The Last Time I Cried & What I'm Looking Forward To - Day 28

Whoa... two topics that I either haven't written about, or that I can stand to write about again. How about that? Totally unexpected for this late in the series, but these two are intertwined for me at the moment, so here goes: 

I cried last night. 

Not a little, either. Last night, really hit me hard. I killed someone. Two people, actually, and it broke my heart to do it, even though I knew it was coming. 

Well, now that I have your attention, I suppose I should probably explain myself a little better. These two people? They only exist in my computer. They are, well were, characters in a book I'm writing. One was expected, she was old, and needed to die to make room for the things that push my protagonist to move forward toward her destiny. I expected her to die. I planned for her to die. And yet, it totally caught me off guard how deeply affected I was by her death. The second character that died was nameless, faceless, and she may get revived in the revision of the story. I wasn't happy with how that scene came out in the drafting, so who knows. That's the beauty of being a writer: You can make those changes. Usually. 

I've been trying to honor my commitment to writing for 1 hour a day. Every day.

I'm doing the NaNoWriMo challenge in November, and since I have two solid story ideas, I figured I'd use one to get into the habit of writing, and start finding what does and what does not work for me when it comes to writing. I'm reverse engineering this particular story; rather than developing the characters and setting and all that before drafting, I'm drafting the story, and going back and making notes about my main characters as I go. It's not easy work doing it this way, but I only have about 6 weeks left to get this drafted before my focus fully gets turned to the book I am writing for NaNo. That book is getting done in the "proper" way: I'm developing characters and settings and plots and archetypes before writing. 

Now, there's really no wrong way to write a book, I'm told, other than to not write the book that's in your head. Give yourself permission to write badly, just to get the idea down on paper. You can always go back and edit later. And you won't have anything to edit if you don't write in the first place.

So, this idea of writing badly, led to my tears last night. 

I spent 1 hour writing, probably looking a bit like a mad woman, pounding away at my keys, moving music into playlists as I went (I like to write to music, so I'm building playlists for the writing of both these books), and knocked out about 2,000 words in that 60 minutes. I have my work single spaced, so that comes out roughly to 5 pages of text. I think, just based on how I felt after writing it, that about half of that will get cut in the revision process. But I wrote. I honored my need to write, and did it.

Nothing sucks for a new writer nearly as much as spending an hour writing crap and killing off a loved character all in one night. I had to cry. I needed to purge the crappy feeling. I cried on my writing buddy's shoulder and gave myself permission to let it go. Tonight, I'll write again, and keep my protagonist moving towards her destiny. I'll work on my characters for the NaNo Book, and start shifting my focus just a bit towards their story.

Which brings me to what I'm looking forward to.

I'm looking forward to NaNo. I'm looking forward to write-ins with my buddy at her place in SecondLife. I'm looking forward to holding a finished manuscript in my hands; a story that I pulled out of my head and gave life to on paper.

That said, I'm also a little scared of it. My writing buddy and mentor, Allie McCormack, has encouraged me to submit my NaNo book for a competition that takes place in the months immediately after NaNo, which means getting that book revised, edited and ready for public consumption in just under 5 weeks (throw Christmas holidays in there, too, just for kicks and giggles). 

Her faith in me scares the hell out of me. My husband totally supports this idea. 

But Allie is right: It's motivation. If I commit to it, and pay to enter, then I have a really big reason to see it through. Even if I don't win, my book has been put out there, and that's not something I've ever done.

This whole year has been full of stuff I never thought I could actually do. I never thought I could get my craft business off the ground, and here I am, setting up an online store. 

I never thought I would find a good Reiki teacher that I could afford, and yet, today, I received my Reiki First Degree certification from my Reiki master/teacher, Elle North.

I never, ever thought I would see my dream of owning a bookstore materialize, and yet... Our online shop is open and doing business, with plans coming together for a physical store-front in the next 2 years.

I started this year out with a bunch of dreams that felt like a really far reach. And yet, here I am, standing near the end of the year with so much coming together that it drives me to tears sometimes. 

I don't think we would ever have been given the gift of dreaming, if our dreams were out of reach. So dream big, darling. Dream Big.

Oh, and if you are curious about this NaNoWriMo thing, check it out. If you're brave enough to write 50,000 words in a month, sign up, and grab me as your first writing buddy (JennBradshaw is my user name). If you're curious, but not sure you're ready this year, join me on my Sage Wolfsong Creations Facebook page, and let me know you want to be my cheerleader. I'd love to have you! If you happen to be in SecondLife, look up our NaNoWriMo Obsession group, and join us for write-ins, sharing, feedback and mutual cheering on. 

If you're enjoying this series, please hop over to Facebook and let me know! Or, you know, you could just drop a comment below. If you've missed any posts, you can skip back to the Intro and read from there.

Are you a blogger that's flailing for content and need a little break from your normal topics? Or perhaps you're just getting started, and would like to populate your blog with some great posts that help readers get to know you? Feel free to snag this challenge and run with it. Just... do so ethically, please. Cite your sources, And then, pop over to that Facebook page and let us all know you're doing the challenge so we can follow you, too!

Favorite Music & Best Things: Blog Challenge Day 22

In the home stretch, almost ready to sprint for the finish! Today, we're talking my 10 favorite songs and the Best Thing to Happen This Year. I love it when things are all rainbows and sparklies!

I love music.

Seriously love music. Have been having a lusty affair with it since I can remember, thanks to my mom and her love of music.

So, get your Amazon music, your Pandora, your Spotify, your iTunes.. whatever floats your boat, and check out these favorite songs. I've given links to Amazon's digital music for each song. [disclaimer: my favorite music changes regularly, so these are as of this writing. What I'm listening to in a month or a year could be very, very different.]

1. Firebirds Child by S.J. Tucker
2. Mo Ghile Maer by Celtic Woman
3. Pocketful of Sunshine by Natasha Bedingfield
4. Pachelbel's Canon in D
5. The Mummer's Dance by Loreena McKennit
6. The Mystic's Dream by Loreena McKennit
7. Let It Go from the movie Frozen
8. Now We Are Free from the movie Gladiator
9. With or Without You by U2
10. Doum Doum by Carmine T. Guida


Yeah... that right there makes for a really interesting playlist, I know. But honestly? I don't usually throw them all together in one lump. But whenever I get a new music subscription, these are the songs that make it into my collection right off the bat. Favorites. All time.

Best thing to happen to me this year?

I'd have to say that the best thing to happen to me this year was all the crap I went through at the end of last year.

Heartbreak. Multiple times over.

Depression. Crippling. Debilitating. Not getting out of bed for days at a time. Not eating for no other reason than because absolutely nothing sound interesting enough to eat.

Saved on groceries in November and December, and I lost several pounds. But I also felt like crap all the damn time. So... Not such a great thing on the surface.

However, that dark time in my life led me to where I am right now.

All those hours in bed, I laid there and asked myself over and over and over: What is it that I want out of life, cause what I'm living isn't really living, and it doesn't feel good.

I asked until the answer felt right and felt complete. I wanted more time with my family. I wanted energy to get out and do stuff. I wanted to put myself out there creatively and send more out into the world. I wanted that financial security that I've been missing since I left my J.O.B.

And when January rolled around, I knew what I wanted out of the year. I've been working diligently towards that every day since. Even on the days I deem "off" days, or "vacation" days, I'm still working towards that, because taking care of me was part of that vision. My family and my business can't support me if I'm not taking care of me first.

The very best thing that's happened to me this year, was the depression that happened at the end of last year. Delusional? Maybe. Did I find a silver lining for the crappy dark clouds that filled my life the last two months of 2015? Absolutely.

If you ask me, it's the best damn thing to happen to me this year. The rest? It's all ingredients in the cake that I started making back in 2015. I'll put the icing on this baby in January of next year. Indeed.

Are you enjoying this series? If you'd like to read it all from the beginning, you can hop over to the Intro and read from there. If you have your own blog, and would like to use this challenge to get yourself rolling, or just take a break from whatever you regularly write about, please... by all means... use it! I just ask that you practice ethical blogging and credit your sources. And hop over to my Facebook page and let me know that you're doing the challenge yourself, so that I (and those on my page) can support and follow your writing!

Until next time: Live Large, Lovelies! Muah!

Something I Miss - Day 21

As we head into the home stretch, we'll probably have more of these duplicates. Today, we have "something I miss" and my 10 favorite foots, which I covered way back here on day 7.

Ever notice how freaking fast life zips by us? We get so hung up on the daily grind: get up, get dressed, put on your makeup, slam down breakfast and run out the door, grind out 8 hours (or more) at a J.O.B., fight traffic getting home, hurry through dinner, rush the kids to activities, zone out for an hour or two in front of the t.v. and then crash, hard, in bed (if you're lucky to have made it that far).

If you're lucky, you'll do this routine, with a few vacations, day after day after day for 40 or 50 years. Finally retiring to enjoy "the good life" with your spouse, kids, friends, grandkids... If you're one of the lucky ones. If not, you'll crash like an old workhorse that dies in his traces, dropping like a stone, spending the last few moments of your life thinking about all the things you still wanted to do but never got around to.

Or, you're one of the many, like me, who worked hard for 15 or 20 years, only to slowly degrade over a short period of time, your health something you're constantly reaching for, and finding more and more, every day, that it's further out of reach. Your blood pressure goes up, you get sick easily, you can't think anymore for the constant, horrible pain you're in every. passing. minute.

And then, you have to walk away from everything you've known, and kiss your financial security and work-life goodbye. You find yourself cut off from the world, barely making ends meet (if you're lucky and have some reserves) while you scramble through the exhausting process of getting help.

You start looking at those posts on social media about people on disability and state assistance in a different light. You are no longer on the bandwagon that lumps everyone into the "lazy" category for being out of work. You're not lazy, after all. You're just trying to survive and deal with the constant pain and fatigue that your life is now enveloped in. You just want to know that you'll have enough to cover rent and some food for your kid.

You're not taking vacations anymore-there's no money for getting away, and even if you could afford it, you don't have a job to get away from anymore, and there is no getting away from the constant pain and fatigue you live with.

You realize that your entire life has been redefined. No longer do you define yourself by your job skills, or the excellence with which you execute your job duties. No longer is your worth defined by your annual salary or your tax bracket. Now, your life is defined by the moments you can get past the pain just long enough to enjoy your daughter's kindergarten drawings and listen to the song she's made up for her writing assignment. You count time in doses of medication and how many days you have to feel up to going out to get your refills.

You don't worry about make up anymore, because you now spend an hour trying to get ready, and look "normal" enough to go to the post office. You've learned to mask the intense pain your life is soaked in now. "How are you doing today?" is no longer a blithely answered question; do I tell the truth, or pretend? And if I pretend long enough, will I have to explain to this person at some point that I really am not okay? You've learned, on a deep, personal level, what "invisible illnesses" really are.

And then, one day, you start dreaming again. You start looking at life through the lens of what you've lost, and what you wish you still had. Life has taken on a whole new meaning for you, and you see what you would be missing now, had you never lost all that other stuff. But on some other level, you miss the normality, the consistency of that old life.

There are days I really miss knowing what day of the week it is based on what's going on at work. I miss showing up, making the coffee, going through my day, planning for the weekend. I miss the regular paycheck that came more than once a month, and having money to put in savings and being able to buy clothes when we need them instead of having to plan 3 months in advance to buy a single pair of shoes.

I miss the security of having a job and the health to maintain that job. I came to grips with that last year, and decided that it was time to start slowly working towards some resolution to that situation. We homeschool our daughter, and that's helped somewhat with the regular routine that a job used to provide, but that doesn't pay the bills and allow for savings.

We've made a lot of progress toward some of our financial goals this year, but there's a long way to go yet. I might miss my old life at times, but then... I turn around, and look at what I do have instead of that, and I'm filled with overwhelming gratitude that I have all this other stuff in it's place.

How about you? What do you miss? Jump in the comments below and share, or hop over to the Facebook page to share. If you're a blogger, or thinking of starting a blog and want some fun topics to help you get going, feel free to use this challenge for yourself. I ask just two things if you do. First, use this material ethically - cite your sources, and share credit where credit is due. Second, let me know you're doing this challenge, too, so we can all share in your journey!

Enjoying this series? If you'd like to read this series from the beginning, hop over here to the Intro.

Until the next time, Live Large, Lovelies! Muah xoxoxo

Blog Challenge Day 18 - What's Behind my Blog Name and What am I Afraid to Do.

The problem with working with two lists, is that you start to have overlap. Today, is one of those days. I wrote about "What's Behind my Blog Name" way back on day 3, so I won't repeat myself there; however, I will give you a little teaser that I'll be starting up two new blogs in the coming weeks that flow along the lines of the business concepts that we're pursuing and that I talked about a few days ago here.

So let's talk a little about fear and what I'm afraid to do...

My husband likes to turn the word fear into a lovely little acronym:
F. False
E. Expectations
A. Appear
R. Real

I have what's called Social Anxiety Disorder, along with PTSD. There have been times that going to the grocery store for a loaf of bread has been too much for me. But Anxiety isn't the same as fear.

Anxiety, for me anyway, is more of the heart-pounding, head-swimming, brain-shutting-down, I-think-I'm-going-to-die-for-no-reason kind of experience. Anxiety doesn't have a reason to it. It just is.

Fear, I can rationalize why I feel this emotion. I can explain to you all the reasons that doing this thing is a really bad idea. Fear happens when I'm more focused on all the negative stuff that can go wrong, than I am on the positive outcome of this thing I need to do. Don't get me wrong. Fear has it's place in the world. Without fear, we wouldn't look both ways before crossing the street. We wouldn't think twice about lighting ourselves on fire, or not using a hot pad to pull the pizza out of the oven without fear. Of course.. the world might be a little less populated without fear, but we love our people, right?

So, the question on the table is, what am I afraid to do?

I think, if I come right down to it, I'm afraid of getting truly, completely healthy.

Let that one soak in for just a moment. How healthy are you, really? I am, and have been for a number of years, living with several chronic health issues. Some, I can do something about, like my weight and my cholesterol. and those things, I am attempting to resolve. My mental health issues, are something I can work around. Living in a very small town, with no car, I get lots of exercise, and can manage what little crowds we have here with very few problems. But I'm not at a point where I can do the city yet. And I'm not sure I could hold a J-O-B. Yes, I'm dependent on my disability payments, and I know that they aren't a long-term solution; which is why I'm working towards developing a business where I can flex my hours when I need to.

But to get totally healthy? I haven't been that in so long, I don't even know what it would look like or what it would feel like. Not being able to envision something like that is downright scary. And that makes it hard to see it clearly enough to manifest it, let alone be comfortable with it.

So where does that leave me? 

Do I not even try? 

Or do I take what I can envision as it comes to me, get comfortable with it and make it happen? I'll go with the latter. I can work on small things, little steps toward getting more and more healthy. Will I ever be "truly healthy?" I don't know, and I'm not going to stress over that point. Maybe at some point, I'll sit down, and look back on this post and say to myself, "Hey, I actually did do that thing I was afraid of doing! Look at me!"

What are you afraid of? What scares the bejeezus out of you? Jump in the comments below and share your feelings, or hop over to my Facebook page and share there.

Enjoying this series? Want to check it out from the very beginning? Go to the Intro to read more, and follow from there.

If you're a blogger, or thinking about starting a blog, and would like to use the 31 day challenge for yourself, go for it! I only ask that you blog ethically, and give credit to your sources, and that you hop over to my Facebook page and let me know, so that I and my readers can join you, too!

Until next time, Live Large, Lovelies!

Muah!

Blog Challenge Day 12 - If I Won the Lottery & What's in my Fridge Right Now

Day 12 is upon us, and I'm buzzing still just a bit from a really amazing video call with mentors Elle North and Sora Surya No. I have my Saraswati playlist on Youtube pulsing gently in my earbuds as I loose another day of blog posting for you, my lovely reader.

Question 1: If I won the lottery...

First off, I'd be absolutely dumbfounded. I don't play the lottery at all, so this would be defying the odds in so many ways. But... In the spirit of not excluding manifestation of long-held desires, I'll over-look that nagging voice in the back of my head, and lay this out for you...

• I'd start by paying off all my debts. From years of not working, there's a nice, tidy stack of unpaid bills that I'm working my way through, in small amounts, faithfully paying what I can every month to clear this energy from my life.
• I would set aside a tenth of my winnings in an investment account. Let that portion work passively for me.
• The taxes would be paid off immediately, so that those hang over our heads as little as possible.
• My husband and I would buy our house and store front. We've joked about opening a book store here in our little town, and in the past few months, it's become more than a joke. It's become a serious intention and planning for it has begun. Steps are moving forward to make it happen.
• My hubby would get his Elio car, in a custom color that matches our business logo. He's been following the development of this little car company for months, and it's the first thing I've really seen him get serious about forming an intention around manifesting in his life. It would mean a lot of freedom for him to cut down how long he has to be away from home for his monthly appointments.
• Anything left over would get split up for the kids and put into investment accounts for their futures. 

Question 2: What's in my fridge right now? 

We're nearing the end of the month, so pickin's are a bit slim according to the snacksters in the house. Next week will see us with a full fridge again. (and I'm only including what's in the refridgerator portion of my fridge. The freezer's a mess of corn, chicken and frozen peas)

• half a gallon of milk
• 2 loaves of bread
• sunflower seed butter
• jelly
• barbecue sauce
• lemon juice
• pickles
• some questionable grapes
• margarine
• salad dressing
• bacon
• cranberry juice
• mustard
• ketchup
• mayonnaise
• Miracle Whip

Today was a quickie, wasn't it? Join me for the next installment when we get juicy with my favorite quote and my earliest memory. 

Want to read all the posts from the beginning? Jump over here to read the intro and all the blog challenge posts to date. If you'd like to use the blog challenge for yourself, hop over to my Facebook page and let me know so that we can all follow you! Happy reading. Muah!