Quiet: Have We Forgotten to Be Still in a World That Never Stops? – Written By Kristen Lamb

Today I discovered that article on Kristen Lamb’s blog, a post I can fully relate to. She speaks from my heart! Thank you for that post, Kristen!

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Quiet. It’s a rather strange experience if one has grown too accustomed to the go-go-go pace of the modern world.

Recently—well, not too recently—my grandfather died. I was raised by my grandparents, so when a week and a half before Christmas he suddenly passed away? It was a blow.

Sure, he was 93. But, he was feisty like me and was far from the typical elderly person. He’d golfed (and played the entire course) until he was 90 and even a bit past that. He played cards and continued to battle crabgrass in triple-digit Texas summer heat armed with only a hand-sharpened garden hoe.

I kid you not, I went to visit one day and my sweat-soaked grandfather was digging up holly shrubs in 102 degree heat. He was almost 90 at the time. I suppose part of me expected he’d live forever. I’d at least expected to have him until 100.

Anyway, I caught a cold this past October, which, because I refused to slow down ‘enough’—which ‘slow down enough’ might as well be a friggin’ Leprechaun for me since I’ve yet to spot it—the cold turned into bronchitis in November.

This already had me down.

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How To Spend Your Vacation Writing

I generally do whatever I can to use my free time to write. The very best time is my vacation. Tons of free time and “nothing” else to do. Yes, of course, there’s the usually shopping trip. Meeting friends, book fairs, a few meetings, a little bit of sightseeing, if necessary, but normally I spend my vacation time with my Californian Mom, my sister… you get the point. Places where I can relax and concentrate on my books and stories.

Once again I was lucky enough to have had a home for three weeks, where I had nearly nothing to do than to shop, type, and write.

I could concentrate on the current book – number seven in the series, where I got stuck while being at home. No matter what I tried, I just couldn’t get forward with the story. I had an idea and it didn’t work. I wanted to write about a conversation between two characters and it didn’t make sense, not even to me.

As soon as I was gone, decently relaxed and had peace and silence around me (two dogs, four cats, a handful of birds and a guinea pig, my pen touched the paper and wrote.

I mentioned this before, and it once again proved right with me: I cannot write a good story (or part of it) when I’m stressed out or unhappy. Hemingway wrote his best books when he was weeping over his life and/or drunk. Not working with me.

I’m very happy my work made this good progress during this vacation, even more since the first book of the series got its copyright and is currently prepared to be published.

I’m so very excited!

Thank you all who have worked on this with me.

This vacation was successful for me, even though I was “just hanging out”! It’s been calm, quiet, helpful, reducing stress and homey too!

Thanks to my sister and my brother-in-law who hosted me during all this time!! You rock!!

 

Let’s Keep Blogging Fun

Hugh W. Roberts tells us how he handles blogging – and the guilt that seems to come with it sometimes. Thank you very much for this post, Hugh!

Hugh's Views & News  

I’ve recently been reading some posts and messages on Facebook where people are asking for advice because blogging has got to the stage of stressing them out and/or making them feel guilty. I’ve written about this subject before, and know exactly how these bloggers are feeling, having been through the whole blogging ‘feeling guilty’ trip, myself.

One of the reasons why I signed up to WordPress and created my blog was because I thought blogging would be fun. One year in and I found myself becoming very stressed and feeling guilty because I wasn’t able to keep up with reading all the new blog posts being published by the bloggers I was following. Some days, I was finding myself doing little else but reading and leaving comments on blog posts. Heck, some of the bloggers I was following were publishing more than a few blog posts a day, and I…

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Stress & Burnout—How to Get Your Creative Mojo Back

Stress and burnout? Here’s what to do!!

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Image courtesy of Eflon via Flickr Creative Commons

The past few years have been just brutal. My grandmother who raised me was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and it was just one crisis after another and it just never…freaking…let…up. I felt like I was in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu being crushed all the time, but not allowed to tap out. Then, on Independence Day (ironically) my grandmother finally passed away.

I really never appreciated how much her declining health was impacting me until she was gone. It was like I was wandering around in a fugue state only aware that my knees hurt. Then out of nowhere a hand lifted off the 500 pound gorilla and I could breathe again. I never noticed the gorilla, never noticed the lack of air, only the knee pain.

So now I am in the process of rebuilding. I plan on taking a couple days off to…

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