking through and contaminating the groundwater in a huge area surrounding the wells. Most people know that, and either think it is plenty safe, or very dangerous, depending on which side of the argument they come down on. But what you hardly hear anyone talk about is the fact that the process uses thousands of gallons of water—which is then too contaminated to be used again for drinking or crops.

Much of the United States is currently in the middle of an ongoing drought which shows no sign of ending anytime soon. Farmers and ranchers in the Midwest are at risk of losing everything, and the loss of corn crops and cattle have already driven up the cost of food. There’s a price to that water as well. Droughts have decimated other countries too, especially those of third world countries. It is estimated that over a billion people across the world don’t have access to clean, drinkable water.

Human beings have built huge cities in what was previously uninhabitable desert land. My parents and sister live in San Diego, a beautiful city where fifty percent of their water is brought in from the Colorado River, another thirty percent comes from the Bay-Delta in Northern California, and a mere twenty percent comes from local supplies. According to the San Diego County Water Authority, “Local surface water runoff from rainfall is an important part of the San Diego region’s water supply, but it hasn’t provided enough water to meet all of the region’s needs since 1947.”[2]

There are plenty of other examples for how human beings are using and abusing this precious natural resource, but I think you see my point. Water isn’t really free after all. There is a price in water attached to every action we take, every decision we make in our day-to-day life.

The point of all this musing, brought on by my own unexpected confrontation with the hidden realities of dealing with water, was not to depress you. It’s not a political statement of any kind, or even an environmental rant. (Although believe me, I could give you one of those if you wanted it.)

It’s nothing more than a gentle reminder that in our own way, we are as dependent on the precious element of water as our ancestors were. And although we may have easier access and the ability to move water to the places where we want it—some of the time, within serious limitations—this only increases our need to use it wisely.

We can all do this in little ways every day, with very little sacrifice. Buy your produce from organic farmers who don’t use chemical fertilizers. Instead of getting new clothes each time you want a new outfit, pick up something gently used from a consignment store. Keep your own water sources as clean and protected as possible. Don’t try to grown the perfect lawn, and focus on plants that grow naturally in your area, since they are usually designed to work in that particular ecosystem. Do a little research and become better educated about the price of water in the modern world.

As Pagans, I believe we have a responsibility to be mindful of the planet we live on, and how we treat its gifts—earth, air, fire, and water among them. We can’t always change the big picture issues (although we can certainly try), but we can be more conscious about our own patterns and choices.

Yes, there are many ways in which water is free and readily accessible, and that is a wonderful thing. But in some ways, it also comes with a cost, and not just if you happen to have iron-eating parasites in your damn well.

---

[1] http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/about_freshwater/freshwater_problems/thirsty_crops/cotton/

[2] http://www.sdcwa.org/san-diego-county-water-sources

Guest blog: Locusts of Control

My friend Skye posted this over on her blog and I loved it so much, I asked her if she would be willing to let me post it here too.

Locusts of Control

There is a psychological term called "locus of control". It basically means where you perceive the control over your life coming from: inside of you or outside of you. According to my therapist, people with an internal locus of control tend to be more successful and happy than people with an external locus of control. 

Having an internal locus of control means that you perceive that you are in control of your life and that what you do determines what happens in your life, as much as possible. 

Having an external locus of control means that you think that something or someone else — your parents, God(s), luck, the Universe, your neighbor's dog — determines what happens in your life; you don't feel that you have much if any control over it.

There is even a simple test you can take (the site asks for a name, but just so the program can be friendly and refer to you by your name; give it a fake name if you like, or just a first name), that will give you a quick and dirty determination of where you fall on the scale between 100% internal vs. 100% external control. Thirteen is 100% external — I got a nine. My BFF said he was pleased at that because he would have been unsurprised if I'd gotten a 13.

I titled this post Locusts of Control because while I often perceive a great, malicious Universe being in control of my life, I don't always. There are things I feel I am in control of (my side of a job interview, for example), and things that I feel that other people are in control of (whether or not to even read my resume, for example). For me, there are many loci of control, and sometimes they work in my favor and sometimes they descend like locusts and devastate my life (like my mother getting cancer and dying, or my being unable to find work).

Mind you, I would do better with a more internal locus of control, I know that. And I have been working on it, which is why I got a nine instead of a 13. But I doubt I'll ever have a one, for I have experienced the locusts. 

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity" is a quote by Seneca, a Roman philosopher. I do believe that you have to be prepared to take advantage of when luck introduces you to opportunity. But bad things still happen that have nothing to do with being prepared and everything to do with rolling dice with the Universe. I know a woman who's life has gone to hell this year, and basically little or none of it was within her control. I think that in situations like that, your locus of control can only help you determine how to deal with what you have been given to deal with. After the locusts have gone, do you replant or do you give up and move to the city and try to make a living there? It depends on how you perceive life ("If I replant, the locusts will just come again" vs. "The locusts have come and gone. They won't be back this season."). 

I'd like to think I'd replant. That's basically what I've been doing by returning to Houston rather than running off to live with friends in Seattle. I still have some things to do that I am in control of doing; they may provide me with what I want. There are still options where the locus is within me. There are options where the control is part me and part others — do they want my skills and experience?

I know the locusts will return on and off again in my life and I perceive that the locus of control varies. Being able to perceive what I am in control of, and controlling it, will ultimately build a stronger and happier me. And that's what therapy's all about, isn't it?

---------

Skye is a writer and editor of many things and has chosen to share her therapy with everyone in the perhaps-mistaken idea that everyone want to know about it.

http://thingsintheskye.blogspot.com/ 

The Need to Please

Despite my public persona, I am actually a fairly private person. I'm happy to share all the superficial happenings in my life with all my fans, friends, and followers, but I tend not to talk about the deep stuff. I'm more likely to post a picture of a cute cat :-)

But something happened this week that I thought many of you  might be able to identify with, so I thought, for a change, I'd share some of the scary stuff that goes on inside the "real" Deborah Blake. The person, as opposed to the author.

It really was such a small thing. I came to look at the blog and noticed that I had dropped from 217 followers down to 214 overnight. Such numbers are relatively meaningless. After all, the blog has almost 40,000 total page views (something that boggles my mind, frankly!); I've got over 2,000 followers on Facebook and almost 1,400 on Twitter. And really, what do those numbers mean in real life? Do they translate to more sales of my books? Do they actually mean that people find me interesting or amusing? Who knows? In other words, going from 217 to 214 means nothing, in the greater scheme of things.

Except, of course, inside my own head.

My immediate gut response to seeing that drop in numbers (where they had only ever increased before, albeit slowly) was to think: Oh, no--what did I do wrong? Did I say something that offended people? Am I getting boring or repetitive? Doing too much promo? Not posting enough cat pictures? Posting too many cat pictures?

My head spun around those questions for a couple of days. I thought probably I wasn't blogging often enough. Maybe I should be talking about more personal stuff. Or less personal stuff. The big question was: what could I do to make my readers happy...so they'd like me?

Any of this sound familiar to anyone else?

The scary part about all of this was how much those three missing people rocked my interior landscape. They'd tripped one of my own personal triggers: the need to please. The fear of not being liked. Not being good enough. Not being wanted.

It's no secret where all of this stuff comes from. I was an extremely unpopular child. The weird kid in school that nobody liked. Too shy and timid to do anything about it. And I had a very critical and angry parent whose expectations I could never meet. (Not to worry--we have a great relationship now. *waves hi to Dad* And he is, ironically, one of the loudest members of my cheering section. But that's now, and things were very different then.)

At 52, I have mostly put those issues behind me. I am blessed with an abundance of amazing friends, and some of the best fans and online "pals" that anyone could ask for. I may not be everyone's cup of tea, but there are plenty of folks who think I'm reasonably nice, and interesting, and fun to hang out with.

And yet...the loss of three--count them, THREE--followers sent me into a tailspin of self-questioning and doubt.

In the end, my wiser adult self prevailed, thankfully. And I shrugged and said, "Oh, well, you can't please all of the people all of the time." And I guess I'll just keep doing what I was doing, and hope that you will continue to take the journey with me.

But if you ever feel the need to please, and the fear of not being liked, I just wanted to say: I get you. Me too.

And just for the record--I REALLY like everyone who comes here. Thank you so much for reading, for following (if you do), and for sharing this space with me. It makes that shy, unpopular girl pretty damned happy.