Gray Wolf

Category: Musings

  • World Mental Health Day

    zen_butterfly

    Today, October 10, is World Mental Health Day which was first established in 1992.[I only know that because I had to look it up.]

    I myself, had been a mental health professional for many years having been previously licensed in two jurisdictions. I didn’t know we had a World Mental Health Day until today and I only knew it because my watch told me – and it told me I can get an award if I meditate for 10 minutes today. I know I could turn those alerts off, but I find them fun – but will I meditate for 10 minutes? Probably not.

    btw – I call my watch my Dick Tracy watch – having once had a toy version – now they are real!

    I have already done other exercises and will probably do more general exercising then maybe I’ll sit quietly for a period of time, but not “officially” meditating. I have my own version of what is meditation. It doesn’t always meet the definitions that other people use.

    I’m feeling good today because I more or less finished book number one. It needs some tweaking and I need to write up some descriptions and all of that for Amazon but by tomorrow it will be up there.

    I made myself a fancy espresso to celebrate. We have a new espresso maker and I’m still learning how to make it taste like if I went to a coffee shop and bought one – but I’m not there yet.

    I’ve been fiddling with covers for the book and below is maybe what the cover will be. I’m not fully decided on this yet. It needs to sit in my head for a bit. I’m not sure I like white covers.

    What makes you feel good? Finishing this book makes me feel really good because it’s been a long time since I have written and published a book. And since I started on this journey of figuring out how to unstick my own brain or get it unstuck, I have several other books in the proverbial pipeline and once I get this one done, the flow will happen.

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Write Anyway

    Here is one chapter of the book I am working on. I love images and humor – so readers get both [along with helpful ideas] – the characters have been introduced earlier….

    The Writing Conversation

    Poopy Brain:

    “I’m weary. We could start tomorrow.”

    Surfin’ Brain:

    “Please don’t put this on me. The water is perfect NOW!”

    Owl:

    “One sentence?”

    Poopy Brain:

    “Oh OK – One sentence. Then I’m off [for now].” 

    You:

    “Fine –  one sentence.”

    Owl and Surfin’ Brain: “YES.”

    You write one sentence.

    You did it!!

    You feel so good you write one more … and ….

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Fallow Time

    Many moons ago, when I still lived in the Boston area, my friend Freda* and I were having a hard time writing one of our books, and she said our brains needed fallow time. We talked about it — and went with that.

    Just as fields are left unplanted so they can replenish, she thought our writing brains needed to be replenished — by taking a break from writing!

    We stopped work on our book — and each of us went on to do the other things we were doing, and let our writing brains sit fallow for a while.

    Some of our colleagues called it wasting time — but for me — then, like now, it is not wasted time – it is a vastly different type of productive time – and it is nearly invisible.

    Back then, our fallow time was followed by rapid writing time, a finished manuscript, and publication! That period of NOT writing did what it was supposed to do, like the fallow field, we were again filled with ideas and the words to write!

    I sometimes remember this fallow time idea, but I mostly forget the concept – until I was working on my current book about getting stuck, and it came back to me like the proverbial ton of bricks.

    Fallow time was what my brain needed this August and September!

    I have an easier time with how I feel when I can label it — and labeling my brain status as fallow time made it easier for me to connect with what was/is going on.

    I’m almost out of my fallow time, but I am not pushing it — I sit and remember all those other fallow times when the words came back — rushing out and into coherent content — and I know they will again do that — and that’s why knowing I am in fallow time is so great!

    I know it has an endpoint and abundance will reappear!

    The brain energy is coming back!

    And the ideas are flowing!

    PS [sigh] now there is no publisher to clean up the manuscripts, edit, and advertise….that’s on me now….

    *Freda Rebelsky, Ph.D. was my professor in Graduate School — and my best friend, co-author, and colleague. She died in 2009 and I still miss talking to her about Psychology. If you ever had a child development or lifespan textbook by Rebelsky and Dorman or Dorman and Rebelsky — I’m that Dorman.

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Yea Me – And Thank You

    I have not posted here since the end of July. But during that time, I have almost finished one [the first!] book on writing when you don’t feel like it.

    I’ve also sketched out ideas for more – all on the topic of getting unstuck – with writing, life, careers, etc.

    And I am updating this website to reflect that shift.

    Will it all be done soon? Who knows? But it feels like forward movement – and forward is good. That’s the yea me part.

    The impetus for all this was the July challenge – hence the thank you part.

    Many of you commented on my random posts and offered encouragement and ideas.

    Book 1 will be done soon, and I’ll be putting it on KDP with a few free days – and I’ll be sure to let you know when that happens…

    Here’s to a most productive October!!

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • End of July Commentary

    The July challenge ends today, and I wish to say thank you to Paul and to those who commented on my infrequent posts. You all gave me ideas and encouragement for my “next-up-to-write-projects.”

    Between now and the next challenge I plan to tackle at least two of my current ideas and put them into a series of books. I’ll let you all know how that goes… right now I have the ideas and the motivation!!

    I’ll be unleashing my words to the universe – or at least to Kindle.

    For starters, I’m finishing the one I call ” How to write when you don’t feel like writing” and the one after that will be on lifespan psychology with a focus on healthy aging or living with a nonlinear brain or dealing with stress or …. or …..

    The indoor gardening one needs to start this Fall so I can take photos of what I am doing – that has its own agenda….it can be a follow-along series of books documenting my own process.

    And of course, I need to leave time for any other topics that come to mind as I work on these!

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Motivation: lost and found

    For a few days now, I’ve been trying to get myself to sit and write a post – knowing that that never works to motivate me….

    The writing motivation was elsewhere, which is good because it’s those other places that I have been working on this year and plugging away at posting on my blog is something I tend to only do when I sign up for this challenge – and even then I sometimes let the whole challenge month go by without writing.

    This time around I’ve written more than my usual amount because I’ve been willing to sit here and write about why I don’t feel like writing and decide that’s one of the books I’m working on – how to motivate yourself when you don’t feel like writing… Of course that book doesn’t really get done except in spirits because it’s about the issue of not writing

    But probably to distract myself from thinking about why I’m not writing anything, I got motivated to think about psychology. It’s my field. I’ve published several textbooks – I’ve written a lot of articles about it, and I have taught many courses on different aspects of psychology and especially about lifespan development – so I decided to start thinking about writing more psychology books and I spent hours working on that.

    It felt good – but that’s not posting here – yet both of those happenings felt OK.

    Like in the image at the top, all those writing choices are the correct choices!!

    However I look at it it’s a win-win for me!! It got me sitting and writing this, which will keep me going for a bit later today – and again during the week.

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *