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Monday, October 19, 2009

Today I Will...

Today, I was over at Kathy Temean's amazing blog and was touched by inspiration on a day when I really needed a double espresso shot of some. Kathy's the RA for the NJ chapter of SCBWI. We are so lucky, here in NJ, to have her as our fearless leader and awesome cheerleader.

Well, today she was writing about a new book by Jerry and Eileen Spinelli entitled, Today I will. It has inspirational quotes meant to inspire daily writing exercises, ending with a daily promise, Today I will...

I fell in love with the idea of a daily promise.

This made me stop and think. Because so far today, I was wasting it on negative chatter in my head. When I read her blog posting I thought to myself, Now wait a minute! Cut that out! I scolded myself, Would your daily promise be, Today I will beat myself up?

No. Of course it wouldn't. We would never promise ourselves things like that, but I bet there are a few of you out there, like me, who do from time to time, unknowingly, spend the day with the negative voice in your head (No, I am not pschotic). I would even go so far as to say that WE ALL, from time to time, fill our heads with negative chatter and beat ourselves up over things we cannot change - essentially, wasting the day and our time. So, Kathy's blog made me Stop, Drop, and Write my daily promise. (I wonder if you can also write a promise of what you WON'T do).

Here are my promises for today...
  • Today I will write new pages to my WIP.
  • Today I will meditate.
  • Today I will find peace and carry it with me.
  • Today I will thank Flo for talking me off that ledge once again.
  • And I just have to do a NOT one... Today I will NOT allow negative chatter to fill my head.

Truthfully, you're only supposed to have one Today I Will per day, but once you start... it's like eating potato chips...

What's your daily promise for yourself today?

And while I'm here, I thought I'd remind those of you who might be sleeping under a rock or living in a cave....

ONLY 13 MORE DAYS UNTIL NaNoWriMo!!!!

I am so excited.

My genius husband created this phenomenal Excel spreadsheet for me to keep track of my daily words, total words, percentage done, percentage remaining... It does everything but write the story for me. I think I am going to use NaNo for two things - one for my WIP just to get me to the end - so for that I won't do a 50,000 word challenge because I don't need it. AND either for the revision which I already started OR for a brandy-new story... I can't decide. It's like trying on shoes and making yourself buy only one pair. Impossible!

13 comments:

Unknown said...

I love NC SCBWI...but I am a bit jealous of NJ SCBWI. I am thinking of trying to go to the NJ conference instead of NC...

Sheri Perl-Oshins said...

YES, BETH! DO COME!!!! That would be great. It is really an awesome event. And we get people from all over who come to our conference.

PJ Hoover said...

Can have I a few, too?
today I will work on revisions.
Today I will grocery shop.

Wait - Beth, come to Texas :)
Anything in the area over the summer? I'll be in DC. I'm already planning on hitting ALA which is in June in DC to check it out.

Betsy Devany said...

Sheri,
Love this post.
I usually roll my negativity into a ball and toss it to the end of the compost pile. This year, from the very edge of the compost, a vine began to grow --now thirty feet long with pumpkins. And from that, a story is being written. So toss those thoughts out your window and let them grow into something wonderful.
Hugs,
BEtsy

Corey Schwartz said...

Oh, great idea! I need to get rid of my negativity too!

Sheri Perl-Oshins said...

PJ, I would love to finally meet you while you are in DC. I don't think NJ SCBWI does anything between the June Conference and then in September. ALA - is that the American Libnrary Assoc. You should blog about that one so we can all learn about what that is and how it helps writers...

Hi Betsy! Love your visual of rolling up your negativity into a ball and throwing it away. I really do love that. But I really love the rest of it too to let it grow into something wonderful like round, orange pumpkins. You must be a children's writer! =]

See, I knew I wasn't alone, Corey. Seems we are in good company too.

So, why do we all have this - that little negative voice in our heads? Where does it come from? And if it comes from our childhood - most of us are moms - then what negative voices are we putting in our childrens' heads???

Kelly H-Y said...

I LOVE those 'today I will's'!!! I have lots!!!!

Sheri Perl-Oshins said...

Kelly, I must admit, most days it is more of telling myself to stop doing something. I have to learn to use this so I can turn it around into something more positive.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes an "I will not" is OK, like the "Today I will not give in to the negative chatter inside my head." Always a good one. But probably best when followed by a positive, maybe "Today I will boot out all negative thoughts. Pow!" We are in different places at different times; so long as we end up positive, I'm sure it's all OK.
Jeanne

Felicia said...

Hi. Flo here.

Sheri, I signed up and signed on!

I also signed up for NaNoWriMo...

Time to get busy!

Flo

Sheri Perl-Oshins said...

Yay! Flo! Welcome!!!!!

Kathy Temean said...

Sheri,

I have to ask - is that tree picture, how you invision the tree in your book? I love the bark on it. Thanks for plugging my post. I plan to get a signed copy. The Spinelli's are doing a number of book signing in the area in the next few weeks. Take a look at Jerry's website.

It would be great to have Beth come up from NC and join us in June. I just checked out the SCBWI Winter conference and I'll have to start saving my money if I want to go. Looks like they have a good line-up.

Are you waiting for me to respond to an e-mail from you? I've been busy this week with the mentoring workshop this weekend, the critiques and then all the stuff for Illustrator's Day, the Novel Intensive and the Picture Book Intensive and the First Page Session.

Talk soon,

Kathy

Sheri Perl-Oshins said...

Kathy,
Isn't that tree great? I got it from treenation.com. My tree in my book is a willow tree and is a bit different but there are other tress on the MC's journey that she will have to find that will have faces and such in the bark.

And I will check out the Spinelli's blog - I would love to see him again. He and Eileen are super sweet!

I'm not sure about an email - is it regarding the article for Sprouts or the novel critiquing template? you should have gotten the template a while ago...

I don't know how you do it all! You are a busy, busy lady. G-d bless you! You must sleep good at night!

Hugs,
Sheri

“Personal limitation exists only in our ideas of who we are. Give up all notions of who you are and your limitations will vanish.”

- Anonymous