Easing In

Last week, overwhelmed. This week, balanced. The difference? The feeling of easing into things.

Tuesday was fantastic - 5 hours marketing Our Spirit and 7 hours writing a WIP. But Monday felt just as good, taking care of smaller things for both projects. Odd, but the days felt similar. I'm wondering if both days were good because I was enjoying them.

Is it that simple? If we feel that we're going with the flow, then we are.

I wanted to post another surfing photo of someone mastering the waves, in the groove, one with the water, celebrating the flow... but it didn't seem right. One, I've never surf-surfed, just body-surfed on Cape Cod and Nantucket. Two, the surfing photos ooze with physical mastery. All I was doing was relaxing into the flow. Hence, the sofa and the waves. So, what's the flow today? Acceptance? Relaxation? Happiness doing what we do?

Maybe I'm just on the sofa, but it's all good.

How about you, where are you at?

(photo from surfingposters)

Abundance

Back from the East Coast again (for this brief moment I'm feeling fantastically bicoastal), I'm excited for my projects, but suddenly it feels that there are too many. Trying to go with the flow has brought me to a waterfall of work. One novel should be off to query-land any day now. Two WIP's are chugging along just fine. But I've started a third and of course I'm keeping notes on a few more.

Life is too short to complain. I celebrate abundance. But I'm wondering when I'll be getting back in the groove, kinda going with the flow, knowing that I'm doing enough and doing the right things instead of feeling overwhelmed.

Is it faith? Listening to our guts and having faith that we're doing enough? That we're focusing on the right projects? Is it to stop thinking and just do it, just write, and see where it goes?

How about you? How do you know when you're doing the right things?

On Demand

Thanks to a cheap last minute ticket, I'm flying back to New England for the weekend. I'm excited to attend a wedding and to see my nieces again. (I have two other fantastic nieces, older, who weren't in last week's photo, and two more cool nephews.) This weekend I'm especially excited to resume reading one of my WIP's to my youngest nephew. Which means I have to bust out another chapter.

Deadlines work for me. (Um, writing deadlines work... the shooting schedule for the next Our Spirit film keeps sliding around.) But I'll have to scramble to finish another chapter by the weekend. My writing goal has been a chapter a week on a different WIP and I'm committed to making that deadline, so it's two chapters this week. I'm a little stressed. But it's good stress.

Is that possible? Good stress? I try to stay peaceful. But I like a writing challenge. Maybe I got used to this during a decade of producing a magazine for a big nonprofit where there was no choice but to write on demand. I think writing is the only place in my life where I don't mind stress. It's not stress. It's fun.

How about you – is there such a thing as good stress?