Friday, November 1, 2013

My latest mantras

It occurs to me that trying to get in the rhythm of posting on the blog again is kind of like trying to get back into exercise when you've been avoiding it for a while...

Same avoidance techniques: I'm too busy, I'm too tired, I don't know how to get started, I pulled a muscle last time I tried, I might do it tomorrow, it might hurt, my pinkie toe is sore today, etc. A little cheese with my whine, please.

Bleh. Am I a writer or a mouse?! A writer.

So it's November and I'm dragging my kicking-and-screaming little self to NaBloPoMo. William Stafford frequently told students who struggled with writer's block to lower their standards and keep going.

WARNING: This seems like a perfectly acceptable mantra to me at the moment. I am promising only quantity, not quality this month. We are trying to revive a writer here.

Speaking of which:

Mantras I Am Living By Lately
  • Every hall, every day. (This means that I walk every hallway of Oregon City High School at least once every day. In case you have been wondering, there are there are something like 14 different hallways in the school. Each one is about 100 feet long. It's a big school.) By the way, this has been my mantra for all of 2 days. We'll see if I can maintain this noble effort. 
  • My stomach is as big as my closed-up fist. (This helps me eat less, sometimes. Really, why am I cramming so much food into such a little space?)
  • Go to bed. Tired is stupid. (This memorable quote comes to us from A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin. Thank you, Ursula. I really am trying to get to bed by 9:00 every night.)
  • "I don't see it nowhere in evidence..."  I learned this awesome line last year when I was Grandma Ida in The Homecoming at OCHS. It comes in handy when things go missing. Which seems to be more often now that I am sneaking up on 59 + 1/2.
  • If I'm stuck on what to write for NaBloPoMo, then lower my standards and keep writing. See you tomorrow!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Glad to see you blogging/writing. I'm not going to push it while we are moving, but I'm going to commit to everyday from Dec 15th to January 15th, as we transition into freezing weather, Christmas in Alaska, and becoming college students again.