Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

Rest

So here I am, at eight-thirty in the morning, a cup of tea at hand and the whole day ahead of me. HRH took Liam in to daycare this morning on his way into work and will pick him up again at the end of the day, leaving me the whole day with absolutely no responsibility. I’ve wandered through the house tidying up a bit, simply appreciating the feeling of not having to do anything right away.

Liam slept through the night, with no waking sounding as if he was a harbinger of the apocalypse. As a result he slept right through to 7.30, which wasn’t part of the plan: because his pattern has been wake around three-thirty for an hour/return to sleep/wake around five-thirty or six, we were relying on him to awaken early again. The sleep did everyone good, but it meant that we started the morning an hour and a half later than we expected to. Everyone was in such a good mood that it didn’t matter, though, and it was a gift for all three of us. It felt odd to kiss the boy goodbye and watch HRH bundle him into the car and drive away, when I’m usually the one corralling and transporting him, then running errands on the way home, writing immediately when I get in, and leaving just as I’m hitting my stride during my most productive time of the day in order to pick him up again.

I deserve this. I didn’t get the break I was hoping to have back at the beginning of August when the boy started part-time daycare, the break I needed after the sequence of “book interrupted by rush book/back to original book/early baby/finish original book/full-time baby/new book”. And I’m thankful to finally have this time, the time I need and have needed for so long, to rest in different ways and to reroot myself in life.

So naturally, now that I don’t have to, now that I have time to myself… I’m drifting here to write. It’s a different kind of writing, though; it’s relaxing, and feeds a different part of me. It’s restful writing.

The Samhain Time of Year

Being away from the computer has been refreshing. I’d forgotten what it’s like to not have to sit down first thing in the morning, or log off late at night.

I began a new story on Friday night, struck by a lovely new idea for a YA historical set in early 18th century Venice, and got nine hundred words down plus three hours of research (you see, Sorceror, I am weak still) to give myself at least some kind of context. It feels marvellous to be able to respond to inspiration again, and indeed, to have inspiration at all, because it means that my brain is no longer swamped by the Large All-Consuming Project written to deadline. And, as I suspected, as of half an hour after I sent the MS in to the editor, I began to remember things I wanted to do that didn’t make it to my final list, and ways in which I could have made what’s already there more focused and to the point. I’ve been noting them down as they occur, and when I get it back for edits and rewrites I’ll add them in. I’m expecting some of them to come up in the copyeditor’s queries anyhow. It’s too easy to ascribe the new story idea to the rebound factor: I think it may have more to do with the whole decks-cleared feeling of the end of the year. Part of me wants to pick up Swan Sister again, and I will, except my creative spirit seems to want me to work through something new to get the gears meshing properly again before I do.

Speaking of the creative spirit, Jan and I met Friday afternoon to work on music, and band was terrific on Saturday. For those of you who are fans and have been asking when the next gig date is to be, I can now tell you to circle January 20 on your calendars, assuming you already have a 2007 calendar. Otherwise, write it on a sticky-note and put it on your fridge or something.

We had a lovely Samhain ritual today, and as always, it reminded my soul that it’s the end of the year, and that goes so very far to expaining how I’ve been feeling these past few weeks. No matter how clearly my intellectual brain remembers Ah, yes, the Samhain time of year, my spirit doesn’t get it until we’re actually in circle, and then everything slots into place: emotional shifts, sleep patterns, sensations of loss and regret and slow greyness that creep into my being, which I usually ascribe to SAD and am only partially correct in so doing.

I did another Brid-centered ritual tonight as well with some of the Daughters of the Flame, and that too settled some of the murky misdirected emotion within me. Why can’t I remember that doing rit is good for me? Ritual feeds something in my soul that craves a semi-formal structure in which to meet my perception of the Divine. It’s easy, it’s direct, and it works. Maybe it’s that it all seems too simple, and my intellectual mind waves it away as such. Whatever the reason, I know better, and I’ve fallen out of the habit because of the boy and the family schedule. With some time off now that the book is finished, I can turn my attention to reconstructing a healthier spiritual pattern again as I rediscover who I am and what my life is, for perhaps the first time since the boy was born.

I can play the cello again, too, for example, something that I haven’t been able to do since I started the book because I’ve either been working or watching the boy. We had our first rehearsal for the Messiah this past Wednesday, and it was good. I’ve been waiting a full two months to feel that way about an orchestra rehearsal, rather than coming home and trying to forget the experience every week because they made me feel awful, my lack of rehearsal time showing how poorly I’m keeping up with the demands the music makes of me. I played through all the new music directly after I sent off the MS, and it went a long way toward helping me not feel behind before we’d even started playing that night. The work I’ve done for band recently too has helped me remember how much I love music, and how beautiful it can be when I’m not trying too hard or too tense to let it flow.

The decks do feel cleared. I’ve been struggling through that feeling of endings and going nowhere this past month, as I do every year. With Samhain past and the new year before me, I can sense that still point I need in order to rebalance and begin again.

And so the Wheel turns….

NaNo 2006 Musings

So last year, I simultaneously had a baby, a book to proof, and a book to finish writing for publication. (Which was not, of course, the plan, as regular readers know.) In defense of sanity, I regretfully declined to participate in the YUL 2005 NaNoWriMo challenge. And since then, I’ve kind of been assuming that of course I’d do it again in 2006. After all, I was previously a winner three years running, finishing on November 20 in two of those years.

At the beginning of this past September, I decided not to do NaNo again. It would just be too much. After all, I had one contracted book, another proposal in with the publisher, and was in negotiation to assume overseeing a series.

Then that proposal, what would have been my next project, was shelved for at least the rest of the year.

ESTC is due Nov 1. And for once, it’s not being rushed into production.

So around the second week of September I thought, well, I might be able to do it, you know?

And then the next morning I gave myself a good smack and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to write WITH NO DEADLINE for once?”

NaNo did nice things for me in teaching me how I work. It taught me quotas, it taught me cycles, and rhythms. NaNo is fun, for the team aspect, for the satisfaction of watching my numbers climb, for the thrill and smug feeling of passing others and giving them a goal to chase, of finishing if not first then damn close to first among the city. It’s been very gratifying to know I can produce 50K of good fiction in 20 days. But I know now that I can write a full 80K non-fic book for publication in sixty-odd days. And it ends up being a good book, too.

So the nostalgia of it all attracts me.

But being realistic? The thought of physically forcing myself to write for NaNo isn’t fun, because I force myself to write to a deadline as a daily job. I don’t need that kind of shooting myself in the head. I can’t run the risk of making myself hate writing altogether; this is my bread and butter. No thanks.

I think I’m looking forward to November being a month of relaxing writing, for once.

But I reserve the right to change my mind, of course.

In Which She Examines Hurt

You do not have to validate negativity. You do not have to accept it.

t! has an excellent column on Naysayers today. Some of its advice came in very handy for me this afternoon as I dealt with the aftermath of the crap that was thrown at me this morning.

Show this person what his words are doing, how he hurts you with them. How he hurts himself by thinking these thoughts, before he even speaks them.

The hardest thing about today has been dealing with trying to point out that I have been horribly, horribly hurt by someone else’s deliberately thought-out nasty words. Words that were unnecessary, words that I didn’t have to receive; words that I feel were given to me because I wasn’t respected. I don’t know if I managed to get the point across, the point that I was hurt by being the recipient of the strike at someone else through me. Probably not. I made the effort, but I doubt it was understood or even heard over the defense of the action.

And now there’s a huge obstacle between people, all because of these words. I’m sure the person who sent them thought that saying those words would make them feel better; however, all it’s done is make everyone feel worse. And I’ve said words back that define who I am, and what my limits are. That’s the only good that I can see of this whole thing. It doesn’t balance out the bad parts, not even close. My day is ruined; the trust I had in someone else has been damaged; I’m forced to try to work through this by pacing, crying, yelling at walls, writing out my feelings and thoughts, seeking to make some sort of sense of it all, instead of actually doing the work that was scheduled for the day. I thought I wouldn’t be able to sit at the computer at all (hence my earlier statement warning you about not seeing me for a while), but I keep coming back to journal things, some here, some privately. It helps, a bit. I work with words. They mean things to me. They’re how I explore. And perhaps that’s why I’m so utterly crushed when someone I love and trust uses them to do something deliberately hurtful to me.

I am, however, lucky that I can think things through by writing them out. By tonight, I may have reached a place where I can actually do work once the boy’s gone to bed. I know that I’m sick and need my sleep, but I’ve got to get something added to this MS, and I just cannot focus through the storm right now.

But first, I’m going to go wash the kitchen floor, because it’s a task that I hate and I can’t possibly get into a worse mood. And I’ll feel that I accomplished something.