It’s National Poetry Month…and therefore I must share poetry. Some days I’ll share my own and some days I’ll share famous works and others I’ll share works of lesser fame. Who knows what the day will bring?
Today, because it’s on my mind, a poem about adoption (I’m an adoptee and a friend called tonight to ask about my experience): (click on the image to enbiggen)
Dear brain,
When I told you I wanted to dream about my writing, I was not asking you to send me a whole other story to write; I wanted help with what I’m currently working in.
No love,
Me
Food discussed (pinterest purused). Food eaten (after much delay). Publishing industry discussed.
More food purchased (Fresh!).
Slept (my first time with puppy in bed). Woken (puppies have small bladders).
More food eaten (Fresh muffins are good).
Writing discussed. Writing pondered. Writing stared at. Writing done? Possibly.
Food prepared (Steph makes a yummy marinara). Food eaten.
Writing pondered. Writing discussed. Writing read about. Writing done? Maybe.
Now time for more food preparation.
Well, The Good first: I wrote a lot last month. A lot.
The Bad: I didn’t finish NANOWRIMO. 😦
The Ugly: I didn’t even come close.
I started out strong, met a lot of daily goals, and then one day just stopped writing all together and never went back to it. Two solid weeks of not cleaning and not paying attention to life in general took its toll on my household and my sanity and I had to go back to real life and feed my kids.
So, some time in the next month or so I hope to go back to the novel, but for now I’m taking a little break and going to read a friends manuscript and a few writing books and see what kind of magic I can put back into my writing. We will see how that goes.
…and all my words with it…
Blogging will recommence December 1st…
So out of the last six days, I had kids (one, two, one) home three days, I worked two days, I had events going on five nights and parents in town the last one, it was the first anniversary of a friends murder, AND I started Nanowrimo. So you’ll forgive me for not following up on the Biscuit vs. Scone bake-off. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Nothing’s happening tomorrow, right? (Don’t tell me. I like being blissfully unaware today.)
Kids are well now, they’ve all had haircuts, they’ve had a sleepover (either at church or at Nana & Pa’s), and they’ve already eaten most of their Halloween candy.
I’m something like 5600 words into my latest novel for Nanowrimo. It’s going pretty well. This year I have Beta Readers, too, which is different and fun. I’m awaiting feedback. I think it’ll be nifty having a braintrust behind my novel. I’ve got an artist, a photographer, and a librarian reading my stuff. WHEE!
My husband is being sweet about all this. He said “You choose what you do with your free time. I watch football and drink beer. You spend time with crazy people inside your own head.” It’s all good. I still think mine’s better. 🙂
When I shut down my blog several months ago, it was because I just didn’t want to write any more. I felt guilty when I didn’t blog enough, I felt bad when I didn’t have anything interesting to say and I blogged about daily life anyway, and most days writing just seemed too hard.
I went several months without blogging. Life was good again. I didn’t feel the need to document every movement I and my family made. We just LIVED. I stopped taking as many pictures and lived through moments instead of seeming them through a tiny lens. It was wondrous.
It was also very, very weird. I’ve been blogging since before there was blogging. I’ve had a diary, journal, notebook, scrap of paper or something in my hands since I was a little girl. I noticed an uptick in Facebook and twitter posts. Then I started writing longer notes in my head that I never posted because they were too long for Facebook. I started writing in a paper journal again, only to realize that my hands are no longer up to that task. So I started searching for an app for journalling on my computer, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted input on my writing.
Which lead me back to blogging. So welcome back to the new Life According to Lisa. 🙂
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” –Maya Angelou
On mornings where I don’t have a substituting job or volunteer work to go do, I come back home and turn on the Soundscapes channel on Music Choice, make a pot of hot water, and start making tea.
I have a little teapot that I make chai tea in, filling it half full of hothot water with honey and half with milk and then the loose chai I got in Gatlinburg last year. While that’s steeping, I use the bottom half of the pot (which is a giant cup) to make quicker-steeping tea. Then on colder days I go sit in my corner chair with the owl-pillow-of-love and stare out at the trees and birds. This time of year there are tons of black birds and robins out in the yard fighting for worms. I love hearing them fly off in an enormous whoosh when something scares them.
On warmer days I take my tea outside onto the back patio and sit on my rocker-bench and feel the breeze in my hair. I think about things I’d like to do in my yard later in the year when the kids are home for the summer and better ways to store all our outdoor stuff (I’d love it if my brain would turn off organizing things during my restful times, but it never does.).
Inevitably the phone rings and it’s back to regular life, but during these quiet moments all is right with the world and everything seems hopeful and lovely.
Listening to: “And I’ll Fly Away” by Anne Trenning
It’s not just Pin-Free February, it’s also my month to test out nearly full time work and see if I can really do it before making a big decision. I’m thinking about going back to school and getting my master’s degree in library science. I have a totally busy month planned out, filled with lots of days subbing up at the elementary school, lots of full days of volunteering (field trips! teacher appreciation!), lots of full days just trying to get caught up on laundry & cleaning, and then a few days I’ve scheduled as full writing days because that’s not getting done right now what with everything else going on. We will see if I can do all that and survive the month. Who knows?
Lisa Holcomb 