Jelling -- Sunday Serenity --ROW80 Check-in

Live Jelly Cam -- Monterey Bay Aquarium 7am-7pm Pacific
If it's black when you tune in just back it up

 
I've decided to revive one of my old memes, Sunday Serenity, making it the focus of the Sunday post with the check-in like a footnote with little to no essay above the goals section.  Last Wednesday I spent 7 hours on my check-in post and I can't sustain two posts a week like that and then complain I can't get any writing done.

I'm not sorry I wrote that essay.  It was a story I needed to tell.  It was therapeutic and necessary for me even if nobody ever reads it. But if it is wearing me out trying to do that every check-in, I'm sure it is wearing my readers out.  So I'm backing off to one or less of such essays in a week.  And from now on if it is not ready to post after three hours I'll save the essay part as draft and post something fun and writing related above the goals section.  Even on Wednesday.

Well, Sunday Serenity will not always be writing related.  This video is only tangentially so as I have found it useful several times since I discovered it Thursday to reboot my brain, to change my focus from one task to another and most useful for writing was when I overslept and didn't have time to do my morning pages before a scheduled Zoom and I used five minutes of watching the jelly fish to put me back in my dreaming mind.  It essentially erased an hour's worth of encounters with language so I could do morning pages as if I'd just woken up.

 

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 10 minutes per day 2/3 of a yes since Thursday  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.) Note: I've adjusted the goal for the duration of the round to ten minutes a day with the caveat that as long as I'm sitting with notebook and pen it counts even if I don't write anything new.
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 10 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NOT yet   (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)  This week the life that got in the way is a crochet project for a birthday on Tuesday.  Note: I've adjusted the goal to 10 minutes 5 days a week with the caveat that I don't need to work into the pristine spiral notebook I bought for this project yet.  The first task is to get a feel for how that notebook needs to be organized and to figure that out I will start re-reading my files with loose scratch paper or note cards at hand to note down every 'fact' I encounter as I read: names, dates, descriptions, titles of books and chapters and stories, character quirks, symbolism associated with a character...etc.  It occurred to me that my resistance to this task was at least partially related to not wanting to make a mess in that pretty notebook.  So now I have permission to make a mess with scratch pads and note cards.  Let's see if that makes any difference.  Also there is a trick I'm playing on myself here.  I almost never do a thing for only ten minutes but if I think I must do 30 minutes I balk at starting thinking of all the ways I'm likely to get interrupted or not fulfill my expectations in some unexpected way.  I realized this has to do with not being able to visualize exactly what is expected.  But I know what it means to 'read' and 'take notes'  I've been doing it with other people's stories every day for weeks and weeks.  For most of a year in fact.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins.  A big YES  More 24/7 cams discovered.  Also screensaver vids of color or image in motion.  Some with music excellent for background ambience for writing.  There was also a walk to the gazebo and back with my caregiver on Friday during which I met two of my neighbors.  Finally.  After two years.  And my adjustment of Cameron's Artist Date rules makes that count for me.  But the BIG one happened Saturday while I was home alone.  I'm usually tied to my unit by fear of stepping more than three steps beyond reach of my front door without an escort.  But months of practice with my caregiver I finally found the courage to push my boundaries.  I walked out to the bench at the end of my front walk and sat in the sun crocheting for nearly an hour.  One of the ladies I met Friday stopped by for a chat.  That was huge.  I can't stress that enough.  Just about two months ago I was almost ready to try that and then on one of my escorted walks I took that fall that upended more than my body for the next several weeks.  My confidence took the biggest hit.
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two One blog post per week besides the two check-ins. Either about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews or about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  Not yet.  Note: I've adjusted my expectations here for the duration of the round.  I removed the theme of personal challenge from the options as it turns out that has been the theme of my check-in posts and those take a lot out of me and a third one would be overloading my readers as well as me.