Yesterday on Written Expressions: The Blog there was a post entitled "Ho Ho Hum" about having difficulty getting into the Christmas spirit.
As I read, I was nodding my head in agreement. I've had difficulty getting into the spirit of Christmas for several years now. Decorating and cleaning up after Christmas ends up being my responsibility and it just adds to my work load. No matter how much I nag everyone else in the family, when it comes down to crunch time, I'm the one who ends up doing it.
And I'm so tired of buying more stuff for people who don't need more stuff. It's pointless.
I struggle to get through the holidays because I find no joy in it. It's just a matter of going through the motions and then getting back to a normal routine. I realize it's sad, and I really crave the days when I enjoyed Christmas. I just can't figure out how to get back to that feeling.
But today I read an article at Yahoo News entitled "The Grinch as Hero" with some pretty interesting suggestions for alternative ways to celebrate that shun the now standard holiday commercialism.
As I read, I found myself thinking maybe I can break out of my holiday ambivilance. Maybe there's another way! I felt my heart growing two sizes today! (okay, maybe I don't need the Grinch references).
But the point is, I think in order for me to recapture the holiday spirit I need to start thinking outside the same old, tired, worn out box.
I think maybe I'll ask everyone in my family to make one gift for each other. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate. But handmade gifts are much more personal. It shows a lot more thought and consideration than just going to (insert giant super store or mall here) and buying more stuff.
For those of you who have tapped into the Christmas/Holiday spirit, what do you do differently that makes the holiday special? How do you renew your enthusiasm for the holiday each year?
I can't wait to read everyone's ideas. Maybe I can regain that spirit yet!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Silent Voices
My characters are not speaking to me.
I'm sure all of you who are writers have experienced this at some point or another. Knowing that is comforting, but somehow not quite helpful.
I've written the character studies. I know these people. The plot is all outlined and summarized. I've even written the first 2 chapters and one in the middle.
But now I'm drawing a blank. I've fallen victim to my own self-criticism. I'm crippled by doubt. It sucks. It's amateurish. It's too outlandish. The devil is in the details and even though I can come up with the summary and plot outline, I feel unable to write the nuts and bolts. I'm incapacitated by fear over the sheer magnitude of the project.
I have to write how many pages?!
I believe in the characters and the story. But I fall into the trap of comparing my writing with already-published writers and of course I pale by comparison.
I ask myself, is it even worth the effort? Can I ever hope to compare?
All of this inner hand-wringing is obviously stifling my creative process. Although I am tempted to give in and believe the inner critic, I am also determined not to give up.
So, what do all you other writers out there do to get your inner critic to shut the heck up and allow the words to flow?
I'm sure all of you who are writers have experienced this at some point or another. Knowing that is comforting, but somehow not quite helpful.
I've written the character studies. I know these people. The plot is all outlined and summarized. I've even written the first 2 chapters and one in the middle.
But now I'm drawing a blank. I've fallen victim to my own self-criticism. I'm crippled by doubt. It sucks. It's amateurish. It's too outlandish. The devil is in the details and even though I can come up with the summary and plot outline, I feel unable to write the nuts and bolts. I'm incapacitated by fear over the sheer magnitude of the project.
I have to write how many pages?!
I believe in the characters and the story. But I fall into the trap of comparing my writing with already-published writers and of course I pale by comparison.
I ask myself, is it even worth the effort? Can I ever hope to compare?
All of this inner hand-wringing is obviously stifling my creative process. Although I am tempted to give in and believe the inner critic, I am also determined not to give up.
So, what do all you other writers out there do to get your inner critic to shut the heck up and allow the words to flow?
Monday, December 8, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Tootsies vs Piddies
This is a discussion that ensued at our house this evening as we were making dinner.
My son started basketball practice yesterday and his feet are sore. So I told him he should ice his little tootsies (which is actually ironic because his feet are gigantic). He seemed confused.
I said, "Tootsies are feet." As if nobody knows that.
He said, "No, tooties are toes." I was incredulous.
I said, "No, piddies are toes. Tootsies are feet."
He said, "You're wrong." I am never wrong. At least I don't like to be, and I fight like crazy to prove that I'm right. I knew I was right in this instance.
However, being a democratic household, we took a poll. Everyone else in the family agreed that tootsies are toes and piddies are feet.
Of course I knew they were all insanely incorrect and because I absolutely hate to be wrong, especially when I am convinced beyond a doubt that I am, in fact, right, I set out to prove myself.
I immediately looked up "tootsies" on the online dictionary, where I was proven right. Tootsies are, indeed feet. Not being satisfied with one source of correctness, I had to corroborate my correctness with another source. I found another dictionary which also proved that tootsies are feet.
Proving piddies are toes was a little more difficult, but I was able to do that as well.
I then marched triumphantly into the room where the rest of my family had completely dismissed the conversation and moved on to something much more important, like playing retro games on the old Sega machine that my hubby dug out of the storage room.
I said, "I was right. Tootsies are feet and piddies are toes."
Everyone else said, "No they're not."
My family obviously has no respect for truth, and much more respect for the democratic process.
My son started basketball practice yesterday and his feet are sore. So I told him he should ice his little tootsies (which is actually ironic because his feet are gigantic). He seemed confused.
I said, "Tootsies are feet." As if nobody knows that.
He said, "No, tooties are toes." I was incredulous.
I said, "No, piddies are toes. Tootsies are feet."
He said, "You're wrong." I am never wrong. At least I don't like to be, and I fight like crazy to prove that I'm right. I knew I was right in this instance.
However, being a democratic household, we took a poll. Everyone else in the family agreed that tootsies are toes and piddies are feet.
Of course I knew they were all insanely incorrect and because I absolutely hate to be wrong, especially when I am convinced beyond a doubt that I am, in fact, right, I set out to prove myself.
I immediately looked up "tootsies" on the online dictionary, where I was proven right. Tootsies are, indeed feet. Not being satisfied with one source of correctness, I had to corroborate my correctness with another source. I found another dictionary which also proved that tootsies are feet.
Proving piddies are toes was a little more difficult, but I was able to do that as well.
I then marched triumphantly into the room where the rest of my family had completely dismissed the conversation and moved on to something much more important, like playing retro games on the old Sega machine that my hubby dug out of the storage room.
I said, "I was right. Tootsies are feet and piddies are toes."
Everyone else said, "No they're not."
My family obviously has no respect for truth, and much more respect for the democratic process.
Reading List
I've had the same 2 books listed in the "what I'm reading" section on this blog for quite a while.
Well, I finally finished Brisingr. It didn't take me forever to finish because I wasn't interested in it, just that I'm a very busy girl.
However, it is a very, very long book and it tends to drag in many places. My 16-year-old son read it too and had the same complaint. We're both fans of the series (this is the 3rd of 4 books), but I think as a middle book in a series it suffers the sad fate of over-narration. Although Paolini's prose is often very lyrical and impressive, he could have easily condensed this book down to at least half its current length and had a book that was a much quicker read that moved the story along much more efficiently. It felt almost as if he had several pieces of action planned and then had to fill the gaps between with extra narration.
Don't get me wrong, I admire anyone who is capable of filling that much space...and then selling it. I have trouble writing longer pieces because I tend to want to get to the point. I'm not a very good rambler.
For anyone who is a fan of the Inheritance series (Eragon and Eldest), Brisingr is definitely worth reading, if for no other reason than it prepares you for the upcoming conclusion. There are some interesting battles, and some useful character development, and, of course, the story is moving along toward it's eventual completion. However, there's only one significant revelation in this book, and the rest is pretty much back story and busy work for the characters while we wait for the finale of the series in book 4.
(I'm still working on Palm Latitudes. It's an extremely dense book. I like it very much, but it's very time consuming to get through. It's like a book written in poetry rather than prose, so you have to pay very close attention to catch all the nuance. It's exhuasting!)
Well, I finally finished Brisingr. It didn't take me forever to finish because I wasn't interested in it, just that I'm a very busy girl.
However, it is a very, very long book and it tends to drag in many places. My 16-year-old son read it too and had the same complaint. We're both fans of the series (this is the 3rd of 4 books), but I think as a middle book in a series it suffers the sad fate of over-narration. Although Paolini's prose is often very lyrical and impressive, he could have easily condensed this book down to at least half its current length and had a book that was a much quicker read that moved the story along much more efficiently. It felt almost as if he had several pieces of action planned and then had to fill the gaps between with extra narration.
Don't get me wrong, I admire anyone who is capable of filling that much space...and then selling it. I have trouble writing longer pieces because I tend to want to get to the point. I'm not a very good rambler.
For anyone who is a fan of the Inheritance series (Eragon and Eldest), Brisingr is definitely worth reading, if for no other reason than it prepares you for the upcoming conclusion. There are some interesting battles, and some useful character development, and, of course, the story is moving along toward it's eventual completion. However, there's only one significant revelation in this book, and the rest is pretty much back story and busy work for the characters while we wait for the finale of the series in book 4.
(I'm still working on Palm Latitudes. It's an extremely dense book. I like it very much, but it's very time consuming to get through. It's like a book written in poetry rather than prose, so you have to pay very close attention to catch all the nuance. It's exhuasting!)
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Birth Day Reflection #2
Okay, I've been absent for a few days, but I have good excuses.
1. Thanksgiving got in the way.
2. Birthday for son #2 got in the way.
3. I am a member of the local Chamber Chorale and we are preparing for our annual Renaissance Christmas Feast and Concert. We have had rehearsals from Sat thru today, then performances are Thurs, Fri, and Sat. So between working and rehearsing, I have literally no free time.
So, in all fairness, since I posted a birthday reflection for son #1 on his birthday last week, I would like to give equal time to my youngest child.
Again, birthdays at our house always seem to elicit a reflection on the actual birth event. Even though this was his 10th birthday, a momentous one, the reflection was no different.
At 3:30 a.m., on the day he was born, I woke up to use the bathroom and as I hauled my hugely pregnant body out of bed, my water broke all over the carpet. Yuck. We lived a good hour's travel from the hospital and since contractions started right away and began to build quickly in strength and intensity, we had to scramble to get moving.
By the time we got to the hospital I was going like gangbusters. The nurses told me that labor and delivery was packed to overflowing as they ran around busily keeping track of all the laboring mothers. I asked the nurses about an epidural, so they checked to see how dilated I was: 7 cm and over 50% effaced. I panicked that I may not get an epidural because I was already so far dilated.
A side note here: I had given birth to my second child, my daughter, a mere 16 months previous to this birth. Her birth had been a harrowing and nightmarish experience where she suffered from shoulder dystocia (after her head was delivered, her shoulder stuck on my pubic bone), and the doctor literally had to insert both of her hands inside me and wrestle the baby's shoulder into the correct position for delivery. This was all done without any anesthesia of any kind. As anyone who has given birth knows, that exit is not very big, and certainly not meant to accommodate both a baby's head and 2 adult arms. Needless to say, it hurt a lot.
So, when it came time for my youngest to be born, I was determined to have an epidural because I had already had 2 difficult and painful deliveries. I wanted to avoid a third. Thankfully, they approved an epidural and the anesthesiologist was able to accomplish it in short order. Ah, the blissful glory of epidurals. Hallelujah and amen.
The rest of the birth was easy for me. I didn't feel a thing. But after my son was born, the doctor told me that he had also suffered from shoulder dystocia, though apparently not as badly as my daughter had.
The whole event, from water breaking to birth, lasted less than 5 1/2 hours. I've told my husband before that I may have difficult births, but at least they don't last very long!
So that's the story of my youngest child's birth (and inadvertently the story of my middle child, too!).
1. Thanksgiving got in the way.
2. Birthday for son #2 got in the way.
3. I am a member of the local Chamber Chorale and we are preparing for our annual Renaissance Christmas Feast and Concert. We have had rehearsals from Sat thru today, then performances are Thurs, Fri, and Sat. So between working and rehearsing, I have literally no free time.
So, in all fairness, since I posted a birthday reflection for son #1 on his birthday last week, I would like to give equal time to my youngest child.
Again, birthdays at our house always seem to elicit a reflection on the actual birth event. Even though this was his 10th birthday, a momentous one, the reflection was no different.
At 3:30 a.m., on the day he was born, I woke up to use the bathroom and as I hauled my hugely pregnant body out of bed, my water broke all over the carpet. Yuck. We lived a good hour's travel from the hospital and since contractions started right away and began to build quickly in strength and intensity, we had to scramble to get moving.
By the time we got to the hospital I was going like gangbusters. The nurses told me that labor and delivery was packed to overflowing as they ran around busily keeping track of all the laboring mothers. I asked the nurses about an epidural, so they checked to see how dilated I was: 7 cm and over 50% effaced. I panicked that I may not get an epidural because I was already so far dilated.
A side note here: I had given birth to my second child, my daughter, a mere 16 months previous to this birth. Her birth had been a harrowing and nightmarish experience where she suffered from shoulder dystocia (after her head was delivered, her shoulder stuck on my pubic bone), and the doctor literally had to insert both of her hands inside me and wrestle the baby's shoulder into the correct position for delivery. This was all done without any anesthesia of any kind. As anyone who has given birth knows, that exit is not very big, and certainly not meant to accommodate both a baby's head and 2 adult arms. Needless to say, it hurt a lot.
So, when it came time for my youngest to be born, I was determined to have an epidural because I had already had 2 difficult and painful deliveries. I wanted to avoid a third. Thankfully, they approved an epidural and the anesthesiologist was able to accomplish it in short order. Ah, the blissful glory of epidurals. Hallelujah and amen.
The rest of the birth was easy for me. I didn't feel a thing. But after my son was born, the doctor told me that he had also suffered from shoulder dystocia, though apparently not as badly as my daughter had.
The whole event, from water breaking to birth, lasted less than 5 1/2 hours. I've told my husband before that I may have difficult births, but at least they don't last very long!
So that's the story of my youngest child's birth (and inadvertently the story of my middle child, too!).
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