So our theme this month is organizing. By this time you realize that I'm not much for organizing my house. My thought with this blog is to help with another type of organizing. Organizing one's well being. A key to happiness. I don't have a magic wand, but I believe one key is knowing what makes
you happy. My husband. My children. My family. My doggies. Those are a given and an
easy answer. But today I'm not taking about who or what you love that makes you happy. I want to talk about
what you do to make yourself happy.
So what makes me happy?
I'm happiest when I'm busy. I'm like my father that way. He
always had a project or two underway when I was younger. My father was a high
school teacher and basketball coach. He was also a workaholic. My siblings and
I used to cringe if he didn't have a summer job because it meant one thing- we
were going to be busy. And I mean busy. One summer my father thought we should
get a feel for what real work was like. He had us hoe out a whole cotton patch.
Yes, manually. Yes, he had a tractor that could have plowed it nicely. But we
wouldn't have gained that experience in life. Experience he always contended
was important.
Over time I have come to realize one thing. I have become my
father. No, I have never made my children hoe out a cotton patch, but it
wouldn't have hurt them if they had. No, I have come to understand my father
better, because in a sense I have become him. I have to be busy. I don't need a
lot of sleep. I can't stand it when I don't have control of a situation. And I have
become a workaholic myself.
I'll admit it. I like to work. I like my job at the
hospital. I love to write. If I had a little more time, I'm sure I would like
to clean my house...but I have all these projects. I read what most authors
recommend- to complete one project at a time when it comes to writing. I'm sure
that would be a good idea. I have only one problem with that- I can't do it.
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| THE JUDAS KISS |
I'm happy when I'm writing. I'm not even organized when I write. I'm a panster. I don't follow an outline.
I go with the flow of the story. Oh, I know where I want to go. It's just the
journey to that end - most of the time, I'm not exactly certain how I'm going to get there, but I
have faith in my story. It comes. I have to feel the story. But that means I go
and come to my writings. When I'm in the middle of writing, I become obsessed
with the story or that portion of it. If I'm stuck at a point, I move on to
what I am feeling.
Why am I telling you this? It explains why I have so much
going on this year with my writing. Everything seems to be finished at one
time. THE JUDAS KISS was just released. It's my first book in the
Tide of Charleston series. I'm so excited about The Judas Kiss because the
series is set in Charleston Charleston
So much to do...but I'm
happy. So what about you? What do you do that makes you feel better?
Check out my new release, The Judas Kiss, a historical
fiction book sweeping from Charleston Harbor to the ballrooms of London
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| SHADOWS OF THE PAST |
Can find me over on Novel Works, my historical blog, and
4 comments:
Good advice. I put myself last while my children were growing up and had to relearn how to be #one.
It's what we do as a wife and mother, isn't Barbara? Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just don't forget to enjoy the things that make you happy.
Walking my dog! If I don't get outside in the fresh air (rain, snow, or sun I go) and take a hike in the woods, I feel blah. No energy. No creativity. Doesn't matter how many places I have to drive my kids, how big the stack of laundry, how many editors are waiting for revisions - a walk in the woods with Ginger is mandatory to my well being. It's good to recognize what we need to make us happy. We can't make our families happy if we don't take care of ourselves!
Hi Jerri,
My you are one busy lady. I like your father's philosphy. My Dad was like that too, probably because of the era in which they lived. "Ït never hurt anyone to get their hands dirty," he used to say and "hard work never hurt anyone."
Best of luck with all your writing projects.
cheers
Margaret
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