Just Keep Writing (or Painting) (or Playing) (or Whatever)

If you've been checking out my word count on the left hand side (and why would you?) you would have seen that my count is steadily going up, up, up. I'm almost halfway through NaNoWriMo, and I'm buzzing along, working on the novel almost every single day.

But I have a friend who is not so lucky. She's a painter, but she has not painted anything in months. This week, trying to put a fire under her, I told her we were going to eat lunch Friday, and if both of us paint on a given week, we go Dutch. If one paints and the other does not, the one who didn't paint pays for lunch. If neither of us paint, we don't get to go to lunch at all.

I had really hoped she would paint on Wednesday, her one day off this week… but she didn't. I haven't painted either, but I was hoping to paint my Christmas watercolor for my Christmas cards. I have to get it done VERY soon so that I can scan the artwork in, order cards on Vistaprint, and get them back in time to send out for Christmas.

I've also been diligently working on the costume for my friend's role in A Christmas Carol, and it should be finished this weekend. And I'm also probably going to hit 30,000 words on my novel by Saturday afternoon.

I'm no better than my poor non-painting friend, but we have an inherent difference, and it's one I've changed just recently: I am no longer willing to put off all the things I love so that I can finish all the mundane, boring have-tos of my life. I am putting my loves ahead of other crap.

My beleaguered friend is the opposite, finding all sorts of mundane crap to pile onto her work desk so that she never gets to paint the way she really wants to. So she's miserable.

Even as I keep sewing, and writing, and painting, I will keep working on my friend. And one of these days, very soon, we'll go Dutch. I can't wait until that happens!

A New Pact

I'm really sorry to have to do this, but I've been fighting myself every day for most of the summer. You see, while I've been involving myself in all sorts of activities, from reading books I love (or know I will love, once I read them), to playing piano, to camping, and even to working on my two new online courses, I have NOT been writing every day.

So here it is. From this blog on, I am no longer allowed to write my blog on a given day until I work for AT LEAST one hour on my writing projects. I don't have to choose a certain project, but the one I work on has to be one of the projects I have on hand (there are plenty of them!)... and I have to work on it for a good, long while. 

If you don't hear from me for the next few days, it's because my id is still holding off my superego. However, if I write tomorrow, it's because I am finally on task again. I can certainly use any encouragement I can get. I still haven't figured out why I'm fighting it (since the urge is still there, and it's the reason I get up every morning), but I haven't truly spent time on my writing in about a month. It's time for me to stop putting it off, stop leaving it at the bottom of my to-do list for the day. I intend to stay up at night--late, if necessary--if only to make sure I keep doing what I love. 

Wish me luck! And I hope to be able to blog VERY soon!

The Voice of God?

Yesterday's blog was full of promises... I was going to redirect my energies towards a certain piece of writing, use what time I had to do something real with my talents... 

But then the day happened, and when the sun had set, and I looked back on it, I hadn't written anything except my blog. That made me wonder. If I had a gift but never used it, would it be taken from me? I imagined God, looking down at me, at my wasted day, filled with nothing but chores. He looked back over the last month, where I'd accomplished pretty much nothing of note at all... and he decided he'd had enough.

"Cheryl," he intoned down to me, his voice resonating, "you've been a bad little girl."

"Yes, God." (What was I supposed to do, deny it? He was right.)

"Since you can't seem to make any time to write, I've decided to take your talent from you."

"No, please," I'd beg. "I don't paint much, either, but when it do it turns out pretty good still."

God thinks that one over. "Maybe I should take that one away, too."

"Please, no!" I whine. "All I'll have is my piano and my sewing."

"But you haven't done enough with those either. Or that theatre thing you do."

"But--"

"Now, no arguing. You know you don't deserve any of it."

And I don't. I don't have a comeback for that one. I just rub my toe into the dirt, dejected.

"Okay, now, don't cry," God says. "I'll let you have them a while longer. But do something with them, okay?" Sounds just like me begging my son to behave for once at preschool. Does God know he's likely to reap the same level of effort from me as I do from my son? Surely, if he is real, God knows this already.

I nod, hoping I can make the next few years different from the last few. I hope I can write more, write every day, write stuff that's really worthwhile, ignore the online games, get the chores done faster so that I have more time for what's really important, and not fritter away what little time I have on useless, stupid things. 

I hope, I hope, I hope. Will I change, though? Only time will tell. If you have any advice for how I can do this better, I'd love to hear it.