My mother-in-law died this week. It wasn’t unexpected. She was under the care of hospice, and had been declining in health since her husband’s death in 2011. My mom died in 2012. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, for close to two years I’ve been embroiled in a family fight over money that has created stress, and with it, debilitating anxiety. We finally reached a settlement agreement a couple of weeks ago, but 2014 has been the hardest year of my life. In 2013, I’d buried my grief and escaped into my work. But by 2014, as family tensions escalated, my grief erupted and I had to stop working. My clients fell away like dominoes, I reduced my teaching schedule to one class, and I hit the pause button on my memoir, The Raw Years: A Midlife Quest for Health & Happiness.
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Not long ago, a student who has been taking my classes consecutively for the past three years stopped by to pick up a letter of recommendation for a PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship. This same student, during her second year in my class, wrote a novel, for which she secured literary representation last fall. Our class is on summer break and I hadn’t seen her since June. After we took care of our PEN business she shared her growing frustrations with me about her writing career. “I felt like I gave my baby away,” she told me, and then lamented that she rarely hears from her agent and has no idea what’s going on with her book. Unfortunately, for writers lucky enough to sign with an agent, this is not an uncommon story. I did not choose to be a writer; writing chose me. It took a long time to realize this. For years I believed I’d chosen this occupation. I sensed it might be hard. At times I worried I would not succeed, or that I might not be smart enough, or have anything interesting to say. I spent days, months, and years doubting myself and resisting my urge to write. I used to wonder whether I’d wasted those hours, but I now believe that I needed that time and space to think, and learn, and grow. I needed to struggle, because through my struggle I grew. And this continues to be true. I wrote this post for my July monthly She Writes column. Have you ever heard the term AFOG? If you’re interested in creative writing and personal growth read on! Two months ago, I touched upon journal writing in my post, “What To Do When You Feel Like You Can’t Write?” I alluded to the fact that basically, when life throws you a curve ball, one of the best things you can do is write in your journal. I spoke about how journal writing provides self-comfort and self-knowledge. I said it was your writer’s training ground, your therapist, and your best friend rolled into one. But journal writing is such an essential part of my writing life that I wanted to say more. Recently, in my writing class, one of my students apologized because she’d spent her thirty minutes of writing time scribbling what she described as “nothing worth reading.” This woman is a wonderful poet, fiction writer, and English Department Chair at one of the most prestigious private schools in Los Angeles. Everyone in our class knew that although she felt “off” that night, chances were better than decent she’d written something worth listening to—despite her disclaimer that it was “just a bunch of selfish navel-gazing.” This post was featured earlier this month on She Writes, an online organization serving over 20,000 writers. They also have a first-rate press, which is publishing exquisite books! If you haven’t already done so, check them out! Have you gotten up on the “wrong” side of the bed lately? If so, you know that how you wake up in the morning can set the tone for your entire day. Do you awaken to an alarm clock, jump out of bed, and feel rushed all day long? Do you feel like the day’s to-do list will take a week to complete? Does your life feel like a succession of endless striving and doing? If so, slowing down your morning wake-up process can make a difference in your day. Waking up slowly and deliberately—bringing awareness to this time of day—can help you maintain your equilibrium, which will make you calmer, and also more productive. Here are a few suggestions for bringing awareness into your mornings and starting your day with consciousness attention, clarity, and joy: A few weeks ago I found out I was mentioned in Deborah Siegel’s excellent She Writes Webinar, “Thought Leadership for Writers.” |
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