Ms Unorganized

After watching the TV show Hoarders, many times, I came to the conclusion that my mother was a hoarder.  Let me first say that she wasn't as bad as many who have been helped on that show.  But after she moved from an apartment to assisted living, everything in her apartment was packed and moved.  Later, my daughters and their husbands and I cleared out a completely filled double storage unit, where her things had been taken.  Thankfully, all of her things had been packed by people who knew what they were doing.  Still, it was a reminder that she never threw anything away.  I've always believed that was because she grew up during the Depression, when so many did without.

My dad, on the other hand, was the complete opposite.  His closet contained his clothes and a metal shelf that held his stamp collection, which was his prized possession.  The top two drawers of his bureau held his keepsakes.  Other than two bins of his philatelic things, I have two boxes of his personal items.  That's it.  Two, medium-sized boxes that contained his life of nearly 77 years.  His father died when my dad was ten, and he quit school in seventh grade to go to work to help his family.  He also knew what it was like to do without.

Unfortunately, I lean towards my mother's hoarding, although not to the her extreme, and I do purge, whenever possible.  I wish I would have learned more from my dad.  It sure would save wasted time, hunting through drawers, stacks of papers and what not.

Why the difference?  I don't know.

Genetic?  I'm adopted, so I can't blame my poor habits on that.  Shucky darn!

When it comes to writing, my system is very much like Joan's.  Yes, I duplicate many of the things in the folders on my computer, but as I commented, that comes in handy.  I don't have a laptop, but I can still carry my story-bible-in-a-notebook with me and work wherever I go.  Call it OCD or whatever.  It works for me.

I'm a visual, hands-on human.  It has its pros and cons.  Pro, because it enables me to visualize.  Cons? (Note to Self: Add blogging dates.)
 Well, I sit here at my desk, I see three calendars.  One isn't even current.  I also created a monthly calendar for my desktop, hidden right now by my browser.  I add things to it when needed.  Our WARA meetings, a note for when I need to remember to take my oldest granddaughter to ice skating lessons, NO SCHOOL days, so I know in advance when I'll have four to five grandkids here all day, and whatever else I should remember.  One of my jobs is to take and pick up all five grandkids at school.  Four trips a day.  Luckily, the two schools are two miles or less miles from home and on different schedules.  Does that sound crazy?  I have alarms set on my cell phone for each time to leave.  If I didn't do that, I'd be getting phone calls from panicked children!

While my home is rarely ready for guests and I sometimes because frustrated when I can't find things, I manage.  I am semi-organized.  There are times when I'm so focused on what I'm doing that I don't notice the confusion around me.  Will I get better?  Maybe.  If I'm lucky, I might even have time to organize and purge this weekend!  Or next weekend, since my To Do list keeps growing, even today.  Or the week after?

And that doorknob in the photo at the top?  It's a wish.  There's no door on my office.  Which might be a good thing.  Those g-kids can create a disaster in a matter of seconds.  Genetic?  Maybe....

On Your Mark, Get Set, Goal

It's a good thing I looked at the calendar, because I would have forgotten I needed to be here today.  I know it's January.  I know we've moved into 2014, but other than that, I'm a bit lost.

It would be nice to escape setting goals right now.  I thought I knew where I wanted to take this year.  But recently I've realized my old goals, the ones I've been making and usually meeting, aren't going to work for me the way I'd thought they might  It's time to step back, rethink, and re-goal.  Yes, a sort of New Beginning.

My writing goal in 2013 was to write 200,000 words.  I met that goal.  In fact, my WARA friends may not know, but I wrote 232,653 words, not counting blog posts.  The total for those was 49,666.  I'll let you do the math.  How did I do it?  I wrote three books.  Three and a half, to be more precise.  Half of one of those three was rewritten last month is scheduled to be released in August of this year  The other two?  That's the big question.

I enjoy writing.  I love writing.  Sometimes it's crazy, but in the end, it's satisfying.  There's very little of the process that I don't like.  But then I've written something or other most of my life.  I also enjoy reading, something I haven't had much time to do this year.

Because the majority of my life is writing, I keep an eye on what's happening in the publishing world.  If you haven't noticed--and you'd have to be a complete non-reader to do that--that world is changing.  E-books are everywhere.  Many traditionally published authors, including our own Deb Stover, have decided to explore this new experience for both writers and readers.  Personally, I haven't bought a print book for quite some time, but I've definitely amassed a lot of books for my Kindle--written by both traditionally published authors and indie/self-published authors.  If I only had time to read them!

So here are my goals.  I expect some certain people to keep me on them.  You know who you are.

• Goal #1:  Read more
• Goal #2:  Give myself permission to enjoy life more

The first goal is covered by having more books than I could read in a year.  The second will be somewhat taken care of by the first goal.  Reading to me is enjoyment. :)  

• Goal #3:  Have a more positive attitude about myself and my life

Goal # 2 should help with #3.  And I've taken other steps to achieve it.  Several months ago, I began practicing meditation.  I hadn't been sleeping well.  I'd toss and turn, unable to go to sleep.  Once I finally did fall into dreamland, I (thankfully) slept well.  I needed to turn off the worry and problems of the day, and I found that meditation before bedtime solved that.  Although doing it in the morning is probably better and helps the day move along more smoothly, bedtime was the only time I could carve out to do it.  Hey, I tried yoga a couple of years ago, but my body rebelled.  And when the body rebels, the mind does, too.  Sleep comes quickly now, no matter what problems and obstacles the day has presented.

There are more things to work out, more goals to set, but those three must come first.  Like Theresa Jaye, I need to reinvent myself.  I'm grabbing her shirttails and going along for the ride.  After raising four daughters and basically helping raise five grandchildren, it's time for me.  Selfish?  I don't think so.  Now to figure out who me is. :)  Oops!  Who I am. ;)

It all takes time.  We have to learn to know ourselves, we have to search our hearts for what we truly want.  After that, we have to go for it!  Once we do, those goals are more easily made.  I may not get as far as I hope, but I'll at least be on the road.  If nothing else, I'm stubborn.  Once I make up my mind to do something, I do it.

Making goals?  Always.  It's something I had to learn to do, but once learned, it's become a habit.  Reaching them--or trying to--also became habit.  I'm eager to see what 2014 will bring.  It's good to see that so many here are, too.

Happy 2014!  May your wishes and dreams come true!  I'm going to work to see that mine do.

Navigating the Hills and Valleys of Holidays

I will not whine.

Let's face it, life has its ups, downs, and sharp curves, and we all experience them.  Looking back on this year, my first impulse is to say that it started out fairly well, then took a downward turn.  Not a steep hill, but slowly going down.  So there have been times, especially during these holidays when crawling into a hole or at least bed with covers over the head sounds divine and the only way to survive.  Adopting Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" as my theme song and heaving heavy, morose sighs are my usual response, but I've had some new thoughts on this.

It's easy to let the holiday rush and fuss, and the super highs we experience during these last few weeks of the year leave us tired and worn out. Emotional highs are good, but, like sugar highs, the crash when they're over are sometimes too hard to bear.  Those times when we crawl into a fetal position come too fast and too often.  My highs haven't been all that high, but then a couple of things happened.

The night after the day after Christmas happened.  I've been diligently working on revisions from hell and had gotten to the point where I didn't know where to go with the scene, so I decided to leave it for the morning and go to bed.  We all tend to get a little maudlin when we're tired.  Being worn out, especially mentally, makes it so much easier to see the negative things that have happened or are happening.  That was me.  And suddenly I realized that all wasn't as bad as I kept thinking.  Good things had happened recently.  Okay, not so good ones, too, and those were what I'd been focusing on.  How easy it is to miss the good things, especially the small ones, when we're down in the dumps.  As soon as I had that stunning thought that there had been good that I'd not embraced as I should, I felt a smidgen better.  So I thought a little harder.  I found two, specific things that made me take notice.

A month ago, I vanquished dark clouds that had hung over me for something that had happened way back in high school.  It took the simple act of stuffing my bad feelings aside and saying hello to the person who I hadn't seen or spoken to for 35 years.  In fact I've tried not to even think of it.  What surprised me that day was that, afterward, I felt proud of myself.  I felt good.  About me.  A little over a week later, that person called me, and we talked on the phone for nearly an hour.  (Let me say that I nearly didn't answer the phone when I saw the caller ID.)  But it was okay.  It didn't hurt at all, and because of it, I've put those bad times behind, where they belong.  Now I can smile.

Christmas Eve, there was a knock on our door, and outside stood a man holding a plastic sack.  The neighbor introduced himself, and handed me the bag.  "It's a ham," he said.  "Can you use it?"  Well, color me shocked.  Apparently he's gotten to know my grandsons and thinks they're great.  (Obviously he doesn't know them as well as I do. ;) )  It wasn't until I went into the house, after talking with him for a good ten minutes, that I realized who he was.  To be honest, I wouldn't have picked him as someone who would bring me a ham or even have a conversation with, civil or not.  And it was okay.  It didn't hurt at all.


How do I say this?  It isn't the things that happen that make us angry or sad, it's our thoughts about them.  Granted, life has its disappointments and sadness.  But it also has surprises and happiness.  If we focus more on the good, instead of wallowing in the bad by thinking and worrying about them, we find that it's a pretty decent turnover.  It's those little things, like a hello or a ham that can make a big difference.

With the end of this year coming to a close, it's a time of reflection for many.  A time to look back and decide what changes we want to make.  I'm not one for making New Year's Resolutions.  I know ahead of time that they'll be broken within days.  But if I want to make the most of the rest of my life, I will have to make one.  Not a resolution for the new year, but one to be carried out each day.  An Each Day Resolution?  Each night when I go to bed, I'll find one good thing--one thing that made me smile or laugh--that happened during the day, and then focus on it.  And it won't hurt at all.  In fact, it will probably make me smile.

Anyone want to vanquish the blues?  Would you like to join me on the Each Day Resolution and see if this experiment works?  Life, itself is an experiment, so let's make it a great one.

And I did not whine.  Well, just a little in the beginning. ;)

If you're looking for help on how to get through the holidays, check out 'Tis the Season of Madness, over at my blog, Diary of a Mad Romance Author.  You'll find links galore!  It isn't too late to start.

This blog will self-destruct in . . . by J Vincent

sixty seconds. You have to be an old Mission Impossible (tv series that is) fan to appreciate this title.The “Mission Impossible” frame of mind almost took hold of me lately when it came to writing time.

I attended the RT Book Lover’s Convention the first week in May and returned home with a refreshed writing spirit and full of enthusiasm.  I was certain my goal of completing the fifth book in the Honour series would finally be met.  Mission Possible!

Then my husband and I finalized our decision that it was time to downsize and move into a more handicapped friendly home.  That meant packing up, throwing out, giving away --repeat, repeat, and repeat several more times as I tried to compact over four decades of accumulated stuff.  We aren’t completely ready to put our home on the market but getting close.  We’re now the “proud” renters of two storage units but amidst this whirlwind writing time has all but disappeared.  When I’m not packing I’m resting since I still haven’t fully recovered from the consequences of last fall’s infection.  Add in my morning and evening lung regime, cataract surgeries, and physical therapy and there is even less time.  My brain feels like the graphic I’ve used with this blog, except not quite so colorful, unlike my language or thoughts at times through this process.

Then I received this review for Honour’s Choice: Needing a book for summertime reading, I downloaded this book and settled in for a light diversion from everyday life, figuring
It would take me a month to read it during leisure time. It didn't...it took me three days of jamming in every spare minute to find out what happened next In this intricately woven plot. The characters, the settings, the period attire and furnishings all came to life.

The verbiage of the era was of special interest, and author Joan Vincent obviously researched extensively for accuracy. It was An engaging plot, intertwined with romance and mystery, and of course a happy ending. I will be definitely be reading more of this author's books.

Nothing like a little encouragement to fire up the mind.  After mulling over what to do about the dearth of writing time my brain went to “when you  have lemons make lemonade.”  I decided that since I have to rest often I could use that time to write.  In fact that is how I’ve managed to get this blog written.  Not the best for cohesive writing but better than getting nothing on the page.  Better than not making any progress and drowning in guilt.  Next on the list is a chapter of the new book. 

Wish me luck with this.  And then we could use luck with the sale of the house.  Does burying a St. Joseph in the yard really work?  If it does perhaps I should include one of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers.

Patricia Davids, flaws and all.

I told you earlier this month that I would post my answers to the questions I posed to you. After some soul searching, here I go.

Question # 1. What is your value?

 I have value as a mother, a grandmother and the daughter of aging parents. My value outside my family lies in being a caregiver and a writer. I also have value as a good neighbor, a teacher and mentor for people who want to become writers. I take my value seriously.

 Question # 2. What is your strength?

I have a huge dose of self-confidence. My real strength is that I believe in me. In my talent, in my ability to master whatever I put my mind to, be it writing, remodeling the house or teaching the dog new tricks. People who know me may say stubbornness and persistence are my strengths. I can't disagree.

Question # 3. What do you enjoy? The answers to this question are just about endless. I enjoy spending time with my family and friends. I enjoy traveling and seeing places I've only read about, I enjoy learning new things. For me, doing research is like a sunny day in the park with homemade ice cream in a cone. Not much gets better than that. I enjoy stretching my mind.

Question # 4. What is your passion? I will tell you what it's not. It's not being a writer. Being a writer is my job, STORYTELLING is my passion. I love, love, love taking an idea and mushing it around like a ball of Play dough and turning it into a happily ever after story. Recounting events in my life and making people laugh, bringing a tear to their eye, entertaining them, that's my passion. Going to the computer and writing is plain hard work. Hitting my daily word count is torture. Making my characters say and do the right thing at the right time is often frustrating. Twenty books and it isn't any easier. Go figure.

 Last question. What is your weakness?
This was the hard question and the one that took the most soul-searching. A lack of focus and procrastination are issues of mine, but my overconfidence is my real underlying weakness. I think I can do anything I put my mind to. The truth is, I can't always accomplish the lofty goal I've chosen. Someday, when I learn to channel my overconfidence into focus and productivity, I'm going to be the awesome prolific writer I want to be. Until then, I'll continue to struggle to meet my own expectations.

If you haven't shared the answer to my question, please feel free to do so. It's about looking inward and mapping a road to satisfaction with yourself.