I’ve read the advice, on both writing and caregiving. Advice on the two is often contradicting, impossible, guilt producing. The truth is it lulls me slowing into a funk.


I don’t want to say depression, though, mainly because that has become another word that makes me feel guilty, lost, wrong and (shhh, whisper, you didn’t hear it from me) depressed. As I read this advice, I mentally go through the day-to-day tasks for my elderly parent. I try to juggle this while I cling to my writing, manage a home, attempt to be a decent grandma, wife to a retired railroader( yes, believe it or not that is a bit different than 9-5 workers because old habit die hard and he’d never had a work schedule). It’s had to find time to write, research, rewrite, fill the well, overcome an overscheduled mind with many schedules to take into account (my mother’s doctor visits, drug/insurance schedule, yard care, house cleaning, as well as my own, plus husband’s). It nearly impossible to find time for myself for things such as, exercise, diet, down time to do the other things I love enough to be mentally good at all the aforementioned stuff, such as gardening, antiques, photography…Well, and etcetera.

It is impossible. I can’t do it. I’m not stupid. I’m a realist, but I am also—a dreamer.

I’ve been managing as a railroad widow for 30 something years. What that meant: I never knew when my husband was going to work; he/I/the family had an hour and a half for him to get ready for work that would take him away from home for at least thirty-six hours. It didn’t matter if we were in the middle of a plumbing crisis, dinner, concert, soccer game. We couldn’t afford for him to miss work. That would likely be fourth of his paycheck if he did. So, everything stopped when he got the call, a meal made, plus a lunch, while he showered and packed. Whatever came up while he was gone I had to be handle on my own.

Don’t get me wrong. There were all kinds of advantages to the life and I learned to be organized and ready for just about everything, which serves me well now. I’ve had lots of time to write and yet, not. I’ve often been what we call a railroader widow—a single mom taking care of home and family. I was the one helping with the Pinewood Derby, the shop projects, broken windows of the neighbors.

With all that, this caregiving challenge has been the most devastating to my writing.

As my parent has aged, it has been an ever-increasing addition of jobs to take over, take care of and still I’m letting so much…too much slid. There have been health issues for both her and me. Not so surprising for me to have them, caregivers often do. The stress of caregiving adds to a caregiver’s well-being.

I’ve been extremely lucky; my parent has remained mobile, alert, with an almost too-good memory until recently. The changes in my life: my parent’s declining health, memory and my husband’s retirement has further hampered my writing and as I’m pragmatic( really: heart in the clouds, head on the ground, do the chores, before you have the fun) when it comes to responsibility, I know finding time to write is impossible. I can’t do it. I will never move my writing ahead. I am, after all, a senior myself.

Depression often dogs me because of the impossible situation in which I find myself. Yet, I know what I’m determined to do. Take care of my parent, as best I can, and the rest of my wonderful, worth-it family and stay healthy, happy as possible and WRITE. STILL.

I write to save myself. I write to be myself and find myself. It was what I was meant to do with my life. I know this…I have always known this. And that I am not as successful as I hoped breaks my heart and yet…I write…every day. That only is such an accomplishment.

All these stumbling blocks…they are my life and none of it is going anywhere soon. I have to deal with it, such as it is.

So…, I write. I still write. I fight, and scratch, and steal the time, but I still write. I cry, and rant, and cuss, and mourn. I still write. I forget, disappoint, fail, mess up. I still write.

Sometimes…never, is it as long or as much as I want to, but I write. Every day…something. Sometimes, I let someone down, everyone but I try as hard as possible to make sure it isn’t my mom. She is the neediest. She is the ephemeral. I try never to forget that.

But I write. I work on my novels during the week when I have time and they take too long, the rewrites take too long, everything takes too long. I work on poetry every chance I get, especially on vacation. I write the poems, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, sometimes a hundred drafts before I’m satisfied, and they take too long.

But…I still write.

End of Poetry Month

The last day of Poetry Month and I’m so pleased with how the decision to do poetry during my writing time this month turned out. The concentrated attention moved my poetry writing goals forward better than I expected.


I edited, polished and entered four poems: Songbird, Gone Missing, Not Someplace, My Place and Current Creek Reservoir into two contests, edited and polished Ginger Tea of Melancholy, Abandoned Stories, Lost Boys, Others, Unadvertised Special, Not Wolf #25, Hosanna and Kelton for contests later this year.

That’s, also, thirteen, a baker’s dozen more poems toward my goal for a chapbook and thirteen potential wins. Here’s hoping.

Better yet, I have several new poems in their first or second drafts that excite me: Mother’s Lilacs, Canterbury Wars, Butterfly Ridge, You and Me and An Old Yellow Dog and Enough, plus more than a dozen poem seeds or sketched first drafts. That doesn’t include the poems in various stages of drafts I took another look at, wrote down thought notes about and essentially, moved forward.

The month’s been very productive, but that’s the thing, the more I do, that more I can do. Poetry had always fed the writer in me and the soul of me. I need the poetry when life gets tough and it has been that these winter months.

The hardest part about concentrating only on poetry has been all the other writing that took a back seat this month. Stories still nagged at me, the solutions to problems made themselves known. I took copious notes, tried valiantly to keep organized (with a bit of success, too) and tried each day as I closed my computer to have a plan for the next day. For the most part this worked so well, I’ll continue this method, even when I begin again tomorrow working on Hearts High.

The break has been great. I’m looking forward, excited about the one scene I have left. I was struggling; the break has changed my attitude. I’m no longer dreading it. It’s a pivotal scene and a difficult one. It involves poker and detail and conflict, but luckily, I’ve consulted and played through the scene with one of my sons, going over the way the scene would play out and why many times. I hope I can translate all I learned into the scene.

Things I learned:

A change can help with the doldrums.

Never ignore the poetry too long.

A little research, deepens any writing.

Tiny, insignificant, quiet steps can get you through hell.

A Blessing

Spring is here, nagging me just like that black headed chick-a-dee in back that keeps calling to its mate his fee bee call. I imagine him saying “You-hoo, you-hoo.” Her answer, “I’m here, I’m here. (Kind of comforting) Still, I put in my time at the computer, ignoring as best I can the lusted-after sun and warmth and green stuff.

Winter was a real bear this year. Gray and dull, with snow on the ground way to long, but the daffodils are blooming and I have an old canning jar; I’m happy.

Working furiously on poetry. It is, after all, Poetry Month. I decided to put aside my editing on Heart’s High and take the month to work on my chapbook. I have made huge strides adding to my goal of 20-30 polished poems that will fit into a book.

Some poems I developed into what I think will be good contest entries, too, others I’m struggling with. That’s all right, though. I’ve found the poems I have the hardest time carving into what I’m trying to say, please me most, in the end. Now, that is not to say, they are my best poems.

Funny how that happens, the poems I like best are rarely the ones that strike a chord with anyone else. I guess that is the nature of poetry, though.

I’m not done, by no means. There are several poems in rough state, still in need of a lot of work—finding words and rhythm and rhyme. The work has saved me, though. Life has been a rough patch for some months. Nothing everyone else isn’t going through, but instinctively I reach for poetry work when I’m struggling with work, home, money, the blues.

Every time, it has saved me. The blessing of that, the reward of that, is that I don’t have to win a contest, get the book published, have a one of my poems reach the light of day. I just need to work them and let them save me.

And isn’t that the blessing of being a writer? I knew there was one.

Sometimes Life Sucks

Sometimes it feels like my goals are slipping from my grasp. Life comes along and bites me in the….butt.

Yep, sometimes life sucks and when it does, it’s tough to stay the course.

This is what I do:

1.     Remember why I write? I love it, I can not write. I’ve never gone through anything without working with pen and paper. Mostly poetry, but those times are when the best poems come. It is what gets m through.

2.     I list priorities and goals. Writing them down helps me focus. I reread them often.  It is a rudder to reset my direction and remind myself my direction.

3.     I break the goals into the smallest manageable step. Sometimes all I expect of myself is to read through my poetry notes. Always, always I find the shadow work for a new poem. I celebrate each accomplished step, too, if only with a pat on the back. Breaking things down to such small steps seems slower, but I find it actually is a faster way to my goal.

4.     I take care of me. That is more important than anything else I can do. When life comes at me hard or sad or fast I acknowledge it and look at what I might need. Do I need down time, fun, rest? A friend to talk to, a time out. I try to eat well, good, healthy food and I exercise. Favorite thing to do is walk. Walking never fails to clear my head, help with my writing and stress. I treat myself to chocolate, 1 oz. a day, but I  savor, savor, savor.

5.     I take that leisure time.

Remember life doesn’t stop just because I have writing I want or need to do, so I try to use life.  If life sucks, I write through it, write down my thoughts, feelings, decisions. Feel each fully and put on paper what I can’t say out loud. I try to remind myself that I can’t possibly write about emotion, events, happenings without experiencing them. I try to treat myself as if I’m my best friend. I do what I can. After all, writers write about life and firsthand knowledge is truth. Truth is where the best writing comes from.  

Just Past Splat

Success is that way ºjust a little past SPLAT.

 

What if you knew you’d sell your first book April 16, 2014? I’ll bet there would be no problem keeping up with your writing until that day, would there? But…you don’t know, you can’t know. But the discouragement of today that makes you want to quit, that sinking-shoulder feeling you get in the middle of a tough to write scene, the doubt that whispers, what the hell are you wasting your time for? that makes you long to stop putting yourself through rejections, might only be a rock you’ve stumbled over on the road toward publication.

Think about how many unsuccessful writers just needed to keep writing one more day, take one more rejection, try for the brass ring once more. We’ll never know, never read their book. Wouldn’t that be the saddest thing? Wonder if your favorite writer, LaVyrle Spencer, Kaki Warner or Elizabeth Lowell quit the day before they put the finishing touches on the books you love so much. If anyone of them had said, “That’s enough rejection!” after the first rejection letter. We never would have heard of any of them. We would be missing those wonderful books left inside them and what a loss.

I get so frustrated with the media’s attitude toward failure. Take NASA and their mistakes and failures. The media questions suggest that these setbacks are a waste of time and money. That failure is completely unacceptable.  Is failure a reason to scrape the whole mission? To stop trying? Where would NASA be if they had quit with their first failure? It certainly wouldn’t be to the moon, mars or even the sky.

The thing is, we really don’t learn much from success. We see how damaging success too soon can be. If we have to struggle, work harder than we ever thought we could, we learn how much we want something and it’s that much more valuable. We tend to use the success better, too. And if we always met with success, we’d learn to be careful; we wouldn’t dare change what we were doing. Think of the daring, wonderful books that would never have been written, let alone read. No polio vaccine, no Post-it™ notes. Think of the avenues we as a nation, as a people would never have taken.

We learn best from our failures. We improve because of them.

If you can’t risk the rejection, you can’t risk beginning. If you won’t allow yourself to fail, you won’t even start. Tell yourself every day, at the point where success seems hopeless, even impossible you might only be inches or days away from your goal. Hang on. Don’t quit. I won’t.

February. Already!

It’s well into February. I’ve been just terrible at writing in my blog. No real excuse, other than I’m trying hard to put my writing first. To do that, I must put less into social media which I’m really not into anyway, but I do this blog and put a quote on facebook on occasion. Quotes are my passion and my go to, to get going. There are so many great ones out there that speak to me and I just must share. I was taught to. Besides, I’ve found nothing helps me as much as inspiring someone else or giving someone else a hand up. And passing on something that helps me…helps.

Anyway, I’ve never done much online, but I’ve been up to even less because my rewrites have completely filled my head, mind and thereby, fingers. Every once in a while though, I do get this little snarky feeling of guilt, but why? Not many are following this blog, but still, if there is just one reader that gets a boost from my words, that’s enough. I mean, we got to help each other, right?

Writing is a lonely, tough business and on and on and we all know that. Right? So really what I need, want every day when I sit at my desk and put fingers to the keyboard is a few, just a few, not to many, ‘cause I’m busy, I got dreams and words crowding my mind…I want a few words of wisdom about how to keep going. Quotes are the thing, then, aren’t they?

So, on my desk today:

We thrive on hope

BEWARE! Beyond, there be dragons. Slay the Dragon

Day by day, page by page, we build a book.

Out at the edge of your will and stamina, there is always a place where you come upon despair. That is just the place you feel the rush of your second wind. –From The Tracker, by Tom Brown, jr.

A sailor shipwrecked on this coast, bids you set sail. Full many a ship, when his was lost, weathered the gale. –found on a deserted Greek island, centuries ago.

Happy writing!

My Tips for Renewing Your Writing Intentions for 2013

1.     Commit to ten minutes or ten paragraphs. Heck, if all you dare commit to is ten words. Commit to them.

 Try to get to your computer or desk ten minutes earlier.  Do something small and doable. Add a quick detail to a character sketch, read a poem and consider edits or infuse with some new words, such as words found in a magazine, in an ad, in the paper that morning. Clean your desk of unnecessary stuff and file what you need. Ten minutes is easy. Anyone can do something for ten minutes. My best thing to do is start typing: a quote I found, a prompt I’d like to use. Just start typing. For me it’s like a warm-up. Once I start typing, I go on to my daily writing, gangbusters.

Just tell yourself you’ll work for ten minutes. Always, always I do more, but if you don’t, at least you got ten minutes in. A lot can happen in ten minutes. Keep upping the time you commit to.

2.     Use one day a week to plan the next week’s writing. Monday, character sketches, Tuesday an outline or a general direction you want to write toward. (I’m a firm believer that if you’re headed in the right direction, all you have to do is start.), Wednesday, research. You get the idea. Get organized. Make a plan, however rough, it gets your mind started and on what you want it to be on before you even sit down to work.

3.     Remember to take a break every hour and move, get a drink, stretch. Try to walk every working day. Being healthy as possible keeps the mind alert and function at its best.

A lot of plot problems or character issues seem to work out as I take my daily walk. Outside is best. Nature feeds creativity.

Take care of yourself. Keep happy. All of that helps the writing.

4.     Think positive and do it anyway you can. Read inspirational stuff whenever and wherever you find it. I find great stuff I can apply to my writing in the business section or health section of the newspaper or magazines, but I seek it out everywhere. And because I seek it, I find it. Buy a book of quotes, buy a book on a better life. The Oprah Magazine publishes one favorite of mine: Words That Matter, Everyday Truths to Guide and Inspire.

You can control how you think and if you struggle to do so, get help where you can. Read a page or two every day from something that inspires you, uplifts you.  Direct your thinking in the way you want it to go. Be challenged, be inspired, learn for those who have found success. Seek mentors in every part of your life. You really don’t have to met your best mentor in person. You can just read them, listen to them, watch them.   

5.     Don’t be satisfied with New Years’ Resolutions. Make resolutions for a new day or a new week. Make small, doable changes. Reflect on how you can improve, then set your mind, to it. Don’t take on more. Take on focused and better. None of us is going to stick with more. We have all we can do now. Better, simpler, focused? These are things anyone can do. I can do.