Tag: writing community

From the couch

Published on by audreyLeave a comment

Hi, I made a grand overture about getting back in to the swing of writing and then took 5 days off. Nice to meet you!

But I do have various good excuses, such as:

Thursday: stayed late at work to have a video consult with my therapist, and it was one of those “ow that hurts but also makes me feel validated and whole” kinda sessions. I was explaining the revelations I had and insights I gained and Good Things and How I Implement Them, and at one point she said “hey you’re killing it!” and it felt nice to hear, but I don’t think that’s really accurate. I wouldn’t say I’m killing it. I’m merely standing in front of all the Things I want to change in a provoked, aggressive stance, growling softly and saying “don’t make me angry…” which is still a big improvement from what I used to do, which was lie still and watch TV and hope the Things would just sniff me and go away.

So I gave myself the night off.

Friday: Super fun day! Went in to work and had a few productive hours in the morning, then left at 11AM for an afternoon off. Ventured to IKEA where I scoured the as-is section and found gems, then walked through the entire show room and market place slowly filling a big yellow bag with treasures while I listened to season 1 of Big Love. It was wonderful. And then I had this weird obsessive need to buy a coffee table at the same time I realised I’d been walking around for 2 hours burning daylight and I was hangry. So I made a split decision and bought a table that looked like it would fit (who measures amirite), bumbled my way through the check out, inhaled a hot dog (shoulda done that before shopping, rookie mistake), hailed an Uber, got home, put together the coffee table, and it was MASSIVELY too big. In fact, it was an actual bench for the end of bed or near a dresser, not a coffee table, even though the display I saw was with the side/coffee tables. So that annoyed me. Then it was like 5PM and I remembered I had to get groceries for Taco Night, and I was hungry again but it was too late to eat something good and I didn’t want eat all the Tim Tams so I just didn’t eat, which realllllly annoyed me. I wandered up and down the aisles of our new local grocery store (which predominately sells amazing Asian groceries and some random American groceries I can’t find anywhere else) looking for Taco ingredients but could’t find anything except a giant bag of round tortilla chips, so that was exciting (Australia loves those Mission style tortilla strips or triangles or you can get that tiny bag of round chips that barely makes 1 pan of nachos, and I personally think round nachos give you the most satisfying topping coverage and are more easily scooped – but I digress). Eventually I was hangry and gave up looking for salsa and assumed we had it at home (spoiler alert: we didn’t). I ate a giant Reese cup (choices) and watched Allen vs Farrow (more choices) and felt like I squandered the day (I didn’t, but ok). Joel came home and also instantly vetoed the table. Boo.

The tacos were good, but I was in a pissy mood, mostly because every so often I don’t handle Disappointment well and when one thing Fails (table), basically EVERYTHING fails (i.e. groceries I knew I had to get, no salsa, no taco spice mix, eating way too much sugar when hangry, Woody Allen, no electric dryer so clothes take 2 days to dry, had to run errands in the morning) and nothing will ever be good again – I could win $1k tax free and would still complain that it came as a cheque. But we started a new show called Line of Duty that I was all “fuck that it looks dumb” because I was pissy but 5 mins later was fully engrossed and we watched 2 episodes and that allowed me to part the Oceans of Bad Mood enough to realise “hey I’m mad bc 1 thing was bad and then it snow balled. Also because I didn’t feed myself when necessary. I think I might be the cause of all my problems.”

Anyway, decided not to write, went to bed instead.

Saturday: ERRANDS. Errands and house cleaning and one return trip to Target to get the coffee table we agreed on that morning but couldn’t buy then because we were carrying too many things home. Reminded ourselves once again to rent a car when Running Heavy Errands. Watched more Line of Duty and went to bed. Good solid day, no time to write. Told myself I’d do it Sunday before the bbq.

Sunday: Finished laundry and last bit of cleaning before sitting on the bed for hours looking at my phone before moving to the couch to spend hours looking at my phone. We had friends over for a small bbq. After years of ooing and ahhing over our friend’s houses, it felt really good to finally have a space big enough to host people. Also it was really cute seeing Joel chuffed showing off the house. Ow. Drank too much wine, ate so much meat, fell asleep around midnight without cleaning up, but feeling fat and happy.

Monday: 5:40AM came way too soon. Slept in til 6:30, stayed in bed til 7, ended up needing an Uber to get to work on time. Busy day. First pilates class in about 2 weeks, but it was led by her student and she kicked.my.ass. Left the class sweaty and broken but it felt great. Got home, washed all the dirty dishes, vaccumed and and Joel got home and spot mopped the floor. Ordered pizza and it was especially delish and we watched Mare of Eastown which is pretty damn good. Solid, cozy, hungover night. Had a shower and thought about how writer’s put themselves into at least one character, and how for me, that’s always the main character. Maybe I can write against my type and see what happens? But how do I know what’s against my type if I only know my type? Thought hard about maybe writing about that, but didn’t.

Tuesday: l-o-n-g day at work, feeling overwhelmed and unable to catch up because of Things. Stayed late to organise but felt too tired and frustrated to focus. Decided to try again tomorrow. Got home, changed into my sweat-exdo and grabbed my laptop so I could write even though my eyes were strained and I was tired of looking at screens. I didn’t write in my manuscript, but at least I made myself do something here.

So here I am, from the couch, updating. My 2nd day Pilates soreness is creeping in (can barely lift my arms), I have heart burn radiating in my ears from eating too much sausage for dinner and I’m so tired, but – I came home and didn’t succumb to the Potato Void, and instead put it on the blog. That’s great!

Baby steps toward that Monolith.

Selfcare and other terrible phrases

Published on by audreyLeave a comment

Had a long-ish day at work, ran some errands, came home, came upstairs, opened the laptop, plugged in the hard drive, and

Nothing.

Nada.

No drive, and no focus.

And that’s ok, we’re still trying to get back in the swing of things. The fact that I’m typing here and didn’t just bail altogether is really good.

At work today, my Wednesday trainer and I realised we hadn’t seen each other in 3 weeks. Which means it’s only been 3 weeks since we moved, and 1 week since I fried my brain at work.

It’s funny how time feels like it’s going backwards when we’re stressed, but when you start to feel better, you’re like “what do you mean, it’s been 3 weeks? Hasn’t it only been like 2 mins?”

Stress, you ol dirty bastard.

It’s also funny how you can feel nostalgic about those times where you felt like garbage, overstressed, sad, flat, bloated old potato growing fur and eyes in the bottom of the basket. But then again, it’s really not that funny – it’s how conditioned us depressive types get to feeling unwell. It becomes normal. It’s ‘easy’. We know how to work it, because it happens all the time. It doesn’t stop us from complaining and whinging with every atom of our being, because it sucks to feel that way. Contentment, happiness, comes different each time and is unpredictable. It’s hard to feel safe in that.

But I’m trying to re-learn what ‘safe’ is.

like –

Learning to accept that I can have good things in my life – like accepting that people can genuinely like me. And that not everyone or everything has an agenda to kick my ass. Like I don’t have to control everything. Like people can participate in the things I like to do without me feeling like they’re pushing me out. Learning I don’t have to launch into catastrophe mode.

Learning to give myself good self care (that’s a phrase that has less meaning every time you say it) — my trainer today asked me what I do for self-care when I’m stressed, and I honestly wasn’t sure. I thought, well, I reward myself with zoning out to a crap TV show or movie, or eat an entire birthday cake, or allow myself not to shower, etc. But nothing like, I do yoga or take a walk or meditate or write. And I thought, why don’t I do that?

And then I thought, this week I have: set boundaries with my personal time, I’ve taken the time to write at least 3 words after work, I met with my trainer today, I’ve bathed regularly. I’m listening to music more instead of re-runs. So, I’m actually doing a lot of good self care this week.

So hey – take that, Feelings Monster.

Ok, so I didn’t write in my manuscript today. But I’ve been a little vulnerable here. And that’s fixing the instrument that helps me write. Gotta have that good base.

Tuesday, day 2

Published on by audrey2 Comments

I got one step closer today – I got home from work, went straight to the office, opened the laptop, pulled out my hard drive, oh wait picked up the cat bc she was feeling needy, pet and held the cat for a few mins, took excessive pictures of the cat (I am worse than a first time mother OMG SHE IS SITTING I LOVE WHEN SHE SITS), plugged in my hard drive, and very nearly opened my manuscript.

Nah, fuck it, I’m going to open it now. The time is 5:35PM.

14 MINUTES LATER –

It is now 5:49PM, and I successfully wrote a little bit in my manuscript – just a couple tweaks here and there.

BUT, success! Maybe tomorrow I can crack open my notes and see what I had been planning back in January.

On to tomorrow…

Hello, Dave.

Published on by audrey3 Comments

I’ve been actively avoiding anything regarding writing since March February January December 2019. If I have sat down to get some pages down, I struggle. 5 words in, I’ll open solitare (I never win). Then, I’ll write 4 more words. Then, I’ll open some wedding dress tabs (I’m not getting married). Then, it’s time to do something else, like go the grocery store bitterly complaining that I could be home writing and then come home and sit on the bed with the cat on my phone complaining that I should be writing and why don’t I ever have time to just sit and write why is the world against me??

A few weeks ago, we moved from our beautiful, itty bitty, exposed brick, wood beam, golden hour filled one bedroom apartment, and into a beautiful little terrace house with a real kitchen, a back court yard, so many more rooms and ceiling fans and – shock – a second bedroom that we could use as a study.

i.e. I would have a place to write that would be bigger than 130cm x 75cm and that wouldn’t be parked right next to the cat’s litter box.

i.e. I could get a bigger desk. A more supportive chair. I could spread out. I could have privacy. I could have space.

i.e. And I’m not working 10 hour days anymore, so I can come home at 4:45PM and write until Joel comes home, and I don’t bring work home on the weekends anymore, so I can set aside time to write as well.

i.e. I would soon run out of excuses as to why I’m not writing.

Alas, here we are. And here I am, twiddling my thumbs and wondering what excuse I’m going to come up wiht now.

I’m tired. But I’m always tired. I was tired when I wrote my novella. I was tired when I wrote all those plays. I was tired when I was writing like crazy right after college.

I’m busy. LOL. Unless I’m on the clock for my day job, there is usually nothing I’m doing that’s so important it can’t be postponed by like 1 hour so I can work.

I’m scared. Hey – look at that, a legitimate excuse.

About 5 days after we moved in, I came home from work and decided to unpack my desk, and set it up for writing. I had to psyche myself up for it, and promise myself a special treat if I just went and worked in there for a little bit. Like, that’s how little I wanted to be involved in something that would remind me that I’m avoiding what I’m supposed to love like it’s the plague* it’s the dentist. So I set my desk up, took heaps of “BEFORE!” and “AFTER!” pictures to post on Instagram to show how productive and awesome I’m going to be, and then I left.

And I haven’t been back until today, when I took a sick day to rest, and early this morning thought “hey I should try and write a little bit, since I’ll be home by myself.” And I put it off until 4PM.

Writing is like the big black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey just following me around whenever I have spare time. And I am like the antsy ape standing at the base, angrily tossing bones and sticks at it, trying to shoo it away while at the same time being drawn to it, because I have a feeling it’ll do me some good, and trying to duck and hide from the horrifying guttural cries of the Swedish choral group moaning around me.

Every day after work, when I come upstairs to change (like Mr Rodgers, I change from my ‘hard pants’ into my ‘soft pants’ and from my ‘work sweater’ to my ‘house sweater’ ((which is actually a different work sweater not appearing at work this month)) and emerge from the bedroom in my true form: Potato.

And as I head back downstairs to decompress by staring into the same phone I already stared at for 60mins+ while coming home, I pass my study. There the Monolith stands. Black, so Black. To quote Nigel from Spinal Tap, It can’t get any blacker. If the question was, how much more black could this be, the answer would be: none. I can see into it, I can see into its void. It’s glinty. It looks like it would be soft and cool, like the misting aisles at summer amusement parks.

I want to go in, I want to try and touch it, but instead feel my arm go all the way through it, I want to fall in and spend hours on the computer, straining my eyes doing something I want. I want that all consuming, can’t wait to come back to this manuscript and play around some more feeling. I want to evolve into that starchild floating above the bed, but instead of staring into nothing while contemplating the complete knowledge of everything, I’d be typing on my celestial, embryotic laptop, scaring the shit out of Joel and Pancake.

But I don’t go in. I ignore it. I walk downstairs and think “eh, maybe this weekend.” Because I’m worried that I’ll see the Monolith, I’ll walk into the room, I’ll touch it, and it’s just going to be a dumb, muted black wall and I will fall, not into it, but against it, and stub my toe. And I’ll get pissy and dejected and I won’t want to come back ever again.

And I repeat this. Over and over again. And nothing changes. Not even my level of self-punishment gets worse. And the HILARIOUS part is, I’ve made this kind of entry so many times now, that it’s basically my speciality.

“Oh you’re a writer! What do you write?”

“Excessively self-defeating essays on why I don’t write, and how I’m going to really start writing this week, and oh, I put out a whole series where I say I’m going to put my progress online so people can hold me accountable — but spoiler alert, I don’t stick to it, and no one holds me accountable because I let so much time go by that the time I mention I’m going to write again, they’ve already forgotten that I wrote in the first place!”

“Right.”

So what’s the deal, Potato? Why are you so afraid of possibly becoming au gratin when you hoped you’d become hasselback? You’d still eat au gratin. It’s not the worst thing. Look at you go today, you sat down, completely unsure of what to write, and you’ve come up with a 2001 metaphor that makes you chuckle. That’s a good start!

Note to self: Not every session is going to be successful and on fire; somedays you will literally do nothing. Try not to hate yourself.

Note to self: Saying I will do this by this date means you will NOT do this by this date.

Note to self: Imagine what would happen if you work as hard for yourself as you do for other people.

Note to self: if you keep consistent for 7 days, you can treat yourself to one sweater you don’t need. Oh, you already bought that treat? Ok, well now you have to work it off. Debts and credits, you definitely know those inside and out.

You can do this. You can become the celestial potato that the weird alien/Jesus monolith knows you can be. And now it’s 5:30 – you did it! So now, go do some house stuff before Joel comes home. And feel good about yourself, ok?