I'm a Total Nag

It's true. I'm a total nag.

I think a big part of the problem was that I used to be pretty lazy. Through high school, especially, I was only semi-engaged with the idea of hard work. A big part of the problem was that I wasn't smart enough yet to understand how very little I know, and I could do well in things like school and after-school jobs with only a modicum of effort.

Then I went to college, and after a party-hearty first semester, I knuckled down. I definitely worked a lot harder than I did in high school, partly because I was beginning to realize that no matter how much I learned in class, there was so much more I didn't know. That said, I still wasn't winning any awards. Maybe I didn't "own" my life as much I should have, at that point, as I was still part of an educational system in which I knew I would, to a certain extent, be taken care of if I did what I was supposed to.

Everything changed, however, when I started grad school. Suddenly, either I got something done when I was supposed to, or I didn't. No one was there to remind me, or nag me, or help me schedule stuff. There were no helpful syllabi on which I could see what I must do, when. I just had to research a bunch of stuff, and then I had to write it, and occasionally pass stuff in.

All of a sudden, I was entirely responsible for my own success. And that changed me.

I became my mother.


My mom is an absolute power house of a woman who does approximately 1,000 things before dawn. The rest of the day is spent doing the real work. Seriously, she's amazing and slightly terrifying.


And I'm both proud and afraid that I've become her.


Now that I'm doing two things I love (writing and teaching), I have to be very productive in order to be, well, productive. Basically, I work all the time. It ain't pretty, but it's true. As a lifestyle choice, it works for me right now, and I'm not asking for an intervention. Where I go wrong, however, is not realizing that other people don't have to work as hard as I do, and very few actually want or need to.

Cuz that's when I start nagging. I know exactly what people in my life can do to become NUMBER ONE, so why aren't they doing it? I can't understand this, so I go ahead and fill them in on where they're going wrong. Eventually, I realize they want to punch me in the eye.

I'm shocked, every time.

So one of the things I'm working on is not giving advice unless it's asked for, and then dropping it once it's given rather than chasing up to see if they did what I told them to. I'm not not telling people what my MUCH BETTER PLAN THAN THEIRS is, and I'm no longer saying to people, "Why the fuck don't you just do it, already, and stop saying you'll do it?"

Because even if I am right, and I do have the answers, nobody wants to hear them. And I certainly don't want to be that person. Even if that person is RIGHT, GODDAMIT.

She's also annoying. That nag that is me.

Taurus Rising

-- Adrienne Miller

I don't take well to nagging. I never have. I suppose I could blame it on my stars. A few years ago my mother-in-law did my astrological chart, and while my sun sign is Libra, apparently my rising sign is Taurus. She told me that means that while I love balance and harmony (which I do) I'm also as stubborn as an old mule (which I also am). So what you get is someone who wants to everyone to be happy but always finds the sneaky, backdoor way to getting what I want.

I'm not a big (or any kind) believer in astrology, but in this case the description just happened to be accurate. I am that person. You can nag at me, and I'll smile and nod, but inside my heels are digging in so far that you could use me to plow a field.

I'll admit, it's not the most attractive personality trait. Some people would even call it passive aggressive, but that's only because I can't bring myself to be aggressive-aggressive. You know, those people who shout out their opinions loud enough for everyone in a three block radius to hear. I don't want to be that person either.

There has to be a middle ground. A plain aggressive. Someone who can just say no without explanation. Without raising her voice. Without sugarcoating anything. That's how I'd like to be. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to be that.

But until I do, seriously, don't nag me.

I Need a Nag!

--by Juliet

I need a nag to make me get stuff done.

I start things just fine. It's the finishing that kills me.

For instance, right now I’m on deadline. It’s that time in my writing schedule when someone asks me how I’m doing, and I take it as an act of aggression.

“Just how do you think I’m doing? I haven’t taken a shower in three days. I forgot how to brush my teeth and put on clothes. I'm hoping a car crashes outside my window so I'll finally have an ending to this freaking novel! That’s how I’m doing!”

All of this is accompanied, of course, by a crazed gleam in my eyes. Because I’m not really seeing the person talking to me, I’m seeing the fact that my inner nag failed, once again, to get me anywhere near finished before deadline.

As a mom, I nagged my son all the way through French school (bilingual nagging, even!) and then I nagged him through AP classes and SAT exams and college applications and now, guess what? He doesn't need me to nag him anymore! He now has his own inner nag, and does sensible things like getting his papers done ahead of time, and he's rocking something close to a 4.0 at his university. And he still manages to party.

So, um, why can't I manage to internalize my own nagging in some kind of effective way? Don't know, and I can't figure it out right now because I'm pulling an all-nighter to reach my deadline. I'm a mad writer stuck in my aerie.

And I’m trying not to take the need to write this blog as an act of aggression. I apologize ahead of time for my bad attitude. I’ll be me again in, oh, seventy-eight hours or so.

And after that...feel free to step up and nag. I need it.

Nagging Through the Doldrums

Yesterday, while at work, I wrote a thousand words while on a break. I'm in the middle (oh, the sagging middle) of a novel, and I get my words wherever I can, even if it means writing in the driver's seat of my car during lunch.

This, to me, is the hardest part of writing -- the first draft doldrums. (Related: you already knew, I'm sure, that the doldrums is slang for the low-pressure area around the equator where the winds are calm, making sailing difficult. It's damned hard to move without wind. But this was something I didn't know: In the doldrums, you can also have variable winds, squalls gales, and even hurricanes. Now, doesn't that remind us of writing the middle of the book? Flat, nothing going on, never gonna get anywhere, OH RIP ROARING EXCITEMENT, RIDE THIS AS FAR AS SHE BLOWS BAYBEEEE, oh crap it's gone again.)

So when I'm writing a first draft, I push through. Every day, I sit in front of the computer and wait for a breeze. If there's no breeze, I turn on my desk fan. If the power goes out, I puff out my cheeks and blow on my screen, wiping the spit off as needed.

I do it because I nag. I'm a nagger, by blood. My mother was a consummate and professional nagger, and I follow in her footsteps even though I don't want to. It's not as if I sit down and plan to nag. In fact, I spend quality time trying not to nag. If I nag my wife, she doesn't know about the thirty times I swallowed the request trying not to say anything. My sisters know to tune me out when I get wound up on issues like their health or their housing (and I do try to hold most of it in, I swear).

But I nag the life out of myself.

My eyes open, and it starts. Write. Write. Write. Write.

I roll over. Write something. Write anything.

I roll to my other side. Just sit at the desk. Three hours, that's all.

I pull the pillow over my head. Fine. You want to be that way? An hour would do it.

I squinch my eyes harder shut. Half-hour?

I hold my breath. Okay, ten minutes.

Fine. Ten minutes and you can have a carrot muffin at the cafe.

As usual, the offer of food-as-reward works, and I give in, just to shut the voice up. Then, when I get to the cafe, I can usually browbeat myself into three hours of work, just from that one carrot muffin and double Americano.

People often ask me (usually with an annoyed tone) how I get so much done. But I think I've just figured out why I feel like such a slacker all the time. If people had any idea how much more I feel like I should do, how much of the time I'm struggling to tune out the guilt-laced whiny voice inside my head, they'd understand how well I'm actually practicing active, chosen laziness whenever I possibly can.

It is one way to get through the doldrums, though. A thousand words? Great! And oh, by the way. It's not enough. Get off your ass and write another thousand on your next break. See you on the other side of the ocean, where The End lives.

Why You Must Neti If It's the Last Thing [I Make] You Do

by Sophie

NAGGING

In my family we are neti pot FIENDS. I cannot overstate how we adore the things. I think it was Lisa who introduced me to them, years ago, and I found the whole concept entirely appalling. I made her describe several times how you jam the spout of the pot of saline water in one nostril and the saline solution pours INTO YOUR HEAD and comes out the other side. Disgusting! "But they've been doing it for centuries," Lisa assured me.

Not for me, the crazy crunchy-club stylings of a mystic-eastern-obsessed new age sensibility. I liked my alka-selzer plus cold medicine. I liked my thera-flu.

But as the years ticked by and I got busier and being laid out on the couch for days at a time seemed less and less appealing, and I became more prone to persistent sinus infections, and - the last straw - the Alka Selzer people quit making the good stuff and marketed only the lame-ass version that didn't give you any kind of decent buzz, I finally got desperate enough to give it a try.

The first time was weird. I locked myself in the bathroom with the same sense of apprehension and embarrassment as the first time I shaved my legs with my dad's pilfered razor a thousand years ago. I couldn't believe it would work. And yet...with only a flash of a weird sensation up there behind the eyeballs, the liquid came dribbling out the other side.

Fascinating! I actually felt proud of myself as I watched this strange process in the mirror. I'd had the little weird throat tickle that signals an oncoming cold, and as soon as I was finished with my first eight ounces of saline, it already felt better. Placebo effect, I was sure, but then...I didn't get sick.

I'm not one of those who use the thing every day during cold season, but I made a beeline for it every time I felt the least bit sniffly. And I kept not getting sick. An entire year went by - no sick days. Then it was two. I would have made it three whole years, but last august I went on a camping trip and DIDN'T BRING THE POT. And I got sick as all get out.

Since the beginning, I've nagged my family to try this thing. My brother was the first convert, though I doubt it was my influence - those Brookline people kind of swing that way so he had lots of other people convincing him too. But then my Dad got hooked. It took us a year to Judy, my Dad's wife, on board, but once she neti'd she was sold. The only holdout is my sister Kristen. She's got her annual cold - the same one I got every year before I converted - and it is making me nuts. Every time I see her I go into my neti speech, which usually ends with me raising my voice and telling her she's choosing to be sick when she doesn't have to (I am a terrible, terrible, sister; really, all you folks who think I'm delightful, just ask Kristen, she'll tell you the truth). My Christmas gift to Juliet this year was....oh, I suppose you can probably guess. And the worst thing is that, wrapped up in shiny paper, the little net box looked like it could be something really delightful. Perfume, perhaps, or a bracelet or something. But no. Juliet received a neti pot with a whole lotta love behind it.

I nag, and I just can't stop. Tonight we quad-teamed my sister - did I mention my kids also neti? - it was me and Junior and my dad and his wife, all begging, pleading, imploring, but most of all NAGGING poor Kristen to give it a try. Truly, I don't know how she can stand it. I would have folded, just to get us all off my back.

I only shared this tiny little corner of my nagging with you because I can't bear to face the whole truth. According to my kids, I'm a yeller, too emotional, and most definitely a nag. I'm not proud of any of it, but I can't seem to stop. I'd apologize, but the truth is that the next time I see you with the sniffles, I'm going to want to force you to neti too.

Too Virtuous for My Own Good?

by Gigi Pandian

Much to my dismay, I'm awful at having vices.

How cool would it be to sit in a candle-lit study with a cigarette and a glass of whiskey while typing away at a novel? Yes, very cool.

Alas, I tried smoking in college and hated it. More recently, I gave up alcohol during chemotherapy treatments, and found I didn't miss it one bit. What kind of tortured artist am I?

Gigi with a cup of strong coffee. Bliss.

Sure, I've got my coffee. But does that even count as a vice? Lots of studies show coffee is good for you.

One of my biggest fears about being a writer has always been that I don't possess enough angst to write meaningful stories. At first I thought cancer would solve this problem. Instead, it turned out that even in a supposed crisis, I don't freak out.

But I realized something else while going through cancer treatments. The books I was devouring weren't deep explorations of disease or crime or the human condition. I didn't want an excuse to cry. I wanted to be carried away on adventures that would inspire me to take my own. I was picking up lighthearted mysteries with a heavy dose of adventure -- the stuff I like to write.

So perhaps it's not so bad that I wrote some kick-ass pages last weekend while eating a kale salad instead of with a cigarette dangling from my lip.

Martha's Defense of Vice

I'm not the type to deny myself.

Good food? I eat it.
Nice things? I buy them.
Social life? I haz it.

Why would I say no to myself? I LOVE myself. I give myself anything and everything.

In fact, I am PRO vice.

Let's break the big ones down, shall we?

Vice #1: Vanity aka Self-Love (no, not *that* self-love you dirty gutter-minded folks)

I never understood why Dante was so down on self-love. Even bringing in the religious mentality - if God made me in his image, and I love God, why wouldn't I also love myself? And who wants to hang out with a wallowing mess of self-pity anyway?

Vice #2: Greed

Our entire economy and society is built on the premise that I want things I don't have. Wanting leads to motivation and innovation. Wanting keeps things interesting.

Vice #3 Lust
Are we or are we not supposed to procreate as a species?

Vice #4: Anger
You know what creeps me out? Indifference. If things like child abuse, sexual abuse and human slavery don't make you angry, there is something wrong with you. For realz.

Vice #5: Gluttony
See Greed

Vice #6: Envy
See Greed

Vice #7: Sloth
Okay, I'll admit. I'm not a fan of sloth. I don't even like to sleep because it feels lazy.

I know, I know, your body is replenishing and your brain is doing something (useless) and it's good for you and studies show this but these studies don't compare what I can get done while I'm awake to whatever happens when I'm asleep.

On the other hand, I just got back from the Carribbean and everything else seemed to be a way to kill time until my next nap.

Breakfast then nap.
Lunch then siesta.
Pool time then doze.
Dinner then nod off.
Entertainment then sleep.

I also discovered the Snuggie for the first time, which is a genius napstastic accoutrement that makes you feel like you're being cradled by angels. I don't know what you got from me last Christmas, but this Christmas, it's probably gonna be a Snuggie.

(You're welcome.)

I digress - bottom line, if you've made it this far in life without giving into one of the big seven, you're probably not reading this blog as blog-reading is firmly covered under Vice #7: Sloth.

Ergo, I can say terrible things like those other people. Like they aren't very interesting. Not YOU, however. If you're reading this blog, you're fantastic.

Shared Vice

Shared Vice
by Lisa Hughey


Vice. It connotes bad things. Depravity, sin, things to be avoided, things, potentially, to be ashamed of.

And now I confess that I have shared my vice with my children. Not just shared but encouraged.  

Bet you're wondering...what could it be?

We've covered television, smoking, drinking, naughty magazines, fried eggs. And even with all those topics, no one mentioned my vice. But I guarantee that every single Pens has the same addictive vice that I do.

I love Books. Paranormal romance, mystery, historical romance, time-travel romance, thrillers, non-fiction, science fiction, fantasy, erotica, romantic suspense. 

Reading books is a huge time suck. And in this age of uber-productivity and twenty-four hour connectivity, people are expected to be on task and on target every single waking minute.

So how do I unplug? I can lose hours to a good book. Sometimes, I will spend an entire day gorging myself on more than one. More like two, three, four, even five books. Usually I hunker down in my bed, comforter fluffed around me and a stack of books by my side. I only emerge from my little cave for tea and the occasional sustenance. And by the end of the day, my bed is littered with the leftovers from my voracious reading habit.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Share my vice with me and cuddle up with a good book. 

Lisa

ps. I'll leave you with this darling video.

Danté at the Beach: Vice Writ Small

L. G. C. Smith

After staying up late listening to the breakers pound the winter beach while they drank wine, ate chocolate, and attempted to write “just five more words,” Delilah Clare and Cesca Ross snoozed until well past nine, then slowly dragged out of bed to check the sales figures of their self-published books at Amazon.

“Crap,” Delilah muttered. “One lousy book.”

“Well, you only have one book up. And it’s only been up a week.”

“But Bex is selling six hundred a day, and she only has one up. My feelings are wounded. Readers don’t love me. Wah.” Delilah clicked over to check on how many earthquakes there had been overnight. “What have I done wrong?”

“I sold fifty-seven of “Knights of Passion” and twelve of “Miss Partridge’s Folly.” Cesca preened.

“Show-off.”

“Do you want peppermint bark or Loacker cookies with your tea?” Cesca asked kindly.


“Both. Wait. And some of the dark chocolate with caramel and black sea salt. And some protein to balance it all out. Maybe the leftover rib-eye from last night.”

“We ate it all.”

Delilah opened the refrigerator. “So we did. Hmm. Maybe some cold capon.”

“Where did you get a capon?” Cesca asked.

“I know people. There’s gammon, too. Let’s go for a walk on the beach. I want a better look at those surfer boys.”

“Let me get my camera.”

Ten minutes later the intrepid amblers came to a standstill thirty feet away from a pair of young men in wet suits holding surfboards.

“I want the one with the dreads,” Delilah announced.

Cesca raised the camera and the lens zoomed out to its fullest extension. “No. I sold more books. I get him. You can have the one who can actually surf.”

Both writers watched the boy with the dreads to his waist shake them artfully. Several times. Then he tentatively tried to mount his board in an inch of running surf. He skittered five, maybe six feet and fell off. Then he shook his hair again.


Delilah sighed. “The one with the dreads is the best one. I can’t let you have him. I’m going to write a series based on his sexual exploits. You know he has them.”

“I could be one,” Cesca said hopefully.

The writers eventually walked to the rocks at the end of the beach, stared at a tide pool, then returned to their small cottage. The house next door jutted beyond it into the sand, a substantial pile of towers, skylights, and deep porches.


“I wish we had enough money to rent that place for the week,” Delilah fussed. “Look at those people lording it over us, so superior on their deck that’s bigger than our whole cottage.”

The English Lady who owned their cottage sailed out to meet them. “I’m so sorry,” she drawled in a posh accent, “but my insane neighbor who has parking rage is demanding that you move your vehicle. It’s hanging three centimeters over what she perceives as her parking area.”

Delilah moved her car, at which point, the rabid neighbor came tearing out to complain bitterly about the unacceptability of the new parking arrangement.

“You’re blocking stroller access to the beach!” she screamed.

“Do you have a stroller?” The English Lady almost, but didn't quite curl her lip. It was implied.

“No. But I’m going to call the Highway Patrol if you don’t move your car,” the rabid neighbor threatened.

“There’s no place to move it to, you stupid cow,” Delilah told her. “Get a life. Call the Highway Patrol. You’re one of those people that when your call goes in, everyone in the dispatch office’s eyes roll, and the cops draw straws to see who loses and has to deal with you.”

Cesca and Delilah lifted their noses and returned to their tiny cottage.

“Her cottage is smaller,” Cesca pointed out.

“Indeed it is. I’m going to take a nap,” Delilah said. “And then I’m going to read. And then I will write a hundred words for the day.”

“I thought you said you were going to write five thousand,” Cesca reminded her.

“I’ve revised my plan. Being on retreat is making me sleepy. Shall I roast the gammon for dinner?”

Kindle Touch Giveaway...Tell Us Your Resolutions for 2012

Okay, so redirect to this post.

http://www.pensfatales.com/2012/01/kindle-touch-giveawaytell-us-your.html

And leave a comment for a chance to win. :) See details from last Friday.

Happy Friday the 13th.

Love,
The Pens