#Writing

May 1: Low Key

I want a lot out of this month but I am trying to teach myself to add things slowly instead of trying to do everything all at once.

After all, I know that successful changes, new practices, come from starting small and building up.

BUT

I also know that jumping right into a bunch of new practices all at once feels good. I feel engaged and energetic and accomplished…until I run out of steam.

And despite the fact that I run out of steam EVERY SINGLE TIME, my brain still wants to chase that excited feeling of doing ALL OF THE THINGS.

Without the benefits of medication and experience, I would be planning to do more art, more writing, more exercise, more Taekwon-do, more house organizing, more everything all at once, starting right now, maybe half an hour of each, on top of what I already do each day.

It would be fun today but by the end of the week, I would be out of steam.

So, instead, I am layering all of those things into my life during May.

I will ‘touch’ each habit each day but only really focus on one at a time.

Let’s see how it goes.

?a view of a backyard patio with bare trees in the background
My patio and trees are on the same plan that I am – the basics in place but we’ll add new things a little at a time and let them grow. Image description: The view from one corner of my patio. A lawn chair is directly across from me and beyond that there are trees that don’t have any leaves on them next to my red shed.

Good News: I like my book!

Various papers and writing tools rest on a cloth surface.
Image description: A clipboard, post-it notes, a typed page and handwritten notes in a notebook are resting on a cloth surface.

I spend a good chunk of today reading my novel draft and making notes on various characters.

It was boring to do the work but the reading was really fun.

I was happy to discover that I really like my book – the characters are interesting, the plot is pretty good, and the writing is pretty solid.

There is a lot of work left to do to make it into the novel that I want it to be but I am very happy with this starting point.

Revisions

I’m on a writing retreat this weekend so I can start revising my novel.

I’ve revised stories and articles but I have never revised a whole book before.

(No, I don’t think I can do it all in one weekend. This is just for starters!)

Wish me luck!

GIF of a man typing on a laptop and saying ‘This is good.’
Let’s hope this is how I will feel tomorrow. Image description: A GIG in which, Nick, a white male character from the TV show ‘New Girl’ is typing on his laptop in his messy room and saying ‘This is good.’

Not the boss of words today

I generally find it pretty easy to write.

Sure, it might be hard for me to actually get myself to sit down at my desk but once I have the document open and I start typing things usually flow pretty well.

In fact, I often describe my writing as bossing words around.

Today, however, I was not the boss of words. They did not want to pay any attention to me and they flatly refused to line up on the page in a logical fashion.

Luckily, I’ve been writing for a long time. These kind of days are going to happen. They don’t have any special meaning about my writing, or my writing skill, they aren’t a sign of anything.

Today’s frustrations only mean that today was frustrating.

There’s always tomorrow!

A GIF of a monkey typing.
Image description: a monkey (or maybe a chimpanzee) in a pink shirt types on an old-fashioned typewriter.

Writing Practice

I always get annoyed when I see motivational posts about how people get things done when they ‘really’ want to do them.

You know the type of posts, the ones that say that what you get done is a measure of your priorities.

It’s not that there is no truth in that kind of statement but it’s not as simple as it seems.

Yes, how you spend your time shows what have ended up being your priority tasks but that doesn’t mean that those tasks are what you feel strongest about.

Instead, I see those tasks as the ones you feel capable of doing in the moment, or ones that you felt you couldn’t ignore. OR they may be the tasks that kind of fell into your schedule because you didn’t have the capacity to make a plan at the outset.

I wouldn’t want you to feel bad about what you ended up doing with your time.

I would just like you to have a little more room to CHOOSE next time.

And when I say *you* I also mean me.

I have ADHD and if I don’t have a very specific plan for my time, my priorities can go askew. So, the busier I get, the more likely it is that my tasks do not always reflect everything that is important to me. I get the most deadline-oriented priority tasks done, especially if other people are involved, but other important things get sidelined.

So, for example, a task like writing regularly for my blog(s) might fall off my list entirely*.

Not because it isn’t important but because I didn’t schedule it properly.

Now it’s back on my schedule and I am going to build the habit of writing here and on my Heart of the Story blog at least twice per week.

*I know I have come back to trying to establish this practice before but this time I have a clearer picture of what is going awry. I’m combining hope and good scheduling to address the issue. 🙂