C.A. Watson's Blog, page 3

Changing Your Scene Can Help You Write Them or Leaving The Creative Nest

This is my usual writing routine. I wake up, grab a pen and my journals and start writing. I do not even get dress before I’ve written a thousand words. It’s a rule. Every writer figures out what works for them and once you do, you don’t mess with it. What works for me is to write things out long hand, that is draft one. Then I type what I wrote that morning, making changes big and small in wording and tone. That’s draft two. After that, I take advantage of the speech function on my laptop and refine things for a third go around. It’s only after all of that that my editor gets to see it and make her comments. Today, well, I just didn’t do that. Instead, I got about two thirds of my word count done and then I watched Poldark episodes on Masterpiece that were on my recorded list. Then I took a long bath, went to lunch and came to the library. I finished the last third of my word count for the day here as well as listening to a lecture on addiction as part of my research for this book. Now, I’m writing out my blog post, very early, and will probably pick out a movie and go home. The best part is, I don’t feel stressed about it. To keep the feeling, I am looking for something focus on after I end the retreat, and I decided that I’m going on a time diet.

What, you may ask, is a time diet. Well, it is a decision to be conscious of all of the comments that you make to yourself about time. That means focusing on all of those off-hand comments that we say aloud or wind up as part of the non-stop dialogue that goes on inside the secret world of your head. It’s based on the idea, not mine but Gay Hendricks from his book The Big Leap, that our society looks at time as this external force bearing down on us without mercy. He calls it Newton time. Hendricks suggests that instead you live in Einstein time. In that version, we are the ones creating time. It is an internal element that we have control over. I admit, it’s sort of a strange idea to wrap my head around, but when something makes speaks to your gut, you don’t argue. You go with it. I’m going with it. Besides, nothing can be as difficult as the convent stay, right?

How A Migraine Headache Can Really Mess Up Your Plans

I had big plans for this last week of my convent stay. I was going to go through the last few months of my journal to get a sense of where I was in real time, so to speak, and see where I wanted to put my energy over the next three months. I wanted to get Day One in the book completely done and have made a substantial start on pulling Day Two together. I’ve started sending chapters to my developmental editor and I wanted to make edits based on her suggestions. Oh, yes, I had plans, and then BAMB! Monday night it started. I could feel it coming on. Those of us who have them, we know when the boom is getting ready to drop and screw up our lives. There are always signs that the migraine is on its way.

For me, it is a tingling sensation above both of my ears and what feels like a tension headache between my eyes. I have been getting them for the past eight or so years not and due to all of that fun experience, I have a rule. You don’t fight the headache. You accept that it is going to visit, take your meds, shut the blinds (I’m light sensitive, so of course my worst headaches typically come in July!), close your eyes and ride it out. If necessary, you hit up the doctor for help, but that is my last resort. I didn’t need to this time, but I wanted to scream, mostly at myself. See, I had a really hard time following that rule. I kept attempting to work on the book. I thought, I’m in a down phase anyway, so I could keep writing and editing, as long as I did them in small doses and I’d be fine. Yeah, not so much and I had to learn that the hard way. I won’t go into details except to say that I spent some more time than usual in the bathroom.

Now, though, comes the really hard part, getting back on track. There is this little voice in my head that keeps saying saying, just end this thing now. You did pretty well. Heck, you came damn close to finishing up the three weeks. That voice is getting louder. It’s becoming difficult to ignore it and even more difficult not agreeing with it and chucking this whole thing. Instead, I’m writing a blog post. I’m making sure that I keep as many of my agreements as possible. And I’m looking forward to putting this experience behind me. It’s time to enter the world again. World, get ready. I’m coming soon.

A Blog Post About Nothing That Became About Something

Today was not a good or bad day. I guess that makes it like most days, but I can always find something to write about in regards this whole experiment. Right now, I’ve got nothing. It’s not like I lack material, stuff happened. The paperback version of How To Survive A Minor Alien Invasion is now available on Amazon. I have a giveaway going on Goodreads and the books for that arrived. I have held my book in my hands. I am still having a lot of pain, which is hampering my writing. When writing or typing cause your arms to burn and hurt so bad you feel nauseous, then you STOP doing that until whatever this is goes away. It hasn’t yet.

I could write abut all of this, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to write. This is my version of a Seinfeld episode. It’s about nothing. He made that brilliant. Why do I think that my version of that is falling way short of his standard? Because it is, you say, and you’d be right. I mean, why did that work? We just assume that our normal stuff isn’t interesting or maybe we are sick of us, so why wouldn’t other people be sick of us as well? Maybe, though, it is the stuff of greatness, or not, we’ll see. I have nothing on my schedule this week. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all that nothing, but I have the luxury in the modern world to have time to do nothing, to separate from life for awhile. We didn’t always have this basic right. It wasn’t all that long ago that any woman who did not want a family to build her life around was dangerous, a witch, and “dealt with.” Hell, maybe this whole, I am going to share how I don’t want to share is an act of rebellion in and of itself. A small one, but revolutions start by a continuous set of tiny steps. Wow, that turned profound. I guess I had something to say, in the end.

Weekends Are Weekends - Even In a Creative Convent

I just completed my first full weekend in the convent. It did not go well. I wish I could say that, hey, in a convent, one day of the week is like any other, but I’m tied into the world still and Saturday and Sunday feel different. I don’t know if it had to do with the fact that I went on my planed grocery shopping trip and lost my exercise monitor (which I still haven’t found), putting me into a funk or if just getting out made me want to keep getting out, but it went poorly. The good weather helped as well. All of it worked together to make me want to chuck this whole thing. I went out to lunch for the past three days. There I said it. I made the admission. I needed to get out of the house. Does this mean I failed? Well, I’m still working on my convent goals. Those have not changed and I still have another thirteen days until this is done. A lot can happen in thirteen days. I find I remember a quote about middles:

Middles suck. I hate middles. Middles are all regretting the past and waiting for something interesting to happen. Middles can go zark themselves as far as I’m concerned!

-from And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer

Yes, it’s from a Sci Fi book, and the controversial one where someone actually attempted to write like Douglas Adams. I don’t think Colfer did a half bad job on the story, but that passage, as far as I was concerned, is brilliant. I was listening to the book on CD in my car. I replayed it four times and wrote it down. It’s still one of my favorite quotes. It is also true. I am in the middle and it is boring and hard and far too quiet and I want to make a break for it. Instead, I’m writing a blog post about it. I don’t know if it will help, but it sure couldn’t hurt. Plus, you now have that awesome quote for your own yucky foray into the middle someday. You’re welcome.

Trying To Leave the Convent

I've been feeling restless. Today I lacked focus. I managed to get myself in motion and get thing done, but, well, it was a day full of setbacks. Among the items on my Sunday to do list was to go grocery shopping. Somehow between the store and home I lost my exercise tracker. I still can't find it. In the grand scheme of things, it is not that big a deal, but it put a damper on the rest of the day, putting the breaks on the forward motion. The headache I had in the morning came back with a vengeance and knocked the wind out of my sails. Life is like that, isn't it. Only one thing can cause the two steps back, after the best of steps forward. I wish that these things did not push me back down but it does. Well, this day is not over and tomorrow is a new day. We all get a new day to work towards out goals and begin again.

Words That Hit Too Close To Home

I am proud to say that I am pursuing not only one of my convent goals, but one of my life goals as well. I have started on the long journey to read all seven volumes of Proust’s epic. I’m on page sixty of Swann’s Way. Proust is a twelve course meal, not fast food, and you must digest him that way. I expect to have to stay on this path for years before I can rest. I got through the first thirty pages of our young narrator’s extended agonies over not getting a good night’s kiss from his mother. It sounds like a silly way to begin a story, but there are passages in those thirty pages that are amazing. We have also attended the moment of the tea and the petites madeleines. As I was reading, there was a scene, a passage that hit a bit too close to home. Our young storyteller is introducing the reader to his Aunt Leonie. When the narrators’ family comes to Combray every year, they stay in her house. Aunt Leonie is a widow in failing health who left her an invalid. The author does not comment on if her illness is genuine or not, but what is clear is that her final years were spent in bed, complaining and looking out her windows to see what her neighbors were up to and then gossiping about it with her maid. The author describes her life thus:

My aunt effectively confined her life to two adjoining rooms, staying in one of them in the afternoon while the other was aired.
I am not anything like this woman during normal times. But right now, within the walls of my convent, my life is lived, for the most part, between two adjoining rooms. I also go outside now and again, but it struck me how retreat is not always a healthy thing. Sometimes it really is retreat from life. I am grateful I have a much better version of it.

Lullaby, And Goodnight-The Benefits Of A Good Nights Sleep

Two, count them, two post in one day but I guess I have some things to say. The confession part of the evening is over, so now I’m going to talk about the convent. One of the rules, I think the first one, I devised for myself was that I would have specific time that I slept and woke up. I resolved to be up by eight and in bed by eleven, and I’ve kept that rule. I had assumed that it would be a difficult one to keep, mostly because I have been having such hart time both getting to sleep and staying asleep. I worried I would be up tossing and turning. Much to my surprise, it has not played out that way. In fact I have gotten the best nights sleep in years since I started this. Not only that, but the amount of sleep has improved as well. Last night I managed to get almost eight hours! I am amazed that I took to this so fast. I also think the fact that the television remains off and I spend the last hour of my day reading must play a part. Television gears me up. Reading, it seems, winds me down.

I am thinking that both behaviors will follow me out of the convent.

Rules Were Made To Be Broken. Guilt Meant To Be Felt

So, my mother came in a little while ago and asked I would be willing drive my parents and we would go out to lunch tomorrow. Let me explain. I live with my folks. My father is ill, the details are not something he would want me to go into, but it means my mother is his caretaker. I am here as her backup and support, so when she comes in and asks if I want to go to lunch with them tomorrow, I know that the answer will be yes, even if I’m in a creative convent. Family comes first.

Breaking rules has been on my mind today, because I think I broke one. I spend this afternoon at the library. I was working, I swear. I have almost completed one of my big marketing jobs, putting the print version of my book up on Createspace. It is in the review stage, so that is almost done. As soon as I know I will set up one of my other big marketing missions, having a giveaway on Goodreads. I think both will help boost my sales. Another of my goals was while in convent was to complete two online classes I signed up for, and I was listening to the next to the last lecture in one of them. Unfortunatly, I was also doing my e-mail check and I happened upon a list of new CD releases. That got me thinking about music I wanted to listen to and before I knew it, I was ordering stuff from the library. I didn’t even think about it. Then I did and shut things down. I don’t know if it was the different setting or what, but I think I just cheated. Now, it seems, I’m going to confession. Please, forgive a lapsed creative for getting lost in wanted to listen to new music and not thinking. I will do better in the future.

Meditation Is Good For You-Riiiighttt. Confessions of a Meditation Failure

I’m being dramatic, I know. I do understand that meditation had documented physical and psychological benefits. I know this so I decided that I would incorporate it into my convent schedule. Nothing too time consuming, I would start out my day with five minutes where I focused on my breathing and cleared my mind, just to get my day started off on a good note. It is the LONGEST five minutes of the day! Now all you enthusiasts out there will say, that is normal. It’s hard at the start. Keep going, it will get easier to spend time focusing on your breathing and keeping your mind blank. I might even agree with you, but that does not make the first five minutes of my morning any easier to get through, at least so far. It does not stop me from wondering “how much longer do I have to keep doing this?” within seconds of setting the timer. I feel like a meditation failure. Well, it is day five of a three week journey. I have some time to get better at this, but how could it be so hard? It’s just breathing!

Show Up, Do The Work, Get It Done. No Magic Involved

Today’s post will be short but this day was about action, not words. I wished that were different. I wished that I had more to say today about today, but it would end up being a list of tasks. I kept all my commitments. I guess not every day can have big realizations or strange rituals. Some days are just show up, do the work and get it done. Today was one of those. Nothing glamorous or anything. I think I read that the word glamor means “to cast a spell.” That is possibly why itis so rare. Spells take a lot of work to pull off. This whole process is about the opposite of that. The convent is not about casting spells. It is about shedding them. That is a different sort of work. Time will see if I’m built for it.