Frustration turns to Creativity
Topic: Writing to Live
Tuesday 5:43pm 27Feb07

Yesterday I started the day off with a giggle thinking how relaxing my morning at work was going to be. Well, at least it started that way. Then it turned into a beat down session with me being the one beat down. I answered the phone with exasperation more times than not.

When I got home last night I was sure that I was going to dive into bed head first. I certainly couldn't blog. No one wants to read about that shit. I didn't even have the energy to go to the liquor store for a bottle of wine. The thought of standing in line sweating in my layers was akin to some kind of Japanese water torture.

I didn't think I was going to write at all. I started my journal, 'Today the wrath of Mercury retrograde reared its angry head in my direction.' Heck, I was the bullseye! The day was all about communication, miscommunication, hostile communication, Mercury's domain.

Somehow I figured out that sleeping and/or drinking wasn't the answer. So I wrote. I wrote my 1 hour mind cleanse for 30 minutes. I wrote my freeflow for my novel and I worked out. In the midst of working out I realized that frustration and anger motivate me.

I wrote in my journal, 'What a great thing sometimes frustration can be because it stops me and gets me to ask the question, what do I most need to focus on for my sanity and my future? I need to be able to ask that question when I'm not frustrated or angry. I want to feel good. I don't want to be ruled by a life of roller coaster emotions in order to create because that's the kind of person I am, the one who loves to create.'

Through the midst of all that I also decided that since I've got all my novel notes and drafts and scratchings in one place, I'm going to read everything I have and plug the pieces into appropriate chapters of my novel.

In my journal I wrote, 'It makes sense to go through all my pieces of writing to throw them all into White Wishes chapters. Read through it, mark up the page and type it into my novel that I'm working on now. Add the daily freeflow stuff that I'm doing for each chapter as well. Just keep adding and reading and reorganizing until I get there. And when I have read through every last bit of paper and have a whole novel then sculpt it like clay into what I want it to be.

I, today, February 26th 2007, feel like I can complete White Wishes and it's the best feeling ever. I can really do this. How wonderful is that? It's been a long time coming and there is still more work to do but I finally genuinely feel like I've got the right focus. I really need to have that feeling of creating out of thin air (freeflow/ stream of consciousness writing) because I love that feeling but, as well, I can plop the finished pieces together and read them and sculpt the scenes. It's really really good, this love of what I do.'

Some how I transformed the frustration and channeled it. I've been working toward harnessing my energy instead of turning it into depression for years, yesterday I nailed it.

EY

Character Development
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: Van Hunt - On the Jungle floor
Topic: Writing to Live
Thursday 7:24pm 31Aug06

The best person a writer can meet is a quiet person that doesn't give away too much information. I love to figure out what type of person a person is. Especially with men.

I love to take the bits of information and create a character from the piece of info and then rule in or rule out my hypothesis. When I first started at my current job in 2001 I became friendly almost immediately with the head of security. He likes to talk trash but doesn't really tell you too much info about him. When I told him that I wrote, he asked me to send him frequent emails of my thoughts and observations and the like. He was my first blog reader and was actually the person that told me to consider blogging.

He was a bit of a muse, if you will. I nicknamed him Caged Tiger and wrote made up stories of him as the main character. Some very funny stories, some lurid stories. Every once in a while I'd send an email with a slew of personal questions and he'd answer maybe two or three of them. Based on his few answers, I'd come up with a hypothesis and ask a few more questions with that hypothesis in mind knowing that if I was lucky, he'd answer about three questions.

I sent him emails like these postings, telling him personal stories and what I did, saw, reacted. He loved them. He felt like a voyeur reading my personal journal, getting an inside look in to my thought processes. He knew so much more about me than I did about him or did he?

One day, I decided to send him a psychic message from Shellinka the medium. I told him who I thought he was based on the answers he'd given me and the lack of responses to most of the questions he never answered. He emailed me back and wrote, "Meet outside right now to discuss."

Outside he just stared at me for a long time and then asked, "who told you all that?"
Caged Tiger believed that I was really psychic. Not giving anything away is a silent challenge, a dare for me to use what you give me. Like a sculptor I take that info and create a bust of the person. It's such a great tool for a writer to chat with the quiet secretive types. Your lack of information is sometimes more telling than blabbing every last detail.

EY

Balcony Bay
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Writing to Live
27July06 Thursday 10:07pm

The hard part for me about writing in the summer is finding a comfortable place to sit and write. My lap top isn't quite as light as they said it would be. I like being outside to enjoy the weather.
I could sit at a patio but then I feel obligated to order a beer and possibly become that alcoholic writer cliche.

I'm not into coffee shops aside from the fact that I don't drink coffee, if I'm going to stay inside I might as well stay home.

Given how many parks we have in Toronto, there aren't enough with picnic tables. I do need a proper table to sit at and write. The park bench doesn't quite cut it for me.

What I really need is a balcony. I can't wait until the day when I can move into a bigger place with a balcony. When that happens, I'll get a mini picnic table and set up shop for the summer. I'll blare my music, drink my smoothies, If I had a balcony I'd never have to leave the house again aimlessly looking for that writing place with some sun and a picnic table.

EY

Mercury is Retrograde
Mood:  happy
Topic: Writing to Live
4July06 Tuesday 12am

Mercury goes retrograde by the 5th of July. When mercury is retrograde one of the things you're supposed to do is revisit old projects that you may be stalled with. My project is my novel White Wishes.

Saturday, I went through all my digital recordings and transcribed the notes for White Wishes. It feels like it's time to battle through it.
It took me about an hour to come up with a summary for White Wishes. I kept asking, "What is White Wishes about?"

The Summary
Rachel plans to escape her husband and the choices she's made in the name of survival while Kali's sense of belonging is jeopardized when she discovers that she is one of the secrets that Rachel is keeping.

It's a start. At least now I have a better focus when I work on the chapters. I rewrote chapter one and started work on chapter two. I feel like I have a better handle on it. Thank goodness!

It's hard when I have time off from work. It's hard to know how much time I should spend enjoying myself and how much time I should spend on my writing. Finding a balance is always a challenge.

I do have to lose some weight so I do need to move to do it. I've been fasting this weekend using the Sambu Deep Cleanse because I've been having digestive problems. I didn't leave the house today or yesterday but I feel like I've got a direction for White Wishes.

I just don't want to go back to work and feel like I haven't made good use of my free time.

I cleaned up my website yesterday, Poetic Pieces and went through my digital recordings. When I walk to work, I carry my digital recorder and talk my ideas into it. I get embarrassed sometimes because most of the people I pass on the street look at me like I'm crazy. Or better yet, "Who does she think she is talking into a recorder?"
I'm not a freak. I'm just trying to find ways to help me to write...

EY
Writing 2 Live

Changing My Blog
Topic: Writing to Live
28June06 Wednesday
In my stupidity I thought that there was something wrong with this blog cuz I couldn't get the feedblitz subscription thingy to work properly. Turns out I needed to give my RSS URL not my normal URL. sigh!

So last night I copied this blog onto a new one... The EY Page.

It took me many hours and I don't have the heart to delete it. But being that there is a benefit to everything, I decided to keep this blog for info on Writing... writing conferences I attend, plus notes on how I'm doing with my own writing...
blah blah blah.

So that's the scoop. You know me, Wild Ideas!
So over the next little while I'll be deleting my old entries from here (the ones that do not pertain to writing) and all that.
Thanks for reading and go check out my new house... so to speak.
The EY Page

EY