I do believe I am officially in a funk.

Good news though – I should be starting a copyediting course in the next 2 weeks.  We’ve also got a couple of small trips planned.  And I ordered a laptop, which should arrive today or tomorrow.

Hopefully things will get moving for me again.   My intentions have been good!  Just my desire to actually carry out any sort of plan has been lacking.

1) This is the 1st of September, what do you want to accomplish by the 31st?

There are only 30 days in September so already I’m feeling pressure from this question. By the end of this month, I want to be enrolled in my copyediting course. I also want to have my new laptop in-hand and configured. I want to have an established routine of writing on a regular basis.

2) What does September make you think about or feel?

Not necessarily an original thought but September makes me think of Fall. It’s still quite warm here in September but the temperature does become more bearable. September also reminds me of back to school, though I’m long past the years of a traditional school schedule. Hopefully that will help me get in the right frame of mind for my class in October.

3) September is the ninth month; can you name nine memories so far from this year?

1. Surgery in April
2. Trip to the beach in May
3. Trip to FL in July
4. Anniversary
5. Day trip to a park south of here
6. Day trip to a park only 15 minutes away (though it felt more like hours removed from the city)
7. Realization that it’s time for me to make some changes as the life I’m living currently is not true to who I am
8. Trip to DC
9. Stanley Cup Finals

4) What does September have in common with three other months and can you name them?

30 days – April, June, November. Which makes it all the more curious that question #1 asked about Sept 31st.

5) The first weekend in September signals the end of summer for many even though it doesn’t really end for weeks. When does summer end for you?

Temperatures will be on par with the “summer” I grew up with in the North for at least another month. School doesn’t start until October so maybe that is the defining point. Yet summer never REALLY started because we both work 40 hours a week and his classes have kept us from even a single trip to the beach. So the summer that never began looks like it will end in October.

There, largely painless but it gave me a chance to think a bit. Tomorrow, I hope to spend some time free-writing.

Start 5 sentences with “I want…”
Start 5 sentences with “I need…”

• I want to lose another 10 pounds.
• I want to go on a trip.
• I want better hair.
• I want to write a story.
• I want the weather to be nice this weekend.

• I need to get my priorities straight.
• I need to make some progress on the career goals.
• I need to go brush my teeth.
• I need to finish a project for a client.
• I need attention.

Not exactly sure what purpose that served but I guess I can say I wrote “something” today. Is that a perk to writing? As long as you put down SOME combination of words, you’ve had a successful day? Guess it beats building database queries!

• articles
• travel pieces
• narratives
• PR/marketing blurbs.

Never would I have said any sort of fiction. Yet in talking with a friend (an aspiring writer herself) yesterday about something from my past, we actually put together an interesting idea for a story. Ideas bounced around in my head on the drive home and by the time I hit the house, I had to start scribbling notes. Key plot points, some questions, character names, possible perspectives/voice.

Dialogue scares me though. More than anything else, the idea of writing dialogue just freaks me right out. My friend offered to help write it, partly to get me through some of the emotional hell of delving into such a dark place from my past. I’ll have to see how she feels about dialogue.
Me, write a fiction story? It would be based very loosely on fact but I think a lot of fiction starts that way – an experience or event spurs the author off in all these other directions. And maybe it’s not SO far off for me to consider it – growing up, creative stories were of great interest to me. I think for some reason now, as an adult, they seem less responsible somehow.

I feel like my life is becoming a mess of twists and turns right now. The closer I get to figuring out what I think I want or who I am, the more I end up off in another direction entirely.

When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life.

– Geoffrey F. Abert

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

– Marianne Williamson

The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.

- Oprah Winfrey