Sunday Salon: Soul searching and Inspiration


This morning I slept in and woke up feeling the need for some inspiration with writing and with life in general.  I made up a plan and a calendar  for Nanowrimo since I started late which showed I just need to write 2300 words a day and I'll make the 50k by the 30th of November. Gives me one days grace. As of yesterday I am at 6400. Still in the figuring it all out stage and wondering why I keep referring to my villainess as Dominique when I decided her name was Genevieve. Then I had an epiphany - Mother and daughter.  And something clicked.  For some reason I'm feeling a wall between me and the story, the actual writing part.  Don't know what it is. There's been a lot of ping pong going on in my brain lately. I saw this over on The Creative Penn on trusting the process of emergence and it sort of helped. 

"Even if you plot your books, sometimes you won’t know what is coming until the words appear on the page. Something happens when you commit to the page, to the word count goal and you write through the frustration and the annoyance and the self-criticism."

I'm trying to work through that and trust the process but having issues with it and I don't know why.  I walked into this whole writing gig trusting the process - basically sitting down, putting pen to paper and letting it flow.  Why can't I let go this time.   So I woke up this morning in a bit of a funk.  Mad at myself for sleeping in once again instead of getting up early to write.   Sent up a short prayer and went out to make breakfast, checked my emails and found this from Jennifer at Inkybites:

Nanowrimo Tips for the procrastinating writer Day #11:  Getting Warmed up with Exercise: If at any point during this challenge, Robin, you feel like you're getting blocked when you sit down or you can't just sit down and start right back into writing your story, try warming up first.

An athlete wouldn't think about playing a big game without warming up and stretching first. A singer wouldn't go out on stage without first warming up her vocal chords. Same goes for a writer--you have to get your creativity warmed up before you can crank out your daily word count.  

Thank you!  Along with a list of suggestions which include free writing in your journal or morning pages (which I keep going back to again and again, just not consistently) is  brainstorming - which I enjoy.  Writing prompts and exercises and reading through the last thing you wrote. All good ideas. Okay the brain is waking up now. The 2nd email is Novel Journey by Novel Rocket which I get daily and it's all about -  Today Trusting God with the Outcome: Believe in God’s miraculous power and trust in His will.

The power of prayer and the sovereignty of God are indisputable. God is God, and declaring so helps us to recognize that He governs all things. Who is to say what God can do? When we believe—with all our heart, soul and strength—and trust God with the outcome, His will is done and miracles occur. 
Just what I needed to hear. And another email that helped me to make a decision about a family obligation. 

Speaking of obligations, something else that's been on my mind lately is blogging and checking in with my blogging buddies and ROW80 friends. Synchronicity is in full bloom as someone pointed me in Amy of My Friend Amy's direction with her post about Be Someone's Comment Angel. There's been a noticeable decrease in commenting in the community and yes, I for one am guilty of that. Despite my lack of commenting, I have two beautiful comment angels in Stacie and Candace who comment on practically everyone of my posts and I feel loved and appreciate their support. Thank you, ladies. 

Amy suggests being a comment angel and picking one or two bloggers you follow and comment every single day on their posts for one month. 

Don't tell them! Just commit to yourself to do it and then do it! If you think you can handle more than one, choose two! I know it might become kind of challenging. You might not always have something to say. But the challenge is part of what makes this great...you'll be forced to read what they're saying and engage with it on a deeper level. And who knows after a month, you might not want to stop!"
 So share the love and be a comment angel for the rest of the month, then choose two more and be a comment angel for the month of December and so on and so on.  I'm up for the challenge. How about you? 

In other news, over on 52 Books blog we are celebrating Neil Gaiman's Birthday by reading one of his books this month.   I am reading all about teenage brains in Parenting the Teenage Brain: Understanding a work in progress which is actually quite enlightening.


The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.  ~Henry Ward Beecher


The Sunday Salon.com

3 comments:

  1. I really enjoy the morning e-mail when I get some kind of advice - good start to the day :) - go with the flow - I had a problem with one name but I'm letting it go and if I still don't approve at the end I will find and change at the end! at this first draft stage I let those pesky characters pretty well do what they want - editing will bring order:) all the best for coming week

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  2. Wishing you much inspiration with the writing. =O)

    Thanks for sharing that about the comment angel thing. That is an awesome idea! I have been lax myself with commenting.

    Are you hosting 52 books next year? I'm really thinking about signing up this time. I need to get more reading done somehow.

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  3. "The power of prayer and the sovereignty of God are indisputable. God is God, and declaring so helps us to recognize that He governs all things. Who is to say what God can do? When we believe—with all our heart, soul and strength—and trust God with the outcome, His will is done and miracles occur."

    I love this and thanks for sharing. Thanks, too, for passing along the idea of Comment Angels. Since so many blog posts come to my inbox, I fall terribly behind on commenting. I love the idea of choosing one or two per month and commenting daily. Kudos to whomever came up with the idea.

    All the best with NaNo . . . and all your other projects.

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