The Recipe for Drama- REVEALED!!!

Hi friends, it's Jane here again, home from a long week of my "day job" and gearing up to tell my story for an upcoming peer review. I was inspired today on the drive home as I realized there are so many things in this life that fit into the six main points I've outlined below. When I write new characters (that somewhat reflect the real characters I've known, who inspire my writing), I have to think about their motivations. And what motivates people more than conflict?

Enter drama. Drama, drama, drama as we say. When it comes to throwing up roadblocks or setting up situations that can't possibly be resolved in a perfect and complete manner, I have to give credit to some people who've crossed my path, over and over. Well, the light bulb's gone on and I have to say, THANKS! I'll know who to avoid whenever I see these warning signs:

Recipe for Drama

1. Inflexible parameters are a must. Make up lots of obstacles, just because you can, and then tell people whom you've chosen to jump when you command it, "If you can't such-and-such at a time that I find convenient/agreeable/whatever, then you are a despicable person!" Use manipulation to keep people around; they'll be miserable, but they'll stick around! (Until they can find an escape, that is.) (I'm thinking of YOU, Patricia! Do you still read this blog?)
2. Spend your energy telling other people about your problems (instead of working on solutions for your problems) in the hopes that these other people will come along and fix your problems for you. BONUS: if they fail, you have someone else to blame. YES! MORE DRAMA!
3. After spending much time complaining about a problem, wonder why it hasn't magically improved. After all that work you did... complaining. 
4. Make other people feel included and useful; what's the point of having a problem if you can't share it with others? Misery loves company. (Someone I knew in Winterville had lots of problems, including a health problem that racked up a lot of hospital bills. She literally came over to my desk one day and dumped her stack of bills on my desk. I told her to take them and put them somewhere else; I already had no money and a townhouse worth 10 cents with a giant sinkhole in the backyard and hadn't been on a date with a decent man since 2006. I didn't need other people's problems hanging around me too!) (Hi there, Suzie! What can I say? YOU MADE THE LIST!)
5. If your problem persists, realize (and name) all of the things wrong with everyone else involved in the situation. Add this to your complaint rotation and repeat often. If it weren't for everyone else's many flaws, you wouldn't even HAVE that problem in the first place!
6. For extra fun, get upset with people who are unable to READ YOUR MIND!

What can I say, friends? I've learned from the best. 

If I ever shoot you a sunshiney smile, shake my head and say, "I'm sorry about that. I don't know what to tell you," chances are you're being just a TAD bit dramatic and need to chill!

Your amiga,

Jane Q. Phoenix

Well, at least I captured enough conflict to affect one reader...

The author of my story belongs to a writing critique group, and a newcomer who had to cancel attending a recent meeting had this to say about the Jane Phoenix story:

Sorry, I couldn't handle reading the story set in Florida. I just recently moved from Florida and I'd like to forget about my entire experience there.

I don't know about you, but this made us laugh. It's ironic that we want to forget about so much that happened during that time, but yet that's what we're writing about it!
Have a happy weekend, friends!
Jane

My Ears are Burning

One thing I've tried to do throughout life is make my own decisions. I find that when people with vested interests weigh in on an issue, they want you to do what they want you to do. If you truly make a decision, you only have yourself to blame if things go south; you can also give yourself credit for a good decision.

If the Internet weren't such a tattletale, I wouldn't even know anyone back in Winterville cared the slightest bit about how I'm doing. I figure if I'm out of sight, I'm out of mind, but LinkedIn.com reports otherwise. Someone I haven't talked to since 2009 has viewed my profile. In truth, she was a nice person with some miserable and unhappy friends who took some of their anger out on me. Still, I stopped talking to her, knowing that I needed to break with ALL negative influences to create a better future.

That was 5 years ago. In just the past three years, I've changed jobs 2 times, found my handsome prince and married him. One year ago, I took that flying leap and moved across the country. The two years prior to my action-packed three years were preparation: getting permission to sell the money trap house, saving what money I could, and looking for a better-paying job. Of course, other stuff happened too, both good and bad.

The people I knew back in the day who were judgmental and gave me "advice" about how I could follow the scripts they'd written form me were escorted offstage, or left of their own accord. One loony person "confronted" me about how I needed to have a baby (with an ex-boyfriend who was incapable of dialing my number) because she wished she'd done it. I remember her saying, "I've talked it over with my therapist," as part of her explanation.

Long story short, if people from Winterville saw my "I got married" update on LinkedIn, I can only imagine that they are talking with their therapists about it. It's strange that I may have produced fodder for other people to mull over with therapists, though.

I hope that tongues aren't wagging about this; I really do. I hope those formerly unhappy people are now engaged in their own lives and enjoying every moment.

-JQP

Even the Wall Street Journal backs me up here...

When I started having my so-called adventures and dealing with the many problems of everyday life in and around Winterville, Florida, I didn't know (because it was so hard to make friends!) how tough it was for everyone else. But it was. Boy, was it ever. It still is, although I escaped to an oasis in blue briefly before moving to be with Hubbs. Sure, we're back in the desert-colored part of the map, but at least there's two of us and we both work.

See this link:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/12/11/map-where-workers-pay-has-risen-the-most-in-past-decade/?mod=e2fb&mg=blogs-wsj&url=http%253A%252F%252Fblogs.wsj.com%252Fwashwire%252F2014%252F12%252F11%252Fmap-where-workers-pay-has-risen-the-most-in-past-decade%253Fmod%253De2fb

It shows, in increments of 10% by county, the places where worker pay has risen in the past decade or fallen. Ay carumba, no wonder I've barely saved any money in the last 10 years!

See, I wasn't hallucinating. My money bought less and less as time went on! I piled miles onto my car, and had it repaired (at the dealership- although they charged so much more to do things, at least they weren't trying to sell me major repairs that I didn't need all the time! So I appreciated that karma, even though I paid dearly for it!), going back and forth to work for the privilege of being paid so that I could continue the cycle indefinitely and have nothing to show for it (aside from a work history and a few files full of car repair records!) All while my un-working peers in Winterville looked down on me while drinking beer from their front porches all day long. Sigh.

Today it's raining and although I have the day off, there's a lot to do: presents to ship, cards to write, and so on. I might read through the free articles on WSJ.com, which I enjoy sometimes, but they are funny; they always report on Millenials and Baby Boomers, never on my generation in between. I guess it's because my generation can't be tracked as easily as others.

I'll leave you with 2 quotes:
"As Generation Xers, we know how to blend. And by blend, I mean disappear." Hubbs
"A man who has experienced great sorrow, and then has known its end, wakes each morning feeling the pleasure of sunrise" Natasha Solomons

Even though there is no sun out and I overshot dawn by a few hours, I'm happy to be writing to you from my post-Winterville life.

Yours,
Jane

Being committed to an institution

Billy Idol once said that marriage was an institution, and he didn't want to be committed to an institution: a typical Saggittarius punk rocker sentiment, to be sure. Although I was about 14 years old and wanted to marry Billy Idol himself at the time, I appreciated his wit- and still do.

Years later, I'm getting married for real soon, and I'm looking forward to our brief celebration followed by a long weekend away. The decision to marry was an easy one. The terms "obvious" and "no-brainer" have been used to describe it. I don't have any questions about it in theory. It seems like the logical next step.

Creative projects, though, are different. Today was a day I'd waited for all year long- the day when my book-in-progress would be critiqued- and I've come away with a lot of comments- some good, some bad, some ugly. It makes me wonder: do I keep plugging away at this project, or switch to something else? If I don't stick with it, does that show a lack of commitment on my part? Or would it be better for me to go in another direction, let this project marinate for a while, and regroup later?

Commitment is a complex issue with me. How do I figure out what needs my attention now? What stays and what goes? (And now I have that Clash song in my head!) When I wondered earlier what I should do, I didn't get a clear response from my Magic 8 Ball. Well, it did say, "Concentrate and ask again." So that is what I'll do.

But first, I'm giving myself the rest of the day off.

All my best to you.

Yours truly,

Jane and author

Mid-Life Crisis, Anyone?

I am learning through my writing group, where the tale of my mid-life crisis is currently being critiqued (at least the first 150 pages), that one's mid-life crisis is ripe for the picking as far as mining your life for something to write about. At a table of mostly men yesterday, they were all puzzled by one entry from a woman about my age. Why should we root for her? They wondered. Why is she moving to another country with hardly any money? They asked. Why does she have two different last names? Why isn't she working/responsible at 38 years of age?

On my page full of notes for her, I'd scribbled, "Escaping from bad experience with marriage? Mid-life crisis?"

Well, the answer was "Ding, ding, ding."

EVERYONE I know who's over the age of 40 has known this kind of problem. Either following or against what you consider your better judgment, you choose a course of action that totally derails your life, like: getting married when you think it's expected an/or a sensible amount of time has gone by while you've dated someone, whether or not the two of you have the proper ingredients for a marriage that lasts; taking a job that robs you of your personal life, sanity, and health; putting all of your hopes and dreams into that ONE THING that will fix everything in your life, as in: once I get that surgery/ find someone to date/ get a divorce/ buy a house/ get a promotion, then everything in life will make sense and be awesome forever. In my case, it was buying a house on my own in 2007 that dropped to half its value and was riddled with sinkholes in sight of the backyard. (Shoot, it probably had Chinese drywall throughout too but I never found out. I got really sick there, though. Even stranger still, the rental house in New Town has been condemned for mold. When I said a few years ago that I needed to go somewhere to "dry out" I thought I just meant from all the crying. Turns out I knew more than I consciously knew...)

The only exceptions to this rule are the people I knew with small children in their thirties. It seemed to me, at least from the outside, that they were or are able to weather midlife better because they were completely distracted by their children's needs. I can only venture to guess that their karma bill was already paid up or that something wacky will find them down the line. But like I said, these people were few and far between.

I think the urge to escape is connected with the flight or fight response. When we can't fight a foe like the overall American housing market, we have to take to the streets, on wheels or running shoes. In the worst part of my time in Winterville, I had this constant urge to run, but I knew I'd have to run back "home" eventually. Still, the urge to run haunted me. Run away, run quickly away.

It's times like these when I am grateful for all the changes that have manifested in the past two years. My man and I are having our two-year anniversary this month and I couldn't be more thankful for all that we've brought into each others' lives in such a short time. Sometimes I think back on the bad behavior and difficult things I had to endure, and then I realize it's over. Thank goodness.

From a book I recently read (by Natasha Solomons): A man who has experienced great sorrow, and then has known its end, wakes each morning feeling the pleasure of sunrise. 

Here's wishing you all the pleasure of sunrise (or whatever it is right now, wherever you are in the world).

Much love,
Jane and author

Day After Day...

This weekend is affording many of us an extra day to be social or take care of business or do whatever needs to be done, and I am immensely grateful for it- especially since it's novel feedback season with my group and I have a lot of reading to do.

Right now my Jane story is being circulated among some reviewers. I had to submit a minimum of 150 pages but submitted the whole thing- a whopping 300+ pages- to reviewers. (We're not obligated to offer comments beyond 150 pages but I read the whole submissions because, well, I want to know what happens next!)

On a different note, something really strange happened this week. I got word that someone I knew in college passed away at the age of 41 from a fast-growing liver and/or kidney cancer. Given, a friend of his told me that he ignored the symptoms too long, but even so, that's really something to think about. About 20 years ago, I lost one of my uncles to liver cancer (and ensuing complications) a few weeks shy of his 40th birthday, and I thought that was a very rare, isolated incident. Now that it's happened twice in my life, and to people around age 40, I wonder how rare and isolated it really is.

Generally speaking, we could all stand to eat better-quality food. We can visit juice bars and get appliances that help us make really nutritious food at home. We can buy those DETOX teas and bear with the taste, knowing that our liver enzyme numbers will be all the better for having ingested it. Sometimes we need to be reminded to take care of ourselves.

I had a liver enzyme scare about a year ago and had to make some adjustments to my habits and diet:

http://lifeandpocketchange.blogspot.com/2013/11/those-people-back-in-shakespeares-time.html

I even started juicing after I moved to be with Hubbs, and it's a great habit that I will continue.

My liver problem wasn't a life-or-death issue at that point, but we need to be aware of these things. Some problems are hard to fix. Sometimes making a change is like turning a barge around in the ocean: it takes time and a lot of work and of course it isn't easy, either.

My friend from college is someone I haven't seen since the late 90s, whom I associate with that stage of life. Earlier today I thought of the reason/season/lifetime poem: namely, that some people you know for a reason, others just for a season, and some for a lifetime. While we can't stay in touch with everyone we know forever, it's good to have known them. I know he touched a lot of lives in his time on earth and I am sure he's resting in peace now.

If you're reading this today, do me a big favor and go to the doctor for an annual checkup sometime before the end of this year. Get your bloodwork done and make sure that your numbers are OK. If there's anything amiss, do something about it. Make your positive changes, and get your blood checked again after a few months pass. I promise you, you won't regret it.

Much love,
Jane and her author