The Ingredients of Summer

 Over the weekend, my husband, daughter, and I checked out one of "places I want to get to" this summer: the Barnes & Noble that recently opened in a nearby shopping center.

It did not disappoint. We spent way too much time there and one of us (I plead the fifth) spent too much money as well.

Next up: the beach vacation that's a standard summer trip for us, hopefully with our daughter along for the first time in several years. My husband (the planner) has been making lists and "necessary purchases" for the past two week. I (the pantser -- as in "by the seat of my pants") have been tossing things into laundry baskets and making piles of things to take along (can you tell my organizational style is I need to see it?) And yes, I've also gone old school, creating a few lists to keep track of what's been done and what remains to be done. 

I have a few other lists, too, of things I want to do between now and the start of fall semester. Like my beach lists, they fall into predictable categories.

• What I’m reading: Sooo many things! I actually made a short list of books to finish this month so I could focus my reading pursuits. The goal is to complete at least two of the books on the list. Unfortunately, I'm so delighted to have time to read whatever I want that I find myself hopping from one title to the next which doesn't bode well for successful completion of the original short list. 

• What I’m watching: One of the books I'm hoping to finish (What's Next?) focuses on the television show The West Wing, which I recently finished re-watching. The book has inspired me to check out another old Aaron Sorkin show (one that was new to me) called Sports Night. I’m also watching a baking championship show and trying to work my way through the list of miniseries and movies on my to-be-watched list. If you have a suggestion for something worth watching, please drop it in the comments.

• What else? (a.k.a. other fun stuff): Duolingo – mostly French, but also chess. I'm making time to work on my collage projects, drawing and coloring, along with doing more cooking than I do during the semester, but that’s not really saying much. Hopefully also getting back to crocheting and journaling. Oh, and digital games, mostly the New York Times puzzles and Words With Friends.

• What I'm writing: In addition to my minimum of 10 minutes a day of "new words," I'm hoping to pick up the threads of other projects that get dropped when things get busy -- an article here, a submission there -- as well as being a more faithful blogger and perhaps coming up with a few new ideas.

• What I hope to accomplish: Painting the trim in the dining room (don’t ask me how long ago I painted the walls. Again, I plead the fifth). Getting rid of the equivalent of a magazine a day until I get rid of the backlog. (Buying two new ones at Barnes and Noble did not help, nor do the active subscriptions that bring new issues in the mail). De-cluttering my basement, one box or bin at a time which has been, at times, an interesting trip down memory lane.

• Who I want to hang out with: Family, of course. I'm also looking forward to a succession of lunches and coffee dates with friends -- far  easier to schedule in the summertime. But, with so many things to keep me occupied, hanging out by myself isn't such a bad deal either.

How about you? What are the ingredients of your summer? Do you lean toward getting things done, chilling out, or a combination of the two?

(Image by André Santana Design André Santana from Pixabay)

Different Key Ring, Same Jersey Girl

 In reviewing past posts for a today's entry, I went in search of one I'd written about flip flop day -- the day that I switch my priorities from teaching to writing (or, in August and January, the other way around). Quite by accident, I found the one below and, since it, too, references flip flops, I decided to use this one instead. 

These days, my key ring is a little different. I'm on my second or third "Jersey Girl" ribbon, having replaced earlier versions where the print rubbed off. I no longer carry my work keys (now plural) on my key ring, and the car key that graces one end of the "Jersey Girl" ribbon is no longer a standard key, but an updated electronic version that unlocks an entirely different vehicle. My starfish is still there, though, along with my Bucknell key ring, my Leah charm, and a slightly tacky shamrock with green glass beads that reminds me of Ireland -- a place I hadn't yet visited when I wrote the post below.

An updated version of my Jersey Girl character.

In novels, dialogue and actions reveal character. By paying careful attention to what characters say and do, a reader can pick up a lot of clues about what makes characters tick and what's important to them.

Possessions can be revealing, too, both in novels and in real life. This afternoon, as I was waiting in my car for a family member to return, I took a good look at my keyring -- an item I pick up at least twice a day. Some of its contents aren't mysterious at all. Keys to the important places in my world -- my house, my car, my shared office at work. A "Leah" charm with a pigtailed little girl on it, and another imprinted with Bucknell University, both of which have been on my key ring for so long I forgot they were there.

Others go beyond face value. The bright pink "Jersey Girl" ribbon that comes in so handy for plucking my keys out of the depths of whatever bag I'm using isn't just about being able to take the girl out of Jersey, but not taking the Jersey out of the girl. I bought it on one of our first trips to take my daughter to college in Connecticut, and every time I see it, it reminds me of that trip and, by extension, my 

Did I mention my house key is in a flip flop print?
(Photo: Home Depot)

daughter.

The pale, nubby starfish hanging from my key ring brings back memories of another trip -- the one and only cruise we took. I no longer remember which Del Sol, or even which Caribbean island, for that matter, I bought it in, but every time the sunlight hits it and it turns purple, I remember not only the trip, but also the tough days in which that magically purple piece of plastic made me smile and, for just a moment, picture being back on a Caribbean island.

Finally, there's the Miraculous Medal that I added to my key ring when my mom was sick. I was driving back and forth between Pennsylvania and New Jersey pretty often, and I got in the habit of tucking a Miraculous Medal into my pocket when I traveled. For a while, my mom wore one around her neck as well and, when this one showed up in the mail, I wasted no time adding it to my key ring collection. It brought me hope and comfort in a time where both were in short supply; perhaps that's why it has lingered on my key ring.

One thing's for sure: my key ring would be lighter and less bulky without all these extras. Then again, it would have a lot less character.

Which of your possessions tells a little too much about you?

The Power of a Habit

 My days are filled with a multitude of small habits. Learning French (or maybe Spanish) or playing chess on Duolingo. My quick AM journal, beginning with three gratitudes. My ten minutes of writing. My allotted time on my coursework as an instructor and maybe some time on Coursera (for fun). And then there are things like laundry and cooking and tidying up, punctuated by a larger household or organization project.

It's the stuff that summer days are made of.

I call my dad each night and we talk about our days. Sometimes, I feel as though my reports sound like just that -- a recitation of things that, singly, don't amount to much.

At least not over the course of 24 hours.

During our conversations, I often find myself saying that I have nothing exciting to report but, over time I'm beginning to recognize that these small habits are adding up. Ten minutes of writing a day has gotten me back into the habit of putting words on the page. Right now, those words are a sort of mishmash: a burgeoning fiction project, sprinkled with responses to random prompts that serve to help me meet my daily goal, but don't necessarily contribute to the larger anything. 

Time on Duolingo has not only brought my high school French back, it has taken me to a point where my fluency surpasses what I could do back then. I'm still not ready to be dropped into the streets of Paris to fend for myself, but I'm getting closer.

Chess lessons on Duolingo have taught me aspects of the game I never learned when I tried to teach myself. Similarly, I'm not ready to challenge my nephew, who plays at an advanced level, but I'm getting better at strategizing although, truth be told, I get frustrated a lot of the time.

My morning journal, along with the meditation practice I'm trying to incorporate, helps me start out positively and on an even keel or, when used later in the day, it helps me regain my keel.

While it's true that I often have nothing exciting to report, it's also true that, over time, the developments are pretty exciting. Growth is incremental, and often so small that we don't see it, even when we're looking directly at it, or reporting it in a phone call.

But it's there.

With persistence and curiosity, growth is inevitable. And that's a pretty good way to spend a summer.

How I Write

 Four summers ago, I wrote about my writing "why" (along with my who, what, when, and where) and a then finally, my "how."

Back then, I commented that even after almost thirty years (now more than that), I hadn't settled on one "right" approach. The only thing that remained consistent was that, in the end, I needed to sit down and just do it.

Still true. 

Four years later, most of the post is accurate. One happy development is that the character who was playing hide and seek back then has seen fit to share her story with me, and inhabits the novel I'm currently trying to sell. These days, my "10 minutes a day" plan is the description of what my "how" looks like on a day-to-day basis. 

After a particularly challenging writing season, I find myself less concerned about how I write and more grateful that four years later, I'm still writing. That makes it a lot more fun to revisit the post below.

How my process looks depends on what I'm working on. Over time, I've learned to come at different projects from different angles. With fiction, I start with characters; with non-fiction, a proposal that sets parameters for an idea. If I'm writing an article, I'm conscious of time. Experience in writing for magazines and online sites has taught me to aim for an hourly rate, and I set out to complete pieces in a time frame that earns me that rate.

But writing, like any creative pursuit, isn't a cookie cutter process. Some projects bend to my will and my process; others resist, taking more time than I allotted. Non-fiction proposals need to be reshaped and rearranged to meet the needs of different publishers. When I'm working on fiction, my characters sometimes refuse to talk to me or fail to reveal enough of themselves to give me the foundation for a solid story. 

Side note: this was never the case with Marita, Angel, Charli and Bets. They spoiled me.

But it has been the case with my latest work-in-progress. I'd first sketched the novel out a couple of years ago, only to set it aside as other projects -- projects with paychecks and deadlines -- popped up. Then, when it came time to find the notes I'd carefully filed away, they were nowhere to be found. This is very unusual for me; I frequently set something down and have to retrace my steps to find it but this folder has gone missing. Completely.

So I went back to the drawing board. And still she resisted. (Maybe she was mad at me for misplacing that file). I knew she was a private person, but this was getting ridiculous. 

steve_a_johnson via Pixabay

It wasn't until I was at the beach with my family earlier this summer that she began to re-emerge. I did worksheet after worksheet -- not my usual approach -- until finally her friends gave her away. A tenuous story began to take shape.

And I was ready to write. Once that happens, the "when" is often my biggest obstacle but, sometimes, the "how" becomes an issue as well. One chapter flies by, another leaves me staring into space, looking for inspiration in unlikely places and trying to do research without going down the hyperlink rabbit hole. Type/delete/type some more/check a word or spelling and keep typing until I run out of words. 

And then do it again another day.

Once something I'm not totally ashamed of materializes, I share it with my critique group. Their comments play a role in the "how" too, and their questions sometimes leave me with a different "how."  How will I close a loophole, fix an engineering problem, up the ante?

And I'm back to my computer again. 

How do I write? 

However my characters tell me to.

Reading Meets Organizing

 When it comes to reading, I'm a dabbler. I'm always in the middle of multiple (as in, double digits) books, e-books, audio books, and magazines. Most of them are non-fiction, which lends itself well to dabbling. I rarely read more than one novel at at time because, once I enter the world of characters I care enough to keep reading about, I don't want to mix up their lives with anyone else's.

Since so much of what I read is non-fiction, I typically read with a pencil or highlighter in hand, and Post-it Note flags and scissors (for magazines) within reach. After I set everything aside, I'm left with a collection of ideas, thoughts and, if I'm lucky, inspiration.

But what do I do with all of it? If I keep the books in my personal library, it's easy enough to flip through the pages and/or follow the flags to locate the information I'm seeking (provided I can remember which book had which idea). For the magazines, I have a clipping file.

This tenuous, imperfect, sort-of system was working for the most part, but it wasn't terribly efficient. Then, when online reading joined the game, it quickly became the tipping point, and the notion that my system did anything but generate clutter went right down the drain.

When I discovered Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential, I tore through the first few chapters. Not only did it promise to help me build a system, but it also reminded me why I was gathering all this miscellany in the first place. Even better, I was delighted to discover that those with some of the best minds in history had notebooks filled with highlights of what they'd read. Though I have no delusions that I have one of the best minds in history, it was nice to know I'm in good company.

I've been chipping away at Forte's book for several months now. I haven't lost interest; I just didn't want to wait until I finished the book to put his ideas to work. So far, I've personalized his ideas by pressing the Notes app on my devices into service to organize my online finds and I've created a "Book Notes" notebook to capture ideas from any book I decide not to keep in my personal library. These small steps (purely my interpretation of the intersection of Forte's ideas with my own habits) have helped me to feel (a bit) less scattered because my finds are a bit more curated. I'm also creating a library of notebooks (which take up less space than books), and I've discovered that as I collect and curate, I pay a bit more attention to why I'm selecting the information that I decide to keep. Sometimes I don't have a specific reason, or perhaps I can see numerous ways that the information will be useful -- that's where the creative potential part comes in -- and that's also why it's so important to save the information in a way that makes retrieval as easy as possible.

I want to make it clear that my system is my take on how Forte's ideas work for me. Although his books provide a framework, he's very clear that one size does not fit all, which is one of the things that has made this book such a good read.

Meanwhile, I persist in my goal of finishing two books a month -- a small, reachable goal that ensures that I don't just skim the surface of 10, 000 ideas. Perhaps even better, it affords me the freedom to continue the sampling and dabbling I so enjoy.

Mental Load

 It’s been almost a month since spring semester ended and I am three weeks into the summer course I’m teaching (yes, you read that timeline right). Fortunately, the course is online, I’ve taught it before, and the roster settled in at a little under 20 students. This means that I can allocate part of each day to my summer class and then walk away guilt free to engage in other pursuits.

Despite that timeframe — or perhaps, in part, because of it — it wasn’t until the end of last week that I actually began to feel a little bit relaxed. Even factoring in the necessary grading and planning for my class, my to-do lists have shrunk substantially. As I write this, it’s a warm, sunny day, the gray skies and persistent rain of the past two weeks having taken a hiatus. The house is quiet, my time is largely my own, (at least during the day) and I’m slowly accomplishing the kinds of small tasks that frequently pile up during the semester, clamoring for a spot on my already overpopulated to-do list.

The lists aren’t actually the issue though. Stress comes packaged in the form of the unwritten, unspoken prodding and nudging insistently scrolling through the background in my mind, pushing me to stay on top of things and refusing to let me take down time, pouring on the guilt whenever a glimmer of self-care makes an appearance. The prodding and nudging is so thorough, in fact, that it sticks around even after the last grade has been recorded. Circling my head like buzzards, Mr. Prod and Mrs. Nudge leave me with the constant feeling that I should be doing something other than what I’m doing, particularly when what I’m doing is relaxing.

During a very similar time last summer, I decided to get a pedicure. I hadn’t had one in a while and when I leaned back in the chair, I almost wept. 

I know. Dramatic. I thought so too. It was a dramatic release that was longer coming than I realized.

A couple weeks ago, the same thing happened, only this time it was a massage, not a pedicure. Tears leaked from behind my eyes as I lay on the table, letting go of the busyness that had simply been life for the past few weeks. 

When we’re just going through the day-to-day and doing our thing, we sometimes forget that just going through the day and doing our thing can be stressful because, when compared to other scenarios, it doesn’t seem like a big deal.

And maybe it isn’t. But our day-to-day still takes time and energy. While we quickly recognize a depletion of our physical energy, we can forget or undervalue depletion of our mental energy.

When I leaned back in that chair last summer and lay down on that table a few weeks ago, I wasn’t recovering from digging ditches, or standing out on a black, tarry highway in 90° temperatures in full construction gear, or working the lunch rush at a diner. Those jobs take a physical toll—one we recognize. Sitting in a chair in an air-conditioned sunporch grading papers? Hardly compares.

But mental labor — whether it’s grading papers, writing legal briefs, or keeping a household running smoothly  — does leave its mark. And when we downplay the toll that mental exhaustion takes, we unintentionally hang on to it, strengthening its grip so that when we finally let go, the floodgates open, emotions tripping over themselves as they run for the exit.

I recognize how fortunate I am that indulgences like pedicures and massages are a part of my life, and this post isn’t about complaining about how hard my life is because I actually have a pretty good life. 

But even the good life comes with challenges. As a counselor, I have a pretty good handle on my emotions — most of the time, anyway — as well as an understanding of the human condition. Together, these things tell me that I’m not alone.

And that’s the reason for this post.

It’s tough out there sometimes — for all of us. It’s important to take our emotional temperature from time to time and figure out what we need. And once we figure out how to make it happen, we need to do it guilt-free (as long as we aren’t hurting anyone else in the process) because investing in ourselves can be one of the best investments there is.

So, how about you? How will you protect your investment?

(Image by Rosy / Bad Homburg / Germany from Pixabay)

Pivot

 Last week, I wrote about the Pennwriters Conference, an event I've been attending for probably 20 years. My reasons for attending vary from one year -- and one stage of writing -- to the next. Over time, I became more particular about which workshops I attended, honing in on sessions that fit with where I was in my writing career. Some years, the focus was meeting with agents. Other years, it was social media, writing craft, or networking (a.k.a. known as socializing). 

This year, my goals were motivation, inspiration, and instruction. Every writer has slumps, and this past year has been one of mine. I have a project ready to go, but it's stalled because I'm disillusioned and overwhelmed by the next steps I need to take. 

Because this year's conference fell during finals week, it was impossible to attend the full conference, so I scoured the scheduled offerings, highlighting the sessions that were the best fit for my current circumstances and planning accordingly. In the end, I laid out a schedule that enabled me to attend a day and a half of the conference.

The pre-conference offered a half-day session for writers who'd finished a book and were struggling with the kinds of promotional writing that constitute the next steps -- a perfect fit for my current situation. Although the presenter didn't give me the information I'd hoped for, her workshop yielded something valuable. 

It shed light on WHY I'm stuck.

I was profoundly aware that writing a novel and submitting a novel involve two different skills sets, one of which I find MUCH more enjoyable than the other. The presenter aptly described this as moving from pouring your heart and soul into something to turning it into a product to be sold. 

Yikes. No wonder this is hard. I needed to pivot, but I was standing still, completely unaware that I was supposed to be pivoting. I knew I needed to do something, but I had neither the energy nor the choreography to join the dance.

I have no illusions that this will be easy. Exhaustion and burnout don't arise overnight, and they can't be resolved that quickly either. Knowing this frees me from the pressure to seek a quick fix and enables me to embrace the wisdom of focusing on small steps instead -- a slow, meticulous pivot, if you will -- that will get me pointed in the right direction. From there, I can focus on the rest of the choreography.

How about you? Is there somewhere in your life that requires a pivot? What will it take to get you to join the dance?