I’m down 4,000 words and not even half way through my revision. My inclination is to say yikes. Instead, I’m trying to embrace it. Words cut for the greater good of the book. Maybe I’ll put better ones back in…
I think that’s this month’s theme, embrace.
So many things in life we want to avoid or change, when really we need to embrace the lesson in each uncomfortable experience before we can move on. Isn’t that what they say in yoga all the time? Embrace instead of struggle?
With that logic, I need to embrace cutting words. I need to embrace teaching as a wonderful challenge. I need to embrace the limited time in a day and what this means for balance…
Seems simple enough, right?
At least it’s a one word reminder, embrace. And, it makes me think of hugs, which are nice too. Hug everything in life that’s challenging. I like that.
Wow, New Year’s Day must be the busiest blog day of the year. Seriously, so many resolutions (and anti-resolutions) in my feed!
Instead of traditional resolutions, I like to envision what each new year will look like. As I wrote last year, it’s pretty amazing to look back and see what I managed to create. Just a few years back, I hoped to leave my world of economic analysis to teach and write, which reminds me of the power we hold in creating the life we want, (even when the outcomes take a little patience and a lot of hard work).
Here are a few highlights for my 2013 envisioned– instead of looking for things to change, I ask myself what I want this year to look like:
Health: Keep on keeping on… The last few months have transformed my perception of our power to heal. Yoga, meditation, body work, nutrition, herbs are all part of the 2013 I see for myself. In fact, health might be one of my most exciting paths ahead.
Wealth: While writing may not pay me any money yet, it is part of my long-term goal for supplementary income. I envision 2013 as the year I share my first book with the world so I can move on to something new. If I do not put it out there, I will just keep working on it (forever). So, here it goes– I will be brave enough to share my book, even if it means self-publishing later in the year. Regardless of whether it yields $5 or $500, it’s a step in the right direction, (and I know at least my husband and my family will buy it, so we’re talking an easy $5 right there!).
Happiness: Only recently have I started to reach a balance between work and life that feels sustainable. I see 2013 as a continuation of this, with less time spent typing away in the evening after work and more time feeling calm. I tried to do it all. Then something happened around October and I stopped and everything felt better, (even if a little part of me felt less productive). Teaching, writing, and life need their own space.
Of course, there are plenty of other things I see for this year– but you get the summary instead of the nitty gritty.
Now it’s your turn. Have you stopped to ask yourself what you want 2013 to look like? And, no, I don’t mean resolutions, I mean really mapping out a vision of the year ahead. Where will you live, travel, work? How will you spend your time? I have notebooks full of these visions, and, more often than not, they come to be.
One of my favorite bloggers, Kozo over at Everyday Gurus, recently started a group called Bloggers for Peace. The first challenge, pick a daily or weekly act of kindness for January and blog about it. I knew instantly what I needed to do.
All kids need love and special attention, but the reality is that in a room full of 30 students, some receive more than others. For my daily act of kindness, I am going to pick a different kid each day to go out of my way to make feel special. An instructional coach suggested I do this with my most behaviorally challenging kids, but I want to take it a step further and include all my students. Even the most outspoken could use a little extra love, and it has always bothered me that the quietest students go less noticed, especially if they do not act out or struggle academically.
So, each day in January, I will pick one student to quietly receive my attention. At a minimum, I will:
1. Write him/her a kind note, (this may be small, but I often notice that students keep my little notes in their pencil boxes or taped to the corner of their desks for months).
2. I ask students I see before school, “What is one good thing about today?” I will ask my student of the day this question because it forces students to be grateful and see their lives through a different lens. Often they shrug when I ask this question, but then we talk and they end up smiling as they realize they ate breakfast, hugged their dad goodbye, or have a nice warm place to come to school. One of my students now runs up to me every morning to tell me his one good thing. I want to make sure every student in my class reflects on this question at least once and gets more one-on-one conversation/attention for the day.
So, there you have it. 30 students means my little acts of kindness will carry me through to February, but it is a worthy cause and one I have been wanting to pursue for months. I already have a husky of the day who gets to help out, but I like that this will be a quieter, unexpected source of kindness. We go back to school January 8, so I will start with student number 8 and work my way through.
Hope you join Bloggers for Peace and find your own way to do something kind in January! I’ll report back on how my little experiment turns out.
Must post something about 2013. You know, resolutions or something.
To be fair, I DO love resolutions. One of my life goals is to spend every New Year’s Day at the ocean, reflecting. I decided awhile back that it’s a much better way to spend the new year than hung over on the couch.
Not sure I’ll make the ocean part happen this year, we’ll see.
But, before I can look forward, I have to look back.
2012.
Struggle and happiness, chaos and peace. Immense gratitude. I learned, a lot. I wrote, a lot. So much stuffed into 12 months. Do I have it all figured out? Not hardly. But, I feel better balanced than ever before. Happy, even. In the spirit of Thankfulness Thursdays, I leave you with my 2012 Gratitude List (and pictures dug out of this year’s blog).
Work:
I feel so fortunate to have a teaching job as a new-ish teacher in our current economy. This year was hard, but I became a better teacher one day at a time, and each day I feel a step closer to making this my lifelong work, instead of something I lovingly survive for the time being. So much gratitude.
2012’s valentines to my students, proof my heart is in the right place!
And, can’t complain about my night job. It may not pay the bills (yet) but writing makes me happy.
Reading:
I was definitely an ADHD reader this year. Still have ten or so titles half finished on my dresser… The book I was most grateful to finish, hands down, Dear Sugar.
Cheryl Strayed speaks to every human emotion in this book. So real, so touching. She writes with an unabashed openness I strive to emulate…
Music:
I’m thankful for the Lumineers’ soulful lyrics set to summer in the backyard with family, our car cruising down the coast, a sea of people at Golden Gate Park…
Places:
So much gratitude to live on such a beautiful planet and to have the means to see it even in a year that did not always feel easy.
San Francisco at sunrise
Magical Kauai
Oregon Coast sunset
Mom’s Mt. Shasta
People:
More than anything else, I am grateful for the people in my life, friends, family, near and far… Oh yeah, and my dog too, he counts, right?
No greater gratitude than for the people in my life.
Health:
And, not to be forgotten, this was the year I discovered my own power in healing. So thankful.
Yoga, meditation… healing.
Other bloggers:
Even though I started blogging in 2011, my move to WordPress cemented my commitment to putting my words out there and becoming part of a greater community. I am truly grateful for all the connections I have made this year– words of wisdom from every corner of the globe, thank YOU!
So, your turn, what tops your 2012 Gratitude List?
Here is my revised pitch as it currently stands, (the old one can be viewed under the Expecting Happiness tab):
As Jake sits on the bathroom floor and holds his crying wife, he knows something needs to change. Stable jobs and a house are not enough. A child seemed like the answer, but Kristen lost the baby and now she locks herself in the bathroom to be alone.
Emboldened by their loss, they say, “Fuck it all.” They quit their jobs, sell their house, and embark on separate journeys. Separate because they want different things–
Kristen wants to face the world without Jake around to hold her up. She departs for Europe looking for independence but inches her way closer to an old friend living in Paris. His name is Gustavo and he makes her blush.
Jake, on the other hand, wants to find a place to start over, somewhere he can convince Kristen to begin a family. Of course, he also craves a little adventure. He sets off on a cross-country road trip but instead finds himself on another continent, a part of someone else’s family.
Even with new faces and changing scenery, life is not complete. Torn between the allure of the unknown and their unrelenting longing for one another, Kristen and Jake must ultimately choose which life holds the secret to greater happiness.
***
So, there you have it, months and months of painstaking tweaks… And still not quite right!
Here are a few questions I have grappled with:
Do I need to include physical descriptions of the characters and/or their ages? (Leaning toward no after my last post…)
Does my ending work?
How can I make this stronger?
If you have any thoughts, I would love to hear them. As long as feedback is offered constructively, I am very open. My goal, after all, is to make my pitch better and I know it’s not quite there yet. If you feel more comfortable offering input privately, feel free to email me at olivia@oliviaobryon.com. And, if you write, post your pitch and I’ll be happy to return the favor! (Cough, cough:: Kozo it’s your turn!)
Okay, so I got a bit distracted this morning as I rewrote my pitch. See, I could not decide whether or not to leave in my physical descriptions of my characters. The Book Doctors suggest brief physical descriptions, but for some reason it still feels a little clumsy to me, (new pitch to follow soon).
This got me thinking about what my characters actually look like to me in my mind’s eye. Visualization is not my strength. I see fuzzy versions of my characters, not concrete people, which is not to say I don’t know my characters, but rather nailing down an exact picture in my mind is just not the way I think. I need to see the faces of real people.
So, I decided I need to cast my characters– a useful exercise that happens to also be fun:
Kristen: I imagined her with dark hair, blue eyes, someone who would fit the inspiration of the song “Galway Girl.”
Today I realized she would probably look like Olivia Wilde, which I assure you has nothing to do with her great first name. She’s classically beautiful but can also pull off a punk rock, peace activist college kid, which is important to Kristen.
Jake: He was a bit harder for me to cast. Does Paul Rudd have a younger brother with brown eyes? I imagined a guy that is attractive in a charming smile kind of way, maybe a bit goofy. In my book I describe him as lanky because I see him as athletic and charismatic, but in a real way. Today’s winner: Okay, Paul Rudd wins even if he might be a little older than Jake and maybe not into playing a role that is not purely comical… Guess I’m on the look-out for a younger Paul Rudd willing to mix drama with humor.
Decisions, decisions… Of course there are half a dozen other characters to be cast, but I’m pretty sure it would take me two hours to pick them all, which seems like a case of diminishing returns. Focusing on my two main characters, however, worthwhile.
Have you cast your protagonists?
And, on a side note, do you provide physical descriptions of your main characters in your pitch? I’m conflicted, as usual.
I have been waiting for some sort of moment to blog about for the last couple days, but instead I have struggled to keep up with time. Even in doing less, time escapes me. I do not understand why time spent with family and friends is the time that moves most quickly. It does not seem fair.
This weekend, my family went on our annual San Francisco Christmas trip, the one I looked forward to back in November when we stayed in Union Square for our friends’ wedding. It was a blur. Shopping, dinner, brunch, movie, done. As we walked back to our hotel from dinner on Saturday night, I had to remind myself to put my arm through my father’s as not to lose some part of the tradition.
Seems so familiar… 25 years of the same view.
To add to the sense of time folding over on itself, here is our annual family Christmas picture in San Francisco six years ago.
2012. Amazing how six years changes things– my sister all the way to the right has a four-year-old son, my sister all the way to the left used to be the little one in the middle, my brother apparently now smiles, my sister two from the left brought her boyfriend this year, and I am married. What will the next six years bring?
Sunday night we raced home to attend a Christmas party with friends. Standing around talking about babies and weddings to many of the same people I have known since elementary school, there was no clearer expression of time passed. Weren’t we just the little ones making gingerbread houses and driving our teacher crazy the day before winter break? Now I am that teacher…
Monday I scrambled to clean the house and wrap the last presents in time for Alex’s family to come over for dinner. Then I blinked and it was Christmas morning. I staggered the opening of each present as not to let the experience pass by too quickly. My dad sat to my right and refused to open any until the rest of us had finished. We were on the same page, yet somehow it all managed to become part of the blur as well.
Here is one of the presents I took my time opening… And, yes, I was that excited to get a vacuum cleaner… Further proof life has changed.
Yesterday and today were filled with visits with friends. Brunches and lunches and afternoons spent drinking tea and laughing. This evening I am certain that the fastest way to pass the time is in the company of those you love. Seems a bit ironic, doesn’t it? The moments we most want to savor are also the moments that pass most quickly.
I hope you are having a lovely end of the year in the company of those you love. If you are anything like me, I also hope you take a moment or two to yourself to help slow it all down. I leave you with a couple of my favorite pictures from the last few days in an effort to hold onto the good moments a little tighter.
Of course, it’s not Christmas without Simon in a santa hat.
My youngest sister and my nephew, this picture is pure love.
Six years from now, she’ll be 22 and almost done with college and I’ll be 35… Here’s to enjoying all the good moments from now until then!
So many words to share but little time. A house to clean, still two gifts to buy, fourteen people visiting our home this evening. The holidays are a blur of faces, everyone from childhood friends to coworkers to close relatives squeezed into gathering after gathering. Engagements, babies, hugs, laughter. Maybe a couple tears, mostly good ones though. Shopping in the City, drinks and dinner with family, a fancy party dress that makes me feel like a little girl, twirling through the hotel lobby.
Wishing you holiday cheer no matter what or how you celebrate!
I did not expect the world to end today. However, it did feel different this morning. The sunrise was spectacular. A full rainbow danced across the sky. Happy laughter floated through the halls, a sweet friend and coworker newly engaged. Kids with sticky fingers and smiles as they constructed gingerbread houses. So much excited energy for winter break.
I was presented with a lesson today. Sometimes we need to embrace things as they are instead of fighting for control. I forget this when I teach sometimes, expecting students to act a certain way instead of gently guiding them in a mutually agreeable direction. I’m learning.
12/21/12 will go down as a good day in my book. Struggles, messes, laughter, and beautiful skies.
“Please Mrs. M, can’t you stay just ten minutes longer?”
This afternoon I dumped a week’s worth of feelings onto my desk. Originally, I planned to let them stack up inside the bear container, but it was confusing to keep track of which ones I had read and which ones I had not, (not to mention the voyeurs peaking into the clear container trying to read each other’s secrets). So, the bear cleansed his feelings. He feels much better now.
Frustrations, anger, happiness, excitement, crushes, hurt feelings, jokes, concern over the imminent end of the world…
I have to admit, I felt a little bit like an advice columnist this week. Case in point:
Dear Mrs. M,
I have a problem. My friend likes this girl and I like the same girl but I don’t want to hurt my friend, what do I do? I think she likes me too…
Signed,
Conflicted
Funny how early these problems start. I remember the same conundrum, which actually resulted in my relationship with my husband. My friend liked him first. Tricky territory. I told the kid it seems important now but it won’t be forever, be kind and don’t worry so much.
Sifting through all the feelings this afternoon, making sure I did not miss any cries for help, I discovered my own lesson. The jar was good because it gave me a space to deflect some of their stress instead of instantly absorbing it. I was able to deal with their energy when I was ready. Likewise, throwing out the pile at the end of the week left me cleansed, too.
Not sure what is in the air, but today was awesome. Tuesdays usually bug the heck out of me because I have no prep and my kids go a little stir crazy in my room from 11:40 to 3:15. I try to get them outside for a bit, but that doesn’t always do the trick.
Today we went outside to measure how far we can jump in order to calculate how far we could jump in alternate gravity environments. They loved imagining how they would float more than six times as far on the moon or sink like an anchor on Jupiter.
And, one of my all-time favorite kid quotes emerged from the day:
“Mrs. M, Mrs. M!”
“Yes?”
“If a girl ever says she’s into bad boys, I’ll just tell her I stay up past my bedtime!”
Instant classic.
I don’t think the day was fundamentally less stressful than any other, I just did a good job of centering myself and being present. Maybe it’s the upcoming break, maybe it’s all the yoga and meditation, who knows, but I’ll take it!
Speaking of yoga, I came home to two little gems: 1. A surprise yoga magazine from Alex’s trip to Whole Foods, 2. A yoga book a yoga-teaching friend recommended. Talk about excitement. I spent the first half of my evening reading on my yoga mat, (which, I might add is a great way to stretch and read simultaneously…).
Grateful for a good day and looking forward to an inspiring, productive, transformative winter break and 2013.
My aunt recently asked how I have time to read so many books… Sad answer, I have book ADHD… I read multiple books simultaneously, resulting in slow completion times but exposure to a lot of great information. There is just too much good stuff to read in the world. I’m adding these reads to my yoga recommendation list.
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