Summer productivity

My school year officially ended at noon yesterday, after I finalized my grades and finished my office hours. Now I’m officially in summer mode. 

That means I have some uninterrupted blocks for writing. This doesn’t mean I’ll only be writing this summer. I have a class I’m taking in administration of disaster mental health programs, I have at least twenty interns to supervise, I have research I should do, I have classes to put together for the summer, I have my gardening …

Professors don’t really have the summer off, we just have more freedom to schedule things as we need them.

So, writing. I’m celebrating the end of the semester with a writing retreat in a cabin at Mozingo Lake next week for two nights. I’m hoping the change of scenery will help me get ahead on the rewrite for Apocalypse.  

I’m talking this all out loud because the concept of planning out this summer productivity is new to me. Before my bipolar diagnosis, I pushed myself hard at the end of the semester, usually swinging between hypomanic and depressed, then collapsed on the finish line and slept for two weeks. Or longer. A lot of summers went by when I could barely function to do my summer work. 

Being able to enjoy productivity on my own terms is a very new concept for me. And I plan to enjoy it.


Self-esteem, according to Positive Psychology

This essay is my answer to an essay question I gave my personal adjustment class on their take-home final:


In positive psychology, there are two theories of self-esteem, and they lie at polar opposites to each other. One is sociometer theory, which says we get our self-esteem by how others see us, and the other is self-affirmation theory, which says we get our self-esteem by what we tell ourselves. 

The general belief in popular culture that affirmations can help our mood is based on self-affirmation theory. I will admit that my daily affirmations — “I am worthy of love/I am worthy of luck/I am worthy of success/I am worthy of good things” make me look at my life more positively. 

But my gut tells me that sociometer theory may be dominant in explaining self-esteem. We have a natural need to fit in. It’s a survival mechanism, so it’s only natural that we base our self-esteem by the ability to fit in. When we look at bullying and its relationship to teen suicides, we see sociometer theory at work, because bullies target the victim’s need to look outward for self-esteem. 

On the other hand, society needs outsiders as well, people who don’t fit in, because that’s where societal change happens. Maybe those people (and I consider myself one of those people) use self-affirmation to have the strength to live their lives courageously. I find myself longing that I could fit in, because it would be so much easier, but I work hard on my self-affirmations so I can continue to function.

Writing in the Middle of Finals

I’ve been pushing myself to write at least 600 words a day on the novel despite finals week. That’s not a lot of words per day to be honest; in November (NaNoWriMo month) I can write 2000 words per day easily.  

To write, I need to have at least two hours blocked off. That’s not a big problem finals week, because I have fewer classes and more flexible time. The big problem is unfettered time to think. During finals week, especially Spring semester, everything seems urgent: Grade all the end of semester student work. Write and grade finals. Prepare end of semester/end of year paperwork. Pledge to do things differently next semester.

So this week I don’t have the space in my brain for ideas to flow. The ideas feel frustratingly compartmentalized. I check Facebook entirely too much.

This too will pass, when I take a deep breath after turning my grades in, and then schedule a summer routine where (between interns and a class I’m taking) I will schedule time to write.

 

Thunderstorms

It’s six-fifteen in the morning and it still looks like night. We are in the midst of thunderstorms, although I think we’re between fronts right now. 
 
I grew up listening to thunderstorms at night, convinced it was my duty to wake up the family if the house got hit by lightning. I love thunderstorms despite a childhood short of sleep; they became my confidante late at night. 

Today I wait for the rumbles of thunder as the glowering clouds travel closer, the swishing of the trees, the gouts of rain. I fancy myself a witch of the storm, holding my arms skyward, drenched by an onslaught of rain. In reality, I’m afraid enough of lightning that I would not do something that foolish. 

North of us, the roads are still flooded by a freakish mix of melting snow from the Dakotas and hard rain. South and east of us, there’s a chance of severe weather, which includes hail, high winds, and tornadoes. Lightning strikes kill people every year. 

Thunderstorms command respect. Even as I enjoy them, I keep them at a distance.


The joys of rejection

I am beginning to like rejection.

No, honestly, I don’t like rejection. After all, who likes rejection? Who gets up in the morning and says, “I’m so looking forward to getting rejected!”?

I like improving my work, honing my craft (although that latter phrase sounds so pretentious to me and nothing like the actual process with all its sweat and tears and cutting savage chunks out of a work in progress). 

I like looking at an old draft and wondering how I thought that was the book as it should be. 

I like the image of myself as someone who cares enough about their work to seek out a developmental editor. Who cares enough about their readers to not put out a rough version of that book.

I also like the idea of getting published, so wish me luck.

Hard Work

Got a rejection for a short story yesterday. I’m not too upset; I think I shoehorned my entry into the theme and it didn’t quite fit. I only have one thing out there now, and that’s Prodigies with a major press. The likelihood of this being accepted is very low, I’ll admit, but it will still hurt a lot if I get rejected.

What from there? Try to shop out the dev-edited version of Voyageurs, which is short at 70,000 words but we’ll see. Work on the rewrite of Apocalypse (which will take a few months at best guess) and send it back to my dev editor.  See what tweaks might help Prodigies‘ saleability and shop it back out. Send Whose Hearts are Mountains to dev edit. See if I can salvage Gaia’s Hands in case Apocalypse gets sold and it needs a prequel. Write something else, maybe finish Gods’ Seeds.

It’s hard work, and so far has been fruitless. But if I’m going to be published, I want it to be my best, and my expectations have been raised by beta-readers and dev editors and my own revelations about where my stories could go. 

Someday, I hope,my hard work will bear fruit.

Excerpt from Apocalypse rewrite

Forty-five minutes later, as Laurel finished fluffing up her masses of curly golden hair, she heard a knock on her door and opened it to a grinning Adam. “May I come in?” he asked gallantly.
“Adam, you sure like to live dangerously. Someone could have seen you. Where did you teleport into?”

“Transport, not teleport. We transport ourselves, we teleport apples. And we’ve barely touched on transporting — there’s certainly more interesting places to go than your porch, true?” 

Laurel smiled despite herself, despite the total disorientation of the past couple days. “I admit teleporting — um, transporting — would be an easy and ecological way of getting places. As long as nobody was there on the other end to see you. So where are we going today?”

“What is a place where you’ve been before, that you can visualize well enough that you can take us there?” 

“Safely? Without people seeing us pop in from the middle of nowhere?” Laurel asked skeptically.

“You have a point there. Maybe we should wait until dark. We have some time to kill — a couple hours, I suspect.” Adam crossed his legs and leaned back. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, given that I only remember the last twelve years of my life, there’s not much to talk about. I woke up in the hospital, broke out, and spent a twilight existence working under the table for subsistence wages. I’ve slept in basement apartments, squatted under bridges, lived in homeless shelters. I’ve …” Laurel looked over at Adam, her eyes blinking. “I’ve kept apart from others. I’m not used to talking to people, because I’ve been afraid I would give away something, like my freakish ability to heal. I’ve lived a solitary existence.”

“Most Archetypes live solitary existences. We were created that way, as Archetypes who gather together could be a danger.”

“How? A danger to what?” Laurel leaned forward, as if she could find a clue to herself in Adam’s revelation. 

“Remember,” Adam said, steepling his fingers. “The Maker created us as vessels for human patterns. If we die, the humans whose patterns we carry die as well. We’re nearly indestructible, but that small possibility can’t be risked. Conflict could set us up for battle, and battle against other beings like us — strong and swift and almost indestructible — could result in our death and the death of the millions whose patterns we carry. So we are kept apart from each other.”

“Whose patterns do I carry?” Laurel asked.

“That I don’t know. I’m sure the information is in the Archives somewhere …” Adam trailed off, remembering his own unique status as an Archetype who carried no patterns.

The Semester Winds Down

Tomorrow is the last regular day of the semester; then we will go into finals week here at the college. The semester is winding down; the rhythm of my life will change with summer session. I’ll still be busy with an online class and 25 interns and putting fall classes together, but I will have much more flexible time.

I’ll have more time for writing — well, maybe not, but I will be able to devote longer blocks to it, which is a good thing. The summer projects writing-wise are: 1) rewrite Apocalypse; 2) Send Whose Hearts are Mountains to dev edit (if #1 gets to a good place). No new books. Also keep pushing Prodigies and start pushing Voyageurs.

I don’t sound like someone who’s ready to quit, do I ? 

Of weak coffee and wistful waiting

My coffee tastes a little weak this morning.

My husband usually makes the coffee, and he has learned to make it to the strength I prefer. He’s in Kansas at a funeral, however, and I made my own coffee this morning.

My morning routine has been broken — we usually get up around 5 AM (me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, him not so much) and sit together for breakfast and coffee and sharing cat memes on the Internet. Now I’m on my own and it’s 6 AM and very quiet in here. I’m trying to share cat memes with Buddy the Cat, but he remains disinterested.

It’s been less than 24 hours since he left, and I miss Richard. It’s been over ten years married, and I still miss Richard.  Not in a huge heart-rending way, but in the little things. I imagine this would be a hard thing, maybe the hardest thing to bear, if he died before I did — the low-key, everyday presence. 

He’ll be home about 7, 34 hours after I last saw him. No big deal. Just … when you’re older, love is less about passion and more about sharing cat memes.