#writersnotebook 6 Oct - 24 Oct
🧐 self-care: Do you agree that self-care in times of high stress is the toughest to establish? During the last few years of my mom’s life, I was in constant fight or flight mode. I was making a conscious choice to be involved in her day-to-day care, but the effects have been damaging. Three years later, I am still working to be in a more balanced flow of dealing with stress and lowering my cortisol. This is one reason why I am incredibly passionate about taking care of ourselves as women.
I thought I would show you what attempts of self-care look like for me when I am in a high stress situation now. Last week I was out of town for a work conference. Tensions were extremely high for a variety of reasons across the board, I was needing to attend to urgent work issues for most of the conference (rather than learn and reconnect with colleagues), and I had a migraine for four days. Yikes.
here’s what i did:
😴 layed in the hotel bed with a heating pad, eye pillow, peppermint essential oil, every chance I got
🥤 drank water, diet soda (without shaming myself), and ate something with protein whenever I could
👯♀️ reached out to my friends who were there for help. they gathered in my room late night for laughs and took me on a walk the final morning which was when my headache finally broke. here’s a chicago photo from that morning ⬅
🎧 podcast I’m loving: The Dream, season one
📚 books I’m reading: Banyan Moon by Thao Thai and Never Say You Can't Survive by Charlie Jane Anders (this second one is a writing book that is beloved by many writers in my communities)
🖊 writing: My novel got workshopped by a lovely group inside of Rachel Thompson’s writing community! I now have tons of ideas for revisions. And I received lots of beautiful reflections on my entire book outline. I also got feedback from a new coach at the writing retreat I attended. Her name is Tracie and her site is linked if you are curious about her offers. Tracie reviewed my first 30 pages (!!) and gave me spot-on, top notch feedback. I can’t tell you how important this moment of receiving feedback felt to me. I have been sharing bits and pieces with folks who support me and getting love bombs in return, but it’s time to learn where I need to improve the manuscript. Tracie is gentle and kind, with an introvert’s soul like me (hope she doesn’t mind my saying so). She was able to give me detailed feedback, using my own work as the backdrop. Like for example, that my dialogue was working and that she wanted more of it. And that she wanted to be in the moment of certain events that my main character, Leah, is reflecting on - so I might change a passage from a reflection to the actual event unfolding.
I’m feeling ready for the next big step of the book! Revisions! At some point I will need a few beta readers of the entire novel. If that sounds like something you might be interested in / have bandwidth for, please email me: orchidstoryemail@gmail.com.
💻 writer admin: One more rejection came in since my last post. That’s all to report.
💫 writer community: Patting myself on the back for engaging in several writing communities during these weeks. Sometimes, being able to listen to someone’s story is incredibly healing for me. Listening means being fully present with no distractions and allowing the story to wash over me, filling in the gaps and holes where empathy and love have drained out. It’s a moving experience. I know what it takes to draw the story out of your soul, make it sound good on the page and have the courage to speak it out loud to other people. 💗 Ashleigh and Lisa are a couple of people (among many!!) who do this for me when they share their stories.
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