Author: Christine

Christine http://www.mombie.com I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Co-Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm the current president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

Three complaints

I’m not going to get whiny here but three things are getting on my nerves lately.

1) I keep forgetting to drink water throughout the day and then I wake up at night feeling like I have been in the desert.

2) I’m having extra trouble choosing where to focus so I haven’t been able to write some things I want to write. This isn’t writer’s block, it’s grief and I am trying to be kind to myself until this particular aspect passes. It’s frustrating in the meantime, though.

3) My body wants get moving, work hard, really get my muscles working. My brain and my metaphorical heart are insisting on moving slowly. If I try to push myself at all it either stirs up my emotions or I feel instantly exhausted.

I know these things take time but I wouldn’t mind if they took a little less time than this.

Surprised by my own drawing

I drew this yesterday.

Image description: a drawing of a bunch of half-oval shapes close together, a bit like multi-coloured kernels of corn on the cob but with one white ‘kernel’ with a smiling face and big eyes in the middle.

My plan was to make a bunch of faces, one on each shape.

But once I had coloured almost all the shapes, I couldn’t decide what colour to make that last white bump.

That’s when I realized that that was where the face was going to go, that it was a little creature peeking out of a hiding spot, not a bunch of faces at all.

Weird, hey?

Working on a Workshop

I’m teaching a workshop tomorrow afternoon and I am having the same problem that I always do with workshop prep.

I’m trying to cram too much into a short session.

I know this is a common problem when creating workshops. It’s hard to know what to include, what is ‘enough.’ You want people to understand your topic and you want them to feel like they got what they came for but you also don’t want to overwhelm them.

And I think this is exacerbated by my ADHD desire for context.

When I pull a piece of information out of my brain, it never comes alone – it drags a whole net of related ideas with it.

And the word related is covering a lot of territory here.

Related might include other facts relevant to that piece of information but it also might include details of when and where and how I learned that fact, other people who have expressed similar ideas, metaphors and analogies that are connected by a very thin string to the original topic…

You get my point here.

So, not only am I wading through stuff I *know* is useful and relevant and winnowing that down, I am also wading through all kinds of stuff that *may* be relevant and trying to decide if any of it is useful for the topic of the day.

Needless to say that process is a challenge.

I’m up for it but it is still a challenge.

I do have one important guiding principle though.

The heart of my workshop is this idea:

Writing is a tricky business and it’s ok to find it hard but if you can get comfortable with your own process, you’ll get your words on the page.

Unexpectedly Popular Monster

When I created Shari, I felt like I was kind of copping out with the advice.

Not only did what I had written on the drawing feel trite, I felt like the additional advice in my post was a bit ordinary, maybe even too obvious.

Here’s what I said:

By the way, when Shari says to lean into your own style and do your own thing, she’s not just talking about what you wear.

Do the things you love to do and do them in the way you love doing them.

Maximize your daily fun!

Image description: a drawing of a green slug-like monster that is green on top (with pink dots along her uppermost edge) and black and white striped underneath. She has a big eye on this side, and two pink teeth and antennae. She has a thought bubble above her that reads ‘It’s ok. Do your own thing!’ And text above that reads ‘Shari wants you to lean into your own style!’

I wasn’t expecting people to like it or, at least, I didn’t expect them to engage with it.

But I had multiple comments on it and people told me it was what they needed to hear.

Obviously, the saying ‘you are too close to your own work to judge it’ is very true.

Was this bird spying on me? (I kid!) (mostly)

Yesterday, I saw this tiny bird (zoom in on the top of the tree) while I was out for a walk.

A photo of the top part of a couple of evergreen trees. In the upper most branches of one is a small, gray or white bird.
Image description: a photo of the upper branches of two evergreen trees with blue sky behind them. in the spindly upper branch at the top of the photo is a small grey or white bird.

Nothing about its shape or size or actions caused me any concern but when it said. “Tweet, tweet!” , like a person doing a very poor imitation of a bird, my suspicions were raised.

Nice try, spy-bird. Nice try.

PS – Before you send someone to do a wellness check: Yes. the bird sounded like a person saying tweet. No, I don’t actually think it was a spy.