Was slow this morning so couldn’t catch the earlier bus I’d planned on catching. Took a breath, metaphorically anyway, and let it go. Had breakfast at home instead of on the bus, and drank a cup of coffee. Then the 4y.o woke up and came downstairs and we got to spend some time together. That was nice, much better than when I leave the house w/out seeing the kids. Also was late enough when I left half hour later that I could give the 8y.o a hug and tuck her in to go back to sleep if she wanted. Wish there were trains here.
Read Clockwork Muse on the bus. It seems to me to take a long time to make some simple points but those simple points are important, fundamental. I want to think about how to use my bus time well as per that book’s suggestion. Felt a bit annoyed a couple times reading the book, once when he said something like ’this might be hard if you have a two month old baby’ oh great, god damn it, and once when he referred to having 2 hours a day to write as ‘brief sessions.’ Oh for such access to brevity. Still, I think I can be a high output writer with the time I have available if I am diligent. Writing window this morning is smaller than I’d planned because of bus issue. Some wins: I got to bed a little earlier, up a little earlier, go on computer to work and straight into this diary, browser popped up and I minimized it and opened this. On to it, getting out the paper files. Got out the paper folder and the task is to print and read the draft. Fine but I wish I’d printed the damn thing yesterday because I could have read it on the bus, and not spent time during my writing period standing next to the printer. Oh well. Lesson learned. I’ll try to put in more time somewhere this week if I can, I think that’s doable as this will be a higher mental demand week but not a higher actual external demand week. And now to start rereading. Got 18 pages in. Some good new thoughts that will help, and over all good work here. This chapter has potential. Counting this as a 40min work session. Worked again later in the day to pick up the missed time. Went well enough, fine. Got all the way through the chapter, made notes for what to do next.
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On the bus. Going to start at a coffee shop. Will order food and drink, get out the paper copies for the writing, then start. Am tired and distracted again as usual. Miss my kids. If I’m diligent I think I can get chapter 3 off my desk by the end of the week.
Coffee shop is really crowded, no available power outlet. going for 90minutes of writing time, I think I have enough battery for that. If not, I can pick it back up in my office. getting out the folder now put in the time. feeling like maybe the draft is done? probably wrong that’s my impatience setting me up for disappointment. I have notes for further work - diagnostic rereading. I think likely the reality is that I am close to done and so will experience the distance of these last few feet as very long. positive: short start time today, got right down to it. My big kids are playing, baby’s asleep in the carrier, hard to do much with this time but I can type. I’ve been pacing and reading a leisure book. I don’t want to do work-work because I will have trouble concentrating under threat of interruption, and, more, I don’t want to feel toward my family like I do toward interruption. As I pace, on my mind is starting and not. I want a better descriptive accurate account of what actually takes place, to begin thinking about this. Something like the following: I have a window of opportunity to write. I delay beginning to actually write, wasting some of that opportunity. Sometimes I compensate afterward - writing longer - but that comes at some other cost often (less time for something else) and so is less than ideal compared to just beginning ASAP when the window opens. Another reason this is less than ideal: when the window opens, to mix the metaphor, the weight settles. I am carrying the fact of the writing. To further mix: time spent under the shadow of work can feel like work and I think genuinely deplete one like work does, but it is not quite work because it’s not actually doing the activity. So that’s a second cost to waiting in the open window, total energy cost is higher because standing in the open window of opportunity means standing under the heavy weight of the shadow of the work for more total time. (I want a meta-metaphor for this mixed metaphor... a kitchen sink sundae of metaphors.)
So then here’s what I think happens. I realize I could realistically work. The window of opportunity is at the outset experientially a threat window. The window’s opened and let the heavy shadow get closer, it’s normally on the other side of the glass - visible, a source of stress to be sure but is kept at bay by the other responsibilities which, I gratefully complain, sit between me and the work. So ‘I could work now’ clicks on, or cranks the volume knob on (feed an Alice in Wonderland growth potion to - I hereby resist the urge to google if it’s eat-me or drink-me that creates growth [serpent! serpent! {I should think more about the role of children’s writers in the metaphors and characters I reach for - Milne, White, Carroll... enough, close all parentheticals}]) all the anxieties. My nerve are heightened etc, I anticipate the commencement of work and in that anticipation delay actually starting. None of this is a good idea or good habit. I have then two or three moments. The opening of the window and my noticing of the opening and getting anxious, and my getting out of my own way to start the work. So the task is to reduce the time between opening of window and starting the work. One thought that occurs to me now is that set writing times would likely help. To be fair to myself - and to be honest I worry I here border on excuse making and requesting enabling, that is the line not to cross - I have a great deal on my plate and frankly it is not a context conducive to writing success: young kids including a baby, another new course, having been on holiday break and so with routines different (unsettled, in flux, not set at all with my writing as a priority, appropriately enough of course) now coming off of holiday break (same though perhaps less appropriately) and more. Fine. The rock is heavy, the sun is hot, my hands are sweaty, the hill is steep. How unfortunate. I still need to roll it to the top. I need to carve out the context that has not been provided for me. *ahem* I am already carving out that context, I have done so and with, I insist (setting off the chorus of mental voices derived from my midwestness and other sources - how unseemly to say this! they say, ‘we are disappointed in him’ they mutter, not meeting my eye [eyes don’t have voices {stop it}]) I have done so with a degree of success impressive in context. So the task then is to continue to carve out the context, maintain and defend and improve the space and habits I’ve already made for myself. Back to writing times: I think set writing times would help because it would automate the process. When I have to choose the time regularly, then writing happens when I decide to make it happen. The window opens when it does because I pulled it open at that moment. I then need to choose to set to work, a choice I make as the heavy shadow floods in. If I set the writing times I would be less reliant on my conscious decision making will power and could rely more discipline and my unconscious will power. At the very least in so far as the window’s opening would not require some of my willpower, and so more of it would be left in the still (the barrel? been reading about whiskey making). I also suspect that I could then build a habit of starting faster because it’d be like ‘oh, it’s writing time, time to get down to business, that’s just what I do at this time’ habitually, I hope. That makes more sense anyway than ‘oh, I decided it’s a writing moment, time to get down to business, that’s what I do when I make that decision’ - habit follows habit more than it follows decision, I think. Another thought: I am likely going to still be writing at unpredictable times sometimes, I have only some control over my schedule, so I can’t rely on just setting my writing times. I should definitely do more with scheduling, but I absolutely should not just wait for that or act like that is all. Another thing I can do is cultivate a sense that when I decide the window is open that is not a decision to start sitting in the shadow of impending work it is a decision to begin working. Hmm. Pausing a moment. Is that really how it works? I think ‘I’ll write’ and then don’t? Yes, sometimes. ‘I’ll write. But first, what’s the news of the day? are there any fires in my email that I need to put out?’ Other times though I am not so much thinking ‘a chance to write!’ so much as ‘a loose end, a moment when I can do one of any number of tasks on my to do list, or could catch my breath or take a break.’ (Reading the news is a poor break, by the way, it’s depleting and not fun. What’s the line in the newist Morrissey song?) In those moments writing is one of several things on my list. ‘I could write, maybe I’ll write, I should write’ stuff like that. Rather than ‘I’ll write.’ Once I make that call I often do get down to business relatively well. So perhaps a reframe is in order, not ‘here is some time within which I may write’ which brings up the nerves followed by a decision whether or not to write (both decisions in turn also press on some nerves). Instead ‘when I have a moment available for writing, I write.’ Habit again. So how to deal with the first bit, not checking the news etc? The diarying is one. I could try the prompts I wrote out. I could also try some visual reminders at my office and perhaps on my laptop as well - bit of tape that says ‘start typing then start writing’ or something? I am having shorter start-delay times, though, which is good. Why is this happening? Habit somewhat, being braver as well, having it just on my mind - this diary is definitely helping as is the more reflective stuff it sets off in my mind, and I think having clearer task lists that make starting easier in that ‘okay I’ll start, so what should I do?’ has a clearer answer which saves time and is less anxiety inducing. I have to get the kids their lunch. Good thoughts here, another step up the hill or rather some reminders on how to best take those steps effectively. Quick summary of the terms and tasks: in a window of opportunity, get to work ASAP. Might help to reframe the work as opportunity rather than threat, that’s a long term task to be realistic, but work on it. And, when I begin to feel the weight of the work, begin to push up the hill right away, standing still holding the rock instead of pushing it forward is just depleting myself and feeling uncomfortable unproductively. Family went to event at library. I took a quick coffee nap then worked a solid hour. Feeling some guilt and resentment bound up with all of this. Oh well. Anyway, I worked well. The new opening I wrote for this chapter feels like it works, sent it to some friends for confirmation - one can often use a second chicken to help make clear if there is or is not danger - and the thinking I did there is helping too, both in terms of structure for the chapter and transitions/making that structure clear to readers. I am quite far into the latest draft. Pleased about that. I think I will still need to reverse outline, especially the later sections which get more jumbled, but it is coming along. Pleased about that. Also: I didn’t journal first because I just jumped right in. I want to continue to plan to journal first to shake off any dust that needs shaking, but especially today, when I felt pressed for time - I don’t know when the family is coming back from the library - I wanted to just start. Also: was tempted to do some teaching work first, didn’t do that. Did do a bit of puttering online first, might have not done so had I opened journal first. Hmm. Maybe this: don’t journal when it’s writing time, journal in the pre-writing putting-off-writing time. The diary as a very specific type of procrastination, a shorter and faster kind that serves as a warm up for writing. So not ‘time to write, better get out the diary’ but rather ‘I have a window here, better get out the diary so I get down to writing sooner.’ More simply - diary before internet and similar. Anyway, felt - am feeling - much, much better about the work and book today than yesterday (and I was much more focused in this session, was very on task the whole time). Glad I wrote, thought to myself ‘maybe I’ll take the day off’ then thought ‘I’ll feel better next writing session the less time between now and then.’ Serving future me, not acting at expense of
Tired again, never enough sleep. Posted entries from yesterday and day before to the diary site. 15th entry. That’s something I suppose. Checked email at home real quick before I left the house while my 4y.o was doing something, no fires to put out. shouldn’t have done that, email can wait until I write, it’s not in fact a fire. writing needs to be the fire. got in to work, am set up at the coffee shop, posted my entries, started to get on social media, closed the tab. I think glancing at the prior entries may help me start, not sure. I think I want starting to not be work anymore, like I have a fantasy of effortlessness. I think that’s mistaken and I should reframe it. I am doing the work of starting right now, the work is work because it’s work. This is my warm up. might need a second cup of coffee, likely a third before it’s done. that’s okay.
I had a thought for chapter 3, came while I was looking for my coat - I may have left it, I now suspect, at the martial arts place last night (8y.o did well on her belt test, some anxious moments before that for her and, ,watching that, for me; I read a bit about the prefontal cortex and the amygdala last night while holding the baby, also read about some research on the mental health benefits of rock climbing, and the 8y.o and I talked about this. I have always thought about anxiety and so on as a thought to subtract, a brain region to turn off. turns out it’s better to add thoughts -- ‘don’t think of a polar bear’ elicits thoughts of a polar bear, to really not think of a bear, think of an elephant, in a hat, and a tie, making a sandwich hold the knife in its trunk -- my kid said ‘it’s like trying to hold so much in your hand that you drop something.’ The trick is to add things so the nagging anxiety doesn’t fit in the hand anymore. some other thoughts on how this relates to climbing and our shared fear of heights, but re: writing I think it applies as well, which is why I wanted to capture it here: the amygdala, I read, responds to bodily signals - breathe calmly, act calm, and it starts to recede. One avenue to that is good memories, so thinking of talking about this with my kid helps put me in a more placid frame of mind. Going to continue to ponder on this.) going to free write on that now. I was much distracted today, failure of diligence, which I am frustrated with myself about. I think this is somewhat just poor decision making and lack of will, somewhat situational - I am tired - but I can’t use that as an excuse because tired is my world for the foreseeable future given existing responsibilities, and somewhat cyclical/processual in that I am in a phase of the work from which I am especially hungry to flinch. I made up the time by staying in the chair longer. Time will get more scarce very soon though so I can’t rely on doing this, must get and remain more disciplined to not get out of the chair, metaphorically speaking - must be efficient. All of that said I wrote a new opening to the chapter draft - 668 words - that I think is really pretty good and will help provide the foundation for the rest of the chapter. I am doing another draft in a new file, using the most recent draft as source material. This will involve some outlining and reverse outlining and some free writing en route. I find the newly blank pages scary but the method’s worked well before. Must stay brave. Bit I want to remember from an email to a friend: I wrote a very draft draft of chapter 3, maybe 60 pages, which I've begun revising. I'm calling it the revisions writing a second first, draft as that dials down my judgment of my work. I feel I have successfully follow Anne Lamott's advice in that what I have written is very shitty. Sigh. I have yet to arrive at real and persistent conviction that I can do the work successfully. That makes the multiple passes back over my first drafts very unfomfortable, but I am proud to say that I am pretty good at doing things despite not feel convinced I can succeed and despite discomfort. A friend joked to me recently that it sounds like my confidence as a writer is a fairweather friend. It shows up after I've written for a while, after the boxes are packed, too late to help me load the moving truck, then pats me on the back. (Wrote this and prior entry offline, didn't have time to post until today, Friday. Seems like a better use of my time this way.)
Another day of not writing first. Did teaching stuff first. Was a good idea in one sense but that’s the problem, it’s always a good idea not to write first, there are too many good reasons not to write first. Reminded of the Baldwin speech in Glengarry Glen Ross (I hereby resist the urge to google it), he says something like ‘oh you’re a good father? fuck you, go home and play with your kids.’ The character’s a jerk but the rational kernel of the point is what are you doing? Am I writing, am I a writer? Then I need to write and prioritize it. Not prioritizing it is not prioritizing it even for a good reason, and really it’s the good reasons that are some of the most pernicious because most comfortable. Need to make writing non-negotiable. I brush my teeth before I do other things unless it’s a genuine emergency. I need to make writing more like brushing my teeth. All of that said Alex pointed out that good planning and clearing other obligations or preparing to meet them can sometimes be a thing that reduces future sources of distraction. Thinking for the long term, making the measure be the long term upward arc of the line, not the individual daily peak or valley. Enough. Going to start now. Coffee in hand, late in the day but I will spend the time even though tired. will do 90 minutes starting once I have the paper notes in hand. Got the paper files out but still don’t know what I am doing. Augh! Going to read further into my notes. Okay I know the tasks. I am rattled because tired, because I was less planned out to start than I liked to be, and because this is one of the more especially rattling phases of the process. Free write to find the point of the chapter (what if it’s pointless?!) then read the latest iteration of the chapter again and ID tasks, likely next or soon full blown reverse outline Have worked for an hour is. Mediocre quality work in terms of diligence, am distracted, undisciplined, too tired. I hate working on my book with a foggy head; working with a foggy head makes me hate my book more. This chapter is garbage, feels like it will never get ungarbaged. I am in the valley of the shadow phase of the work I guess. Can’t go on, must go on. I wrote out a clearer to do list, new working file. Am going to print the previous two chapters I’ve drafted, am chanting to myself that I am not reading them so much as scanning them for the sake of better writing this chapter to thread better with prior ones. A thought I had as I hit print on those chapters: I’ve often thought of writing as like physical/athletic activity for the payoff of the metaphor - writing is exertion, it’s challenging, the real payoffs come through consistent effort over time, it’s learnable, etc. What if I also think of it in terms of executing the moves with proper form and within proper limits? What I mean is, I can workout in a way that will leave me aching, sore, depleted. I can also write in a way that leaves me the same (writing when tired, writing without enough of a plan, etc). If I write with proper execution I can write with reduced discomfort. So part of protecting my writing time - allocating my A energy to tasks of A priority, as Jensen puts it - is about that maintenance of ability to do proper execution. Okay I did my 90 minutes. I wrote a better opening using some old bits. Going to print my to do list and call it a day. I’m at the coffee shop in the chair with headphones on. Am tired - stressed lack of sleep + carb heavy lunch - and started the day late - family thing. Am anxious, don’t want to work. Opened email and twitter, closed the tab, reached for the Steinbeck diary, stopped. Going to get out the paper materials for my chapter revisions and write/work 90 min. The only way to start.
Okay in motion. Doing section 5. Garbage and jumbled. Must be done anyway. Worked 90min. Chapter is less garbage and jumbled. Every book has a worst chapter, maybe this is that one. If so, that’s okay I guess. It comes late enough in that I think people will keep reading, and what comes later will be better. Proud of myself for not delaying my start, and for working diligently once begun. I think I am going to need to print a new copy of my files tomorrow. Onto other responsibilities. It’s 2:47pm. I was going to write this morning but something genuinely unavoidable and more important came up. I didn’t reactively, with a secret sigh of relief, procrastinatingly give up my writing time. I chose to prioritize something genuinely more important. I then had lots of meetings. I am now going to write for 90 minutes.
2:51 brown noise playing, paper copy in front of me with handwritten notes. Am nervous, wish I’d printed latest version yesterday but had to get home, lots of feelings, taking Renee’s new motto - it doesn’t matter how I feel about my work. 4:30something finished up reworking section of this chapter on courts. Was very intimidated, was magnifying my lack of paper copy of most recent version. Worked from old version and onscreen, went totally fine. Feeling good, satisfied with what I did and having flashes of optimism (each flash answered with whispered ‘butwhatabout’ pangs, but whatever). Onto other responsibilities. I think this diary is helping. I started faster today I think once it was writing time. Risk here of using it as catch all diary or blog, tempted to write about the rest of my day. Do that elsewhere and be deliberate about why. This is a place to type in order to begin writing (I think it’s Capote on Kerouac, or maybe vice versa, said he’s not a writer but a typist. “He can’t write so much as type”, it says in that one Jets to Brazil song. Here I type and out of that I start writing with less delay). That’s all this is, don’t use it for other purposes. Tool specificity. I can always start or keep another journal for other purposes. 10:35am. Coffee shop was closed for renovation, walked to the library, ran into a guy in an IBEW sweatshirt on the walk over, chatted with him a minute about my dad and brother and such. Got set up, read a little more Polanyi, still want to try to engage with him and stuff on him in the book more, not 100% sure and (or because) not totally sure how. Read two Steinbeck diary entries. Him talking about how the world was in chaos and yet he had to write his book, his wondering if he’d ever finish, complaining of distraction, finding his diary helpful, said something like ‘writing to start a creaking mind’ or something. Affirming. Am now going to start. Reverse outlining chapter 3. I have 90 minutes allotted to this today then must get on to other tasks. Here goes.
Start 10:40. 11:34 now. I had the computer read me my draft, and I scanned along with my eyes using Adobe’s automatic scroll function, and I took brief notes on items to work on as I did so. This is effective for me and very unpleasant. I cried repeatedly when I used this method to review the 1st draft of ch2 of my dissertation (after having done so with ch1, and planning to then do so w/ all the remaining chapters). I think it hurts to the intensity it does because it takes discomfort I would rather dilute and concentrates it. Sort of like getting all of the shots one gets in an entire life and getting them all at once in one massive needle stick session at the doctor’s office. I have lots of good notes (oh god please let them be good) about what to do next. These will take the draft a step forward, and more steps forward will remain necessary. I am nervous now, aflutter with butterflies. Why? I think because I look at my first draft wishing it were something else. I most certainly followed Lamott’s advice - this is a shitty, shitty first draft. That said, it has some pennies in it. (Oof.) I’ve got all the ideas down, however inelegantly expressed and disorganized in their order of presentation, they are still down and many of them are good ideas. Lots of cuts needed. I remind myself what Tracey Kidder wrote of with his one book, wrote a 1200 page draft that he and his editor (oh! for an editor!) then cut 800 pages out of. The remaining 400 got reworked until it eventually became a 200 page book. That’s how Pulitzer prize winners write, so my difficulties are not evidence of my inadequacy (as if that needed evidence...) but rather evidence of the degree of intensity of the task due to the high level of the bracket in which I am operating. Hard work makes my brain grow; significant accomplishment is hard won. I have no faith in my ability to win or to grow but great, unshakeable conviction in my ability to suffer and endure despite lack of hope, and during the making of anything I have ever accomplished that was worthwhile I was similarly beset with these feelings. This is just what this point in the process is for me. 11:42. Going to take a moment and glance at Lamott’s essay again. Did so. She first researches and prewrites, both of which are necessary for the first draft to become possible, then she attempts to begin drafting. She writes about the pain, and in response her own delaying, of starting her first draft, then the drafting beginning to flow somewhat, letting the words out, just typing. She types until she is done with that draft. Then, a second moment of pain, she realizes the result is twice as long as it is allowed to be, and is incoherent and ugly, and worries anew. Then the next day she begins going over it, a second higher level of prewriting so to speak in order to make the second draft possible, then she begins the second draft. I am today in that second level of prewriting. 11:48. Having vented, I’m taking a break. After break, more work. I wrote 56 minutes (the work on the draft counts as writing, broadly construed). Started quickly, pleased about that. When I get back I will work another 34 minutes, working on the cuts and such IDed in my pass through of the first draft, then onto semester prep and a meeting. Took break, including phone call to Alex where I talked a bit about feelings of guilt re: the self-directed nature of this work, sometimes feels like my job is 'me time' at expense of family when it is in fact my job. Anyway. Came back to work and did my 34 minutes. Went well I guess. Well enough. Rolled the rock further up hill. Going to post this, log time in my spreadsheet, then onto other tasks for the day other than writing. Went to post this, saw I didn't post yesterday, remembered I didn't work yesterday, pang of guilt and a bit annoyed to have broken my streak, stressing to myself that my goal is 6 days a week not 7, perfectionism undermines rather than enhances success. Tonight I worked again on the reverse outline. This time I tried having my computer read it to me and me reading along on paper. I got about 10 pages in, took 10-15 minutes. This will be very effective, but it is too late at night. This is just not a task I can do in my break-mode work. I feel frustrated about that. But the reality is I need to be more awake than this. This is something to do on enough sleep or at least my normal sleep plus a lot of coffee, and very early/first thing in the day. Pretending otherwise or forgetting this is just asking for more frustration. So I will wait to attempt this reverse outline again until Monday, unless I can get an hour to myself tomorrow. (An irritation: time working on my book as ‘time to myself’ as if it’s not my job. The coding of the work as private and individual is a problem IMO.)
Monday I start back to work full time, have a lot of semester prep to do. Even so I’m going to commit to working on my book during the day before doing teaching work. Spend my A Energy on A Tasks, as Jensen puts it. I feel frustrated and anxious that this second approach to the reverse outline has not succeeded either. I think this was poor planning on my part, need to set myself up to succeed. Have to remember this in the semester, continue to write daily, and write earlier, not this right-before-bed stuff unless I’m free writing or small editing and stuff. Feeling also some anxiety because read some other work and it’s all so smart and well researched, feeling like my work will never be that good. Some of this is apples to oranges, comparing my work to work by senior scholars who are much, much more supported in their research, and comparing my unfinished drafts to their finished drafts. Some of this is impostor syndrome. It’s fine in terms of work capacity - these thoughts annoy but I can work despite them - but it is a crummy thought. Positives: got right into the work tonight, worked 20 minutes (counts despite the lack of results - I made contact with the project). Tried out the brown noise that MK recommended. Don’t know what I think of it. Good to try new things though. I will miss my family and wish I had a longer parental leave but I am looking forward to being in my office writing and earlier in the day instead of the writing schedule I’ve been on, and it’s nice to want to write like that, to look forward to it. I am intellectually convinced I really can get a draft of my book written in a year (I respond to that thought by counting out the time until tenure review and starting to worry again; I am doing good work and have lots of support, if I keep doing what I’m doing I will get tenure, must remember that). I have periods where I not only am intellectually convinced but where I really believe it at a gut level too. I’m nervous about revising the book as a whole but I am excited about having a first draft of the whole book. I just did a tally via Excel and my accountability sheet. I have worked for 28 sessions (not counting the last few unproductive attempts) for a total of about 20 hours. In that time I got from my raw materials to a good zero draft/down draft of chapter 3 ready to reverse outline. This semester If I write 15 minutes a day 3 days a week plus 3 hours between the other two week days (this is assuming no writing on sat and sun, which I would like to continue to attempt to write at least 15 minutes daily) then that’s 56 hours over the semester. Let’s say, just making it up, that it takes me 16 more hours to work on ch3. That leaves 40 hours, with which I could draft the interlude and revise it, and begin to draft ch4. And I could likely work more than that schedule sketched above, if not for the whole semester at least some of the time. Plus there’s the summer. So I am definitely on track. I’ve established good habits and dispositions and practices/skills, all of which I am continuing to hone, and I’m establishing some of the social setting/collective context to support the work. I still nervous but I feel like I really can get the book drafted this year. Nice to end on an up note. I should think about arranging my office or printing stuff out to support work further - print out my prompts? some reminders to myself? - and should make a calendar (make it not in writing time, ie admin is not writing) for when I will write and for things like goals for when to have the possible may writing retreat wheels in motion and likewise the summer writing support group wheels in motion. |