February 6, 2013 - Insecure Writer’s Support Group

 

Good grief, Charlie Brown, has it been another month already?

I’m feeling very insecure this month. 

I can blog; when I’m on a roll with a thought, I’m good.  I can take a writing prompt from The Writer’s Retreat Kit and run with it.  I’ve done ad copywriting.  I have chapters of my WIP in my head.

I am, as my husband has said, quite capable of writing a book. 

Problem is – and it’s my problem, my hang-up – when I have a couple of hours here and there for myself – quiet time – I sit down to “work on my book” and my words seem to dry up.  What I put down feels awkward.   I think, “I’ll curl up in bed tonight with my netbook and do some writing when it’s quiet.”  Forget that.  I’m ready for lights out by the time I hit the blankies.

Give me a month alone, two weeks alone even, and I bet I could crank out what I want to say.  Quiet time with no outside influences to let my inner “little voice” emerge again.

That’s not gonna happen.

So I’m plotting against myself, or with myself, to get over this hurdle, this self-imposed handicap.  I’ll retreat to my writing neuk here in my office, put music in my ears and pretend I’m sharing my story with one person, not a faceless multitude.  Make it an intimate environment.

Think it’ll work?  We’ll see.

How do you carve time out for yourself away from spouse, partner, job, everyday routines to allow time and space for your muse to be entertained?

Thanks for stopping by!

I am a Warrior.

The above bracelet is a Toby and Max creation.

Beginning Again

 

An exercise from The Writer’s Retreat Kit 

Beginnings and Endings

“Write about beginning again.”

June 2005 was the end of one life and the beginning of a new one for me.  Having disposed of all my worldly goods excepting that which fit into a 6’ x 12’ U-Haul trailer and my Chevy Tahoe, I was about to make a solo road trip of 1500 miles to a state I had never been in, to an apartment I had never seen, engaged to a man 4000 miles away with whom I had spent less than one week. 

Tahoe and U-Haul hitched together those final few days, I stayed at home unless I walked to a destination or a friend came by to take me out for a meal.  There was a lot of that going on, lots of good-byes.  It was as if I were leaving this world.

About 24 hours prior to my departure, I began feeling “not right” physically.  There were no specific symptoms; no signs of an illness, per se.

Explaining my uneasiness to a dear friend and shaman, she laughed and told me everything was fine; I was simply dying.

Dying?!?!

Yes, it was the death of one life and the birth of another, symbolically, spiritually and physically.

Understanding this, I felt not only physically better but excited about my upcoming solo cross-country road trip.  Provided with some visualization exercises to help with the process, I rolled out of my driveway the morning of departure thinking of my walled driveway as a birth tunnel.  My three-day journey to northern Minnesota became an adventure with the promise of my new life ahead.

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We all reinvent ourselves throughout our lives, sometimes by choice and at other times through circumstances presented to us.  Do you shudder and panic with the thought of major life changes or do you welcome them with open arms and the excitement of what Life has in store for you?   Do you look at each new day as an opportunity to reinvent yourself?

Thanks for stopping by!  Now go write!