Tag: focus

HEADACHE

by eileentroemel, posted in Life

Sometimes I just want the world to go away and let me be.  When I have a headache it hits me a hundred times harder when I feel this way.  Mostly I want my head to stop hurting so my brain can think and do what it needs to do.

I have a desk full of work and none of it makes sense.  I try to focus on work and it all falls away from me.  I can’t make sense of anything.  It all falls away from me in an unintelligible mess of chaos and confusion.

My mind tries to focus, but it skitters off into a corner quivering and quaking trying to escape the complexity expected of it.  My eyes droop and the thrumming in my head seem to keep time to some raucous band only it can hear.

My head feels heavy, too heavy for my neck to hold it up.  I’m like those water drinking birds that dip into a glass and sit up except I have a hard time keeping my head up.

The clock ticks slowly, ever so slowly towards the end of the day.  Each tick sounds like a bass drum and feels like it lasts a thousand minutes.

The ringing in my ears reverberates off my brain, attempting to jump start it into functioning but it fails, every time.  For my brain is hiding in the corner pulling a blanket around it to stop the light, the sound, any input from getting through. 

Full Sentences

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized

What does it mean when my daughter keeps telling me that she needs full sentences to know that I’m actually paying attention to what she is saying?  Okay well it means I’m either not overly awake or I’m busy writing.  In this case I’m busy writing.

Working on one of my manuscripts today, I was busy working and could hear Vicki talking to me.  Some part of me registered what she was saying but mostly I was involved in the story I was working on.  My brain acknowledged hearing her but didn’t elicit an appropriate response to her.  This resulted in her saying “Mom, full sentences so I know you are hearing me.”
This is amusing because mostly in my head I was saying “SSSHHHH I’m writing.  Stop bothering me because I’m busy writing.”  There may have been stronger language in my head as well.  The good thing is I didn’t say anything out loud. 
I did eventually give her grief for bugging me while I was writing.  I was working on a chapter.  I finished a full chapter today on a story.  This is exciting for me as it was a bit of a struggle. 
I am working on two stories right now.  The first one is the long manuscript I am separating into three or four novels.  That is moving along nicely.  I’m reviewing and rereading, looking more for obvious stand out errors and trying to determine where to split the book up.  The second project is a start I made for what I thought would be a short story but now I feel like it will be a novel or novella.  I finished the first chapter (the start of the story) a few days ago.  Today I wrote the full second chapter. 
The interesting thing is I have this dual in my head.  I’m dreaming about both stories.  They are mixing in my head and crossing over each other.  There is a third one that keeps niggling away at me but really I’m trying to keep the chaos to a minimal level. 
While I’m on vacation I’m positive I’ll hear more of these “full sentences” statements from her.  She will tease me and harass me as I work on writing.  I admit that if she weren’t around I would probably not eat all day and be surprised when Ken came home. 

Options

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized

Today is a day for ME.  I’m being selfish today and ignoring the world.  After I make a few calls and take care of small amount of business, I’m going to work on writing.  Yesterday in a short period of time I got more than two chapters done. 
Last night Vicki came to tell me good night and I was struggling a bit with a moral dilemma in my story.  My characters were trying to decide the “right” thing to do.  When I told Vicki the options I saw, she said “Take the fourth option.”  I laughed and said I didn’t have a fourth option.  She said yes and then told me what it could be.  I laughed again.  Me who normally sees all sorts of options in life had narrowed my focus so much I couldn’t see this other option.  As soon as she said it I was like – Oh!!!  Yeah… okay and soon the story wrote itself. 

This is a nice kick in the bum for me.  It reminds me to see more options than just the obvious ones.  Sometimes we stumble through life just going with what is obvious.  Do you ever stop to wonder what would happen if you stepped away from the obvious and looked at life from a little different perspective?