Note: I wrote this mid-February and did not publish it till now. I figure it’s better to be done with something than to fight myself to make it spectacularly perfect. A lot has happened in my life since February, but that news deserves its own new post. 😉

In the blink of an eye, Fall and Christmas 2022 flew by, and I find myself in February 2023. What on earth happened? Excellent question. I know intellectually that it has something to do with the Earth spinning around the sun, the face on which we live turning away from us to shorten the days, etc, but still times moves so fast that you can feel that spin and get dizzy.

Some highlights:

In October, my boyfriend, Dan, and I took our first trip (adventure) as a couple to Kansas City, MO. There we wined and dined, visited museums and took long walks through the woods. It was the first time I’d been out of Nebraska since the pandemic, and it was a great time.

In December, we drove through blizzard conditions in Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois to spend Christmas with his family in the Chicago suburbs. Then we drove to Ft. Wayne, IN to see my aunt, uncle and cousins. Then we journeyed all the way back to Omaha for New Years and flew out to Las Vegas on January 1. Vegas was a shock to my system, but a worthy adventure–the company makes everything better. What’s more is that you learn a lot about how you work as a couple by driving for hours, sharing many hotel rooms, and navigating new surroundings together.

Suffice to say, I’d hoped for a few mornings to write or at least gather my thoughts… but that did not happen. And that’s fine.

It was a reminder to myself that I’m simply not the kind of writer who can write anywhere–airports, hotel rooms, restaurants. I need the familiarity of home and, perhaps more importantly, the daily framework of a routine. Vacation and meeting the significant other’s family is not the time to try and reinforce a routine, obviously.

More to that point, my writing routine had decayed slowly since the excitement of October (perhaps even before then). Only eight weeks separated Kansas City from the Christmas-blizzard adventure. That isn’t very much at all. And in between? There are normal work days. And weekend dates. And Thanksgiving. And Christmas parties. And Christmas shopping. Time is suddenly a precious and rarer commodity. And in order to reserve it or use it better, one slips into survival mode. It’s like getting onto a toboggan on a steep hill and quickly sliding down the slope. You just hang on.

It’s hard to get that back. And even then, I had a sense that my routine wasn’t working very well for me. I wasn’t even sure (still not sure) what would work for me. I’d had one-on-one sessions with Kate (Breakthrough Writers Bootcamp champion) about both of my novels-perpetually-in-progress, but I kept getting overwhelmed… and mad at myself for making so little progress on my goals.

At the beginning of last year, the word I clung to was “ritual.” I don’t think I held on very long. The year quickly got away from me. For one, I pulled my sciatic nerve just a few weeks into January. Survival mode became almost default.

I don’t think I was wrong, though, in feeling the need for ritual that works. I’d drifted away from the routine of writing when I got up in the mornings, particularly on the week days. Why? I’m pretty sure it’s because it’s winter and the mornings are too dark. I also need more time to devote to a project than a hour before I have to rush off to work. I also had so little concept of what I wanted to work on. Where to go with my words. I kept getting mad at myself. So I stopped doing it.

Slowly, I am adding ritual back in, rituals that I know are good for me, that feel good when I do them. I try to journal for 30 minutes (or at least one page) on week days. I save the deeper writing sessions for one or two set evenings a week and Saturday morning. I am slowly reading back through the new and old drafts of The Confessions of Sive Kear to refamiliarize myself with the story. I plan to do the same with my notes of Sky Ocean Sky. I won’t set out to do something spectacular every time, but simply to show up and do my best and give myself grace when it doesn’t go as I’d hoped.

Easier said than done. It’s always an ongoing experiment. Right now, for February at least, it’s a way of getting myself to rebuild some good habits. In March, my stress levels at work reach their peak, so things may definitely change.

That’s just it: change. The routines and rituals and habits, while grounding me, need to be flexible enough to accommodate what I need… I shouldn’t bend to the ritual, just for the sake of having one.

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