Category: creativity

Unbooking the overbooked

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
(Sharon’s Canva illustration)

When I tiptoed into retirement two years ago this month, I was worried about how to use my time. I wanted to finish my first novel. That was my number one goal. The thing I’d wanted to do since the day I got my library card. The thing I’d put off until the kids were grown, and until I didn’t have to go to work every day.

I already had a few volunteer posts I expected to continue, and some travel plans. But writing was supposed to be my reward for all those years of working.

Now, on the second anniversary of my mostly-retirement, I’m feeling as if I never quit working. I still haven’t finished revising that novel. I’m going through my travel budget at a much faster rate than I expected. And I’ve said “yes” to far too many requests for help.

I’ve decided it’s time to peel away some of the layers of volunteerism, back off on the travel plans and actually finish the revisions.

I didn’t find it easy to establish a schedule after retiring, but I was just getting into a nice routine when I took on another volunteer job. I hadn’t expected it, but from February through the beginning of May, I had to put everything on the back burner for it. Between learning the duties, adding the trip it required, and my usual summer conference, I was effectively off my newly-established schedule until mid-June.

When I got home, I found myself playing catch-up with my other volunteer roles, and working in some family time. Somehow, despite a few stabs at revision, I never really got back to the novel until November. And by then it was National Novel Writing Month again.

I expected the second year of that demanding task to be better, which in some respects it was. But I tacked another conference onto the East Coast trip that the volunteer job required. And I added a second summer conference. This year my novel went on the back burner again starting in February. I anticipated being off track for at least three months.

But since one of my volunteer boards went haywire in May, it’s been one IED explosion after another right into this month. I’ve been losing sleep and definitely not working on my novel.

But how to pick up the pieces of my schedule despite the unexpected challenges?

I came across a book called Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey (who also puts many of his tips on his website, Productive Flourishing). Sure, there are plenty of “self help” books, and I read a few about organizing and time management right after I retired. I was looking for help in creating — and keeping — a routine that is self-imposed.

(image from Poor Richard’s Almanack)

I think Gilkey’s project-based approach to making time to do what he calls “your best work” may work for me. My goal right now is to set boundaries. I have to do that if I really plan to get my novel revised and into the world And then I have to keep doing it with all the NaNo novel drafts I created in the last ten years of my full-time work life.

To that end, I’m adopting Ben Franklin’s daily schedule as a template. I’m not likely to get up at five in the morning to start my day, but we’ll see.

And don’t ask me to volunteer for anything. In fact, I’m finishing the year (or the term) with several of my volunteer boards right now, and I don’t plan to sign on again.

Now, to the revisions!

Backyard beauty

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(Photos by Sharon)

Sometimes the museum right “next door” is one you forget to visit. But I’m glad our recent painting party with Barry Treu turned out to be small enough that he could host us at the Freeport Art Museum. We had fun creating variations on his “rainy day” picture of flowers in boot vases, we were literally sitting in the midst of the 19th Regional Juried Exhibition.

Featuring artists from throughout the Midwest, working in a variety of two- and three-dimensional media, the show will remain at FAM through July 29. Perry Eden, Linda Vietmeyer, Sheila Welch and Kathleen Wilken, all of Freeport, are just some of the artists whose work is featured in the regional show.

Before we left, we also had a chance to wander through the museum to see some of the other items on display. They are immensly varied. One of my favorites may not be intentional art, but it appeals to my (possibly weird) sense of humor. The “Please Do Not Set Anything on the Piano” sign — set on the piano — strikes my funny bone.

But on a more traditional note, I liked the dyptich — two-panel painting — called Pelican Island by Tara Keating.

I also liked the late 17th century Samurai helmet and mask, and the flirty statue of peasants, carved in marble by Ferdinand Vichi.

No matter what is shown, its well worth a trip to enjoy the art in our midst at the Freeport Art Museum. And admission is a bargain at $3 for adults, $2 for senior citizens and students, and $10 for a family.

The museum is at 121 N Harlem Ave. Learn more at https://www.freeportartmuseum.com/

Way too busy

~ sharon ~ 1 Comment

Last December I agreed to volunteer some time to do a little desktop publishing. I anticipated the job would take about a month, based on experience with similar projects. Who knew I’d end up putting in about three weeks of that month in ten days!

Part of crunch was my own fault. I went on a week-long vacation with my sisters. We didn’t do much, but it was our first get-together in nearly three years. But traveling in the middle of the project made me nervous. And I didn’t have all the materials from other volunteers before the trip.

I got home, dug in and managed to make the printer’s deadline. And I had a little fun along the way playing with pages. But I really hated cramming so much into so little time. I wanted the finished product to look nice. I wanted it to be accurate. And the rush made me change my goal simply to getting done.

Oh, sigh.

There were mistakes, and while at the moment we’re trying to find them and fix them for the online version of the program, the original printing will always have them. Corrections are coming along, but I’m about to hit the road for another conference — the Writers’ Police Academy, this year in Green Bay and Appleton, Wisconsin. It will be my third trip, and I’m looking forward to it.

And, when I get back, I’ll be making the final corrections to the program. Fingers crossed next year goes better.

It’s almost time to NaNo

~ sharon ~ 1 Comment

For the last several years, Halloween has been the day before National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) to me.

I am pretty excited about finishing the first draft of the novel I’ve been working on this year. It was an outgrowth of my 2020 NaNo project, and I didn’t spend a lot of regular time on it until September. Since then, I’ve had pretty regular writing sessions on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays. For November (NaNo month), I plan to put in some time every day of the month.

But I did want to pass on a few of the gems from the presenters at Write On Door County’s first mystery writing conference. The ideas weren’t new to me, but the reminders were just what I needed. Maybe you need them, too.

Everyone has a a different writing process

The first panel with the authors who led opening day workshops made that pretty clear. All were published authors, some of many novels, some of few. Some were plotters and some were pantsers. A couple admitted to being plantsers — those who start out with a vague idea, but make plans as they get into the story.

For the first few years I’ve done NaNo, I’ve been firmly in the panster camp, but I’m leaning toward plantser. I finished the first draft of my work in progress because I started figuring out which scenes I still needed to make the novel work. I didn’t write them from start to finish, but I made notes and wrote them whenever I got a fair idea of where each scene needed to go. I did write the first scene first and the last scene last, but that was about it.

Let the reader do some work

Years ago when I took a playwriting course in college, I learned a lesson from the professor. I wrote the last scene of my play with a happy ending — more or less. When he read the first draft, he told me, “You need to give the actors something to do. Why don’t you kill somebody?”

I realized then that acting is as crucial to a successful play as scriptwriting is. (And costuming, stage designing, directing and all the rest….) So, too, is leaving something for the reader to imagine. It’s possible to spell out too much in a story. Pete Hautman wasn’t asking us to be vague, but to leave a little to the reader’s imagination, too. It helps them get involved in — and keep reading — the story. The writer, he told us, must trust the reader to connect the dots.

Downtime counts, too

“Ruminating is also writing.” So said John DeDakis.

While nothing will ever get written without sitting in a chair pounding on a keyboard or writing in a notebook, storytelling begins in ideas, daydreams, imagination. It will take work for most of us to put those ideas into a form that will intrigue a reader. But never discount the time when you find yourself gazing out a window, mindlessly watching leaves fall from a tree or clouds scud across the sky.

We all need to give our creative minds a chance to run free so we can have words to put on pages (or screens).

There was much more packed into two short days, but right now I need to ruminate before I start this year’s NaNo novel.

À bientôt