Rant – Maria Lokken

Every Pose You Make

Maria — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 01:31:45 +0000

“Damn, I look good.”

A thought likely uttered out loud or in one’s own head a dozen times a day. How do I know this? Because I am a lurker on social media. I scroll through dozens of feeds, and over half of them are photos of men and women posing. “Look at me!” They silently scream.

I didn’t grow up with social media. It grew around me. Many aspects are useful. I’ve found helpful videos on YouTube, from fixing a bug on my iPhone to instructions on how to clean my oven organically. On Instagram, I’ve discovered writing groups I now belong to. You get the idea social media can be useful. Sharing vacation pics with family and friends or proud parental moments—why not?

But the continual poser-beauty shots have me shaking my head and tsking. If an alien from another planet could see some of the feeds I see, I think they might wonder what all the narcissism was about.

I certainly do.

Persistence

Maria — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 01:09:15 +0000

I once heard Denzel Washington give a speech where he said, “Fall down nine times, get up ten.” For any endeavor, I believe that’s true.

Whether you fall ten times, five times, or once on your chosen journey, each time will be a learning experience. I like to refer to those moments as ‘school fees.’ You put one step in front of the other, and each time you go down, you come back up, understanding something you didn’t know before.

In my journey to publication, I learned too many things to fit into a blog. But if I were forced to pick one thing, it would be the art of persistence. Learn it. Use it. Learn it again.

Persistence is what you need when you get to the end of your first draft and realize your plot is so full of holes you could drive an army of Mac Trucks through your story.

Persistence is what you need when the brilliant idea you had two months ago has lost its luster, and you want to quit because it’s difficult to put any words on the page.

Persistence is what you need when you have to tear your manuscript apart for the third time to make it coherent.

Persistence is what you need when your editor sends back more edits than there are pages in your manuscript.

And you’ll need an unrelenting push-through to run the gauntlet of the query process and get your manuscript sold.

But like the sun will shine tomorrow, if you persist, it will pay off.

I know because it did for me.

Aging

Maria — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 23:34:01 +0000

Ever heard of the expression – grow old gracefully? There’s a certain amount of wisdom in that.

We all grow old. Perhaps with technological breakthroughs, we’ll be able to maintain our physical youth well into our eighties. That time is not yet here.

Faces sage. Bones get brittle. It takes more effort to run a marathon. Chores take longer to do. But hey—there’s an upside. By the time you reach your 60s and 70s, you are so comfortable in your own skin that it doesn’t matter if there are lines, wrinkles, and poor eyesight because you’re no longer trying to keep up with everyone else. You’re just trying to keep up with yourself.

Here’s where I’m going with this. Have you seen what Madonna has done to herself in the name of chasing the fountain of youth? And she’s not the only one—“Housewives” of….name a city—Beverly Hills, Orange County, New Jersey; these women are not just chasing the fountain of youth, they are riding the wings of jet propulsion packs to reverse the signs of aging. Lips so big they don’t fit their faces.

Anyway—back to Madonna.

She is unrecognizable. If you hadn’t told me that was her, I wouldn’t have known. But trying to turn back time on your face, instead of embracing the beauty that is about a ‘lived’ life, is sad.

I, for one, will not erase the badges of courage, defiance, joy, laughter, sorrow, enlightenment, sickness, health, celebrations, anger, desire, fulfillment, disappointment, failings, and successes that I wear on my face! I wear them proudly and this face loudly proclaims – this is ME!

Deal. With. It.