My grandfather died on December 9, 2016. On December 17, 2016, we placed him in the ground. In the between time, the family came together and prepared for this event. Of course, there was a certain amount of upset, but overall things weren’t terribly bad. I think a lot of that had to do with the simple fact we knew it was coming. Prior to his death on the 9th, he spent time in hospice. While it is true someone can live for quite a while in hospice, I was taught as a hospice volunteer once they stop eating you can basically count the days. He had stopped eating at least a day or two prior to be admitted into hospice, so the end was definitely upon us.
Why am I choosing to be depressing right now? Death, as many have said before me, forces you to reconsider things. What’s important? I tweeted recently: The greatest #horror of my life would be the # of things I would leave undone if I died today. I have previously complained about the number of things I have in my COMPLETED WORKS folder. 99% have never seen the light of day off my computer. I’ve started to work on that, getting it out into the world instead of just continuing the forward motion of creating, creating, creating without truly finishing the process and putting it out for consumption by the public. Part of me wants to think it’s too little, too late. Time is escaping and there is nothing I can do about that. Yet if I take that line of thinking, nothing will ever get done, and I will spend years without making any progress. So I chose the path of optimism, saying I have time. I have plenty of time. Now I just have to use it.
Another part of the writing process I’ve never really been any good at is submitting. I just recently let a submission window close on a project without finishing the submission I started. Unfortunately, the submission window ended on Dec. 15 and try as I might, I just couldn’t bring myself to finish the work I started while dealing with a death in the family and moving into a new apartment. There will be others. In fact, I have a short list of places and their corresponding due dates. I have time and I’m going to use it.
Comments
Highly energetic article, I liked that bit. Will there be a
part 2?
Author
There won’t be, sorry. Stick around, more interesting discussions to come!
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with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or
two images. Maybe you could space it out better?
Author
I’m still trying to find a happy medium as far as pictures go. It takes me a while longer to make graphics than it does for me to write content, so I generally focus on content over graphics. I might see about adding a few more though. Thanks for the input.
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Author
If you look on the left hand menu, underneath my Social Media buttons, you are asked whether you would like some free stories. That sign up is for my email list on Mailchimp. Feel free to subscribe.
First off I would like to say wonderful blog! I had a quick question that I’d like to ask if you
do not mind. I was curious to find out how you center yourself and clear your mind prior to writing.
I have had difficulty clearing my mind in getting my thoughts out.
I do enjoy writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are generally wasted
just trying to figure out how to begin. Any ideas or hints?
Thanks!
Author
A very prolific writer, Rachel Aarons, once said that if you want to write faster and avoid the dithering around you get at the beginning of your writing day, you should take a few minutes and pre-write/bullet point/somehow conceptualize what’s going to go in the story when you start writing. This serves two purposes: 1. It gets your brain in the writer mode because you’ve already put something down (so no blank page syndrome) and 2. It gets you excited about what’s going to happen next in your story so that you write faster.
If you’re interested in more on Rachel’s writing process, pick up her book: 2k to 10k.
When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get three e-mails with
the same comment. Is there any way you can remove people
from that service? Many thanks!
Author
As far as I know, you can remove yourself from the service by returning to the initial post and unchecking the box. I cannot unsubscribe for you.
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