Making Progress

February 2, 2013 By

DSCF0295Yikes! Yesterday was the first day of February. I set a deadline to finish a draft of my memoir by September first. I don’t know where last month’s thirty-one days went. I swear it was just yesterday that I welcomed in the New Year with excitement. My head was filled with ideas. I jotted down notes every time a new one came along and began getting out of bed at six-fifteen every morning so that I could walk the dog, get some exercise in, and have breakfast before plunging into a two-hour write.

I set of goal of writing for at least twelve hours a week. It doesn’t sound like much for a serious writer, but that time allotment does not include reading other blogs about writing, checking email, wasting time on Facebook, meeting every two weeks with my writing coach, or keeping this blog up to date.

I also decided I would no longer allow myself to get fixed like glue to the television screen every night after the evening news, even if there is something “good” on. Bill and I have gotten into the habit of watching House Hunters International on HGTV, every evening at seven.  It’s the cheapest way to see the world and somehow very addictive for two old farts like us.

Instead, most nights, I’ve been taking that hour to try to make a dent in the piles of books I have sitting by my bedside and in the living room.  I figure a writer needs to read in order to write. But if I wait, like I usually do until I get into bed, I’ll be reading the same damned paragraph every night for the next three months. Don’t laugh. It really happens.

So how’s it going?  I’m sorry you asked. I’m completely frustrated, overwhelmed, and every day ask myself, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I LOVE my actual writing time, when there are two hours in a row to go at it without interruption. The morning is best, but in order to keep my aging body from pooping out, there are several sessions of Pilates and yoga to go to several times a week. They meet only in the morning.

And then two weeks ago I signed up for a six-week class with Dan Blank, on building my writers platform.  Oh my goodness.  If I wasn’t already overwhelmed before, I certainly am now.

What was I thinking? Though writing this book is not about making millions of dollars or being on the New York Times bestseller list, I certainly do want at least more than twenty or so people to read my book. And since I will in all likelihood self-publish this very well written gem, I’d best find out how one goes about doing what I think I’m doing. I’ve finished Dan’s first lesson with its homework and am now settling into the second lesson. I put a few drops of Dr. Bach’s Rescue Remedy, on my tongue when the anxiety of, “I have to do what?” kicks in.

Seriously, it’s scary.  I’m a seventy-year-old introvert, who loves to spend her time creating, not selling. Technology gets the best of me, and frankly, I don’t give a fig about social media and all that other stuff I don’t understand.

But rather than begin to sound like my mother, who a lot of my book is about, I’d best not say too much more.

Instead, I will pass on a quote from my daughter, Lisa, who in her latest, Sacred Circle Newsletter, wrote:

“What if there was no such thing as failure?  What if everything was akin to a great big fancy science experiment where the results simply gave you new information and didn’t define who you are? What if the results of your “experiments” changed with the seasons, shifted with your moods, and weren’t necessarily static and permanent?  What if at any time you can choose to change your mind about the direction your “experiments” are going?”

Reading that yesterday helped me to adjust my attitude a bit.  I know I can do just about anything for a little while and since the class is only six weeks long, I’ll experiment and see if this platform building stuff takes hold. By then my anxiety about creating a brand and building relationships with people I don’t even know, will hopefully find a new home.

I must say I am enjoying working with a group of writers who experience the same fears that I do and Dan is fabulous. He has a lot of patience with us and everything he says makes a whole lot of sense.  So I’m sticking with it. I’ll keep on writing as well and work at trying not to be so OCD about getting a draft done by 11:59 PM on September first.

What about you?  What’s causing you to be overwhelmed and filled with anxiety?  How do you deal with it?

Filed Under: Addiction, Being Creative, Books, Classes, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, Quotes, Time, Wise Words, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Stories As Healing

January 29, 2013 By

DSC01647“Although some use stories as entertainment alone, tales are, in their oldest sense a healing art; and the best, to my lights, are those who have lain with the story and found all its matching parts inside themselves and at depth.  In the best tellers I know, the stories grow out of their lives like roots grow a tree.  The stories have grown them, grown them into who they are.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Filed Under: Life, Memoir, Quotes, stories, Wise Words, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,

Winter

January 25, 2013 By

DSCF0750On this day thirteen years ago, I wrote the following entry in my journal.

“I love the winter landscape when the eye of God seems to be everywhere, and snow is a white backdrop for the dark forms of trees.  I see things I never notice in the summer … fallen trees, leaning trees, trees growing up tall and straight. The tension in the patterns. When there is no snow, we see only gray on gray, brown on brown, black on black. The smallest details fade, melt into the background. Today would be a perfect day to go for a walk in the woods, to pay special attention to the visual structures the snow provides.”

DSC01859While I love bold colors and the warm seasons, when the garden is filled with flowers over a lengthy span of months, I also love the contrast of winter. It is when there is snow on the ground and the trees are bare, that I become aware of black, white, and the multitude of grays in between. I consider the composition of the landscape that I miss during the other seasons when it is hidden by foliage.

At no other time of year is the structure of the natural world so observable. Just a few days ago, when the sky was an ashen gray and rain splattered through the gutters along the roof’s edge, I examined the silhouette of a trees dark branches against the colorless sky. From my window, I marveled at the way the limbs spread out into empty space. I was reminded of blood vessels in the human body or the bronchioles within our lungs, that branch out from larger vessels, then taper off, narrowing into the smallest of twigs where buds burst forth as spring unfolds.

As I work on my memoir, I read through old journals … words that I wrote long ago, during other seasons of my life.  I am struck by the patterns and structure … the way my thoughts form on the page. Though time speeds by and I am miles from where I was thirteen years ago, the footprints and observations I chase after remain as they were and the mysteries I follow never end.

Do you keep a journal?  Do you go back and read them again, years later?  What do find that has changed?  What has stayed the same?

Filed Under: Matters of the Spirit, Memoir, Quotes, The Garden, The Seasons, Time, wonderings, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Writing And Life

January 22, 2013 By

DSCF0588“Some writers … Charles Dickens was one … write seven or eight hours a day.  I’ve done this a few times in my life but haven’t liked it at all.  For me, there’s too much else I need and want to do.  Knitting sweaters.  Reading cookbooks.  Baking biscotti and bread.  Walking. Taking long hot baths.  Sitting and staring at the trees, sky, and clouds.  (But not cleaning out closets.  Or organizing my drawers.  Or ironing.)  For me, writing is an important, essential part of my life, but it is not my whole life.  Most everything we do finds its way into our work somehow.  And even makes us better writers.”

Louise DeSalvo, Writing As A Way Of Healing.

Filed Under: Being Creative, Healthy Living, Life, Memoir, Quotes, Wise Words, Writing Tagged With:

A Work In Progress

January 19, 2013 By

DSC01581“This is a work in progress, a process of uncovering our natural openness, uncovering our natural intelligence and warmth. I have discovered, just as my teachers always told me, that we already have what we need. The wisdom, the strength, the confidence, the awakened heart and mind are always accessible, here, now, always. We are just uncovering them. We are rediscovering them. We’re not inventing them or importing them from somewhere else. They’re here. That’s why when we feel caught in darkness, suddenly the clouds can part. Out of nowhere we cheer up or relax or experience the vastness of our minds. No one else gives this to you. People will support you and help you with teachings and practices, as they have supported and helped me, but you yourself experience your unlimited potential.”

Pema Chodron, Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

I’ve been rolling along working on my memoir for the past couple of weeks with little difficulty. Words have been flowing like a mountain stream spilling over its banks with snow melt. I’m more sure than ever about the structure of my story and where I’m going with it. It’s about my relationship with my mother, and how being her caretaker during the last seven years of her life forced me to take a closer look at my own life and how I’m living it. 

Two days ago, starting on the seventh chapter, I hit a brick wall and was stopped in my tracks.  I sat in front of the computer for several hours for two days, typed in a couple of paragraphs and immediately trashed them.

I was feeling pretty bummed out about it, because I’ve set myself a goal of having a finished draft of the book in nine months. I did what I too often do … immediately started worrying and beating up on myself, fearing I’d begin getting behind and never make my September first deadline. Then I started calling myself names for being worried and giving myself so much grief. It’s the kind of thing that can just go around and around in circles until I throw up my hands and consider eating a pint of ice cream and/or several bars of delicious dark chocolate.

I was trying to write about a particularly difficult time in my life, which I apparently blocked off with several layers of cinder blocks and three or four layers of concrete. I could remember the time period, but could not find the words to describe how I felt and what it was that had made it so difficult.

I decided I’d go back through my journals and reread a few to try to figure it out what I was missing. But they are stashed in a storage bin we rent, way across town. Working around other appointments and warnings of a major snowstorm heading our way, I stopped and picked up a box of journals dated with the two years I was trying to recall. When I got home I realized I had mislabeled the box and those dear, yellowing journals were not the ones I needed.

Foiled again, and unable to return for more journals, I told myself I’d simply make myself start writing again. I figured words would come to me if I didn’t get in the way with all that worrying crap. Sitting down again at the computer and pulling up the ridiculous stuff I’d written the day before, my fingers began moving and words started forming on the page.  It was painful stuff about things I’d completely erased from my memory tapes.  It may or may not have much to do with what I was trying to write about, but it certainly cleared the channels and I feel good to go once again.

Writing memoir can be very challenging, but I’m finding it to be one of the most healing things I’ve ever done. Revisiting the past has brought so many new perspectives on the people and experiences that have helped to shape my own being.

I’ve been journaling for years.  But writing memoir is helping me to explore even more deeply the way of the world and the person that I am still becoming. I understand how precious the gift of writing can be. Should my written words never make it into book form, I will be forever grateful for the words that have found me and the time I’ve taken to write them down.

Filed Under: Gratefulness, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, Quotes, stories, Time, Wise Words, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,
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