#writersnotebook 9 Sept - 6 Oct
🙃 self-care: whelp. Sometimes self-care is hard to come by and for the past month this has been the case for me. I’m putting faith and trust in myself that I will come back soon to my daily and weekly practices. BUT it’s always a red flag for myself (and when I’m coaching) when I hear: “After xyz is over I will get back to self-care.” I had a huge project at work that finally wrapped up this week, but I’m keeping an eye on myself and making sure I don’t slip back into old habits of not prioritizing my needs.
podcast I’m loving: Up and Vanished Season 1 (don’t know if I’m loving the content or loving having a complete distraction from life 🤪)
books I’m reading: A Council of Dolls: A Novel by Susan Power and Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
🖊 writing: I’m in the middle of an online writing course with one of my teachers, Rachel Thompson that is focused on writing a complete book. I’ve spent many hours prepping my whole book outline that is going to workshopped soon. I will report back on how that goes. Her exercises have been helping me explore my novel in new ways. For example, I drew a map of the setting of the book, which is mostly in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. This came from me asking myself what is the setting of this book? and feeling like I couldn’t put my finger on it. I try to make completing writing exercises as fun and creative as possible. One of my tried and true pieces of writing advice is that lots of things “count” as writing, like walking, reading, meditating, drawing, conversations with your community, etc…
💻 writer admin: The past month I’ve felt like a losing boxer in the ring in terms of trying to get published. Four rejections came in September. Punch 🥊, punch 🥊, punch 🥊, punch 🥊. That’s what it felt like. I need to give myself some space after rejections and this was hard because right when I felt a bit better, another one popped into my inbox. Rejection is part of the process is my mantra for this, but I want to be honest that it hurts. And it makes me question my work, which can mess with your head! This is why writing community is so important to me ⬇️
💫 writer community: With my schedule so full this past month, I have not been able to attend any of my typical writing community events and I can definitely feel the negative effects of that. I am inside a lovely community for my writing course and that is filling the gap right now. 💛 Plus, I get the opportunity to read other writers’ work this month and I love getting behind the scenes to see how their brains work.
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