freedom

First day in a lot lot lot of days that writing has felt appealing and not like pulling teeth.  First day I've gotten to the end of a chapter and wanted to keep going.

I said to myself last night, "Alright lady.  I'm letting you off the hook.  If you don't want to write anymore, you don't have to."  It was a bit of a turning point, in part because I never thought I'd say those words to myself.  In my moving and unpacking and corralling painters and electricians and roofers and exterminators and anyone else who wanted to wander into my house in the last few months, writing became just another thing on my to do list.  And let me tell you, there is very little happiness on a to do list.  They are, by nature, chores.

Writing didn't always feel like a chore.  But for a while, for me, it's been heading in that direction.  Long before the move, to be honest.  Something about the combination of my relentless perfectionism and the pressure brought to bear by reading too many blogs about writing/publishing and just feeling generally dissatisfied with my own lack of progress - I was hammering away at something large and impenetrable.  And when my hammer broke I started using my hands, and when my hands were useless I just started banging my head against it.  And after a while writing just meant twisted guts and heavy lifting and the pounding of a very bruised brain.

Until last night, when I finally let myself stop.  No more pressure.  No more self-imposed deadlines or mandatory word counts.  No more berating myself for not drafting faster or better.  There is no one way I am supposed to be doing this thing.  There's no "supposed to" at all.  No one is making me do this except me, and I write - allegedly - because I want to.

I'm trying to learn again how to want to.

I'm cutting way back on the blogs I read.  A lot of the bigger writing- and publishing-oriented blogs were so, so helpful when I was starting out, but I feel like I have the lay of the land now, and those constant reminders - commerce, commerce, commerce - just feel a little like drinking poison.  (Note: I will, of course, continue to read and love and snuggle up with the blogs of my writerly buds.  In other words, if you're reading this - YOURS IS NOT THE BLOG I AM NOT READING.  Heh.)

I'm sitting out on my sunporch right now, surrounded by trees and listening to crickets, and the truth is at some point, this is just it.  Me, and the quiet, and my story.  Things got complicated for a while, but there's not a whole lot more than this.

No more poison.  No more self-sabotage.  I write toward joy, or I don't write at all.

30 Before 30

So.  I turned 29 on the 4th of July.  (You may have seen or heard the fireworks - I hope it wasn't too alarming.  People get kind of excited about my birthday.  I try and tell everyone not to make such a big deal, but...)

;)

Anywho - I guess these 30 Before 30 lists may be kind of overdone, but you know I can't resist a good list.  Particularly a list of goals! 

So here's what I'd like to accomplish in the next year:

1. Run a 10k
2. Finish my WIP
3. Buy a kayak and paddle 3 different rivers
4. Get CPR certified
5. Take a class in something I've never tried before
6. Take a trip to a state I've never visited
7. Go see a play or musical
8. Have our wedding pictures made into an album
9. Reorganize/update filing cabinet
10. Make an emergency kit (in case of zombie attacks, etc.)
11. Pay off one student loan
12. Call or write my little sister at least twice a month
13. Purchase one piece of original art
14. Talk to both my grandmothers about their life story and take notes
15. Climb a mountain - any mountain - to the top
16. Go to 10 yoga classes
17. Do something fun in Boston that I've never done before
18. Save $5,000
19. Learn to use a sewing machine
20. Frame my diplomas before they get lost or waterstained or something
21. Make my bedroom my favorite room - cozy, simple, light
22. Make my office an inspiring space
23. Take myself out on a really lovely date
24. Find "my style" and begin to create a coherent wardrobe
25. Pay it forward to a stranger
26. Go TV-free for a week
27. Send 5 people gifts just because
28. Read 50 books
29. Hang art in every room in the house
30. Do something very, very cool for my 30th birthday


Well, if nothing else, I don't think I'll be bored this year.  :)  What's on your life list?

Happy belated 4th!!

xxoo

opening wide the doors

Well.  It's official. 

Not writing is definitely worse than writing.

I've given myself permission not to stress about all the Not Writing I've been doing lately, seeing as how I'm currently spending most of my free time dealing with mortgage brokers and whatnot.  I'm also taking 8 hours/week of (required for life-things, but non-writing-related) classes during the evenings this month, which is basically all my writing time.

But giving myself permission not to stress doesn't mean I'm not missing it.  And yeah, I'm sure I could eek out a paragraph or two here and there, but that's not really my style.  I'm kind of all-or-nothing when it comes to committing to a WIP.  Plus, I know those paragraphs would (a) suck, because I won't have given myself enough time to get back into the story, and (b) make me miss working on it that much more.  Like taking a bite of dessert and then pushing your plate away - not so much me.

Me: A Metaphor

But!  I had an idea last night, as I was tossing and turning and wishing for more hours in the day and wondering why my brain was refusing to take advantage of the ones I managed to set aside for sleeping.  Why not work on something else?  Something short and silly, something that can be set aside for days or weeks at a time, something that can be worked on in small pieces because I'm not expecting it to actually go anywhere?

Do you know how long it has been since I've let myself write something like that?  Answer: so very, very long.  And that's possibly a sign that I've been taking myself and my writing a leeetle too seriously. 

So, instead of continuing the wah wahhhh of Not Writing sadness, I'm going to use this time to play.  I'm going to indulge the scenes that have no place in any actual story in my brain.  I'm going to write a ghost story for some of my favorite little boys.  Maybe I'll try flash fiction.  Maybe I'll write hundreds of little sentences that don't fit anywhere but just sound pretty.

I'm opening wide the doors.  And I'm kind of looking forward to discovering what walks out.

And one more thing before I sidle off: I just want to acknowledge that I have been an awful, awful blog commenter lately.  As in, I've basically completely disappeared.  I think I've sufficiently addressed the why, but I did want to just say for the record that I am reading!  Just failing epically on the commenting front, for which I'm quite sorry.  I look forward to life settling down a bit - hitting the ebb to this flow.  In the meantime, please mentally append this comment to all of your posts: "Hi!  I'm here!  I miss you!  Great post!  I think you're brilliant!" 

Because I do. 

xxoo

&etc.

SEEKING WORDS OF WISDOM FROM THE SUBURBAN ILLUMINATI

House stuff is still on track (!!) but I keep oscillating between being incredibly excited and out-of-my-mind terrified.  So maybe I'll do some crowdsourcing here: for those of you who own, what's one thing you wished people had told you before you became a homeowner?  What's the stuff you HAVE to have, or do, or remember that it seems like no one ever talks about?  Are there any super secret tips that you had to figure out the hard way?  All horror stories with implicit lessons welcome!

 READING!  AND... THINGS

I just finished reading Ready Player One, which I devoured in about two days.  If you are nerdy, a gamer, or feel at all nostalgic for the 80s, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.  If you're not any of those things... y'know, I'd still recommend it.  Hell, I barely remember the 80s, and I'm not much of a gamer, and I still loved every second of it.

Other fun things the internet has shown me lately:

- Since my whole life is in upheaval, I'm currently obsessed with Adulting and The Storage Geek.  Adulting, in particular.  Just... genius.

- Janice Hardy passed along the best plotting advice she's ever heard.  The advice from Cheryl Kline  stopped me in my tracks when I read it on her own blog, and then again when Janice mentioned it, so apparently it's good stuff.  Also, I have the memory of a goldfish.

- I stumbled across David Foster Wallace's 2005 Commencement Address to Kenyon College (excerpted nicely here).  I've always been a sucker for a good speech, but he said some things that resonated with me in that way that things tend to do when they hit you at exactly the right moment.  He was so clearly struggling, as I suppose he had been, and obviously continued to be, and the speech itself is raw with that struggle. The whole thing basically screams, "WAKE UP!"  And I love it.

But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.

That is real freedom.

Yes.

YOU CAN'T SEE IT, BUT I'M TEBOWING

Chris over at A Writer's Expanding and Slightly Warped Universe is regularly and deservedly lavished with awards from other bloggers, and he has been kind enough to pass along two of them to me.  (What he doesn't realize is that I'm mere seconds away from breaking out my Oscar speech.  What... you don't have one of those?)

First was the Liebster Award.

As Chris noted, "this is a blogging award that has been around for quite a while, and is passed on to 'new and upcoming' bloggers (those who have less than 200 followers), in order to give them more exposure."  The "rules" dictate that upon acceptance I pass this award along to 5 other blogs, which I'm thrilled to do.  So, some delightful people I think you should check out:

1. Stephanie Scott over at A Girl and Her Diary, who blogs about writing and YA and TV and other fun things
2. Lost Star at Many Steps Sideways, who writes about life and transitions and punctuates it all with lovely pictures
3. Kern Windwraith at The Odd Particle [Re]View, who rocked A to Z even with a concussion, and, when she had to bow out toward the end, got by with a little help from her friends (one of my fave A to Z moments, actually)
4. Amalie Berlin, who tells some of the funniest stories I've ever heard
5. And finally, Iliad Fan at Story Gush, who blogs about the books you really should be reading

After that, Chris was sweet enough to grace me with the Kreativ Blogger Award.

The rules are: 

 

1. Thank and link back to the person who presented you with the award.

2. Answer the ten questions below.

3. Share ten random facts/thoughts about yourself.

4. Nominate seven worthy blogs for the Kreativ Blogger Award

 

As for number one, it's not difficult to encourage you all to head over to Chris' blog - not only is he one of the nicest guys on the block, but I'm always excited to see that he's posted.  His blog is just a fun place to hang out, y'know?  So go!  Go I say!  Go see for yourself!

 

 And now for the ten questions:

1. What is your favorite song?

 

Sha-whaaaaa?  I have no idea how to even begin to answer that question.

 

Okay.  Okay.  

 

After some serious iTunes perusing and some deep thinking about what songs I've come back to over and over and over again in my life, I think Ani DiFranco's Joyful Girl is probably my favorite song of all time.  It's quiet, gorgeous, and "The world owes me nothing, and we owe each other the world" was my senior quote.  It makes me think of all the people I love, and it has a lot of good reminders tucked away inside.  So there you have it.

(This actually isn't the version I was thinking of - this is the live version, but still beautiful.  Just scroll in about 35 seconds if you don't want to hear pre-song-chatter.)

2. What is your favorite dessert?

Chocolate.  Anything chocolate.  Preferably dark.

3. What ticks you off?

Stubbornness and an unwillingness to grow.  Pretentiousness.  Cruelty.  People who honk in traffic like it's going to make any of us move any faster.

4. When you're upset, what do you do?

Shut down, process alone, regroup, and try to respond thoughtfully once I've calmed down.  (I've found this is the only way I'm able to incorporate love and empathy into my response, which is my goal when I'm upset but trying to repair and move on.)

5. Which is/was your favorite pet?

Well, that question's just wrong.  I will say this: I have owned, in my lifetime, several cats, dogs, and fish, a ferret, a hedgehog, and a chameleon.  So, favorite?  Come on.  Apples and oranges, my friend.  Apples and oranges.

6. Which do you prefer to wear, black or white?

Black.  Mostly for the disguising of the spills.

7. What is your biggest fear?

 

The death of any of my family members.  And natural disasters/plagues that wipe out civilization as we know it.  (Uh huh.)

8. What is your attitude mostly?

Introverted, friendly, and loyal, with a dash of type-A OCD anxiety thrown in for good measure.

9. What is perfection?

 

Impossible.

10. What is your guilty pleasure?

Oh boy.  That would be, uh... *hangs head* Grey's Anatomy.  I just... I just love it.  (Go ahead and judge, but that show has colorblind casting, queer characters, and a whole lotta well-scripted twists, which is more than can be said for most everything else on TV.)  (Did that sound too defensive?  I just love it.)

 

Okay, now for 10 random things about me:

 

1. My Meyers-Briggs test puts me at an INFJ, and wow is it spot-on.

2. I'm kind of obsessed with the Neti Pot right now.  Allergies be gone!  (Yes, yes, brain-eating amoebas: use filtered water, folks.)

3. I can't draw.  Like, really.  Even my stick-figures are lopsided and misshapen.

4. I've never been out of the country.  I need to fix this soon.

5. I own a pair of these (and yes, people do give you weird looks).

6. I can recite all of the states in alphabetical order, really fast.  (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas...)  It's my go-to talent show talent.  Shout out to my 9th grade civics teacher!

7. I wrote a poem in kindergarten about the headless horseman that ended "For he got away with a bat... for he got away with a bat." In the margins surrounding the poem, I drew a picture of a baseball bat as well as a flying-animal-bat. To this day, I have no idea what the hell my 5-year-old self was talking about.

8. I once fell forward onto a cactus, and had to pull out close to 50 long, thick needles from my legs. Also, I had gotten a terrible sunburn on my back earlier in the day, so… yea, it was a pretty bad day.

9.  I have never served on a jury, and now that I’m a lawyer, I’ll probably never be chosen for one. 

10.  I had to start wearing glasses in the 3rd grade.  I remember putting them on for the first time and being just so absolutely filled with wonder that trees had leaves, and grass was made of individual stems, and brick walls weren't just giant red slabs.  Everything was sharp, and in-focus.  Everything was new again.  I try and remember that moment every time I write.

Alright, now I'm supposed to nominate 7 people for this award.  But that's kind of a tall order at the moment, since my brain is melting.  So I'll just say this: chances are, if you read my blog (and comment, so I know you exist), I read your blog.  And I love all the blogs I read.  I could nominate every one of you.  SO, that's exactly what I'm doing.  I'm nominating you.  Thaaaat's right: YOU, there, reading this, right now.  Congrats!  You really do deserve it.  Now get to answering those questions!  :)

we interrupt this silence

Things have not. stopped. moving. post-A to Z! Really though, not for a moment.  Work got busy and I spent last weekend at the Muse & the Marketplace conference (which was amazing and really needs a post all its own...) and it's possible that I just BOUGHT A HOUSE.  So... that's where I've been.  Running around like a crazy person, pretending to be a grown up, scheduling inspections, attending workshops, doing laundry, intermittently freaking out about the enormity of homeownership, having no time to write, etc.

So!  This is me, dropping a quick line to say hello there, yes, I AM still alive... and to give all kinds of celebratory high-fives to those of you who are also in A to Z recovery.  To those of you who are just stopping by now that all the blogging madness has died down: high-fives AND fist-bumps.  (Which is apparently my way of saying, so nice to meet you!)

Super special thanks and love to Chris over at A Writer's Expanding and Slightly Warped Universe for bestowing upon me the Liebster Award, which I will gratefully accept in a blog post that is less off-the-cuff, as it deserves proper recognition.  (If you're a writer and you didn't check out his blog during A to Z, you should go peruse - his theme was fundamentals of writing that we all ought to include in our work, and it's a pretty fantastic list!  Also, he's one of the nicest bloggers you'll ever meet.)

More super special love and thanks to Suze at Analog Breakfast, for consistently blowing my mind with her A to Z posts, and for following that up with a shout-out in her roundup post that made me all blushy.  Hers catapulted very quickly to one of my very favorite blogs (ever), so it meant a lot to know that she would send people this way.  Go check her out, if you don't know her.  You won't regret it.

And now I'm off to cross a few more things off my list.  But what about you all?  How're you keeping busy?  (I miss not getting daily posts from everyone!)

A to Z: Zed

WE MADE IT!!!!!

HAPPY END OF A TO Z EVERYBODY!

:D

Celebratory GIF time!!!

 

To those of you I met during the challenge: I am so thrilled to have gotten to know you, and I look forward to keeping up with your blogs!

I had a blast, and when I'm back in computer-land I will most certainly be doing a bit of a wrap-up post.  In the meantime, I'd love to hear: what was your favorite part of A to Z?  What amazing blog did you discover that I may have missed?  And what are you going to do with all this newfound free time now that it's over???  :D


[Please note that I'll be out of town, with little-if-any internet access, for the next few days.  I hate to miss the homestretch of A to Z, but if I don't stop by your blog this weekend, please know I'm planning on getting there ASAP!]

A to Z: You

Nobody can advise and help you, nobody. There is only one single means. Go inside yourself. Discover the motive that bids you write; examine whether it sends its roots down to the deepest places of your heart, confess to yourself whether you would have to die if writing were denied you. This before all: ask yourself in the quietest hour of your night: must I write?
RAINER MARIA RILKE

[Please note that I'll be out of town, with little-if-any internet access, for the next few days.  I hate to miss the homestretch of A to Z, but if I don't stop by your blog this weekend, please know I'm planning on getting there ASAP!]

One month.  26 posts.  A to Z.  (Don't know what I'm talking about?  Check out the Challenge here.)