Glimmerings

Each time we go out, the world is open and free; it offers itself so graciously to our hearts, to create something new and wholesome for it each day. 
— John O-Donohue, “Eternal Echoes”

I hear that having a vast number of interests is not that unusual for a writer. It’s part of the attraction of writing. You get to research so many topics, places, and lifestyles. If you don’t like the life you’re living, write yourself into another realm or make something that actually happened to you turn out a different way.

The problem is that I keep getting drawn away from my writing. Sure I blog, but I’m not doing the serious stuff to improve my skills and write the kind of imaginative, ironic stories that I want to write.

And in the midst of this, I’m trying to determine where the photography fits in. I want to take great photos but I don’t need to be as awesome as someone planning on creating a business out of their photography.

So I need to figure out how much energy to put into the sideline endeavors. And how much time to devote to the activities that I believe feed my stories – the hiking, time with the Brew Babes, trail riding, gardening, bicycling and traveling.

My doctor recently cautioned me that “You need more than five to six hours of sleep a night or you’re going to burn out.”

Who knew?!

So yeah, I need to learn how to better manage my time and put my limited energy towards the things that I feel most driven to do something with.

I’m writing about this because I’m going to be cutting back on commenting, tweeting, and Facebooking. Actually, I’ve already been unwillingly doing this and I just have to give myself permission to not feel so guilty about it.

I’m still going to blog, but it will come secondary to working on my stories – kind of like a reward… “if you write ten pages, then you can write a blog post”. I know I’ll miss the blog world so it should be a good incentive.

The blog work I’ve done has certainly not been in vain as I plan to take some of my blog posts and rework them into story and poems. No, none of it has been in vain. I’m learning that. Everything I’ve been gathering on the way is going to take me to where I need to be.