Steve Jobs: Heaven or Hell?

I just finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

I didn't know much about Jobs, beyond that he founded Apple, was ousted at some point, and came back to revive the company. But our family is extremely pro-Apple - we have (or had) 3 iPhones, countless iPods in different varieties, 2 MacBooks, an iMac, an iMac mini, 2 MacBook Airs, a Mac Pro Server, and an iPad. Love, love, love Apple.

So I was dying to read this account of Jobs's life. Who is the man that literally changed the world?

I won't go into the dirty details, but the bottom line is: Steve Jobs was a genius, and Steve Jobs was an asshole. In his work life, he was brilliant, determined, perfection-driven, and in the end, his visions became reality. But in his personal life, his relationships? Major asshole.

He gave few people respect, and often treated them like dirt. He abandoned his first child and barely acknowledged her for the first ten years of her life. He spent little time with his next three kids. He stole people's ideas and passed them off as his own. Ad nauseum.

But he changed the world.

Does Steve Jobs get a pass from God for being such a shit because of the products he created?

I don't know. I'm glad I'm not the one who has to decide.

No one is all good or all bad. Are the deeds of our lives lined up in some ledger, calculated, and one small good act can tip the balance in our favor? Are our deeds weighted in importance? Is the creation of a super smart phone more important than how you treated your employees?

All I know is that when I finished reading the biography, I was disgusted by the man who so many of us worship. Is it too much to ask that our heroes actually be nice?

Coaching High School Tennis

I just finished my first season as the boys' JV tennis coach at my alma mater, Foothill High School in Tustin, California. Tonight was our end-of-season awards banquet.

Words are failing me here - I cannot adequately express how much coaching these kids changed me. I've been in my little family bubble for almost fifteen years, and coaching brought me outside of it. Getting close to teens who are not my own reminded me of the breadth of the human experience. Every family is unique. Every child's personality has a quirk (or ten). We all experience pain and pleasure and criticism and praise in a different way.

I'd forgotten that. You get used to dealing with the people in your sphere, and you know what makes them tick, what pisses them off, how they'll react. I'm a serious introvert, and I simply hadn't been exposed to so many new people in a very long time. Too long.

I have to thank all the parents and all the players for supporting me as their new coach. Change is scary, and my coaching style was a definite change for everyone. I think anyone who accepts a coaching position hopes to make a positive impact on their charges, and I certainly did, but I really didn't expect it. I just hoped to get through the season without any major blunders and without screwing anyone up for life. And though I made missteps, and though I would do many things differently, we got through it. I can honestly look back at the whole experience fondly, with some great memories and with insight into who I am as a person and who I want to be in the future.

I hope the season was positive for my players. I hope they learned how to give a good handshake and to look people in the eye. I hope they know I want the best for them. I hope they know how hard I tried.

My coaching was a bit of a sore spot at home, especially once we started playing matches. Since our courts are being rebuilt, we had to borrow courts and could only use them after 5:30. All our practices were at night. All our home matches were at night. For two months, I was gone every single night of the week. This was tough on the kids, tough on me, and especially tough on my husband, Mike. He wanted me to promise that I wouldn't coach next season, and even though my heart gave a pang, I had to agree.

And then Mike attended the banquet with me.

You don't know how I agonized over my speech. I had 23 players on my team, and I had to say something about each kid. Then I gave out seven special awards and had to elaborate about those recipients. I was sure I would say the wrong thing, leave someone out, embarrass someone - SOMEthing bad was going to happen.

But it didn't.

It went okay.

And when Mike and I got in the car to drive home, and I took a deep breath and asked him how I did, he got serious. And he told me that I had amazed him, that I actually changed kids' lives, and that if I wanted to continue coaching, he would support me 2000%.

Wow.

Thanks, Michael, for your support. You're the best friend I've ever had. Just knowing that I made you proud baffles and delights and moves me.

I might coach again. Not sure yet, but I might.

Scribophile

So two years ago, I joined Scribophile, an on-line critiquing site. At the time, Grandpa was living with us, and life happened...I just didn't have time to devote to it. The concept of the site is that you earn karma points for critiquing others' work, and then you can spend the points to have your own work critiqued. It's a solid concept. At the time, though, I needed to focus more on writing and family than on being a member of a writing community.

Now that I have entered ABNA (two and a half days to find out if I made the quarter-finals!), I know I need real feedback on my writing. And of course, you have to give what you wish to receive.

So I'm trying Scribophile again, because I got one of their newsletters and decided to check it out. I had totally forgotten all about it - even the couple of critiques I'd originally done seemed completely foreign. I have no memory of ever writing them, which is scary.

I've already read an amazing short story there - "To Arms, To Arms" by Stephen Fox. It is clever and unique. Takes less than ten minutes to read. Head on over to Scribophile and check it out.

I posted the prologue to High Maintenance - my first bit of writing shared on the web, outside of ABNA. Here's hoping someone finds merit in it somewhere, because I think that is the novel I'm going to focus on revising next. Or maybe not. Let's see what the critiques say.

Cross your fingers.

Do You Care About an Author's Personal Life?

I will not watch a movie starring an actor who has made an idiot of himself in real life (though admittedly, I'm not a movie watcher in general).
I will vote for a politician who makes questionable personal choices if I agree with his political ideology and record, and if I believe he will be a great leader.
I do not want to buy a book written by an egotistical, nasty author (assuming I have solid knowledge of these facts, which are difficult to come by unless you dig for them), but if I'm drawn to the writing and, especially with a series, want to find out what happens next, I might still buy the book.

Still working out how I reconcile these things.

2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Contest

Last month, I entered my science fiction novel, Nervous System, in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. Contestants must submit a 300-word pitch, a 3-5k word excerpt from the beginning of the novel, and the full manuscript. The contest for General Fiction (all genres) was capped at 5,000 entries.

On February 23, Amazon announced the 1,000 entries that were moving on to the second round.

I made it. Thank you, Amazon.

Now, two Vine Reviewers will read and review my excerpt. I will get to read those reviews. Only 250 entries will be chosen to move on to the quarterfinals.

I'm trying to be optimistic yet realistic about this second round. I'm much more confident about my excerpt than I was about my pitch, but who knows? I just feel lucky to get this far.

I am posting my pitch and my excerpt for those who have asked about them. Thank you everyone, especially Michael, for your unwavering support in my writing endeavors. Love you all so much.

I'm Back

Wow. It's been quite a while since I've posted on this blog. I actually took it off line for the last year, because I'd posted some things about my extended family, and then those posts ended up in discussion during a legal battle. The powers that be are not kidding when they say that anything you post online is fair game.

I'm not actually ashamed or in trouble because of anything I've written. In fact, I'm okay with all my posts, so now that the battle is over, I'm putting my blog back out there, without any editing. But the past is the past, and I'm going to move forward without looking back.