Starting to Relax

I finally got my grad school application submitted. I'm still waiting on one recommender, but then it's all finished. I'm trying to get this medical junk taken care of and even though I've had no luck with jobs, it looks like things are FINALLY starting to settle out a bit. It took long enough. 


I'm really hoping that this settling out business will allow me to start writing again with some regularity. Really.


If nothing else, I'll have more book updates. I'm reading The Te of Piglette and The Secret Holocaust Diaries right now, so I should have plenty to be updating on soon. 


What keeps you ridiculously busy during your summers?

With New Vigor

As we get close to June and close to two full weeks without any real regular posting, I feel that it's time to get back going. I've started sleeping on a more regular schedule and my husband is even getting me to start exercising regularly again, so no more slacking. The goal is going to be posting 3-4 (maybe even 5!) times a week, getting some literary stuff as well as some ranting in. 


I'll also try to do a few free writes a week on Sans Serif. That space is still free for anyone who wants to guest post there. :)


I had been working on the 30 Days of World Building while I was in Hong Kong, but that also dropped off a bit as packing, traveling, and recovering took over. I may or may not start a site/link/set of posts for all that information.


It's good to be back. 

Stateside

I am back on US soil - yay! It is so good to be home!

It will probably take me a good week to adjust back to regular sleeping schedules, household patterns and habits as well as writing habits. I plan to come back with some revised and new writing, as well as continue to update my book challenge and hopefully get a few Red Dress Club prompts in here and there. 

Speaking of book challenge, I just finished Little Men yesterday. I had never read it before and I ended up really enjoying it - not the same way as I enjoyed Little Women, but a different kind of enjoyment. I really felt empathy and connection to the stories told in Little Women - the shared and similar experiences touched me. With Little Men it was different. I sometimes empathized with the boys, but found myself living a little vicariously other times and enjoying the romps of boys. 

Blogging

In trying to use this blog to improve my writing skills, I have finally come to the point where I might start redrafting and reposting a few old works as they get modified. I don't have anything ready quite yet, but it should be along soon.

I have a busy week ahead of me. I'll be traveling almost exactly halfway around the globe - back to the US for me - and so I will be a little out of touch (if you haven't already noticed). Packing and preparing leaves me little time to be able to concentrate on the writing, but hopefully the 17 hour plane ride will give me some time in which I can write and make up for the lack of literary-ness that has been plaguing me recently. 

On the up side and with the lack of writing going on, I have been reading extra and have had plenty of updates for my reading goal. I'm almost done with Little Women, so another book should be under my belt before I fly this week.

How do you find the will to keep going when you're lacking things to write?

Pushing my limits

I just got Blogger to start working again. It's been having some loading issues that have been stopping me from posting. I don't even know what that's all about. 


The last few days have been pretty full. My husband's birthday was Monday and we decided to do a hike in Hong Kong. We underestimated the hike by quite a bit and found ourselves up a certain creek without a certain paddle to help us. It ended up being a 4 hour hike up and down set of mountain peaks. There were three main peaks, the highest of which was over 800 meters high (and we pretty much started at sea level). NUTS STUFF. I've never done anything that difficult in my life. Ever. 


We did make it to the world's largest sitting Buddha at the end of it all. It was a lovely afternoon. It's good that we could still enjoy it after four hours of hiking and what turned out to be some pretty bad sunburns. 


I did learn something about myself. There was no way of getting out of there once we'd gotten in, except to turn back or go forward. There were a few times where I felt like giving up, but since there's no other real option but moving on, there was no giving up to be had. It was a tough struggle for both of us. I can barely move today and we're both nursing the sunburn on our arms, but we did it. I wasn't sure I could do it. I really wasn't. There was a high ridge that we thought was the last, but when we arrived at the top we realized we were only just over halfway through. I had already had to stop and have two significant resting periods to deal with my breathing. I didn't think my body could handle it, but I pushed myself to a new psychological and physical limit. I was overly ambitious in picking a hike I knew my husband would enjoy and most of the planning sites did not indicate the length of this hike. Maps can be deceiving. 


Things I learned:
- Approximately 1280m of vertical climbing is A LOT.
- My husband and I make a good team. 
- I can push my body through a lot more than I realize if I can pace myself. 


That last one is huge. I've been an asthmatic since I was a child. I couldn't run the mile and I get winded climbing to the fifth floor of our building to get into the apartment. We climbed about 5km worth of distance (not including the vertical). It was a long, hard slog of a hike. But we did it. 


I gotta say - I impressed myself. 

Need a place to be a free write? Guest write on Sans Serif!

We all have times when we need to get something out of our heads or off of our chests. Sometimes our personal blog isn't the place to do it. 

Free writing is about getting that stream of consciousness down - not editing and spell check and worrying how our regular readers are going to take such an unrefined post. It can be a pre-write to get the ideas going or just to help get past the writer's block. Whatever the purpose, it's cathartic and moving. 

Sans Serif is about having a place to do all of these things. It's where there's no end to cap those thoughts  - just let them run free. It's a place I go to get thoughts out or even get thoughts started. It can be that place for you too.

The best part about a free-write is it only takes 5 or 10 minutes. It doesn't cut into the time your write on your blog or do you work. Instead of surfing the internet for an hour before coming up with the inspiration to post or staring at the blank composition box, do a free write. 

But these thoughts don't need to be hidden or re-worked. Contact me on the Guest page of Sans Serif by leaving me a comment about your topic or interest.

An Idea

I threw an idea over to my friend Erica at free fringes that she might start a small bloggers community. What I didn't expect is for her to throw that proposal right back at me. 


The thing is... I don't know anything about how to go about doing such a thing... but I have started looking into the process. 


Thoughts anyone?