That’s a better word than what I was just thinking two seconds ago.

It’s been a tiring day today, and it occurred to me that the day after some deadline or other is met, finished, can be like that. You feel drained. But those words didn’t feel very good to me.

I like renewal better. I need this day, this bit of time when nothing is required, when nothing needs to be done. I need it to renew myself.

It’s been a good day, despite the tiredness. And it feels good, to have accomplished so much and to be back to a regular schedule.

I had a bazillion and one ideas all the while I was working to various deadlines. I felt motivated to make them all come true, too. But the day after, I don’t want to lift a finger.

Hot bath, glass of wine, and a good book beckons.

Tags: renewal, Thoughts

What a huge, huge relief! I have slogged my way through most of the deadlines. There’s one more, but it can actually be finished on the weekend, and then I’m back to my regular schedule of deadlines, which I can handle quite well.

I’ve done an incredible amount of work these past two weeks, and it really didn’t start getting to me until today. But even with the growing eagerness to be done with it all, I kept going, and now I feel so free!

I have lots to catch up on - there are several emails sitting in my inbox from friends of mine who’ve been absolutely on fire today. I can hardly to read them. And I haven’t had a chance this month to check out all the other AEDM blogs, so will be doing that, too.

It feels good!

Tags: Life, work

Or perhaps I should title this post “Meeting my NaBoPloMo Requirement for the Day”.

Renovations, Not Yet

Seriously, though, I had been planning to blog all about our renovation plans, which were supposed to start tomorrow. I took pictures of the area that will be transformed in the space of the next four weeks, and everything!

But, as is often the case with renovations, I’ve noticed, the project has been postponed. Our contractor hurt his foot last week and it’s not gotten any better. So the start date has been moved to Monday.

On the bright side, it means three more mornings of hanging around in my bathrobe, yawning, lying down on the couch for a quick nap after the kids have left for school …

NaNoWriMo Motivation

One thing that has surprised me is how I’ve been able to keep up with NaNoWriMo. I’ve discovered a wicked little tool that almost physically propels me to open up my novel writing files and start typing every night. It’s that little image that’s on the upper right hand side of this blog right now. Every night I log into Nano and update my word count, and like magic, it’s reflected in that little image.

Astoundingly enough, THAT’S what’s been behind my ability to sit myself down and write those words every night. Kind of an accountability thing.

It’s been working so well that I asked my friend Ann-Kat to suggest a Wordpress plugin that will do roughly the same thing once Nano is up. She’s made a few suggestions, and I’ll go and take a look at what’s available once this week is over and those deadlines have all been met and dealt with. I plan to keep a little widget announcing word count progress on my latest novel at all times on this blog.

Because it really seems to be working for me. And honestly, anything that gets me to write is good, very very good.

The Whole Work Thing

I’m amazed at how calm and stress-free I’ve been during this marathon of deadlines. Today I discovered that a couple of my deadlines for next week have shifted into the future, and so I’m really looking forward to this weekend, when I should be finishing up on the last deadline of the bunch. Just thinking about it makes me feel good.

But glitches do pop up. I just discovered I’m missing a document for one of the deadlines that’s due later this week. It’s something I should have clued into earlier. There was a time when something like this would have thrown me for a loop but I’m taking it in stride. I’m good at what I do, and “stuff happens”. Really. It does. And it’s all no big deal.

So all is well. And that feels good, too.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, renovations, Thoughts, work, Writing

A little bit more of a hectic day today, but I did manage to finish this little mandala - very relaxing, and I didn’t blow the colours as badly as the last one!

Mandala No. 3

I spent far more time today with my nose buried deep in my work, and the funny thing is, I worked slower and ended up taking far longer than I expected. On the weekend, I had reversed this - I had worked in a focused way, but with lots of fun little breaks, and I ended up getting more work done in less time.

So there’s a lesson for me there!

Tags: aedm, Art

It’s been a very busy week here because of work deadlines. Because I always run the risk of feeling like I’m drowning in work when I have these deadline crunches, this time around, I made sure to commit to other things which help relieve the tedium of focusing too much on work - with some truly excellent results! There’s nothing like balance to really make a person feel more energized.

I really think I’m actually working smarter because I’ve been taking several small breaks instead of charging full-steam ahead into my work without taking so much as a breath.

I haven’t managed to finish a book this week because of deadlines, but my “balanced living tools” this week have included quick dips into The Wright Three, by Blue Balliett. I really enjoyed Chasing Vermeer, Balliett’s first book about Petra and Calder. I’m about a third of the way through The Wright Three, in which Petra and Calder are joined by Calder’s old friend Tommy, and the writing and plot in this book are just as delicious as Chasing Vermeer. If it weren’t for my deadlines, I’d be zooming through this, but since I can’t, I’ve been taking my time and really savoring it. As soon as I finish this, I’m going to pick up Calder Game, the latest Balliett book.

I also managed to read through this month’s edition of Toronto Life; admittedly, I didn’t actually read all the articles, but there were some interesting items in there. We recently just subscribed, and so far I’m pretty glad we did. I’ve already picked out a handful of restaurants that I’d like to try, plus there are a few plays that I hadn’t heard about that I’d like to buy tickets for.

Not that I have time to actually go anywhere right now. But soon! In another week and a bit, I should be out of deadline crunch. And I am REALLY looking forward to that!

Tags: children's books, Reading, The Sunday Salon

Photo credit: Carter Perrier

It’s been a beautiful morning - not sunny, kind of grayish, actually, but I sat in bed with my morning coffee and just luxuriated in the cool, crisp breeze coming in through the windows.

One thing I’ve been doing throughout this past “deadline” crunch week is making the time in the mornings to relax with my cup of coffee before I plunge into work. I find this kind of morning ritual fills me with energy for the rest of the day.

And it’s working. This morning I looked back over the week, and I have accomplished so much - without the chaotic, frazzled, hyper stressful feelings that I’ve experienced in the past. Those feelings are getting rare. I know who I’m choosing to be, and even in the midst of a ton of work, I am finding I can continue to rest consistently in who I’m choosing to be.

My work doesn’t define who I am. A very wise and loving friend once told me that. That was my wake-up call. And today, I’m celebrating the fact that I have fully embraced this. This past week has shown me that.

It’s been a beautiful morning.

Tags: Being, mornings

Dylan’s been missing The Big Draw - he loved seeing his work up on “the website”, as he calls it. So I’ve decided to give him his own category here. Afterall, he does have quite a passionate fan club!

Dylan’s Day Yesterday

Yesterday, Dylan had a busy day. I had to stay home, of course, since I’ve got these deadlines (you know, the ones that have been coming out of my ears all week?), so it was just Dylan and Daddy. First they went to speech therapy:

Mommy: How did speech therapy go?

Dylan: Good.

Mommy: Did you have fun?

Dylan: Yes. (with a very nice emphasis on the “sss”, I might add)

Mommy: What did you do?

Dylan: I don’t remember.

(Yes, I think he’s trying on teenager-ese for the fun of it.)

But then after speech therapy, he did something fun - he and Daddy only had an hour before his chess lesson, so: “Mommy, I went to Ol’ McDonald’s and I got this!” (flourishing a little metal car which was part of his Happy Meal. Of which, Daddy reports, he ate the fries and nothing else.)

We had a more eloquent report about the chess lesson (which we’re doing with a group of homeschoolers and a private instructor - Dylan’s the youngest there, and we were a little bit hesitant at first because it’s a two-hour class. But it worked and he loves it.)

Mommy: Did you have a good time at chess?

Dylan: It was deee-lightful.

Dylan Draws: People!

He had a lot of fun this morning - he’s discovered that he likes drawing people! Note: he supplied all the titles.

Girl sleeping on a pillow.

Boy with a whistle.

Girl with hair.

Tags: Art, Family

At first, I wasn’t even going to post this for my latest Art Every Day Month piece; it didn’t exactly turn out the way I wanted, mostly because I chose the absolute wrong colour as the background. (I must admit, I did really love the swirls before I coloured in the background!).

But then I thought to myself:

Did I enjoy making this?

Absolutely! I started it on Tuesday, and in my spare moments, would pick a colour and add more blobs or shapes. I really love “painting” with these new gel pens of mine.

And isn’t that the point of AEDM? To have fun being creative?

At this point, my inner me was starting to sound just a tad sappy, but that’s okay. She has a good point. Making this mandala made the deadlines fade. I had fun. It was soothing. Meditative.

And anyway, I’m so through with the self-judgment thing. This post is proof.

Organic blob.

Tags: aedm, Art

It’s Day 6 of NaNoWriMo, and I’m now at around 5700 words. A little behind in terms of reaching the 50,000 word goal but I’m okay with that. My own personal goal is to take the time to sit down and write a part of my novel - anything - every single day this month.

But even in this short space of time, I’ve learned a lot about my own writing.

1. I never realized this before, but I’m a bit of a perfectionist during the drafting process. It’s only now, when my focus is on my word count, that I’m really seeing this. I expect my words to be near perfect as I’m writing them, and when something doesn’t sound right, there’s a very strong urge to stop writing and start editing.
2. For this particular novel, I don’t know some of my characters well enough. Especially one of my main characters - I’m realizing he’s more of a cardboard-y character when compared with some of my other characters. I haven’t done enough on the character front, so I’ll have to find some time to work more on just the character profiles.
3. Having one wooden character has been hurting all of the dialogue scenes I have where that character is involved.
4. The more I practice just pressing on, skipping over bumps and obstacles, the easier it does get to keep on writing. As long as I keep telling myself, I’m going to go back over everything anyway, I can keep writing. My suspicion is that at the end of November, what I’ll have is a plumped out “outline” of my book that I’ll then be able to fill out into a novel.

The process has been enlightening so far, and I’m feeling very hopeful. My problem with writing has always been completion - if the NaNoWriMo method works for me, I will likely continue using it: set a goal to write out the entire book at a breathless pace, without worrying about various problems that crop up, and then go back and edit, even rewrite if necessary. Getting to completion, even if it’s a 50,000 word extremely plump “outline”, will be exciting enough on its own.

Another reason I’ve been able to just gallop ahead, ignoring all the obstacles in my way, is because of the “scenes method”, using Liquid Story Binder, that I picked up from my friend Ann-Kat. She’s actually written a tutorial on how she’s using LSB to work on her novel for NaNoWriMo - this is more or less what I’ve been doing, and it works. I was lucky enough to pick up LSB a while back when it was on Giveaway of the Day; I find that it’s organic and flexible enough for me to use without feeling restricted into a set process.

You can get Liquid Story Binder for a 30-day free trial, and doing NaNoWriMo with it will be more than enough to let you get a feel for the software and put it through its paces. If you’re already using LSB, check out Ann-Kat’s tutorial - her scenes method is basically a very flexible way of sort-of-outlining your book, so that you get the best of both worlds: absolute flexibility but a little bit of a map.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, Writing

What better day than today to play Three Beautiful Things?

1. The brilliance of the chance for change.

2. The power of this breath of hope.

3. The eloquence of a new day, birth to a new era.

Life truly is just so incredible, isn’t it?

Tags: 3BT, Life, Spirit