Drawing from the Well
Queries: 57 (+0)
Rejections: 46 (+0)
First Eighth
Chapter 6/90
Scene 25/500 – 5%
Word Count: 6743 (+236) – 4.8%
It’s not much, but it’s something. I got hung up on finding the right word in one spot. It’s one of those writer things where I NEEDED it to be right. Usually I can breeze past that in drafting but not always. Today was one of those “not always” moments. Tonight, I intend to make some real progress. I want to finish at least one scene. Everything after that is bonus.
Filling the Well
The Bible: 80%
Miraclist: 51%
Blue Lily, Lily Blue: 51%
The Handmaid’s Tale: 25%
It was a good reading day. I’m keeping up on my Bible reading and I got to listen to Raven Cycle 3 for over an hour. The cool thing is that just about the time I started to wonder where things were going, the plot showed up. Now, I’m really excited to keep listening.
Polishing the Well
After the craziness of the last four days, I finally got some work done today. I was checking items off my list. I’ve still got a lot to do and may try to tackle some this weekend, but I’m moving along. I have to figure out how to make more time to work on my “Quadrant 2” activities, the longer range stuff. I am figuring it out, I just wish some days that I’d ALREADY figured it out. We will overcome.
Well Chat
Take Life By the Face
One hundred fifty posts this year. I AM proud of myself. I’m not focusing on what would have been had I maintained focus over the summer. There’s no point in it. I’m celebrating what is. I want YOU to take a lesson from that.
It is so easy, especially for Americans, to focus on the negative. We berate ourselves for our failures in some twisted, self-flaggellative attempt to prevent it in the future. We tell ourselves to do better. We feed ourselves lies that lead to self-pity and self-enmity. We dine on despising ourselves and wonder why we’re in a bad mood. We beat ourselves up. A lot.
Would you like to know why this is futile? It’s futile because life doesn’t care about your effort. When you’re at your strongest, so is life in its attempts to derail you. So don’t get down when life comes at you hard. It’s going to happen. Bad stuff happens and sometimes you can’t do a thing about it…except to keep fighting. Fly in the other direction and take life by the jowls of its face, look it dead in the eyes, and say “You won’t beat me.”
Do this long enough and you’ll get somewhere. Things turn around. If you want a happy ending, it all depends on where you stop the story. So you keep writing, keep fighting. Eventually, you turn the momentum around and start making progress again. Keep it up long enough and you’ll have really done something. You’ll have made good on the promise you made when holding life by its fleshy face.
And then celebrate your accomplishments no matter how small they feel.
That is not what I intended to write today but someone needed to read it so there it is. What I wanted to write about was that quality between perseverance and determination and boot strapping. That inner fire that makes you push up from your belly to your knees, your knees to your feet, your slump to your stride.
…and I think I’m going to save that for tomorrow. I wanted to inspire in the face of my own inspiration and I think I’ve done that. So we’ll talk about sticktoitiveness tomorrow. That’s a good weekend topic. Y’all have a great night.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG