Mindbloom

Wednesday 8June11

I had a problem solved recently. I've been trying for 2 years, if not longer to do a television fast. You know, stop watching television for say an entire week or month and get shit done. I couldn't manage to find a way to do it. The moment I walked in the house I was clicking on the TV and had it on Bravo for Law and Order. How many times do you need to see the same episodes? Then it was some other show and another. That 3 hours a night I could have been getting stuff done, like say, writing a novel.

I was mad at myself everyday for being so weak and just not keeping my promise to myself.

And then a friend sent me an invitation to Mindbloom. I was bitter at first. Why are people always sending invitations to some kind of social something? Jeez, I'm on facebook, I'm on plurk. I've got 5 email addresses and I spend so much time keeping up with those things it's any wonder I leave the house. Any how I checked it out.

It's a wonderful tree of your goals each branch is a specific area of your life and you start with 3 branches and create actions for those areas and you get seeds for keeping those actions. It's beautiful, it's visual and it's fun to keep track of your goals. The best part is because it costs you seeds to add an action, you really have to think about the most important actions you want to take. And as you go along, you make reasonable goals.

Well since I've been keeping track of my goals and actions on mindbloom, I've been so busy working on what I love that I have had no need to turn on the television. And my tree is looking mighty fine. And it all feeds into my chant, I want to feel good. I think if you click the title to this blog entry it will bring you to tree.mindbloom.com. It's been awhile since I've done any substantial blogging so I have figure out how to add links again. ha ha.

EY

Distractions

Sunday 5June11

I've been writing lots of poetry but the novel work has been nil for a minute. Possible love as distraction has been the cause. Also the cause of all the poetry.

It's interesting how hard it can be to live a balanced life and be a writer at the same time. I want to be totally focused on my writing but I want to have the enjoyments of normal human beings. Is that too much to ask?

Well the possible love as distraction has come to a screeching halt and I will continue to write poetry because good-byes make me productive. And I can use those magical feelings that I had for a character or more. And I go back to my nose in a book and I get back to my daily goal of 1000 words.

And all is apparently right in the world. Right, right, I have some pain to add to my characters lives too. Almost forgot about that.

EY

Pay Yourself to Write

28May11 Saturday

I've been looking for a way to reward myself for all the writing I do. But I've wanted to reward myself in such a way that fits into a few categories. One, I want to save for purchases but I feel like my budget is already tied up in other things and I can't quite figure out a better way to put money aside for them. Two, I want my purchases related to my writing. I want to have done a certain amount of work before I can purchase a new DVD player or speakers for my computer. You know the things that are more in the luxury area rather than the necessities.

One of my favorite inspiring shows to watch is Inside the Actor's Studio. I like the depth to it and I'm always surprised by the person who doesn't really interest me but drops some inspirational gem. Jay Leno was on there ages ago and I remember him saying that he has only lived off the money he's made as a comedian. He said that he does it so that he doesn't get lazy with it and continues to book gigs and do stuff related to his comedy. I've always liked that idea and somehow I've wanted to use that idea eventually. But of course I'd have to be making money from my writing. Not yet, but I will.

Anyhow I took the savings idea of paying yourself first and the idea of living off your passion and came up with the idea to pay myself to write. I've kept it simple and low yet enough that it can grow relatively quickly. So what I've been doing is paying myself a toonie for what I write. I pay $2 per poem; $2 per 1000 words in novel related writing and just recently added $2 per blog entry to get me back in to blogging.

So since the 2nd of this month I've earned $80. That money will be going up quicker for sure with the blog entries. And I have been writing a whole lot of poems lately which is a good feeling. I haven't decided what the first reward will be. Probably the computer speakers. I'm lost without music that I can blare. I had such beautifully loud speakers that I'd bought with my first imac way back when they were blueberry and grape etc. My cats running wild, managed to knock them off their perch onto the floor. The speakers continued to work for a few more years but they died recently and man, I needs me some new speakers. So to get them, I've got to write for them. And yes blogging again.

So much is happening these days, it feels time to blog again.

EY

Amanda Hocking

5Mar11

Well it's time to begin again. It has been a zillion months since I blogged and it is time to get back to it. Not sure what I will include in this but I'm here again. And perfect timing, it is within the New Moon period. The New moon was yesterday and in Pisces, my sun sign.

I've come across a few links for Amanda Hocking lately and if you click the title of this entry you will be led to her blog. She sounds like she works hard and she has had some decent success, after years of hard work, of course. No one said this was easy.

I feel inspired by that and in the grand scheme of things when I think about all the effort I put into other people's work it really is time to put that focus on my dreams. You know how it is, when you are at a job that you bust your butt for and ensure that you give them your best work and then your evaluation is well an evaluation for some other person? When your evaluation is surely a "let's find bad things to say, even if they are not true." That kind of evaluation is such a huge message that you are putting your energy in the wrong place.

Especially since that place has caused me physical pain that has needed medical attention.

I think it's the Universe's way of telling me, you know what it's telling me...

Hope you are listening to the messages that the Universe is giving you.

EY

Nano Day 2

Tuesday 2Nov10
It's always a learning experience doing nanowrimo even if you end up with a crappy novel at the end of it.

I realized yesterday that I could goof off a whole lot and still write over 2000 words. That was a good thing to find out. Often what happens is that I'll be goofing off and think that I've blown my chances for any good writing for the day. Yesterday showed me different.

I'm also participating in Robert Lee Brewer's poem a day prompts for a poetry chapbook by the end of November. The first year I did it, he had us write poems around one theme. It gave me the idea to write poems in character. So this year as part of Nanowrimo I decided that I would use his prompts for my main character Arrabella. I start off my writing with his prompt and continue on with the novel. It's a good way to slip back into the novel with little pressure.

So far I'm at 3831 words for my nano novel and am about to take a break and do some yoga so I'm not all stiff from sitting at the computer and make loads more peppermint tea. I also decided this morning that I wanted to play some music so I've been listening to Miles Davis... Cookin' at the Plugged Nickel; No Blues and an album with the Lighthouse All Stars, can't remember the title. It's good. Got a good groove going.

Well, that's me for the lunch hour.
EY

Nanowrimo

Well it's been a zillion years since I've blogged and a zillion years since I've done Nanowrimo. I figure since I've been working on my Nano novel, day 1 and 1700 words so far, I might as well write a blog entry. That's how it all starts up again by sitting down and starting.

I'm still on a bit of a high from the International Festival of Author's that takes place yearly here in Toronto. It was a fantastic year and the cartoonist Lynda Barry came back to the festival which was awesome. She has of course her book, "What it is" about writing and is apparently based on the stuff she teaches in her class, Writing the Unthinkable. And she came this year with her latest book, "Picture This" which I guess could be considered the drawing equivalent.

It was nice to see her again and nice to have a chance to chat with her. When I met her 2 years ago I'd said that I'd stopped drawing when I was a kid and she told me to pick it up again so I did. This go round I showed her the type of drawings I'd been doing since her suggestion and she was so excited and supportive and well, how could you not a) love her and b) be inspired to continue.

There really are so many exciting ideas in the world when you feel like getting back in touch with your creativity. During Dany Leferriere's reading, he read in French, I wrote down the words I could identify from his reading and wrote a poem based on the words I identified. It's funny how the most arbitrary little games can still bring me to what I'm really feeling at the time.

I guess, the gist of what Lynda Barry gave me was reminding me about how free we all were when we were kids. We could make a song out of nothing, we would sing and never thought about whether we KNEW how to sing or not, we could make up a story in response to someone telling us to tell them a story. I'm trying to go for that childhood freedom. Get back in touch with it. There are so many reasons to take care of the myriad of distractions that abound but if I take a moment to hear what my creative thoughts my creative wisdom is telling me, well I can spend a little bit of time soaking in my own happiness. Life is really rough without inner happiness.

EY

Taking Time For Myself

Sunday 21June09 11:22am

I took the month of April off from people. I went to work of course and was personable but my free time I saved for me only. I didn't make plans with friends and turned down any invitations. It wasn't easy to make people understand. It's funny that we can understand when a girlfriend has a new boyfriend and disappears to go build that new relationship but we can't see the same value when a person needs to disappear to build a relationship with ones self. Needless to say, it was difficult for some people to understand when I said, "I'll see you in May."

I'm a prime candidate to go on a silent retreat and thrive because of it. But that's just me. Most people I tell about it look at me like I'm crazy.

I didn't know what it was that I needed specifically other than time for myself. But as the month of April moved on into May and I was enjoying the time so much that I continued for the month of May, I realized that I needed to find my voice. Not necessarily my writing voice because I'm pretty clear about that but that other inside voice. My own authority. I find that my mind goes a mile a minute and I often hear what others have said to me, what others tell me what they think I should do. After a while it buries your own voice. You get away from what do you want for yourself and waste time fighting against advice that you never asked for.

Recently I said to a girl friend, "It's great that you have all these wonderful ideas for me but it's not your voice that I need to listen to, it's my voice." I know it is something that I will have to repeat.

During my time to myself I discovered that I have an insane amount of journals and letters and poems and dream journals that I have kept over a good 20 year period. I found my mother's journals, letters and poems as well. Sweet Jesus, it's a treasure trove that will take me years to look through. I got back into keeping track of my nightly dreams after reading 'Dreamways of the Iroquois' by Robert Moss. I forgot how much better I feel when I have some contact with my subconscious mind. And I wrote poems, a crazy amount of poems. I wrote 74 poems in April and 41 poems in May, thanks to Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides.

He has a great poetry challenge every April, well this was the 2nd year in a row. He offers daily prompts to write a poem a day for the month of April. I was having so much fun writing a poem a day that I decided to go back to the year before and pick up those prompts as well. So I ended up writing two poems a day and an extra poem on Tuesdays. For May I picked up Robert's daily prompts from November of 2008 when the challenge was focused on writing a book of poems on one theme. I used those prompts to write poems in character.

I treated the poetry writing as a stream of consciousness and was thrilled to see what was in my mind on any given day. For the poems in character, those were more guided in that I had to ask, how would Kali or Rachel answer this prompt.

There are many gifts to be found in taking time out for yourself. It's not easy to commit to because people go crazy, get insulted, become needy... but if you can stick to it, for yourself.

My gifts from that time include: finding my journals and mom's journals; getting back to poetry which is what I started writing at 10 years old; keeping a dream journal which has always made me feel more centred, and over all a peace of mind that I've come out of and through the storm of the last couple years. Everything got so dark and painful and negative and excruciating for a good two years and at the end of all that I feel like I've come back to what truly makes me me and hearing it from within me. Giving myself permission to be me.

It's great that people have all these wonderful ideas for us but it's not their voices that we need to listen to, it's our own voice.

EY