the pain of discipline...

I'm making a little collage and I need some help. Anyone interested?



Let me back up a bit and explain what I'm doing. I promised myself I'd do a lot of things when school started back up and the Great RC Dust Storm of 2008 began settling. I would go to the gym. (Yeah, right). I would start in on home projects. (See previous editorial comment - then double it). I had high hopes that something productive could actually happen in those areas. But I'm willing to put those things on the back burner for the moment, because the project I really want to happen more than anything else is for me to try writing this book that I feel I have burning at me. I've spent the summer pondering the universe and filling countless pages with notes and ideas. Now it's time to put my money where my mouth is.



And for the most part I think I'm ready. I wasn't ready earlier. I found that it was really hard to write about something as I was living it. I needed a little distance and a little clarity. I'm on that road now, and have been for a while. It's time. However, I need a little kick in the pants. And that's where the collage comes in. I want to make a kind of motivational visual that I can put where I normally write, just to help keep me on track. And keep me going when I want to stop or I feel overwhelmed. And to remind me of how very much I want this.



I have a few things in mind already. I've saved a tattered LA Times clipping of Brandi Chastain from the 1999 Women's World Cup for years. (This picture also reminds me that we could have gone to this game and didn't, but that's a whole other story). I also have a clipping of Kim Basinger when she won her Oscar, and she's looking at Alec Baldwin backstage with this absolutely indescribable expression on her face that almost moves me to tears. And I don't even like Alec Baldwin. (Neither does she, come to think of it). And, of course, I have some quotes.



The pain of discipline is far less than the pain of regret.



The best way to predict the future is to invent it.



And, of course, my mantra at the moment from Nora Ephron's Heartburn:



Vera said: "Why do you feel you have to turn everything into a story?"


So I told her why:


Because if I tell the story, I control the version.


Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.


Because if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much.


Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.



I'm ready to get on with it. And if you have an idea for my motivational board I'd really like to hear it.