Tag: life

  • Finding Time to Write (or, My Endless Struggle)

    Finding Time to Write (or, My Endless Struggle)

    I swear my kids want me to flunk out of grad school. They also might be psychic, because when I sit down at my desk to check email or indulge my Facebook addiction, they happily find quiet and unobtrusive ways to keep themselves occupied (okay, I have time management and procrastination issues). The moment my fingertips touch my keyboard for the purposes of doing some actual creative writing, the little demons arrive at the office door and demand my undivided attention. True, my six-year-old is my primary antagonist in this battle. My ten-year-old less so, but he is not an innocent bystander by any means.

     

    Do I want to build with Legos? Do I want to play a board game? I’m bored. There’s nothing to do. I’m hungry. Can I get them something to eat? No? Well, then, let’s up the ante. How about a game of chess, Mommy? It’s educational, my youngest will point out to me in angelic tones. Do you know how hard it is to say no to a kindergartener pleading with you to play chess, for goodness sake?! You instantly feel like a terrible person for saying no to that one, and my evil little demon knows it.

     

    If by some miracle, I manage to stay strong and say no to all of these requests, there’s always Plan B. Commence with Operation Escalation. They will begin to fight, loudly, about anything and everything. You’re on my side of the couch! I’m using that blanket! I was playing with that! You knocked that down/destroyed that on purpose! You’re cheating at this made-up game that has no rules! You’re punching too hard! The point of the argument is irrelevant, only that the battle escalates until one of them is injured and crying. Oh, yes, they are devious, diabolical strategists.

     

    My husband does intervene on my behalf… sometimes. At other times, though, he retreats to his art studio in the basement and pretends not to hear what’s happening. I don’t begrudge him this. That’s a lie. I totally begrudge him this. In fact, I want to murder him in those moments, even though I simultaneously understand his reasons for it. The problem is that by the time I get home at close to six o’clock from a long day of teaching science to high schoolers, he’s already been on kid duty for three and a half hours, and our kids are human tornadoes in the afternoons. They’ve been pent up inside an elementary school classroom all day. Even the mile and a half walk home does little to vent their pressure-cooker energy. He can boot their butts out into the back yard on days when the weather permits it, but even then, he has to stay alert for sounds of outraged or injury-induced screaming. So, I get why he succumbs to the temptation to go “off-duty” when dinner is done, and the kitchen is cleaned up. That doesn’t mean I don’t mentally curse him to eternal damnation from my spot at my writing desk when I’m looking at a blank page, and my kids are screaming in the other room.

     

    I want to yell at people when they lament that they can never “find the time” to write. Yeah? Well, neither can I. Why? Because it doesn’t exist. There is literally no time to write, no magical empty block with nothing going on where I can sit down with a steaming mug of cozy chamomile tea and put on some relaxing classical music and snuggle in my fluffy PJ’s and write. Nope. If I’m going to write, I must MAKE time to do it. I must set boundaries, barricade the door, and defend my selected hour like the violently seized territory it is. If I let my guard down, that time will be taken right back from me.  There are 101 articles and blog posts that offer use struggling saps tips for carving out time in our busy lives for our writing.  Here’s a good one from Writer’s Digest. I’ll let them tell you what to do, because (if you haven’t figured it out yet) I am a hot mess and shouldn’t be giving anyone suggestions on how to do anything.

     

    Sometimes I literally leave. I pack up and head to the local library or to a coffee shop. That works, but it breeds resentment and strains marital relations, so I leave those trips to do-or-die deadline situations. More often, I will abandon my office space for my bedroom, which has a lock on the door and is upstairs from the chaos. I will put on my headphones and drown out all attempts at Plan B that may erupt below. My husband feels better because he knows that, should a genuine emergency occur, I am still close by. My children seem to be slowly adjusting to the fact that mom is in grad school and that grad school trumps their need for my undivided attention.

     

    Maybe this will be good for all of us. My kids might finally learn how to self-sooth. My husband is learning the fine art of reheating leftovers (though let’s give credit where credit is due: he does 90% of the cooking already because I’m not so great at cooking things that are edible). Who knows? I might actually get my MFA in creative writing. I’ll let you know how it goes, but right now I’ve got some writing to do.

     

    (I’ve been told that bloggers are supposed to end their posts with questions designed to jump-start a discussion in the comments thread. I’m pretty sure no one has stumbled across this secret little blog, but I may as well engage in best practice blogging, right?  After all, when I’m a successful and famous YA author, I’ll probably have to keep an actual author’s blog where I can interact with my thousands of awesome fans… sigh. We have to dream, folks.  Anyway, here’s the leading question(s): are you in a similar position as me?  What things in your life vie for you time and pull you away from your writing?  Are you able to resist?  If so, what are your strategies?  Do share!

  • Morning Pages, Procrastination, and Creativity

    Morning Pages, Procrastination, and Creativity

    As part of my master’s program, I’m required to take an independent studies class each semester. It can’t be a course that is directly related to my primary area of study, which is writing for young people. Lesley University offers courses that run the gambit from travel writing to poetry to writing for stage and screen to memoir writing and more. They also offer a class that isn’t about writing, specifically. It’s about creativity, and the point is to help folks knock down mental barriers and find creative solutions.

    It’s called The Artist’s Way, and I picked it as my very first I.S. class to take. Am I ever glad that I did! To help you wrap your brain around what it is, let me quote Carrie Battan from her 2016 article in the New Yorker about the book (the class I took followed the book to the letter).

    “…the book is a program designed to help readers reject the devils of self-doubt on their shoulders and pursue creative activity not as a profession but as a form of therapy.”

    That’s as good a summary as any. Thank you, Ms. Battan.

    Part of the course, a big part, is engaging in daily journaling, what The Artist’s Way creator Julie Cameron refers to as the “Morning Pages.” The goal is to increase creativity by connecting with the dark places in our heads, facing them down and disarming them of their power.  While taking the class, I sat down each morning and wrote three pages of mental stream-of-consciousness stuff into a notebook. I chose to write in cursive because more and more scientific studies show that longhand writing, and cursive writing, in particular, is super good for the brain.

    Since taking the twelve-week course last July/August/September, I’ve continued to write my morning pages. My spouse joined me, too, since he’s a fine art photographer and generally creative individual. Together, we’ve worked morning journaling into our lives as a way to boost creativity and also control our general anxieties and stress levels.

    Last night, I couldn’t fall asleep because I was worried about this blog project. How much time is this project was going to eat up? Time is my most limited resource. I am stretched more thinly that I can actually see. Only when others point out to me all the stuff I have on my plate do I realize the madness of it all. Parent to two young ones, both of whom were involved in town-league sports this spring, high school teacher, member of a writing group, member of an environmental group, student in a master’s program…

    On top of all of that, I am a master of productive procrastination.

    When I get overwhelmed, my brain resists dealing with the work that NEEDS to get done by finding and focusing on non-essential work. Sometimes “non-essential work” looks like cleaning my kitchen, or getting caught up on laundry, or vacuuming and dusting the entire house, or re-organizing the bookshelf, or (and this was the thing that was keeping me from my Z’s last night) figuring out WordPress and putting together a personal blog.  It feels like a form of creativity, and I suppose that it is (in a way), but it’s not the primary form of creativity that I’m hoping to nurture.

    Did I just generate yet another thing to add to my already ridiculously over-packed plate? Did I unintentionally create a thing that makes me feel like I’m doing something that will help me achieve my goals as a creative writer, but that actually pushes me further away from those goals by siphoning off a little of my most limited resource?

    Ah-ha! Solution!

    Rather than add this blog project to the long list of things I’m already doing, maybe I can make an even exchange. I can use this as my morning pages, and that way, I won’t be adding anything, just continuing something that I’ve been doing in a slightly different form. Not every day. I can’t give up my long-form writing altogether. It makes my brain feel too good. But a few times a week, in the morning slot that I’ve already carved into my daily routine for journaling, instead of grabbing my fountain pen and my notebook, I’ll grab my laptop and generate my three pages of stream-of-conscious gobbledygook here. It’s worth a try at least.

    Do you find yourself crunched for time in your life? How do you make room for it all? Do you ever sabotage your goals by procrastinating? What does that look like for you, and how do you get yourself back on track?

  • Coincidence and Coffee

    Coincidence and Coffee

    I had an interesting day yesterday.  After going way too long without visiting a dentist (and I do mean WAY too long), I finally found a great place and got the whole family in for a cleaning and general check-up.  My new dentist made my day when he informed me that I had no new cavities, something of a miracle in my mind.  I had, unfortunately, lost a filling at some point and that needed replacing.

     

    After dropping the kiddos off at camp, I needed to find a place to park myself for a couple of hours until my late morning appointment with the drill (and laser–turns out dentists are “drilling” teeth with lasers now).  That’s how I found myself in a delightful little coffee shop in Ipswich, Massachusetts.  I’d never been before, but it was close to my dentist’s office so I decided to give it a try.

     

    About an hour into my stay (thank you, coffee shop people for letting me hang out in your fantabulous establishment after purchasing a single regular coffee), I got up to buy a refill.  Guilt had nothing to do with it; I drink far too much coffee, that’s all. As I approached the counter, the current customer turned around to leave and, low and behold, it was a former student of mine whom I hadn’t seen since she graduated twelve years ago. (I’ll keep her anonymous by calling her Jane.)  Jane is on my short list of students who left a big impression on me, big enough so that I’ve thought about her on more than one occasion over the years.

     

    So, BAM!  There’s Jane, and we’re both looking pretty stunned to see each other.  Her, because she was home visiting family; she lives out in the western part of the country these days.  The night before, she’d stumbled across a bunch of old science papers and lab reports she’d done for me as a sophomore, tucked away in a box in her mom’s attic.  For my part, I was stunned because I had never before set foot inside Zumi’s until that day, and to have picked the one day she was in town to give that coffee shop a try left me a bit flabbergasted.  The coincidence of it all was remarkable.

     

    We did the speed-dating version of catching up with each other.  She was good.  I was good.  I’m still teaching at her old high school.  She’s director of education out west.  I have kids.  She doesn’t.  we didn’t chat for long.  Both of us needed to get back to our now completely separate and busy lives, but it was a marvelous surprise to see her again.

     

    Sometimes, life throws unexpected but delightful moments like that our way.  This was one of those, so let me take this moment to say Thank You to the Universe.  I try to keep myself open to the world and take whatever it gives me.  Yesterday, it gave me a new scene in my current WIP and a bit of nostalgia.

     

    Have you ever experienced an uncanny coincidence?  Was it positive or negative?  What did you take away from it?