Just What I Need

Spring has opened her arms. While I bask in the heat of the sun I have mixed feelings. Spring takes the winter weight off my shoulders, sure enough. I am plagued with SAD. (Seasonal affective disorder.) In the early years, though I recognized the depression hit around October, ended about the end of February, there was nothing written about it, explained on TV at that time.

I struggled and thankfully found things that worked for me. I squirreled away things that helped me through: new houseplants, some new skill to learn, plenty of books, a bouquet from the store when I could afford it and it worked, even though I always wondered why I had to fight this sadness (I had so much, wonderful kids, a great husband, so there was a lot of guilt) and always thought I was alone.

So for me, spring is an open door to this SAD cage and yet, since I began writing in earnest, I stay busy and happy writing during the winter, still there is this heaviness, that flies away come spring. But with spring come more chores and work. My writing suffers a bit, which bothers me. More so as my mother ages, true, but I made myself Rules of Time.

Rules of Time:

·       Do what I should when I should. Do not procrastinate, ever. (Well, almost never)

·       Stuff happens. Stuff happens when I’m writing. Disruptions happen. Disruptions come from even those loved ones who know better. I’ve stopped getting mad. Mad steals writing, mad takes the whole rest of the day and blows it. Mad wastes time, mood, creativity. I don’t think it’s much good for anything else either, besides no one gets the reason for the anger anyway. No, I mean they really don’t get it. Soooo, I deal with it, whatever it is, then I get back to writing as fast as I can. If the disruption has completely derailed me, I fake it and look, act and seem like I got back to writing without a stumble. I’ve found this helps cement the idea that I am serious about writing, no matter what.

·       I try to ask myself what the best use of my time is. Sometimes, it is just getting the garden planted or my mother’s yard weeded, no matter that I want, need to write, so my mind’s nagging doesn’t kidnap my creative juices with worry or stress.

·       I never, and I mean never, tell anyone about time outside my usual writing time, that I’ve planned to sneak in a little more writing. It is retreat time—secret, ‘away,’ mine.

·       I take what I can use, leave everything else, with everything: technology, advice, critics, help. I am a writing-book junky. I love reading books about writing. It is an addiction. But I love to read and after reading a few novels I need a good how-to-book and nothing makes me happier that a great book on writing. Over the years I’ve found great, wonderful advice. Some I use, some I never even think about again, some I try and just can’t behind.

By the way, my how-to book for this month is Shut up And Write!by Judy Bridges. Some ideas I get from workshops and books bog me down. There’s just so much to do and figure out but at the same time I know I need something. I get frustrated filling out all those charts and yet, I have to have some way to organize and remember facts and ideas.

Where has Judy Bridges been? I’m using so many of her ideas. I always struggle with outlining and developing the story in an organized way. I can’t believe how far her Character Wheel, the Playing Twenty Questions with Your Character by Elaine Bergstrom, she included in her book and the Narrative Drive and Bubble Outline has taken the book I’m trying to develop for the last book of my Heart’s series. The ideas are simple, concise and visual. Just what I needed.