Tag Archives: Book

Book Writing Saturday

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Throughout the week, as I’ve been thinking about my upcoming Book Writing Saturday, where I would spend four hours working on my book as I’ve been doing every Saturday for the past month, I had a strong sense that that I had to alter my approach.

For starters, Dexter was pretty sick this week. The anti-inflammatory we were giving him to ease the discomfort of his maybe probably most likely but we can’t really be sure cancer did a real number on his belly. By Monday night, he couldn’t even keep water down. So we had a long, hard week of more vet visits, more medication, more suffering, more sleepless nights and worry. Thankfully, already by Tuesday night, he was feeling much better, but I’m feeling distracted and tired.

at nine years old and so gray, he still looks like a puppy sometimes

Book Writing Saturday was hard enough when it was simply a matter of already having an intense, full time job, already getting up at 4:30 am every morning so I can do everything that needs/wants done: laundry, dog walking, groceries, cleaning, exercise, sleep, paying bills, blogging, self-care, yoga, meditation, maintaining relationships, etc. There is so little extra time, and already not enough play or rest. But I noticed it wasn’t just that–I was being a bully to myself about the whole thing, pushing to get four hours of work, work, work done on my book. I was beating myself up, wasn’t having any fun. And if I’m just going to be mean to myself about it, what’s the point?

Love is the point. I love writing. I love telling stories. I love inspiring others to live more fully, to love more deeply. I love sharing my truth, and in so doing hopefully reminding whoever is reading that they are loved, that they aren’t alone, that they are already perfect, basically and fundamentally wise, compassionate, and powerful. There is a book inside of me that wants out, and at times it feels like the creature from Alien, so I really have no choice.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~Maya Angelou

I started off today by using a prompt suggested by Courtney Carver at the end of her post, On Writing, to write about a detail of your childhood. When I touched my pen to the page, the thing that came up was something I stole. In fact, it was the first thing I remember taking, knowing that it was wrong but doing it anyway because I wanted it so bad. It was a small, white glass Avon empty perfume bottle (Sweet Honesty) made to look like a Scottish Terrier with a gold collar, just like this one. I took it while I was playing at friend’s house, taking it into the bathroom and hiding it in the waistband of my shorts. I loved it, and in my blind desire I justified taking it without asking, (because I couldn’t risk that they’d say “no”). As soon as I got it home, took it out and rubbed my finger against it’s smooth side, I knew I would never be able to enjoy having it, no matter how much I wanted it, but I also was too embarrassed, too ashamed to return it, so I took it to a vacant field at the end of our street and threw it as hard as I could into the emptiness.

This led to more writing about theft, desire and longing, shame. But then the writing took a turn. You see, kind and gentle reader, yesterday Tammy from Rowdy Kittens included a link to one of my blog posts in her Inspiring Links. That more than doubled the amount of traffic I normally get, which gave me that feeling of “if I would have known you were coming, I would have cleaned up a bit.” It made me start thinking about changes I’ve been wanting to make on my blog, which is perfect timing because tomorrow is my one year blog anniversary.

Which ended up meaning that today wasn’t so much about book writing as blog writing, blog brainstorming, blog planning, blog design and redesigning, blog dreaming, blog inspiration, blog love.

Something Good

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I have a blogging schedule, but apparently the Universe has other plans. At about noon yesterday, mid-post, I suddenly lost all ability to connect to any wordpress.com site. It didn’t matter what device I tried, I could navigate the internet just fine, but was blocked from anything wordpress.com. It was so frustrating. I had a whole other post and a half to finish, but when I finally, truly gave up checking at 7:30 last night, still nothing.

But magically this morning, as Eric suggested, everything was working again. He said something like “don’t worry about it, take the rest of the day off and it will probably be back up in the morning.” Don’t you hate it sometimes when your partner is so right?

I suppose the logic here is that it’s a Tuesday Monday. Those of us that work a Monday through Friday week in the U.S. were mostly lucky to have yesterday as a holiday, so today is technically Monday, the day when I most need a list of good things, so here it is…

1. I am reading this book next, and I can’t wait.

2. This post from Tara Brach, True Refuge: Presence in the Face of Dying. Holy wow, talk about perfect timing. In it, she shares the story of Pam, whose husband is dying.

“Pam,” I said, “you’ve already done so much . . . but the time for all that kind of activity is over. At this point, you don’t have to make anything happen, you don’t need to do anything.” I waited a moment and then added, “Just be with him. Let him know your love through the fullness of your presence.”

3. Artist Takes Every Drug Known to Man, Draws Self Portraits After Each Use, which makes me never want to take another drug.

4. The Good Life Project from Jonathan Fields. I like his reason for doing this almost as much as the project itself.

We are strongly committed to sharing the stories of women. When Jonathan’s daughter was about 5 years old, he became tired of reading her to sleep with fables where the boy comes riding in and saves the girl. He wanted to raise a strong, empowered, impassioned daughter with his wife. And this was sending the wrong message. Being a writer, Jonathan began to create his own stories (including one about a badass girl detective who solves cases around the neighborhood and just happens to save a few boys).

Fast forward to 2012, Fields daughter has grown up in a household fueled by non-stop creativity and entrepreneurship. She’s exposed to it everyday. But when Jonathan began looking for powerful stories to share with his daughter about women creating great businesses, bodies of work and movements, he became incredibly frustrated at the lack of coverage in mainstream media. In Jonathan’s words, it was “one giant dude-fest.”

So, he decided to take on the challenge himself. If larger media outlets weren’t telling the stories of amazing women, Jonathan would. Which is why one of the core values of GLP TV is a deep commitment to sharing the stories of and spotlighting strong, innovative, creative women. On this show, women get equal, if not more, time than men.

Jonathan introduced the latest episode, an interview with a professional climber, this way:

I don’t believe people who say they don’t know what they’re passionate about.

They do know. YOU do know.

What you want to be when you grow up has been in your head since you
were 6. At least the pieces, the core qualities that matter.

But we get so wrapped-up in pre-judging the perceived “non-viability” of the things that light us up that we tell ourselves they don’t actually light us up anymore. Because that’s easier than saying we know what makes us breathless, but refuse to act on it because we have no clue how to make it into a living? And we’re terrified of failing and being judged.

5. Catalyzing Creativity: 7 Playful Activity Books for Grown-Ups from Brain Pickings. These look really, really fun.

6. And a few more from Brain Pickings: How to Read Like a Writer and New Year’s Resolution Reading List: 9 Books on Reading and Writing. The first post says this: “Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations.” Yes, yes.

7. The Pleasure Of, “simple things of everyday life.”

8. Are you hanging by a thread? on the Daily Love, by Danielle LaPorte. And yes, the answer is yes, but this makes me feel so much better about it.

9. Happiness is Uncovering What You Already Have from Leo Babauta on Zen Habits.

You have all you need for happiness, right now. You don’t need to change anything about yourself, or your life. You just need to see what’s already there.

10. To be filed under “how the heck did I miss this?!”: World Humanitarian Day (August 19th), the I Was Here project, and the Beyoncé song and video that went with it. *sob*

10. Tina Roth Eisenberg’s 8 Steps for a Creative Life.

11. This quote from Mark Nepo:

Transformation always involves the falling away of things we have relied on, and we are left with a feeling that the world as we know it is coming to an end, because it is.

12. And Trotter, the French Bulldog, just because she makes me smile. (P.S. I’m normally not a fan of dog costumes, but these are cute, and she looks like she doesn’t mind, might even like it). She has the sweetest face.