Looking, Acting, and Living the Part

I've had a busy month at the DDJ (dreaded day job) and have had my star-changing activities interrupted as a result. I fought the good fight for the first half of February but the last two weeks have not even remotely resembled the productivity I wanted to log.

Lately I have had this adage echoing in my head: Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.

When I pick apart that saying and truly think about the sum of its parts, I tend to take it past its outside appearance and look at the totality and what it means to me. For me it means not only looking the part but acting the part and living the part. It means finding those people who are doing what I want to be doing and not only studying the paths they took to get there but the actions they take to stay there.

For me, March is going to include doing deeper research on my writing role models.

I have tweaked my long term goals during this two week interruption in my Change Your Stars productivity. And I am super jazzed to dig deeper into what this tweaking means for me and my personal and professional future.

Hope is an amazingly motivating feeling! With hope and perseverance, I believe we are each capable of doing anything we can dream of. Keep up that single-minded determination and we will get there!

If you could do any job other than what you do now, what would it be? Who would you emulate in looking, acting, and living the part? Inquiring minds want to know!

xoxo,

bex

Books I'm Loving: Jane Austen Ruined My Life

A week ago I had the chance to spend the day in New York City at The Morgan Library and Museum to take in their current Jane Austen exhibit entitled, A Woman's Wit: Jane Austen's Life and Legacy. The very cool thing about the exhibit was that the museum featured some of the original letters she had written to her sister, Cassandra. Before her death, it is thought that Jane Austen asked her sister to keep the very personal comments in her letters private, and, much to the dismay of Austen lovers around the world, Cassandra burned many of those prized pieces of correspondence. Of the existing letters, Cassandra played editor, took a pair of scissors to the pages and cut out the passages that revealed too much.

It was fascinating.

On my train ride home, I remembered that I had Beth Pattillo's book, Jane Austen Ruined My Life near the top of my to-be-read pile. I picked it up as soon as I got home and read it as quickly as I could. Having just spent a day with some of Jane's correspondence in person, it felt timely to read a book whose premise supposed some of those lost letters actually survived.

Here's a blurb from BookPage:

English professor and Austen expert Emma Grant is heartbroken after her divorce when an intriguing communication lures her to England and a possible cache of Jane Austen's unpublished letters. Her desire to inspect them is complicated by her renewed acquaintance with fellow professor Adam Clark, and the series of Austen-related assignments that the guardian of the letters gives to Emma. Yet through these tasks Emma learns about herself and her attitudes toward love and marriage. While the growing romance between the heroine and Adam is sweet, sweeter is the new sense of self that Emma gains.

The book is a treasure hunt through Austen's old haunts and is fun and a delight to read. I highly recommend accompanying Emma on her journey!

xoxo,
bex

Coping with Family

Happy February, everyone! It's month two of the Change Your Stars Challenge on the Moody Muses blog. I made it through month one meeting each of my daily goals, so I am celebrating the victory today.

February will be much harder as I add one more goal to the mix while maintaining the ones I set in January. It is also a much busier month for me on the day job front and other family commitments, so I am trying to plan accordingly. Still, if you guys have any tried and true coping mechanisms for dealing with extended family, I would love to hear them! Spill -- inquiring minds want to know!

xoxo,

bex