Happy Holidays from Me to You! How will you spend the next few weeks? My plans include:
- Watching Game of Thrones Season 6. I've been waiting for this for a long time.
- Reading Book 3 of the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan series: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.
- Decorating the clay pieces I made last month. I'm still working with an Asian-inspired theme: tiny landscapes, goldfish, and all embellished with beads and coins.
- Making jewelry: earrings, necklaces, bracelets--using up more of my beads!
- Being more present and aware with my social media friends: leaving comments on
blogs, retweeting their tweets, and really getting to know who everyone
is.
- While I'll be busy online, I'm also taking a small break from all my various writing and art groups until February 2017.
- Preparing more manuscript submission lists to agents and editors to use in the New Year. (Mindful submission is so much better--and more rewarding--than going willy-nilly through agents and editors A-Z "just because they're there.")
- Goal planning. One of my favorite year-end tasks! I'll be deciding and finalizing what I really want to do in 2017. (Hint: it's going to include a lot of painting!)
- And finally, despite the ginormous and very tempting sales in all the stores, I'm NOT buying any new journals, sketchbooks, or any art and writing supplies for myself until I've used 100% of what I already have. And that's a promise!
I hope you've had a happy and miraculous 2016 and that you'll use the holiday season to unwind, relax, and enjoy all the wonderful moments of this beautiful season. I'm so grateful for everything that has come to me this year, and I'm grateful for all of you for sticking with me and reading my blog so faithfully. Thanks for visiting and I'll see you soon. Until then, drink cocoa, stay warm, and remember to stay creative every day!
Tip of the Day: Celebrate the season with a special outing for your writing or art group. In my case I was able to spend a wonderful get-together yesterday with my writer friends at the oh-so-amazing St. James Tea Room here in Albuquerque. (Highly recommended if you're ever visiting New Mexico.) The decor was 100% English Victorian and the December menu was based on Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It was all so authentic I thought I'd traveled to the UK--and without any jet lag! Find somewhere special in your own neighborhood to gather, rejoice, and share your 2016 successes and your 2017 goals.
I didn't win NaNoWriMo this year, and guess what? I'm not one bit sorry. In fact, I'm actually celebrating that I took care of myself and my sanity this November. Instead of stressing over word counts, I simply made sure I wrote a little every day, kept sketching every day, and just stayed on track with being creative every day. It was more than good enough--it was fantastic!
There were a number of reasons why this year's 30-day, 50K challenge didn't work for me, but the number one thing going on was a serious case of "monkey mind." Every time I sat down to work on my NaNoWriMo manuscript, I wanted to collage and paint it rather than write it. Or I wanted to find new writing prompts from old magazines. Or . . . or . . . I just couldn't settle on one way of working on it. At the same time, I still wanted to express what was running through my head: images, colors, even musical themes, but I just needed to play with my subject matter rather than write it. So I followed my heart and:
- Made 7 new pieces of pottery inspired by my story.
- Finished the art journal I started earlier this summer with my writer's group by adding collages based on my story.
- Finished an art journal I started three years ago by writing poetry connected to my story. (Yes, three years is a long time for one journal, I know, I know.)
- Practiced drawing the horses that were part of my story.
- Went through a stack of magazines for new pictures and ideas for writing prompts that I can keep using next year for my story.
- And yes . . . I wrote 19,252 words of my NaNoWriMo story! Not so bad, after all.
Why I'm glad I chose this route:
- I now have enough greenware to fill my kiln for a bisque firing.
- Finishing my art journals got rid of my guilt at neglecting them and boosted my energy. And I love having collages to go with my plot, characters, and settings.
- I've won plenty of NaNoWriMos over the years to know I can do it, but now I also know when to say "no." A very good lesson.
- And it was still fun to participate, even on a minor scale. I enjoyed following the progress of other writers and encouraging them to continue. I was part of a writing community and it was a good place to be.
It's difficult to balance our real world obligations with our creative desires--sometimes near impossible. If you're anything like me, from the minute I get up in the morning I feel besieged by an entire litany of unrelated tasks: Buy milk; go to Staples; return library books; write Chapter Four. When I threw NaNoWriMo into the mix (write 2900 words today or die), all I wanted to do was go back to bed. That's when I decided to a) go slow, keep writing, but stop chasing the 50K. And, b) make sure that I sat down for at least an hour every day at my art table and just played. It was a good plan. Now I just have another 30K to go, but entirely at my leisure.
Tip of the Day: The key to accomplishing any goal is one step at a time. It doesn't matter how big or small that step is, just give yourself the space to do it. And if you did win NaNoWriMo this year: CONGRATULATIONS!! My hat's off to you. Enjoy your victory!
