Writing – Page 52 – Deborah Makarios

November 24, 2013

November: A Sense of Autonomy

How did it get to be the end of November already??
The year is just flying past, and the Artist’s Way chapter 11 is already inviting me to take a look back over how far I’ve come.

Before the year’s end I want to read through all my posts again, but in the meantime, I’ve considered how much change has occurred since January. Looking back, it’s actually quite a lot, although it didn’t seem so at the time – rather like not noticing the rings forming on a tree trunk.

I have a blog. (But you knew that.)
I write regularly. It started as morning pages and irregular blog posts; now I post regularly and have a whole day each week set aside for writing.
I take myself seriously as a writer. It isn’t just a hobby I do in my spare time when I feel like it.

I feel less anxious and guilt-ridden about Getting Things Done – still something I struggle with, but I’m learning to lighten up, without becoming totally irresponsible.

I am more generous with myself. Giving to others was a no-brainer, but with myself I played the “I bet I can carry on without that” game, instead of actually considering whether it was a good idea. For myself I had an automatic ‘no’. I was Scrooge.

I don’t mean to suggest that more is better and you should fulfil your every whim, but sometimes you lose more by going without than you gain. In the spirit of which, I had an enjoyable struggle with the AW exercises on self-nurture, over six months and during one week.

In the longer term, I plan to reward myself for finishing the current WIP draft with a new fountain pen (droooool). I also want to learn to crochet.

While I was off work sick, I managed to read nine Agatha Christie novels, three Ngaio Marshes, and two Patricia Wentworths. This was so relaxing and refreshing I had the brilliant idea of setting aside a day every now and again to do nothing at all but read. Perhaps once a month?

My nurturing week includes classic things like a movie or an icecream, and simple things I enjoy like having a nice sit-down afternoon tea, or going to a charity shop to try on hats. I may also buy a magazine – no magazine in particular – and go through it for pictures to put in my scrapbook.

The Artist’s Way also challenges us to reconsider our understanding of God, particularly in the area of creativity. I have realized lately that I need to learn to trust God more and trust his dreams for me.
After all – look how far he’s brought me already.

Exercise 5 invites us to list the ways we will continue to change as we allow our creativity to grow and flourish. My very scientific projections suggest that I will become more relaxed, more joyful, more enthusiastic, more energetic, more generous – and more productive.

A little scrap of joy to end: sometime in the last month someone somewhere entered the words “blancmange pen” into their search engine – and they found me. My life has not been in vain.

Until next week, whether life brings pens or blancmange,
Sinistra Inksteyne

November 17, 2013

Venturing into the Darkness

Something terrible happened to me this week. Well, something wonderful which led to something terrible. I hit the 4,000 word mark on Monday (yay!) so I went to reward myself with a new exercise book (yay!) but the bookshop I go to didn’t have what I was looking for (oh noes!) so I had to venture into the darkness of the mall (the horror!).

No, the power wasn’t out – that was last year’s Christmas rush. It was brightly lit and full of people – a few too many for my tastes. (I do like people, I just don’t like them all at once…) It’s not even Advent yet and the commercial push for Christmas – or rather Xmas – is already well underway. Tinsel trees, fake snow (we seldom have snow here, and when we do, it’s usually August) and a thousand and one tacky forms of a fat man in red.

I don’t think St Nicholas would be best pleased to find himself associated with such. After all, he wasn’t known for being an obese champion of conspicuous consumption.

He was known for helping people who were no longer able to help themselves – like the three young women facing a choice between prostitution and starvation. In an early ring-the-doorbell-and-run-away caper, he dropped a bag of gold down their chimney and legged it.

Much less dodgy than Santa Claus, who is not only more nosy than the NSA, but likes sneaking into people’s houses while they’re asleep.

No-one in the mall seemed to be enjoying themselves (besides my brief transport of delight at finally finding what I was looking for) and I started to wonder why we do this to ourselves.
This year, instead of running ourselves ragged spending our hard-earned on stuff neither we nor the recipients particularly want, why not be Saint Nick for someone else?

Freeset specialize in giving women a choice other than prostitution or starvation – and if you really love giving gifts, they make a great range of bags and t-shirts.

The International Justice Mission works for those who are denied freedom and/or justice – victims of child prostitution, forced labour and many other forms of injustice.

What better way to commemorate the birth of a baby into poverty and oppression, who defeated the oppressors not by violence, but by Doing Things Differently – and turning the world upside down?

What’s in it for me, you ask?
You get to avoid the mall.

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.