J. and I have this thing we do. We move through the (sometimes) long months of the school year by breaking them down into days of the week.
May and June are Friday. January and February are Wednesday. No doubt, you’ve already figured out what this means but I’ll spell it out anyway: September is the Monday morning of the year.
Cue whining.
The alarm blasts at 6 a.m. after a summer spent sleeping in, travelling, living for the moment or, some days, not doing much at all.
And then, suddenly, it’s time to settle in, go internal on command, and, you know, GO. Get moving. Be profound. Write. WRITE!
Or: get the kids ready for school, get yourself to work, come home, make dinner, do it all, then somehow find your way to your desk and…. ?
Yeah, right.
Because then what happens?
You know.
It happens to me. To a lot of us. On the third trip to the kitchen for yet another cup of tea, I start feeling badly about myself. Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I settle in? Why can’t I work?
Or the riptide of the Internet catches hold, dragging me far from shore, into my hunt for the perfect fall pair of boots.
And before I know it, my writing time is over.
Another day down the tubes.
Ugh.
So, this is the time, peeps, when we all need a little bit of help.
During an (almost) totally unproductive afternoon the other day – J’s first back at school – I wrote all my deadlines (self-set) into my calendar.
I’ve begun re-reading Bird by Bird.
Last night, I went to bed and tried to think about what I needed to do today and – most important – to kindle excitement for the project.
It all helps.
And I’ve got something else in the works that I think will help. A lot.
This month, I’ll be putting the final touches on an online course I’m creating that’s designed to give some serious help to writers who want to reboot or begin building their practice.
It was born out of my awareness of the difficulties in getting to the desk, staying there, and writing from a deep place. Because I’ve been there. I go there often. I often have to take a deep breath and coach myself, remind myself what I know.
So, if you want to walk an easier path to your creative work and grab a big discount on launch day (October 15th!) in order to help yourself do that, make sure you’re subscribed to my blog and receiving my weekly posts (I’ll be sending news solely to subscribers as we get closer).
Until then: Deep breath. Carry on. Keep trying. We’ve got this.
