100 Years and Beyond... Will your work last that long? It can if you make your imagination real.

100 Years and Beyond... Will your work last that long? It can if you make your imagination real.

Yeah, it's true. I'll jog and blog anywhere (and even get an idea from looking at a rock - LOL). I have stopped here a few times. I like this spot. It's very quiet... I'm trying to learn New Jersey because I've been neglecting my cousins and friends there. Seems I keep passing through to go other places and they miss me... I miss them too (sigh). We're bugging each other about copyrights and contracts today. I may have to do a sleep-over soon...

Busy, busy, busy, busy... Everyone is friggin' busy. We creative cousins think we'll always have time to catch up so we keep putting stuff off until next time. Seems we have discovered we don't have enough time for anything anymore because we've become project-centric. I plan to play hookie and will be taking a time-out tomorrow to veg out and simply read (and pretend not to be so friggin' busy - silly grin). Kick starting your imagination can come from anything that makes you think. I'm looking for a good book to help me escape from reality for a couple of hours and give the cartoons in my head something to do so I don't have to think. I've been thinking entirely too much lately.

Albert Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." I have problems I need to solve so I'm going to stop thinking and go play (LOL). I think better when I play. It's a creative thing. Einstein stopped to play for a couple of hours every day. It relaxed his mind so he could think, hence my predilection for embracing the fun and the silly like a little kid. :-)  

Right now I'm goofing off and on with Alicia in Facebook about building up her websites when not spoofing with my hubby in Skype with the kids. I'm doing late night in Starbucks while I blog/write/answer e-mail. Alicia is working on a new author site. I'm trying to keep her blogging... (I try to make everyone blog - it's a weakness of mine - silly grin). She needs to add audio to her website because she likes to sing but I don't use the platform she's on so I'm bummed out about the fact that I can not help her at this time. I guess I'm gonna have to learn her platform because chicka needs her audio (and I have got to finish her album).

Since Amy Winehouse died today my Facebook peeps and I have been talking about the fact that we need to stop acting like death can't suddenly happen to one of us. Winehouse died at the tender age of 27 at her London, UK home. The music she struggled to create wasn't an easy creative gig. She worked really hard at it so if you have a dream you should just go out and do it as best you can (like Amy) and enjoy the people you meet along the way.

Make your imagination real in your books and on your blogs and create something people can discover and enjoy... Create something that will live beyond you... What is Intellectual Property? According to the government: "It is imagination made real. It is the ownership of dream, an idea, an improvement, an emotion that we can touch, see, hear, and feel. It is an asset just like your home, your car, or your bank account."

As silly as I am on my blogs, I do realize that at some point the wee people and hubby are going to own my electronic diary and all of my intellectual property. Those copyrights are part of my estate. All of that collective gibberish I'm making tangible across the Internet and in brick and mortar establishments are going to last long after I'm gone. A series of books are in draft/edit/re-write stages. The photographs are being sorted for coffee books. My art is being sorted for all sorts of interesting mischief and my music is streaming live across the globe 24/7/365 because of iTunes, Amazon and Jango (and 20 other professional entities). I am virtually drowning in paperwork...

The paralegal stuff is being gathered and expanded for Kindle Singles... There's a massive behind the scenes effort going on to get me to behave and finish three novels, one novella, one graphic novel and a script. I'm also being tortured into writing short stories for the writer's workshop and the wee people are creating children's books with me (which is mad fun because my kids and I are crazy together - LOL). There is even a real estate book shaping up out of my blog/notes from hell (Yeah, I'm being audited by crazy editing people reading the serious stuff that sneaks into my blogs once in a while - LOL).

I write across 45 websites so there's a lot of original material floating through cyberspace with my name on it. On ActiveRain I've created 1,301 posts (and counting) so the Internet is practically littered with me and mine sharing  just about anything (thank you RSS feeds - LOL).

Lately, I've been chatting about the books I'm reading because I have books on the brain while working with a cool team of people to create some. The more my writing mentors dig around in my stuff the more I get smacked upside the head for not writing something seriously sooner. They believe I can do this so I believe I can do this.

Problem is, sometimes while I'm in "creative mode" I do not want to think about "executive functions." I don't want to read a two hundred page contract (I read them all but I'd rather not - sigh). It can be exhausting trying to hang on to your copyrights when people keep trying to infringe upon them... Permission and licensing are two different things and people who do not do what I do usually do not understand what it's like to constantly have to explain why A can use something but B can't. They get mad if I close an e-mail account or turn off my phone and start state hopping to escape their creative bit of aggravation or work on other projects I have non-disclosure agreements for they are not a part of but want to be.

Controlling access and degrees of contact can be tricky sometimes when your projects start bleeding into each other and people start overlapping. Mentor A may start screwing with Mentor B's domain, Editor C wants more time than Editor D and then the anti-fun starts because some people like collecting "executive functions." Making decisions and controlling schedules is a "power thing" with some people (sigh). I'm bad. I wake up. I read e-mail. I say yes, no, maybe then dive into my day not really caring who can or can't reach me as long as I have contact with hubby and the kids. Direct result? Now I play catch me in social media if you can games (LOL).

I was thinking about what Penelope Trunk said about her executive function issues: "The issue here is executive function. People with Asperger's have terrible executive function. We cannot stay focused on the thing that is most important. We are easily distracted by what is most interesting. This is a low-level problem for everyone. But for someone with Asperger's it means forgetting to respond to someone who says, "Hi, how are you?" or, literally, burning down the house."

I am very easily distracted by what is most interesting because I am easily amused and crave entertainment (LOL). Miss P is very entertaining and a very smart cookie. I like entertaining writers I actually learn something from. I rarely comment on her blog but lurk there a lot. :-)

It's time for me to get back to my recreational reading for Book Club. I'm two contracts down and one more to read, then veto (I'm in "only license" mode right now - LOL).

I started reading Jeaniene Frost last night. The title Happily Never After cracked me up so I figured spending the $1.99 in Kindle wouldn't kill me (silly grin). That was an interesting little collection of short stories. I pre-ordered Devil To Pay right after reading it because I find her writing style kinda cool and I figure I'll probably plow through Every Night Huntress book she's written before the August Devil To Pay release. I habitually speed read and love books but sometimes it's like a curse because I frequently plow through authors once I decide I like them.

I'm reading Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, Book 1) because I like the reviews and Vicki Pettersson recommends the series so I'm finishing this puppy tonight. :-)

I've read almost every book in my neighborhood library (not an easy feat - LOL) and will re-read my collections looking for stuff I may have missed once I've gotten to the end of a series. I think that's why I'm so fascinated with urban fantasy writers because you never really understand the whole growth arch of a character until you get to the end of the run. Until recently they were not on my reading-radar but now I'm hanging out in three book clubs reading my a$$ off while waiting for Kim, Vicki and Jocelynn to write something new. Yup. Read every last one of 'em and now suffer from withdrawal (LOL).

Gave away my Dean R Koontz collection to my neighbor. He is a book hound too. It took us a while to figure out how to make his Kindle work but once we did it was nice to pop over and compare collections with him and his wife. I don't have a Kindle but I do use their app on my laptop and Droid. I keep my fave authors with me everywhere I go. I like being amused while in line waiting for stuff (LOL). ;-)

Promised Em I'd check in with an update: Today was a paint day. I've been hauling canvas, gal pals and paint around for weeks. We had a nice jog, posed for each other while sketching and created a wee bit of mischief down I-95 (LOL). We're scouting film locations out of state and I'm on countdown for a FL vacation. I want to be a beach bum with the wee people very soon. I just have three more business meetings and I'm soooooo out of here. Before I go I will hand off some artwork to a few peeps on my creative waiting list. She's been a very good sport about what I've been doing with all those sketchpads and canvas (and has not peeked once regarding her stuff - chicka deserves a peek - LOL).