Category Archives: Writing

Brain weasels and cosmic two-by-fours

Recently I’ve been struggling with what my friend Lisa calls “brain weasels”: those insidious negative thoughts that chew on your brain and make it near-impossible to feel good about yourself or (in my case, at least) get anything done.

Because I’m an idiot sometimes (I’m saying that in an affectionate way, mind you, not in a brain weasely way), I occasionally forget what works for me and stop doing it. For example, I’ve been reading Julia Cameron for years, but only in the last year or so actually tried doing morning pages, and they did help focus my goals and intentions for the day. Then I stopped. Why? I have no freaking clue.

A few days ago I started a new habit, which is to read a book on writing or creativity or some other nonfiction in that vein, while I eat breakfast. This has so many advantages over watching HGTV or reading fiction* or a random magazine, I can’t even begin.

I’ve been dipping in and out of an amazing book for writers and other creative types who want to make a living at their art for some time: Managing Your Inner Artist/Writer, by my friend Matt Buchman (he writes award-winning romance and teaches on many subjects). In it, Matt talks about setting goals (as opposed to having dreams, which are also important but not in your direct control). I’ve written down my goals (and dreams) before, but this morning I realized it was a good time to do it again.

Cosmic Two-by-Four #1: Writing things down makes them real. I know this about To Do lists, but forgot it when it comes to really thinking through what I want and need to do, and making that intent real but writing it down.

I wrote down both goals and dreams (and moved some goals to dreams because I realized I wasn’t quantifying them properly, although that was because I’m already in the middle of doing them). The goals are do-able if I apply myself. Some of the dreams are pretty achievable if I stick to my goals; some of them are outrageous ones that hell, could happen, but certainly not if I don’t apply myself, and even if I do. But if you don’t dream it, I believe you’ll never achieve it.

And then, for some reason, I got hit with the second revelation, which was powerful enough that I grabbed a second sheet of paper because it needed to stand on its own.

Cosmic Two-by-Four #2: Every time you compare yourself to someone else and feel like a fraud**, remember that there are people who look up to you and are trying to get to your level. Be the person they think you are.

Despite my revelations, I’ve still been pharting around this morning, so I’m’a gonna post this and actually look at getting some work done. You know, those there goals!


*Reading fiction is essential for writers. But reading fiction first thing in the morning for me results in hours lost in the book. If I look up, blinking in confusion at the real world, four hours later, that’s…not the kind of productive day I was planning to have.

**This was the first time I identified my feelings of inadequacy as feeling like a fraud. Possibly this is Cosmic Two-by-Four #3—and it’s definitely something I need to consider further.

At the End of a Perfect Day

Sunday, I had what came pretty close to a perfect day. A truly happy day.

But let me backtrack. For the last week plus, Ken has been out of town. He flew to Atlanta, spent a day helping out a friend of mine with some work that needed doing on her house, then headed off to be there for my niece and my sister. After that, he drove my mom home (she winters in South Carolina, and had drive from there to Atlanta) and then took care of stuff in upstate NY, like getting her brakes fixed, getting her set up with real Internet (she’d been on dial-up up ‘til now), defrosting her fridge, etc.

Yeah, he’s awesome like that.  🙂

The plan was that he’d fly from there (well, from Burlington, VT, because the local airport is tiny and flying from there can be crazy-expensive) to Oregon last Friday, where he’d do the last few tweaks on a motorcycle he was rehabbing, pop in to a work customer, and then sometime during this week ride the bike home in preparation for selling it.

Except, on Friday, he got to Burlington and they blinked in confusion and told him that his flight to JFK had been delayed such that he not only couldn’t make his connection to Portland, but the next flight to Portland available was Monday.

And he said, screw that, I’m going home. So Saturday evening, I got to pick him up from the airport, and after a stop at our favorite hole-in-the-wall Thai place on the way (amazing food, amazingly cheap), I got to bring him home.

He crashed pretty much as soon as we got home (jet lag, etc.) and so got up before me on Sunday, which meant Grimoire didn’t stomp all over the bed crying for me to get up and feed him at o’dark early (which he does even though there may be food in his bowl downstairs , because I don’t know WTF). So when I got up on Sunday, after a rare night of full sleep, I went down and found him in the TV room and cried “You’re here! It wasn’t a dream!”

‘Cause, yeah, I miss the shit out of him when he’s away, y’know?

So we had breakfast and whatnot, and I did some admin work, and then I headed off to Thousand Oaks to hook up with the most wonderful Christine, and there was hugging and squees and eating and gabbing and even a little writing. She gave me a lavender plant for my birthday, and I vowed not to kill this one.  😉  I mostly brainstormed and researched for an anthology story, and ended up with two ideas, both of which I’ll probably write.

I stopped at Trader Joe’s for a couple of things on the way home, and when I got home, Ken and I threw the water bottles in the car for refilling. But first we went for a long and glorious walk on the beach. Talk about refilling the well.

Once home again, I finished up a copyediting job and sent it off, and prepped the next job, and set up my schedule for the coming week.

Of course, the best laid plans, and all that. (Cue Eddie Izzard and mice plans.) Ken and I had dinner and watched some TV, and I think I got to bed around 1 am, and then at 5 am Grimoire decided to yark on the bed and floor, which involved Ken cleaning up while I went downstairs to get yet another comforter (this is the second time in a couple of days that we’ve had cat puke on the bed, hurrah. I think his new food isn’t agreeing with him). I didn’t sleep well after that, and spent most of yesterday in a brain fog.

Thankfully it was an admin day for me, which takes a different sort of brain power than writing, so I managed to muddle through. Although republishing 10 short stories and 2 collections (more on that soon) meant my right hand and arm were kinda sore by the end of the day. Unfortunately, all of this also meant I didn’t get to the new copyediting job…

With this job, I have three CE jobs back-to-back, which means none of them can slip more than a day. This coming weekend is my birthday, and I’d hoped to take the weekend off (Friday night through Sunday night), but now that’s looking less likely. I’ll see how the week progresses and how efficiently I’m working through my scheduled projects (two novels, a couple short stories, the CE job, etc.), and reevaluate towards the end of the week.

Phew! At least I had trouble sleeping again this morning, so I was up an hour and a half before the alarm, and I’ve done some more publishing work, and now I’m going to…write, I think.

Let me leave you with the song has been going through my head the past couple of days: Chris deBurgh’s “At the End of a Perfect Day.”  🙂