13 Balls in the Air

1. My blog – recently, I’ve only written Thursday 13’s, my Rachel Carmichael serial, and Wiley Wednesday essays. I’d like to get back to regular flash fiction as a method of priming the pump for writing my novels and nonfiction books.

2. My novel Conservator – my current WIP (Work-In-Progress).

3. Two Artist’s Way Workshop Clusters – one on the Writer’s Retreat, and one on PDS. I do the work along with the workshop participants and we share our experiences together.

4. One Vein of Gold Workshop Cluster – on the Writer’s Retreat. Again, I do the work along with the participants. I’d been looking for others to walk the Vein of Gold with me, because I found it an intense process to do alone. I’m enjoying it this go-round.

5. Morning Pages – from Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. I do these daily. It’s been a challenge this week, which has thrown all the other balls in the air awry, so rather than this nice, neat juggling ring I have something more like bowling, except I’m the pins.

6. Artist Dates – also from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I find these incredibly difficult, and also rewarding. I finally managed to make myself, coax myself, whatever myself into doing one tonight. And voila, just like that, I’m writing my Thursday 13 for the first time in three weeks. Ms. Cameron, you are a genius.

7. Daily Walks – from Julia Cameron’s Vein of Gold. I do these with varying degrees of success. I had a lot better luck once I started wearing my pedometer regularly again. I like the one carried by Weight Watchers, since it’s easy to calibrate and will track miles once you enter your stride length.

8. Strategic and Operational Planning class – for my MBA. I’m enjoying it a lot, but there’s a lot of reading and essays.

9. Principles of Accounting – for my MBA. It’s an online course through my university, which is a first for me in this context. While I’ve taken online courses before, I’ve never done so for credit. It’s a challenge but I’m getting the hang of it. I still prefer in-person classes but this may be a way to accelerate my program.

10. Business Manager – my job. I manage a small practice for a financial counseling firm. It’s challenging and rewarding, but we’re entering our busy season and I find my time gets telescoped.

11. Relaxation – I am naturally a driven person, with lots of balls in the air (as you may have already guessed). I actively work on relaxing, with scheduled massages and yoga. Oddly, “doing nothing” is hard work for me.

12. My physical health – I recently joined Weight Watchers again and am not paying attention to my weight. In fact, I ask the weigh-in person to not tell me. I want to focus on changing my behavior, not on the scale, because my behavior is something I have control over. Breakfasts are challenging me, but as my first goal I’m optimistic I’ll succeed eventually. (Just HOW many light bulbs did Edison create before one finally worked? It’s like that…)

13. Some kind of social life – this is actually difficult, since it falls under the “play” category. We’ll see. Some days are better than others.

Happy TT!

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