Goals for finishing this year's novel

The official count is in: 56255. That's what I managed to write before the deadline and the word updater was turned off in my time zone. I continue to write with a final goal of 70,000 words because this seems a goodly amount of words to find the ending. Few NaNoWriMo participants arrive at the end of the story with 50,000 words. I wasn't one of them.

I believe I have found the ending. Sometimes it is like being in Wonderland as I start down the path to the end and the path wriggles and disappears into the forest. Characters become recalcitrant, things move from their intended location, and odd technical story stuff happens. However, I persist and am using this blog to publicly post my goal of 2000 per day (or around there averaged out) until reaching goal.

Red days are zero word
days. Yellow and orange are
low word days when I wrote
less than 1667 words.

This has worked before. I hope it works again. The holidays are crap writing times so I'll skip writing until after the new year, once I achieve 70K. Which means I need to arrive at the goal by around the 12th. After that life gets weird until the 1st of January.

Glad to see that each year I have fewer zero word days. This year there were only four. Having a stretch goal really helped. Also, it sometimes takes me 600 words or even 1000 to get into the groove.

I might return here periodically to update my word count. I will definitely post when I reach 70,000 or something close to it.

Keeping track and staying motivated

Or maybe it's staying on track and keeping motivated. Either way, I've made a little spreadsheet to list all of the projects I assign myself in my daily round. Not included are all the books I make myself get from the library. I have a goodreads account for that, although not all of the books make the list.

So, here's the crazy stupid header for my little spreadsheet. I can make it only so much fun before it becomes a chore. It serves the purpose and merely opening this puppy each day is enough to get me going. As long as I open it.

Color: a Study Without Conclusions

Arithmetic Color Progression (left)
vs. Geometric Color Progression (right)
To perceive arithmetic progression
we need to create a geometric progression.

I finished studying the Josef Albers Study of Color Interaction archived book at the library. It made me feel young again, reminding me of all those hours with colored papers in basic design class at VCU with Sal Federico. There was one exercise he skipped that I wish we had done: culling leaves and creating color design schemes from them.

I now realize I subverted his intention with the overlay exercise by turning it into a study in angles. My overlays changed the color and the angles. The purpose of the overlay was to help us see how geometric actual progression resulted in arithmetic perceived progression. I also realized that I have this intuitive sensitivity to color contrast which made my color contrast exercise very subtle indeed. Fortunately, Mr. Federico understood this and didn't make me do it over again so the contrast would be obvious.

The best part about the class were the crafty-like things we made: a 3-D sculpture form we alternately destroyed and enhanced with color shapes, the booklet with overlays, deconstructed/reconstructed letterforms.

At the back of the book are color theories. Mr. Albers felt that students should explore color prior to being exposed to the theory. Having tried to make sense of color through the exercises, students have a better appreciation of the theories.

I like Goethe's Color Triangle and wish more people were aware of it and it's brilliant layout. In a small space it accomplishes a lot. I might play around with it in tints and shades. Could be fun, particularly now that it's so easy to make transparency overlays in Illustrator. I can do the geometric vs. arithmetic comparisons until I go blind. And I might also discover more about why I like certain colors and combinations.

Goethe's Color Triangle

Explanation of how the color triangle works.

Here is Part 1 of this report.

Resistance vs Aversion

I  have spent so much of my life doing the “right” thing, making myself do things and participate in activities (like certain jobs) or hang with people I didn’t like or even intensely hated. I got very good as submersing my feelings and just getting on with it.

The backlash began more than five years ago, while I was employed as a graphic designer for a bank. Or maybe even before that when I found “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron or maybe even further back when my children were young and I ended up on my own with them while my then husband worked in a distant land making tons of tax-free money.

In any case, or even in all cases, the impetus grew in me to yield to my true desires and feelings, growing stronger over time until I can no longer make myself do anything I don’t feel like doing. Some have treated me like a recalcitrant child informing me that “adults” get on with it.

That is as may be.

However, I have also had many so-called “peak” experiences discovering that wonderful feeling of well being when I am in flow, doing what I enjoy, which makes me happy and is congruent with my inner direction. This is most important! When I do these things my blood pressure lowers, I lose the desire for overeating, I am energized and optimistic, and, I am sure, improving the quality of my life as well as lengthening it.

Why would I ever do anything I didn’t like? Anything that didn’t concur with my inner adviser? Anything that was incongruent with my true nature?

There are a lot of reasons. Some of them involved surviving childhood, adolescence, and “making a living.”

Aversion
I am averse to participating in activities that cause my blood pressure to rise, that stress me out, make me unhappy, or put me to sleep. In other words, I don't like things that are bad for me or go against the grain.

Resistance
Resistance is a bit more difficult to recognize. Resistance may come across as dislike, fear, rebellion, zoning out, or temporary amnesia.

To qualify: resistance is not doing something I really enjoy and is good for me. As opposed to aversion which is not wanting to do something I don’t like. Are we clear? Good.

So, to get on with it. When I am in resistance I sometimes get the same feeling as when I dislike something. How to tell the difference? When I dislike an activity that I previously enjoy immensely. That is resistance.

When I am in resistance I have fears — irrational fears, nebulous, unexplained fears. And then I get angry because I know I am resisting.

Resistance can be rebellion. As in, “No! I’m not doing this thing I like to do just because!”

Zoning out happens when I think about or plan to do an activity that is really good for me and that I like a lot. And the amnesia thing can happen when I remember only the bad parts of a great activity or when I forget that I have a lot of resistance around a particular activity.

To Illustrate Resistance
During the last year I lived in Richmond VA I discovered Yogaville. Going there was a spiritual and aesthetic experience — a double whammy because aesthetic experiences are spiritual.

I decided to return the following month, showing up for meditation at noon at the Lotus, having lunch, and driving back. The month after that, on the day I had planned a visit, I felt angry and irritable. All I could think about was the long drive (1.5 hours one way) and all the other things I had to do. So I didn’t go.

It didn’t take long before I felt horrible. All month I noticed the sinking feeling and lack of spirituality that came from not visiting.

The next month on the planned day, I forgot about the resistance and was about to cancel the trip when I remembered that all the negative feelings were just a part of the process. I’m not sure where all this crap comes from. Some of it comes from the anxiety of being afraid that the thing I really like to do will not happen as planned.

Eventually I saw all the feelings I had: anger, frustration, fear, and zoning out as a self-defeating way to keep myself from having a wonderful and renewing spiritual experience — something I loved and which was good for me.

Novelling
All of this to tell you that I have resisted writing all day. I will now go and finally write because I have caught up on all the niggley things I’ve put off for weeks. There’s really nothing left on today’s list but to write.

And here’s another form of resistance: preferring to do things that are boring IN COMPARISON TO the thing I need, want, and plan to do that is good for me.

Oh! And here’s another dumb thing I do: put off actually doing the thing I want to do because the anticipation of doing the fun thing feels so good. I don’t know. I might be crazy.

Caveat: these “fun things” generally involve creativity like writing.

Gak! Why am I still here? Think of how many words I could have written if I had worked on the novel instead of blathering.

Something I worked on and finished today instead
of writing my novel.

4 Basic Steps to Letting Go

1. Awareness. Before you can work on anything you must be aware. Issues enter into awareness in many ways. So, start with what you already know, what you are aware of. This can also be named "pay attention." Whatever you are aware of is where you begin. Enhanced by: Meditation
2. Understanding. Use awareness to stay focused on the issue. Don't berate yourself for having a problem, don't condemn the problem or label it, simply watch and pay attention. Learn exactly what the feeling, notion, habit, or thought is. Gather as much information as you can. Feel deeply. Experience fully. You can't get good information when you label, constrict, or limit knowledge. Open up and see all there is to see. Enhanced by: Research, Study
3. Objectify. If you continue to kindly pay attention, you will begin to objectify your understanding. You develop a sense of humor about it. You speak and think about it as a mere fact. "Oh, so that's how I do that!" "This feeling is arises when ever I ______!" You might find yourself laughing when you notice how and when you express or do this thing. It is no longer a horrible habit or a faulty feeling, it is simply that funny thing that you do. You are outside of the thing, seeing it as something attached to you, but not of you. Enhanced by: Meditation, Sharing
4. Let Go. Now you can let go. You see the attachment as something outside yourself. You see how it is activated and where, exactly, it is attached. Like a balloon on a string, you simply open your hand and let go.

This is not easy and will not happen overnight. You will have to repeat a step until you feel the next one coming into you. This is not a thought process. It is an experiential process. No shortcuts. No instant karma. No particular time table. Some issues will take a life time.

Choose a type of meditation that benefits you. Find teachers that make sense and help you advance. All good paths lead to the same outcome. Choose the path that is right for you.

Start anytime. Start now.

You can start a new life anytime. You can begin right now, where you are, without any special knowledge or materials. 

• Pay attention to your breath. Become still and focus on your breathing. Experience the air entering and leaving your body. Do this as long as you can, whenever you can. I've done it while driving, while getting my blood pressure tested, and during meditation. This deceptively simple process can bring big changes.
• Turn off the labels. Stop labeling everything you see. Try walking and looking at your surroundings nonverbally, without having a running dialogue. Experience everything as if it had no name. As if you were a child who did not know what the names are. The label dampens experience and limits your awareness to a circumscribed level.
• Meditate. The simplest form of meditation is to sit comfortably, soften your gaze, and focus on the out breath. That's all there is to it. This is good practice for everyday living because it will heighten your awareness.
• Accept what is. Whatever is happening now, wherever you are, wether alone or with someone, you are exactly where you are meant to be. See your current circumstances as a gift. Embrace the universe. Stop and look around. See your reflection in the computer monitor, notice the dust being blown by the heating system, smell the odor of your space, hear the wind rushing through the trees, feel your skin holding in your intestines.
• Release your expectations. Expectations, like words, limit your experience. You will only see what you expect to see. What if you had no expectations, were not attached to any particular outcome? How would your situation change?

You can do any of these practices almost anywhere, almost any time. They are simple and free. You don't need a new year or a Monday to begin. 

Start now.