Can U Deliver?

Issue #20: I'm the problem, it's me.

2022 was a good, solid year, mostly. Nothing awful happened, the goods were good and the bads were really just minor annoyances. Every year alive is a gift.

It was my first full year being self-employed, and while I didn’t quite hit my income target, I did take time to invest in some classes and learning.

I was able to connect with so many great people - including readers of this newsletter and my books, people who were in class with me, and all of my new clients - they made the year a real joy. 

I’m coming to realize that my coaching business is really more of a consulting business so I think I may rebrand and expand the concept of what I do so that more people can find me.

Personally, I’ve never liked the energy surrounding the word “coach” when it comes to creativity - coaching is certainly part of it, but there’s more to it - it’s also deep listening and empathy, understanding trauma and patterns, general life advice, helpful suggestions, resources, ideas and concepts, mindset and energy management, and moral support that is part of it.  

“Coaching” seems very linear, masculine, and hierarchical, while “consulting”  seems more dynamic, feminine, and egalitarian. It’s just more ‘me’. 

Just like when I was a librarian - I listen with an open mind and heart, and I try to help. I am a resource for people, and everyone is sent to me for a reason.

Shifting my thinking into “consultant” might help me integrate more of the woo-woo stuff into my offerings, too, like Tarot cards. I’ve been reading them for myself and others for 30 years and have found them to be a profound tool for my intuition and creativity. It’s part of my process.

But I’ve resisted making it “official” in my business mostly because I don’t want people to think I’m weird, which I know is silly. 

I’ve always felt weird. I hide the weird pretty well. Maybe I need to get over it and just do my thing and trust that the right people will find me. 

Maybe I just need to adjust my alignment a bit. 

 –

On the writing front, it’s been a mixed bag.

I think every writer, at some point, feels like they are going too slow. I know that part of my problem is that I have too many things I want to do, too many projects waiting in line, and I circle through them and get distracted. 

I have a rough draft of a family history, two screenplays, this book, a fiction book that calls me - all of it wanting attention.

And oh, plus life. I still want to parent my children and love on my spouse and cook dinner and have a peaceful and clean home.

Although I’ve never been diagnosed officially, I know my brain is heavily skewed toward the ADHD side of neurodiversity, and this is something that I’ve lived with since I was a kid.

I know the work will get done - but only after I wander around for a bit poking at all the other stuff until I can sit down and go into focus mode. It’s also part of my process. 

But, I’d like to tweak the process. 

Fine tune it, dial it in, get more productive without going nuts. 

More than anything, I think finding your creative process IS THE PROCESS and you are never done. Even the most prolific artists and writers have to go through their process, however odd, hard, weird, or uncomfortable. 

Some of them make it look really easy - I’m thinking of Stephen King. But most of us aren’t him and haven’t tapped into that energy field and we shouldn’t make ourselves feel bad about it. 

We just have to work on our own process, and learn to trust it.

So, while I always look forward to the New Year, I don’t really make resolutions anymore. 

To think that I will suddenly wake up in January as a different person with hard discipline installed and a willpower of steel, well - it’s just counterproductive. I’m not built that way. Most people aren’t. 

This coming year, I will keep working on the process - which means making a bunch of small decisions every day that will keep me in alignment.

–

When I started writing this Substack in 2021, it was with the intention of sharing the creative journey and keeping myself accountable on a book about my former library career.  For the most part, I think I’ve done OK.  I’ve got some good rough-draft material to expand and edit. 

But…I’ve been a little stuck lately. 

Truth is, the book wants to be something different than what I thought. Something darker and more dangerous than just a little workplace memoir. 

I’m in some weird limbo-denial with it.  Like, I don’t feel brave enough. I’m self-conscious about sharing some of my true thoughts, my weirdness. I don’t want people to hate me. I don’t have the capacity to deal with it.

But I also think the dark dangerous place is the place I need to go. 

I think books have a consciousness and a voice, and they’ll tell you what they need. 

If we don’t listen to the book, we get stuck. 

My brain tells me to play it safe and easy. My heart wants to go down into the deep water where the truth of the matter lives.  

The truth is HARD sometimes. It’s a strange kind of agony, trying to face it.

I keep telling myself that it’s just a part of the process.

I think as you get older, you learn not to panic about slow-downs or sticky parts. These periods are giving you valuable information and trying to tell you something. 

And I also know that the thing you don’t feel brave enough to do -  is the EXACT thing you need to do. The obstacle is the way. 

It’s just part of it. 

—

I might risk my reputation as The Metalhead Librarian to admit this, but I really like ALL kinds of music. A good song is a good song. I hate nothing. 

I’m actually pretty superstitious about the concept of hate - I don’t want to carry hate in my body, and I don’t use the word ‘hate’ in my everyday language. I think it’s low-energy and toxic - like, I might secretly hate something, but I’m not going to verbalize it and give it power. 

I prefer not to listen to death metal. It makes me feel bad. But I don’t hate it. I just don’t care about it. 

I tend to lean towards classic and hard rock for my everyday playlists, but for writing - I’ve been listening to more classical and piano and brown noise lately. It’s a nice change. It’s easy on the brain when the writing is hard.  

Now, I’m going sidebar here and to admit something that may or may not surprise you:

Sometimes music makes me spontaneously cry.

This feeling just comes over me, whether I’m in a crowd at a live show, or just random songs that pop up wherever - I get leaky. 

Not sobbing or anything like that - my eyes get teary for a few minutes and I get sniffly.

I’ve been this way since I was a small child and I have absolutely no control over it. 

It first happened to a song by the Bee Gee’s called Tragedy when I was 6 or 7. I would literally get on a chair and jump off it when they sang the word ‘tragedy’, like I was some kind of theater acrobat - or Richard Simmons - with tears streaming down my face. I was just so moved by it - it had this dramatic, mesmerizing quality that I felt in my little body. 

(I listened to it to confirm my memory just now. What a great song. No wonder I was obsessed with it as a kid.) 

And I’m not even sad when I leak - it’s just some weird reaction from deep in my soul. I’m sure there’s a word for it. It passes pretty quickly. My family knows this about me and thinks it's funny. 

“I’m not crying! My eyes are just leaking a little bit!” 

They hand me tissues and give me a kind look.  

I cried when I saw Dolly Parton perform at The Ohio State Fair when I was a kid.  I’ve cried at Metallica and Guns’ n Roses shows. I cried seeing Sting. And Alice in Chains a few years ago with their new singer.  I cried like a baby the first time I saw Les Miserable performed on stage. Our national anthem and The Buckeye Battle Cry get me every damn time. Johnny Cash sometimes makes me cry.The Ballad of Curtis Loew by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Atlantic City by The Band. Silver Springs by Fleetwood Mac. Unstoppable by Sia. September by Earth Wind & Fire. The Star Wars theme. I cried watching Top Gun in the theater this past summer.

The other day in Safeway, an old Janet Jackson song came on and I shed a few tears at the unexpected feelings of joy it brought me.  

It creeps up on me out of nowhere. 

–

Our kids have been well-educated when it comes to music. They know different genres, eras, artists. We listen to a lot of different stuff in our house. I gravitate toward guitar-oriented heavy rock music, but I’ll listen to just about anything as long as it’s pleasing to my ear. 

My son is a total metalhead/grunge dude, which is great. He loves Metallica, TOOL, Nirvana. There’s not a lot of “new music” on his radar yet.

My Babygirl is a little older and likes newer artists.  Måneskin. Chase Atlantic. She also loves Taylor Swift, and has for years. 

I didn’t really “get it” but sure, a few of Taylor’s tunes were catchy. Almost annoyingly so. But whatever. 

No hate. Just indifference. 

At Babygirl’s request, I listened to the new album, Midnights. I always listen when she wants to play something for me. 

So, I’ve been listening. Every morning on our 6:30am drives to school, we listen to this Taylor Swift album. 

I’ll admit - a few of the songs have made me spontaneously cry.

Multiple times. 

My daughter is delighted. She lords it over me, and I let her.

It’s not every song that gets me. But the ones that do get me, get me in a big way.  

Unexpected feelings of melancholy and joy. 

Leak leak leak. 

I love when I’m surprised by an artist. Even if it’s a number one album and the most popular thing in the world right now. I appreciate anything that makes me FEEL.

“It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero”  

Holy shit. Yes, it is exhausting.  

Those lyrics, man. They touch me. Some of those melodies are complete earworms, too. They are light on the brain when the world is heavy.  

I read up on her creative process, how she captures and crafts her ideas.  I love learning how other artists engage and do the work. She’s one of the most prolific songwriters in a generation.

She’s cranking out songs like Steven King cranks out books. It’s a thing of beauty, really, watching an artist tap into that energy field, right in their prime.  

Taylor Swift? I think I get it, now. 

—

While going through this weird denial and slightly stuck and distracted phase with the book, I fortified myself as one should do by living my life and enjoying the good parts. 

A few things stick out about those good parts. 

My old pals in Armored Saint rolled through Arizona on their latest tour. They are still going strong after 40 years as a band. I knew they were coming six months ago, and my friends at Metal Blade arranged the ticket.  

It was a GREAT show. I love watching a band STILL in their prime. They sounded so good. 

Yes, I did shed a few tears, standing there alone in a sold-out crowd of middle-aged metalheads. My God, look at how old we are, and how much time has passed since I first heard this band in high school. 

I visited with Joey Vera, Armored Saint’s bass player, after the show. I’ve known him since 1991 - back then he and his wife Tracy from Metal Blade Records were like a big brother and sister to me. I first listened to Nirvana’s Nevermind while in the backseat of their car on the way to a metal show. 

Joey has been a working member of, or a hired gun in numerous bands for many years. Armored Saint is his main thing - but he’s in Mercyful Fate, Motor Sister, Fates Warning, and Kings of Mercia - and is an excellent musician and a great human being. 

While visiting, we talked about creativity, writing, and practice. We talked about “doing the work”. He’s one of the busiest guys in the music business - practicing, writing, producing, collaborating, rehearsing, touring. 

Even bands like Armored Saint, who have known each other since middle school and have played together for 40 years have to rehearse. 

They have to go through their process.

They are not exempt, or special. They still practice their craft. They still have to do the work. 

Joey asked what I was listening to lately, and I confessed my recent Taylor Swift infatuation. 

“Nothing like a good earworm,” he said. “I’ll have to check it out.”

—

A few nights after seeing Armored Saint, my husband, sister-in-law and I went to Tucson to catch Jerry Seinfeld. 

Although we’ve seen him live numerous times over the years, ironically, we had just finished the documentary Comedian - a little movie from 2002 that went deep into his process and how he got back onstage after many years away. 

Again, I love this stuff - learning how other creative people work. 

And what surprised me the most about Jerry Seinfeld on this particular night in Tucson was that he didn’t have a complete set of new material rehearsed and ready to go. This was the first night of the tour. 

Mario Joyner had a smooth and hilarious opening set. Jerry was a little looser, more relaxed. 

He explained that he was still working out the material. This was part of his process.

He brought his notecards right out on stage with him, and he had to pause and look at them a few times. 

Just like he had to do twenty years ago in the documentary.

I loved it. I think the audience realized that we were watching something really special and no one minded at all.  He was still funny as hell, just a bit more unscripted.  

He was rough-drafting his set and testing his new material in front of a live audience and it was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I’m sure it will turn into a Netflix special when he has it perfected. 

For stand-up comedy, there is no safety net. No edit button, no delete key, no private rehearsal studio to work out the kinks. 

Watching him made me feel a little more brave as a writer. 

He works it out on stage with the audience watching and participating. 

No matter how long you’ve been doing it or how good you are, a songwriter needs to write down lyrics and record demos, an established band still needs to rehearse, a comedian still needs to practice his material. 

And a writer still needs to muddle through and write a rough draft. Even if it’s not the book you thought you were going to write - you’ve got to write what shows up.

At least I have a delete key.  

—-

Happy Festivus, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year, friends and readers. May you enjoy all the goodness of the holiday season. 

Thanks for being with me on this journey. Questions or comments? Leave them here, or email me at annamarieobrien@gmail.com. Follow me on Instagram @metalheadlibrarian or Twitter @annamarieobien.

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Thank you for your support, and see you next year!