The Sketchbook.

Previously, I considered the scariest thing in my creative brain to be the blank page.  That's more than a writer's cliche.  It is my reality.  A blank page is scary enough that I will fill it up with crap just so it is no longer a blank page.  Fortunately, that is part of my process.  I vomit something out, worry that if I die in that moment and my friends and family read the contents of my computer my epitaph will read, "She tried real hard", clean it up into something more tolerable, have a breakthrough, clean it up again, read it too many times, and print it.  It is my process, and I've come to love it.  Like I love flossing.

The Blank Page.  It ranks up there with old journals, knowing a burner has been left on at home, and back taxes on the scale of things that make me feel like doom is around the corner.

Until The Blank Sketchbook showed up.  Move over, first night of internship for fancypants chef, first greenlight to write an article for a national magazine, and getting married.  The Sketchbook Project delievered a whole new level of who-the-eff-do-you-think-you-areness.

So, I thought about it, the who the eff do I think I am.  At present, I am someone scared of a sketchbook.  All those years of having the recurring nightmares where someone was trying to drown me, ghosts who tried to reach inside my chest and steal my soul (which is a translucent white line running the length of my spine, by the way, thank you Piers Anthony whose books I stole off my father's shelves in high school), and the stress dreams where I was told that I didn't actually graduate high school thus nullifying my credentials since then, you know, the nightmares where I woke my loving compadre in the middle of the night by screaming in my sleep; meet Sketchbook, the new terror in town.  And, Sketchbook has been sitting here for two weeks, unopened, gaining strength, like Syria, or a forgotten container of yogurt. This may be a two-glass-of-wine night.

The thing goes on tour.  People will see it.  I have no qualifications for that, I just thought it would be fun to dust off the college art skills.  But, the most awesome thing about my writing process is, while writing this post, the breakthrough arrived, on schedule. I now know what I am going to do with the sketchbook to fill it.  I'm not joking.  I sat down, started cleaning up this drivel, and it came to me, how to fill the sketchbook by December 15. That is why this post has this ending, not that one. Take the keys away, she's going in for a second glass of wine.

So yes, this post is like writing a song about writing songs.  You can do it once in your career, twice if you've shagged your producer and you're writing a film soundtrack about rock stars.  So, thanks for reading to this point.

The best piece of advice that everyone's been told in this business: If you don't enjoy the process, find a different line of work.  I love you, writing.

Early Hibernation.

My writing just hibernated for the winter, early.  That's what it seems like, anyway.  The ideas just kind of flatlined.  I thought to pen something informative, like what I'm learning about stress, but I feel late to the table on stress management; everyone already knows this stuff and I'm just finally taking notice after a doctor told me to do so.

I have been working on this idea that there are two paths one can take a mind down.  One path is stress and worry, gateway drugs to worse things like depression.  Another path is meditation, which leads a mind down the exact opposite path towards calm and contemplation. In my mind, worry and meditation are in separate corners, in a constant contest. One will step forward, the other one needs to respond or get tossed out of the ring.

Clearly, the only thing left to do at this point is to create a Meditation Superhero, and let it win.  Superheros need belts, capes, gold stars and happy endings.  Or, if I was going to grow up about it, they need nurturing, cultivation, encouragement and room to grow. But, my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project just showed up today, so, it's time for my imagination to run wild for a bit.

Meditation Superhero!  Do Nothing!

Stress Management II.

This week, my doctor didn't find my stress levels nearly as amusing as I wrote about last week.  In fact, he was stoic as he issued a stern warning; "unmanaged stress can spiral into something worse".

"Like what?"

I'm not going to give fledgling mood disorders any currency here.  Instead, as ordered, I will work on identifying, really identifying, stressors and take steps to eliminate them.  The first is to keep a stress journal, which is perfect because I've already chronicled years of stress here.  In the mean time, here are my first efforts:

Wednesday: I bought myself flowers from the flower booth at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market.   They are all swell people, and have fantastic flowers and smiles for everyone.  I wonder if being a flower farmer is stressful. They sure don't act like it.

Thursday: I moved my blog over to a real domain, burwellgeneralstore.com.  I would link to it, but you're already here.  This doesn't really relieve stress as much as it crosses a thing off my list which indirectly lowers stress, and gives me a shameless opportunity to ask if you'll share my blog with others if you enjoy it. 

While researching stress on the internets, I found this site.  I love cartoons about daily life and this one is called Sneaky Hate Spiral, which should explain itself at Hyperbole and a Half.

Thursday, lunchtime: I went on an aromatherapy mission and picked up some new shampoo and deodorant.  At least if I'm going to be stressed, I'm gonna smell good. The products came with a really loaded question.  I'll put it on the list of things to figure out as I'm trekking my way back down Stress Mountain.

I really do get stressed out by driving in Los Angeles, that wasn't a joke.  For some reason, driving in New York was way less stressful.  The drivers here are all the Only People on the road.  Half of them at best actually check their lanes before they merge, and the other half are going either 80 miles an hour or 20, making it a constant game of Avoid The Five Car Pileup.  Today, a large pipe fitting fell off the back of the truck in front of me, and as it bounced down my lane, it pinballed up and down the underside of my car, scaring the shit out of me.  Good thing it's a rental.  Not entirely sure what to do about this driving stress yet, perhaps walk more, and smell the flowers.

Stress management.

I took this photo of my happy place a couple of weeks ago.  At the moment, this photo is keeping me from the brink of doing something stress-induced, like throwing up or forgetting to put pants on before I leave the apartment to head to work in the morning.

The project I'm working on has a bit of a dot com vibe to the environment to it, meaning on Thursdays, a massage therapist takes up residence and for $1 a minute, she works some productivity back into us.  Last week, as I was on the table, she said, "Breathe.  It's free."  It was a short-lived laugh, since stress always seems to be at my door. Barring tacking up trite, calming mantras on my bathroom mirror, (I have a chalkboard for that now) I sat down to craft a list of things I am doing to help keep stress levels down:

...and I couldn't come up with anything but posting a picture of my cookbooks.

So, I made a list of the things that stress me out.
1. The blind spot in my truck that can hide a school bus full of children or 16 cyclists.
2. Driving in general.
3. Keeping an accurate calendar of appointments.
4. Finances.
5. Keeping up on correspondence with friends.  I'm one of the moles in the Whack-A-Mole game to friends and family, except I pop up in places like Nebraska, the hospital and Dubai.

It is an amazing thing, once you face the stressors of life how quickly a solution appears.

I need a social secretary, a driver and a full-time financial advisor. I can totally handle the work and the cooking. And, it seems I'll be adding in classes on aviation, Final Cut and coopering, so I may have to add in a personal trainer so I can keep up on my exercise routine while I am busy with all this learning.

I then thought of things that make me smile regardless of current mood.

1. The smell of pine trees.
2. Animated cartoons.
3. Chickens.
4. Knitting.
5. Stretching.
6. Napping.
7. Planting stuff.
8. Writing stuff.
9. Reading stuff.
10. Surprise kitty.

This is either the best or the worst exercise in wrangling stress ever. At least now I'm just confused, rather than relentlessly nervous.  Time for tea and bed.