A Greater Whole

As I mentioned in yesterday's ROW80 check-in, I want to put into words why I'm including exercise and house cleaning/organizing goals with my writing goals.  The simple answer is that everything is interrelated.  You know, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Just like a jigsaw puzzle is more than just odd shaped pieces once it's put together.

That's the simple answer.  The longer answer is that I have a body.  I'm not just my brain and my creativity and my inspiration.  I have a body, and my creativity needs that vehicle to be in tiptop shape to help us get where we're going.  Chuck Wendig says it perfectly in his post 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing: "Stop treating your body like a dumpster."  Read the "why" behind that.  It's funny and oh-so-true. 

I struggle with serious energy slumps which come with fuzzy thoughts, inability to focus, aches and pains and all sorts of physical yuckiness.  I need to focus on eating better food (I do all right, but I am a bit sporadic at this).  I need to exercise to help rid my body of those pains and help regulate my energy and build up a reserve.  I need energy and a sharp brain and focus to write, so I need to be taking care of my body.  So, exercising and taking care of my body are writing goals.

What about that house thing?  Well, my house is a mess.  It's beyond a mess.  It's horrible and frustrating and disgusting and embarrassing. It's also distracting.  Piles of papers and random things everywhere.  Stacks of laundry, both dirty and clean.  Messes and dirt and disorganization everywhere with nothing pleasant to rest the eye on.  This keeps my brain skipping from place to place, looking for a nice place to land.  This takes my focus away from writing because if I see what's around me, all I can think about is how awful it is, how ugly everything looks, how I dislike my surroundings, and how I'm desperate to have it different.  That's a lot of though power that could be going into my writing.  Plus, I want and need a pleasant environment to rest and recharge in so I can shore up those energy reserves so I have the fuel for writing.

It's all part of my whole life.  And I need and want and deserve a healthy, energetic, beautiful life to frame my writing with.  So I'm going to find some way to get past the overwhelm and the exhaustion and the aches and pains and make it happen. 

For those who are interested, here's the 10 (ish) minute exercise plan I'm going to be doing for a few weeks to help my muscles loosen up and get ready for the next stage. 

Warm-up: 3-5 minutes of full body stretches and bends with deep breathing, marching in place, arm swings with side steps, and general movement to get things moving.

Part 1:  Physical therapy stretches for the leg muscles to help strengthen the injured muscles and keep them from getting re-injured.  About 3 minutes.

Part 2:  Strength work.  10 reps of each of these:

• Wall push-ups
• Side bends
• Waist twists
• Standing crunches
• Standing leg lifts: front, side, back
• Calf-raises

Part 3: Repeat PT stretches with added stretches for the upper body

A very short, simple program, but it has really helped in the past to start easing my body into exercising without overdoing things and causing problems.  This time, though, I'm not going to put this on a schedule.  I will stick with the program until I feel ready to add things in; I'm not going to follow anyone else's ideas about how soon I should be adding time, adding weights, anything like that.  My body works on its own schedule, and this time I'm going to listen!

Reset

It's time for the ROW80 check-in.  And I don't have enough to report.

No, that's not true.  I just don't have the things to report that I wanted to have today.  All right, then, I'll just report what I've done and put aside what I hoped I would do.

The most important thing is that I've realized I need a bit of a change.  A relatively minor adjustment, but I think it's going to make quite a difference in what I get done this round.  But I'll talk about that in a moment.

What I've done:

• Had a pretty major breakthrough on why my main character is so intent on searching for the faeries.  This why is going to be important to a later part in the story, too, and it's helping a lot of the motivations for actions make sense.  I really needed this clarity!
• Got my novel and synopses moved over to Scrivener and finished the tutorial so I can actually make good use of the program.
• Worked on a knitting project while watching TV with the boyfriend and cats and letting myself just relax without trying to do all sorts of things like checking e-mail, writing blog posts or being "productive" while watching.
• Cleaned/organized one section of my closet.

What I haven't done:

• Exercise.  Not even once.  
• Finished my house areas list for cleaning.
• Written anything new on my story.

Back to that change I mentioned.  I realized that I haven't broken my goals down into small enough chunks.  I overwhelmed myself, even though I thought I had done a good job of being specific and small.  The good news here is that this is easy to fix.  This is actually more of a honing of the goals I've set rather than a real change, because I still think the goals are reachable.

My new, smaller goals:

• Engage with/work on my novel at least 15 minutes each week day.  Weekends are optional and will depend on what I feel like doing--I need to make a point to have leisure time for recharging.
• Exercise just 10 minutes at least four times each week--I need to make an actual plan of what exercise I'm going to do so I don't have to try to decide what to do when it's time to exercise.
• Clean in one mini area for 10 minutes at least twice a week--I believe the short time limit along with the mini areas will help make the cleaning/organizing less stressful and overwhelming

That's the new plan.  I like it, and it doesn't make me feel stressed out about whether or not I can do it.  I need to build up a level of confidence and accomplishment, and that's going to get done better and more easily with this tiny little steps.  

I also have a couple of one time goals for this week.  I am going to write about why I'm including exercise and cleaning/organizing in my writing goals.  I'm also going to post the exercise plan I'm going to use to ease me back into regular workouts.  I'll probably throw that all into one post tomorrow, though.  For now, I think I'm on a better path, and I'm feeling happy with what I've come up.  That seems like a good place to wrap up for the night.

Ding Ding Ding!

That's the starting bell!

Today is the start of Round 1 of ROW80 for 2012, and I am excited!  And ready! I have goals.  I have plans.  Most importantly of all, I have a community.  I love knowing there are other writers working by my side, striving for their goals as I reach for mine.  I love knowing that we are all looking out for one another.  Here's to a great round, you guys!

My goals for this round:

Goals for writing:

• Finish synopsis/outline
• Finish first draft
• Do a first pass revision 
• Line up first reader(s) and get book to them

I'm a little uncertain about what happens after that last bit.  What do I do while I'm waiting for my book to come back from my readers?  Do I just do writing practice to hone my general writing skills? I'll need to figure that out.  I'm also leaving myself flexible on those last two as I'm not entirely sure there will be that much time this round.  Those may go into Round 2, but I'll decide that later. 

Goals for everything else:

• Exercise for at least 10 minutes 4 days a week
• Create a list of mini areas in the house to clean
• Clean at least one mini area each week
• Create a weekly maintenance plan to keep the house tidy/keep the cleaned sections from backsliding
• At least once a week do something for fun/relaxation/entertainment--read some fiction; put on a movie or tv show and knit or embroider; go on a photo walk; go to a movie; meet a friend for lunch/dinner/coffee; go to knit night; work in my art journal, and so on

I want to add a billion things!  I'm not going to.  Little goals, little steps, no overwhelm.  If I'm not overwhelmed, I won't quit.  Or at least I'll have a better chance of sticking with it. So this will do.  It may actually be too much, but this was the minimum that I could make myself pare things down to.

Kait at ROW80 talks about your test mile in the goal setting post linked above. It's the amount of writing (or running or exercise or whatever) you do to test whether or not you're going to go further that day or skip it until tomorrow.  I'm going to set my test mile at 500 words.  I can do 500 words pretty easily even if I'm stressed or sick or ultra busy, but it shouldn't be too short to keep me from finding out if I can hit my stride that day and keep going.

This is getting awfully long, isn't it?  I'll wrap up with this week's plans to help me reach my goal.  I'm not going to break it down by writing and everything else; I'm just clumping it all together the way life is.

My plans for this week:

• Finish synopsis/outline
• Write my house areas list
• Get exercise videos moved onto the front room computer
• Get exercise clothes (don't forget the socks!) all into one place
• Do something for fun

That's it.  See you Wednesday for the mid-week check-in.  Happy New Year and happy writing!