Is That So?

Ready for your daily dose of Zen?

Just a quick FYI, I'm back to doing yoga and dabbling in raw foods, so....this may have influenced my blog post for today.

Anyway....

"Is That So" is this fabulous zen story that can totally be applied to the writing life. Let me show you.

Here's the story. (warning, I've Frankie-fied it)

Once upon a time there was this zen master, and he was totally pure and stuff with an awesome reputation in his village. Until one day some teen girl got pregnant and decided to tell her parents that the zen master was her baby-daddy!

Well....this caused quite a stir in the village and her parents went right to the zen master and told them what they thought of his baby-daddying ways.

And the zen master said, "Is that so?"

Later when the baby was born, the girl's parents decided the zen master should take responsibility for his sperm and keep the baby. And as they handed the baby over...

The zen master said, "Is that so?"

Anyway some more time passed and finally the girl decided she couldn't lie anymore and fessed up that a boy from the village got her preggers and the zen master was totally innocent. So the parents went to retrieve the baby from the zen master and apologized profusely and ....

The zen master said... (everybody with me now!) "Is that so?"

What's my point?

I don't really think zen masters appreciate being mistaken for the baby-daddy of an underage girl. Nor was he expecting to play single daddy for a year and then have his "son" ripped away. BUT....the whole time, throughout everything that was happening, he just went with it and stayed calm and kept everything cool and collected. He stayed constant.


Zen and Writing

Ah....I'm getting to my point. Ok! So I think as writers we naturally have a lot of HIGHs and a LOT of LOWS. And we allow those highs (I finished a draft!!! I got an agent!!!! OMG I GOT A MAJOR BOOK DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) to influence us and become the only times we feel happy and satisfied.

You spend your time waiting for the next big thing, the next big piece of news, the next successful accomplishment and miss out on the whole experience of writing and compared to this days when you're high, you can feel really really low.

Also, who wants to spend so many days feeling miserable or not excited about writing?

If you think about it like that, writing days are 95% low and 5% high--because you can only get so many book deals and movie deals a year---right?

So if we all took a little lesson from our Zen Master, we might be well....more zen about this whole thing.

So the next time you write a sucky draft, instead of beating yourself with a red marker, you can just think, "is that so?"

And when you get a major book deal, you can also say, "Is that so?"

It's about finding balance and zen through every step of the way and not getting caught up in the highs and lows.

I hope you enjoyed your moment of zen today :-)

I knew my degree in religious studies would be useful now and then.

P.S. I just added "nutrition professor" to my resume.

Is that so?

Why yes...yes it is:-)

P.P.S. In truth, my reaction to selling my book will not be, "Is that so?" It will probably be more like....SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

P.P.P.S. THAT is so.