It’s been a full-rich few days. We’ve had a beautiful autumn drive into the mountains to visit friends and meet our new semi-feral kittens-to-be, SRindi and Squeak. We’ve had time hanging out in the yard, the kids and I, taking pictures and reveling in this season of transition. We’ve had a day of steady rain, hanging inside and cocooning. We’ve had a thunderstorm. Jim may have found me a car….there’s been hugs and Animal Crossing and snuggles and a few angry moments and disappointments.
And, for me, there has been growth and daring and pondering and swirling, breathtaking possibility.
I’ve taken on some new projects, and I feel a new confidence opening up within me. I am breaking open to free something phoenixlike within myself…
There will be a new project or two popping up here and there, as I explore new horizons and adjust my focus…
I am eager and ready to see what sima garo provides…
Honoring Myself (Original goals post)
My goal for this round is to honor myself – my rhythms, energy, needs, truth, dreams, desires, and emotions.
A fundamental part of that is to identify my energy type each day, and summarize what I do. It’s my hope that, throughout the round, patterns will emerge which lead to a more joyful, organic writing flow – one that honors me and allows me to get the most out of my seldom predictable writing time.
My energy levels and poems for the last few days..
- Wednesday: Slack tide. The children and I went to visit our friends, the Mabees, from whom we will be adopting two semi-feral kittens in the next weeks. This was a lovely drive into the Helderberg Mountains, a little more than an hour from home, and a chance for me to get in more practice with driving a standard transmission vehicle before our trip out of state at the end of the month…I took some pictures, while adults chatted and children played. I was able to get my blogpost and poem finished, but little else due to visiting. – a worthy trade-off.
- Poem: Firehole River Splash
- Thursday: Slack tide, with elements of high tide. Moderate hometending. Some lawn mowing in overgrown backyard. Hung out on the grass with the kids and the camera, soaking up fall magic. Answered comments at shanjeniah,as per my schedule. ROW80 sponsor visits, and lovely wanders through other OctPoWriMo poems. Worked on photo editing, and Annalise’s Reporting Blog. Began researching/exploring CreateSpace as I open myself to inspiration and daring.
- Poem: Oceans of Time
- Friday: High Tide. Mellow hometending, hanging with the kids. Lots of writing: logline lesson; Write a Story With Me! segment, and my poem. Reading and commenting. NaNo ideas coalescing…worked onMiah’s Reporting Blog, bolstered by the receipt of ourIHIP approval. Began exploring at WANA Tribe.
- Poem: Embracing Presence
- Saturday: Slack Tide (evenly distributed between Ebb Tide and High Tide). Moderate hometending, some firewood restocked in house. A little tidying in the playroom/enclosed porch. More WANA Tribe exploration. Worked on Miah’s Reporting Pages and ROW80 update. Cake Mania 2, Animal Crossing, and PBS.
- Poem: Unfettered Wordplay (Etheree)
What’s goin’ on..?
Priority Projects –
I am serving as a sponsor for this round.
- I completed my sponsor visits on Friday. =D
- October 17 ROW Check -in
- From Pantser to Plotter: A ROW80 Check In
- San Miguel de Allende
- ROW80 Check in 3
- Quick – Before They See Me!!
- The World is a Vampire
- I added two new items to my Things to Check Out list.
I am participating in the OctPo WriMo Challenge throughout October.
- I have continued to write a poem each day, as noted above.
- I began exploring my idea for the completed poems. Not quite ready to divulge this openly, yet, but I am getting excited at the possibilities!
- I shifted my OctPoWriMo visits to Friday to accommodate life’s little twists this week.
- A Wall of Dali Clocks
- Timing: Day 18 #OctPoWriMo
- Time is Elastic
- Timely Thoughts…
- San Miguel de Allende
- Time the Avenger
- 8:28 – 8:32 Thursday Morning, October 18
- I Wish That You Were Mine – Day 20 #OctPoWriMo
I will be participating in NaNoWriMo throughout November, writing at least 50,000 words of another novel in my Truebornseries, King of Infinite Space.
- I have reread the two notetaking/freewriting sessions I have engaged in so far.
- I will gather the random notes in Scrivener…I believe I am going to experiment with writing this draft there, rather than moving it from750 Words, which is tedious. That will also leave 750 Words as my freewriting space for other things…
- I have added more information to my NaNo page…small steps seem to keep my frustration levels low.
I will be answering a rather embarrassing backlog of blog comments that have, in some cases, waited for months.
- I will be answering comments atshanjeniah on Mondays and Thursdays, as long as that provides the best balance and timing for answering comments.
- I will post a comment schedule on the blog sidebar within the next days, to announce my commitment, and let those kind enough to take the time to comment know when they can expect a reply.
- This week’s replies were slightly off-schedule, due to our spending a day away from home, and the ROW80 linky being broken for most of a day.
- I am now answering comments on my Tiny Buddha guest post.
- I have completed the comments at this site! WOOHOO!
- I began addressing the waiting comments on The Unfettered Life, on Saturday, and will do this on an every other day basis until I have caught up.
New Fitness Goals – I will focus on eating something each time I am hungry (and getting protein and magnesium into every other time I eat). I will be active enough that I can always feel my body and muscles. I will add more fruits and vegetables to my diet, and be more attentive to how much water I am drinking.
- Wednesday –
- Not the best day to attending to my hunger, but better than it might have been. We spent a good part of the day away from home. My eating and drinking were skewed, and I came home quite hungry. I did not surrender to the desire for a fast-food fix during the one hour plus drive each way.
- I didn’t do any hometending or exercise per se, but I did drive the Subaru, which has a standard transmission. That is a more active style of driving than I’ve been accustomed to lately.
- Thursday – I did a better job of attending to and answering hunger and thirst cues. Protein was good; water fair; fruits and vegetables on my radar – I had a few baby carrots, and apple slices, in addition to the cooked veggies and black beans in my dinner.
- Moderate hometending and some difficult mowing on the backyard. A bit of dancing with Ellen.
- Friday – I did better on all food fronts. Chomped some carrots and romaine. Drank more water, and made sure I got my protein in.
- Mellow hometending throughout the day.
- Saturday – I did moderate housework, and restocked some firewood into the house.
- I ate a salad and some romaine. Still wanting to up the quotient, and my water intake. It’s a building process; attention is the beginning.
Short Term or Intermittent Projects:
New Projects:
Complete Logline Lesson reading, draft logline, and submit to class.
- A week ago, I didn’t know what a logline is, and I am excited to learn, create, and then improve upon my creation. This will help me target my revisions for WIPs, and assist in future works, as well.
- I read The Curious Case of Carrie’s Characters.
- I read Critiquing Rob.
- I brainstormed a logline, and revised it through five drafts .
- I submitted my logline to the class, and will await input while I continue to mull and turn it over myself, as well.
- I will also continue with reading and learning from the rest of the links included with the lesson.
Read existing segments, and write my portion of Write A Story With Me!
- This is a collaborative writing project begun by Jennifer M. Eaton. I received my tag on Sunday, and hope to have it sent along by next Sunday. I will be focusing on it on an every other day basis.
- I have completed the reading, written and submitted my first segment, and drafted a post for my blog.
- I need only to publish my post at the appropriate time, and then am free until it comes round to me again if it does – it will go until it reaches a natural ending or people lose interest.
Moving ahead with the Reporting Pages projects for both children..
- I have completed the text for Annalise’s Arithmeticpage.
- I had nearly completed Jeremiah’s English Language Usage Page, but have lost the draft. I am therefore beginning again.
- I will continue adding to the pages on an ongoing basis.
- My long-range goal, for the rest of this month, is to have enough material for each topic to construct the main body of the report, so that completing the reports does not conflict with my NaNo participation.
- I am moving forward with this.
- I have decided to attempt to work on these daily until the initial text for each topic is complete for each child.
- I will save adding links and images until all the text is done, because those will be easy to add during NaNo, a little at a time. The text won’t be.
- I will add new items to existing pages on Sundays and Wednesdays.
Brainstorm and Create Lists for Ebb Tide and High Tide projects.
- No progress on this for this time period.
- I seem to have enough to do, without further developing the lists, at this time.
- I am putting this project on hold until I feel a need for it.
Revise and submit “Claiming My Passions”- WIP submission to the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette .
- I have reread this piece, with the view of an interview with myself.
- I will soon be ready to begin a rewrite, with the new theme, and it may also answer my desire to reflect on this last, most amazing, year in my writing life.
What I’ve been reading…and watching!
- Pitching Your Novel
- Passive Aggression:Meet Your Needs By Communicating Clearly
- The Choice 2012
- Types of Poetry
- How to Get Unfriended, Ignored, and Blocked on Facebook
- From Idea to Fully Viable Story Plan In One Blog Post
Related articles
- This, too, is Samhain (introspectivemaenad.wordpress.com)
- Dartmoor Ponies (cherylandrews.wordpress.com)
- And Onward…. – ROW80 Goals Update, 10/17/12 (shanjeniah.com)
- Celebrate National Feral Cat Day: Put Your Best Paw Forward for Community Cats (lapcats.wordpress.com)
- After Fukushima, Dogs Suffer PTSD-Like Symptoms (theepochtimes.com)

If I tried to do even half the stuff you are trying do, I’d lose my mind. All I can say is you rock. So after doing a few weeks of watching your ebb and flow, do you feel you are starting to learn about your patterns? Good luck this upcoming week.
Ryan –
I am blessed to have a perfect confluence of positives – children who no longer need me for most of their daily needs, and who are old enough to respect and grant me some privacy here and there; not needing much sleep, so I can take advantage of quieter night hours; no school schedule to fit our lives around; a husband who works so I can be home and who helps with hometending; and a mind that does not move in a linear fashion, so I can do a little of several things, and always have multiple things moving forward at the same time…
Also, I never come to my writing with a sense of having to” get thins done. This is my joy, my passion, and a path to healing. I try to bring playfulness and wonder to the keyboard, always.
I am learning some things about my patterns, and I am panning to expound a little on that, perhaps in my next Sunday post, perhaps separately…
I will be concentrating, over the next week or so, on clearing up some of the smaller projects I want to do pre-NaNo…I am getting very excited, because I have just had several epiphanies regarding my WIP-to-be!
I love the way that ROW80 can show us all how we work best. That has been very liberating for me, and i love seeing the change happen in others.
I have to add that I am always impressed with your posts! You seem to know yourself and your style very well! =D
Keep on doing what you do!
Go Shan… You are incredible to do all you do and with such passion and conviction and a spiritual flare. It’s exhausting just reading about it all… you and your family are quite remarkable – Bless your week ahead. X
Shah –
I am just at a place in my life when I have the desire, trust, time, and circumstances that support my passion and I’ve grown to love myself enough to give myself to them instead of to the “have-tos” of life…
And I found ROW80, which has been an awesome tool in really focusing my energies, and for meeting other amazing writers who inspire and cheer me on!
You are one of those! <3