Go Do Be

GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE GO DO BE

My head swirls.

That song, Under Pressure, which Vanilla Ice sampled for Ice, Ice Baby loops in my brain.  I have just reached a precipice in my career and the best way I have to describe it is the moment right before an orgasm: so full of tension I think I may actually die even though the release is likely a moment away.  That’s how I feel all the time.

No wonder I’m not sleeping well.

For reasons I can’t write about right now (because they are not my secrets to reveal), I am worked up into a tizzy on top of a now-or-never mountain and it’s my turn to jump.  Let me not be so cryptic.

Here’s the ridiculous, God’s honest truth: I lived my life with the utmost confidence that eventually I would be a movie star.  It sounds so silly and I haven’t acted or wanted to act for YEARS, but the residual feeling of waiting to be discovered lingers and has shaped my expectations of life.  For years I have bided my time, waiting for my turn.  I have been patiently confident that eventually the stars would align and my problems would somehow disappear.  I know how juvenile that sounds.  I’ve known how immature and unrealistic that is for a long time, but a little voice inside my head always whispers, Someone wins life’s lotto; why can’t it be you?  Now I am at the point where I’ve realized if I don’t make things happen in my life, then I won’t have them.  The notion of being discovered is both wistful and wasteful; life is what you make of it.

It only took a couple of months of living in LA for me to realize that my Oscar-winning-actress dream no longer fit the woman I had become.  I am a yoga teacher and a writer.  After a personal sample of the superficiality to Hollywood, I quickly let go of my acting dream like the blue eyeshadow of my adolescence.  Fun at the time, but easy to move past.  Unfortunately, my new aspiration also subjects me to the fickleness of discovery: writing.

I have written a memoir, a novel, and a non-fiction book proposal, none of which has been published.  I’ve sent queries, samples and manuscripts to literary agents and have a file of rejections to prove it.  My rejection letters fit into two camps.  One is just a form letter given to all rejects.  Another stack compliments my work with hand-written notes.  You really have something here.  Well-written.  Beautiful.  Stick with this.  The reason for rejection being, you need a platform, or just not for me.   The sting of rejection is cushioned by their compliments, but also searing in frustration.  If my writing is good and my topics are relevant, why can’t I get published?

It all comes down to platform.  I need to build an audience from scratch.  I need to be a marketable brand before any publisher will touch me.  I still believe that some excellent writing will be published without these credentials, but a lot will not.  Before the economic crisis, publishing was already endangered.  Now, it seems like nobody will take a chance.

That was the reason I built mamaguru.  Each article I write is a nail in a two-by-four as I build my platform.  I am no longer the actress waiting to be discovered, but the stagehand building the scenery.  You know what?  I love it!  I love not waiting for someone else to discover me so I can share my ideas.  I love not worrying if what I say will rub someone the wrong way.  I love the immediacy of creation.  I love the small, but encouraging fan mail that comes my way.  I love tackling the creative and technical challenges that come part and parcel with running a website. 

But in the end: it is a platform.  I have something larger to say that needs a book.  I also need an income.  For those reasons I alluded to earlier, I feel an immense amount of pressure to DO IT NOW!  I am working on all fronts: writing another book proposal, revamping this website, writing articles for mamaguru, still trying to lose weight, setting up appearances and trying to market this website, and, I suppose, myself.  I am a heap of exhaustion and exhileration.  In the midst of all of this, I am trying to be a good mama.  My boys grow so quickly and I don’t want to miss a second of it.  They are the reason I work, and it’s important to me that they never get lost in the shuffle.  Without them, there is no mamaguru.

I have never asked anything of you, my dear readers, until now.  But here goes.  Will you help me build this platform?  Please tell your friends in life, on Facebook and Twitter about mamaguru.  If anyone has a contact in publishing, please point them in my direction.  If you have ideas for improving mamaguru or marketing it, please let me know.  Above all else, stand with me on top of this mountain from which I am about to jump.  Watch me.  Cheer for me.  Or, if you dare, jump with me. 

A leap of faith is always an act of discovery.