writing process

writing with low motivation

I’ve had really low motivation for the past week. Many different factors went into this, but they all begin with the words lack of.

Lack of sleep. Lack of healthy meals eaten at regular intervals (I have a terrible tendency to skip breakfast and lunch, and make it up with snacks. Don’t do this). Lack of exercise (with all our family activities in full swing, it’s easy to let that one go. Especially since I’ve never been excited about working out in the first place).

Lack of excitement about my work, exacerbated by the above factors.

I’ve been writing on willpower, with the aid of an egg timer and a wordcount tool to keep me on track for my word goals.

A bit of social pressure came into play as well. Since I self-identify publicly as a writer, I feel honor-bound to actually do the work.

Those things kept me going through the rough patch. I’ve had a couple of good nights, sleepwise, and I’m feeling all caught up. We’re on break on school this week, giving me time to breathe, recharge, and get my house in shape. I’m no neat freak, but after a while, clutter is just a drag on my spirit. Getting things put away in their proper places lifts my mood.

I’m planning on baking a chocolate cake this afternoon. Now that will really help!

How are you all doing?

of kelpies and killer unicorns

On Twitter, Thea van Diepen and I had a long conversation about fantasy & supernatural races.

And I realized something.

I’m all about vicious equine races (shh, don’t tell my daughter). Killer unicorns. Kelpies. Nightmares that are shadowy horse shapes of terror. Innocent-looking horses that suddenly bare their very sharp, very canine teeth.

I love Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races. When I came across Diana Peterfreund’s Rampant, my reaction was, “Gimme!”

My own version of a kelpie is a way horse. Lives on a far-future Earth with a dying, cooling sun. In roads. Smells like tar and fresh asphalt and burning–all those lovely smells that assault your nose as you’re driving past a construction zone on the highway with the windows down. When they materialize out of the highway, crumbs of rock are tangled in their manes. Their hides are hot and sticky.

Like water horses, way horses will drag people down into their element. That’s bad news, because we can’t live in road anymore than we can live in water.

Are you familiar with Dragonflight? There’s a scene in which F’lar is teaching Lessa and Ramoth to go between. He talks about the important of visualization and about finding a young rider and dragon entombed in rock from a fatal, long-ago accident. Yeah, way horses will take you down into their murky, gooey subterranean worlds. As long as you’re holding on, you’ll be all right, thanks to their inter-dimensional magic.

But then they leave you. In rock. Not pretty.*shudders* Have I mentioned that being buried alive is one of my big fears? Now you know.

Sometimes, when you’re driving, you see a patch of road shimmer ahead of you. It’s hot, so you think it’s a heat mirage. Or it’s been raining, so you think it’s slick, wet patch.

Nope. That’s the sign of a way horse, swimming just below the surface.

giveaway: Daisy Yellow Zine #8

I’m super-excited to announce a giveaway of Daisy Yellow Zine (Issue 8). This digital art journaling zine is full of inspiration, including blogging ideas for creatives and journal prompts. My article, Embrace Imperfection, also appears in it.

Tammy, the awesomely creative person behind the zine and the site, has graciously offered to give away TWO copies of Issue 8 (available only in digital format). Please leave a comment if you’d like to enter. Giveaway is open until Monday, July 29th, 10pm EST.

If this is your first introduction to Tammy and Daisy Yellow, check out some of my favorite parts on her site, such as the Index-Card-A-Day Challenge she runs every summer. If you’re stuck for ideas, check out Tammy’s post on What Can You Do With an Index Card? She also introduced me to the delights of drawing mandalas and the f un of practicing fonts.

If you art journal–or have ever thought of doing so–Daisy Yellow is a great place to go for ideas, tips, and inspiration.

note to self: about summer

One would think that summer would be a time of awesome productivity for me. After all, it’s school vacation!

One would be wrong.

And I’ve finally decided to adjust my expectations to take into account that I get very little writing done in the summer.

For one thing, summer is not a creative season for me–at least not for writing. My stories are ice flowers–they blossom in the darkness of winter nights, the grey chill of a fall day, or in the bluster of an early spring wind. Summer is too big and gorgeous and golden; somehow the overgrowth of vines and weeds, the bloom of showy roses and peonies, sap my creativity rather than inspiring it.

It’s strange, I know, but it is what it is.

Two, the very lack of school-imposed structure, the daily and weekly march of education, works against me. With a summer full of vacations, camps, and swim lessons, every week looks different from the next. The mental adjustments of getting one kid to swim and another to camp, of coordinating pickups and dropoffs, of making sure I have the right kinds of snacks for camp lunches–all of these take up a lot of headspace.

Three, what creativity I have is taken up with planning the upcoming school year. So far, I’ve pored over catalogs, checked a gazillion samples online, scanned through pages of reviews, thought and pondered and talked at poor David, and finally, finally, ordered our books for next year.

And four–my house. Summer is the time to reorganize the pantry, straighten out the school room, go through toys and books and clothes. You know, all the stuff I’ve been avoiding all year, because, well, school.

Four, it’s nice to just relax and have lazy days. To be plain Mom instead of Teacher Mom. To play five games of Forbidden Island in one day or work on puzzle of a dragon on a rock or the Oxford Skyline.

When I start pining to go back to school (feeling that way now), when stories start sneaking into my head, when I feel the loss of creating something with my mind and hands, when summer is sliding fall-wards, then… then I know it’s time to write again.