I have been silent for a while.  The silence hasn't been just an LJ thing - I have been sitting in a mental silence, much like being set on "pause," for several weeks.  Nothing has stirred me toward anything that resembles creativity or mental clarity.  I don't feel any desire to do more than sit here, observing the world as it goes by.

The only things I have felt with any acuity have been angst and anxiety.  These do not make for entertaining writing, either of the fictitious or the blog varieties.  I thought that I would spare you all (whoever you are) the details of my mental dross.

But I thought that you deserve to know the reason for the long silence.

A minor announcement (but as a control freak privacy person, it feels HUGE):  I've unlocked most of my previous "for my eyes only" posts.  It's time to live a little more openly, especially when it comes to writing.  And, ya know, I wanna make friends and influence people and junk.

     I don't have anything to say about writing in this New Year, because there hasn't been much of it yet.  Instead, it's been a quiet mental time.  I'm the sort who would hibernate from late November until late March if I could. My natural tendency, post-holidays, is to avoid anything that requires me to move my hands (or any other part of my body, for that matter) out from under the covers and away from my little heater.  It took me nearly 20 years to realize that what I was doing, when I would cuddle over a heat vent and zone out, was meditation, and that four months or so of meditation was what got me through the rest of the year.
     Unfortunately, this is the busiest time of year for my position at the day job.  I'm fighting my natural tendencies in order to be productive, but my body, so attuned to all of these years of chilling out, is having none of it.  I got a lung infection just before the holidays that was so scary that the doctor made me wear a mask while in her office, and then cringed when she gave me the diagnosis.  That hadn't cleared up entirely before the hives (caused by stress) started.  They were so bad this past weekend that I literally had to take a day to sit in the loosest nightgown I have to cut down on anything that might constrict and make the itching worse.  I thought I had that managed, and then, I wrenched my good knee.  And thus, I'm walking with a cane again, and I'm pretty much forced to sit here with my leg elevated.  And yes, I'm sitting here with my little heater and blanket, cause that's just how I roll.  Or in this case, how I gimp.
    You just can't break body karmas over night.  And to be honest, if it means that I can sit here in the warm, when it's abnormally cold outside, I can't say that I really have much motivation to change it.  Instead, I think that I need to just listen to my body's wisdom, and my own inner voice.  It's the quiet time, the waiting time, and I'm going to honor that as much as the day job will let me.

I am not the kind of person who likes to make New Year's resolutions, because I don't believe in setting an artificial date for the beginning or end of something (well, most of the time.)  However, this dark time of the year lends itself well to introspection, and with the change of not only the year but the decade, I am not without thoughts on what went well, and what didn't, both in the last year and over the last ten.  I am a sucker for nostalgia, so before I look forward, I'm ok with looking back a bit.

In the last decade, I settled into the long-term with the love of my life.  We bought a house, and we struggled for most of the last eight years or so to keep it without having the roof fall in, or completely losing the use of all plumbing functionality.  I lost a favorite aunt, and Wahini lost grandparents.  I walked away from my private walking tour company, a job that I thought that I would measure in decades, and I jumped rather blindly into co-ownership of a metaphysical bookstore with a friend on the promise of sweat equity turning into something solvent.  Instead, I pretty much had to stand aside and watch the dismantling of that shop due to circumstances completely beyond my control.  Wahini and I barely made it out of that situation with the aforementioned house, and we are still, nearly four years later, dealing with the financial repercussions.  I searched high and low for work, and finally found it in a not-for-profit that could make good use of my bizarre set of skills.  I got a promotion, and I've proven myself to be the best damned salesperson the place has ever seen.  If I don't get a serious raise or another promotion soon, I will at least have made sufficient connections and positive impressions to pave the way to more lucrative, and let's hope, fulfilling, possibilities.  And if not, I have what I am sure is the winning Powerball ticket in my pocket. 

A man who was Priest and Brother and estranged best friend took his own life rather than standing up to the challenges that his own choices had placed before him, and I walked with the community he left behind through the wreckage and made something salvageable out of the mess.  Wahini and I started a new spiritual community, watched it bloom in ways that we could never have imagined, made friendships that at the time felt like they could only last forever, and tasted a little bit of the fruit of Eden.  We sang to the Divine, I said "yes" to lots of opportunities, I received Shaktipat and then got to experience being there when a lot of my friends did the same.  I became a Reiki Master, and really got blessings in being able to teach my friends and complete strangers about allowing healing to pass through your own body and mind and spirit.  I accepted responsibility and a title that I didn't really want, and I still regret it.  I watched division bloom, and I was exhausted emotionally and spiritually and mentally most of the time.  We let the community fall apart rather than fighting to salvage it because we just didn't have the will to continue CPR.  My heart broke, and I survived it.

Real, true friends passed through my life, and most of them have moved away.  I miss them terribly.  They know who they are.

I started 2009 on a focused quest to improve my body and my health through diet and exercise.  (This had actually started in the fall of 2008 - remember, I don't do New Year's Resolutions).  I joined a "Biggest Loser" type program, and pushed myself to limits I didn't know I could achieve.  I pushed myself too far - not hard to believe, if you know me - and tore my meniscus and ACL, which stopped all that super-achieving of the body cold.  I faced humility and pain, and the feeling that I might never be strong again.  I spent the late winter and spring and the beginning of summer on crutches and using a cane.  I let fear of repeating the pain stop me from doing thing that I wanted to do.  I spent time with an old love and my current love, and regretted where life takes you, sometimes, but never that life took me to Wahini.  I got this laptop, which was seriously a dream come true.  Wahini kidnapped me and made me float in an inner tube and sit by the sea and take a breath and revel in the things that make life sweet.  I fought the House Demon and figured out that you could have window units in old crank out windows and not be TOO trashy looking.  I wrote and dreamed of writing.  I made up for what I couldn't do with my body by over-achieving at work, and broke sales goals records left and right.  I did nothing in the month of November but write and write, and managed to take the novel I've been working on for years 75% of the way to a Draft Zero.  I held a new niece in the spring and a new nephew in the winter as he watched his first snowfall. I dealt with anger at a man I once called a Surrogate Husband, and tried to have some compassion for him through a whole year of housing him, for free, while he tried to put his life back together.  I am still dealing with the anger and frustration caused by his complete failure to do either, and the need to kick him out of the house and pick up the mess that he left behind.  I fight the urge to look for him on the streets and I tell myself I did everything I could for him.  There are times when I feel like I'm very bad at this whole friendship thing, but what I think it really is is a tendency to be too tenderhearted and willing to let others exceed boundaries.

In spite of all of this, I enter 2010 with hope.  Like most people I know, I'm really ready for something to change for the better.  I know that I'm lucky to have a job and benefits and a roof over my head and food in my belly, and the ability to sit here in this coffee shop writing on my laptop, sipping my coffee, and then sign off and go home to my dinner of black eyed peas and spinach salad and cornbread with my mother and aunt and my beloved.  I still hope for better, though.  I hope for compensation that reflects my true worth in my job, I hope for reasonable challenges to keep me engaged in that job.  I hope for more financial stability for my family.  I hope for time and space to finish this novel this year, and the courage to start submitting it to agents.  I hope for fulfillment in Wahini's life, whatever that means for her.  I hope for peace and love and laughter and lightness of heart for us, and for the people we love, and for the people we don't.

This year, I am going to finish my novel, and I hope start another one.  I am going to live less for work and more for my happiness and well-being.  I am going to spend time with people I love, and remember the point in all the striving and reaching that occupies most of my time.  I will do my best to be kind to myself.  I will sit and breathe and listen.  These are not New Year's resolutions.  These are intentions and goals that exist outside of time restraints.  They are on-going, and now a part of this new year.

I am positively full of hope and intention.  Here's hoping for a year that lives up to it.

Namaste.

I have a feeling that my posts here over the next month are going to sound something like a grocery list.  I'm not making apologies for that because I'm reserving the best words of my daily word count for what I'm writing for NaNo.  I DO regret, if anyone is reading this journal at all (and I would be sincerely surprised if someone IS) that you will be a) bored silly by recounts of how the writing is going, and b) that you may in some way concur that I'm a boring automaton with no opinions or thoughts on anything besides this crazy sprint toward 50,000.

::clearing throat::

I do have thoughts.  Deep and profound thoughts.  But you're just going to have to wait until December to find that out for yourself.  Or, yanno, maybe buy the book when it's published to world-wide acclaim and Oprah Book Club riches for me. Not that I'm writing for either of those reasons, you understand.

I'm off to write things that count toward that 50K.  Good luck fellow Wrimos!

    I have intentionally been a lame ass for pretty much an entire month.  I had a feeling that a little R&R was in order during October.   I had an inclination to sign up for NaNoWriMo, and I finally summoned the courage to do so late last week.  I spent a few days revving my engine, and at 12:01 a.m. on November 1, I started writing.  Fueled by a pint of chocolate milk and a pumpkin spice doughnut (ah, the sugar rush!), I powered through over 1600 words before turning off the light.  I slept for five hours or so, and awoke to a fierce and insistent need to go to Mass.

    Yes, Mass.  And no, I didn't burn up as soon as my toes crossed the threshold of the church.
  
    St. Mary's of the Annunciation was once my "home" church, and continues to be for my main character, Bronte.  Sunday was the Feast of All Saints, and the church was packed.  I tucked myself into a corner on a folding chair, and let the service was over me.  It was both inspirational and soothing.
    A quick lunch with Wahini, and I was on the road for my first ever NaNoWriMo write-in.  I met some nice ladies who shared a table with me and got a little over 2000 words written.  I also scored some sweet give-mes.  We have a generous and benevolent ML who believes in Post-Its.  She is truly a woman after my own heart.
    Dinner with Wahini, and then more writing.  The day ends with 5052 words written, 44,948 to go.  That carries me into the beginning of Day 4, so I have a cushion - just in case.

And now, it is really time to turn off my brain.  Good night, Internets!

This giant pause in writing productivity and its reporting brought to you by a Trip Home to See the Parents, followed by Birthday Celebration, version 37.

The trip home reminded me, yet again, that I have no business living anywhere in the great state of North Carolina.  It sucks the life out of me.  I find myself perpetually grumpy, craving alcohol in copious quantities, and wondering if my parents live in a pocket of the Space/Time continuum that slows time way the fuck down.  It was a long, long, long long weekend.  I love them a great deal and I'm always happy to see them - but it's so much better when I don't have to Return to the Place of My Great Unhappiness.  Greensboro = my personal hell.  And that includes all of the little outlying towns and villages, too.  The only thing that made it better was eating hot dogs from Yum Yum's just before leaving town.  As a matter of fact, that's always the best reason to visit Greensboro for anyone passing that way.  I mean, stopping off in Browns Summit to see my folks isn't going to appeal to most people.

I came home to cuddles and a day of spa treatments and eating whatever the heck I wanted and having the love of my life try to buy me things.  Coming home to Charleston was a huge relief.  The day included finding out that our first little nephew was born on my birthday, so I get to share the day, usually the first official day of Fall and often the Autumnal Equinox with Jack Douglas.  Pretty groovy.

I am now sitting in my very favorite coffee shop, with my very favorite children's book writer working busily on the other side of my laptop screen (with semi-frequent interruptions to have me look up how long turtles can hold their breath, and whether or not fish have ears), revving up to start on a scene of my own book and generally enjoying the moment.  It's a good way to start the next year of my life.

I spent much of the weekend THINKING about writing, without getting a great deal of it done.  I did, however, manage to get Wahini out of the house for a bit to do a little "research" for HER novel that involved a visit to one of the last three important existing public buildings from the Revolutionary era left in America - namely, the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon here in Charleston.  I was shocked recently to learn that, in all my years of taking tourists around town, I never took Wahini to this building.  Admittedly, it's probably because it creeps the livin' B'Jesus out of me.  On this day, however, the sun was shining and I was feeling brave.  So off we went.

The day started, as all days like this must, with brunch:
I am obviously high on the strawberry jam and giddy from the homemade sausages.

We then drove around a bit searching for free Sunday on the street parking.  We ended up at the quiet end of Waterfront Park, a couple of blocks behind the Old Exchange, and found a lovely spot for a photo op.

  Yes, I was going for the whole "cool Southern author book jacket" look.  Well, except for the whole crazy out of control bang thing.

We eventually made it to the Old Exchange, where we oooohed over 18th century vests and dresses (Wahini was a costumer once upon a time) and peeked into the meeting room for the local DAR chapter before trooping off to the part of the building I most hate:  the dungeon.

The place is creepy.  I know it's haunted.  And the boring tour guides and automatron talking "dummies" from the Bicentennial era don't help.  I didn't take pictures.  It was all I could do to stay down there for the tour.

We then went to my favorite part of the building - the Great Hall, where old George Washington was once feted by 300 ladies wearing patriotic flags in their elaborate wigs.  We did not dress for the occasion, but there was a bit of whirling around.  I can't resist a dance floor and piped in waltzes.

  Not seen:  the bermuda-short, fanny pack wearin' tourists.  Without them, the room would seem MUCH larger.

After we went back downstairs to drool over a dreamy antique desk and to consider buying Pirate paraphenalia just for kicks, we opted to walk down the street to get Baked instead.

  This was obviously Wahini's favorite part of the day.

So besides general bonding, we DID accomplish some things for the day.  Wahini now knows quite a bit about one of her important characters, I found a place to set a scene that I hadn't considered before, and I DID eventually get some words written. 

Any writing day that involves eating key lime pie squares and chocolate covered rice krispies HAS to be a good day, right?

It is 12:39 am on Sunday.  Saturdays are my usual "write all I can/want" writing day.  I am just now getting round to it.  ::sigh::

To be fair, I am usually alone on Saturdays, as the S.O. (AKA Wahini) is usually at work on a barrier island 18 miles away, giving me loads of time to either write, or come up with my own methods of procrastination.  But today she was home, and somehow, even though I carried both of our laptops downstairs. . .it didn't happen.  She didn't want to take them along in the car while we had Indian buffet lunch, so I left them until we returned to "change out the laundry."  When we got home, laundry was indeed changed.  And rather than writing, two DVDs were watched ("The Soloist" and "Phoebe in Wonderland" - apparently it was Mental Illness Day for us when we chose them at Blockbuster.)  This was, of course, followed by another trip to Blockbuster and dinner.  Followed by DVRed "Project Runway" and yes, "Models of the Runway."  Even now, I'm re-capping the events of my day rather than WRITING.

So I'm going to go write at least a page or two so that I can count it as Saturday writing, since I haven't been to sleep yet.

Plans are definitely, maybe, possibly firm for writing tomorrow.

Gotta get better at this prioritizing.