Goals and Problems

by Anna Arnett

What can I write about when my mind seems blank ... when no theme worth talking about surfaces, no matter how I beg ... when all my thoughts center in just a few things -- take a nap, do the laundry, tidy my rooms, work diligently on my WIP, or just sit and count my heartbeats?  Well, I do have another thought, but its impetus arises from my lower trunk, not my brain, and is acerbated by my prescribed diuretic -- run to the bathroom, and read.  

Yesterday I worked the morning shift at the Mesa temple and felt great.  So good, indeed, that I stopped to get new white knee-highs, filled the gas tank, and wandered, or trudged, down almost every aisle at Costco, where I went only for some cat food, but spent a couple hundred dollars.  By the time I got home I'd reached an exhaustion stage and my heart did its jitterbug thing.  That gave me the thrill of recording and phoning the results to Cardionet.  By the time my heart quieted down, which was fairly soon, I was content to just sit, test my blood-pressure, and stare into space.

Oh, now I'm getting ideas.  Perhaps you'd like a report on my resolutions I'd decided on in my last blog.  I actually got busy and organized the various scenes I'd written over the last two or three years, and even counted words ... or let spell-check do it.  I've drafted in the neighborhood of 100,000 so far.  I've chronic-al-ized  (spell-check doesn't like all this together, but I do) memories clear up to 1956 of my life history, with a thousand words or so of 1961,  telling when my last baby arrived--the one made in Japan.

After more inspiration at a cabin in Forest Lake for a weekend with Pamela Goodfellow's class, I made the great decision to schedule full work-time of at least four, but aiming for eight hours a day until I get my memoirs finished--at least a book's worth.  Forty hours a week ought to hurry the process.  I started charting my work time on Monday, June first, because Sunday was my next opportunity, and it's a day of rest.  Besides a couple of firsts sounded like an excellent choice.  That day I worked on my WIP for four and a half hours.  Tuesday I did five. Wednesday I bombed out, and today my writing has not yet gotten around to my memoirs.  But I have six more hours before bedtime, and who knows how many hours I'll take after that!

Happy writing, and please cheer me on.  As you can tell, I need it.