WIP Wednesday: My Pep Talk Rx

                                Prescription best used in life and in writing.

 

 

     I see this old slate board every morning (every time) I enter the living room and walk towards the kitchen.  It hangs by the kitchen windows, where it presides over much of my activities these days.  Anyone with a very young tot knows the kitchen becomes your second home (preempting my desk space many days *sigh* ).   Another topic for another day.

 

I gave myself this Rx many years ago when I worked in the Mental Health field.  The lettering I used often in my daily logs and note taking and the Rx I used everyday when dealing with both clients and the MH system which I worked.  One day at a time.

 

Keeping this simple message up in my home now, reminds me to stay focused and work on what is at hand and not obsess about things I can not control or whats still so far ahead for both my little family and for my writing.  It reminds me that big and important jobs can become so much more manageable when you just focus on one day at a time.

 

Good writing folks.

 

 

A Baby Changes Everything?

It is true. A baby does change everything…. Everything? Priorities change – check. Body changes – check. Brain chemistry changed and may never return – sadly, check. Home environment changes – double check. These things change because they must change. Pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing require it of me. But how many items other mothers put on the “change” checklist don’t have to change or shouldn’t?

 

Obviously if the above changes I named occur when one becomes a mom, you technically are living much of your life for your child and those changes are fine by me.  Part of that whole change in priorities thing.   But I believe that there are many changes, some small and some large, that are a matter of choice. 

 

I once heard someone say its time to put away childish things when starting a family.  So long, youthful hair gets cut short because of practicality?  Social life becomes trips to the grocery store and the occasional play date?  Heels become tennis shoes and couture becomes sweats and jeans?  Of course the sweats are welcome, because worrying about ones waistline or style has taken a backseat to grooming and growing your little family.  And a big one for me, pipe dreams become old hobbies and old hobbies become nearly non-existent???

 

I say no!

 

I say these changes fit into "matter of choice".  And what is wrong with keeping some "childish things" in your life.  Some of the smartest, most successful or just plain good people I've known still feed their inner child and have made the best of parents.   Because when you keep the things that make you uniquely YOU, the world and your children's world benefits.  Our children learn that its okay to be a individual and how important it is to have dreams.  They watch us follow those dreams, live our lives and enjoy the lives we have made.  And maybe in the end respect us as role models for doing so. 

 

I want James to have a mommy he is proud of.  I want him to believe dreams are possible because he has watched me work for one of mine.

 

So I sit here in suburbia, a rural girl out of water with my long hair and high heel boots, typing away at a dream. 

 

While a happy baby boy chatters away, just down the hall...

 

 

And the WIP Returns Once More.

I have been having a hard time starting back up my writing life. It starts up, sputters and then goes dormant for another day, weeks, months. The spark gets dulled by never ending housework, by continued renovations of a new old house.  My muse ignored, for the day to day needs of my new little family. 

Now I would never take back the newest changes in my life.  Right now, everything that's the hardest work are the best parts of my life. (Motherhood anyone?) But I would like to bring back some of what hasn't changed for me.  I still want to write.  And I still want to blog.

So I sit here with pen in hand (Original post written on back of junk mail earlier today) and I begin what is to be my next chapter in this life.  Where I am both mother, wife, home renovator and writer.  Where I learn how to balance these jobs because frankly I need to be all those things to keep my life a good life--a wanted life for me and my family.

Today, I come back to my blog very much a work in progress, still.  I have missed being here with all of you.  I miss being inspired and challenged by your own works and comments made regarding my own.  I regret not visiting often.  I hope to find all of you well and your endeavors continuing on and I look forward to being apart of your worlds again. 

Nicole Nicholson Murray, WIP 

 

While I was gone...

Let's see. (index to lips in great concentration)
Since the last time I tapped keys in this neighborhood Jim and I visited this place again...
Yep, Jim's folks on the Big Island were and are still doing fine in the Aloha State. I took this pic across the street from their condo the last night we were there. As always, there were no loss of beautiful memories to be had or gorgeous days to enjoy those 3 weeks. And it was a wonderful place for a Baby Moon (wiggles brows). But, FYI: Air flight while pregnant can be and truly was a bitch! I'm sure I will find a way to get that experience in here one of these days. All experiences have their use when one is a writer, right? Right? And it was just sooooo dang fun I'll have to share... :-P

And then this Spring Jim and I bought a house in preparation of our growing little family. Behold yet another room under construction (below). This is good but frustrating, but mostly really really good thing. Because with each wall of plastic, nail struck, floor refinished, each treasure found and personal touch placed in our new old house, makes it even more our home. And not the neglected red headed stepchild (and it was red when we bought it) of the neighborhood that it will soon not be. I knew my addiction to HGTV would save me some day...

And then exactly one week after moving in--I want you to think towers of unpacked boxes, dusty cobwebs yet un-mastered and barely a bedroom to sleep in--we had James. Nearly 9 pounds, 22 inches. James Alan Murray was born healthy and happy on May 24th.

And now...

My Man and my little man just the other day in front of the tube. Jim was teaching James the fine art of channel surfing at the time. Lord, in the short time that little monkey has been in my life I have learned so much more than I could have ever guessed about parenting--hell, about life. No talent for empathy prepared me for feeling what its really like to be a parent. I don't think I could love another human being more...and I love his Daddy a considerable amount.

I had said that my son would be my best WIP. The truth is, he is his own WIP and I am so much a WIP still.

As for WIP's, Ghost Mountain is still a go, although it had stalled for a bit, due to EVERYTHING!!!! I have started this again...

And not just writing, but sketching again, home repair and decorative project making again. I still have a pile of boxes in the third bedroom where Salvaged Beauty will begin again, so no jewelry at this time. But it will come.

And with my creative self finding its way back again, my socially active self has been making its way around. Slowly I make contact with old friends and soon I hope to attend a writing group session again. And while I dip a toe or two into the waters of my small social pond, my mind has already been taking dips into the much bigger pond--our nation and the world.

A anniversary solidified my need to voice some long held opinions. 9-11 and those days that followed to be exact. I remember that day, a decade ago like most. I was working a double at my old job as a mental health worker. We had a small TV in our office. The Today Show was on while I went over the log entries from the day before. And then I heard something that caught my attention--Matt Lauer reporting on some plane hitting one of the World Trade Towers. Something similar had happened many years ago. In 1945 a B-25 Bomber smacked into the Empire State building. A horrible accident. But this day.... As soon as I watched a second plane do the same to the second tower, I knew what I had seen was a act of terrorism. I had never felt so angry or hyper aware than I did that day in front of that small TV, side by side with staff and half the clients stable enough in the building to do so.

When the next day came I was still angry, still raw from what I had bore witness to on live TV. But I could sense something else in me as the day drug on with each new bit of horrifying footage from all 3 sites. This thing swelled in me. A protectiveness, a patriotism, a pride grew in me while I watched those who had come out of the dust or those brave enough to travel into it, band together in the rubble strewn streets of Manhattan, the defiled home of our military in DC and that scared field just outside a small town in PA. For the first time in my life I saw what I knew my America was capable of. What my grandparents always reminisced. A America that didn't hold into account your sex, religion, race, or economical place when the shit hit the fan. You were a human being in need of help and that was all that mattered. We were all in it together. We were Americans. I just wish it hadn't took 9-11 to remind people of that.

And now--oh how times have changed and not at all how I would have imagined or hoped. I remember who we were those hard horrible days, months, years. I see the good and feel the pride of being a American still, but something has changed. Something wrong floats in the air and I want to help air it out if it still can be. How will I do this, I am still figuring on. I know it may be wise to keep some sort of separation between my writing and jewelry biz self and my inner politico. Maybe I can find a way to do that on Blogger? But after all that has gone on these last few years, I need to get a few things off my chest and out into blogisphere.

So, I am back. There will be some changes here and there, but I am still me--a eccentric, hopeful WIP.

WIP Wednesday: The Sex of My Little WIP...

Lets just say that my little WIP will be peeing standing up...

IT'S A BOY!!!!!

Just a few more months till I meet him in the flesh. My son, James Allen Murray. Till then ultrasound images of his little face and the perfect shot of his little bum and manly junk, will have to suffice.

Let's just say, little James is proving not bashful.

WIP Wednesday: Inspiration Through Reading Old Blogs.

OOOKAY. I was going to write out a nice, long sentimental WIP Wednesday entry involving the similarities of nursing a WIP and impending motherhood. Even made it a point to go looking through older entries to find the link to another entry of similar but not same nature and then it happened...

INSPIRATION!

The last few days I have been a little lax writing new material for my WIP 'Ghost Mountain'. I have been...distracted. Well, I fell into reading some of my old blog entries concerning said WIP and its MC Wyatt and BAM!!!!!!!

Soooo, have a lovely evening all and nice of ya to stop by, but I have a date with my WIP.

WIP Wednesday: Self Realization Time Again.

When starting this blog, I referred to myself as a Work in Progress. I don't think I fully appreciated that statement or that fact at the time.

More than anything, the WIP part was pointed more at my professional and creative endeavors. I understood that through working on these things, I would find changes in myself. This occurs with any new road one takes. What I didnt fully grasp or maybe just wasnt ready to see yet, was the more personal--more elemental things that would-could change in me when the WIP's in my life delved into big life changes (i.e. the little space alien inside my tummy and what its birth will mean).

You see, I have had some major shake ups in my life within the last few years, but the changes they evoked in me were somehow different than what I am experiencing now. I would sooner name all the stars in the heaven than I could exactly or accurately explain what I am feeling now... but I like it.

So many changes are coming for me. Things that will join my present works and other things that will change them. Jim and I will find a house before spring and that will be a big change in our daily lives--but a welcome one. I will continue to care for my little family and myself and fall in love with him or her as the day grows nearer. And then I will be a mother, a job I believe I have been in training for a long time and will justly make my priority.

But how will these changes mix with the things I want for me? Should they be pushed aside and turned away like many of the women in my life have done? Or maybe WIP's and dreams do not have to disappear, only change a bit. The true nature of a WIP don't you think?

WIP Wednesday: NaNo Sum Up and Continuation

This year was my 3rd entrance in NaNoWriMo. The first two times I surpassed the 50,000 words and came away with the rough ideas for two novels. This year I entered the fray, not to write 50,000 wrds of new material, but use the one month experience to sort out last years novel idea I had been tangling with since.

I'd say I've just about done that. I did get some bugs worked out and came up with a few clearer scenes than before. Even better, the writing--as always--gave me the chance to get to know my characters better. For this I am very pleased. This month will most definitely make the continuation of my WIP easier.

How did all of your NaNo endeavors go this year. Find yourself a new story or a new idea to change a old one?

BTW, thank you for all of your support and kinds words last week regarding my latest and greatest WIP--my future baby. It put a smile on my face. ;-D

May I Introduce My Latest and Greatest Work In Progess...

Yep, I'm working on a baby. I'm 3 months into this project and so far so good. I'm a bit tired, naturally worried for a multitude of mommy-to-be reasons. And I feel impossibly happy everytime I think him/her/strange little space alien in my tummy.

I think this may be my greatest work ever.

Happy Holidays!!!!