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Still the New Year

When looking at the calendar, I find it still time for new endeavors and renewed enthusiasm for the goals made previously.

This year is an interesting start. Sometimes I think of other authors and how they journeyed towards their work. It reminds me of Charles Dickens. He wasn’t a poet in the formal sense but his prose had so much “poetry” in it.

Holiday hustle and unending bustle, I worked on achieving some zen.

Calls were made with “business as usual”, all to ensure that daily activities were not delayed by holiday hurry.

Its brilliance is the universal truth of reflection. I can’t help but think that Dickens put himself into all the stories. He had several children, and worked while in their presences. He would have to have some Scrooge-ness. His ability to hyperfocus is too much to believe. Let his example be my challenge at this traveling phantom year.

As I write, I’ve attempted writing while in the presence of family.

Qué susto! So much harder than when I’m alone. I read the same sentence two and three times. I got up from my work and came back for another attempt. Better. I wrote more. Stop. Scratched my head and twitched my mouth. The words come slow but sure. I think I can do this.

If Dickens did, why not me. I think with practice, I can improve on my writing schedule, utilize every time and day. Strategize, not for efficiency, but for more words on the page. I remain hopeful. Each new moment spent dancing my fingers along the page strengthens my endurance.

Progress makes its best success in small moments that keep occurring. Yeah that’s it. Frequent small moments that keep occurring will give me more stamina for longer sprints.

Progress arrives with practice. …and tenacity.

Dickens and his family.
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National Novel Writing Month

I’ve decided. I’m doing this. Excitement and in-trepidation are woven throughout my being. I frustrate so easily when something big must be accomplished. You can’t make anything great if you don’t put something down! This post will be short, sweet and visual. I will make the most of the time spent with my words; may they work and thrive and develop a life full of robust characters we love to hate and cheer for because of the incredible empathetic need to connect. Amen.

November 12, 2023

It is day 12 of Nanowrimo Month. I actually got some work in. I’m glad, but boy am I slow…… Just like the cat in this poster; I seem to fall asleep faster in the month of November than any other month. Why is that?

Can it be that it is the one month I choose to accomplish something super significant for me and I am met with retaliation of the world and life around me. How many feel the same? Give an AMEN if you are feeling the same.

I chose not to make a separate entry for my blog post because I feel like this is a continuation. One that may, I hope be a good long one as the end of the month arrives. In this endeavor I am realizing that I always bite off more than is recommended for someone with my challenges. As I listen to my husband caring for my disabled son, entertaining him, I hear him say, “I have to write the schedule, Papito. Let me write the schedule.”

Oh, my! What a valuable treasure to hear. For once, the shoe is on the other foot and I’m not wearing it. 🙂 How did I get so lucky today! Hallelujah! I can sit here typing and typing because my man is being noble. He hasn’t disturbed me once today.

How wonderful to find some small patches of little miracles that soothe my soul and help me grow in my written endeavor to create my stories.

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Caregiver

She pushed herself on a daily basis, not knowing how much more she could do for him. His condition limits quality of life for all who surround him. The routines felt numbing at times, their predictability endless. She wanted to earn her money from her efforts, but as a caregiver, there isn’t compensation. She’s told to take care of herself, but she isn’t paid for her services. How can she spend the money to care for herself when or take a nap or exercise if she is the caregiver?

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Contentment

bible.com/bible/116/php.4.13.NLT

No matter how foggy my brain can be, I will continue to work on my goals; improving my writing, teaching and learning. Creating is essential to growth. As hard as seizing the time to sit and write may be some days. Each moment that I put pen to paper and shut my critic off, I make progress. Be content in the struggle.

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Struggle

I noticed that my fingers are sore in my right hand. This is the hand I write with , but for some reason the bones in that hand are acting as if the are healing again. Or as if they were broken again and needed to be reset.

It’s very painful. It may be due to my using one finger to type with because the rest of the fingers aren’t in a natural position, like when typing.

All I know is that my right hand cramps up terrible to the point of pain when I have a spoon or knife in that hand. I was making supper for the boys and when I released the knife, putting it down on the counter, I had a pain stab through my hand.

The words and ideas keep jumping in my mind. Sometimes I respond to their demand for acknowledgment. Each time I do, there is a release of joy, purpose, satisfaction for the creativity on the page. I like it. It feels good. My mind forgets the pain in my hand, and I feel redeemed.

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Thief Wins

If you want to accomplish something, you will need to steal. Steal minutes and moments here, and there. Don’t stop. Keep stealing so you can feed your needs to accomplish your desires. Be a bitch. Be protective of your desires. Make those boundaries. Remember nothing can be accomplished and success not met when you don’t make your moments important. You are important. Be a thief with your time. Be a thief with your writing. Thievery will make it happen.

This comes form my portfolio on writing.com . It gives me great pleasure to read this again. It isn’t much in the way of wordage, but it packs a punch. A thief I am when I succeed.

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Tristeza

Recent news; the school’s out for summer. What! it’s not May. We usually look forward to May and the finalizing of closing up classrooms and telling friends we have to meet during the summer so that the kiddos keep up the social contact.

Not anymore.

Not anymore of the playdates or pool parties or gaming nights, boys form of pajama party.

The past three weeks my teens are on their computers from 10 and until 10 pm. Claims of doing homework and schoolwork get slipped into unwanted tabs along with their screens. When I sneak up to check the screen tabs, there are always more tabs than seems necessary.

“Are you working on your schoolwork?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Really? I’m going to check.”

“Okay. I’m doing it!”

“No, really! Why are your teachers calling and writing to me in emails if you were doing it?!”

“I don’t know…They like to bother me.”

This is truly an excuse to join the fifty percent dropouts in the county because Florida is a “right to work” state.

I’d like to think if I took the computer away, it would change them. I’d like to think that this situation is temporary and a miracle vaccine will show up so that there will be no more threat to all human life by sneezing, coughing or touching. But this nightmare to get my sons to realize that this working online is an incentive to make a better show of what they know and turn their grades into something so much more spectacular. They’re thrown off and seem like they’re trying to find a normal in all this.

I get it. I understand they’ve lost all contact with their friends. They don’t have extracurricular activities anymore, not to mention sports. They are upset at what life is throwing at them. It’s war, but there isn’t bloodshed like other wars of the past. Yet, people are dying.

It’s a scary world for them. No wonder they want to play computer games all day. No wonder they want to boost their emotions through cortisol. But the outcome will be harder and abstract until a new normal is established.

Meanwhile, I grab hold of my patience tighter than my tolerance for the hormonal whiplash that arrives every morning. I give them love through the Mom acts of favorite muffins and new activities such as learn a card game, hoping they’ll grab hold of the lifeline they need to swim through these chaotic waters.