There's That Word Again.

Boy, do we play mind games with ourselves when we're in the creative seat. I sure do, anyway. I tend to teeter between writing my head off and being blocked a couple of times a month. Excuses, excuses, I know. Normally, I can work through most things, but my Inner Child is alive and well this week.

I'm looking for any excuse not to sit my butt down and write today. Are you like me? Is it all or nothing for you? I get in those moods. It's either write for nine or ten hours a day or nothing at all. If anything on my to-do list crosses my mind, it can break the creative cycle. As it has today. 

I love and hate lists. Mine never seem to end in this old house. There's always something to do and I have to remind myself that I do it alone. I give myself a break because I just can't do it all. I realize those are excuses, too. But, how realistic are they? They have to get done, right?

I have to clean. I have to put the Fall wreath on my front door. I have to throw out clothes. I have to find the perfect winter walking outfit. I have to walk Ozzy more before it snows and we have icy sidewalks. I have to lose weight before winter sets in. I have to do a deep cleaning before the days get shorter. I have to and I must organize my documents. NOT.

There it is. That word. Organize. I really hate it or is the word documents that I hate? Both cause me to scrunch up my nose and go clean my toilet.

Here's the weird thing--my house is organized. Okay, that's taking it to the extreme. The lower level of my house is organized-ish. If you come to my house, you'd see a nice living, a very nice dining room, a cute kitchen, clutter-free steps and semi-clean windows. As clean as 107-year old windows can be. My bedroom is pretty and the bathroom is adorable.

This is me trying to pat myself on the back for things that I have done! But, the list continues...

Other things on my mind this morning and I'd better get them down because they're driving me bonkers already:

I need to color my hair before the Holidays. There it is. That word. Holidays. Sheesh. I stayed home all weekend and wrote like a fiend and was SO happy. And then, I saw a holiday commercial, complete with Christmas music. What?

A friend told me how many Saturdays we have until Christmas...are you kidding me? Well, that just made me come to a screeching halt! Immediately, I had this sense of urgency and anxiety started creeping in. I could feel it. And, just as I was at 3,000 plus words on novel #2!

What else do I need to do before I can sit and write without interruptions, distractions, and delays? I need to wait until January 2014. Could that be true? The same thing happens to me in the Spring time when the plants are peeking through in my garden and I am dying to get my hands dirty.

What's the solution?! 

Just write through it ALL. Steal an hour or two to write and don't give in to the censors in your head. I'm telling myself that, by the way. Just write when you can and don't stress yourself out.

Okay, I feel better now. My Inner Child is happy again. I don't have to pull my hair out and stress my hair, the holidays, my house, my documents and my semi-organized house that could look better. 

All I have to do is show up when I can and write. So simple. It's ME who was complicating it all.

Ellie

Moments of Pure Magic

Three inches does not a blizzard make. The weather experts on the local and national news stations looked a bit sheepish last night when they announced that the DC area had barely reached two inches of snow. I couldn't help but feel bad for them and was happy for all the kids who were off from school yesterday. I'm sure kids all over the area were hooting and hollering on their way out the door with sleds and dreams of epic snowball fights. Ya gotta love kids.

On the news last night, a mother told a reporter how she'd searched online for the location with the most snow in the area and she'd driven her kids to Manassas, Virginia so that they could play in the snow. Beautiful! Good for her and her kids, I thought.

I love a good snowfall, but I didn't enjoy trudging through the slushy snow to the post office yesterday. The sidewalks were impassable which meant that the only recourse I had was to walk the one block to the post office in the cleared street. Almost immediately, I felt cold wetness in my sock. Nice. The winter boots I purchased two winters ago were no longer water-proof. Fun!

I remember as a kid when NOTHING kept me inside and nothing prevented me from playing outside other than restriction, no matter what the weather was. My mother bundled my sister and I up until we looked like mini-blimps and once she opened that front door, we were gone until nighttime. How did we do it? How did we stay out that long? I suppose those were more innocent times when parents could let their kids out to play and not worry so much. We had no cell phones to keep us connected with our parents and were never where we told our mother we'd be. Never!

I remember one snowy afternoon when my sister, some friends and I decided that we would make an igloo. I'm laughing as I type this. Not should we or could we, we would. I love kids and their incredible imagination. They have no fear and no censor in their heads telling them that it's impossible. Of course we made that igloo! It was a fine igloo-like structure and it took us all afternoon. I still remember peeking out of our makeshift doorway in wonder as the sun went down and the snow glistened under the back porch light like millions of diamonds. A moment of pure magic! We heard my mother yelling for us shortly after that and I remember worrying that the boys would destroy our igloo in the morning. I hardly slept.

When we got inside, my sister and I stripped off our wet clothing onto the bathroom floor. The hems of my pants were frozen and I probably could have balanced my stiff pants to stand upright. I remember looking at my red, chapped legs as I entered the hot bath, wondering if I'd lose my legs to frost-bite. The steam rose off the hot water and soon, I felt tingling sensations as my skin warmed up. I never did lose a limb to snow, but in later years, my sister and I would laugh that a hot bath is probably the worst thing you can do for near-frostbite! We didn't know and we didn't have a Merck manual at home. We simply played outside until we could no longer feel our fingers and toes and then, we went home with runny noses and huge smiles.

My mother was a relaxed mother or maybe she just needed time to herself. I, on the other hand, was not so relaxed with my young kids. I owned a Merck manual that listed every disease known to man and I used it! "Let me see that spot on your leg again," I'd tell the kids. "What were your symptoms again?" It got to the point where I was so frightened that something would happen to my kids that I couldn't relax. I threw out that Merck manual and my kids taught me to play again. It was either keep my kids inside or go outside with them because the world in the late '80's was much different from the world of the 60's. So, I joined in.

Last night, I took a slushy walk with my Pug, Ozzy. Again, I marveled at how the snow glistened and sparkled under the streetlight as we walked home. Pure magic. Today, my inner child is alive and well. Take your inner child out and get your play on.

Peace and love,
Ellie