Snow Days!

The snow conditions this week have been perfect. Yesterday there was plenty of fresh, fluffy stuff to float through (paradise) and today the snow is more groomed, faster, and perfect of cruising. The temperature has been comfortable, hovering around -3 degrees C or so, and no wind.

My schedule was somewhat disrupted by the fresh snow yesterday morning. We drove here on a blizzard on Sunday evening, thus missing a good portion of the Oscars, which was fine because no doubt what I missed was even more tedious than what I, loyal Academy Awards watcher that I am, sat through (good knitting fare). Of course, the upside of the harrowing drive was that we knew the slopes would be fabulous the next day. I did manage to get up at 5:30 to work on my essay for about 90 minutes before heading out for the morning. In response to my advisor's good suggestions, I am completely restructuring my essay from last month. The difference in flow is opening up new, richer possibilities, but I haven't quite got a sense of particulars yet. I am simultaneously working on a second essay. This could be a mistake but we'll see. I am also, for the first time, struggling with an annotation. I usually have no problem dashing these off, but this reading was so rich (False Papers, Andre Aciman) and I loved it so much that I don't even know what to focus on. Anyway, doing the powder yesterday really wore me out so the afternoon wasn't all that productive and then the hill was calling me again. Night riding is really a lot of fun because the atmosphere is completely different. Later that evening, after a scrumptious dinner at one of my favourite restaurants, we came back to watch 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. of 24 Season Three. It had the most disturbing final scene, certainly the most shocking 24 turn of events I've ever seen (I'm way behind, which is fine with me because I simply cannot show up for anything on TV at the same time, weekly, for that many weeks in a row).

Today I woke up with a cold -- my throat was on fire -- but since it was snowing like crazy when I fell asleep last night I couldn't resist. After all, that is why we're here. Another morning of great riding. Like anything, some days you just hit that rhythm and it's magical. It's now just after lunch and I have to say, I'm worn right out. Calling it a day. Nap. Annotation. Essay. Knitting. Dinner. 24. Sleep.

Me? Break-Phobic?

For all my advice about the Unschedule and the Reverse Calendar, I now have a week off from teaching and I am afraid to kick back at all. I can only think that with this one precious week, I better get focused and produce some writing: NOW. This morning I made a to-do list of things I really want to do, most writing- and MFA-related but it is so overwhelmingly long that I am feeling oppressed by it already. Blogging didn't even make the list. I must be doing that thing that John Perry writes about, structured procrastination. I talked about it in my very first post ever. Since the work I'm paid to do has been set aside for a few days, writing has risen to the top of the list. And that is why it is so difficult to do today.

Another reason I am having difficulty taking a break is just plain fear. I want to relax but am afraid that if I do I"ll never get to work again. I have a work schedule (not very unschedule-y of me, I know) all set out for when we are on our snowboarding holiday from Sunday to Wednesday. Get up at 5:30, work on essay until 7:30, meditate, have breakfast with R, R goes out for fresh tracks, I do morning pages, then read for second annotation, then do another half hour on essay, R comes in for mid-morning break. Out on the slopes by 11, snowboard through lunch (good time because everyone else is inside), come back to the room for lunch about 1 or 1:30, rest, back out for night-riding until 7:30, back to room to change, out for dinner. Of course, this will all have to change if it snows overnight. In that case, I need to make fresh tracks too.

All work and no play make TI a dull, dull girl.

Feedback

I got some really encouraging feedback from my advisor yesterday on my most recent submission. She's asked for lots of changes, but was positive in lots of ways and made some great constructive comments for restructuring, deleting, and re-ordering the balance. Feedback is really helpful in pushing me past that lost feeling. I was kind of caught this week, pushing forward on a new essay but having no clue where I need or want to go with it. That groping feeling can be uncomfortable. But with the comments have helped to situate me and have pointed me in the direction of something more attainable. So for this month, I am going to push on with the new work but also revise last month's submission. The most encouraging lines are: "As a reader, I don't want to let go of this piece!" and "I feel you are on the brink of something significant." What more could a writer want to spur her on! I also got some useful advice for my thesis -- she is suggesting a series of essays, perhaps interlinked, perhaps not. That is perfect because I have discovered that essay is the form to which I am most drawn at the moment.

The most useful feedback doesn't gush. My advisor offered the best combination of gentle prodding, firm directives, no-nonsense drawing attention to what is getting in the way and needs to change, and confidence-building little gems to make me want to stick with the process.

Unschedule

The Unschedule is the second tool that I want to recommend from Neil Fiore's The Now Habit. I can't quite do it justice in a little post, but I'll do my best to explain how it works for me.

It's called an unschedule because you don't schedule in the projects. Instead, you schedule in meals, pre-arranged appointments and meetings, sleeping time, exercise classes, leisure activities (these are a must). The rest of the blank space is available for working on the projects. For that, you log as you go, in 30 minute increments (I usually do 45 minute increments -- that's "advanced unscheduling," when you finetune and customize it for your own character). The one at the top is my unschedule from the week leading up to the last MFA submission. I colour code mine so I can see how I spend my time. Green is MFA time, mostly creative writing. Yellow is anything "routine" like meals, grocery shopping, commuting. Pink is teaching and prep for teaching. Blue is anything having to do with health and well-being: yoga, meditation, morning pages, exercise. Orange is leisure. I used to us purple for my book when I was writing it last year, but now I use it for other creative activities -- either way, there is not much room for purple these days. I also have different colours and patterns for research and for admin commitments at work. The other one is the current week.

Anyway, the point is that you can only log in time on your priority projects once you've put in 30 minutes of quality, uninterrupted (no phone calls or e-mails) time. After that, you can keep going (this is what usually happens) or take a break (I like to put in more than 30 minutes before a break). The incentive to find uninterrupted time increases as you start filling it in. It's also great for maximizing the use of deadspace -- yesterday, in that half hour before dinner, I graded two papers. What I like about this unscheduling is that it helps me to have a balanced life and to see, realistically, how much time I have to give to my projects. I prioritize each week (see that list along the bottom?). I also keep a little post-it list of things that need attending to but aren't high on the list of priorities. I do not want these to become urgent, because it messes everything up when little things push the bigger ones out of the way.

Repeater, this also has appeal for the "overly project-oriented" among us because it forces scheduled leisure time. Maybe we can BOTH make it through this month without crying.

Reverse Calendar

I can't remember whether I've ever recommended Neil Fiore's The Now Habit here before. I love this book. I used to be a chronic procrastinator and can still fall into it. Pressure gets me going, but I would rather stay consistent. I've been using some of the ideas from this book for at least twenty years, ever since I was an undergrad. I clung to it for dear life when I was a graduate student. And it was on my desk throughout the first six years of my career as I was trying to get tenure. Last year, when I was on leave and completing a book that had been in my head for far too long, The Now Habit got me through. And today, I use it to keep me on track with the MFA submissions. There's a lot of good stuff in the book, but there are two tools in particular that have stuck with me: the Unschedule and the Reverse Calendar.

I'll leave the unschedule for another day. Today I had to sit down and do a "reverse calendar" for my next submission, or my desire to be consistent is going to be replaced by that adrenaline rush of a looming deadline. Exactly what I want to avoid this month. The reverse calendar is a backwards schedule of the task ahead, broken down into manageable little steps, "units that you can see yourself accomplishing." It really eases the mind to think in these terms, and allows me to let go of the BIG PROJECT and focus instead on this little piece in front of me today. Here is what my reverse calendar for the March 12 deadline looks like. My first decision is to have the submission completed and in the mail by March 9 to give me a weekend off, so that's when the reverse calendar "starts," namely, when the project ends. Here it is:

March 9 Print, proof-read, and mail annotations, new writing, and cover letter
March 8 Final touches on the new writing and the cover letter
March 5 Draft cover letter; continue revising new writing
March 4 Polishing up the essay daily from Feb 21 to March 4; Satisfactory draft by March 4
Feb 28 Finish reading Hoffman; write second annotation (Hoffman)
Feb 25 Start reading Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation; write first annotation (Aciman)
Feb 24 Finish shitty first draft of essay; Finish reading Andre Aciman, False Papers: Essays on Exile and Memory
Feb 20 Very shitty first draft of new essay (only task today)
Feb 19 Brainstorm essay again; come up with structure

See how it works? This gives me some achievable goals for each week. It's also really project-oriented, so it doesn't include other things. The main other project will be a research grant application that is due on March 1. I'd draft a reverse calendar for that, but I have exactly ONE day set aside for it, and that is Wednesday this week. I've never claimed to have achieved balance everywhere and in all things.

Beware the Blackberry Hole!

On Friday night I came home to a surprise. A new gadget. A Blackberry. Those who spent the MFA residency with me in January might have known that I was lamenting daily my lack of a cell phone. It wouldn't be so bad if there were pay phones on campus, or if I was staying in a hotel where I could at least make a call at the end of the day. But their is no working payphone on that campus, and no phones with outside lines in the dorm (note to self: you don't need to stay in a dorm; you are a professional woman with a reliable income).

Not only did I not have a cell phone. My trusty Palm Pilot, which I have been using to keep track of appointments and addresses for about five years, fizzled the day after I got back from South Africa. I have no idea how many appointments I missed during the first couple of weeks after the residency. And if I met you or you moved after August 2006 (the last time I "synched" the handheld with my computer), you'll have to get in touch with me. I did buy a paper daytimer, and though there is something almost nostalgic about this way of keeping track of things, I have a strong preference for electronics.

Since Friday, I've been in a "blackberry hole," trying to figure out how to use it, what it does. Yesterday, I went through a brief period in which it was utterly silent. I was playing with ringtones and suddenly, it would make no sounds at all. I don't know what I did to make that happen. I don't know what I did to fix it. But the sounds are now back. I now have my e-mail configured on the little device, so I can check it when I am away from one of my four computers (one in each office at work, one at home, and my laptop ... it's not as great as it sounds). I can even do blogposts and read blogs from the thing. I have developed a lovely relationship with the blackberry tech support folks, who are on duty 24/7, 365 days a year (the notion that such constant support is required scares me, I confess).

Today's resolution. Leave the blackberry alone. Crawl out of the blackberry hole. After all, I did figure out text-messaging between my morning meditation and my morning pages.

Sunday Scribblings: Yummy!

I've been on a Sunday Scribblings hiatus since early December when I left for South Africa. But I can't resist a post for this week's "yummy" prompt.

Koeksisters. These are the one South African food that is responsible for all five of the extra pounds I came back with. And it was worth each and every pound. To describe koeksisters as "donuts," which essentially they are, does not quite do justice to these syrup-soaked delicacies, sometimes sprinkled with coconut. You make the dough and the syrup separately. Once you've cooked the dough (sometimes braided--the Afrikaner version, sometimes just shaped into little oval balls--the Cape Malay version) until golden, you remove them from the oil and let them drain a bit. Then you plunge them into the cold syrup (it has to be cold; surround the bowl with ice cubes). They soak the syrup up and the outside gets a bit hard. The inside remains moist and delectable. If you want to add some cholesterol (why not, at this point?), roll them in some shaved coconut.

Enjoy them with a nice cup of tea.

YUM-MY!

Emerging from the Fog

I don't even know if I had any other life besides working on the submission this week. I'm just emerging from the fog today -- catching up on sleep, wondering whether I can pull off the same rhythm for the next month. I hope so because I think it worked for me. It was the most challenging month of the MFA, the most challenging month of my creative writing life ever, but the upside of that is that the intensity with which I immersed myself in my project spilled over onto the page.

The writing really came together this week with some late-breaking insights into where the piece needs to go. What I sent off yesterday is not in its final form. I still feel that it has a long way to go. I worry that it is kind of "flat." But it is the first time that I have let go of something while having a reasonably clear vision for it, for its potential. I could have kept working on it, will keep working on it, can't wait to keep working on it.

Last semester, whenever I sent in something for a submission I felt crummy about it. This time I can truly say that I felt okay about it. It was worth every single early morning, and deserves its rightful place in a few more of them. Besides the steady pace that I took with my writing this past month, there is one more thing to add to why this piece feels so much more "true" than previous writing. The very first class of the very first semester was a seminar called "Finding Your True North." The instructor took us through several emotionally intense freewriting exercises. By the end of it, I had about 5 or 6 single spaced pages that came right from my soul. The instructor said that we will find in those pages, our "true north," the compass point towards which our writing needs to aim if it going to sound true, real. Then she said to put them away for awhile. Let them sit. I let mine sit for eight months, until three days ago, when my new writing started to "take me there." If you did that exercise and haven't re-visited the themes in the writing that came out of those meditations, don't waste another submission period ignoring them. Accepting my true north has taken me out of the fog. I have honestly lost that feeling of groping around in the dark. Between that and mind-mapping, I can't wait to see what the month ahead has in store!

[Pictured: the protea, South Africa's national flower, ready blossom]

Desperate Times...

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Could words come more slowly to me than they are today? I sure hope not. I am reading what I have for Friday's submission (which time dictates that I must finish by tomorrow morning at the very latest), and I just hate it. It needs something. Just like that soup that's been simmering all day and somehow turns out to be bland, this piece is so blah. So blah, blah, blah, that I can hardly stand the idea of sending it out. It doesn't even have an ending.

So I was really open to help today. Any source would do. I began with the brilliant chapter on deepening from Carol Bly's Beyond the Writer's Workshop. It's brief, so I didn't need to sit with it for too long -- the clock is ticking. She helped me reach the diagnosis. It's not about what she calls "literary fixes." It's much too soon in the process for that. It's about re-locating the first inspiration, protecting it from criticism, and allowing it to come through by deepening the draft. She suggests a process of empathetic questioning. Fine. I did some empathetic questioning about my motives, hopes, dreams, vision, and ... (help) feelings for the piece. I see that it lacks a soul, but frankly I don't want to have too high hopes about finding it between now and tomorrow morning. In theory though, I do like her suggestion and I will allow my subconscious to run with it while I forge ahead.

Then, on the advice of a friend, I signed up for a free newsletter called "The Power Writing Newsletter" by Daphne Gray-Grant, the publication coach. I get my first issue on Tuesday. Along with that I got a bonus gift about mind-mapping, and I have to say, this was a great thing to land on my desk. I spent half an hour mind-mapping this afternoon and I made some great breakthroughs. It's a technique that allows the free-association of ideas, all generated from a central idea, in a kind of visual form that makes it feel more fun and more fluid than a linear outline. I've got a very busy mind-map in front of me on my desk right now. If I can incorporate even some of what's there into the piece, I should be able to send it off without feeling too grim about what my (new) advisor (whom I'm hoping to impress at least a little) will think.

Okay: workout, shower, dinner, back to the computer.

A Good Day to Stay in and WRITE

So that is exactly what I am doing. We are really being crushed by a blast of arctic air here. There has been a windchill warning in effect for four days now, and it continues. Today it is -25 degrees C with the windchill factor. That's up from yesterday, when it was -29 degrees C. To tell you the truth, the four degrees don't seem to matter much when it plunges down below -20. Ye, this is Canada. But this is not a part of Canada that is prone to this kind of weather. I am Canadian, but this is too much, even for me, a woman who loves winter.

So here I sit, at my desk, in my office at home, with the fire place going (I have a wonderful office), a cup of hot tea (vanilla rooibos with soy milk) and all kinds of time. I was up at 5:30, went to my 6:30 yoga class, had a leisurely post-yoga breakfast, and settled in to write my second craft annotation, which I just completed. The first was on C. S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed," and today's was on Patricia Hampl's essay collection, I Could Tell You Stories, which is very good. I seized onto an idea that I have found very liberating. "Memoir," she says, "is the intersection of narration and reflection, of storytelling and essay. It can present its story and consider the meaning of the story. The first commandment of fiction--Show, Don't Tell--is not part of the memoirist's faith. Memoirists must show and tell." Well, hallaleujiah to that. Wht a relief. I feel so liberated by that idea. Hampl is just masterful at using personal narrative at a vehicle for reflecting on issues large and small. The key to being able to reflect within a narrative is, I think, not to allow the reflection to break down into impersonal, scholarly commentary (always a risk for a professional philosopher). Hampl does it and does it well. Once again, what seemed like it was going to be chore (writing an annotation when I'd rather be working on my essay) has opened my eyes to something I can actually try to practice in my own work, the work that I am doing today.

Get Out of My Way: I Wanna Write!

Today I was so distracted from my (paid) work because I couldn't wait to get to my desk (at home) and write. I am just bursting with ideas for my new writing this month, an essay that has been percolating in an agonizing state of not-quite-shitty-first-draftedness. It's just a bunch of disconnected musings, vignettes, and scenes right now. I do have a structure and a plan, but loads of filling in to do. Anyway, I actually had to rush home as fast as I could, turn on the computer, and get it down on paper. I take that as a sign of good things to come this weekend, which is a dedicated writing weekend.

I also had an epiphany this morning on my way in to work. I started to develop a tortured relationship with my writing this month, as if it's a big chore. But in fact, I realized, it is what I most want to be doing. I am choosing to do it. I enjoy doing it. I have always wanted to make time for it. The deadline next Friday is pressing me to make time for it. How fortunate I am: I want to write and here is a great opportunity to write as much as possible over the next seven days.

And just a quick update on the early rising: 5:30 a.m. is no longer a problem. I comfortably did it 4 times this past week (Monday-Friday), and got up at 6 the one other day. I forget how many days or weeks before something becomes a new habit, but I feel myself settling into this one and I love it.

Get to Work

Today I was reading Linda Hirshman's book, Get to Work. I like it. It's a real return to the basics of what I would call Second Wave feminism. It's a great "Manifesto" about the homeward bound modern woman. It's kind of depressing, really, to read about the number of women who are choosing to stay home. But even further, those of us who do not choose to stay home are still "homeward bound." We still carry the brunt of the domestic labour. The home, she thinks, is where women wield the most power. If we can take a stand where the housework is concerned, we might have something to bargain with. I read this while I was on the crosstrainer today, and as I read, my feet started moving faster and faster. I read over the quote from Pat Mainardi's list of "dirty chores." Sadly, my list (still) approximates hers: "buying groceries, carting them home and putting them away; cooking meals and washing dishes and pots; doing the laundry; digging out the place when things get out of control; washing floors." She goes on: "The longer my husband contemplated these chores, the more repulsed he became...As he felt himself backed into the corner laden with dirty dishes, brooms, mops and reeking garbage, his front teeth grew longer and pointier, his fingernails haggled and his eyes grew wild. Housework trivial? Not on your life! Just try to share the burden." As an aside, I should say that I do not wash floors but I do experience guilt that I pay someone else to do it.

Okay, I can relate. But still, I find the title to be kind of overbearing. Get to Work, you say? Get to Work? I feel like all I ever do these days is work. Work, work,work. How about take a day off? How about relax and do nothing? I'm feeling absolutely and entirely crushed by my work right now. I think that it's a tough sell to lump the women for whom housework is the second shift in together with those for whom it is the only shift. As a second shifter, I don't need to be told to "get to work." What I really need is to be told, or to tell myself, to get some rest. Work be damned. I'm taking the night off.