Refocus.

Last year I decided I wasn’t going to do NaBloPoMo. Instead, I wanted to write 25,000 words toward my memoir. I did that and then some. It was great and I’m still really proud of that, even though virtually no one has read any of those words.

I have an idea for a novel that has been brewing but I can’t quite figure it out yet. The more I try, the more stuck I am. This idea is half-baked at best. For a brief moment I considered trying NaNoWriMo, banging out something of a first draft. But without a full scope of the story, that seemed impossible. I tried to write an outline, but it didn’t work. I thought about winging it but I didn’t know where to start.

Without a big project to work on, I figured I’d do NaBlo again. I thought if I could get myself in the swing of writing daily again, I could get that novel going. Or something. I’m not really sure what I was thinking.

First of all, I do write daily. Between the day job and freelance work, I’m writing all the time. It just isn’t personal writing. The reason my creativity is in the toilet right now is that I am writing so much in other places. I’m not complaining, but it’s not like I don’t understand what’s happening.

Also, diverting my attention away from the creative stuff I’m actually pursuing is totally counterintuitive. The only way to write a novel is to actually sit down and WRITE A NOVEL. I know this. You know this. Writing 30 blog posts isn’t going to help that. Reading other people’s blog posts is going to help it even less. (I didn’t really read that many other posts, which makes me a terrible participant. Sorry, friends.)

So let’s call bullshit on this, shall we? I did this daily thing because I am afraid to write the novel. I set up a month long distraction from important stuff so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the important stuff. Hey, guess what? It worked! I accomplished nothing.

You could say that I did blog every day (assuming I get through tomorrow) but 90% of the blogs I posted this month were crap. Anyone reading this blog for the first time is going to wonder what I’m trying to do here. If the goal was to do myself a disservice, well, congratulations to me!

I’m not knocking November challenges. I think they are really powerful. However, I think they don’t serve everyone the same way. I have about 32 seconds to spare per day — I have to use them wisely. This wasn’t it. The truth is, this isn’t the only example of how I’ve been all over the place, spread too thing, unfocused. This is symptomatic of a larger problem.

Having a few days off work and a few days without other freelance gigs gave me some time to think and I didn’t like what I came up with.

There is nothing in this world I cannot do. I knew that when I was a toddler and I know that now. But, and it’s a big but, it all takes work and focus and that is not at all what I’ve been doing. I got so bogged down with not having a job in the beginning of this year and then having a new job and then trying to do the freelance and, and, and…

Stop for one second. Just. Stop.

Refocus. I cannot be everything to everyone.

I cannot be everything to everyone.

Tomorrow’s a new day.

No more wasted time.

This is yeah write’s nomo day 29.

 

Rest. Who Knew?

Yesterday, my son went to spend the night at his grandparents’ house. I had planned to binge watch TV and eat all the things. Great plan, right?

It totally was a great plan. I have barely worked or thought about working since Wednesday. I have thought a lot about the way my life has been going and what I can do to fix that. I think the most important part though was getting some time to sit mindlessly without serving anyone, doing anything that needed to be done, or passing out the second my ass hit the couch. I also slept until 7:30 this morning. Seven. Thirty.

Things look much better today than they did last week.

Rest. Who knew?

This is yeah write’s nomo day 28. It’s also my submission to the weekend moonshine grid at yeah write.

So Close to the Finish Line.

The thing is, the schedule I keep and the amount of things I have to do really don’t make for an easy time of writing.

I got up this morning at 2:30. I could have found the time to write today, obviously, but the energy wasn’t there. Maybe tonight I’ll gt some sleep and then I’ll just be too busy.

My lifestyle is going to be the death of me.

This is yeah write’s nomo day 27. Thank goodness, because I only have 3 more posts to write before I can give up this silly charade.

Thankful.

I am thankful for so many things. I’m not going to list them.

Some things I’m not quite thankful for, but maybe someday I’ll be thankful for the lessons they’ll teach me. Not yet though.

I don’t need to say publicly how thankful I am, for which things I am thankful, or adhere to some schedule to prove I’m thankful enough. I don’t have to be constantly thankful; I can say that sometimes some things suck. That doesn’t negate thankfulness for other things.

In a season where we’re bombarded with messages to count our blessings and insinuations that we aren’t grateful enough if we aren’t gushing our thanks and praise upon the universe, I say to just be you. You’re thankful for what you want to be thankful for. You don’t have to be thankful for everything or all the time and I respect that.

No one has to wear their gratitude like a sandwich board and parade it around for the world’s approval.

Happy Thanksgiving.

This is yeah write’s nomo Day 26.

Thanksgiving Eve.

I have a ton of work to do by tomorrow morning (and a ton more this weekend) but I’m off from my day job until Monday and I’m quite pleased about that.

This is the first year in over a decade that I’m not hosting Thanksgiving. I’ve been threatening for years to stop cooking and this year we got an invite to celebrate with a friend’s family. While I used to love to cook, the pressure to put together an elaborate meal (one my kid won’t even eat, btw) with never enough time to prep is just too much. It was never even that many of us but it was too much. I work a day job plus freelance plus family and it is JUST. TOO. MUCH.

So today I got out of work early, took my kid and his busted face to the doctor (his face is rapidly becoming less busted), then came home and worked. I had dessert for dinner and now I’m going to bed at 9. Tomorrow, I’ll wake up and work and then not cook and it will be glorious. I haven’t been this relaxed on a Thanksgiving Eve in, well, over a decade.