I heard the now Grammy-winning Brothers Osborne song, Younger Me, today and really listened to it for the first time. And it kind of got me in my feelings a little, thinking about my relationship with my younger self. I was so angry with him for the longest time. I thought he had ruined our life, that he’d been a coward. And yeah, there were sometimes he could have been […]
To My Younger Self Read More »
I am not at the point in my life where I have begun thinking about its ending. Maybe I just have some weird subconscious idea that I am immortal? But I have been thinking about things I’d like to do while I’m still young and healthy enough to enjoy them. Is this a bucket list? You could call it that. I don’t love that term, but it’s the term we
Yesterday, someone I know hit me with a ‘love the sinner, hate the sin,’ and my initial reaction was like ‘Wow! Fuck you too!’ I didn’t say this, of course. I didn’t react at all. The person meant well, I think, but that is just such a classic microaggression, and it’s not hard to understand why I have such a visceral negative reaction to it. I think it’s
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I belong to Apex writers and am part of the Accelerators group, led by Forrest Wolverton. In Accelerators, Forrest uses brain research to help us unlock our writing and career goals (It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the gist). Last week, we were talking about the rituals we all use to get us in ‘the zone’ for writing, and it made me think about how we all do that,
My Writing Rituals Read More »
The other morning, I was awash in gratitude. Gratitude for my life, and the people who are in it. Grateful for my two jobs. Grateful that I have a home that I love. Grateful that my body is healthy. I have not always felt this way. I spent a lot of years at war with myself, hating myself, hating all of the things that I was and resenting all of
Gratitude and Grace Read More »
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, and it’s led me to a revelation. I love Brown’s work as a researcher, how she explicates our inner emotional landscapes and describes how our inner needs drive us. I don’t always agree 100% with her definitions, but she always gives me something to think about. Anyway, Atlas of the Heart is an attempt to map and
Life lessons. We’ve all experienced them. It takes some of us a little longer than others to learn certain things, and I am no exception. So here are some lessons I didn’t learn until I’d been beaten over the head with them a couple of times. 1. If I’m going to remember something, I’m going to have to write it down. I don’t know how many times I had to
Things it took me way too long to learn Read More »
The last two weeks has been incredibly difficult. I had a lot going on anyway, but then my son moved in with me. That wasn’t a bad thing, but he’s nineteen. And on top of the usual 19-year-old nonsense, he’s been on and off his meds and has been yo-yo-ing through various stages of a mental health crisis and the whole things has just been exhausting. Every day I do
Equanimity (or, the subtle art of not losing your shit) Read More »
The other day, my BFF Nick and I were talking about writing and, specifically characters. And somehow, we got on the topic of strong characters., and it made me think about what makes a strong character, how you tell if you’ve written one, and how you might go about defining that for yourself. This led me to think about strength in general, and what made up a strong person in
Getting things done has always been a struggle for me. I have pretty intense adhd and keeping up with things has been difficult. I spent years trying to write books and not being able to, years trying to keep up with housework and home improvement products and getting halfway through and just … not finishing. My life was chaos. But somewhere in the last three years or so,
How to get things done when your brain is an asshole Read More »