Tag: projects

Addicted to the Flow

I sit in my writing chair (the loveseat near the front window) feeling uninspired. This doesn’t sit well with me, because I am addicted to the flow.

I’ve talked about flow before, but it’s worth mentioning again. Flow is a state in which a person is completely involved in what they’re doing. Time slips by and the person experiences mastery of the task, an optimal level of challenge and competency. Flow contributes to well-being through accomplishment and a state of near-meditation.

I get my flow from writing, and that’s what brings me back to writing again and again. If I never published again, I think I would still write because of the feeling of flow. It took me years to accept that experiencing flow was enough of a reason to continue writing.

I’m looking for my state of flow today, and I don’t know if the current project is captivating enough for me to find it. I’ll be looking for a new project soon, maybe the right short story.

Discipline in a time of busyness

I might write irregularly over the next few days, as I am traveling to a conference in Washington DC to present a poster. This is for my day job, being a professor of human services and the internship coordinator for the department.

This summer is proving busier than I had counted on. Evidence:

  • Richard and I have two moulage gigs this summer, one in August and one right around the corner on June 4-5th. 
  • I have twenty interns to supervise; next week I’m spending an overnight in Kansas City to visit two or four of them.
  • The garden! It’s not quite done yet; I’ll be spending next Tuesday finalizing it. 
  • The summer class I’m taking (Management of Disaster Mental Health, which is more interesting than I thought) rolls right along like a Mack truck, and I’m working hard to keep it from rolling over me.
  • Writing? Writing! I almost forgot about that! I will write any chance I get — if nothing else, I’ll write in the blog at least once.

It’s all about discipline. I am a writer because I keep the discipline to write. I write at least the half-hour a day it takes to maintain this blog, and hopefully at least an hour of writing/revising a day. 

I notice myself improving, and that’s a good thing.

My plate contains a smorgasbord

I have three books I’m working on at the same time. Three.

I don’t know how it came to this — well, I do. I was working on Prodigies, a dystopic contemporary fantasy about two teens born with unusual capabilities in influencing emotions and thus actions. Because of this, they are in danger from shadowy entities who find them potentially useful. Yes, it has shades of Heroes (a TV show that played from 2006-10), but it has multiple differences, too. This might become a YA novel if I finish it.

Then, my husband and partner in crime suggested I write the 20-something-year-old idea then named “Dirty Commie Gypsy Elves” by a friend of mine. That was my NaNo project, it’s since become two books and I’m working on expanding on the first so it’s a novel and not a novella.

Finally there’s my non-fiction/poetry/prose/story/research book explaining life with bipolar.  That project is currently called “Ups and Downs”.

OOPS. I’m also editing a book on roleplayer support in disaster simulation exercises and writing two chapters of it. That’s four books.

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The most compelling project right now is the non-fiction item because it’s creative, informative, and autobiographical. But both of the other books are begging for attention just now. Did I say I was going to quit writing because of too many rejections? (Oops, I forgot to quit.) Do I worry that my ideas don’t seem to quit? (Yes, I do, a little. Is it time for a med check?) Do I still wish someone would publish my stuff so people would read it and I would have money to put into a new computer that had more storage and could handle graphics? (Absolutely.)

I guess I can’t NOT be a writer.