The New Year Is New

Hello everybody!!

I’ve been doing tons of things and not reporting in here. So business as usual. LOL.

I had a great holiday. It was relatively quiet and because I got on top of some things earlier than usual (aka didn’t wait until last minute) I wasn’t running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. We had a few guests along with the fam, and we ate good food and laughed a lot. No drama, as is my favorite kind of holiday.

I’ve been horse painting, too, and am showing you a few pictures. I’m learning a lot about it and getting better at it. If you want to see what I’ve got currently selling, it’s on ebay.  I really like a few of these. Actually I like them all, but I especially love a few, like the snowflake guy. The two in this post are newly finished and I’ll be posting for sale. The problem is is that the big guy is a stallion, so while it looks like a mare and foal pair, it’s not.

As I mentioned a few months (or awhile, I can’t remember) ago, that I’m working on my mental health. I’ve gone off my welbutrin, and my memory has been coming back. As in, I don’t forget things in the middle of talking about them. I started seeing a therapist, who I like very much, and it seems to be helping me. I haven’t felt sad for a few weeks. That’s huge. And by sad, I mean melancholy, randomly weepy, and so forth. I am having some insomnia, though. That’s a drag. But since I think I’ve begun hitting menopause, there’s a good chance that’s involved. Because of health issues, I can’t and won’t take hormones.

As for some of the things I’m learning about myself, it’s that I have a deep-seated need for recognition. Awards maybe. I know it’s huge for me when my daughter tells me she loves my books. It’s random and not frequent that she mentions that, but it’s huge. I’m not sure where that need comes from. It’s been with me a long time, like since I was a kid.

Another thing I’ve learned is I have this idea that work isn’t worthwhile or valuable if it isn’t difficult and/or painful. Like if I don’t suffer for it, it’s not good (whether it’s writing or something else). Working on figuring that one and figuring out why. The sad thing is that I may never know the why as it very well might not be available to me. What’s fun is that some of my background in literary theory helps me understand a bunch of this.

Im also taking a class from Becca Syme called Write Better, Faster. A lot of it focuses on personality traits, mental strengths, and etc., to figure out how I work best and how I can embrace my strengths and manage my weakness to improve my writing habits. And life habits. It’s been fascinating to learn some of that and to think about how I do things and see why. It’s enlightening. For instance, for my Clifton Strengths, my top five are: 1. Learner 2. Intellection 3. Input 4. Context 5. Positivity. Those together mean I like to explore information, learn it, assess it, think on it, and then take action. At the same time I’m doing all the other, I’m plotting a new  novel in a new world and paying attention to how I’m doing it and I’m noticing that I do have to pause and think for a bit and gather information.

Now here is where you’re going to laugh at me. I was writing out the scenes and I reached a point where I’d not thought about what came next and I wrote something down. Then I told myself: “Well now you’re just making shit up.” *headslap* “Uh, Di, what do you think writing fiction actually is?” But the fact was it wasn’t that I was making shit up, it was that I hadn’t yet ruminated (no cud involved). So I have since been ruminating and am progressing.

Our dog’s been seriously sick a couple times this month, so I’ve been freaking out about that. He seems on the mend. I’m also giving thought to giving up teaching. I think it might be time to retire there. I’ve been thinking about how much ‘good’ time I have left in my life before my body or mind goes. I’ve been thinking what I have left to do in my life that I haven’t done and how I’m going to make time for that to happen, and so I’m thinking that I’ve done enough teaching. That said, I will continue to coach and do critiques and participate in workshops at conventions. I enjoy those a lot.

I’m also giving thought to adding a weekly or monthly phone call or Zoom type call to my Patreon. Whether as an individual or ina  group.

Well that’s the current update. I’ve been also doing some knitting and reading.

How have all of you been doing?