Gray Wolf

Category: Psychology

  • 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.

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  • 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!

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  • 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.

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  • Slowly, but surely, “the” book is coming along

    I’m moving at the literal snails pace, although I sometimes think the snails are faster than me.

    Slowly – day by day – I am getting things done for the upcoming “how to write a book when you don’t feel like writing” book. It will have a better title than that, but I’ve been thinking through some ideas like maybe including worksheets or prompts or somethings that work for me and hopefully work for you and/or don’t work for me but might work for you.

    I’m enjoying the thinking process, but that’s me.

    I always enjoy the thinking process.

    It’s the get it down on the computer process that’s hard for me.

    And while all this is going on, we had another heat wave along very dangerously dirty air. I got used to dirty air when I lived in Portland, Oregon. Certainly isn’t fun when you’re subjected to the smoky air, but I feel worse for the people up in Canada where the smoke is coming from because they’re losing everything.

    Hopefully, we will have a lot of rain soon, which will help slow the fires and clear up the air.

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  • A Writing Idea

    steno pad

    For decades, I wrote in steno pads. Took them with me all the time, especially when I was riding public transportation. But then I started taking my phone and dictating into it, which was good, and it was still mostly on public transportation.

    With my current move, I am now in an area that lacks public transportation, and I don’t use my phone when I’m driving [except for google maps.].

    So I’m back to computer and phone and no longer use steno pads. I miss them. There is something about writing words out on paper. I remember hours I spent in the museums in D.C. with a cup of coffee and jotting down words, or what I was thinking about, or whatever – but I was always writing.

    In fact I can’t remember a time in my life I didn’t write. I think I was born with a pencil in my hand.

    Over the years there have been times where I don’t feel like writing – and I remember someone once saying if you want to do something, you can’t have moods.

    Well, I have moods. I’ve always had moods and some of those moods tell me don’t write today and I live with it because I’ve never figured out how to work around that mood. What I’ve learned is when the writing mood strikes get all the writing done that I can because I know another “let’s not write today” mood is coming along.

    Thus my thinking I’d write about indoor gardening has gone to “I don’t wanna do that until I’m ready to have my own window garden and I’m not gonna do that till it gets colder out” – so that book will be on track to be started in the fall. I promise.

    I promised – but that doesn’t mean it’ll get done. I often break my own promises to myself. That’s me. I live with it!

    So – I had a great conversation with my head and said – I sort of feel like writing, but I don’t know what to write about and I’m getting into in “one of those moods” – and my head said back what it often does in these days of technology: “go play online with your ideas.”

    The result? It’s going to be a short funny book about how to start writing when you don’t feel like writing.

    I figured I’m not the only one who thinks this way – so what is coming up next is not gardening, not the other topics that I thought I wanted to do, but this one – which has popped up frequently in my head.

    Here’s to brains, and technology!!

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  • Window Sill Gardens

    Well – it’s day 8 and I am again writing. I think that’s a good record for me. It hasn’t been all eight days, but it’s been more than 2!! And that’s better than the none record that I have had of late….

    I did have my usual post-heat-wave-reactions over the past two days and I didn’t feel like writing very much or even thinking very much except for about an hour this morning, so I fiddled around online looking for a topic in which I have some interest and which the world at large said is one where people actually buy books.

    I settled on growing herbs and veggies on your window sill.

    Of course I now have to sit down and write about it. I’ve given it some thought because it’s something I keep thinking I’m going to do but in actuality I really have only done once or twice in my very long life. I grow stuff outdoors, and I rarely bring it in in the winter – so this year I’m not only going to write the book, I’m growing veggies now and will bring some in for the winter or even start some new from seeds in a few months and have them grow all winter.

    And that does assume that the cats won’t knock them over which is usually one of the reasons why I don’t try growing too many things indoors – my cats knock my plants over. I’ve never had a cat that did not do this! I do have some special plants that I have been tending to for decades and I’ve managed to keep cats away from those, but those are very large plants.

    Herbs and vegetables in smaller pots seem to be much more interesting to cats.

    One plant I’ve never tried to do indoors [and I will try this year] is a tomato plant. I have several growing in my garden, but I know a few people up in the New York area, who actually grow tomatoes in their apartments, and I thought OK, I can do that this year and I’ll write about how to do it – and then come back and let every one know how it went!!

    I now have ideas for the next challenge which hasn’t even been announced yet.

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