I spied this Robin gathering materials for her nest outside my bedroom window this morning. How exciting to see new life is in progress!
With her mouth full of materials, I watched as she flew to the dwarf lilac tree, hopped carefully through the tight-knit branches and added to her creation of what will soon be her home sweet home. What a perfect tree for her to build her nest where she will raise her first brood. It faces the east and gets lots of morning sunshine. Not to mention the bonus for me as I can see it from my bedroom window and my writing cottage window.
I couldn’t help but think how I’m nesting just like the Robin. No, I’m not expecting. Well, in a way, I guess you could say I am.
Late last week I received feedback from one of my beta readers for my upcoming memoir, I’m Fine Just the Way I Am. To me, writing a book is like different stages of life. From starting with the idea to writing the draft, to reworking it until it feels right to send out to beta readers, to reworking it again, then sending it off to the editor, and reworking yet again, and then finally… off to the printers! But it doesn’t’ end there.
As I watched the Robin gathering materials, adding them to what will soon be a completed nest, which will soon be filled with eggs, to her sitting on her eggs until they hatch, and eventually her baby birds who will fly off into the world on their own.
I realized writing this book the importance of the nesting stage has been for me. I’ve been preparing myself emotionally along with news things I always seem to learn about the writing process, to eventually sending my book out into the world.
I really don’t know where it will land, but yet I trust that it will.
And speaking of my book….back to the nest I must go and give new life to the text that needs reworking!
XO,
Barbara
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While my writing cottage is olive-green, the green spotlight shining on it at night, decked out for the holidays, it casts this lovely magical glow. Don’t you just want to open that Victorian screen door and step inside for a cup of hot cocoa?
Since 2009 I’ve spent countless hours in this 10 x 12 cozy and quaint space my husband, John lovingly built for me. Two children’s books, one how-to book, and two memoirs have been written within these four walls. Not to mention the oodles of blog posts and newsletters too!
Speaking of books, I’m closing in on the first draft of my third memoir, I’m Fine Just the Way I Am. I hit the 100 typed pages mark today. Not that I’m necessarily basing this book on a page count. But it’s a nice marker to know in that my last two memoirs were 120 typed pages (before formatted in book layout form). Also gauging it on what I’ve written so far, the notes I’ve taken along the way of what I want to include, and the rough outline I created at the beginning, I’m at this delicious point of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
But don’t get me wrong… I have a long ways to go yet. After this first draft is complete, I will dive back in to shape it until I feel it is good for an editor’s eyes to read. But it feels so good to be to this point.
Today I wrote a section for the book about how I came to realize I wasn’t always honoring Gidget’s needs. Not an easy thing to admit or write about. But it’s something I came to observe about myself and my needs and felt it important to share.
Every morning, for many years, since Frankie, then Joie, and now Gidget, when I was ready to get to work, I’d tuck a dachshund under my right arm and out to my writing cottage I’d go. It was always comforting to have a dog companion with me as I spend so much time alone.
But as things unfolded for Gidget and I and the inner focus I was called to do this year because of Gidget and what she was trying to help me understand, I came to see Gidget in a new way.
This book, unlike the others before them, has been written without Gidget holding space for me within my writing cottage. I came to realize this year that perhaps it wasn’t her thing. While it was difficult at first, when I let go and allowed her to make her own choice and she more often than not, chooses not to be in my writing cottage with me.
While I miss seeing her sweet face within this space, the fun part is that when I do make trips into the house, which I do often, there are times she comes bouncing around the corner to see me. So it’s happy little reunions like this throughout the day that always make me smile.
I can’t help but think too that as women we don’t always value time for ourselves or really appreciate the importance of it. While I’ve written about, and talked about this often over the years, I’ve had much to learn too. While I don’t have kids, my dogs, have at times, filled in the gap for my emotional needs.
It’s made me examine myself more closely and has had me paying more attention to what it is that Gidget may need that I wasn’t allowing her to experience because of my needs. More often than not these days, she chooses to stay in the house while I work in my writing cottage. This past summer she chose to lie on the deck and rarely spent time in my writing cottage.
I’ll admit this took some getting used to on my part. I had to sit with my feelings of not feeling rejected, and I while I do miss her being in this space with me, more often than not, my heart feels good in honoring her space and what she needs. And in turn? It makes me appreciate all the more of what it is I need too.
Thank you, as always, for being part of my community here. I’m so grateful!
You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you. This is the place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen. ~Joseph Campbell
So many distractions this morning that could have easily derailed me from my commitment to working on my new book. Waking up late because I didn’t feel well overnight, to John being crabby, of which he eventually shared with me it was regarding a work challenge, to the insurance company calling to help me file my claim for the damage to my car from a hit and run.
When I first became a writer, I admit I was entranced by the fantasy of solitude and spilling out the contents of my heart effortlessly on a daily basis. I’ve learned a lot in eleven years and the reality that is. While there are many days it is divine and flows with ease, most days just don’t shake out this way. Writing is work. But it’s work I don’t intend on giving up anytime too soon.
Though I almost threw in the towel today and said the heck with it. I’m tired after a restless night, the energy was heavy in the house with John’s concerns over work, and then dealing with three different people regarding the claim on my car….well, a nap sure seemed like the better thing to do. 🙂
But I thought about the manifesto I’d written for my book yesterday and my About Page I recently updated on my website. While this book is another memoir, it’s more than that. It’s about helping empower women to open to their inner voice, express their fears and desires, expand their perspective, emerge into new possibilities, and continue to evolve as their True Self.
Sitting down to do my daily oracle card reading for myself and then journal as my daily ritual, it was confirmed what I needed to tap into to get my butt in my writing chair despite all the distractions from the morning.
As I shuffled, I heard to count down to the fourth card from the top.
From the Wisdom of the Oracle: Higher Power #4
I then pulled a card from an inspirational deck I recently provided feedback for (of which I can’t share yet as it is still in the works, but will share when I can!).
The card was SHARE.
Okay, universe. I hear you. A reminder that I’m not writing this book alone. To get out of my small self that was feeling tired and irritated by how the morning had played out so far. I’m not creating this book alone and it’s my connection to something bigger than me that I felt re-energized and ready to get to the task at hand. Pulling the Share card a reminder that in sharing my story, I will make a difference in the lives of women my book is meant to touch.
And it triggered remembering a quote I recently read by Joseph Campbell which I shared above. It’s true the importance of taking time each day to “simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”
This place, of which I have as a physical space in my writing cottage, I also feel it’s important to say that it’s also that inner space that we must take time to be with each day. Though, of course, this is what Joseph Campbell speaks to also. While the physical place is often more easily achieved, it’s the inner space we don’t always value enough in a fast-driven society. But it’s the space in which the answers lie.
From sitting with what felt like an empty well after the interruptions of the morning, to finding my center once again, moving to my writing desk became a choice that truly matters to me and the impact I want to leave on the world. And while my writing session wasn’t without effort today, I’m in a place of contentment for having stayed committed to what is important to me.
Just as I finished writing this post, I remembered the photo I captured of a swallowtail butterfly outside my kitchen window early last evening. Looking up it’s meaning made me smile as another beautiful reminder of how the universe is always supporting us with signs to guide us along our path:
Inspiration, intuition, higher consciousness, transformation, resurrection, flashes of insight, power of beauty, strength in vulnerability.
XO,
Barbara
P.S. My reward for doing what matters today besides feeling good I did the work? This afternoon I’m going with my dear friend to see the movie, Christopher Robin with Winnie-the-Pooh and the Gang! I’m sure glad author A.A. Milne did what mattered to him.
Sitting down to do my daily oracle card reading for myself and then journal as my daily ritual, it was confirmed what I needed to tap into to get my butt in my writing chair despite all the distractions from the morning.