They’re back. The dark cloud in my season of holiday lights and happy Christmas music and visions of cookies dancing in my head. The…gingerbread houses. *shudder*
No, I’m not doing another one. Not ever. I learned my lesson. (http://charleneteglia.com/node/1671) Just walking past them makes my eye twitch.
This is a book I pull out and re-read regularly. It’s full of wisdom and encouragement, and deals with the reality that we keep taking the same steps, over and over, just in different ways. It’s part of the process.
Something I got reminded of this time is that sometimes ideas need time to simmer and sometimes the well of words needs time to refill. It’s become sort of the expectation (or maybe this is only in the romance genre) that a pro can whip out a book to order in a few weeks or a few months, consistently, to a set schedule. But it doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes, yes, the book comes fast and furious. Other times, it comes at a snail’s pace.
Sometimes you aren’t stalled at all, you’re just waiting. Waiting for the story to simmer, waiting for the words to well up. There’s a difference between this kind of pause and procrastination or a failing of craft or technique or not knowing what happens next.
I hate the pause. I hate waiting. I’m impatient. I like to see results. But sometimes the results are too deep underground to see, like roots growing and spreading. And without those roots, you can’t support the story trunk.
It’s that time of year when dues renewal notices appear from writer’s organizations, and I ask myself if I’m going to renew. I have joined and dropped RWA so many times I’ve lost count. I joined NINC, but am pondering renewing there, too. Because I’m not currently an “active” member anywhere. I can’t be.
Being an active member means writing articles, volunteering, doing workshops. And you know, I’ve done all that in the past, and I simply cannot fit it in to my current day that includes writing, doing school, keeping kids busy, picking up work from the husband’s business, keeping the house clean, laundry caught up, everybody fed, and making sure the cats don’t go into a decline from seeing The Bottom of The Food Dish.
And then I find myself wondering if it’s worth it to pay the membership fee when I don’t have time to read the newsletters, participate in online groups, go to conventions, etc. And thinking of all the other things I could do with the money instead.
And most of all, thinking about this: I didn’t become a writer because I was good at conformity, and the overwhelming message I get from writer’s groups is about conforming. Be good. Do what you’re told. Do what everybody else is doing. Shut up, don’t complain, be grateful you have a contract at all.
I’m tired of this message. I’m tired of paying money I could have spent on books to be told what I already know, or what I might see the point in but know I cannot apply. So this year, I’m not doing it. I have enough on my plate, trying to figure out who I am as a writer now and what books speak to me without the clamor of other voices. I want to listen to the still, small voice and see what it has to tell me. I think it’ll be interesting, and it won’t cost $200.
1. My crockpot. I love being able to put together the meal hours ahead of time, turn it on, and walk away.
2. My bread machine. This was a Christmas present years ago (thanks, Mom!) and like the crockpot, you put the ingredients in, turn it on, and walk away.
3. Swiffer extendable handle duster. Makes cleaning high, hard to reach places and weird angles easy. Even dusting the ceiling fan! Anything that speeds up dusting is my friend.
4. Shopping in bulk. We became Costco shoppers when we became a family of 4. You save time and money by buying your staples in quantity. (Shop less often, get economies of scale.)
5. Junk mail controls on email client. A fraction of the email I get is “real”. The rest, thanks to filters, goes right into the junk folder and empties itself every so often. I was wasting probably half an hour a day manually deleting the crap.
6. Mollum on my blog. It eats spam comments like the Cookie Monster eats cookies. (Or used to, before he tragically became the Veggie Monster. Poor Cookie.) Again, you would not believe the time this task used to suck up.
7. Drupal. I kiss Drupal’s feet after some of the other content management systems I’ve tangled with. Oh, Drupal, I love you more than Swiffer. Because let’s face it, I update my website more often than I dust. Way more often.
8. Getting rid of everything in my closet that didn’t fit. Need to go out in public and pretend I don’t live in sweats? No more frustrating time spent trying to figure out what fits. It all fits. Yes, I embraced the reality that I have 2 kids and will never be a size 6 again. Also ditched the pre-baby shirts that will never again button over the post-baby cleavage. I cleave. Oh, how I cleave.
9. Buying only a few things that mix and match. Not only does it all fit, it all goes together. Geranimals for grownups.
10. Getting rid of mysterious utensils that jammed up the drawer and I had no idea how to use. I mean, other than summoning Annoia*, what were they for?
*See Terry Pratchett, Discworld
Last August when the brick and mortar school thing was a clear no-go, life went from “la la la, kid in school half time, other kid ready for pre-school” to “holy crap, home-schooling for both, now how do I juggle?”
Well, the answer has been that some things had to go. I had already dropped my volunteer commitment to NINC because it was a much bigger time commitment than I’d expected. I dropped my Romancing the Blog column. I dropped Wicked Writers. I am streamlining to focus on what I do here on this site, and I’ll also be involved in another group blog in the new year that will be a pretty light commitment that lets me try something different.
I’m not making big plans to do much outside of home, family, and writing. I can’t. Over time that will shift, but for now, I am needed here. And I need to write or my brain will explode. So those are the priorities.
Basically, it’s time to focus on the priorities and keep life simple.
Also, figure out how to satisfy the five year old’s desire to understand “how people get made” without using words like “blastocyst”. Which I’ve already screwed up on. I can’t help it, it came out. I also said, “allele”. My kids will be traumatized at this rate.
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