Goodbye, Artist's Way. (Writing Meeting Update!)

Yesterday, Jaime and I FINALLY had a writing meeting after so many months! Well, it was more of a bestie hangout day. We didn't just discuss writing, we caught up on EVERYTHING. Which was awesome. She surprised me with my Mother's Day present from Alex--the Hobonichi Weeks cover she'd bought for herself when she bought mine for my birthday! He bought it from her for me! I had been planning on buying it when I had the money. So sweet!

I have to say, yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a long time. In addition to the meeting/hangout, this stuff happened:

When I paid my rent, I found out I have a huge credit on my account, so next month I'm only going to owe about 1/4 of what I usually pay! This is a huge blessing, considering we're on semester break right now, so that future paycheck is going to suck!

Right before the meeting, I attended part of the livestream of the GNTC graduation ceremony. My main student whom I've been tutoring all semester graduated, and I got to see her walk the stage and get her degree! I'm so proud of her and happy for her! She has been thru hell and back working toward that degree. She deserves a freaking party, a medal, all the happiness in the world! Y'all, this is why I do what I do, and why I will never leave this job unless I'm forced to or until I retire. It's moments like this that make all the struggle worth it. *happy cry*😊

Now on to the main topic of this post: as the title suggests, Jaime and I decided to quit The Artist's Way. We are keeping the parts that are working for us--Morning Pages and Artist Dates--but since neither of us were benefiting from the tasks, we're doing away with them.

I'm going to be deleting those draft posts I have saved that I haven't done yet. I'll keep the few that I did, but that's it. I might go thru the book and pick out a few that I actually want to do, but I'm no longer trying to force myself to do them. We all know how that goes with me! Even a hint of pressure and my brain nopes out! So, to keep my brain happy and actually willing to write, I'm saying goodbye to the AW Tasks series. I'm going back to concentrating on what WILL work with my brain.

For those who may be wondering, I did attempt the Rough Draft Challenge, but this time it was a bust. I just couldn't get into it this time around. I printed the workbook in A5 size and put it in that binder, which was cool. But I barely used it at all. I didn't keep up with the planner portion of it. I only used a few of the workbook pages to jot down scenes I want to write and things like that. I kept some of the ones I didn't use as kind of a reference or to maybe use them later, but that's it.

April was a bit of a rough month. I was running on fumes most of the time. It was the last month of the semester, so crunch time for my students, especially my main student who graduated. And she was concentrating mostly on math. MATH. My weakest subject! Yet I still worked with her bc she preferred me, and it was mostly "basic" math, so technically I could handle it. But it was a lot. I managed to learn a few things myself along the way, so there's that! I now have a notebook I can use for reference in the future if I get another student who happens to take that particular math class. So there's that. But yeah, I was pretty much drained mentally, and it affected me physically. There was also the fact that Spring Break happened, so there was that short paycheck. And it was Alex's birthday month. He turned 21! That was a pretty big deal.

I did manage to do some writing in my head, at least. I had a dream one night/early morning where a major scene played out that was pretty damn cool. I woke up and immediately grabbed my MP journal and jotted down the bones of it, then transferred those notes to my writing binder later. I have yet to actually write the scene itself--well, now that I think about it, it's more than one scene running together--but at least I have the notes for when I do decide to tackle it.

Oh, speaking of MPs, I made a change to how I'm doing them. I no longer take them into the bathroom with me. Why? Bc there were too many mornings where I only did them so I could check it off my Reminders app and be done with them. That means a lot of pages are just a few words and a big scribble down the page. That wasn't helping me. It had become another thing on the to-do list, and that is not what I want out of my writing, period. I want it to be enjoyable. And I was not enjoying that experience.

I figured out that in order to make it enjoyable, I really need to give myself more time to wake up and get functioning. Like I said before, my body is a bitch when I first wake up. I need to give it time to get over itself, so to speak. The reason I was getting so many "nope" days was the fact that I was trying to get my brain to work before it was ready. So...now, before I do my MPs, I allow my bathroom time to just be that and nothing else. No pressure. By the time I get out of there, my brain is usually more awake. I will then go make or get my coffee, come back to my room, and either do MPs in bed or at my desk. And that has been working for me.

So, hopefully things are looking up now. I feel like I'm starting to get back on track. Let's hope so.

That's it for today! I'm off now to clean up my Posts page. Bye for now!