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In this issue:
Increasing My Stamina
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card
Increasing My Stamina
Back when I had a job and a 50-minute commute, I would leave work and drive to the coffee shop near my home and work on my project until closing. Closing at this place was 9:00, not midnight or later, but still, it was a long day. 7am-9pm. Fourteen hours. I’d do that every day.
When my job vanished, I’d get to the coffee shop when they opened at five, and I’d stay until some time between two and four. That’s, what, eleven hours? I did that every day until the employees and regulars alike started taking an interest in what I was doing and thereby prevented me from doing it. I tried other venues but didn’t like any of the setups and ultimately started working from home.
Lots of distractions at home.
My phone’s not one of them, strangely enough, but laundry is. So are dishes. So is a break in the rain. And let’s not forget the pugs.2 And then there’s my significant other, who’s now home all day as well. He likes to go on spontaneous adventures. I like adventures, too. FOMO anyone?
Fast forward too many years to say without feeling bad about myself, and my stamina has dropped to a couple of hours a day, if I’m lucky.
What I’m doing about it
I realized many things about my writing process last month, during my WWTS break, and stamina—what I’m capable of doing vs what I’ve been doing—is the one that’s most actionable. The plan to increase my stamina includes getting up at 5 and reducing distractions, but the one change that I’m particularly excited about, the one that I’ve been embracing the most, is this idea about square pegs and round holes and discomfort and leaning into it.
If I want to regain my stamina, or make any kind of change, then I have to start doing things differently. Doing things differently is easy at first, until it’s not, until it’s hard. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. I’ve been fairly indulgent with myself lately, not wanting to deal with hard, not wanting to deal with discomfort. But it is precisely when the doing is hard or uncomfortable and we do it anyway that change happens.
If I’m a square peg and I want to be rounded off a bit so that I can fit into a round hole, then I’ve got some corners that need shaving off. So. Let’s say we put my square self on a lathe. As a square, I’ve got corners and I’ve got edges. The exact middle of an edge is easy to shape, because it’s already the size it needs to be to fit into the round hole. It’s the corners that need shaving. So we line the blade of the lathe up with the center of an edge in order to get a run at that first hard corner. And when the blade hits that corner? Yowsers! Ugh! It’s uncomfortable.
But of course it is. We’re shaving off bits of ourselves that don’t serve us anymore.
But as long as we stick with it, the discomfort doesn’t last. Because pretty soon, leaning into that blade, as uncomfortable as it might be shaving off those corners, we become the circle we said we wanted to be. It’s only when we hit the blade and pull the square out of the lathe and reset it and start again . . . and restart again . . . and restart again, that we get a really choppy looking circle if we ever get a circle at all.
Discomfort is a sign that we’re on the brink of changing, and leaning into that discomfort—over and over and over, again and again and again—is how we complete the change.
So that’s where I’m at. I’m leaning into the discomfort. When I reach my two-hour “limit” and notice I’m feeling antsy, I no longer mindlessly beg off for the rest of the day. I refocus and do a little more. I tell myself, “Oh, good! I’m curving the square!” Not to mention, getting better and better at this writing thing I say I love doing and getting closer to finishing this project I’m working on. It’s a win-win-win.
And it’s starting to feel kinda strange that I ever considered approaching discomfort any other way.
Writing Prompt
Character: STORYTELLER
Light Attribute: Ability to experience and express life through stories and symbols.
Shadow Attributes: Making up tales that harm others.Setting: Laundromat.
Object: A magnet, a pair of socks, a toothbrush.
Emotion: SAFE. Secure, sheltered, protected.
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card
As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is back to basics. Sometimes I need a reminder.
Thank you for reading!
I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.
Keep at it,
Megan
WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList
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One of whom is currently draped over my right shoulder. I’m leaning to the left to balance her weight as I try to type this.