bookbeard

Day 90: Whisker Wisdom

Crazy, lush, thick, swirly, swaying and surging ... Day 90 saw the bookbeard in full bloom ... really an odd but great metaphor for my life and stuff I'm trying to take on and create in '07 and beyond.

But sorry. No news of three book contracts to share today, though I am excited to share and make the most of the incredible things I learned during my 90-day run of writing, not writing, decembering and growing a bookbeard – a new-found Whisker Wisdom of sorts. Might be blindingly obvious to some. So much of it was totally new to me.

Whisker Wisdom #1: There's a message in all that tugging, twirling & itching.

From the get go, I always wondered whether growing my bookbeard was an authentic manifestation of being creativity or a brilliant diversion not be creativity? As the weeks rolled on, I heard myself talking more about the damn beard that the actual writing projects. I found myself staring at my beard in the mirror more than I was staring at fresh drafts of my stories. I found myself  hiding behind lovely compliments like "you look more and more like a writer every day" even though my productivity was sliding. (Ya, I know that's one accurate definition of a writer, but not the want I want to go with.)

Don't get me wrong. The early conversations about beards, books and surprisingly more black hair than grey were very stimulating! But at the end of the day, only one thing really started to matter: did I get it down on paper or not.

Whisker Wisdom #2: Whiskers grow faster than words if you don't keep up.

Sure I've been writing. Just not on my bookbeard's 90-day schedule. And I'm ok with that. I thought of letting the beard grow so I could catch up with the words in January, but I decided not to. Just by playing the bookbeard game, I created a ton – way more than most other 90-day periods in my life. Some of what I created were more distractions and excuses for not doing the real writing. But in the bigger picture of creativity, all of my writing projects flourished in ways I could never have imagined Oct. 1.

Whisker Wisdom #3: Bookbeards attract a crowd.

Probably the coolest part of this crazy little journey: meeting so many powerful new people who I know I'll somehow collaborate with on my deeper creative journey in '07. I can't tell you how many conversations and possibilities shifted from "How long have you been out of prison?" to "Wow, I'm creating stuff like that, too!" Amazing.

Whisker Wisdom #4: Let a great idea get hold of you and carry you where you're intended to go.

They're Wayne Dyer's words and here's how they hit me ... I went into my bookbeard experience with a pretty tight picture of what I wanted to complete by Dec. 31. One kids' picture book, one simple book of poetry and one frank book. I had very specific images in my head of exactly what each of these would look like. But that turned out to be a joke. We barely have any idea of what the next five minutes are going to look like never mind three creative projects that touch me at the core of my being in so many ways. This learning in itself inspired the start of a new Washer Fluid poem, or a song, or a something. Still working on the guitar chords since I  haven't played forever – but here's a snippet of what's bubbling so far ...

Whisker Wisdom #5: Jump straight to the creative.

(Thank you, Elissa! You really busted this wide open for me.) In the 10 years we've been friends, I've often heard Elissa say, "Sorry, I jump straight to the creative ..." when she's struck by total inspiration and starts grooving on brilliant creative ideas during a so-called "strategic meeting" with one of our marketing clients.

Apologize? Never again I hope. Jumping straight to the creative is the thing. There are all kinds of distractions, diversions, excuses, insecurities, plans, contingenicies and bookbeards that can show up in that space, in those nanoseconds that precedes creative breakthroughs. And sometimes, those are the things that can shut down your creativity.

Whisker Wisdom #6: Gratitude.

Who would've known growing a beard could be such a rewarding experience?

So thank you bookbeard, JP and Elissa for snapping all those crazy pictures ... and all the amazing new people I met on account of having to explain that I'm not a hunter, I'm a writer.

Off with the beard and on with the writing. Finally wash that damn orange shirt. Cut straight to the creative. That's my commitment moving forward. Less talk. Fewer self-created distractions. More passion. More creativity. More trust in the white-hot, universal creative spirit.

Look forward to co-creating all of it with all of you!

Bookbeard Bonus: Hey, just thought of something ... I've got a little book right here! This counts, right? I can print The Bookbeard Blog as a book and notch another one to my list! So much of life already is written, isn't it.

Day 88: Motion-Activated

Couldn't help but fall in love with the profound simplicity of this device. Decide you want one, wave your hand underneath and presto! Your paper towel arrives. An elegant lesson for me about being more clear about the stories I want to write next year and taking simple, real action to make them appear.

Day 78: December Diversions

Now I know why they schedule NaNoWriMo (the 50,000-word monthly book-writing event) in November: there are way less diversions to contend with than compared to say a month like December! My own daily writing practice is based on kicking out 1,000 words in about 30 minutes, but "daily" is the operative word. This month has clearly been consumed by all things silver, green and red ... not much black showing up on the page.

Yet as much as I want to point to all the merriment of the month as a legitimate excuse for losing a little steam on my writing projects, I'm struck by something David Hawkins writes in Power vs. Force: "All problems are merely artifacts of a point of perception."

Yikes! Does he mean that all my "diversions" are self-created? Even December? Definitely.

Of course it's easy (and fun!) for me to complain about the hustle and bustle of all things December, but I have a choice, don't I? I started my damn bookbeard on October 1st. I knew December would be a blizzard of activity. But did I really clear the way in advance to make room for the writing time I knew I'd need in the final stretch of writing three books? Nope.

But that's ok. Chock it up to my new-found whisker wisdom, that is, when one decides to grow a bookbeard, the whiskers are likely to grow faster than the words if you don't keep up.

Day 60: Day 100?

I'm cranking but thinking, ok – I may have to slightly extend my 90-day deadline to meet all my goals. So what does the future look like? Got a glimpse from Elissa who shared this TV commercial with JP and I today. Click here to watch it.

Day 54: Thanksgiving Delay

It's pretty amazing to me how I resist writing when huge swaths of unscheduled time suddenly appears in front of me. Like today for instance. My daughters are with their mom's side of the family enjoying Thanksgiving together. My mom's out with friends from her apartment. Many of my friends are with their family and friends. That leaves me and my dog, Lucky. To write. Alone. All day. With nothing else to do. Just write. For the whole day. Pure writing. Ya. That's it. So start writing.

If only it were that simple.

(Now here come the excuses – an especially heavy serving in honor of the day.)

I really should bag some more leaves.
Do I have enough firewood for the winter?
Shouldn't I go to church this afternoon?
Is that water leaking from the gutters? They really should be cleaned out.
Geez, maybe I should hang out with some friends later on.
Let's see, what could I start preparing for dinner now?
Writing alone by myself on Thanksgiving Day: isn't that weird?

So I lambasted myself with these types of questions for a while – a long while actually – then got down to it. And it turned into a pretty good writing day.

Always amazes me ... the stuff some part of my brain cooks up to keep me from doing what I love. That's the weird part.

Day 51: Who Made Up This Crazy Schedule Anyway?

Think. Think. Think. Write. Write. Write. Tweak. Tweak. Tweak. Think. Think. Think. Write. Write. Write. Tweak. Tweak. Tweak. Been pushing pretty hard lately. And a lot of everyday life keeps showing up to slow things down – which has been making me even more tense. Kid's hockey. Billable work. Raking leaves. Unexpected trips to the ER on account of one of my daughters drop-kicking her sister and snapping her wrist. Replacing the broken doorbell. (Well of course I also create writing distractions every chance I get!)

But rather than go totally nuts about my 90-day schedule, I'm feeling a new calm wash over me these days. I'm not done for yet – I still have another productive 39 days to go! – but I'm easing up on the pressure I've been putting on myself. And I want to thank A.C. Ping for that. In his book, Faith, he has a chapter titled "Spirit knows the fastest way." In it he writes:

"If you are a control freak like me, you may have already worked out your ideal Vision and decided all by yourself EXACTLY how you are going to get there. You may have specific goals for when you are going to achieve each point along the journey. You may even have things worked out week-by-week (or whisker-by-whisker!) in a fixed schedule that tells you what, how, and when you will be doing specific things. Do you really think you can dictate your life like that? Do you really think you can tell the universal creative spirit or God when and how things will happen? I mean seriously, get a grip here!"

Thanks A.C. I needed that. The journey's the thing. Enjoy it. Keep moving. Pack a schedule if you must, but don't let it work against you if you lose your way from time to time. That's where the real magic and adventure is, right? I think A.C. would agree since he shares this quote from Annie Dillard in his book:

"The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself like a once blind man unbound."

Ahhhhh, feeling much better now ...

Day 48: A Little Lithuanian Inspiration

Day 42: Thank God for Deadlines

Our application to present "frank" at a Web 2.0 Expo next April was due yesterday. Thank god. It made us lock down and crank out our book outline and post it on frank's website for the conference people to check out. (Hope you do, too!) Feels totally amazing to have our book outlined a few days before the halfway point of our book-writing journey. And thank you to all of our clients who wrote such inspiring stories about all the work we've co-created together so far.

Day 37: Early ToeJam Chapters

Wow. Yesterday was a great writing day – and one that almost wasn't! I had the whole day saved to go nuts on T-Jam since I owed my writing class a revised manuscript on wednesday, but I started my day snooping around online. Big mistake. I started coming across a few other toenail stories – even an old Sega game about "ToeJam & Earl." It all really freaked me out for a while because I got that "it's-been done-so -I'm -done" nauseous feeling. But luckily I said, "Screw it all!" I planned a day of writing,  interviewing and hanging with Toe-Jam, so that's what I'm going to do. I accepted that I'll have several revisions to make to book titles, character names and storylines, ducked my head into the stiff wind of doubt whipping up and had a great writing day in the end.

So have a listen to the first couple chapters I wrote and flip through a few fun illustrations I imagine going with this story. (I'd love to hear what you think so far!)

Meanwhile I'll be reminding myself that the writing journey is the thing. Focus on that, love it, have fun with it ... in time, everything else will fall into place, right?

< click on the arrow to listen to a couple early chapters >

Day 34: Frank Prose

just had to share an amazing piece of writing that Elissa recently crafted for the book – when she's not lounging in the frankosphere, that is!

"The distance we’ve created with and toward others is merely a house of cards. And when we retreat, when we sit in the stands and allow this structure to hold all that is dear to us, not only are we giving in to a bland, narrow, tiny view of all that is available at any given moment, but we’re stingy in the fact that we won’t even allow ourselves to dare to dream of anything different... To dare to dream of a world where we collapse the distance and release our false worship of control. To dare to dream of a life of wild abundance and energy and enlightenment. To dare to dream of an existence where our shadow, our fear, our low-energy, scarcity mindset implodes and we are suddenly free and light and awakened... Into a true quantum self. A big bang of a being. A collective-individual aware that, at a molecular level, there is no denying our true nature, our true oneness ... This tiniest of proof––this actual life––is the largest, most encompassing reality available to us all. And it’s there all the time. In fact, it’s here right now."

so can Web 2.0 help close this kind of distance ... personally, professionally and globally? that's what's next!

Day 27: Tangle

Realized I needed a new toy today. With all this writing and all this hair growing on my face, I've developed a habit of twirling my whiskers while pounding the keys. In fact, I think one side of my bookbeard is growing in more wispier than the other. So I picked up my kids' Tangle toy and started twirling that instead. I need to buy a smaller version than the one pictured so I can Tangle one-handed and tote it around a more conveniently, but this one's keeping my paws off my whiskers for now. The stuff revealed by a bookbeard. Amazing.

Day 22: Lucky Day

Got a full day of writing in at frank HQ today. Lucky was a great companion, getting me off my ass to go for a walk when the language got too thick or self-absorbed. We'll have to include him in the acknowledgements. He had a long day.

Day 14: Bonnie's Bliss

What's the perfect writing day like? For me it's starting with an early-morning Big Eater Breakfast special at Bonnie's, then heading over to my writing studio at The Loft to spend the day. Eating, reading, thinking, writing ... over and over again. That about does it for me.

Day 11: Washer Fluid

Sure I've got a lot of balls in the air: frank, toe-jam and washer fluid. But I can't help it. I love it. And thankfully, the ideas keep coming – actually more powerfully than ever.

Some of the new titles I'm tinkering with in Washer Fluid (poems about what guys think about but don't talk about during divorce) include:

- 48" Bubble Stick
- Fall Frogs
- Basement Bugs
- Full Moon Flood
- Window Pain
- Vice Grip
- Cuisine Conoco
- and Hard Boiled, which is shaping up this way ...

Boiling two eggs to the perfect
Internal eating texture would seem
Quite simple, don't you think?
Something learned and perfected
In seventh-grade home ec class –
Assuming you were paying attention.

Yet at 42, I still scald my eggs
To a stinky, brown, crackled crisp,
While earning a terrible rep
For triggering fire alarms that
Cause card-playing fire-fighters
To roar into the front driveway
Of our slumbering apartment complex at 6 am;
Sirens screeching, water-pressure building
Fat canvas hoses throbbing, ready to instantly
Extinguish any blaze with the guts
To dare flare up in front of them.

"Sorry guys. Just my eggs."

And so my eggs are not cooked.
The neighbors are up.
The fire fighters have left.
Another pot is ruined.
And I'm still hungry.

I go on about my life
Writing, bathing, chatting with friends on the phone,
All the while the temperature
In the pot cooking my eggs
Reaches alarming levels;
Scorching my eggs,
Stinking my kitchen with a
Putrid burning yolk stench
Causing my children
To stare at me in disbelief.

So what?
I’ll just put another couple on.
 

Day 9: 26.8 cents!

Total cost of Gillette Edge shaving cream: $1.34
Divided by average number of days it usually lasts: 45
Equals: .029 cents per day
Times: 9 days
Equals: 26.8 cents saved on shaving cream so far!

Day 8: The Lie

Lots of other work still getting in the way of our book are you frank? these days, but when we do buckle down, good stuff flows fast. Wayne Dyer talks about his books being "already written" when he sits down to write them. This feels like the same thing.

We just hit on a powerful premise for the book: the idea that so many of us live the lie that we're separate from life all around us vs. being one with it. And that kind of distance creates a lot of problems. Fears sneak into that space. Personal protective devices go up without us even knowing it. Distractions creep in. Addictions can take root. Years pass. More distance is created. We do become separate. Then we have no clue why we feel so shitty. (more to come on fiserablemucker.com later!)

So what's this notion of distance got to do with social media?

Well many people believe technology increases distance among us. But in fact, it can generate more intimacy when we get involved with the technology and use it to share, understand and co-create new possibilities with one another – personally, professionally and with our world at large. Web 2.0 presents tools that are more friendly, simple, interconnected and more powerful than ever.

That's the space we're exploring with this book: the intersection of human transformation and Web 2.0 technology.

It's a simple question: "are you frank?" But the more time we spend with it, the more significant the answers become ...

Day 5: Toe-Jam debut!

So I crossed a line last night. I sat still listening to 11 people critique a manuscript of my kids' book called, "Toe-Jam and The Toenail Fairies."

Here's a tune they love singing to kids who've lost a toenail:

Yo I'm T-J, they're The Toenail Fairies,
Jammin' and rappin' for a nail once Mary's!
Sure there was a day, it was pretty in pink,
But it's green and starting to stink!
So though you might feel sad, you really should be glad,
That nail from your toe's gonna earn you some dough!
Yo I'm T-J, they're The Toenail Fairies,
All hail ... to a great nail that was Mary's!

And a sketch I scrawled for the illustration that goes with that tune ...

Most folks in my kids' book class at The Loft loved the character, T-J. Most had trouble with the story line. Most thought little kids couldn't handle the story. Most thought I should re-write it and bump the target reader a few years. It was all really good stuff. Sure I've got a lot of re-writing to do, but I loved listening to real parents, teachers and other writers review a whacky story my kids and I made up.

Day 4: 4:44 am

The words of Rumi's poem have been keeping me awake a lot lately: "The breeze at dawn has secrets to teach you. Don't go back to sleep."

I first heard this Rumi quote from Wayne Dyer on public TV. Dyer said that the morning breeze ... the universe, your calling, your soul ... is always trying to communicate with you, but it knows that it has an especially good chance of getting through in the wee hours of the day since you're not so busy with life's little details. (Except of course for sleeping.) So it wakes you with the hope you'll check in and be open to receiving your insights for the day.

No doubt I've brushed off my cosmic wake-up calls many times by rolling over, pulling up the covers and going back to sleep.

But I've noticed a pattern. In reading through a year's worth of my journal entries recently, I saw that a lot of my early morning entries were in this 4 - 5 am zone. Christ, my dog Lucky licked me awake at 4:40 am a few days ago.

So what's going on here?

Today I popped at 4:44 am sharp. No alarm clock needed. Just the big one in the sky to which I'm hard wired that's probably trying to rouse me from a three-decade slumber that's kept me from being the person I'm really intended to be!

[Oh that alarm clock.]

Now my task is to write through to the other side to discover what the morning breeze might be trying to tell me today ... could be something cool for one of my books ... could be a learning about why I was so grumpy with my kids last night ... could be something to help me be with the people I'll work with today.

All I know for sure is that I'm not going back to sleep.

Day 1: Beard Beginnings

So here's what I'm up to: grow a beard for as long as it takes me to complete three books I'm working on:

1. Are You Frank? (a new book I'm co-creating with JP and Elissa about human transformation through Web 2.0)

2. Toe Jam and The Toenail Fairies (a picture book I'm co-creating with my daughters)

3. Washer Fluid (a book of poems about what guys think about but don't talk about during divorce)

These are all stories that have been rattling inside my head for a long time. Now it's time they got out.

But why a beard? Inspired by the tradition of hockey players who start growing beards during their run for the Stanley Cup, I thought a beard would be a fun way to keep me focused on my own task at hand, generate lots of conversation about my projects along the way and (here's where I wince!) keep me accountable to finally completing these books.

Here goes. I'm pitching the razor for the writing!