Not the three Rs you were thinking of? They're the new Rs, at least over here. I'm at the end of a mini vacation--four days of just being. At first I thought I would do things--organize shelves, paint, clean the kitchen. Then, after some soul searching, I realized that I needed to stop and breathe. Thursday, Friday, and yesterday I had the house to myself until evening, often late in the evening. I decided to take that time to heal the deep exhaustion and overwhelm that keeps hitting me.
Mother Nature must have decided that this was exactly what I needed, because she gifted me with three beautifully sunny days. I took the cats and ensconced myself in the sun-filled living room where I watched many episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, read, wrote in my journal, knitted, and mindfully chose to relax and let my energy build up.
I'll admit I'm not quite feeling 100% over the exhaustion--2011 was a hectic, rough year, and there've been a few bumps to the beginning of this year, so I probably need a little more healing time. But I've made great inroads.
In all of this, I decided I need to revamp my ROW80 goals. I'm trying to accomplish all this stuff, but I'm building these things on a shaky foundation. I haven't re-established a good, solid, regular writing practice. It's been years since I've been a consistent writer. I'm not stepping away from my story, but I am going to focus first on writing regularly. This might be free writing about the story, writing from a prompt, maybe some other types of writing. Friday, it was a big chunk of time writing the opening scene of a new story that came to me so clearly I had to turn off the food I was cooking and go sit down to write it out. And today I'm doing some discovery writing for my novel, working out exactly why my MC isn't just walking away from her fae love interest and why he isn't just ditching her. I'm learning that I'm a lot more character driven than I realized, and I seem to write better when I know why my people are doing things. This is okay. It's actually quite good; I think it's going to be really useful to know when I go back to a couple of partially written stories I have in my files.
For now, though, my new goal is to write regularly. This means at least 15 minutes, at least five days a week. I'll be honing this as I move into the regular practice more, but this is where I'm starting.
For my other goals, I'm going to continue to get myself moving. That hasn't been going well so far, but I'm not giving up. At least 15 minutes of movement--probably belly dancing--at least four days a week. And household organizing--I'm going to pick an area and straighten it up and then pick the next one. The list thing isn't working well for me. I'm going to do at least one area a week, but I hope as I start doing this I'll start feeling less overwhelmed by it and be able to do more.
2 comments:
Kim -
This is a very wise post. I think you are doing exactly the right thing for you. It seems to be showing in the new ideas and perspectives flowing in.
Is that your room?! It is lovely, I love the light in it, and the shadows....it reminds me of a picture I took of my children last summer, late at night, in a hotel lobby, sharing a computer.
may your renewal time fill you with delight that pours forth in your words! =D
I think need to practice the "new" three R's for a bit. Maybe, even practice them on a nice warm beach. 15 min for 5 days is a great goal. Most everyone can achieve that and that also builds up the habit without adding too much stress around it. Good job and best of luck!
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