Finding Water Check in, Week 5

This was a difficult chapter for me to get through—I could feel J.C.'s fear and frustration, and it took me back to that dark place I inhabited almost all winter—just feeling hopeless and trapped. But it was reassuring to see her struggle to keep faith with her tools—her pages and her artist date and her walks.

I had to laugh at her moving back to a typewriter after using a computer, because for a long time, I would bemoan my lack of productivity while writing on the computer. The internet was always singing her siren song to me, and usually I could find a way to tie myself to the mast of my writing and continue. Then, last week, I realized I could just…write longhand. I know, duh! But it felt like a small way to take care of myself, after spending literally years berating myself for not caring enough about my writing and being so distractible, etc. Instead of that, I could just, oh, change the way that I thought about the problem.

That is a theme that is coming to me from many different sources now—I just finished reading a book (highly recommended) called One small step can change your life—suggesting that the way to make changes in your life is to take small actions, think small thoughts, solve small problems, ask small questions. He mentions how the ego LOVES big, splashy projects like “I am going to finish an entire first draft of a novel in…a WEEK!” but how resistance soon kills that little plan. So the way to move past your resistance is to take very. Little. Movements. In that direction. Now, I’ve heard this before, from Barbara Sher and SARK and Julia Cameron herself. Maybe I was finally desperate enough to try it?

And the “small questions” also applied to my manuscript. I’ve been feeling very resistant when I start writing, almost nervous, and nothing I could tell myself or change seemed to have any effect. Until I realized that I was trying to FORCE my story into a very specific form, and practically drowning my natural instincts under a strong desire to put EVERYTHING in my novel. Ten Greek myths! A whole psychological history of all of my characters! A sweeping revelatory look at the state of Motherhood in the 21st Century!

I am sure it’s no surprise that I was resisting the idea of turning my baby exploratory draft into the Great American Novel—on the first try!

So, I started asking myself very very small questions, about the way the characters looked, about the way they moved, about what they said. And I started, very, very, gently, asking myself if maybe I should focus on the two or three myths that REALLY spoke to me, instead of using so many? Tada! Back to being excited about the story.

Surprisingly enough, this all happened after I wrote my letter to God, just being small and humble and specific, not trying to force a Big Epiphany or Rush of Divine Reconnection. I’ve been having God issues, for sure, but this method of finding time to reach out, in however small a way (there’s that word again) really helped me. As did the exercises of finding a little tastes of pleasure and gratitude and working to savor them. Yesterday, while walking with the Madam in a blaze of sunshine, I took the time to stop and give thanks for the upswelling of joy that seemed to working its way through my chakras.

One small (hee) question though, if NYC makes J.C. so miserable, can’t she just…move? Or was her depression about something else?

Walks-yes, always with the Madam, which keeps the brain empty, but the body (and the Toddler) happy.

Pages—7 out of 7. I would be lost without them.

Artists Date—Does my gluttony at the local used bookstore count? I LOVE $1 used books!

See you all next week! Now go make (or write, or sing, or dance) stuff!