Someday Syndrome

Self-Induced Anger

Saturday night started with a glass of light port on ice then we toasted our anniversary with a glass of Cava Rosada and just before we left to go dancing, we threw back a shot of peach whiskey. A recipe for a fun night, surely.

Not quite so. My mood started out great. After all we were celebrating our one year anniversary and going to San Sebastian's Pride Party (where we met last year). A good friend and his new boyfriend had come over to celebrate with us. As we sat down to eat, however, I felt that Raul's attitude had changed. He had started to make little digs at me – insulting my lack of Spanish, ordering me about and getting snarky when I pushed back at his orders.

Arriving at the party, I decided all I wanted to do was dance. Otherwise I wanted to be left alone. As much as I knew Raul wanted to be affectionate, I could barely tolerate his touch – it forced me out of my private dancing world. Also, as people moved about the dance floor, they kept banging into me, jarring me further out of my world and disrespecting my right to dance uninterrupted!

I tried to ignore them, tried to have fun shaking my booty to the beat, but as person after person pushed past me, my shoulders cramped and my spine creaked like an unoiled bike chain. How dare they bother me! I was here to have fun, not to get pushed around by a bunch of drunken idiots with no respect for personal space!

At the point just before I retreated to a corner where the walls would have protected at least two sides of me, I realized that it wasn't the party-goers nor was it Raul. It was me. I was in a FOUL mood which fortunately was beginning to fade, letting sanity return.

I grabbed Raul, gave him a huge kiss and said (in Spanish of course): "I don't like alcohol. It puts me in a bad mood." I then spent the rest of the night overcoming this chemically produced anger through sheer willpower.

Someday Lessons:

• If the entire world seems lined up against you, check your attitude – maybe it's just a case of a twisted perception.
• Being self-aware doesn't just mean aware of your mind – it includes your body too.

Manifesto for World Domination

Thanks to Sandie at Geeked Off, I just discovered the Art of Nonconformity and read Chris' manifesto for world domination. In it he says:

True Success: Contrary to what you may hear from the latest self-help book, true success does not come from passive visualization or wishful thinking. It takes action, planning, and sacrifice. Like surfer-turned-songwriter Jack Johnson says in one of his coolest songs, “Don’t let your dreams be dreams.” Make them real.

This man is super cool (and not just because he quotes the sexy Jack Johnson). He knows what he's talking about. He has never lived a conventional life. He's always made conscious decisions about everything, and he's figured out how to mix selfish personal goals with unselfish giving back to the world.

I'm not going to quote more, although I could rave on and on about his easy-to-read writing style, his enthusiasm, his use of specific examples, the way he... oh wait, I said I wouldn't rave.

Just go visit his site and read the (free) manifesto – now. Seriously. Go.

Someday Lessons:

• When you find something you like, spread the news and let others share in the fun.
• Enthusiasm is contagious.

My Memoir

My sister tagged me:

Write a six-word memoir. Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like. Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogsphere . Tag 5 more blogs with links . Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

My Memoir
Someday writer?
No more.
Living it!

Who I'm tagging...

• David Bridger - because he's a fellow writer who shares my love of Doctor Who.
• From the Desk of Janet Barclay - because she's so efficient I'm certain she can easily achieve the six word limit.
• Elephant & Monkey - because I'd love to see the "teen personal development" POV on this.
• Tales from the Middle - because my sister included a family member in her list.
• Geeked Off - because she recently gave me such a great compliment and I love compliments.

Tips for Making Change Stick

As promised last week, here's the sixth and final installment in my series on making a profound and lasting change in my life. Of course, the actual process of change has just begun, but it seems to be going well and I'm happy with the initial results. We'll see how it goes as I get further into editing not just my current novel, but future projects.

In Tina Su's blog post on the topic, she gives us five tips for making the change happen more easily. They are:

• Focus on just one
• Mutual Support
• Understand Why
• Be Inspired
• Reward & Celebration

These are all things I try to do in all areas of my life. The only one I'm not so good at is the first. Being the sort of person who gets distracted by shiny objects, focusing on just one task gets really boring. Often I have a million projects started but not finished. Over the last year, however, I've really worked at paring down and most recently only have a few projects on the go at any one time.

I get my support and inspiration from my writers' website, Forward Motion, where I put up weekly goals and comment on my daily progress and the daily progress of others. Even when I feel I've had an unproductive day, someone provides me with the words to keep me going and to excite me enough to want to get productive again.

As someone who over-analyzes everything, I understand the why for all that I do – sometimes too well. I've learned to back off a bit on the analyzing and to just accept things at face value, and that includes reasons for wanting to change. For example, with my current goal of wanting to be better at focusing on the details in my writing while keeping the big picture in mind, it's enough to know that this will improve my chances to get published. I don't need to explore why I either see the whole forest or the bark of one tree; that's irrelevant to achieving the change.

Finally, the rewards and celebrations – again my writers' website provides a lot of that, but the biggest reward in this instance is rereading my writing and seeing how much better it is when I pay attention to both the details and the big picture.

Anyone out there have any other tips on making change stick? What helps you achieve an alteration in habits?

Someday Lessons:

• Know thyself – change will stick only by chance if you're not self-aware.
• Be willing to ask for help when you need it (yes, I've said this before but it can't be repeated too often).

Someday I'll Be Rich

In a fit of procrastination (this being Tuesday), I wrote down my "Somedays." I included only things about which I was passionate and came up with ten. In looking at them more carefully, I discovered that I had repeated myself five times. Of the five that remained, numbers two and three were a subset of number one, giving me in reality only three "Somedays" that I have not yet realized.

My relationships are awesome (romantic, family and friends – including a one year anniversary with Raul as of yesterday). I love where I live (even if it's only 225sq ft) and although my health isn't perfect, I know how to manage it and am content with that. "Someday" number two (learning Spanish and Basque) is well underway and number three is very personal but also moving forward. I don't have to actively pursue these – they will happen with patience and time.

"Someday" number one, however, is totally up in the air – and it's one many people worry/dream about: money. Someday my fiction and non-fiction writing will create enough income to support me at my chosen level of lifestyle through retirement. I work on this "Someday" daily, but I have little or no guarantee that anything will come from the effort I put in.

I can only continue to plug away at it, learn all that I can about writing and the publishing world, and maintain patience and perseverance.

Someday Lessons:

• How many areas of your life (relationships, finance, romance and health) have "Somedays" hanging over them?
• What are you doing to actively remove the word Someday from these areas of your life?

Recording My Progress

(Part 5 in a series where I'm working on creating a profound and lasting change)

The final step in the process of creating change that lasts is to write it down. I already do this every day through my online writing group. At the beginning of each week we tell others about our goals and then comment on what we've done each day.

Next week I will look at the five other tips Tina mentions in her blog post. This weekend, however, I won't think about my writing at all as we're heading down to Girona province (near Barcelona) for a wedding (and finally the weather has turned hot and sunny!)

Someday Lessons:

• Sometimes what you're already doing will dovetail nicely with what you want to be doing.
• Progress is best made when you take time off as well.

Living Change Now

(Part 4 in a series of creating profound and lasting change)

Today I started living the new reality, as if I have already achieved my goal. Therefore, when editing my novel today, I focused on the words, on every detail in the text, but while doing so I kept asking "so what?" The "so what?" refers to the big picture – what does this particular detail have to do with the big picture? I cut out so much text and rewrote a whole bunch other.

The one thing I need to do still, however, is articulate the big picture – actually two big pictures, the novel big picture and the chapter big picture. I know this story deep in my bones, having worked on it for 18 months now, but I want to put it in clear writing.

I don't look forward to that though. As my sister said in a comment yesterday – we're divers, not lookers. I know in the long run I will improve my book for doing this exercise before I continue editing, but it doesn't produce a word count and doesn't produce any immediate progress.

However, as I said Tuesday, I've committed to the process and the change, so tomorrow morning before I start editing the next chapter, I'll write down all the pieces of the big picture. It's like hanging a shelf – you can hang it without prepping, and end up making a mess of the wall, or you can get all your tools lined up, beforehand, measure a couple of times, and hang the shelf with ease.

Someday Lessons:

• Prep work, while it might not look productive, makes later work easier and faster.
• Make sure your prep work is just that – preparation, not procrastination. It's easy to turn planning into a technique to avoid doing.

Crafting a New Reality

(Part 3 in my desire to make a profound and lasting change in my life)

I've mentioned before (a couple of times) how discussing my goals can derail achieving them. With my current goal – to pay more attention to details in my writing – I have another challenge. Unfortunately, this goal is a bit abstract. It's not like saying "I want to eat more vegetables." That one is measurable. A new reality for this goal might look like: "I will eat two servings of fruits or vegetables with each meal." I can picture that outcome; it's concrete.

But how will I know when I've achieved my current goal? Yesterday when describing the problem, I said that that I'm a big picture or small detail type, nowhere in between. The obvious goal would be finding the balance, of holding the big picture in my mind while examining the details, however I  have no idea how to measure that.

Not having ever experienced this state of balance before, I'm turning to you for help – how will I know I've achieved this goal when it's not directly measurable?

Someday Lessons:

• Admit when you don't something and ask for help.
• Trial and error sometimes is the only way to figure out a workable solution to a problem.

Using today's trial and error method. Here's a go at crafting a new reality for my goal...

Trying Something New

As part of my goal to put more focus on the details in my writing, I'm using Tina Su's blog post on profound and lasting changes as my method of change.

The first step is to articulate a reality, that is to state the thing I would like to change, to describe it with nuances and details, what the Law of Attraction types refer to as the first half of the clarity through contrast process.

I call it unproductive.

Being a talker (and a bit of a Drama Queen), when I start describing a situation I want to change, I blow it completely out of proportion. And then I wallow in it, reveling in the concentrated negativity.

I would much rather paint the current and future realities in wide brush strokes and keep my energy for the actual change – the fine brush strokes needed to turn a rough sketch into a masterpiece.

I have, however, committed to this process, so will do every step as written.

Someday Lessons:

• Don't dismiss advice out of hand – there's a slight chance you might be wrong.
• When you commit to something, commit to it wholly.

My articulated reality follows after the jump...

Making Change Stick

I'm really proud of myself. Starting last week, I've suppressed my usual procrastination tendencies and hardcore editing my novel. As of today I'm 30% through the first pass. I say first pass because I'll need to polish out the editing widows, typos, grammar, and a million other little details to make the whole thing shine. For those who know me, there's a word in that last sentence that I never like to think about. Yup, it's "details" – I hate them, but I've realized that if I want to get my novel published (and future novels too), then I need to pay attention to the details in my writing. This means not just working harder than I usually do; it means making a profound change in how I view the world.

To help me with that change, I went surfing on the web (because you can find help for just about anything out there) and came across a great article on profound and lasting changes on the ThinkSimpleNow blog. I'm going to try the advice Tina Su gives in the blog, which means you as readers get to see the process I go through to get there.

Su outlines four actions and five tips, so starting tomorrow and going through to the end of the month I'm going to do and write about each of them one by one. The actions and tips aren't  radically different from what I've posted many times here, but I'm like most people and rarely take my own advice.

Someday Lessons:

• Follow someone else's path for a while – it'll open up new ways of considering old problems.
• The same thoughts expressed by different people in different ways produce different results – don't get trapped into thinking just one way.