It's Getting Up that Counts

This is intended to be a short post. I have been absent too long from this blog and writing in general. But pack up I get, brush myself off and go back at the thing I love to do and need to do.... write and create.

Life is what happens while we make plans and sometimes it can suck the life (or at least the muse) out of you. Divorce, job loss, final illness and death of a parent, new duties as executor and guardian for a developmentally disabled sibling... Things that must be dealt with, grief that must be felt and moved through, responsibilities to assume.  These can be the overwhelming focus of your days, they did mine. Life became not one to-do list but, at times, three. One was my personal to-do. It was mostly maintenance items. You know the kind, pay bills, grocery shop, vacuum. Yes, I had to remind myself to do these things. If I put write or even read on that list, it rarely was scratched off.

But time passes, things resolve themselves and that voice in your head becomes more insistent. My normal life, such as I defined normal, was returning. It may be a new normal but it is a good normal. I am healthy, the endless paperwork of life events is mostly behind me or incorporated into the new normal. I have a richer personal life with new grown children and a special man in my life. I started a new day job that I am pleased with and has enough potential to satisfy the practical side of my nature.

As this happened the voice in me, became louder and louder and more insistent. I joined a monthly book club to not only read but read intentionally. This sparked even more reading and added to the re-ignition of the seanchai in me. So the brainstorming started, I brushed off some old WIPs, and started to attempt to learn the process of outlining. Notice it was an ATTEMPT. I have set aside some of what I wrote years ago and started down fresh roads with some of the characters. I still haven't figured out where outlining fits in my process. But I know that where I start is with a vision of my main character in a setting with something important happening to them. That is the kernel of the plot, theme and journey. At least that is what I hope. Micaela (see my book Dark Dealings) is speaking to me again. I know she will get pushier... it's how we roll.

So I signed up for the July CampNaNoWriMo and set a modest goal for myself of an average of 500 words per day. For me, it is about Getting Back Up. What have you set aside that you MUST get back up and do? What is the passion that is inside you that is a glowing ember waiting to be fanned back into life?

If you want to read a post that came to my inbox at the right time read this from Jami Gold