Shauna Cesar

Apathy

Feeling nothing

Idle mind wanting

Muscles cramping and dying

Malaise

I made a plan and a promise to myself to get back to consistently writing blog and all the other things that I enjoy in October. I had a plan… and then I didn’t. I didn’t because life became too hard for me. I don’t mean life was busy or complicated or even stressful. Living became hard. It was hard to wake up in the morning and equally difficult to get myself to go to sleep at night. I was crying for every reason and no reason and I found it hard to find joy in my wonderful life. I have everything I’ve ever wanted in life but I was faking my life. That’s what I mean when I say life got hard.

I am a medically diagnosed bi-polar who had prided myself on being able to get through without medication. Pro medicine for everyone who needed it, a big advocate for mental health awareness and trying to get rid of the stigma that surrounds mental illness and I was denying myself joy without realizing it until life got hard. I woke up one morning and wondered when it had gotten so hard and as my day progressed I suddenly realized it’s not supposed to be hard to live. Eating, showering, brushing your teeth, or even breathing aren’t supposed to feel hard to do. That night as I lay in bed trying not to let my awakeness keep my love awake and tried to think when the bad started but couldn’t so I decided to give myself the same opportunity to fix it as I encouraged everyone else to give themselves.

I felt like a fraud encouraging everyone else to break the stigma and embrace the help of medication while I was denying it to myself. But that’s what mental illness does to you, the negative is the only thing you can see. I wasn’t able to focus on the fact that I could break through and get better. I made the trip to my doctor and switched my plan. I started my medication and my plan flew out the window.

Ask anyone that is on an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety drug and they can tell you that the only plan you can have when you start medication is to wake up and even that is iffy. I was useless to write and do my other job for over a month. I could hardly focus for a half hour TV show. My book did not get finished and released. I did not participate in NaNoWriMo 2019. I didn’t keep up with my blog. What I did do was watch life start getting not so hard. I went from crying multiple times a day, to once a day, to twice a week, and now to when appropriate and not for no reason. I broke through the fog and hard and started to enjoy my life and everything that I have.

Now three months later I’m back to my plan. My book is weeks away from completion. I’m writing and sharing my writing. I’m giving myself the best chance and hoping my story will help others give themselves the same.

Devotion

Obscure obsession

Continuous sly observation

Growing rage filled jealousy

Unhinged

I took a short trip with my family last weekend across the country. While packing I debated whether to bring my trusty notebook and pencil, I mean we were traveling for only 4 days including transit. Also we were taking this trip to get away with the kids and experience new things. Eventually I looked at it in what I thought was a more practical way, I was going to spend six hours on a train and nine on a plane, what a perfect time to make progress on my next collection of poetry. So I brought my notebook.

Here’s the part where before I left I thought I’d be writing about how much progress I made while travelling. I’m surprised and pleased to say I got absolutely no writing done on my trip. I laughed, watched movies, and played games with my children on the airplanes. We chatted and connected and it felt great. We played cards when our train got delayed between stations and took pictures of our travelling stuffed dinosaur all over the place. I saw the scenery and did absolutely no work. Even my work fueled husband didn’t speak of work once.

What I did do was come home refreshed and clear minded. Stress free and able to focus I have made more progress in the week I’ve been home than I did the month before I left. Maybe one day I will be able to make a great travelling writer, I do hope to travel quite a bit one day. For now, it seems, I am much too distracted with new sights and appropriately prioritizing making memories with my family.

I dream of sitting on a beach one day, looking at the ocean, and writing. Maybe one day but for now I’ll enjoy the sights and experiences with my husband and children and return home with a clear head to write.

For as long as I can remember I have always enjoyed writing poetry the most. I love how I can give shape to my thoughts and feelings with ease and if I don’t want there to be there isn’t even any rules. I can freely write exactly what is coming out of my brain. I have been writing free form poetry for so long I decided recently to research different types of poetry and try my hand at some.

I know that even with rules I can get my writing to express my feelings , it’s just a little hard to stick to the rules sometimes. I decided to pick a few types that have very easy rules and incorporate into my latest idea for a poetry collection. The three I picked were ABC, acrostic, and cinquain, and they are fairly easy to get the hang of.

ABC is almost self explanatory. Five lines where the first four start with a word that starts with A through D and line five is a sentence. Some can be extended to include the whole alphabet but I am just learning to write poetry in rules and I decided to go the easier route.

Acrostic is a poem where you pick a word and use the letters in it to start each line in the poem. This type of poem almost all of us learn in elementary for mothers day cards and the like but it is proving a  lot harder than I remember.

The cinquain poem has three types but I am focusing on the easiest type because I like taking the easy way sometimes. Cinquain is a five line poem and the type I’ve been learning is word count. Each line has a specific word count: 1-2-3-4-1. The other two types also have five lines as well, syllables and parts of speech. I will write about those if I try them as well.

I am taking my love of poetry and learning and using it to write my next poetry collection which will be out by the end of November 2019. I am taking feelings, turning them into people in my mind (putting a face to them), and having imaginary conversations with them. From these conversations I am writing poems. It may sound a bit confusing but to me it’s been relaxing and even fun. I’m having conversations with imaginary people and it’s helping me recognize and acknowledge feelings that to many are indistinguishable  as being different to others.

I hope my learning and hard work translate well into this new collection of poetry.

It has been a long time since I posted on my blog, so long in fact that for a while I took my blog off the website. Rather than gloss over my absence I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about the hard part of being a self published author:

There is no one to push you but you and no one to answer to but yourself!

Romanticized thoughts on this subject are what get a lot of starting authors to forego agents, manager, or publishers. Who doesn’t like the idea of being your own boss, answering to no one, and doing what you want? But what if what you need to do to successfully accomplish your goal or do your job is different than what you want to be doing?

Let’s say I set my goal to put out a new blog post every week. That on top of the other projects I have going on I would like to keep everyone updated on what I’m doing and how I’m doing it by writing about it. This sounds like an easy goal and at the beginning may feel like an easy task. After about a month I might hit a week where I don’t know what to write, what do I do? When you have someone holding you accountable that’s easy, you find something to write. When you are the only person holding you responsible you may write or you may decide “I don’t want to” or “One week off wont hurt”.

This is what I fell into with my blog and my writing. I hit an unproductive road block of choosing one more episode, and afternoon of coffee, of reading, of shopping, and putting off all that I’ve worked so hard for because I am my own boss and will get to it later. But what if later didn’t come?

To be a self published author who actually publishes good content (or any content) self discipline is required. I stopped treating my dream job like the job it is and it fell to the side and started to wilt away. Fortunately I realized that I was failing myself when it had been so long since I wrote that I stopped referring to myself as an author when asked what I do for a living. I am an author and it is time I start remembering it. It’s time to start acting like it.

I have set myself goals and deadlines. I have checklists, materials, supplies, and what I feel are damn good ideas. I am also making myself accountable to myself, my dreams, and others. I have started my blog back up and will be posting on a regular basis.

I am an author and I’d like to thank you for reading my stuff and hope you will continue to do so. I will do my best to make it good content and will not let it drop away again.

Thought this week I’d give a little preview of the novel I keep mentioning in my other posts. I hope you like it and welcome input.

I came across a poetry contest the other day and thought to myself that sounded fun. I haven’t entered a poetry contest since I was a teenager. Back then I entered quite a few contests as grand dreams of becoming a world famous poet swam in my head.

I scanned through the rules and found nothing that said I couldn’t use a poem I already self-published  in my book and nothing about an age limit so I picked one of my favorites and entered it. This is below:

The Mind

Happiness eludes
Others exclude
No one notices

Thoughts confuse
Paranoia ensues
Everyone excuses

Love enthralls
Above all
Only I care

Honesty’s evasive
Openness pervasive
Yet it’s needed

Intimacy’s jaded
Veneers faded
Nothing helps

Innocence gone
Pessimism won
Rejections eminent

Now in regards to my collection of poetry it fits right in and I felt good entering it. I received the thank you for entering email and immediately thought oops! as it said “thank you for entering our poetry card contest”.

Now I am feeling very embarrassed that I just scanned through the information page. That was a very big piece of information to miss. I can’t think of any of my poems that might even come close to being right for a greeting card.

My bad and now I am very red faced but next time I will remember the importance of reading thoroughly all the information before doing stuff like that.

As most people who have known me for a long time know I spent a lot of time growing up writing poetry to help me express the strange new thoughts and feelings going through my head as I was developing a mental illness. Most of my poetry was dark pessimistic. As I have grown and settled into my life I have learned how to deal with my illness and I found and married my love.

These things along with my children have contributed to a more positive outlook on life. This positive outlook seems to have had a slightly negative impact on my writing I the form of not being able to write poetry. I miss my poetry but not enough to give up my happiness so I have been trying to figure out other ways to get back into poetry.

This week I have decided to start an experiment. I found this cool free app for my phone called Fridge Poems, essentially it’s a virtual fridge with random magnet words on it that I can use to put together short verses. I’m hoping this will challenge my brain because I may think of a line and when I go to put it together all the words I want may not be there.

I have decided that my experiment is going to be this: I am going to write a short poem every day on my Fridge Poems app and take a screen shot. After a month is up I am going to look back and write out each one either finding a way to expand on each or keeping them as is and continuing on daily until I have a large collection.

Wish me luck!

One of the hardest things for me with all this writing time available and my first novel getting close to having a first draft finished is keeping the creativity coming. I know where I want my story to go, I cant wait to get there, but I seem to be stumbling over every scene between there and now.

My creativity has a habit of just stopping when it comes time to go from scene x to scene y. This is frustrating since I go from eloquent descriptions and flowing action to flat in 2.5 sentences. I can even find myself having troubles half way through writing a blog post.

When these temporary blocks happen I have found that for myself I need other creative outlets to put my mind on another wavelength. I listen to music, do some not very good painting, or design and sew quilts. The same things may not work for anyone else but I feel the key is changing what you’re focused on but not for too long.

If you put your writing down before the stump or block becomes frustrating it helps in two ways. First it helps you find something else to focus on so your brain can reset. Secondly it helps you get back to writing faster as if you stop before it frustrates you, you are more likely to want to get back to your writing. When you are looking forward to writing you get excited and the creativity flows again.