I spent this beautiful Saturday with my girls and we had so much fun. We woke up slow and headed out the door for our ladies day. I’m glad we were able to spend time and bond this weekend. It means so much to me, especially I’ve been missing my girls a lot lately. So far, we spent this Easter weekend outdoors and indoors together. Even the weather was perfect! Some days are just golden. I hope I can remember this day even though we were too busy to take a picture.
Writing Process
There’s sometimes so much to talk about on these blogs that I can’t even think of one thing. It’s strange, one day I’m saying I believe deeply in the novel because you can create infinite worlds in worlds in worlds. On another day, my brain is so tired, I can barely get my name spelled right. It’s interesting how brains work. It’s interesting how writing can be so many things all at once. I appreciate all mediums but I feel that the writing process is closer to the human experience than all other mediums.
What medium process do you prefer most?
Latest Creative Project
I’m having so much fun turning my desk calendar into a “junk journal.” I just learned what this is and I had to dig my old scrapbooking stuff out and give it a try.
The reason I started doing this was to give myself time to transition from my work brain to normal human brain at the end of my work day. I give myself a few minutes with the Zen music playing in the background to create in a mindful way. I don’t always have time, but if I can dedicate the last ten minutes of my work day to massaging my brain, I think that’s beneficial to my entire well-being.
Lead with Integrity
“Leading with integrity is an ongoing process. By consistently demonstrating these qualities, you can build trust, inspire your team, and achieve success together.”
This is from Google’s AI, Gemini, and I absolutely love it. It is important to me that I learn and keep learning to lead with integrity. I may make mistakes here and there, but at the end of the day, I truly want those around me to trust me and feel safe to do their best work alongside me. That is my one and only agenda.
In the quote it mentions these qualities. And I have to share them now because I think they are all such a great reminder.
- Communicate openly and honestly: Share information freely and keep your team in the loop, even when delivering difficult news. People respect transparency more than being shielded from the truth.
- Lead by example: Your actions speak louder than words. If you expect your team to be ethical and hardworking, you need to embody those qualities yourself.
- Take responsibility for your mistakes: No one is perfect. When you make a mistake, own it, apologize if necessary, and learn from it.
- Keep your commitments: If you say you’re going to do something, follow through. Reliability is a cornerstone of trust.
- Make decisions based on principles: Don’t compromise your values for short-term gain. Consider what’s best for the team and the organization in the long run.
- Empower your team: Give your team members ownership of their work and trust them to make decisions. This fosters a sense of accountability and respect.
- Recognize and appreciate your team: Let your team members know their contributions are valued. Celebrate successes and offer constructive feedback.
There’s something refreshing about this list. I’m not sure what it is. What do you think? Is there anything missing that you would add?
Possibility
“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” – Paulo Coelho
Possibilities and a little faith hold great weight in writing. Of course I have to say, consistency and discipline are the two things that will take you all the way. They are tangible actions that bring you to an end result. But the possibility that something great is going to happen can help lighten the load.
Please excuse my sleepy thoughts.
An Act of Discovery
Writing is an act of discovery.
There are writers who plan it all out and always know what’s coming next. There’s writers who plan out a little, then let the characters change it up once in a while. Then there’s others who have only a slight idea of what they will be writing. All these different styles work, but there are times when you’re a planner that writing becomes an act of discovery. Another point to add is that writing isn’t just limited to novels. You could find a slow unfolding from journaling, or writing a business plan. You could be writing poetry or a letter to your long lost lover. There’s a million ways to write and there’s million ways that your writing can become an act of discovery.
Writing can only be an act of discovery if you’re writing.
You Can Make Anything By Writing
Let’s take time to appreciate all the ways a novel can be useful to our world. Great change has come from story telling. Uprisings, tips for survival, and innovation for technology all can be learned from a novel. Businesses are built when ideas are written down and hashed out. Behaviors and mindsets are changed. Love grows and hearts break with a simple letter, a simple word. Writing is a divine act that I will always take time to appreciate.
Ableist, What is it and What Does it have to Do with Writing?
Ableism is discrimination and social prejudice against people with physical or mental disabilities. Ableism characterizes people as they are defined by their disabilities and it also classifies disabled people as people who are inferior to non-disabled people. -Wikipedia
As a writer, I have seen a lot of ableism and in the past I have shrunk myself in order to fit into their ableist box. At the end of the day, my brain works vastly differently from most of my comrades. I deeply enjoy philosophy, psychology, sociology, and more than anything else, I enjoy gathering information from around us. I use this information not to wield my intelligence or gain power. I use this information to help us learn and grow and expand into accepting who we are in this present moment. And I do all this with silly typos, silly math mistakes (thank goodness excel adds for you), and some good old social awkwardness.
You may be asking, what does this have to do with writing. Well, let me answer.
As a novice writer, I was extremely embarrassed of my shortcomings, but as I’ve grown in the writing community, I learned that we all have our blind spots. I’ve seen and experienced this even while working alongside genius writers (and let’s be clear, when I say genius writers, I’m not exaggerating). While I excel in developing consistent and dynamic characters, someone else excels in grammar. While they excel in grammar, they have a blind spot to the human experience which disconnects the reader from their world. That’s okay. That’s what workshopping our writing is for!
So now let’s make the connection:
We can by asking ourselves these questions.
- What disability that you can’t see would cause frequent spelling and grammatical errors?
- What disability that we can’t see creates a blind spot for writers to be able create character scenes that require social ques, normal everyday conversation, and a realistic view of human development.
- What disability that we can’t see creates a strong resistance to finishing a story before moving on?
And then after we think about these things, we must be completely honest with ourselves and ask are we discriminating against a writer who may possibly have a disability that we can not see?
This is not to assume that everyone who struggles with these things has a disability. And if someone does struggle with these things it is only our place to support other writers. I share this to say what’s most important to me. Don’t drown someone for not excelling at what you’re good at because that takes away from the genius part of their talent that they can excel at.
So writers and those leading writers, let’s take this into account: good writers are good writers even when they make mistakes and even with their blind spots. Let’s not let our inner grammar police shove someone in the corner who brings things to the table other than perfection. Let’s let writers who have an amazing story to tell but are still learning how to tell it, sit at the table with us. We must share our writing spaces. We must share the table with those who are eager to show up. If we don’t, our future generation is going to miss out on the stories that may save their life.
I’d like to end this blog post by sharing some works that saved me or lifted my spirit during my darkest moments.
Silvia Plath‘s Poetry especially Lady Lazarus
Author Rimbaud‘s Poetry
Maya Angelou‘s Phenomenal Woman and interviews
S.K. Nicholas My Red Abyss
Saschia Johnson‘s Poetry and Blogposts
Called?
What do you feel called to do?
I have been thinking lately that I’m called to do a variety of things. I have a spiritual calling and that trumps all. Then there’s community/collective support calling like called to service and leadership. And then I think everyone has a creative calling. I think that we feel pulled toward these things and we may even feel them much stronger when we are still, in alignment, or meditating.
We are all called in some way.
What do you think?
Own Your Writing Process
People don’t need to understand or know your writing process. What works for you as a writer doesn’t need to work for anyone else. Just figure out what works best for you. Some people have a certain time of day they write. Then there’s writers like Roald Dahl that have writing “huts.” There’s morning pages and journals. There’s writing prompts and writing activity sheets that help develop the many aspects to a story. There’s writing groups, writing degrees, writing retreats, and a million other things. What’s most important is trying different things.
I find myself more drawn to myths and biblical literature. I also appreciate a well planned writing retreat.
What works for you? What haven’t you done that you’d like to try?
Jayne.press 