Tag: life lessons

November Update

Photo by Kelly Sikkema

This year has been the most difficult year I can remember. Emotionally, I’m drained. Physically, I’m tired. Mentally, I’m frazzled.

But I am on the mend.

All of 2024 has been one shit show after the other, starting 6 days into the new year! Tragedy after tragedy, death after death, loss after loss. But through it all, I’m still kicking and screaming. Sure, there were times when I thought this year would break me. Times where I felt like I was drowning and the usual mechanisms that could save me were broken and sinking.

After a difficult few months, and the literal feeling like I was drowning, I started taking anti-depressants. They helped me feel better, but for the first time in my life since I decided I wanted to be a writer: I couldn’t write.

I feared that writing had been my depressive addiction, that I used writing to avoid the difficult things in life. While I definitely used it as a distraction before medication, I worried I would not be as creative on the medication. That was a big roadblock.

Another roadblock to writing was the loss of trust in NaNoWriMo. I used to give them the benefit of the doubt on most things over the years as an ML (Municipal Liaison) for them, but after the allegations of child grooming in 2023 and then the increased vitriol and hatred, finally culminating in a series of “unimportant” emails that were actually important (shocking!) where all the MLs were nuked. I have moved on.

That transition was difficult. I had used the monthly writing model for years, ever since I found NaNoWriMo in 2009. I had built up monthly writing goals, editing goals, word count goals, but after that experience was tarnished, I felt like everything else was tarnished too. So I stopped writing.

November used to be NaNoWriMo. I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I am planting seeds for 2025 and making plans.

This year did not go as I intended it to go in any of the ways I had planned. Wave after wave of grief and loss. The medication helped, but it brought out some focus issues. Which led me to be diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD.

Once I was diagnosed (and medicated), all the little quirks, little issues, big issues and avoidant tendencies suddenly made sense.

Looking back on basically my whole life with the new lens of “I have Depression and ADHD” was absolutely wild. I had to spend some time cataloguing my entire life and noticing both what I had missed out on thanks to the anxiety and fear from my depression and ADHD, but also the signs that I missed of both my depression and ADHD. That was definitely a mindfuck and a little pity party, but it was needed. Now I know how to move forward.

I took a break from writing this year and that’s OK. It was more like I was forced to take a break, but that’s a good thing. I needed to pause, evaluate and figure out how to move forward.

I’m currently in an MFA program for Creative Writing (timing is great, isn’t it?) and that has been rough. I’ve always been a good student, but these first few classes have been a creative struggle and a lesson in how to adapt. One of the classes is “The Business of Writing” and I’m seeing the places where I fall short.

I’ve had great intentions for putting myself out there, but I have always fallen short. But now that things are on the mend, I am going to do my best to improve.

Along with not writing this year, I picked up gardening, knitting (and some crochet- still learning), built a lot of furniture for the newly opened side of my house, and created a space that makes me truly feel happy and creative.

I’m making plans to be more present for 2025. I’m making plans to get back into writing and not make it feel like such a struggle. I’m working on putting myself more out there with my writing and my art despite my intense fear of heartbreaking rejection.

You’ll see more from me over the next few weeks of 2024 and in 2025!

 

Writer Life Lesson #1: Write It Down

Being a writer means writing, but sometimes writing doesn’t come as easy as we might like. Sometimes the ideas don’t come flowing as a raging waterfall splashing the exact words we want on the page. Sometimes they show up when we have no way of remembering. Sometimes the ideas keep us up at night, or catch us right between sleep and awake and the next morning we don’t remember them.

The best way to combat all of these problems is to write it down!

If the ideas don’t come as easy as we would like, or if the ideas are there, but we’re scared of the words, terrified with the fear that the words will be the worst ever, the only solution is to write through it. It doesn’t matter if the words are “I don’t know what to write” or “Hitler was such a jackass”. It doesn’t matter if they connect to what you were writing or not, just write your first thought, as soon as you pick up that pen or open that document. If the first words you write suck, or are outrageous, the pressure to find the right words will be lessened. If after that first thought, you’re still stuck, keep doing it until you find the right words. You can always go back and edit it (or laugh about it later).

If you have the exact opposite problem, and get ideas when you can’t write them down or keep them long enough to remember them, find a mental image wherever you are, something you’ll remember like an orange penguin eating purple pancakes, or imagine the thought over and over and over again as many times as you can until you get the chance to write it down. If you have a pen, but no paper, write it on your hand or wrist or wherever it will stay until you can write it down somewhere permanently. If the same think occurs at night, and you don’t or can’t turn on a light, I recommend a small whiteboard, or something you can grab quickly in the dark and jot down the idea before it flies away.

White board above my bed. Several ideas live there

So whether the ideas won’t come, or they won’t stop coming: Write it down. No matter how dumb it seems at the time, you never know when you can recycle it later, or turn it into something else.

After all, some of the craziest ideas make the best stories.

How do you keep track of your ideas?