Wednesday 29 April 2015

Juliettable

On our hike this morning, when we spotted two Canadian Geese:

Juliette:  Look!  There's the mommy, and there's the darling.

Monday 27 April 2015

Title: bold and underlined

One of my favourite things is to open a new word document file, and write a title in the centre, bold and underlined.  Then I press "return" twice and tab in to a new paragraph.

I have done this countless, countless, countless times.  I have new story and novel and book and screenplay ideas daily.  At least once a week I have an idea that is really worth sitting down over.  At least once a month I actually sit down and go through the ritual of opening a new document as described above.

These days, however, most of the files remain unfinished and collect digital dust.

I'm about to start again, and I wish I could figure out why I can't follow through to the end.  (Is it perhaps that I'm raising four young busy children and my brain can't seem to function after 8pm anymore?)  I also know that I generally have trouble with the follow-through on projects.  I'm all fired up at the beginning but I can't seem to slog through the tough muddy parts to the glorious home-stretch and finish.  Somehow new ideas fill up the space that should be dedicated to enduring to the end.

One of these days I'll finish one of these projects.  Until then, I'll just keep continuing to bold and underline my best intentions.

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Brain rot

Night falls, kids tucked in bed.  My time.

And I'm wasting it.  Over and over and over again.

I turn on a radio program and play word games on my iPod.  I flip on a movie.  I read a book.

I have so little creative time, so little work time.  I should be much more efficient with those precious after-bed hours.

And just like when I rashly opt for junk food and fill my body with trash and deeply regret the decision an hour later, so too has my brain rot been catching up with me.

I go to bed exhausted and disappointed with myself.  I awake fresh and bright with promises to use my mind in better ways that night.

And come evening I once again find myself mentally and emotionally and physically spent.

It's been two weeks since I wrote here, which is the really telling sign that my mind is on auto-pilot.  I haven't had a creative thought in two weeks, nor a parenting moment I wished to celebrate, nor an idea to explore.

Brain rot.

It spills over into the day.  I'm hot tempered and have lost all patience.  The introvert in me is screaming all day and all I want to do is hike away up a mountain and camp out in the silence.

I have a good ration of alone time, a healthy dose of music making, enough spiritual food and time in adult company.  And yet I feel like I'm starving for more and more and more.

I hope it's just the extra long winter.  I've always been tied to the weather and we've had an unusually cold April.  It snowed today.  We've barely been into double digit temperatures.  Yes, perhaps what I really need is a good dose of sunshine.

Monday 6 April 2015

Juliettable

(playing house with Juliette)

"Now I'll be the Mommy and you be the Sweetie."

Wednesday 1 April 2015

The non-entrepreneur

If someone asked me, I would say without hesitation that I am not an entrepreneur.  No, I don't like risk.  No, I don't like being out on my own.  No, I don't like the thrill of the unknown.  Yes, I prefer worker bee jobs, where I can put my nose to the grindstone and be a part of something bigger.

And yet, as I'm looking at the next stage of my life, and as I'm examining myself a little deeper (ah, the benefits of growing older!) I'm coming to see myself quite differently.

I've always loved teaching.  But as an introvert, being with people all day is physically and emotionally draining.  I have loved my days supply teaching, but I'm exhausted when I walk in the door.  Teaching is probably not high on the list of ideal professions for an introvert.

Funny enough, as I look back on my "work history" - things I've chosen to do and have loved to do, every single one of them has been entrepreneurial.  I began as a private piano teacher.  Then I tutored students in French.  Then I freelanced in the film industry.  I had a job at an advertising agency while I was in university, but even in that I was on contract, and moved around to different departments, creating my own job description as I went.  During motherhood I freelanced as a writer and film assistant director.  Lately I've been looking into publishing and book editing.

But when I really started to realize my innate draw to entrepreneurship was this week as I came up with a pretty great new business idea.  I was out on a walk with Juliette, observed one thing and another, and the pieces came together with a life of their own, like magnets drawn to each other.  As I considered my surprising ability to put the details together so quickly, I realized that I probably have new business ideas at least on a weekly basis.  I also have new story ideas just as often.

I think what I've come to realize is that I am an ideas person.  What I lack is the desire to move to the next step, to take a financial risk on these ideas.  I suppose if I had a trust fund sitting around (I actually know a few too many people who had just such resources) it would be easier to take the bull by the horns.  But when stepping out with these ideas means gambling the money that would pay the mortgage or put food on the table, well, then I just shrink back to the security blanket of a worker bee job.