Human Reset; Creative Process; Blue Bell; Basketball

WARNING: Unlike yesterday, this post will not be deep, religious, emotional, or anything except random ramblings. So if that's not your thing, come back tomorrow. Apparently when I blog every day, I'm full of surprises. Who knew?

(I bet today's post totally gets more comments--at least on Facebook--than this one. That's okay. Sometimes it's hard to know what to say when someone gets really up close and personal with the Bible.)

I woke up with sinus pressure in my head and a scratchy throat. By the time I dropped both kids off at school--a circuitous route that makes me feel like an Uber driver--and plopped down on the couch, I realized my throat actually hurt and I was achy and tired all over. Getting off the couch was not going to happen that day...or at least only for small intervals, such as going to the bathroom or fetching something to eat. My body said, "We are certainly not going to drive for 45 minutes to an office to sit in a less-comfortable position, when there is nothing urgent to accomplish there."

I've always believed I should listen to my body, so I called my boss husband and told him I wasn't coming in. He made the appropriate sympathetic noises and told me to rest.

I read blogs for about an hour (I'm behind on my blog reading since I took a week off for anxiety, and doesn't it make me seem like such a nerd that I feel like I'm "getting behind" on entertainment. I think of it as "Internet homework" and a full DVR makes me feel the same way). Then I realized my head was hurting worse, but I couldn't take a nap because I felt too gross. I decided to take a shower because my mother always said when I felt yucky, "Take a shower and eat something." She still says that, and I've found that (along with taking a nap and medicine if necessary) it's the human equivalent to turning your electric device off and on again. Solves at least 75% of my problems (it would be 95% except I sometimes can't sleep).

Anyway, I told you yesterday that I sang in the shower and got the idea for yesterday's post, yada yada yada. Actually, it was not like an idea just peacefully came into my brain and I though, "Huh, yeah, that's interesting. Maybe I'll write about that," and I continued with my shower like a normal person. 

Yeah, no. (No one ever said I was normal, anyway.) It felt like the top of my head opened up and something outside me downloaded into my brain almost faster than I could keep up with. Notice I said it felt like that--I am not actually delusional enough to believe that my ideas came Directly From God. But it felt like it was not coming from me at all, which I hear is very common among creative types. You'll be feeling uninspired, do your daily word count, then stomp off moodily to do something else (like take a shower) and WHOOP, there it is. I believe Anne Lamott said it was incredibly similar to amoebic dysentery. It really felt that urgent that I get to a computer. In this case I was speaking the words out loud, which made me glad I was alone. I was just talking, saying all these things I'd never thought of before, with tears leaking out of my eyes because once I get emotional I can't stop crying, and then I stopped talking and said, "Oh God, oh God, please don't let me forget this, don't let me forget this." And I rushed through the rest of my shower and barely dried off so I could run to the computer and I didn't forget it and the rest came out easily as well, which is hardly ever the case with writing, in my experience (unless it's not any good, and/or you're plagiarizing.)

Maybe it was also like giving birth. Or there was this episode of "Dr. Who..." 

You know what, I'm going to stop with these weird metaphors. (You're welcome.) It was just really interesting to see my creative process working again. Anne Lamott also says that the muse doesn't show up unless YOU show up every day whether you feel inspired or not. This hasn't happened in YEARS, probably because I've never committed fully to writing every day. Oh, I've made promises to myself, but somehow making a promise to other people who claim to enjoy reading my words is quite different. Maybe I'll keep blogging every day for forever and ever.

MUAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, I feel better now. Quite possibly because I have again tasted manna from heaven, aka the nectar of the gods, aka Blue Bell ice cream. If you've never tasted it because you don't live close enough to Brenham, Texas, then I'm sorry and I hope you get to try it someday, sooner rather than later. Why did I say "again?" Well, everybody down here knows that Blue Bell voluntarily shut down its plants after an outbreak of listeria hospitalized 12 people and 4 of those died. It was a very sad and scary time. It seemed that the "little creamery in Brenham" would go out of business and then, judging from the ravings in my Facebook feed, life would not be worth living.

Well, Blue Bell arrived back in North Texas on Nov. 2 and FB was full of 1) Halloween candy and 2) Blue Bell cartons with the familiar gold rim. I didn't go to the store because 1) I had already done my grocery shopping the night before and I don't go to the store any more than I am forced to; and 2) I prefer to wait until a craze quietens down--one might almost say the trend becomes passe`--before reluctantly getting on the bandwagon 3) There was still Halloween candy in the house. 

Which is why when the only thing that sounded good with my sore throat was ice cream, I called my darling husband and asked him to stop by CVS for some Sudafed. "Oh, and if they have some Blue Bell, you could get some of that," I said nonchalantly, pretending my mouth wasn't full of saliva.

He's been married to me for 18 1/2 years, so this is not his first rodeo, honey. This is what he came home with:

Ohhhhhh yeaaaahhhh. Note that two of the flavors are chocolate.

Finally (because it is now three hours since I started this post and was interrupted and am now remembering that I woke up at 4 a.m. because my throat hurt), C had some exciting news today. After four days of tryouts, she made the basketball team!!! Well, one of them. We don't know if she's on the A, B, or C team, but it really doesn't matter. 85 girls tried out and only 30 made it. I am so proud of her and excited to cheer her on in her first middle school sport (cross country doesn't really count since she never got to run in a meet). 

L starts on a select (as opposed to recreational) team next week. More thoughts on that later. At first I thought I would get a T-shirt with her school name on it, but maybe I'll get one that says "Basketball Mom" and cover all my bases.

Although if I keep eating all this Blue Bell, I'm gonna need a larger size.

7 Tips for Keeping a Gratitude Journal

Wow, I was surprised and humbled to see that several women commented on Facebook about yesterday's blog post that they felt inspired to start their own gratitude journal. I was thinking about that this morning while I ate breakfast and got the idea to share a few quick tips that have been helping me keep up with my gratitude journal. 

1. Write in something that makes you happy. That way, the first thing you can write down is your journal itself! I wrote about how a cute, but relatively inexpensive, notebook from Target is good for me. For you it might be a Moleskine notebook (rumored to be used by Hemingway himself and beloved by reporters) or a 1-subject spiral with an adorable kitten on it. You don't have to spend much money on it. Just make sure it's a dedicated notebook used only for these entries. The point I'm getting to: if your journal makes you happy, you're more likely to write in it! 

2. That being said, don't put off starting until you find the "perfect" notebook. The book doesn't matter nearly as much as your words do.

3. Keep a writing instrument with it at all times. I use a pencil because I'm a grammar freak who hates to cross out when I make corrections, but a pen is fine. Hide it if you need to, if the "pen fairies" visit your house and steal all your pens, the way they do at mine. I tend to write in my journal right before bedtime or if I get a minute during the day. If I have to spend ten minutes looking for something to write with and probably getting distracted while I'm looking, the moment may be lost. If you have a pen handy, you're more likely to write in your journal!

4. Don't be overly concerned with "correctness." This journal is for YOU. It doesn't matter if you spell every word correctly (just ignore what I said up there about making corrections. I'm a freak and you shouldn't follow my example. Plus it's quick and easy for me to make quick edits.) I don't even use complete sentences most of the time (gasp!) I use a bulleted list like this:

• I had more energy today & I felt so much happier. Thankful.
• Went through the school uniforms . Also decluttered closets, which inspired Justin to get a bunch of his clothes ready to donate.
• Fun conversations playing 94% [an iPhone trivia app] and just talking with L.

 5. I like my entries to be as specific as possible. In the example above, obviously the first entry was pretty general. The second two, though, named specific activities and help me remember exactly what went on that made me happy. The great part about this is that your gratitude journal helps capture little moments of this stage in your life that you might otherwise have missed! The third bullet reminds me that my son loved playing this game with me and how it started lots of fun conversations.

6. Try to write in it regularly. I usually don't do it every day, but I still make it a habit to jot something down every 2 or 3 days at least. If I don't, I'm pretty sure I'll stop doing it. 

7. Occasionally read back over your entries and smile!

Why I'm Keeping a Gratitude Journal

Justin asked me the other day why I hadn’t been writing 750 words a day like I had been doing on a website called 750words.com, which is designed to help you write every day by giving you little checkmarks for every day you write in a row and also notifying you when you reach 750 words. It’s all private and is exactly like writing on your own computer except for the desire to keep those check marks uninterrupted and the fact that it costs $5.00 a month. For a couple of months I was meeting my goal most days. So why did I stop?

I stopped writing when my depression and anxiety overtook me a few months ago, and writing was not on my agenda at all, not even a little bit. I felt I shouldn’t spend even $5.00 a month when I wasn’t writing for the foreseeable future. In fact, at the time I felt I wouldn’t ever be able to write, or enjoy reading, or actually enjoy anything ever again, because that is the kind of lie that depression tells.

Then I saw my doctor and added a new medication. I got better, and I reveled in reading again. Every book seemed better than the last! I enjoyed the heck out of lots of things that had become meaningless while I was in the grip of the Black Dog, including shopping, eating, and social media. At first I only wrote comments on Facebook and Twitter because I still felt fragile and didn’t know what to write about, even in a private journal. A few weeks later, I decided to start and keep a gratitude journal, as the research is conclusive that keeping one does help stave off the grim demon called Depression. I’ve started several such records in the past, only to quit when things got so busy that I didn’t write anything for months. Sometimes life was good-busy and sometimes it was stressful-busy. That, I tell myself with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, is exactly when you need a gratitude journal.

This is a brain after the person has been keeping a gratitude journal. The highlighted area shows increased dopamine, which is a "reward" neurotransmitter that feels goooood.

So now I keep it on my nightstand beside my bed. A few days may go between recording something, but at least a couple of times a week I take a few minutes to count my blessings--not just general ones, like family, friends, and a roof over my head. Specific things, like this entry from July 13:

• I had more energy today & I felt so much happier. Thankful.
• Went through the school uniforms . Also decluttered closets, which inspired Justin to get a bunch of his clothes ready to donate.
• Fun conversations playing 94% [an iPhone trivia app] and just talking with L.

Probably my favorite entry so far, though, is this one from July 18:

• Great talk with L about angels (good and evil) and Minecraft. Longish car rides are perfect to get kids to open up.

[And if you are wondering what angels have to do with Minecraft--well, I am right there with you. I think there’s really no connection, except that my 9 yo son is currently incapable of talking for more than 45 seconds before he says, “Well, in Minecraft…” And that’s when I nod and say “Uh-huh” and “Wow” while he talks about things I do not understand at all. Unlike angels. This preacher’s daughter can expound on heavenly beings.]

I want to remember those little moments that are going on in my life right now, at this specific stage. I wish I had done this all through my kids’ babyhood so I wouldn’t be wondering, “Which one of them insisted that a stuffed Chihuahua Beanie Baby was a cat, and in the middle of an argument about it, I had an epiphany that it wasn’t worth arguing with a toddler about?” If I’d recorded that epiphany, I’d know.

Oh well, I can always start now. And there’s always Facebook.

As far as keeping up with the fragmented yet continuous record of our lives: it helps that the little notebook I’m writing in is small and pretty, but not so fancy that I feel my words have to live up to its binding. I love beautiful journals, but I’ve faltered about 25% of the way through so many gorgeous leather-bound blank books. This one has a cardstock cover, mint green, with Chapter 1 printed on the front in gold. It came in a pack of 3 from Target; the other two are white and pink, and (you guessed it) say Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. Cost: about $6.00 at Target. I bought them for some other reason but they are perfect for this.

For some reason the lighting in my bedroom didn't make it look green!

Besides this fragmented journaling, which admittedly seeks out the good at the expense of the very real irritations and sorrows of life (mind you, I don’t need reminding to dwell on the negative), I do intend to write at least 750 words a day. My job gives me plenty of time in which to do so, and it’s a much better use of my time than endlessly refreshing Facebook and watching cute animal videos. Even if I don’t have time at work, I no longer have to spend my evenings grading papers, and my husband and offspring often vanish after dinner to spend time with their electronic devices; I might as well do the same with mine.

All that to say, I have hope that out of 750 words a day, a few of them will be worth putting on this here blog. And that is going to be the first sentence in tonight’s gratitude journal entry.

Writing in My Sleep

Once upon a time it was my dream to write novels. I'm not ruling that vision out completely--but it will have to be in the future. Like maybe when I'm retired. I haven't finished any fiction since I had Miss Pink seven years ago. For me to write fiction, I have to have several hours of uninterrupted writing time every day. And we all know that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

 And you know what, I'm okay with that. The world can live without another novel. Teaching and parenting--those are things I can do right now that have both immediate and long-term positive impact on my family and my world. I think I'm a better parent and teacher than I am a writer anyway, and besides, when I do more serious writing again, I think it will be in the nonfiction genre. So...I'm fine with not writing the Next Great American Novel.

My subconscious, apparently, does not agree.

Every so often, I have these epic dreams that seem to last all night long and leave me exhausted when I wake up. Not only am I experiencing the plot twists and scene changes of these dreams--I'm also viewing them as a writer who needs to remember every detail to write the story down when I wake up. If I can just remember everything, I will have an instant best-seller on my hands. So I spend the whole night in intense concentration, crafting dialogue and naming characters, even replaying scenes that I want to change. No wonder I wake up exhausted!

All of which would be worth it if the dream really did result in a good novel. Because my biggest problem has always been in coming up with ideas (a problem; successful writers will tell you they ALWAYS have ideas percolating) so if I had a fabulous ready-made idea handed to me by my subconscious, I WOULD find a way to get it written.

Instead, my subconscious always comes up with something stupid. Trite, cliched, and improbable. I will spare you the convoluted details of what I dreamed last night, but while I was dreaming it, the "writer" part of my brain was thinking, "This is so cool! It's like 'Harry Potter' mixed with 'Twilight!'"

I promise you, I have no chance of becoming the next Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling. I just wish my subconscious would accept that, because it's exhausting to keep writing in my sleep!

The Author of Anne of Green Gables

I have been reading the selected journals of L.M. Montgomery, the woman who wrote all the Anne of Green Gables books (as well as many others), and have enjoyed the journals very much. I don't usually read the journals and letters of even my favorite authors, but I'm glad I have made her acquaintance because they make such fascinating reading material.

Maud (as she preferred to be called) did not have an easy life. Her mother died when she was very young and her father went to Western Canada and remarried, leaving her to be raised by her maternal grandparents, who meant well but had no idea how to handle such an imaginative, high-spirited young girl. The first volume of the journals shows how much Anne resembles her creator. Maud's account of her girlhood shows her to be fun-loving and popular, yet intelligent and sensitive. She was more boy-crazy than Anne, but that just adds to the interest of her life story. The first volume records many young men who fell in love with her, but she only cared for a few--and married none of them because she had high standards and none of these men came up to the mark.

After graduating from teacher's college and a special course at a university (she longed to get a B.A. but could not afford it), Maud taught school for several years and spent some time as a newspaper journalist. The whole time she was writing stories and poems, and soon began to publish them. When her grandfather died, she was obligated to return to her childhood home and live with her grandmother. It was a hard time for her--I will leave out the details to keep this short and to leave some surprises should you want to read her life story--but also fruitful, because Anne of Green Gables was written during this time. Before her grandmother died, Maud became engaged to Rev. Ewan Macdonald, but they could not be married until she was free to move away.

The second book, which I have just finished, recounts her marriage and the birth of her three sons (one was stillborn), and the Great War which affected a whole generation. She used her journal to supply the material for Rilla of Ingleside, a novel about Anne's youngest daughter. Maud did not have an easy time even as a married woman, although she adored her sons, because as a minister's wife she was forced to behave with perfect propriety. Worse, she could not confide in any of the women who lived nearby and her best friends lived far away. Therefore, she used her journal as a confidant in which to pour out all her feelings. Yet even as a young girl, her writing talent is such that I enjoyed reading every entry as much as if I were reading a revised and polished novel. The same could definitely not be said of my teenage diaries, I promise you!

Maud was more judgmental and sharp-tongued than her books might suggest (at least in the privacy of her journal.) She probably skewered annoying people with words in her journal because she couldn't allow herself to offend them in person. Yet even when she was being catty, she was very funny and with a few words can capture the person she was describing to a T. The tone of the journals is like listening to a good friend sharing her inmost thoughts with you as her confidant.

Finally, I've been interested in the struggles Maud and her husband had with his chronic depression. As a Presbyterian minister who believed in the idea of predestination, he periodically became obsessed with the idea that he was eternally lost. This would throw him into such despair that he was unable to sleep or be any use to his family. This caused his wife much worry and many sleepless nights, although she remained rational and was able to function and to keep writing whereas many women would have broken down completely. Still, I kept wishing that BOTH of them could have had access to the medications and therapy we have available today. Such suffering people endured even 50 years ago that today can usually be controlled or at least alleviated. I certainly am thankful that I live now and not 100 years ago!

It wasn't just mental suffering that people endured, either--I became aware of how much we owe to the discovery of antibiotics, as Montgomery describes episodes of various ailments that could be cured with a week's worth of medicine today. Montgomery's journals provide a fascinating look into a world very different from our own, while her perception of human nature shows that people haven't changed very much at all.

I have a favor to ask

If you've noticed that I haven't been commenting as much on blogs, you might be right--I'm not sure. I'm not sure because I am still reading but I haven't been spending as much time commenting this week. I set myself a deadline for a story and I have to finish it by Sunday night. I'm pretending I'm back in college and it's due Monday morning. It's the first fiction I've written since Miss Pink was born. I have to force myself to work on it every day, but gradually the pieces have started to come together and every day I find out what happens next, and I find myself happy to be writing again.

I wasn't going to ask this until the story was done, but what the heck. Email me if you would like to read it and I'll email you a copy next week. I don't want to post it here for the whole world to see, but I could use some readers to give me constructive criticism. By which I mean, you can criticize anything in the story as long as you don't tell me it stinks like warm cat puke. By which I mean, as long as you are reasonably nice, I can take criticism.

On the other hand, if you read it, you have to PROMISE to give me more detailed feedback than "I liked it." Please tell me what worked and didn't work for you, anything that distracted you or made you lose interest, ways to make the main character more likable, potential changes in the plot. Those kinds of things.

To give you a taste of what it's about: it's about a stay-at-home mom who finds herself attracted to her best friend's husband. (I always feel I should add a disclaimer that it is FICTION and in no way based on my life. Especially if you are my best friend.)

I'll leave you with a Mr. Blue anecdote which totally sums up a two-year-old boy's relationship with his mother.
Me: You're so sweet.
Him: No. (smiling)
Me: Well, I think you are. (kissing him on his neck)
Him: No, I don't want to be sweet.

Just (Don't) Do It

I was a leeetle depressed today. All day long the bad mood persisted, like that little black cloud over the head of a cartoon character. I kept trying to do things to make myself feel better (going to the gym; eating leftover Halloween candy, but not too much, because that would just make me feel worse; taking a nap; washing my disgusting oily hair) but none of it really worked.

I knew what was bothering me: it was this article. In it a professor lays out all the reasons not to go to grad school. All of which I have known in my heart were true, which explains why I haven’t gone back yet. But last week I was driving along sans kids—they were with my parents—and a thought popped into my head: When Liam goes to preschool I could finish my degree. And it made me happy. Because: now I have a purpose in life! I could read books and talk about them, which is pretty much all I want to do in life, except to get as much sleep as possible.

However. There are compelling reasons not to go to graduate school in the humanities, both practical and personal. The best practical reason is that there aren’t enough jobs. “Last year, the total number of advertised jobs in English dropped from 983 to 792, and only about half of those jobs are on the tenure track. Remember that the 977 doctorates produced in 2000-2001 will have to compete with hundreds of job-seekers from previous years, to say nothing of all the adjunct faculty members who are looking for full-time, tenure-track work.”

And those are Ph.D.’s, people! I have no intention of spending years slaving over a dissertation and then end up with no job. If Ph.D.’s can’t get a good job, where do you think that leaves someone with a lowly master’s? Um-hmm. Talk about throwing money away. We’re doing better financially, but not that well.

But, you know what? I’d still do it if it was what I really wanted to do. Today I was pouty, like the Mean Professor Guy had taken my candy away. (Sadly, it is still here, in a humongous bowl on top of the refrigerator, and I wish someone would take it away. [Okay, technically it’s the kids’ candy. Details.]) I took this to mean that I did really want to go back to school and it was just Unfair of someone to be so Rational with me that I couldn’t argue back. Except that wasn’t what it was about.

At one point late in the afternoon I realized something. I said to myself, “You just want to go back so you can write papers and get grades. You want validation. You want to be able to say you are Doing Something, you are not just a stay-at-home mom. That’s why you want to go back.” (Yes, I know I am strange for talking to myself. I do it all the time, though.)

And what I told myself was correct, I think. Because I don’t want to go back to school to teach, even to teach college students (although that would be better than teaching anything else.) Here’s where I say what you’re not supposed to say, because it’s Impractical and Impossible and a Pipe Dream: I want to write. Not just a blog that three people read (although thank you for reading and commenting, I do appreciate it); not just Bible studies for the church, although I love those too. I want to write for a living, and whether that means fiction or freelance writing or some combination, that’s what I want to do. When our pastor was teaching on the Biblical meaning of “vision,” he asked us to look at where our passion and our talents intersected. All signs kept pointing to “Write,” over and over, every time I thought about it. It was kind of like God was poking me in the forehead: “How many times do I have to tell you, silly girl?”

The thing of it is, if I go back to school to get a fine arts degree with an emphasis on creative writing, guess what I’m eventually going to have to do. That’s right, write a novel or a bunch of stories. Guess what I can do when the kids go to school, and not even have to pay a university for. Guess what I’m scared to try to do, but you know what? I’m going to do it. I have a purpose, and it may not seem like much, and it doesn’t pay well at all, but it’s time to stop putting it off.

Or at least it will be time next year. God, I obsess about things way before it becomes necessary, don’t I?

But I do feel better about the whole thing.

To Quit or Not to Quit, That Is the Question

The other day I said to myself: why not give up The Dream of writing fiction? Why do you want to do it anyway? (I was speaking to myself in a pretty mean tone of voice.)

Because I like to read good books, I said timidly, and I would like to give a good book to someone who would like to read it.

But you don’t love writing fiction enough to do it every day, Mean Me said. If you did nothing would stop you.

Sad Sack Me said: But I still want to. I do take a stab at it every few months. I write other stuff in the meantime, to keep my hand in. And when Mr. Blue’s in preschool…

There’ll be other excuses then. Besides, what great difference would another middlebrow novel make in the world? Not that I’m saying you should quit writing completely. You can keep the blog, and the lessons you write for the church (judging from what people tell you) help more people than a novel ever would. You’re just making yourself dissatisfied if you think success = publishing a book.

I don’t, Sad Sack Me protested. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to be published. It was cool to get a story published in a Real Literary Journal (even if my pay was 1 copy of the magazine). But mainly I want to do this hard thing, to make up stories to get at a deeper truth about the most complicated of things: human beings. I’ve always wanted that, ever since I was a little girl. Why would God give me the ability to write (I know I have the ability, if I can shake off this crippling perfectionism) and the desire to write, if He didn’t want me to do it?

Mean Me sighed. Have it your way, she said.

(And then tonight I picked up the [recently deceased] author Madeleine L’Engle’s book A Circle of Quiet, in which she says that during her thirties, she couldn’t write until the children were asleep, and then she was so tired she would often fall asleep with her head on the typewriter. A decade during which she, a published novelist, sold nothing she wrote. So she decided to quit, and having made that decision, burst into tears. Then she realized that in the back of her mind she was thinking about how to write about failure. She opened the typewriter back up and said she was going to have to write whether she ever published anything again or not.)