Wednesday - Write By Music and ROW80 Goals

 

Medieval, Middle Ages Music

There is something about this Medieval music that is addictive.  Many moods are represented from glee to gloom and from longing to whimsy but overall I'm left with a feeling of having the cobwebs cleaned out of my head.

It is late Friday evening as I work on polishing this for posting.  I did't get started on it on Wednesday because I was unwell.  Low grade fever and all that goes with that. Since we've been shut in here since mid March that was unlikely to be any kind of virus so I'm assuming it was another flareup of my bad teeth.

I began work on thisThursday morning and was within half an hour or so from publishing when we lost internet shortly after 11am and it did not return until after 11:30 last night. Much too late to to be engaging with it again.  

Then today my morning brain fog didn't dissipate in time to work on it before it was time for Mom's lunch routine which was soon followed by dinner prep which was my turn, then sitting with Mom while she ate and then kitchen cleanup and her bedtime routine.  My sister has most of the duty in helping Mom transfer from here to there and dressing and meds and thus for both the morning getting from bed to breakfast and evening getting from recliner to bathroom to bed but I'm on call for any contingency such as fetching random items or moving the transfer chair if my sister pens herself in with it.  I'm also on for the final light's out ritual involving adjusting her bed's remote control, getting her drinks and making sure she has no more requests.

Some might think I could be using some of that waiting time I don't need to be right there with her for tasks like this or even writing but I have difficulty getting my brain switched from one task to another so I tend to put off getting started on something I need to focus on if I'm fairly sure I'm likely to be interrupted before I'm done.  This is probably related to the autism issues.  It plays havoc with the writing portion of my goals all the time.

Then there is the issue with my hearing.  Partly typical aging ears but also an autism related thing in which once I have switched my focus I have shut out the distractions and that includes 'hearing' my name called even identifying Mom's beeper and differentiating it from all the notifications coming over mine or my sister's devices all day.

By choosing to work on this after Mom is in bed I risk getting so focused on it I forget to move on to the next necessary thing and thus put my 7.5 hour sleep requirement at risk because my habit there is just a few months old against the many decades of hit and miss (mostly miss) sleep which turned my mind into an amusement park for my moods complete with roller coasters and haunted houses.

The goal rating reflected below is for the Sunday evening thru Wednesday morning time frame and reflects the aftermath of the Friday/Saturday read-a-thon and the sleep deprivation and catch-up.  Because of the thon tho my reading brain got turned on and hasn't really shut down again.  I have managed to read every day about double what I was doing before the thon using the same tactics I was using for the thon--carrying devices with ebooks and audio books around with me and using them impulsively. But I don't regret having participated as the read-a-thons are one of the few joys in my life and besides I consider reading of any kind an investment into my writing I'm confident it will pay off.

If only I could find a way to carry my writing around in my pocket like an ebook.  By 'my writing' tho I include the mental privacy I need to keep my mind focused and feeling free to engage my imagination.  A mixture of fear of interruption with fear of being observed freezes my mind.  

This fear of observation is one I've had as far back as I can remember and that is into my toddler years.  It seems I conflate having my physical self observed with having my inner self observed.  As if eyes on my face and body are the same as reading my mind.  And that is anxiety provoking on a par with being caught participating in a resistance movement inside an authoritarian regime.  

The inexplicable thing is I have clear memories of that particular anxiety at play as early as kindergarten and that was decades before I first became conscious of thoughts heretical to the church doctrines I was raised with.  When I try to pin it down the thing I zero in on is a feeling of intense shame associated with being lost in my daydreams.  Since my writing is rooted in such daydreaming that begins to explain why I have such a hard time finding the time to write under the conditions I currently contend with. Slipping into the daydream is often enough to trigger the anxiety that snaps me right back out. 

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2020

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

2020 Round 3 ROW80 goals check-in:

* Sleep 7.5 hours Daily Minimum --  Unsatisfactory effort

* Move/Breathe/Meditate 15 min Daily minimum  -- Satisfactory effort

* Storydreaming with note-taking tools at hand. 15 min Daily Minimum -- This is a technique I learned from Robert Olen Butler in the book From Where You Dream. -- Unsatisfactory

* Read Fiction 30 min Daily Average --  Above and beyond

* Read/Study Craft 15 min Daily Average --  Above and beyond

* Social network activities 30 min Daily Minimum (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) -- something I've a strong resistance to.  --  Satisfactory effort

* 30 min Daily minimum engagement with a scavenger hunt though all my creative writing files including Joystory looking for better than shitty first draft scenes, sections, stories, poems and essays and edit, organize and make hard copies. --  Unsatisfactory

* To prep for self-pub: Gather all my poems into a single Scrivener file. Minimum one poem per day until all accounted for.  Adding new ones encouraged. --   Unsatisfactory

* Personal Journaling 45 min or 1000 words whichever come first Daily Minimum -- This is the heart of the writing challenge.  The preceding provides the structure and the nutrients that nurtures and honors the work which I've learned over time must exist to ensure that this becomes more than just dabbling.  --  Unsatisfactory

For an explanation and links to backstory see the ROW80/Camp NaNo Goals post.