Fireworks on Monday? Why not?!

It's a gorgeous Monday here in NYC. Sure doesn't feel like December, since it's about 60 degrees.

Some people have asked me why I'm not trying to get my works published via the traditional publishing route.

I have a simple answer for that: I don't have time.

I want to write and then share what I write with readers like you. If I waited for a traditional publisher to discover me ... well, it could happen (and it still might), but that industry is so complex, I wouldn't have any idea how to navigate it.

And there's another reason, which I wrote about a few days ago. I love being part of the digital publishing revolution. The Internet has opened doors to self-publishing, so even by writing and publishing this blog post I'm doing something that couldn't have happened before the WWW.

How are you a part of the digital publishing revolution?

• Do you read books by self-published authors? 
• Do you read individuals' blogs? 
• Do you write a blog or eBooks, yourself?

Then yes, you are part of the revolution!

Lots of people are now able to share the beauty and creativity they have inside. Thinking about that reminded me of Katy Perry's song, "Firework." Enjoy!

"Life of Pi": I am the tiger

What a wonderful movie experience this was: miraculous, beautiful, thought-provoking, involving.

"Life of Pi" is so visually stunning, I want to dream about it every night for the rest of my life. I'm totally serious.

While I do go to the movies regularly, I don't often recommend them. I do recommend "Life of Pi," preferably seen in a theater and with 3D (and I normally can't stand 3D, by the way).

If you haven't read the novel, as I hadn't, I won't give anything away here. All I will say is that the movie must be approached from the part of yourself that hasn't fallen victim to cynicism. With everything that's going on in the world, it's easy for us to forget how amazing life can really be. Even when things are bleak, we can find a light somewhere, somehow.

There was a point when I was watching the movie where I truly felt a connection to what was happening onscreen. The young man is facing a life-or-death situation, over which he has virtually no control. Everything is stacked against him.

I've been in that situation, myself. Like the young man, I lost everything -- everything except the essence of my "self," the part of me that can withstand such a loss and continue to battle for whatever remains of my life.

I still fight this battle every day, and it's in my fiction writing that I've found a renewed sense of who I am and what I might contribute to this world. It may be a small contribution, but it's one that I can make.

Seeing this life-or-death struggle played out in such a visually magnificent way was very moving to me.  Because I feel that tiger spirit within myself.

No, that's not quite right.

I don't just feel the tiger spirit. I am the tiger.

How my Saturday got wrecked

I know, it's usually the Sunday blues you get before you have to go back to work the next day.

Well, the blues hit me today. I think I know why. And it's not just because of the rain we had, either.

When you're finally doing something you really enjoy -- for me, it's writing these short stories for Kindle -- it's really tough to think about what you HAVE to do (like, oh, make a living doing something else entirely).

Can you relate?

Maybe you have a hobby you wish you could turn into a business, so you could do it all the time instead of just on the weekends.

Maybe you're like me and have finally found something truly fun and satisfying that uses your best skills, and you're trying to devote all your "off" time to it -- so it can bring you income as well as a happier daily life. At least, that's my goal.

The thing about writing -- and maybe this is true for whatever you're interested in -- is that it doesn't understand the 9-to-5 clock. I'll be sitting at work in my office, which is literally smaller than a cubicle with no windows and a beige wall as my view, and I'll get struck by a new twist for The Pandora Chronicles and need to write it down. I sneakily pull up Google Drive on my computer and type it into a document I have saved for such moments. I've also become quite adept at concealing my Pandora notes while paying attention in business meetings.

So anyway, why did the blues hit me today? Because I felt such joy in working on the third Pandora Chronicles story for awhile, and I realized that I felt such ... "non-joy" yesterday at my job.

I don't want to feel such "non-joy" anymore. (I'm hesitating to call this feeling what it really is, because the word is just too awful to say out loud, even on a blog.)

And unfortunately, that realization today sent me into a funk. I did work on story no. 3, but then I cleaned the apartment, picked up the dry cleaning, and finally holed up in the bedroom knitting and watching "Disappeared" via Netflix streaming on my iPhone.

Oh, and then I wrote this blog post.

That's how my Saturday got wrecked: realizing how much of my Monday-through-Friday life is spent on non-joyful activities.

I gotta change that. Like, fast. Can you relate?