Time – Page 39 – Deborah Makarios

November 10, 2013

Roadblocks

What constitutes an acceptable reason for not doing something you know you should do, aim to do, and frequently even enjoy doing? What’s a legitimate reason for not-doing, and what’s just an excuse for procrastinating?

Or in my case, what’s an acceptable reason for spending another Monday in Not Writing? I think I’ve got a good one, this time.

My Monday started early; I was awake by one in the morning. By three I had decided to take my symptoms seriously, and by four I was leaving for hospital in an ambulance. (A very well-behaved ambulance, I must add: no wailings or speedings or other neighbour-unfriendly behaviour.)

My heart was doing 150, which is considerably over the posted speed limit for Lying Down Doing Nothing. The hospital tested this, that, and the other (are you having chest pains at all?), gave me a litre of water to drink and a litre of saline direct into a vein and then let me go home again.

Mind you, this all took about four and a half hours, so it was about time to start writing when I got home – but I’d only had three hours sleep. Can you imagine the artistic agony, the wrenching heartbreak of the anguished decision?

You must have an overactive imagination. I was too far gone even to figure out what day it was. I remained vertical only about long enough to peel off the fifteen or so sensors the medicos had stuck me with (apart from one which I found several hours later), and that was that. Common sense prevailed.

In fact, I spent most of the rest of the week in a horizontal position as well, only making it back to the DDJ for part of Friday, which may or may not have been a mistake.

Quite a lot of work had accrued in my absence, and the question was raised as to whether I would like to go in to the office this coming Monday and do it then.

No, as it happens, I wouldn’t.
I’m going to be writing.

November 3, 2013

Goals and Incentives

Strange how memories forgotten for years can suddenly return with such intensity. This week I have been remembering a newspaper cutting I had on my wall as a girl, which was on the subject of setting and achieving goals.

I remember the paragraph which said to list What’s In It For Me – taking the pragmatic if somewhat un-altruistic view that you couldn’t set goals which only benefited others.
I remember the remarkably bad posture [straightens back] of the young people in the illustrations, who appeared to have been genetically modified with turtle DNA (and not the ninja sort, either).

But before either of these I remembered the feeling of order, perhaps even control, which the cutting gave me. I could set goals, break them down into steps, and then achieve them, at least in theory. I could accomplish things.

For some reason (early exposure to the classics?) I always wanted to be accomplished. To my chagrin, I live in a modern society which does not really go in for accomplishments, and therefore gives me nothing to measure myself against (rather like modern manners).

There is of course always Miss Bingley’s definition: “no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.”

I have a smattering of modern languages, and my posture is at least better than the teenage turtle-mutants in the clipping. Let us draw the curtain of charity over my abilities as to the rest. I might do slightly better in Mr Darcy’s estimation (“to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading”) were it not that he expected all the rest as well. An accomplished lady of the Regency, then, I shall clearly never be.

Well, never mind. Mr Darcy isn’t a patch on the Caped Gooseberry anyway.

The resurfaced memories did make me think again about motivation and goals. While working toward a larger goal, it can sometimes be necessary to motivate oneself in the short term. Never mind what’s in it for me next year, I want to sleep now!

Sometimes it pays to use the carrot instead of the stick, to provide yourself with a few extra incentives. For example, if I manage to write 4,000 words tomorrow, I can go and buy a new exercise book.

To be fair, I’m making a virtue of necessity in this case, as if I write 4,000 words there won’t be room in my current book for another Monday’s worth of words. But buying a new one will be enjoyable just the same.

When I finally finish the first draft of my WIP, I might buy myself one of these to celebrate.
Do you detect a certain stationery orientation in my incentives?

I admit it – I love stationery. As a child of six, I kept an envelope full of blank strips of paper in my room. They weren’t even cut straight, but there was something indefinably pleasing about them. I used to take them out and fan them through my fingers. (Weird kid? Yes. Point?)

Pens, paper, ink – I love them. And if that love can spur me on to keep writing when The End seems unimaginably far away, then even better.

What are your goals? And what are your favourite incentives? All correspondence welcomed.

October 27, 2013

October: A Sense of Self-Protection

I do not have a problem with alcohol.

This became something of a problem itself when I did the Deadlies exercise in the Artist’s Way. The idea is that you write the following on 7 slips of paper which you then draw from, at random, 7 times: alcohol, drugs, sex, work, money, food, family/friends.

You then list 5 ways in which the drawn word has had a negative effect on your life. Each time the slip goes back, so it’s even chances for next time. I drew money/money/alcohol/food/alcohol/food/alcohol. Apparently if it seems inapplicable, that’s resistance. Right.

I was scraping the bottom of the barrel, particularly with food and alcohol. The negative effects of food on my life have largely been limited to stomach upsets (I still can’t bear the smell of mango) and the annoyingly large amount of time it takes to ensure meals are regularly prepared and eaten.

Alcohol was even worse. I might have a glass of wine on occasion – particularly special occasions – but that’s about it. Fifteen ways alcohol has had a negative effect on my life? You must be dreaming. Still, at least I didn’t draw ‘drugs’. Confessing to a youthful tea addiction wouldn’t take me very far.

What have I learned from this exercise? Well, besides proving that meaning is not always to be found in randomness, I decided overall that I spend too much time daydreaming and worrying (for what is worry but a dark daydream?) and not enough just enjoying the life I have.

A large part of this chapter of the Artist’s Way looked at workaholism, which is another problem I am happy not to have. Or do I? While I certainly don’t have any problem shaking the dust of the DDJ off my feet at 5pm on the dot, I do tend to fill my life with a lot of other doing.

Housework, handwork – doesn’t really matter what as long as I can feel guilty for not doing it, or at least for not doing all of it.
I’d secretly like to be a workaholic, it turns out, but I can’t bring myself to actually do all that work.

Nonetheless, I have resolved to be a bit more focussed in what I choose to do in my non-work time. As with my writing projects, I won’t start any more until I’ve finished at least some of those I have underway, and I’ll try to work steadily on one instead of floating from UFO to UFO. And I won’t feel guilty for not being able to do everything, which should make what I am doing more enjoyable.

The problem is that I tend to be a bit ambitious in what I can achieve, so my projects often take a long time, even once you take the distraction and procrastination into account. But not always! Having decided a couple of weeks ago to make myself a more permanent eye-swathe, I got straight down to the job with a fat quarter (in black and gold) and my sewing machine (also in black and gold).

I used it last Monday (the swathe, not the machine) and achieved about 2,400 words (estimating 200 words on each of 12 pages and not wishing to count them all by hand). More to come tomorrow, when trouble catches up with our heroine, an unexpected enchantment intervenes, and she uses up her last lifeline.

It’s a public holiday here in New Zealand tomorrow: Labour Day. Which I shall celebrate by labouring at my chosen profession, instead of the one that feeds me. It always struck me as strange that we celebrated Labour Day by not labouring. Very illogical. As usual, I’ll let you know how I go.

In other news, Tim Makarios of Ideophilus is seeking pledges to fund a Creative Commons audiobook of G.K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. Details here, including where you can find a sample of his reading voice – very easy on the ear! Stop by if you’re a fan of G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis (who recommended the book) or Creative Commons works generally.

Until next week, dear readers!
Sinistra Inksteyne