Om

Ocean waves. Wind. Lapping water. Rain. Just a few things I find relaxing.

At least once every weekend I drive over to a local beach and lose myself. Sometimes I take a book or camera, usually both. Sometimes I just sit in the car and watch the horizon, listening to the water. Other times I turn music on and watch the people and cars going by. I’ve taken my laptop out there and written blog posts or tried to work on my writing.

No matter what I do when I go there I always find it relaxing, no matter the who is there or what is going on. Sure I enjoy it much more when there is no one around, but being a public beach that doesn’t happen very often.

I especially like going out there when the moon is out. Watching the light play over the waves, the clouds moving across the sky. My shoulders automatically mellow the moment I turn off the car.

As with most relaxation techniques the feeling doesn’t last forever. I try to work on maintaining that feeling of peace when I leave but sometimes life just has other plans. I keep trying though.

What helps you to relax? Places? People? Things?

Things I Re-Discovered Today

- When I am running late McDonald’s will inevitably have no decaf brewed.

- Too many drivers have no idea where the front of the vehicles are.

- Too many drivers have no ability to park, might be the same drivers.

- My boss always comes to talk to me as soon as I get on the phone to the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency – those of the ‘let’s see how long we can make this call’ agency)

- People really like my Acer One, they like to ooh and aww over it. It enjoys this.

- People oohing and awwing over the Acer One really prevents one from adding any words to their novel during their lunch hour.

- When you least want it to time disappears.

- The deer that seem to live in my back yard will stop and stand perfectly still for almost 20 minutes. I discovered this because I went out to take a photo of the moon and a deer walked out from behind my shed, I guess I surprised it at which point its freeze mechanism went off. It literally did not move even an ear the entire time I was taking photos. It finally moved when I said ‘Okay go about your business now.’ Frankly that part was rather odd.

 

NaNoWriMo Stats – Day: 3 – Word Count: 1172

I Think I Lost Something

I am trying to get my brain to remember how to do this whole blogging thing. I used to find it much easier to open up this window and enter anecdotes, rants or ramblings. They might not have been award winning material but they were something.

Last night while I was procrastinating about NaNoWriMo I was chatting with Tweek mentioning that I couldn’t seem to start writing (both a blog or my novel). He advised me to just start typing, to try to do a little stream of consciousness writing to get myself started. This used to be the way my brain worked all the time. I would sit down and somehow a blog, poem, story or whatever would take shape. It never required a great deal of work.

However last night I just couldn’t find my stream of consciousness. I lost it somewhere, maybe I left it sitting alone in the dark for so long that it fell into oblivion or perhaps I just wasn’t trying hard enough (though isn’t the whole point to not have to try?). I know I’m going to keep looking though and hopefully soon I’ll fall into the same black hole and the words will just flow again.

NaNoWriMo Stats – Day: 1  – Word Count: 807

NaNoWriMo 2009

At the moment I am sitting in my truck at the beach, mini-me providing me with the ability to blog. What I am not doing is starting NaNoWriMo. I definitely should be I need to write 1,667 words today, and every day until November 30th.

At the same time that NaNoWriMo is going on NaBloPoMo is happening. I don’t know why I don’t just sign up for that, posting a blog a day seems far less daunting to me at the moment then writing 50,000 words in a month. Of course my blogging habits of late don’t lend to well to daily blogging anymore than they do daily novel writing.

I guess I am just not feeling the desire I used to when it comes to writing, which is sad. There aren’t many things I love but writing has always been one of them and it feels wrong to not be putting work out into the universe.

This is my third year participating in NaNoWriMo, each year I have fallen drastically short of the 50,000 word mark. I always have the best of intentions but quickly end up abandoning my novel. Sometimes life just gets in the way, other times I just haven’t been motivated. I’d like to think going into my third attempt that I will really try to put 50,000 words – good or bad – down on paper or a word document.

I’ve re-read what I wrote in previous years and it isn’t horrible. It isn’t as though I started writing then got discouraged by bad prose. I’ve always been fairly confident that I am a good storyteller, on paper anyway. I’m hoping this year whatever component of my brain that has thrown me off track in the past will just shut-up and let me be.

Now I just need to find the story I know is somewhere in my brain waiting for me to pull it out and mould it into something. Of course the brain is a very large labyrinth to wander around looking for one so it should prove to be an interesting month. I might even try to at least accomplish a blog a day if for no other purpose than to give me a place to gripe about how I haven’t written my 1,667 words for NaNoWriMo, and to try and get me back into daily blogging.

Here goes…

Under A Waxing Gibbous Moon…

Waxing Gibbous Moon

The above photo was taken with a new telephoto lens I’m borrowing to test out. It is fairly obvious from the rather blurry photo that it was not on a tripod at the time I took this. I still need to play with it a little to figure out what I would actually take photos of with it, but it could be fun. Photography wise I really didn’t get out shooting much this month. It is the end of October already? I’m quickly losing the year. November starts tomorrow and I am wishing it was still a week away (at least). Work wise I am hoping November will be nice and busy and I will spend very little time being sent home due to lack of work, but personally I am dreading another November where I am participating in NaNoWriMo. Which quite possibly might mean more photography and blogging at my other site due to procrastination. Or you know hell could freeze over and I could find myself entirely motivated and unable to tear myself away from the novel writing process, only time will tell.