I love researching the meanings of names, and long before I wrote my first story, I purchased my first book of baby names at a "friends of" book store, where everything was a nickel. I think I was nine years old.
My name means Strong Light, rooting back to the names Mae and Helen. As I have written stories, experienced life, and met others with names stemming from the same root, I have gained a sense of wonder that so much interpretation gets lumped into names, and that the actual personality of the individual can be at such apparent odds to their name, and so diverse from one bearer to the next.
Much of my life, I think it would be safe to say all of my life, I have been strong-willed, but only recently have I learned any sense of strength in which I myself can believe. My mother always interpreted "light" to mean truth; and, certainly, I have exercised a high insistence on truth in others, truth in relationships, and justice; but, again, only recently have I begun to feel that I am, at last, being truthful with myself.
Many months have passed since my last posting to this blog, and it was not through oversight or forgetfulness. I thought of it most days, but something happened just prior to that; some things, actually. It would be fair to say an entire field of lights in my personal universe either exploded, or just went out, all in one moment. My last was a summary of what positive I could take from the experience, but it in no way captures the many conclusions and new vistas that were arrived at.
Most notably, I am out of the Perfection and PR business. You may chuckle, it seems so trite, you know; but wait, this runs deep. You already know what it is, I don't even have to reference the magazines, talk-shows, self-help best sellers, and so on for you to know what I am talking about; it's just that the chuckle and the critical thought is all part of the same package deal of our civilization. It's obligatory, and I forgive you, because I don't have to invest my energies into making sure you think I have all my shit together, or to assure you, repeatedly, that I don't, so that we can strike some sort of rapport over our mutually human condition.
Neither do I feel called upon to go on about the merits that make a sound and happy marriage or friendship; which, before my springtime meltdown, I did. You know, because I felt strongly about it, and had so much light to shed on the subject.
What I have gained is insight into myself, and how my name is yet accurate. My Light could be likened to my attention bandwidth, my Strength to its level of intensity. My attention encompasses my love for others, my interests, curiosities and concerns, and my hunger for insight into others' lives. I was looking, or shining in one direction of darkness so intently, and for so long, soul dilated so as to catch the least glimmer of something, or perhaps someone, so long ago departed that I finally had to conclude not only had it gone, but it had also forgotten I was there, waiting for its return. That light that had propped me up for so long at last burned out.
It was dark, and lonely, and raw for months. But as my sight adjusted, I found beautiful things had been beside me all along, and now relieved of my fixed gaze, I could shine upon them and find my dreams reflected in the present. And so, with only occasional discomforts, I am shedding the persona which I have dubbed Lady High Beams, and I offer my chagrin to anyone I have blinded in the past with my attentions.
I am yet strong, but I am learning to blink, and to rest and look away from others, to grant them peace from my meddling mind.
My daughter was named for me, but she is Light Strong. I think it means she out-watts me by several football stadium light sets. I have to squint when she wants something from me, even though it is a delight to have her about.
In case you were wondering, I do not believe Light should be interpreted to mean truth. That little girl can lie her ass off; and so can I. History, both popular and personal, is littered with the "Helens" who specialized in starting wars with their "Light", and those who have aided and healed through its use.
It is my hope to grow more practiced in the efficacious use of light, strong or otherwise. It can be so disheartening to find one has been shining on nothing, the whole while convinced of a something, and yet linger on, turning back to look and see if it came out when one turned away.
Empty. It was empty all along, and now having resolved that with certainty, I turn my attention only slightly, and can find that my life is full, and I am yet strong and light.
www.MeganCreel.com
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Monday, August 15, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Honesty and Growth
At risk of coming across as Sanctimonious--and wouldn't that make a great handle for a chat room!--I shall now speak upon Honesty and Growth in a character. (I clear my throat, and improve my posture before I speak...)
Do you know, as hard as it is to maintain kindness and compassion for others under duress in real life, it is hardest for me to maintain a sense of kindness and compassion for myself when faced with my own imperfection? Yes, I have come to realize I did not materialize, fully formed and perfect from a sea of Happy Foamy Feelings, and it has all but crushed me to admit it...to myself. I am embarrassed, because everyone around me knew it and loved me anyway, but I seem to be the last one to "know" it, and the fact that my efforts to hide my imperfections from others were wasted just drives me nuts. I am, alas, imperfect and transparent, and I meant to be perfect and impervious to other's examinations.
Thankfully, I have found that I am anything but alone in my imperfection and frustration.
Thus, the next hardest thing for me to experience is picking up some form of entertainment by which to escape or to lift my spirits a bit, and wouldn't you know, the heroine in the piece is frickin' perfect? No, not just skinny, I mean she's small bodied (and I am not), she's never tired (and I am), her choices, both the ones she faces and the ones she makes, do not seem to upset her (oh, ho, and mine sometimes--okay, bullshit--often they do), and, she never seems to experience anything more volatile than annoyance or a pissy sort of vengeance when she encounters a barrier or experiences a disappointment (and I burst into flames and thirst for the ability to vaporize people).
A great escape? Hardly. It's more a magnifying glass turned inward at every fault I find in myself.
And, if possible, it becomes even worse when I put on my Man-Colored-Glasses.
To explain, I consider it an honor and a privilege that certain men in my life have permitted me access to their hearts and minds with exquisite honesty, and from these men I have learned much about present day Honor, Duty, Strength, and, yes, Pain. It is with the viewpoint gained by their concourse that I try to look, and to write with my Man-Colored-Glasses.
When I look at that same entertainment, be it literature or film, even popular music, with my Man-Colored-Glasses, I find "myself" faced with a hero with a big dick, who has a bottomless source of money and a perfectly formed, tall tanned body he doesn't have to sweat for, who can make love in Mandarin, Urdu, English, Swedish, Finnish, French and seven dialects of Spanish, perfectly, all the time, every time, never blowing his load at the wrong time (wrong? Hell, it felt right to me!), who is never tired, never insecure, never bitched at continually by the woman he is with (or women, because, hey, he can have lots of them), and, IF his dreams crash and burn despite his best efforts, he can just move on, sparing one last sort of poignant look at his lost life, before proceeding with that infuriatingly hateful grudge that women find so irresistibly sexy. He's an asshole, and they love it. They eat that shit up like candy. Woo-hoo! What a great release from life.
And "I" will never be like that.
So, I beg the question, do we really want to be? If we just step aside from the Hollywood crap we are spoon fed, and the Western Civ Strong and Independent Contest to which we are carefully indoctrinated; do we really want to be like that?
Hell-to-the-No, is my straight answer.
My big brown ass is delicious, even as much as some travel-size white woman, or a tasty mouthful of Latina, or a lovely golden child of Asia; hot temper, crying spells, mood swings, conflicting feelings and all. And that man over there? The one who isn't six feet tall but he has a great smile and a rather ordinary dick, who works sixty hours a week (or more) and blows his load before five minutes is up because he loves her? He's awesome! Even though he often feels like he isn't enough, that he isn't seen, that he isn't valued as the man he is? Even so, He Rocks.
We're real, people, and we are the heroes and heroines of life. And if we cannot be honest with ourselves, and with our entertainments, our dreams, we cannot grow.
Growth isn't pretty or comfortable. My family once kept a tarantula for almost two years as a pet, and when she grew, her shell ruptured. Say it with me, "Her Shell Ruptured", and she climbed out on weak, wobbly legs and just laid there for days, drying off, hardening up, Completely Vulnerable to death: even the tiny crickets we fed her could have killed her in those days of recovery. She taught me a lot about growth, and when I am having a "spiritual awakening", or a crisis, or a lesson in life (same thing), and I am seething with embarrassment or shame over my weakness, I think of the tarantula: Ruptured. Weak. Then Bigger and Stronger. In that order.
I am going to work on being as kind and forgiving to myself as I am of others; and I am going to keep keeping it real, writing work that puts real people in escapist scenarios, that celebrates what is human and great about them, and what is great about YOU.
Because that would be a treat. That would be some really pleasant entertainment.
--Megan Creel
author, The Companion also available as an ebook at Smashwords and other online retailers.
www.MeganCreel.com
Do you know, as hard as it is to maintain kindness and compassion for others under duress in real life, it is hardest for me to maintain a sense of kindness and compassion for myself when faced with my own imperfection? Yes, I have come to realize I did not materialize, fully formed and perfect from a sea of Happy Foamy Feelings, and it has all but crushed me to admit it...to myself. I am embarrassed, because everyone around me knew it and loved me anyway, but I seem to be the last one to "know" it, and the fact that my efforts to hide my imperfections from others were wasted just drives me nuts. I am, alas, imperfect and transparent, and I meant to be perfect and impervious to other's examinations.
Thankfully, I have found that I am anything but alone in my imperfection and frustration.
Thus, the next hardest thing for me to experience is picking up some form of entertainment by which to escape or to lift my spirits a bit, and wouldn't you know, the heroine in the piece is frickin' perfect? No, not just skinny, I mean she's small bodied (and I am not), she's never tired (and I am), her choices, both the ones she faces and the ones she makes, do not seem to upset her (oh, ho, and mine sometimes--okay, bullshit--often they do), and, she never seems to experience anything more volatile than annoyance or a pissy sort of vengeance when she encounters a barrier or experiences a disappointment (and I burst into flames and thirst for the ability to vaporize people).
A great escape? Hardly. It's more a magnifying glass turned inward at every fault I find in myself.
And, if possible, it becomes even worse when I put on my Man-Colored-Glasses.
To explain, I consider it an honor and a privilege that certain men in my life have permitted me access to their hearts and minds with exquisite honesty, and from these men I have learned much about present day Honor, Duty, Strength, and, yes, Pain. It is with the viewpoint gained by their concourse that I try to look, and to write with my Man-Colored-Glasses.
When I look at that same entertainment, be it literature or film, even popular music, with my Man-Colored-Glasses, I find "myself" faced with a hero with a big dick, who has a bottomless source of money and a perfectly formed, tall tanned body he doesn't have to sweat for, who can make love in Mandarin, Urdu, English, Swedish, Finnish, French and seven dialects of Spanish, perfectly, all the time, every time, never blowing his load at the wrong time (wrong? Hell, it felt right to me!), who is never tired, never insecure, never bitched at continually by the woman he is with (or women, because, hey, he can have lots of them), and, IF his dreams crash and burn despite his best efforts, he can just move on, sparing one last sort of poignant look at his lost life, before proceeding with that infuriatingly hateful grudge that women find so irresistibly sexy. He's an asshole, and they love it. They eat that shit up like candy. Woo-hoo! What a great release from life.
And "I" will never be like that.
So, I beg the question, do we really want to be? If we just step aside from the Hollywood crap we are spoon fed, and the Western Civ Strong and Independent Contest to which we are carefully indoctrinated; do we really want to be like that?
Hell-to-the-No, is my straight answer.
My big brown ass is delicious, even as much as some travel-size white woman, or a tasty mouthful of Latina, or a lovely golden child of Asia; hot temper, crying spells, mood swings, conflicting feelings and all. And that man over there? The one who isn't six feet tall but he has a great smile and a rather ordinary dick, who works sixty hours a week (or more) and blows his load before five minutes is up because he loves her? He's awesome! Even though he often feels like he isn't enough, that he isn't seen, that he isn't valued as the man he is? Even so, He Rocks.
We're real, people, and we are the heroes and heroines of life. And if we cannot be honest with ourselves, and with our entertainments, our dreams, we cannot grow.
Growth isn't pretty or comfortable. My family once kept a tarantula for almost two years as a pet, and when she grew, her shell ruptured. Say it with me, "Her Shell Ruptured", and she climbed out on weak, wobbly legs and just laid there for days, drying off, hardening up, Completely Vulnerable to death: even the tiny crickets we fed her could have killed her in those days of recovery. She taught me a lot about growth, and when I am having a "spiritual awakening", or a crisis, or a lesson in life (same thing), and I am seething with embarrassment or shame over my weakness, I think of the tarantula: Ruptured. Weak. Then Bigger and Stronger. In that order.
I am going to work on being as kind and forgiving to myself as I am of others; and I am going to keep keeping it real, writing work that puts real people in escapist scenarios, that celebrates what is human and great about them, and what is great about YOU.
Because that would be a treat. That would be some really pleasant entertainment.
--Megan Creel
author, The Companion also available as an ebook at Smashwords and other online retailers.
www.MeganCreel.com
Friday, January 28, 2011
Loving Versus Living
Why would I counterpose Loving and Living, as if they are in contest one with the other? Isn't Romance all about "living with love", or being in love for the rest of one's life, or some other such thing?
First things first: The way I see it, Love and Live (short i sound) are active verbs, not passive, just to get down to grammatical "tacks".
We have all met the person to whom life is happening: The bills were late, the job was lost, their lucky break got broke, and then, God help us, they fell in love (like falling into a bucket of vomit) and caught pregnant. Their cries ring through the night, running up phone bills and running out patience: "I don't know how it happened!"
This is passive Love and passive Living: it happens to them, and good or bad, they are its victim. There is no contest because they are not doing anything. The only thing more tiresome than reading such a story is witnessing it firsthand, or worse, living the nightmare.
What fun is that? Where is the adventure, the growth, the lessons learned? In short, where is the "story" in that?
Now, if we take the word Live and define it as "that succession of decisions and actions one makes toward desired goals and purposes," we have an active verb, and one which lends itself to the creation of a good story, to say nothing of an interesting life.
With that basis in mind, we can define Love, actively, as "the willing extension of grace, tolerance, and affinity to another or others, whether deserved or undeserved, and regardless of their receipt or reciprocity of such."
Immediately, we can see an interplay of these two actions, which can be in apparent conflict, one with the other, or in harmony, or in a state of non-interaction. One can observe that it is possible to live without love, or to love without living; but it isn't as much fun.
To be succinct, "True Love" is an act of faith which one can extend over and over again, and to multiple persons. It not only survives but supersedes time, space, and separation. It is not inherently sexual, but it is inherently spiritual.
To tell the story of how two people LIVE through possibly crushing situations, with all the unpredictable variety and outcomes of others' choices, and who yet find within themselves the personal strength to engage in the ultimate act of personal confidence and belief--to LOVE, also, not only thrills, but enriches reader and writer alike.
Loving Versus Living. How is the contest going for you?
--M
Romance for Smart Chicks (and Enlightened-And-Therefore-Totally-Hot Guys).
www.MeganCreel.com
First things first: The way I see it, Love and Live (short i sound) are active verbs, not passive, just to get down to grammatical "tacks".
We have all met the person to whom life is happening: The bills were late, the job was lost, their lucky break got broke, and then, God help us, they fell in love (like falling into a bucket of vomit) and caught pregnant. Their cries ring through the night, running up phone bills and running out patience: "I don't know how it happened!"
This is passive Love and passive Living: it happens to them, and good or bad, they are its victim. There is no contest because they are not doing anything. The only thing more tiresome than reading such a story is witnessing it firsthand, or worse, living the nightmare.
What fun is that? Where is the adventure, the growth, the lessons learned? In short, where is the "story" in that?
Now, if we take the word Live and define it as "that succession of decisions and actions one makes toward desired goals and purposes," we have an active verb, and one which lends itself to the creation of a good story, to say nothing of an interesting life.
With that basis in mind, we can define Love, actively, as "the willing extension of grace, tolerance, and affinity to another or others, whether deserved or undeserved, and regardless of their receipt or reciprocity of such."
Immediately, we can see an interplay of these two actions, which can be in apparent conflict, one with the other, or in harmony, or in a state of non-interaction. One can observe that it is possible to live without love, or to love without living; but it isn't as much fun.
To be succinct, "True Love" is an act of faith which one can extend over and over again, and to multiple persons. It not only survives but supersedes time, space, and separation. It is not inherently sexual, but it is inherently spiritual.
To tell the story of how two people LIVE through possibly crushing situations, with all the unpredictable variety and outcomes of others' choices, and who yet find within themselves the personal strength to engage in the ultimate act of personal confidence and belief--to LOVE, also, not only thrills, but enriches reader and writer alike.
Loving Versus Living. How is the contest going for you?
--M
Romance for Smart Chicks (and Enlightened-And-Therefore-Totally-Hot Guys).
www.MeganCreel.com
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Who Am I Talking To?
Who am I talking to? Smart Chicks.
And, I suppose, if a Smart Chick happens to be A Highly Educated Woman as well, the question is more properly stated, "To Whom Am I Speaking?".
But, to clarify, "Smart" ain't the same as "Educated", and the former may or may not embrace the latter. Smart, according to Webster, means "mentally bright and alert", it also means "intelligent". Brightness is indicative of how awake someone's mind is, and intelligence has to do with judgement and the solving of problems. "Educated", on the other hand, has to do with the mental storage of data and the acquisition of "papers", titles, degrees and such. Some of the dullest people I know are super educated, and some of the smartest were drop-outs.
"Romance for Smart Chicks" describes, therefore, imaginative stories about love and sex for women who are Awake, Aware, and Grown-up. (Incidentally, the stories are also for men who are Awake, Aware, Grown-up and who are interested in Awake, Aware and Grown-up women. But slogans must be brief.)
When I recently surveyed women who read romance as to what they like to read about, one woman replied that she no longer read the genre. When asked why, she said, "I guess I grew up." My initial response was a sort of shocked sadness, thinking her belief was that romance, as an idea, was for the naive or young. But, on closer questioning, I found that it was the typical romance book that was being regarded as juvenile. I couldn't agree more!
Most romance books feature a spoiled, critical, drama queen as the "strong" heroine. Ha! Strong like pet urine!
In life, real romance--the kind that sustains a couple through years if not decades of challenges--requires strength of character, not merely strength of assertions. This is "grown up"; but it need not be depicted as boring, dour-faced, duty.
One mustn't forget the factor of quality. How would you like to meet the one who sees you for who you really are, and finds you most admirable? How would you like to fall in love, every day, with the same person? How would you like to be physically, emotionally and mentally stirred by your life partner?
Wouldn't that be an exquisite fantasy by today's standards?
Romance for Smart Chicks. Real. Hot. Fresh.
On sale, today. www.MeganCreel.com
And, I suppose, if a Smart Chick happens to be A Highly Educated Woman as well, the question is more properly stated, "To Whom Am I Speaking?".
But, to clarify, "Smart" ain't the same as "Educated", and the former may or may not embrace the latter. Smart, according to Webster, means "mentally bright and alert", it also means "intelligent". Brightness is indicative of how awake someone's mind is, and intelligence has to do with judgement and the solving of problems. "Educated", on the other hand, has to do with the mental storage of data and the acquisition of "papers", titles, degrees and such. Some of the dullest people I know are super educated, and some of the smartest were drop-outs.
"Romance for Smart Chicks" describes, therefore, imaginative stories about love and sex for women who are Awake, Aware, and Grown-up. (Incidentally, the stories are also for men who are Awake, Aware, Grown-up and who are interested in Awake, Aware and Grown-up women. But slogans must be brief.)
When I recently surveyed women who read romance as to what they like to read about, one woman replied that she no longer read the genre. When asked why, she said, "I guess I grew up." My initial response was a sort of shocked sadness, thinking her belief was that romance, as an idea, was for the naive or young. But, on closer questioning, I found that it was the typical romance book that was being regarded as juvenile. I couldn't agree more!
Most romance books feature a spoiled, critical, drama queen as the "strong" heroine. Ha! Strong like pet urine!
In life, real romance--the kind that sustains a couple through years if not decades of challenges--requires strength of character, not merely strength of assertions. This is "grown up"; but it need not be depicted as boring, dour-faced, duty.
One mustn't forget the factor of quality. How would you like to meet the one who sees you for who you really are, and finds you most admirable? How would you like to fall in love, every day, with the same person? How would you like to be physically, emotionally and mentally stirred by your life partner?
Wouldn't that be an exquisite fantasy by today's standards?
Romance for Smart Chicks. Real. Hot. Fresh.
On sale, today. www.MeganCreel.com
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