IdeaJones

Tag: writers

  • Please, 2020, No More Sequels

    Please, 2020, No More Sequels

    New Year’s Eve, 2021. Tomorrow, we start the third official year of the pandemic. Would whoever’s in charge of such things turn off 2020 before midnight tonight? Please?

    2021 seemed like 2020, Pt. 2. The pandemic plodded on, largely thanks to its biggest fans, anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, who thought the only thing wrong with the pandemic was that it might not last long enough. While shouting about how they wanted to be free of the pandemic and its restrictions, they did everything they could to assure us all that it wouldn’t end. Thanks!

    Wildfire season, again, entered and was the Drama Queen that literally sucked up all the oxygen in the room for multiple states.

    Between wildfires and Covid, there was a theme to 2020 and 2021: breathing. Call it the era of Waiting To Inhale.

    We’re still dealing with Long Covid here, 20 months later. Definitely better than I was a year ago, but the big excitement for me was getting on the waiting list for my health care provider’s Long Covid program (which hasn’t started yet). Now it has a name: PASC. Here’s a hint for those with Long Covid looking for a doctor: ask what that doctor thinks about PASC. My old doctor didn’t “believe” in Long Covid, as though we were talking about the Tooth Fairy. My current doctor? Filled in the acronym and proceeded to discuss the latest research she’d read about. This was the year I learned to advocate for myself. A friend who works in healthcare said, “Always remember this is a service industry. You are a customer and if you don’t like how you’re treated, you might go somewhere else, and we’re unemployed. If you need something you aren’t getting, speak up!”

    A doctor is a business partner. You have to work together to improve your health, and you have to be able to both understand and trust the advice you’re given. You have to be able to communicate. You have to know that you are heard and your concerns are considered. If all of that isn’t true, you might need a new doctor — and don’t be shy about finding a new one.

    My own personal pandemic is entering its fourth year. I was just getting over a mysterious and scary illness (that turned out to be a reaction to a virus), when I caught Covid. Yet I still believe the pandemic will eventually end. Mom used to say that everything ends, and if the bad news about that is that good things end, the good news is that bad things end. She also said “Better is always coming. The trick is to hang on until it arrives.”

    So hang on. Keep masking when you should, get vaccinated if you haven’t, and cut yourself a big slice of slack. This decade has a lot of room for improvement. When things get better, you want to be able to enjoy it. So rest. Meditate. Listen to music and dance around the house. Pet a dog. Laugh whenever you can. Forgive as much as you can. Be the light until the sun shines again. You are more remarkable than you suspect and more glorious than you know. Give yourself room to stretch out and shine or incubate and rest, whatever you need.

    And if you’re the person who should have turned 2020 off, you’re forgiven, but please flip that switch now, please and thank you.

  • Back In The Saddle Again (Well, in, then out, then in…)

    So I haven’t been keeping up on our website until just recently. My new hashtag is #IBlameCovid. It’s been 5 months since I was first diagnosed. Here we are in July (almost August) and I’m definitely improved (I know March happened, but don’t ask me about it), but not completely over it yet.

    The main lingering symptom is exhaustion. In March, I found myself having to sit on the floor of my shower because I couldn’t stand up long enough to rinse the shampoo from my hair. Now? I can shower, then I have to lie down for an hour. So improvement, yes, but not back to normal.

    That’s a common misunderstanding about #Covid19. People think you have it and you die, or you get better, end of report. Not really. For many people, even a mild to moderate case (like mine), where you didn’t have to be hospitalized, produces lingering and often debilitating symptoms that can come and go unpredictably.

    Thinking is physical work and it tires me out. Laugh if you want to, it’s true. Sometimes I hunt for common words or to labor to finish a thought. It gets better, then returns. I’m just glad my brain came back at all. For quite a while, I struggled to follow a thought from one end to the other, and conversation left me with crushing fatigue.

    I’m writing and editing again, and my brain seems to function, until I get tired, so my working hours are brief and interrupted by rest breaks while I lie down, but at least I can work a bit. I just have to accept that an hour of writing will be followed by an hour (or more) of lying down. It’s frustrating, and I was wrestling with guilt and frustration, but I remembered the lesson a dear friend taught me.

    Merlin was my service dog. He had been a starving stray puppy, but he still approached every morning cheerfully, making the most of whatever life offered him that day. We call it The Lesson Of Merlin. He taught me that it doesn’t matter what you planned, or what you feel your situation “should” be. What matters is meeting life where it is and doing what you can with what you have to work with.

    Merlin, who tried to teach me all he could.

    Which isn’t to say I’ve magically become a yogi and avatar of enlightenment. I have to remind myself every day, sometimes multiple times a day, to look at what I have available that day and make the most of it. If it’s a bad post-Covid day, that may mean lying on the couch all day, watching Shakespearean comedies, history programs and writing classes on tv. If it’s a good day, it’s a bit of housecleaning, writing, playing with my pups, talking with Mark. My challenge is to find joy in whatever I have.

    The lesson of Merlin.

  • If Your Holiday Isn’t Living Up To The Hype This Year:

    If Your Holiday Isn’t Living Up To The Hype This Year:

    An open letter to anyone whose holidays isn't quite living up to the hype.
  • NaNoWriMo Is Almost Here!

    NaNoWriMo Is Almost Here!

    If you’ve ever uttered the words, “I’d like to write a book some day,” then it’s time to take a chance on your dream. National Novel Writing Month is almost here (starts November 1), and if you go to https://nanowrimo.org , you can sign up (it’s free) and join other writers working on their books. Lots of budding novelists bloom in November by taking part in this.

    It holds you accountable. You log in every day in November and submit your word count for the day, and it tracks your progress. You’d be surprised how far you can get with just a little every day. Sure, some weeks you can come up with hours to write, but other days you may have only 30 minutes. Thirty days hath November, which means that by the end of the month, with just 30 minutes a day, you’ll have put in at least 15 hours on your book!

    Our NaNoWriMo book for 2018: East-West Crazy

    Our NaNoWriMo book is “East-West Crazy,” which is a Women’s Fiction novel with dark humor. It’s already started, but I plan to make real progress in November, and I’m looking forward to it.

    My mom used to say that time is a gift so precious, we rarely give it to anyone. For many of us, this is especially true of ourselves. But even if it’s only 15 minutes a day, that’s one whole work day you invested in yourself and your dreams by the end of the month. You’re worth that… and no matter how tight your budget may be, you can afford 15 minutes a day.

    By the end of the month, your “some day” will be a lot closer.

  • Writer’s Gold

    Writer’s Gold

    That’s what I call it, “writer’s gold,” when you meet someone who enjoys your writing. Writing is such a solitary art. It’s ceremonial. Writers have their traditions, habits and rituals. For me, it’s turning the lights low, getting a cup of tea, putting on some soft, quiet music, turning off the ringer on my phone, and surrendering to the gravitational force of the story. It pulls me in and I’m there, with those characters, seeing, hearing, smelling and experiencing what they do.  Mark says that you could light fire to my chair when I’m writing and I wouldn’t notice — and he’s not far off.

    But you walk forward, struggling to capture the vision in your mind and describe it, not knowing if anyone will understand what you’re trying to say, or enjoy what you’re creating. It goes out and (hopefully) people read it, but you don’t sit there with them while they do (and good thing — when a writer watches someone read his work, it’s uncomfortable for both parties. The writer is hyper-focused on the reader and trying not to ask “What? Where are you?” at each sigh, laugh, gasp or facial expression, which is annoying for the reader and I’ve been there, but trust me, it’s almost impossible to resist).

    So for the most part, a writer works in solitude, builds his paper boat, launches it onto the pond, and retreats to build another boat. That’s why it’s so great when someone has read something you wrote and really enjoyed it. I talked with someone the other day who read the opening of “Based On A True Story: Really (Almost) True Story,” and told me she enjoyed it a lot, it made her laugh, she recognized moments in it as moments like ones she’s had… She went on to talk about the scene with the cake and said she could see it in her mind and feel what was going on, laughing as she recounted it back to me… She also said that she was frustrated because she couldn’t keep reading and wants to buy the book!

    What I hope is that the book will give the reader a bit of an escape. Life can be stressful and when it is, books have been my refuge. This person has a stressful job, and the idea that for a moment she left it behind while laughing over our book makes me happy. Hearing her enjoyment gives me heart to build more paper boats and launch them.