Betsy Horvath

Author: Betsy Horvath

  • Finding the Beginning

    When we last left Betsy, she was actually doing pretty okay.  Well, she was doing something anyway and that alone is a step in the right direction.  There was much rejoicing in the land.

    But Betsy would like this streak to continue, which means she not only has to finish what she’s currently working on, she has to figure out what to do next. She has to figure out where it starts and where it ends.  And once that gets going, she has to do it all over again for the next thing.  And the next.  And so forth.  And so on.

    This is not as easy as it sounds.

    Which is probably why we now find Betsy sitting amidst the long grass of the verdant meadow that lies on the shore of the lake in the center of her mind.  She is thinking deep thoughts as she figures out where she’s heading and how to get there and what to work on next and how to do it and where in the world she’s supposed to start.  She might, just possibly, maybe, feel like she’s flailing around a bit.

    Oh no!  This is never good!  What will Betsy do now?  Will she give up? Again?  Will she cut and run?  Again?  Will she rewrite the same project over and over and over instead of being brave enough to press into the uncomfortableness of something new?

    Let’s see…

     

    Betsy is sitting in the tall grass on the shore of the deep lake in the center of her mind.  After a moment of what passes for thought for Betsy, she stands and wades into the lake’s cool, still water.  She splashes around a bit.  Cups the water in her hands.  It dribbles through her fingers.  She splashes some more, which does nothing but make a few ripples.  She sighs.  Comes back onto the shore and settles down into the grass.

    What are you doing?

    Turning, Betsy sees the Muse has appeared to sit next to her in the grass.  The Muse draws her legs up under her long skirt and wraps her arms around her knees.

    “Well, I kind of need to write new things.”  Betsy gestures to the lake.  “I thought maybe if I went into the water, something would come up.  Or maybe I could catch something.  Or maybe I’d at least grab a clue.”

    “Ah.”  Muse nods. “Good idea.  The lake of inspiration is deep and there’s a lot of junk in there.  Especially since this is your mind we’re talking about.”

    Betsy frowns.  “Hey.”

    “Why don’t you let me see what I can find?”

    Muse gets up and strolls to the lake.  She walks into the water.  She keeps walking…and walking…and walking…. Soon she is under the water.  There are no ripples on the surface.  No air bubbles.  No disturbance at all.

    One minute passes.  Another.  Then, as Betsy watches, the Muse starts to emerge.  First, the top of her head comes into view, then her soft, round shoulders, then finally all of her as she walks back up on the shore.  She is holding something that looks very much like a tangled ball of yarn between her hands.  The Muse is wet, dripping, and the drops of water sparkle like a million fairy lights in the glow of the meadow.

    “Oh, geez!  You got all wet!”  Betsy cries when the Muse sits down beside her.  “That must be really uncomfortable.”

    “Are you kidding?  I love being soaked in inspiration.”  The Muse holds out the tangled, messy ball.  “Here you go.”

    Frowning, Betsy takes the mess from her and looks at it.  “Uh, thanks?”

    “I believe this is what you were looking for.”

    “Really?  It looks like it’s just a jumble of wet string.”

    “Take another look.  Don’t see what you expect to see.  See what’s actually there.”

    Obediently,  Betsy studies the tangle.  “Well, maybe…” She turns it around.  Examines it from every angle.  “I mean, I think I see what it’s supposed to be, but nothing is clear.”

    “Of course not.  It won’t be clear until you unravel it.”

    “Unravel it?  How am I supposed to do that?  All of these threads are tangled together and they’re wet and knotted.  I mean, I’ve already decided where I want to try to end up.”  She points towards a mountain in the distance.  “But I don’t know if unrolling this ball will lead me there.  Heck, I don’t even know if the string is long enough to GET there.”

    “If it’s not, then maybe that mountain’s not where you should go,” the Muse says.  She lounges back on her elbows in the grass, tossing back her soaked hair with a sigh.  “You might not take quite as long a trip as you think you will this time, or maybe you’ll go in a completely different direction.  You just have to unravel the string and find out.”

    “Oh, just that simple, huh?  Sheesh.”  Betsy frowns.  “Besides, it’s all tangled up.”

    “Then, I guess you’ll have to find the beginning of the mess and start pulling.  That’s the only way to get things moving.”

    “The beginning?”  Betsy chews her lip.  Examines the tangle.  “I guess…is this it?  Is it there..no.  How about…no.”  Rolls the mess around in her hands.  Looks at it from every angle.  “Where is the start?  Where did it go?  Why can’t I see it?”

    “Sometimes the beginning is more hidden than the end is,” the Muse says.  “After all, you often know where you want to end up, but you can’t always see the place where you’re starting from.  Just pick at the closest string and pull.  You don’t have to find the perfect starting point, not yet.  It’s more important that you start SOMEWHERE.”

    “Are you sure?”

    “Am I the Muse or not?”

    “Okay.”  Betsy chooses a thread and picks at it with her fingernail.  The yarn is very wet with inspiration, so it’s hard to get it loose.  But finally she manages to wiggle the thread free and the soggy mess unrolls for a bit before it stops.

    “There you go,” the Muse smiles.  “You’ve started.  And we’re off on an adventure again.”

     

    To be continued…

     

     

  • Find Your Own Way

    In today’s information age, there is advice every freaking where.  Heck, sometimes it seems like you can’t walk across a room without tripping over advice.  Bullet points of the “correct” way to do things.  Top 10 lists.  YouTubers and bloggers and Instagrammers.

    There are times when advice isn’t such a bad thing.  When you’re starting out, it helps to see the signposts others have followed.  Watching what other people are doing can help when you need some kind of direction.  Or if you’re tackling a new task you haven’t encountered before, it can be great to get a little insight or guidance.

    But it seems to me that all too often the overwhelming volume of advice and techniques and tips and tricks and lists and whatever available now can become an obstacle.  Yes, it might help to get you started, but you also have to learn to make the path your own.  Yes, you might need guidance to learn how to handle a new task, but not all guidance is correct in your particular situation. And quite a bit of the advice or guidance out there is contradictory.  It’s easy to waste most of your time being confused.

    In the end, you have to find your own way.  You have to use the advice but not be restricted by it.  If you don’t, you could find yourself walking down a path that’s not actually yours.  You might insist something has to be done in a certain way when it simply won’t work for you.

    No matter what it is we’re trying to do, we all, ultimately, have to figure out what fits us.  We are unique and so are our dreams and abilities.  There’s nobody else exactly like us.  Nobody else has our quirks and foibles and history and darkness and experiences and goals and dreams and objectives.  Nobody else needs to take exactly the same steps to reach our destination.  You, my friend, are a unique combination of cells and experiences.  That means that what works for someone else won’t necessarily work for you.

    It’s hard.  It’s a lot easier to follow a step by step blueprint than it is to actually look at what you’re doing and decide whether or not it’s working.  It’s a lot easier to follow everyone else than it is to strike out on your own.  And it’s hard to remember that just because a certain technique or approach seems to have worked for everyone else in the world, it might not work for you.  And that’s okay.

    I see this a lot when it comes to writing.  There is no other group of people on the planet who can give advice like writers.  In many ways, that’s fine.  You need to know stuff.  You need to know the craft.  You need to be able to navigate the ever-changing publishing landscape, especially these days—just ask some of the big legacy publishers.  You have to keep training and learning and growing.

    But the risk is that you—the writer YOU are—the PERSON you are—can get buried under it all.

    From what I can see, this is true in all different kinds of pursuits, from how to use social media to find a job, to the best way to lose weight, to the way you should run a business.  From every direction, on every platform, in every breath.  Advice, advice, advice.

    I get caught in this cycle sometimes.  Whether it’s my writing or my eating or my exercising or my decisions regarding…well, anything.  I can get pulled down the rabbit hole of advice because I assume that the people giving it know more than I do.  And a lot of times they do.  But it’s also true that they are not me.  And sometimes I get so caught up in what I’m told I SHOULD do that I don’t focus on what’s best for me in my situation with my goals and my challenges.

    So what’s my advice?  Well, I think we DO need to keep learning.  We need to improve our grasp of our craft, our business, our life.  We can’t stop and be complacent, and that means we do sometimes need advice and guidance and whatever.  But, on the other hand, we can’t let it trap us.

    I guess the only thing we can do is keep testing our processes and our decisions and our joy in our lives.  And if things don’t seem to be heading where we want to go, or if we have a gut-deep dissatisfaction with the process, then no matter how valid the path seems to be we must be brave enough to acknowledge it’s not for us.  We have to be brave enough to follow our own drummer.  Then we have to be wise enough to listen to advice if our drummer is taking us off a cliff.

    It might not be easy, but I hope you go forth and conquer!

    “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

    ― Pablo Picasso

  • Optimistic Voices

    As it’s been a little while since we’ve had this conversation, this might be a good time to remind everyone (including Betsy) that she is on a Quest to become a Successful Independent Author.  She has made some strides in the right direction, but she definitely has a long way to go!  Fortunately, Betsy has a Guide on her Quest—a white rabbit, who used to be a white gerbil and is named Harry.

    Sadly, Betsy didn’t realize she had also named the hero in her latest novel (coming soon!) Harry until it was too late.  This is just a coincidence.  Please do not think that Betsy is harboring any romantic designs on Harry the Quest Guide.  She does, however, have romantic designs on Harry the Hero.  Perhaps she was caught up in the drama of the latest royal wedding / pregnancy / birth and just decided to name everyone Harry.  Perhaps she is simply crazy.

    Regardless, in addition to Harry the Guide, as he shall henceforth be known, there are more members on Team Betsy.  They include The Muse—an ethereal being and Goddess of Creativity, Skipper—a chipmunk and Good Habit Implementation Specialist (she has her work cut out for her), and Coffee—the Beverage of Champions.

    As Betsy has been in a bit of a battle lately (see previous blog post), she has been slogging it out in the Valley of Illusion and thus has not been spending much time with Team Betsy.  The Muse got through, mostly by shouting in Betsy’s ear.  It was painful.  But now that things finally seem to be moving in the right direction, Harry the Guide, Coordinator of Team Betsy, has decreed there shall be a meeting of the minds wherein A Plan For The Next Few Months Shall Be Decided.  Now Betsy is sitting in Harry the Guide’s office in her brain, waiting for the rest of the crew to show up.  But she is alone!  Where is everybody else?  What’s going on now?

    Let’s see…

     

    Betsy is sitting in Harry’s office.  She jiggles her leg impatiently.  Checks her Fitbit.  Gets up to pace.  Checks her task list on her phone.  Growls.

    “Where is everyone?!?”

    As she turns to pace to the other side of the office—which is just exactly as big as she wants it to be—the door opens and Harry the Guide walks in.  Actually he dances in, hopping on his big bunny back feet.  Behind him, paws on his shoulders, is Skipper, the Habit Implementation Specialist.  And bringing up the rear is Coffee, the Beverage of Champions.  They hop in, dancing in a conga line, kicking out their legs (yes, Coffee has legs—deal with it) side to side and singing…

    You’re out of the woods

    You’re out of the dark

    You’re out of the night

    Step into the sun,

    Step into the light….

    “What are you doing?”  Betsy demands.  “What is that noise?”

    “We’re singing!”  The three reply in unison. 

    “Yes!”  Skipper chips.

    Keep straight ahead

    For the most glorious place

    On the Face of the Earth

    Or the sky

    “Yes!”  Harry chirps…

    Hold onto your breath

    Hold onto your heart

    Hold onto your hope

    “Yes!”  Coffee burps…

    March up to the gate

    And bid it open!

    The three end the song with a flourish, arms and legs out in a “tah dah” gesture in the middle of the space.  (Yes, Coffee has arms, too.  Deal.)

    “I know that song. It’s from the Wizard of Oz,” Betsy informs them.  “Right after Dorothy and the rest get to the Emerald City and got drugged out of their minds in the poppies.”

    “It’s Optimistic!”  Harry tells her, swirling.

    “I think you’ve been smelling too many of those poppies.”  Betsy rubs her forehead (yes, Betsy has a forehead in her brain—deal).  

    Harry, Skipper, and Coffee ignore her and start to dance their conga line again.  A snap of their fingers and they are all wearing green sequins.

    You’re out of the woods

    You’re out of the dark

    You’re out of the night

    Step into the sun,

    step into the light….

    “Help,” Betsy whimpers.

    “Let them dance.  They’re happy.”

    “Muse!”  Betsy turns to find the Muse has come to stand beside her.  Betsy wraps her arms around Muse’s waist and hangs on.  “I missed you.”

    “I was here.  You even heard me.  It just got a little muddy there for a while.”

    “But now you’re working!” Harry hops past at the head of a conga line.

    “And you’re developing good habits!” Skipper skips behind him.

    “And, although you aren’t drinking as much of me now, we are still close, ma cherie,” Coffee twirls and dips at the end.

    “I think you’re celebrating too early,” Betsy calls after them.

    “Yes, but you are making progress, are you not?” Coffee stops and grabs Betsy’s hands. “Although I am sad that we are not so close, ma cherie, and that you have started spending time with DECAF.” Coffee spits the word. “Mon Dieu.  Decaf.  Still, that which does not kill us only serves to make us stronger, n’est pas?”  He dances off.

    “I don’t even drink French Roast anymore you know,” Betsy yells after him.  “You should sound Colombian!”

    “Let them have their fun.” The Muse settles on the sofa next to Betsy.  “They’ve waited a long time for you to be able to give them your attention again.”

    “Not Coffee.  I’ve given him plenty of attention.”

    The Muse dips her head in acknowledgment.  “True.”

    Betsy chews on her bottom lip.  “It’s just…this isn’t a sure thing, you know.  I’ve screwed up before.  Just because I’m moving in a good direction at the moment doesn’t mean I’ll be able to keep doing it.”

    “Do you think you’ll fail?”

    “No.”  Betsy fidgets.  “Maybe.  I’m scared okay?  I’m scared that the good things I’m doing aren’t going to last.  They never lasted before.”

    “Let me tell you something.”  The Muse settles back in her seat.  “Generally speaking, you get what you expect to get when it comes to this kind of thing.  So if you constantly expect to fail, guess what?”

    “I’ll fail?”

    “Ding, ding, ding!” The Muse waves a hand.  “Give the lady a prize.”

    “So I should just expect to succeed?”

    “Right.”

    “And what if I fail anyway?”

    “Well, then you think “hey, that was a mistake” and pick yourself up and move on.  It’s not a failure, it’s a lesson you needed to learn.”

    “I’ve been learning these lessons for a long time.”

    “Some lessons take time.”

    Betsy thinks.  “So, just move forward and don’t be afraid?”

    The Muse smiles.  “Exactly.  And you might want to go dance with Harry, Skipper, and Coffee.”

    “You know what?” Betsy gets up.  “I think I will!”  She awkwardly starts dancing and joins the conga line, to the delight of the other participants.  Betsy tries not to step on their feet.  She fails.  So she learns to give them all some space.

    Hold onto your breath

    Hold onto your heart

    Hold onto your hope

    March up to the gate

    And bid it open!

     

    To be comtinued…

  • Health and Wellbeing

    I tend to keep this blog centered around creativity and writing, mostly because I hope you’ll find my fumbling journey into my own creative life to be interesting. Or at least amusing. Blogging also helps to hold me accountable, because on the creative road you’re basically only accountable to yourself.

    But the pursuit of creativity isn’t the only journey I’m on—I’m also at the beginning stages of my latest trip towards health and fitness.  It is a trip I have tried to make many, many, MANY times in my life.  It is a trip I have always failed to complete.  But it is a trip I am determined to make yet again—and I’m determined to get past the obstacles that have always blocked my path.

    I wasn’t sure if I would do any posts about this quest, because it is intensely personal and I’m not looking forward to making myself vulnerable out on the internet.  But then, after a lot of thought, I decided I would write about it, at least to a certain extent. After all, health is the bedrock upon which creativity—and everything else—is built. This goal is really the foundation of all of my other goals.

    Then there’s that pesky accountability factor again. Putting things out into the universe makes you vulnerable and is kind of scary, but it’s also important.

    And lastly, I thought maybe it would be interesting.

    Settle in, bunkies–this is a long one. 

     

    I fell asleep on March 3, 2018. I woke up again on July 1, 2019, give or take a week.

    If you’ve followed this blog at all over the past year, you probably know what happened, but I’ll give a brief recap. My mother died unexpectedly overnight. I found her. Fell down a hill trying to tell the neighbor what had happened. Broke my ankle so badly my foot was no longer attached to my leg. Hospital. Rehab facility (really a thinly disguised nursing home). Couldn’t leave the house when I finally got home. Doctors. Physical therapy. Laid off from the day job (fortunately I knew that one was coming before all hell broke loose). Worry as close friends battled VERY scary health crises of their own.  Settling the estate. Coping with the holidays.

    I peeked open my eyes for the first time in March 2019. Then a very dear friend died in April. Nope. Not gonna wake up yet. More grief. Watching others mourn triggered the processing of my own experience (which was a good thing, by the way).  

    But I wasn’t gonna wake up. Not gonna do it. Not yet.

    Then… blink, blink, blink. Hello?

    Sometime around the end of June I blearily opened my little eyes once more.  I said to myself. “Huh. That’s weird. Where has all the time gone?”

    Then I blinked again and said, “You know what? I think I’ve been depressed.”

    I can hear you now. “Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”

    That’s the way it happens sometimes, at least for me. Depression isn’t always “sadness,” or not just sadness.  It’s a withdrawing beyond the point of health.

    To be clear, I don’t think that withdrawing itself is necessarily bad.  For me, it is an essential part of my coping process when faced with a traumatic event.  I need to back off, go inward, gain strength, regroup.  Then, and only then am I capable of coming back out into the world. 

    That’s fine.  But you can go down too far, dive too deeply. And you forget. First, you forget to swim.  Then you forget there’s a surface you’re trying to swim to.

    I went out with friends, I talked to people, I kept up with social media, did a few blog posts, wrote a novella and a novel, but I withdrew. I WANTED to withdraw.  I didn’t WANT to come out. My world had been shaken and my response, as it usually is, was to curl up in a ball. Protect the head. Protect the belly. Fetal position.  This earthquake was worse than usual, so the withdrawal was deeper and longer.  Taking the time to cope was something I desperately needed.  My lack of concern for my health, my life, or the future…wasn’t.

    When, on July 1, I did eventually sit up and break the surface I had forgotten was there, I was finally able to take a clear look at my current state of affairs. They weren’t exactly good, especially in the health area.

    I was not a paragon of physical fitness before this all happened—faaaaaaaaar from it. But things were much worse now. I’m a type 2 diabetic, and my blood sugar had been through the roof for months. I hadn’t been to the doctor, eye doctor, or dentist in over eight months. I had put on some weight (not as much as I could have for sure, but considering the weight I’d already been carrying, it wasn’t great). My broken leg was okay, but it wasn’t getting any better. The absolute worse was that my energy level and life-force was at an all-time low. After all, a person with diabetes can’t process sugars effectively, and I’d been slowly poisoning myself for over a year by not eating in accordance with my condition. 

    So. Huh.  Wasn’t that a kick in the pants?

    Obviously, I had some decisions to make.

    I’ll admit I wanted to go back to sleep. It’s easier to read books than to write them.  It’s easier to watch Netflix or YouTube than to try to live authentically and well. But I also know that this time I have is a gift. I’d just forgotten that for a little while.

    For whatever reason, some keys started to turn.  And for whatever reason, I walked through the doors when they opened instead of slamming them closed again.

    The first thing I knew I needed to do, was to get up and get my poor body moving. I’d been sitting too much, and I could tell that not only was my leg not getting better, it was starting to get worse. People with diabetes heal more slowly than normal people anyway, but since my diabetes had been uncontrolled for a long time, the healing was even slower.

    What could I do to get moving?  I wanted to take walks, but it is very, very difficult for me to be out in the heat and humidity. In other words—anywhere outside in the summer in the US. So how in the world was I supposed to walk? I guess I could have gone to a gym and walked on a treadmill, but that was so NOT happening. This needed to be something I could do on my time, in my space, and not somewhere where I would feel like I was being judged.

    Then I read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s book “Writing with Chronic Illness” (which is awesome, by the way). She had a throwaway line in one of the chapters that changed everything. To paraphrase, it said— “I always got my 10,000 steps in, even if I stumbled back and forth across the living room.”

    Boom.

    Lightbulb moment.

    Of course! If I couldn’t walk outside, I could walk inside the house!  

    So I started stumbling back and forth in my own house. In the beginning, I did it once or twice a day for a few minutes. My leg hurt. But I knew it was helping.

    Then my lovely sister gave me a Fitbit, and everything changed again.

    I love that damned thing. I even got it some special wristbands to bling it up a little because it never leaves my wrist unless it’s on its special clip. 

    Why do I love it? Because it vibrates to remind me to get up and move every hour throughout the day. And it gives me a star when I do it. Then when I hit my total steps for the day, it vibrates and does a happy little dance, celebrating with me. I’m sure the app is collecting all of my personal data and funneling it into some massive database where it’s being sold for profit. And I don’t care. If it saves my life, they can have whatever data they want.

    Thus the forward movement started…

    I finished the manuscript for the novel I’d been working on and actually sent it to my copy editor. I was afraid when I hit the “send” button because I was writing it at the same time I was going through all of this other junk.  It was very hard to be creative at that time.  Truthfully, I’m not confident in it yet.  Maybe when my dear editor sends it back and I re-read it, I’ll think it sucks.  Maybe I’ll think it’s brilliant.  It honestly doesn’t matter at this point.  What matters is that I got it finished.  The forward momentum.  Walking through that doorway (as mentioned in the last blog post).

    What matters is another key turning.

    Once I finished writing the book, I settled back and evaluated things again. The walking I was doing was great, but it wasn’t enough. I can’t do 10,000 steps yet (I’ve tried, but it makes my foot feel like it was loose and ready to fall off).  I had to back it down to 5,000 for now. In fact, I set all of the goals on the Fitbit app so they’d be achievable for me even without being able to do much outside or going on long walks.  It is vital that I have goals I can meet, and that I can get the validation of successfully completing the various badges to keep me going.

    But, although I’d started hitting my Fitbit goals every day, I still needed to build up my strength. I needed to do more to strengthen and stretch myself. The walking alone wasn’t enough.  Ideally, whatever the solution was, it would also include guidance on food.  Although I was moving around, and my blood sugar definitely wasn’t at its worse, it hadn’t yet moderated to where it needs to be.

    Then another dear friend of mine shared a video on Facebook from DDP Yoga. That’s Diamond Dallas Page’s fitness program. I’d seen inspirational videos from the program before on Facebook and Youtube, and I’d even meant to look into it years ago, but I’d forgotten. Wasn’t it interesting that a video detailing another inspirational transformation should show up in my Facebook news feed right at the time I was looking for something?

    Kismet? I think so! Another key turned.

    This program is perfect for me because it has levels that go all the way from “I can’t get out of bed” to “I have crazy ninja skill.” I have some balance issues thanks to nerve damage from the fall and constant low-level vertigo from the blood sugar. I need modifications most programs don’t take into account.  This one does.  It meets me where I am now and I’ll be able to stay with it as I gain strength, flexibility, and stability.  It’s also no impact, strength building with isometrics, so it doesn’t hurt my joints.  And, even better, it includes food guidance of various degrees—from the extreme intervention I personally need to “I just want to clean up a little.”

    Key, meet lock.

    And I started doing that too.

    I got the MyFitnessPal app and, between it and the Fitbit app, started tracking my food. I decided to start drinking more water—a hell of a lot more water (although I do have to front-load it so I’m not up running to the potty all night). A person with diabetes needs water because our cells don’t deal with sugars properly, and our bodies need more water to flush it away. And guess what? Drinking more water has really impacted my sugar cravings. I think maybe I was thirsty and didn’t know it. I know I was dehydrated when I started—I really couldn’t get enough water for the first few days.

    Another key.

    By the way, I read somewhere that moving every hour and drinking water are two ways to spark your metabolism. Who knew?

    For more motivation to keep up the momentum (momentum is everything in writing and in life), and because I’m a sucker for tracking, I started tracking things on a paper calendar on my refrigerator. I track four items – Food, Fitbit, DDP, and Writing. If I meet the daily requirements I set up, I get a checkmark for that day for that item. If I get checkmarks for all four items, I get to increment the day in my winning streak. I get five forgiveness points a month—so I can miss requirements on one of them five times during the month. I knew I needed to build in a way where I could stumble, but not blow the streak.  I’m not perfect—I needed a little leniency in the system.

    Turned out that was yet another key.

    And that brings me to where I am now.

    As I said, I’m still at the beginning of my health and fitness quest this time around, but things are headed in the right direction for once. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not celebrating yet. Lord knows I’ve screwed this up before.  MASSIVELY screwed it up.  And fairly recently, too.  I’m just happy to see some progress in the right direction for a change.

    The blood sugar is settling, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to decrease the medication soon. My strength and stamina are increasing. It’s only been a few weeks, but I already feel so much more energetic.  There are still a few problem areas I haven’t begun to address, the biggest of which is getting the appropriate amount of sleep every night.

    I’ve also set some health goals.  They are extremely modest in the great scheme of things, but they mean the world to me.  I will strive diligently to meet them. 

    Mostly, I want my light to shine.  I want to stay awake.  I want to live fully and well.

    So, there you go, for what it’s worth.  Do with all of this what you will. Or not. Whatever—it doesn’t matter. I just thought I’d share this journey too.  And I’ll post periodic updates as time goes on.

    Off to get my steps for the hour so I can get my next star!

     

  • Practice and Confidence

    It’s come to my attention over the past few weeks that having confidence in what you think you know or have learned requires practicing those things.  Otherwise, you forget that you know or have learned them.

    Practice means moving, walking through the doorways you’ve opened, and doing it over and over and over again.  If you stand still, you forget what it’s like to walk through those doorways.  Then you lose the confidence that you CAN walk through them.

    Barriers to your progress, barriers that you’ve already fought, will regrow unless you keep them down.  Think of them as a lawn that needs mowing once a week.  If you don’t mow for a while, then the yard looks like an overgrown jungle and walking through it is hard.

    I really didn’t know I’d been standing still until I started moving again.  I was writing, so I thought I WAS moving.  And I was—but only in one area.  I was surprised when I took steps in other directions only to realize how still I’d become.  Lots of barriers I’d pushed over—or at least dented—had regrown.  Lots of grass needed to be mowed.  Doors needed to be knocked open again.

    For example, I found myself facing the barrier of being afraid to show someone else what I’d written.  That’s not unusual—lots of people have trouble showing another person something they’ve been laboring over because then they’re vulnerable to opinion and criticism.  That fear stops many writers and other creative people in their tracks.  If you don’t do it regularly, it’s a lot harder to take the step.  The practice you get by letting the work go over and over again is what makes it easier to handle.  Since I hadn’t taken the step for a long time, I had to force my way through the barrier of fear again.

    Then I had to order a cover for the new book and faced the barrier of doubt.  Doubt in myself, in my work, in my ability to communicate.  Doubt that I really should take the step of turning a potentiality into a reality.

    In the editing process, the book is speaking for itself (for good or ill).  But with a cover brief, you are trying to communicate an entire project in a few words to people who have not read your book and probably never will.  If I don’t communicate effectively, the cover won’t be what’s needed.  I can have them make revisions, of course, but the fact is there’s the chance of I’ll waste a boatload of money if the cover is not successful and I don’t realize it.  Going through the process and not doubting yourself and what you’ve done requires practice.

    The sales blurb is the same.  If you don’t write them often, you don’t practice.  You don’t have the confidence that you CAN do it.  Pushing through the barrier of insecurity.

    This does not just apply to writing, but to life.  Everything we do is easier with practice, with movement, because practice and movement are where confidence grows.  You know you’ve done the thing before, over and over.  You know you can do it again.  You have recently DONE it.  But when we stop, we forget and the doors we’ve pushed open slam shut.  Fear. Doubt. Insecurity.

    We are sharks.  We have to keep moving to live.  We have to keep practicing, keep shoving our way forward through the barriers again and again until the lawn is like a golf course and all of the doors are open.  That’s where the confidence comes from.  We won’t find it by sitting still.

    Be the shark.

     

     

     

  • A Quick Status Update

    Hello everyone!  It’s been so long since I’ve written a blog post that you might not even remember who I am!! (Although if you don’t, I’m not quite sure why you’re taking the time to read this.  But thanks!)

    Anyway, as a way of getting back into the groove of blogging more regularly, I thought I’d share a brief status update on what’s been happening around here for the last couple of weeks…er…months.

    First…yes, I AM still here, thank you very much!  Even better, the next Hardy Falls book, Choosing Love, (Welcome to Hardy Falls Book 3), is finally with my esteemed copy editor now for brushing up, polishing, and general housecleaning.  I’ll be sharing the synopsis here soon, but synopsizes are pesky little buggers so I want to live with it a bit before unleashing it out into the world.

    This story revolves around Jenny Kline–artist, housecleaner, and waitress–and Police Officer Harry Newman, III–er, police officer.  Since Jenny’s mother is the chief of police in Hardy Falls, things get a little interesting when Jenny and Harry make contact!  Well, that’s the plan anyway.  Jenny and Harry turned out to be stubborn people who took charge of their own destinies despite my determination to keep them on track.  The story went its own way, as often happens.  But I like it! Which I suppose is a good thing.

    I’m hoping to have Choosing Love out in a couple of months.  More on the exact timing once I figure out the depth and breadth of whatever problems it has.  I’m just going out on a limb here and say there will be SOMETHING that needs to be fixed!  🙂

    Oh, yeah.  And it needs a cover.

    I’ve started the next book, which will be one of the shorter ones–Hardy Falls Book 3.5.  Things are moving right along there, so more news on that soon once I get a little further and have an idea about timing.

    In personal news, I’ve been taking steps to improve both my productivity and my health and I think the sails are getting trimmed, as it were.  There’s definitely been improvement on the health and energy front, and that flows into all aspects of my life–especially the writing!  Better, stronger, faster, baybee!!

    So, anyway.  Just a quick-like-a-bunny post this week to let you know that I’m still here, I’m writing, I’m alive and everything is marching right along!  Booyah!