Courage Journey

Chapter 7 opened with a scene at the waterfront, one of my favorite places at real life camp.  It's a place of zen in spite of the organized chaos.  Whenever I'm there, I close my eyes for a moment to drink in the sound around me.  The happy shrieks of campers being playfully splashed.  The roar of a counselor pretending to be a lion as they tromp around the shallow end with more kids dangling off their back than should be humanly possible.  The thump, thump, thump of wet feet padding the planks of the pier toward the deep end, just shy of running, but racing all the same.  The thwap of a life jacket smacking the water, the last piece of a swim test so close to being completed once they click that strap into place.  The far away voices carrying across the water as rowboats drift further away.  The giggles of a counselor being buried in the sand matched by the giggles of the kid doing the burying.  The slap of UNO cards on the nearest picnic t...

One of the reasons I started this book was to give myself space to confront very real feelings.  As I said in my first post , despite the sheer highs that camp produces, there are also a lot of low lows.  Chief among the lows for me is grief.   Grief about the literal pain the kids endure through treatment, about the way their lives have been changed, and about the people they could've been.  Grief about the loss they feel in their own lives, about friendships created and changed through relapse, and about the old fashioned, straight up kind of grief that comes from death.  Their deaths.  Their friend's deaths.  The death of the kid who shared their cabin last year that they never connected with so now they carry deep regret with them right next to the grief.  Grief comes in so many shapes, sizes, and colors at camp that it's kind of a constant.  For me, processing grief is a little bit like being a parent whose kid is pulling at their p...

Last week, thanks to a suggestion from my friend Brooke, I read Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic .  It was one of those experiences where you read or hear something at exactly the moment you need to read or hear it.  Maybe you've been told the same message before but this fifth, twelfth, hundredth time it clicks in a way that it never did before.  That's what reading her book was like for me.   Big Magic got me thinking about how long I've let creativity live in a shadow world that I was ignoring.  Deciding to write this book about my camp experience was like creaking open a door and peaking into a dark room, uncertain about whether to go inside.  It was a sudden realization that I hadn't given myself permission to cross the threshold.  I hadn't given myself over to writing yet.   Yes, I have been speaking it into the universe that my goal is to publish.  Yes, I've been doing the work behind the scenes to learn more about craft work a...

This last week was a difficult one for creativity.  It was difficult for democracy above all else, and for me, that translated to a lot of internal work to emotionally process it.   For the first time since I started the writing component of this project, I did not want to engage it.  I wrote two scenes at the start of last week, all signs pointing to my usual level of productivity.  But as events unfolded on Wednesday at the capitol building, the threat to our democracy was truly the only thing my heart had the space to think about.  I tweeted, I texted, I lost myself in media, admittedly more than I should have, and tried to breathe in between.  When I thought about the writing I had scheduled for Wednesday night, I just couldn't go there.  I needed to be a part of the events that were unfolding in real time and not just lose myself in fiction.  I meditated before bed, and hoped for a re-set for my creativity in the morning. Early morning y...

Despite my own intentions, I have not done a 2020 year in review, nor have I put pen to paper on my goals for 2021.  The New Year came in a flash for me, as I decided to host my nephew for a few days and thus focused all my energy on him.  When he left on January first, I immediately took a nap to restore all the expended energy...and then I felt like that state of "rest" needed to extend to the remainder of the weekend.  Honestly, it's what I needed and I have no regrets about it, even if I find myself 4 days into the year without a "plan" or broad stroke "goals."  Admittedly, I do need to strike a balance between planning/goal setting and spontaneity though, as I find I work best when I am in that sweet spot.  To help with the former around my writing and this project, I took another page out of my friend Greta's book and ordered myself a Passion Planner.   It may still be a few weeks before it arrives, but I'm going to give thought to the ex...

Today I'm patting myself on the back for sticking to my writing schedule during the week of Christmas.  I finished all four of my scene goals for the week, and this week is off to a good start as well.  If I stay on track, I will finish Chapter 3 by Sunday.   The writing itself is coming easier with the aid of the sprints.  It's been a really helpful method to not belabor the writing and to just get the story on page.  During sprints tonight one of the other sprinters on IG mentioned that he feels like his characters are talking alone in a white room and several others commented that they often feel the same - like characters are talking or thinking alone in an empty space.  One girl responded that her works always feel that way until she finishes her second draft.  It was honestly really comforting to know that others struggle with the push/pull on plotting, action, & dialogue vs. description and settings.  At this point, I've built the ...

Christmas is four days away, but I'm not letting it stop me from progressing or letting it be an excuse to take a break.  I wrote 10,577 words last week, and if all goes well, tonight's writing sprint will closeout Chapter Two.   In order to stay on point, I've decided to check in with myself every week and take a look at the schedule one week at a time.  What would I have to do to write four scenes this week?  What would that look like?  Where can I fit it in or make the time?  You'd think the answer to that question would be easy given that we're all stuck inside with little else to occupy our time, but I've worked hard in the last months to ensure my days are balanced.  As someone who is a "life long learner," in my pre-pandemic life, I tended to go all in on projects and then top out or lose interest quickly when I felt like I'd learned what I needed or was ready for the next challenge.  That obviously won't work with a project like this ...