February 2019 Daily Stepping

[Elaine Glimme]

It's like New Year's Day every month. We make a commitment to take a few steps towards our goal. And just like New Year's Day, sometimes we make it, and . . .

Take heart. Be brave. Fearless, even. Join us stolidly marching onward. We'll cheer you on.

[Lynx]

Hi World,

Thanks EG for kicking off this month's thread.

Yesterday something turned "On' and now my lazy days of drift are over for an indefinite time. I was added to an international conference and with that came a request to assist with planning one of the plenary exercises. With several other people scatters around the world. Woo Hoo!

And I have a workshop to present on Monday on a cool tool I call the Kaipa Personal Pyramid. Capping the list @ 14. I know the last 96 to 72 hours are really fun as fresh ideas pop into my mind. So happens the weekend is blank for now so I'll be able to have at it.

And a client needs my help moving something through several organizations whose leadership are suddenly not playing nice. But not in public, of course, only behind the scenes.

People! Straighten up and fly right!
Argh!

Lynx

[Elaine Glimme]

Oh, Lynx,

Woo Hoo is right. That all sounds amazing. International conference! Sends chills down my back. Your news is energizing.

[Lynx]

Today's list:

1. Comparing at a couple of team canvas diagrams. This has been of interest for a long time and finally motivated to do it.
2. Responding to urgent email message from client (done)
3. getting out and doing several fun things

What's on your list today?

Lynx

[Elaine Glimme]

Had lunch with a friend - done
Made a card for MIL done. THIs was very cool. My sister found a scrapbook my mother had made - not of photos but of old fashioned cards. Mom had cut out the pictures - cute puppies, Kids on a teeter totter, roses, that sort of thing - from the 1930s and forties I think. So I peeled off the pictures and I've been making cards with them. REAlly fun.

STIll to do, go shopping and write a little more.

The goal tracker on the Nanowrimo website is very motivating.

Happy TUesday.

[Lynx]

Howdy,
It's funny that it took so long for collage to be invented seeing how much fun it is. I think Picasso grabs the credit.
Steps for today:

1. meeting with project team and exploring using a team canvas with them
2. fixing minor formatting stuff on letter to mayor
3. organizing and confirming with project leads a letter to the mayor is really ready to send
4. decide whether I'm braving the weather to attend something that's sold out and hoping to get in. Last time I tried this, I casually asked a young woman also waiting for the light to change if she was going, and yes, she was, and yes!? she had a ticket because her date had cancelled. Stand out luck!
5. poke my nose into the latest Brexit circus. Learning things by careful reading that are useful to my work. Thanks England.
6. read more in Edward Hall's autobiography—anthropology of everyday life.
7. decided on an ebay bid for a back-up bike helmet mirror.

Enough for the daylight hours,
Lynx

[Lynx]

Hello Steppers,

It's 4:30 and Seattle is in the middle of a snow storm. A snorm? Joining the party of making up words about this. Maybe a foot total by Tuesday, which is well over a lot for us.

Went to bed a bit early due to an early start on Friday. Then at 4:00 awoke and after making certain I wouldn't fall back to sleep got up. What I'm going to work on that I'm sure will bring the drowsies is my autofocus (AF) list.

<Pause here to consider looking up autofocus. OK. 5 minutes max. Found this.>

I'm experimenting with doing this round of AF on Google sheets. After making the main list of everything on my mind & calendar from now till Taxing Day in April, I'll sort by a coding system for each particular project and that project will get its own page.

Unlike the writer of this piece, I find AF useful even for deadlines. For example, with taxes there are many sub steps. Let's say I estimate I'll need 15 1 hour sessions over the next 8 weeks. I'll make a line like:
Code Do
T001 First 5 times on taxes 15 14 13 12 11

T001 means the first time I'm listing this or the first in an order. For example, dropping the forms in the mail would be T999 because that's the last step.

Each time I get to the work I strike through the rightmost number. When I've completed my first 5 sessions, I relist the work with another 5.

This has several aids for me. First, I cut my attention to when can I get to the first five times. Right now, with the snow, can I try for 1 hour a day?

The AF focus comes in by picking what I do and when I do it. If I want an hour but the work is draining, I might cut it to 45 minutes work, do something else, then 15 minutes more work. Strike a number & call it a day.

Alright, to the list.
Revu2

[Elaine Glimme]

Good luck with autofocus.

Me - I'm in a slump right now. What's the difference between being too hard on yourself, and being honest about your abilities? Having a lot of trouble with that one right now.

Happy steppin'

I'll write a cheerier post next time.

[Lynx]

Hi E.G.

re: hard on self and honest about abilities.

About abilities I can say for myself that this gets into the realms of envy, jealousy, and comparisons. I think there's an Ursula K. LeGuin story about this space voyage where everyone has some minor illness, asthma, nose running, etc. When they land on their destination planet it turns our these "problems" are the very things that were best adaptive to their new home.

This is much like trying to guess our "home" audiences for what we do. Our current cohort that we see may not be them at all.

Now about hard on yourself. I'm wondering if this is about being strict to keep your discipline or is it the inner critic having a good time?

Summoning the spirit of John Steinbeck ... silence everyone ... he's here:

9/ (2.13.51) It must be told that my second work day is a bust as far as getting into the writing. I suffer as always for the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one.

35 (3.23). The fact of the matter is that you just cannot tell how anything is going to work or how hard or easy it will be. It always fools you.
EoE

241/ In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip by being in a rush. If one were to properly perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this.

check this comment on writing the Grapes of Wrath!
29-30/#18 6/18/38 If only I can do this book properly it would be one of the really fine books and a truly American book. But I am assailed what my own ignorance and inability. I'll just have to work from a background of these. Honesty. If I can keep an honesty it is all I can expect of my poor brain—never temper a work to a reader's prejudice, but bend it like putty for his understanding. If I can do that it will be all my lack of genius can produce. For no one else knows my lack of ability the way I do. I am pushing against it all the time. Sometimes I seem to do a good little piece of work, but when it is done it slides into mediocrity. [mine]

John Steinbeck. 1989. Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath. Editor Robert DeMott. New York: Viking.

John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel. East of Eden Letters. 1992. Penguin.

Note this: "I'll just have to work from a background of these."

To hell with the background, steady speed ahead,
Lynx

[Lynx]

Posting a second time because I've looking at the first three days of my autofocus.

1. Day one was making the list. Left feeling "tight" and energized.
2. Day two, yesterday, had 5 items on the list. I estimated I needed around 5 hours a day, it took 4.5 to complete the list. Earned exhaustion
3. Day three, today, same idea, 5 items with 5 hours of work. Took a little less time than yesterday. More earned exhaustion.
4. Day four, tomorrow, I'll see what I can do.

Lynx

[Elaine Glimme]

Hi, Steppers,

It sounds as if Autofocus is working well for you, Lynx, And I enjoyed reading the quotes about writers slogging through the same stuff I slog through.

My writing is being interrupted by life. I have to write a eulogy for a friend. And I'm leading my writers' group and have to make up some prompts . And last and worst - I went to the dentist. I figured, "an hour of discomfort and it will all be over." Not so. He has a list of awful things that he wants to do to me. They include deep cleaning, pulling a tooth, and implants. I was a zombie when I came home from the dentists office, and I ignored the phone call from his secretary. I've gone through denial and shock. But I'm not going to make the phone call for a couple of days because I want to get some other things done before diving into the horror of it all.

Happy stepping and chewing, everyone.

[Lynx]

Hi Elaine,

Eulogies for friends are never a joy, but they may help ease us through losing them. Hope writing yours did.

I say get another opinion about the dental stuff. I had private insurance and thus the top in class for years. Many years I was the one paying the insurance and the "you pay this amount." Worth it. Hit harder times after my layoff in 2014, so I had Obamacare's dental coverage and used the excellent dental school just a couple of miles from my home. There's a contradiction going there because the students need practice, and so they are more alert to something needing "fixing." They did that whole deep cleaning periodontal thing. Took hours each 1/4 of my mouth. Ouch.

After my $$$ stabilized with more paid work, I returned to private insurance again. Interesting that things that were so "urgent" at the school are now "let's keep an eye on" @ my private doc's.

I'm in a high personal energy period from my biorhythms being on the rise. Worked well and focused all day. Two agenda's readied, probably send out to folks tomorrow. Then spent about 3 hours with a friend and met her new baby boy (5 months). Then a little shopping and now home.

A few years ago I read an interesting piece by the philosopher JL Austin that I can't seem to find. I'll try again next while I listen to blues on my earbuds.

Lynx

[Elaine Glimme]

HI, Lynx, thanks for the STeinbeck quotes which I find very helpful.

Re teeth: One thing that scares me about deep cleaning - the enamel on one of my teeth is very thin. I use toothpaste that builds enamel, and that's probably all that stands between my nerve and the outside world. If I get the deep cleaning (which I probably need.) is there any chance that they'll clean away that last little bit of enamel. I'm not too worried about the actual procedure - They'll numb my mouth and give me NO2. But what about afterwards? Any thoughts? And yes, this dentist is young - just out of dental college.

Changing subject -

I'm at the point in my writing where I'm asking my face-to-face friends for all the feedback they can come up with, positive and negative. They're giving me good info, not vindictive criticism. Most of it is easy fixes - like "he should be afraid." - okay, I'll send a chill up his spine, and have him remember that Alex is still out there. But some of it is hard to fix, and some of it I don't know how to fix. And for those problems I'm getting really depressed. Where is the tree house in relation to Alex - Too much detail breaks the flow of the story. And that's really slowing me down. So - getting back to Steinbeck - I think it's both - me not wanting to do the hard work, and my inner critic nagging at me.

Sigh.

[Lynx]

HI,

I'm not an expert at all, just a longtime suffered. We had our first dentist die, and the young lad who took over found all sorts of things that needed fixin'. He also drove a Porsche.

We were out of there in a flash to our current dentist. He lost several people (at least 3 I know of) with that aggressive (& more money in his pocket) approach. Our new dentist didn't own the practice, more like the he rented a chair like in beauty parlors. Very experienced. He had a more cosmetic practice and Santa Barbara and a regular one in Bellevue. He loved to "watch" a tooth for a while before deciding if any fixin was needed. We loved him for it. He retired. The Dr. that took on the practice is rated one of the best in the area (I'd say the whole country) and is doing right by us. I have a regular hygienist and won't be nudged to let anyone else clean my teeth. After all, I'm paying for this, I get to decide.

Re: Steinbeck. Yup. Writers comment on this problem of rewriting all the time. Mary Karr was working on her first memoir, was 400 pgs in, and realized the "voice" needed to be based on her father. Chucked them and started over.

On the other end, Neil Simon loved to rewrite—he felt it helped him get closer to what the plays needed to say.

if the inner artist suddenly awakens, who know ...
Lynx

[Lynx]

Hi stepps,

I use the I Ching as 'therapist in a book' almost on a daily basis. The Oracle from 3000 years ago advised to look to a Norwegian fairytale called Jutelen and Johannes Blessom. It tells a story of prisoners of the Germans during WW II and how one seemingly non-tough guy actually helped everyone carry on by delivering secret lectures and short talks about literature and the arts. This story was one of the prisoners favs so I looked it up.

For all I'm dealing with I'm practicing the story's catchphrase: "You'll have to stand it, Blessom!"

Lynx