Tag: ritual

Exercise to Writing to Work

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Today we have the long-awaited (at least since Wednesday) expose on how Jeffe changes outfits multiple times a day.

No, really.

(I can’t believe you guys are interested in this. Or that I’m posting pictures to the internet of me looking scuzzy. But look, here I am.)

In the interests of science, and glasnost, I’m showing you my actual “look” for the various times of day. Hang on, phone is ringing….

Vogue, again. When will they take no for an answer???

Okay, so, KAK asked about PJs. Here’s me at 6 in the morning. Please cut me generous slack. This is the black wintertime robe. There are no actual PJs. We live in a natural world and, hey, I’m a natural girl.


I change into my exercise clothes. There’s a red jog bra under the pink sweat shirt. I would have shown you, but I figured you all don’t need to see my astonishing toned abs. The picture might make you spit up your coffee or something and that’s no way to end the week.

This pic is post-workout. The sky is barely lighter at this point. Looking very much forward to the end of Daylight Savings Time on Sunday!

Then we get to the best part: the writing clothes. This is what I’m wearing as I type. So, see, when I first started writing, back in the day, I really didn’t have a dedicated writing desk and I wasn’t good at sitting down to write on a regular schedule. I created rituals to ease myself into the process. I wore my favorite shleppy dress, this blue jersey knit that I loved. I loved it for years. Um, until it literally fell to pieces. Finally I wondered aloud if I should throw it away.

“Yes,” said David.

“But – ” I whimpered.

“It has holes in it.” He replied.

“But it’s been my writing dress for years!” I cried.

“The writing comes from you, not a dress.” He told me.

I had to concede the point. The dress went to the great beyond, a farm maybe, where it’s playing with other happy outfits and Velveteen rabbits. So now I wear the fab sweatshirt my stepsister Hope picked out for me. If you can’t read it, it says:

Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel.

Note that this outfit includes comfy slippers for feet and a headband to keep the hair out of my eyes as I furiously type. It helps me to stay in kind of a dreamy, sleepy mode to write, to maximize that subconscious flow.

Once I get my words in, it’s off to the shower for me. I do hair and makeup, put on some workier-type clothes. If I think no one is likely to see me all day, I usually wear something like this. It was tempting to put on one of my snazzier outfits for this photoshoot, but that would violate the honest spirit of this expose.

If I have meetings or will see people, I dress up more. If you’ve seen me at conferences, that’s the general spirit.

So – more than you ever wanted to know about me?

Yeah. That’s what I figured.

Morning Commute

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I drove my boss in for work this morning.

She lives in New Hampshire, so we don’t normally see each other all that often. She was in town to work on a project that I can’t work on, due to conflict of interest. So, she stayed with us and we got to socialize, but we didn’t work together.

This morning, I drove her into downtown Santa Fe. We stopped at Starbucks on the Plaza, which is one of my very favorite Starbucks anywhere and she treated me to my first Gingerbread Spice latte of the season. I dropped her off at the offices, said goodbye and came home to my desk overlooking the valley, while all the other cars streamed into town.

It’s funny to break up my ritual that way. Normally my working day starts with me changing out of gym clothes into writing clothes, then into work clothes. Some days, I don’t really leave the house, except to go to the gym or to take a walk. My daily rhythm becomes largely my own. I’m aware of the East Coast time zones, as my colleagues there shut down for the day, or the Pacific Time folks, who generally start and finish later. Otherwise, I have no commute, no one glancing at the clock when I sit down at my desk.

It’s a lovely lifestyle. Don’t mistake me – I appreciate it no end.

There’s a certain comaraderie, though, to the beginning of the day. I like seeing the woman at the traffic light fluffing her hair in the rear-view mirror while the yellow school bus passes in front of us, small bodies bouncing inside. I like seeing the line-up at Starbucks, of the people in suits with briefcases, the stylish shopgirls in their black outfits getting ready to open the galleries, the scruffy types who wander in to stay a bit and maybe bum a cup of coffee.

Then again, I know it’s fun for me because I don’t do it every day. I don’t have the accumulated aggravations of traffic, the people paying more attention to primping than driving, the hassle of loading a small body onto the school bus in the first place, the sinking heart at the sight of the long Starbucks line while the hands of the clock march to the time I’m supposed to sit at my desk.

Instead, my job is to sit at my desk overlooking the valley and write about it.

Snow Day

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A heavy, thick snow fell overnight, the deepest we’ve had so far in our new house.

Santa Fe doesn’t cope well with snow, so schools and state offices were declared closed by 7am. It’s a good day to tuck in.

Of course, for me it should be no different than most days. I work from home, for both the writing and the day job, unless I’m on travel. I don’t have any meetings in town today, which is good. I had one yesterday and the one tomorrow morning — I might just call in, since the storm is predicted to keep going. Most of the people “at” that meeting are on the phone anyway.

But for today, I feel only like curling up by the fire with a book.

I don’t know what it is about a deep snow that leads me to feel like it’s not a work day. Perhaps it goes back to childhood programming, when a big snow meant no school. Just as David’s school is canceled. He’s off-routine already, talking to classmates about whether school would be closed. Asking me to speculate. Asking me if I’m writing on my blog, which I am, just like I am at this time every day, but he’s usually too busy getting ready to be bothered that I’m not engaging in conversation with him.

So, some of it is being off-pattern. Not the usual day at all.

Maybe there’s something to the hibernating, as well. My atavistic animal spirit is tucking itself into its den, sleepy and satisfied to nap it out.

But the internet window is bright and full of sunshine and busy activity.

Hi-ho, hi-ho!

Deck the Halls With… What Exactly?

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You know, I’m such a creature of habit.

Perhaps, a believer in ritual. Which sounds ever so much better.

But, I’ve discovered, just tonight, that part of my blockage on Christmas decoration stems from not knowing where stuff GOES. My friend, amazing author Keena Kincaid, who will be guest blogging here tomorrow, is a gypsy. She forever moves from place to place, so getting out her Christmas decorations becomes a common thread.

For me, I find myself paralyzed that I can’t hang the stockings on the kiva. What do I do?? Perhaps if I had less OTHER stuff to do, I’d feel more creative.

What it comes to is, I can’t do the decorating by rote.

I can’t simply recreate what I’ve done before and have done. Some of the things just flat out don’t match. At least I’ve made piles now, of what does match and what doesn’t.

I know, I know — it sounds nuts and you wonder why I care.

I can’t explain why I care. It has to do with blending. With art. With being part of the landscape and the season and the feeling. I have something in me that wants to become part of a place. That longs to be in harmony, perhaps.

Speaking of which, I’ve learned that “luminarias” are little bonfires and the candles in bags are “farolitas.” If you have the fake-y farolitas, with electricity like we do, they’re “electrolitas.” Which I feel certain is not a traditional word.

I’m getting there. The poinsettia lights look lovely over the kiva mantle. I’ve a pile of outside lights in amber and gold, to match the farolitas.

I have an idea for hanging the stockings, too.

Hmm. Is that the stirrings of creativity I feel? Welcome! Welcome and, dare I say, gods bless us, every one.

A Wing and a Blog

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I’m posting from the airplane today.

Well, more precisely, I’m drafting this on the airplane. I believe, though, that the day is not far off that we will be able to post to our blogs and continue our internet connectedness from the air. Yes, I’ve become one of those business travelers you see, who pull out their laptops as soon as they give the go ahead to use electronic devices that don’t broadcast a signal. Have you noticed that some of the newer airplanes have a little light for electronic device use now? The light-up icons for seatbelts and our symbiotic technology now displayed where the cigarette emblem used to be.

I have no idea what the implications of that may be. Perhaps we’ve only traded one kind of encroaching cancer for another. Feeding our lives into just another bad habit.
But it makes a difference to me, as much as I travel for the day job, to keep up with my connectedness. I wrote my 1K first, cozied into my cocoon of Bose headphones playing the very same writing music as I play in my skylit studio at home. (There’s a bit of my ritual, replicated there.) It feels good to have that done. My numbers safely recorded for the day. Then I replied to a few emails, set aside because other things had been on fire. They can leisurely wend their way over the ‘net when I land.

Now for this. As much as I ranted about computers disrupting my ritual, here the technology allows me to bring pieces of my life with me. Everything I accomplish here in 5C is one less thing I’ll have to sandwich elsewhere into my life.

Not a bad deal at all.

Creativity, Discipline and Nora — Oh My!

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Sometimes I wonder if there’s really a limit to creative energy, or if I just tend to think so.

I got in my 1K again today (yay! horns, confetti, ect!), but now I don’t feel like writing my blog. Alas.

Sometimes I think it’s just discipline. Halle made an interesting comment on the Ritual & Madness post that she’s come to believe that ritual is all about discipline, and that the emotional response to disruption is simply knowing how hard it is to regain the discipline. I think she’s got a great point there. I’ve read about authors who write in hugely disciplined ways. The beyond-prolific Nora Roberts says she writes eight hours a day. (Some out there will claim this is because she’s doing factory-genre writing, rather than true Art, but that’s neither here nor there.) And many novelists started out as journalists; they often cite that kind of disciplined, churn-out-articles-every-day writing as what built their ability to write consistently.

For myself, I find I don’t seem to write — to compose — for more than a couple of hours at a time. I have a whole day to write, and I find myself composing for two hours or so, and revising the rest. That and doing business, like queries, submissions, etc.

What with my dream of being a full-time writer, I wonder if that means I’ll still write about two hours a day and dork around for the rest…

That’s what dreams are all about!