A deadline, A dream released, A dynamic young talent...

Soundtrack: Miguel Radio on Pandora.com

The past few weeks have been anything but dull. Let me start with the most important matter: my book. I have been editing ferociously (that is an exaggeration, but let's go with it).  I'm on chapter 12 out of approximately 29 total chapters. The editing process is definitely not as exciting as the writing part.  While I'm writing, my characters drive the story and I'm just a conduit they use to tell their stories and live their lives.  During the editing process, I find myself enjoying what I've written, as well as tweaking (not twerking) as I go along. Sometimes I change things that conflict with an upcoming event and I have to go back and unchange the change I just made.  It is very annoying! I'm annoying myself! For example, I wanted to add more depth to a scene just today.  I wanted one of my main characters to plop down on a bench and throw a towel over his head.  Well, I couldn't do that and let the other guys in the room recognize him. I had to retract my edit, but I still like the symbolism of his emotional state: the towel represents a cloud looming over head constricting his Sahasrara chakra. My character is caught in a position of not being in tune with himself due to external forces. So now I'm constricted because the more I'd like to move on and continue my edits, the more I need to rework the scene in order to interject this very poignant and foreshadowing imagery.  I'm still working on it. Oh, and I've set a deadline for completing ALL edits for May 30th. The added pressure gives me the jolt of stress I need to dedicate myself to getting this done. I learned from a TED talk that stress is good!

On to the next topic: dating. Ugh! Let's just say that Miss Tree has been meeting new giraffes, but in the process of each new acquaintance who always have a bomb to drop i.e. some level of dramatic baggage that changes the game, Miss Tree has changed her priorities. While she was in a hurry to link up with a giraffe initially, she has now refocused her pursuits opening up a fresh timeline for her to follow.  She no longer worries about her seasons or...ahem...her germination clock. She just wants to live a breezy life hopefully with one God-sent giraffe, but if not, she'll be all right! She may just relocate and hang out with palm trees in Florida. Who knows?

Lastly, I've found that I'm laughing more these days. I had a wonderful conversation with my pal who just earned her doctorate in psychology. I read her psych books in undergrad to assess just how crazy I was. Good times!  Anyway, I had an epiphany while I was talking to her on the phone. I made some drastic changes in the way I lived my life in the fall of 2008, and those changes or shifts served a very important purpose. However, the epiphany was that I thought the shift I made in 2008 would serve another purpose in my life and I was dead wrong. Aha! That is what Deepak Chopra means when he instructs during guided mediation to "breath out what no longer serves."  Analogy:  It's like trying to use lotion to moisturize your skin and as a condiment on your sandwich. That's not going to work! So, I went back to the drawing board with how I was going to re-equilibrate my life. I'm still in the R&D phase, but I believe I'm headed in the right direction for this new phase in my life.  Only time will tell. Back to my joyous laughter I've been experiencing. I've found quite a bit of comic fodder on YouTube recently and I know my levels of endorphins and whatever other hormones form due to laughter have increased. One in particular is Alonzo Lerone.  When I tell you that he is exactly what I needed to see and hear the past couple of weeks, "I am not even kidding!" He does parodies, dumbest tweets, skits, and reviews. I laugh. I just laughed thinking about how I laugh at his YouTube videos and social commentary.  So if you need a pick-me-up during the day or just a break from the ordinary, http://www.alonzolerone.com/ .


Writers, if you have any editing tips, please comment below. Your help would be appreciated.
Please feel free to leave comments. I'll be sure to respond :)

Monthly "ponderable" thought:

What do you do when you don’t want encouragement, and you just want a change?