Gray Wolf

Tag: human interest

  • 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.

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  • 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 ….

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  • 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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  • 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!!

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  • Tis The Ides Of July

    I know, we never use the term ides except to talk about the Ides of March, but it means the 15th of several months, including July. So I decided to make a graphic because I couldn’t find one that did this. 

    I’m having trouble writing, but I can play with images.

    And one of the things I’ve learned over time is that if I play with enough images or download ones that speak to me – they do something in my head that helps me write.

    For those of you who have trouble writing sometimes maybe this is something you could try. In fact when I get around to writing that book about having trouble writing, I am going to put this in for a suggestion.

    Another thing I used to do and the challenge is helping with that is when I was supposed to be writing my thesis, and that was a long time ago, I had the issue of not being able to sit and write it.

    Everything was done except the writing – so I sat at a friend’s typewriter in her office late at night and I typed something like Mary had a little lamb on line after line after line and after a time of doing that words started to flow that had something to do with my thesis, which was psychology and a research project I had done. I finished the thesis and I got my PhD – so it worked.

    That’s what this challenge reminds me of – I’m trying to put words on a page almost every day whether they’re published here or they are texts to a friend of mine about why I’m not writing. I am trying to put words out every day just like I typed Mary had a little lamb because I know from past experience that sooner or later the book about not wanting to write a book is going to get done.

    And when I think about it, I have now written about two behaviors that one can do to start writing. Yay – I got two parts of the book done!!

    that calls for another image!

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  • Happy HOT Saturday

    It’s been hot – very hot- record-breaking hot!

    I am in an air-conditioned space but do go out to do things – and it’s brutal out there – or it was until a major storm went through!!

    I’m trying to stick with this challenge. I actually got some book ideas done sitting in a coffee shop yesterday and today was a day of fun with friends who came over – but we had to spend the day inside.

    Tomorrow I am meeting with my friend/accountability partner again, and we are going to start the books that we spent time talking about at the coffee shop.

    I also figured out what the major problems was with my website and it’s one of the theme plug-ins that I use – a paid one – and I am really miffed at the changes that have happened since the guy who developed it sold it – so I’m not using all of it right now and I probably will cancel my subscription – I’m at the point where I don’t feel like playing with the technology part.

    I wanna get the writing done.

    To be continued……

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