Category: Just Life

Place Holder 03

Not sure this was stated or if it was implied in previous posts, but place holders will be posted until the new year. Sometime in December the new line up will be explained, however if you have read any of my previous earlier in the year or before, you can guess. The difference will be in the posting.

I hope everyone who is reading this post is doing well. The next update post will be November 1st. The official first day of NaNoWriMo. The Discord and other social media spots will be a blaze with writers of every level, writing or talking about not writing. There will be posts, vlogs and podcasts episodes about participating in this event and not participating. You all my few readers will know where I stand on November 1st.

Until them I am making hard choices. How do you get yourself out of the habit of procrastination? That has been my dilemma for a while, now. My worst fear is the New Year and nothing has changed. I won’t have anything prepared to post. I will be writing an apology essay again. If that happened I might close down this blog for a couple of months. I can’t say forever. Most of my best times in life is when I am writing. I have been looking at elements of short story writing. While listening to author podcast, I heard of the article in the NY Times Who is the Bad Art Friend? It is written by Robert Kolker. I don’t want to explain the whole thing but it is interesting. The article is about narcissism, plagiarism, bad friendships, lawsuits, and the literary writing community. It is a lot. I will say that the article attempted to be as objective as possible. But no matter how you looked at it, you will take a side. This article had many a writing community all a flutter for most of October. I think it came out when I was in Florida. I didn’t know anything until last week. I wrote this comment on a YouTube video about the article and the case. It seems like one person thought they were friends and the other person didn’t feel that way. Mostly because I don’t think real friends act that way with each other, even when they use aspects of their friends’ lives for inspiration. It all comes down to a matter of kindness and none of these adult people knew how to do that.

This week is going to be a busy week and I have a list of thing that have to be done before November 1st. I can no longer avoid them. I thought I had more to write but I am closing here. The Dalai Lama has a quote I like to paraphrase – Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Please like and subscribe thank you in advance.

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Steps for Improvement

This is a place holder for Wednesdays. In the past, I have written that either a review or an essay would be posted today. I failed to incorporate this plan into a writing schedule and then found myself scrambling on Tuesday night. That became exhausting and I quit. Self-sabotage at its best. I haven’t written much about the plans because I find ways to mess myself up. The end results are supposed to be an improved JC Henry Universe for 2022.

Several years ago, I tried to customize a system to help me be achieve the goals, I set for myself. I called it the most original title, the 100-days project. It had a reasonable time limit but lacked accountability and consistent motivation. I treated the projects like a New Year’s resolution. I tried many times to fix the 100days projects. Making a blog for it and inviting people I knew to join me, no one did. I tried to keep up with the projects for about two years. But then it fizzled.

In August out of curiosity, I looked up how many days until the end of the year. It was a little over 100 days. I thought of the failed lifestyle system. I also realized that I haven’t written a book review in several months. I was irritated that I didn’t do the things I wrote in many posts. I know I wrote about productivity, creativity, inspiration etc. I did research on time management and still fell short of managing my time effectively. This is the point where I would type this great new method or idea. Full disclosure I don’t have one. I heard about and read good things about author Sarra Canon’s HB90 method. It is a course to help writers or any other creative make time to do the things they need to do for success. Ms. Canon is not the first author, who recommended chopping up the year into quarters, similar to what businesses do. She only one I heard of that has it specifically for writers. However I don’t have the money in my budget for the course, which is a shame because I believe it is reasonable, so I have to customize something for myself and it feels like the 100-days project in spirit. Those are the steps, the picture is a pun, for me to keep writing and improve the website. I apologize if this entry is confusing. The method is new and not a habit yet. The places holders are for me as well as you all. I will be working on my creative non-fiction and general fiction.

The takeaway from this rambling is that persistence can get you what you want. As long as it does not hurt anyone I encourage us all to be determined. Remember the ancient proverb, fall nine times, get up ten.

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