WordFlix

January progress report: 2010 resolutions

By HD Silversmith

Inspired by a blogger who often takes monthly stock of his yearly intentions to monitor his progress, I thought I'd do the same this year.

Doing a monthly progress report isn't just about assessing where I am in terms of the promises I made to and for myself. It also provides an opportunity for me to tweak resolutions to suit current circumstances, ones that I made not have foreseen when I made the original resolutions. Adjusting goals is a way of keeping them alive and maintaining two things:  the commitments I make to myself and the progress I want to make in specific areas of my life.

Rather than recap the resolutions in their entirety, I'll simply deal with each one briefly indicate where I'm at:

Work

• Practice saying no (to myself, to colleagues, and to students)  instead of yes as my default response.  Success:  I'm abiding by the parameters of my office hours, turning down conferences and film festival invitations that would simply be redundant on on my c.v, and saying no where I can to power that seeks to maximize itself with no benefit to me.

• Limit time spent on work email. Success: I check work email twice a day only, in the morning and evening.  I return work calls when I decide the time is right, not when someone else decides that for me.

• Pick one class each semester to further my own research. Success: I assigned a book in my graduate seminar that I'd been meaning to read for some time.

Health

• Stay current with lab work and medical wellness appointments. Moderate success: I have yet to schedule a mammogram or GYN appointments, and I haven't received the results of my December labs --> Action items for February.  However, I did address my low iron and receive a six-hour iron infusion just before the start of classes, which has helped a great deal with my exhaustion and enabled me to deal with stress much more productively.

• Establish relationship with dentist. Success:  I've had three appointments this month that have included x-rays, diagnostics, a root canal, and three fillings, and I have another appointment scheduled for this week.  I'm also taking better care of my oral hygiene at home.
  

• Improve DS-specific nutrition. Moderate success: Since the start of the semester on January 25, I've reduced my refined sugar intake, upped my protein, and journaled my food daily. I've been better (but not good enough) about taking my supplements daily --> Ongoing action items for February.

• Incorporate regular exercise into my week. Only minimally successful --> Action items for February. The only thing I can say for myself for this month is that, by default, with the beginning of a new semester, I've become more physically active. I run up and down stairs at the university, make sure to get in a brief walk around campus on days that I'm there, burn a lot of energy in front of my classes.  I've lost two to three pounds But you couldn't call it regular exercise.
  

Writing

• Revise/resubmit apocalypse article by January 8. Not successful --> Action item for February.
• Place Random Harvest article by September 1, 2010. Ongoing
• Write draft of Heavenly Creatures chapter by June 1. Ongoing
• Read The Screenwriter's Bible and Save the Cat by March 31(as background). Ongoing
• Consider participating in April's Script Frenzy I'm eliminating this goal to focus on the more important writing projects above, so it will not appear on next month's list.
• Maintain and develop WordFlix. Success. Clearly I'm posting here less frequently, but on the other hand, I'm feeling more connected to what I'm writing.  It may not work for others, but it works for me!

Exercise, food, and battling my own insecurities about writing are my biggest challenges right now.

Okay, and handling work-related stress. 

But at 31 days into 2010, I'd give myself a B+. Progress, not perfection, and all that.

I'm beginning to act rather than react to challenges, and that feels pretty empowering.

It's Pretty Personal And All, But I'll Miss Salinger

via www.npr.org

By HD Silversmith

Click on the link above to read Susan Jane Gilman's homage and farewell to J.D. Salinger.

Teach Me Tonight: Guest Post: K. A. Laity on Joanna Russ on Slash Fiction

B

via teachmetonight.blogspot.com

By HD Silversmith

Really interesting post over at the blog Teach Me Tonight. Well worth reading for fans and scholars of romance, slash fiction, Star Trek, and popular culture.

Manage your psychology

By HD Silversmith on A Writer’s Space  (Eric Maisel) 

PART IX: Epilogue - Creative Space: A Writing Fable; Chapter 35: The Writer of Qualities

"If I wanted to do something which I currently believe I couldn't do ... first I would have to quiet the voice in me that wants to say, 'You have no talent for that!' and remind myself of what I know to be true, that I might do [that thing] if I applied myself. Through the application of the best qualities in my character I could do just about anything, as can you." (232)

These are the words of wisdom that Maisel puts in the mouth of a successful writer in his parable about a young, aspiring writer named Phoebe. And I agree with them. 

But I started to think about the not-so-wonderful elements of our characters  -- or maybe I just mean the messier, dual-sided aspects -- that also help us achieve things.  

For example, even after outgrowing most of the obsessive-compulsive disorder that plagued me in childhood and adolescence, I still tend to be driven and control-focused.

This means I tend to a) achieve what I set out to do; b) and take longer than I might otherwise.  I'm both goal-centered (often thought of as "good") and a perfectionist (i.e., judgmental of myself and others, often thought of as "bad") because I won't let well enough alone.

In my case (though obviously not in all cases), my strengths are also my weaknesses. They're two sides of the same coin.

So I don't know that it's really about applying the best qualities of my character in order to achieve what I want.

I think it's more about managing my own psychology.

We interrupt your writing

By HD Silversmith on A Writer’s Space  (Eric Maisel) 

PART IX: Epilogue - Creative Space: A Writing Fable; Chapter 34: Phoebe's Novel Gets Under Way

I'm finding the "fable" with which Maisel seems to be wrapping up his book somewhat precious (though in general I've liked the book as a whole).  Hence, the only genuinely useful thing I extracted from this chapter was its final question, "There will always be interruptions [to your writing]. How will you handle them?" (225)

Good question.

To make it more complicated, those interruptions can come from within (in the form of self-limiting or self-sabotaging thoughts about yourself as a writer, your work) or from the outside (work, family, or social obligations).

There's a Weight Watchers saying (at least I think it originates with Weight Watchers, but maybe I'm wrong) that goes something like, "It's not what you do that counts; it's what you do next." Or, to put it another way, it's not that your writing is interrupted that matters; what matters is what you do after the interruption.

Do you let yourself be distracted and not return to the task at hand?  Or do you acknowledge the interruption, work through it to the the point where you can put it aside for later, and return to writing?

It's probably a lot like meditation (which I read about but have yet to practice in any kind of sustained way). Distraction is part of the process of learning to mediate: you find yourself distracted, you acknowledge the distraction, and then you bring yourself back to mindfulness -- as many times as it takes.

I've made very little progress in meditation (maybe that will be a resolution for 2010 -- I'm working on them), but I have made some progress in turning back to my writing after an interruption, regardless of its length or source.

That's definitely an ongoing goal in 2010!

Achieving balance

 By HD Silversmith

Because it's Christmas Eve (my favorite day of the year), I'm giving myself a holiday from this fall's Tuesday-Thursday-Friday blogging schedule around Eric Maisel's book A Writer's Space. I'm going to take tomorrow off from the topic as well and  then wrap up that project next week.

Today I simply want to slow down a little and savor the sanity that's slowly returning to my life after a pretty hideous fall semester.  As my exhaustion fades and my thoughts clear, I'm realizing more than anything else that what I want in my life right now is balance.

Not so easy to come by for someone with a childhood and adolescent history of OCD that still lingers into the present!  And let's face it, balance is a pretty elusive thing for a lot of us these days.

What follows are thoughts-in-progress, mind you, but as I consider the issue, I'm realizing that achieving balance currently breaks down into three different general areas for me:

Work

It's very clear to me that my life is totally out of whack in this department. God knows I'm grateful to have work in this economy -- and in my chosen field as well. I know how lucky I am. Because of state budget cuts and freakishly high enrollments in my classes this past semester, however, and because of the timing of certain departmental work that had to be done, I had a Work Load from Hell this fall. I can categorically state that it will not be as bad next semester (though the larger university system will be even worse off next semester than it was this past term). My work load next term won't be light, but it will be better.

However, there's a more insidious issue than work load which I discussed in my last post. I'm a people-pleaser (that's not a Good Thing) and I find it hard to say no if I think I'll piss people off.

So I say yes, I load myself up with work I don't necessarily need to take on, and because I don't really want it in the first place, I become resentful.

Would I rather a) be resentful or b) run the risk of pissing people off?

I've explored Option A at great length.  It's time to explore Option B.  And that means staying as mindful as possible in the moment, pausing before I decide whether I'll agree to take on a piece of work, and saying, "Let me think about it. I'll get back to you."

I don't pretend it will be easy.  But that's one macro-level tool I intend to use in striving to achieve greater balance between work and the rest of my life.  Thoughts about other tools are percolating as well, including ways to manage my online/work email time and so on.  More on that in subsequent posts, perhaps.

Health

Again, I want to achieve a greater balance here.

Four years ago, as a chronically morbidly obese middle-aged woman, I chose to have the duodenal switch form of weight-loss surgery in order to address my medicated but still out-of-control Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. The DS is still a somewhat uncommon form of WLS and also still the most effective form of it for 1) reversing Type II diabetes (98.9% rate of success) and 2) losing excess body weight and maintaining that loss over the long term (defined in most existing studies as 10 years).

The risks for short- and long-term complications are real. The nutritional impact can be severe. You have to be willing to change how and what you eat.  And you must do major work on your head in order to deal with the emotional consequences of this choice -- for yourself and for others in your life. All of this is on top of having to be prepared to fight like hell -- beforehand, in order to get the surgery and afterward, in order to manage your health care among medical professionals who usually haven't even heard of the DS.

 But at the four-year mark, my chronic health problems have been reversed. And that's a real miracle. I'm profoundly relieved and grateful for the chance at a healthier life.

But I can do better. The loss of 120+ pounds put me where I'd never been in my life: at a normal weight. For those who don't have my history, my awe is hard to convey.  However, that's only part of the equation because my choice for weight-loss surgery was about health, not looks.

• I need to stay current with my scheduled lab work.
• I'd like to limit my refined carb intake further and bring it more in line with my first two years of life after the DS.
• I need to exercise regularly.

Again, I'll probably have more to say on these topics later, but suffice to say that my food notebook has come out again (I wrote down everything that went into my mouth for the first two years after surgery), and I've researched and begun an exercise routine on my home elliptical machine.  Oh, and next week I'll be going in for my yearly lab work.

Food, exercise, and medical follow-up: that's the balance I intend to achieve here.  Because, frankly, I think achieving balance in these areas of health will also help me manage work and life stress.

Writing

I think I probably have to give myself credit here. 

• Beginning in May 2009 I created a routine for my professional writing that has paid off in increased productivity and in publications under my real name.

Woohoo!

• I maintained a regular writing schedule for myself here on WordFlix throughout the fall for a different kind of writing -- this despite the aforementioned Work Load from Hell.

Woohoo x 2!!

• I participated for the first time in NaNoWriMo in November -- and actually crossed the finish line, again despite the WLfH.

Woohoo x 3!!!

I'm still considering my writing goals for 2010:

• I know I'll continue to maintain and grow WordFlix. 
• I may participate in ScriptFrenzy in April.  
•  I'll have a summer of professional writing ahead of me.  

More than that, I can't say at the moment. Still turning things over in my head.

So that's where my head is at today:  I'm taking advantage of the holiday down-time to assess, connect, enjoy, and make plans for moving forward in the new year.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it!

Writing: just do it

 By HD Silversmith on A Writer’s Space  (Eric Maisel) 

PART IX: Epilogue - Creative Space: A Writing Fable; Chapter 33: Phoebe Chooses

Not to reduce writing to a corporate logo or anything, but it does seem to me that this is one of Maisel's points here as he begins what looks to be a rather metaphorical winding down of his book in the epilogue.

That is, don't waste so much time in the choosing of what to write that you end up, well, not writing.

I'm often guilty of this (wow, just listen to my language -- full of self-judgment there!).  I can get so caught up in the whats, hows, and whiches of writing -- what should I work on next? should I write something for tenure or for myself (as if that's a real dichotomy -- it isn't)? which article should I spend my time on? -- that I waste valuable time and energy on those things instead of the writing I say I want to be doing.

Why?

Fear that I can't do it (whatever it is). Fear that I can do it but it will take dedication and discipline that I may find I don't have.

The usual suspects, in other words.

At this point, I'm so well acquainted with the obstacles I put in my own way that most of the time I roll my eyes at myself and say, rather unoriginally, "Yeah, well, whatever.  Feel the fear and do it anyway."

Fear isn't a good enough excuse not to write.  The only good reason not to write is because you don't really want to.

(Well, crap, then.  That means I have to keep on treading my dogged path!)

New book: Edward F. Rochester

Edward F. Rochester
by Christine Paris Bruyère
Editions Bénévent
ISBN : 9782756313320
Pages : 132
Publication : 8/2009

« Vous me demanderez sans doute si je l'épie. Oui, je l'avoue humblement, mais elle ne s'en aperçoit pas, je reste très discret. Vous me demanderez ensuite pourquoi je le fais et je vous répondrai que je ne le sais pas, c'est plus fort que moi : une impulsion que je ne peux réprimer, il faut que je le fasse, comme si ma vie en dépendait. Alors vous me regarderez d'un air plein de commisération et peut-être aurez-vous raison. »

En dehors de sa richesse littéraire, ce roman est un défi extraordinaire. Christine Bruyère, l’auteur, revisite Jane Eyre, le roman de Charlotte Brontë. Elle réalise l’extraordinaire péréquation de traduire du féminin au masculin ce monument intouchable de la littérature anglaise du XIXème siècle.

Ce roman est à la fois écris dans un classicisme quasiment rigoureux et traversé par un modernisme révolutionnaire, celui de la parole d’un homme pensée et revisitée avec la sensibilité féminine de l’auteur. Rochester défie les lois divines et l’auteur défie les lois qui régissent le masculin et le féminin. (Google translation)

via bronteblog.blogspot.com

By HD Silversmith

This is why I love BronteBlog. It tells me about books like this one.

As a die-hard fan of all things Jane Eyre, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and read this, as painful as it may be to do so in French. 

Regardless of the book's intrinsic merits or lack thereof, it's going to be a slog.

(Let's just say that my French is a tad, er, rusty and leave it at that.)

What it means to write

By HD Silversmith on A Writer’s Space  (Eric Maisel)

PART VIII: Existential Space; Chapter 32: Using Your Existential Intelligence

Existential intelligence ...is the intelligence that concerns you, as a writer, the most. It guides your writing themes, your writing choices, and your writing relationships. It helps you understand why you are bothering to write, why you are spending years on a recalcitrant book, why you are revising eight tines when you would rather go fishing. (207)

Partly because I prefer to write nonfiction (but read fiction) and partly because the kind of nonfiction I write most frequently is overtly interpretative and theoretical, my own writing would probably fall into Maisel's "existential" category (though not Sartre's -- I had to review my understanding of existentialism to recognize it at all in Maisel's use of the term).

That is, it's overtly concerned with the construction of meaning(s) -- by others (e.g., filmmakers, writers) or myself (when I'm in my autobiographical memoirist mode).

Personally and professionally, I don't believe meaning inheres in anything. Meaning exists because we create it. Which is all the more reason for constructing meaning in useful, humanitarian ways and living those meanings through our writing and our actions.

We can't control everything that happens to us.  We can't always control how we respond to it.  But we can construct meaningful accounts, find our own meanings, and render our our lives legible to ourselves and others.

And that's really quite an achievement, when you think about it.

Making meaning, accepting choice

By HD Silversmith on A Writer’s Space  (Eric Maisel)

PART VIII: Existential Space; Chapter 31: Embracing Tremors

Your choice to avoid anxiety at all costs or to embrace the anxiety that comes with living authentically determines how you will live your life (198) ....Meaning-making requires that you make one mindful choice after another. There is no intellectual freedom, no personal freedom, no human freedom without a commitment to lifelong choosing (199) .... It is much better, although more nerve-wracking, to accept that meaning will never be settled, that meaning is always at risk, and that meaning is a challenge and not a foregone conclusion. (200)

Well, shit.

I'm one of those people who dislikes the anxiety of choice and change. I kick and scream the moment I get even a whiff of either in the offing.

My early experience with change -- and I'm talking wee childhood stuff here -- was generally negative. With every change, things got worse, not better.  Soon I preferred no change -- the status quo -- even if the status quo was painful.  At least it was pain I knew.

But whether one chooses change or the status quo, it's a choice. Every day that one lives, one chooses --  even by Not Choosing.

So even as an anxious, choice-phobic person, I have gotten to the point in my life where I prefer that my choices be mindful rather than made by default.

Even choices that seem like little ones.  For example, rather than let a day go by intending to write but just not getting around to it, I'll generally try harder now to let a non-writing day be intentional. For whatever reason.  "I've chosen not to write today."  It is what it is.

If it's not a choice you're happy with, learn from it and choose differently the next time. If it turns out to be a productive choice, good job.  You're learning to trust yourself.

I doubt I'll ever learn to embrace anxiety and change.  But I have learned that neither is my mortal enemy.