Do you have a routine?
I was fortunate enough to join Jeannine Atkins for a latte on Saturday morning while I was up in Massachusetts to visit Maggie at college, and Jeannine introduced me to Burleigh Mutén, whose book, Miss Emily, I reviewed a few months back. And during our conversation, which I quite enjoyed, Burleigh asked me this question: "Do you have a routine?"
My answer quite surprised me. I said, "Not really," and further along in my grasping for an answer was surprised to hear myself say, "I'm still in transition."
First, it surprised me that at present, I do not have a writing routing. Not in the way I think of routines, anyhow. I used to have routines, once upon a time, but they were from a different time and circumstance. And I keep putting "writing" on my daily to-do list in my bullet journal, and I keep being able to check it off, but there are some days when it's a mere five minutes of jotting something, and others when it's a few hours of dedicated work. But there has been a lot less "dedicated time for work" in my life since I moved-- or since before I moved. And I am okay with that, actually, since I used to use work to hide from an unhappy life, and now that I have a happy life, I'm pretty okay with less dedicated work time. It's not that I can't dedicate the time, it's that I seem to keep choosing not to spend quite as much time each day at the computer. Possibly that's a good thing, maybe not. Likely it will change once I figure out the shape of the new project I have in mind, involving lots of research and writing, and possibly even a bit of travel. But I digress.
Second, I was surprised to hear the words "I'm still in transition" come out of my mouth, because I haven't been thinking that in any active sense, yet as soon as they flew out, I recognized them as true. It's been a year of change, what with selling my house and moving in with my sweetheart. And we continue to make changes here within the house, in part because we both realized how silly it was that there was so much stuff that we fixed up to sell my house (that I'd been meaning to do for years) that it's silly not to just fix up this one how we want it now, rather than going forward without it being how we actually want it.
Perhaps 2015 will see me moving out of transition and into more of a routine. I guess we'll see. Meanwhile, I keep working (and truly, I've gotten a lot of new writing done this year, anyhow), and settling into my not-quite-new-anymore home and life.
Now the big question: Do YOU have a routine?
My answer quite surprised me. I said, "Not really," and further along in my grasping for an answer was surprised to hear myself say, "I'm still in transition."
First, it surprised me that at present, I do not have a writing routing. Not in the way I think of routines, anyhow. I used to have routines, once upon a time, but they were from a different time and circumstance. And I keep putting "writing" on my daily to-do list in my bullet journal, and I keep being able to check it off, but there are some days when it's a mere five minutes of jotting something, and others when it's a few hours of dedicated work. But there has been a lot less "dedicated time for work" in my life since I moved-- or since before I moved. And I am okay with that, actually, since I used to use work to hide from an unhappy life, and now that I have a happy life, I'm pretty okay with less dedicated work time. It's not that I can't dedicate the time, it's that I seem to keep choosing not to spend quite as much time each day at the computer. Possibly that's a good thing, maybe not. Likely it will change once I figure out the shape of the new project I have in mind, involving lots of research and writing, and possibly even a bit of travel. But I digress.
Second, I was surprised to hear the words "I'm still in transition" come out of my mouth, because I haven't been thinking that in any active sense, yet as soon as they flew out, I recognized them as true. It's been a year of change, what with selling my house and moving in with my sweetheart. And we continue to make changes here within the house, in part because we both realized how silly it was that there was so much stuff that we fixed up to sell my house (that I'd been meaning to do for years) that it's silly not to just fix up this one how we want it now, rather than going forward without it being how we actually want it.
Perhaps 2015 will see me moving out of transition and into more of a routine. I guess we'll see. Meanwhile, I keep working (and truly, I've gotten a lot of new writing done this year, anyhow), and settling into my not-quite-new-anymore home and life.
Now the big question: Do YOU have a routine?