accomplishment – Deborah Makarios

December 30, 2017

The Last Gargoyle

As we draw to the end of the year, so we draw to the end of the Gargoyle Chip Reports.

Since July I have sides-to-middled, patched and darned one pair of queen-size sheets; appliquéd a large spray of roses to a circle of cloth (with thousands of tiny stitches); decided on and marked a quilting design; made a quilt sandwich, tacked/basted it, and begun the quilting.

Is this where I wanted to be by the end of the year? No, but it’s a considerable distance further along than I think I would have been otherwise.

And after all, while the reports may cease, the work can still go on. I’m hoping for some cool and quiet evenings to work on the quilting – all this progress has made me feel rather more kindly toward the project than I have hitherto.

What have you accomplished since July? Take a moment to think it through, write it down, and celebrate!

August 30, 2014

Plan B Success

Earlier this month I wrote about my plan to finish the first draft of my WIP by the end of this month. Plan B was to not beat myself up if I didn’t get there.

Well, here we are at the end of the month, and the first draft is still incomplete. But here’s what I learned:

1) I am rubbish at estimating. Making up a novel’s worth of story is time-consuming, and so is writing it all down by hand.

I underestimated both the amount of story left and the amount of time necessary to tell it. One week in, I realized that short of some miracle on the time-space continuum, I wasn’t going to finish the novel in August. But:

2) Having a concrete goal ups productivity, whether the goal is reachable or not. Despite being fairly certain I couldn’t reach my goal, I had some record-breaking weeks in terms of how much I managed to create. Personal Best is still an achievement.

3) Doing a big push to the end is something you should plan ahead for – like NaNoWriMo. Picking a month which is already full of Things Happening (including major family events, visitors, and travel) is not a good choice. Full marks for enthusiasm, but Could Do Better on common sense.

4) I am actually capable of focussing on the positive (look how much I wrote!) and not solely on the negative (I failed to meet my goal). I feel healthier in head and heart as a consequence, and not afraid to set goals for myself in the future, because I know I’m not going to knock the stuffing out of myself if I don’t get to the finish line on time.

Plan B: success! and hopefully a success that will continue long after the WIP is finally finished.
So on I run…

What has life been teaching you lately? Pass it along!

February 9, 2014

the Master Metaphor

I recently read The Creative Compass by Dan Millman and Sierra Prasada, and came across the really rather interesting idea of the Master Metaphor. To quote:

“At some point in your life, perhaps more than once, you achieved something, despite the odds against it, because of a longing or determination that you can’t fully explain. It might be a skill that initially seemed out of reach or a one-time accomplishment: jumping off the high diving board, delivering a speech at a school assembly, or travelling to a distant country. That experience, as distinguished by the inexplicable feeling that accompanied it, forms your Master Metaphor.”

It doesn’t have to be an accomplishment that the world deems great, it just has to be something that was hard but you did anyway. A symbol of your ability to succeed against whatever’s pushing the other way – tiredness, lack of ability, your own character flaws.
It’s the ace up your sleeve you pull out when the chips are down. (Mixed metaphor? Not sure.) I did that, I can do this, you tell yourself.

It took me a while to figure out what my Master Metaphor could be, given my propensity for giving up if I don’t get it right the first time, a besetting flaw if ever there was one.
Then it came to me. Socks.

Not the sort Polly Oliver uses to -er, bolster her male impersonation, nor yet the shortened form of ‘Socrates’ with which Walter Judson tries to maintain a philosophic calm on the golf course.

To be precise, turning the heel when knitting a pair of socks. I have mentioned before how long it took me to figure out how to do it, even with a clear and simple pattern to hand. I’m surprised I persevered, given that I had no pressing need to knit socks, only a pressing desire, and that much shaken by repeated failure.

The problem was that I couldn’t see how what I was doing was going to produce the desired result. I couldn’t visualise how it all went together, so in the end I just had to carry on in faith that it would turn (pardon the pun) into a heel. And it did.

That’s a good metaphor for writing right there. You get your structure sorted (the pattern) and then you just keep going even if it looks like nothing on earth, trusting that it will come out the right shape if you just keep going.

So what’s your Master Metaphor? And do you know any good patterns for socks?