keep motivated

Hi all and welcome to a new week! I had planned on posting this a little earlier today but I lost the Bluetooth connection to my keyboard and freaked out for a bit. Thanks to this internet thing, I found the manual and all is right with the world again. Silly issue? Possibly, but since I use this thing constantly, yes, an absolute panic was had for a good 45 minutes.

But I digress…

I have been really churning out the pages on this new story I came up with last week. In a matter of about four days, I’ve typed over 20,000 words over several chapters and this morning, my brain decided that wasn’t enough. Just as I was going to sleep, I came up with a scene that I needed to jot down fast or I’d lose it. (With no short term memory, having a note pad next to my bed is vital for times like this.) The funny thing is, I was giving my fingers a bit of a break yesterday by refraining from any typing and yet, when I went to write down these scene ideas, I ended up handwriting 9 pages in my happy new notebook. At this rate, I’ll be needing a new one every other day!

Having a brainstorming session with myself is surreal. I don’t know if anyone else goes through this, ok, I’m almost positive you all do…but when I get an idea I have to get it out. Clear the mind so I can move on. This is how this new book started in the first place! As I’ve mentioned previously, I was working on the sequel to my first novel (while editing that one) and an idea struck me. When this happens, everything else gets put on hold until I can get the idea out of my head. Once I get a lull or something strikes me for my original plan, I can abandon what I’m currently working on. I don’t know if any of that makes sense but it sounded good in my head!

However, this current story is really exciting me. It’s like nothing else I’ve written and I wanted to see if I could write in this genre. I love challenging myself. I really do. I find I do it a lot with life stuff and medical stuff. Getting me into an MRI took some doing now it’s just like, ‘ok, let’s get this over with’. Yet a challenge means so much more when I think I can’t do something. Or, I see someone else truly succeeding in something and wonder if I could do it so I decide to try it out. It’s challenging me for me. It doesn’t have to mean prizes at the end, or ribbons or cash rewards (although that would really come in handy right about now) but just being able to try it out and then finishing it? That to me is the prize.

When I wrote my first book, it took years to complete. Mostly because of medical issues. I had to keep stopping and heal up before I could write again. I was frustrated because I had written the first six chapters in less than a week and I thought it was going so well. Then I’d hit a health setback and it would be months before I could pick it up again. By then, I’d have to reread what I had written to remember the story lines, the details, hell even the character names! This cycle went on for quite some time but when I finished it and printed it out? I cried. I really did. Because I was so determined to finish it. Even if I didn’t get it published, I was so happy I completed it. (Of course it is getting published, are you crazy?)

I know I tend to repeat myself on this blog and I apologize for that. I used to think I was doing it so folks new here could catch up, but you know what? Sometimes I feel the messages need to be repeated. So here is my message for today…It is OK to challenge yourself! It is ok to put down a goal and strive for it even if no one else knows that’s what you are doing. Other people don’t need to know everything about you, no matter what social media claims. You can actually go out for dinner without posting pics! (Really, you can!) And just like that, you can write that book or that song. You can paint that canvas and try to get it in a show. You can learn a new language, instrument or skill. You can run that marathon or 5k. Whatever it is that means something to YOU, go for it!

The year before I got sick, I worked my ass off training for a 5k. I found a list of upcoming events in my area and found one that was still several months away. I had never participated in a race like this so I didn’t want to make an ass of myself doing it. And I certainly wasn’t up to doing a full or even half a marathon. I was never a runner and I was going to walk it, but I wanted to cut my time per mile down. I was always a big walker. Walked 15-20 miles a week minimum. But for a race? A leisurely stroll wasn’t going to cut it. So I started literally in my bedroom. It was still cold outside, so I’d walk in place (no treadmill) with my step counter and pick up the pace until I could do two miles under a certain time. As the weather warmed up, I would go next door to the elementary school and use their parking lot for laps. I had a playlist that kept a great pace and I walked every single day for all those months cutting my times bit by bit until it was race time. I was using old sneakers with almost no padding and I hurt my knee during training. This came back to bite me in the ass as about 30 seconds into the actual race, my knee flared up and I still wouldn’t let it stop me. Not after months of prepping for it!

When I first started my quest, I was over 21 minutes a mile and by race time, I clocked under 15:30. I was so damned proud of myself! I couldn’t believe it! I finished the race. I didn’t win, I didn’t even come in 20th. I was one of the last people to cross the finish line (but not the last so hey, personal win) and I wanted to scream out ‘I DID IT!!!’

I had only my mother there to cheer me on which was great and she proceeded to yell and scream as I walked past her, (I pretended I couldn’t hear her over my earbuds, but I think they could hear her in the next town over lol) and it was great.

Because I had only told a few what I was doing, sure I was hurt that I didn’t have more folks there cheering me on. Plus, I had one friend call it my “little walk thing” as in, “oh your little walk thing was today?” Which, I’m not gonna lie, still stings today. I mean obviously that’s why I mentioned it. But that’s ok. Because I wasn’t out to challenge anyone else. THAT’S the point. I wanted to challenge MYSELF. To see if I could do it and I did! So now that that particular bucket list item has been checked off, I went to the next one and then the one after that.

Now that I’m a little older, I can look back on my life and see that I really have checked off a whole lot on my list. Sure there’s always more stuff I’m adding to it, but adding them up in my head now? I’ve done a whole lot and I’m proud of myself for doing it. For TRYING. Did I always succeed? Hellllll no. But I tried and I hope you do too.

So that is your message for this week. Keep trying. Even if what you write sucks. Even if your painting is a splotch. Even if the song you write may never get into the rock and roll hal of fame, it’s ok!!! Keep trying. Keep motivated. Keep creating. It’s ok.

And that is where I am leaving you tonight!

Thanks as always for putting up with the rambles and until next time…

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Hey all, happy March! I know it sounds odd to say as I write this and it is only March 6th, but boy is this month flying! Why does it seem that January and February go on forever, (well, more January of course) and then March comes and boom, it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day already! I’d like to be upfront here and let y’all know that I tested positive for Covid (edited from the flu as I hadn’t taken the test yet) and have a fever, so I am not quite sure where this post is going to go, but let’s see what happens, shall we?

I have been going through some past posts and I realized something, there are almost no humorous moments in them. I find this rather disturbing as I am generally known to be a funny person. I love to make people laugh and even considered going into stand-up once upon a time back in my theater days. But here on this blog, which is supposed to be all kinds of personal and documenting not just my writing journey, but my own, I find my posts to be lacking in the humor department. Of course, now that I’ve put the pressure on myself to make you laugh, I am thinking I shouldn’t have said any of this ‘out loud’ as it’s like telling someone not to think about pink elephants and then suddenly that’s all you can think about. (Again, flu, fever, pink elephants just seemed like a fun thing to think about. Let’s all pause for a moment shall we?)

Annnd, we’re back!

So large, colorful trunk-faced mammals aside, the humorous component has yet to surface. Unless it has and I am just so used to my own quips that they blew right past me. Anywhooo, I have been reading a rather funny book by Emily Henry whose books I just love because I literally laugh so hard at times, I have to put the book down to compose myself long enough to get past the sentence that brought tears to my eyes and my inhaler to my lips and have noticed that I lack such segments in my own writing. Not that the novel I wrote (and am now editing) is supposed to be a comedy, but I was hoping to get a few of these little moments in there to keep the reader on their toes. (By the way, that rather long sentence above is basically how I speak in real life and it is no wonder I need an inhaler, just to get through such a mini-monologue.)

But I digress…I’m not saying that humor should be in every book. Quite the contrary. We need diverse offerings. But when I read something like this and it comes to me at the right time, like when I need a laugh the most and the trigger sentence sneaks up on you like a seagull waiting for you to drop that bagel in a convenience store parking lot, well then, it makes you not only literally laugh out loud but for a writer makes you think about your own writing and what can you do to improve it.

I mentioned in the last few posts that I had been reading a series for my February Cancer fundraiser and after I completed all 9 books (in the shortest month of the year thank you very much), I needed a change. I dove into my TBR pile to grab something a little different that would make me laugh and Ms. Henry’s books never fail me in that regard. The beautiful thing about reading is that for the writer, it inspires you. I won’t go into too much detail as I already discussed this very topic last week, but it never fails to astound me the level of inspiration I get while reading something I really enjoy. It doesn’t even have to be the same genre, just something that gets in your head and suddenly, ‘hey, there’s that hook for that one section that I’ve been looking for!’ Of course why it comes to you at that moment is always a mystery and frankly, it doesn’t even need to be while you are reading! Hell, I once wrote a crime noir short story after watching an episode of Friends. Who knows how the brain works?

Which brings us to suggestibility. I have the mind of a sponge and I think the advertisers out there are on to me. One of my favorite commercials that I could watch over and over again is the Haribo Gold Bears ad with the football players. No matter how many times I watch it, I laugh. So of course, while picking up prescriptions one day, I had to get the damned things because I could hear them talking in my head. (The football players, not the gummy bears. Just wanted to make that clear.) There is now a Lay’s potato chip commercial that was a popular ad during this past Super Bowl and used the Barry Louis-Polisar song, “All I Want is You.” It didn’t make me want to run out and buy a bag of chips, rather it made me want to watch the movie Juno again for like the 75th time because it is the song used in the opening credits scene. And really, the movie never gets old, so any excuse to watch it and I’m all for it.

I have a quirk where I can’t move past something until I’ve done something that’s in my head. I’m sure there are many out there who are also like this, but this is how I ended up writing the first seven chapters of the sequel to my first book that has yet to be finished on the editing side. Actually, it’s why I’ve started several other books because of this same reason. I could be doing something, like I’m doing now and suddenly an idea pops into my head. I have to get it down now or I will forget it. Granted, I have some neuro issues with my health that cause me to forget things quite easily, but that being said, I can’t just jot a note down about the idea. I have to full on begin the entire process of getting the story down in a draft for the future or it’s gone forever. Which is why it takes me so long to get through a first of something. ADHD at its finest.

I’ve found that the only time I can really focus on anything these days is while I’m either reading or writing. I love true crime shows. Love. Them. My Sunday nights are dedicated to the ID network and I’ve affectionately dubbed them “Serial Killer Sundays” but of course, that is just one day out of many that I’m glued to these demented shows about real and tragic things that have happened to people. However, if it is a two hour Dateline, I am screwed. Every Friday night for many years, I hit the remote to watch the weekly two hour episodes. (Unless it’s baseball season or I was going out, then I’d record it. Just want to make that clear. Let’s go Yankees.) I’d sit and get through the first hour on the edge of my seat thinking I’ve solved said crime and of course the big twists always happen in the second hour. About an hour and a half in, they lose me. Even though there are still massive plot points to reveal and moments of ‘oh crap I didn’t see that coming,’ I’ll have moved on to a game on my iPad or listing more vintage jewelry on eBay. (For some reason I find Keith Morrison’s voice soothing and motivational to get my work done on my listings.) But while doing these things, I lose the momentum of the show. I know it is not Mr. Morrison’s fault. If anything, I love his voice so much I want the man to read the eulogy at my wake! I just can’t stay focused enough to make it to the end without having to rewind sections over and over again until what they’ve said on screen finally lands in my brain. I used to have this issue with my reading. Turns out, it was part of the dyslexia I didn’t know I had until I was in my 40’s. But tv has been betraying me as of late and I am just thankful to live in an era where rewinding is possible.

We all have that thing though that we love, that we can spend our time truly focusing on. It can be music, it can be a craft, it can be a job you love, hell it can even be getting behind the wheel of a car and taking off for the weekend. Your focus is strong and that means, it is something that makes you happy.

While you may already have something like this in your life, be open to suggestions. Maybe you are on YouTube one day looking up how to fix that toaster that just won’t brown the bread on one side no matter what you try and a video comes up on airplane model building. Maybe it’s something you have wanted to try but never thought to look up! Maybe it sparks a creative side of you that, while it may not be model building, but by the mere suggestion of it, has you thinking about buying that watercolor set you’ve been eyeing on Amazon or trying out that new dance class that just opened up downtown. Yes, these suggested videos can take you down a rabbit hole of doom scrolling to things you had no intention of ever watching and now your daily ‘for you’ on either YT or TikTok looks like a mashup of Martha Stewart flower arranging diy’s mixed with how to throw a ninja star with style and grace tutorials. In some ways though, that’s the fun! Maybe you’ve been restless and looking for something new to try, well, these side videos may just help you find that one thing you’ve been looking for.

Look, I’m not suggesting you go on a 12-hour binge on YouTube or TikTok. (Been there, done that.) I’m just saying, as focused as you may be on some things in your life you should also be open to the occasional suggestion that may come from a source you weren’t expecting. You really think that there is a correlation between Friends and a noir crime story? My brain tends to connect the dots in a rather strange way, but you get my point.

So this week, I challenge you to look around your space. Pay attention to the everyday. Do you walk past a building you never realized gave weekly classes in something? Do you like that donut you had this morning for breakfast and always wondered if you could make them? Maybe there is something you do that just doesn’t excite you the way it used to and you find yourself daydreaming of doing something else. Why not look it up to see if there is a call for it near you, or if you can find a video on how to get started! Or maybe, just maybe, fixing that toaster felt great and now you want to fix other stuff as well because using your hands in a constructive way can be so much more rewarding than sitting in front of a screen all day. (Plus the feeling you get every time you make a slice of perfect toast just gives you a sense of satisfaction you never thought you could achieve in life!) Give yourself the opportunity to explore different areas of life and you may find your own Haribo Gold Bears at the end of the rainbow!

Until next week my friends…Cheers!!

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Need a good laugh? Try an Emily Henry book!

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