Showing posts with label Kaizen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kaizen. Show all posts

Monday, 10 January 2011

Intentions for 2011

I had a good start to the year. I spent a week writing in my parents basement, only leaving the house once a day for my daily walk in the forest. The only people I spoke to were my family at meal times. I created time and space to immerse myself in the revision of REPLACING ANGEL.

Once I started the words fell into place. The hardest thing is always to start; I felt very anxious over Christmas, worrying that I would never be able to write again ... But it really helped to follow the Kaizen-method that I blogged about earlier. Just using five minutes a day to brain-storm around my novel, set me up for a good start.

At the winter solstice I asked a friend to randomly pull a card (similar to angel/oracle cards) for me, and the word I got was introvertedness. It felt very appropriate at the time as I had a very extroverted autumn, going out a lot, avoiding myself and my writing. I've been complaining that I haven't had time and space to write as much as I want to, but it's all about making time.

My intentions for 2011 is to spend more quality time with myself and stay in more. Relax. Eat slowly. Drink slowly. Take care of myself. Then I'll go out and have some fun.

Sunday, 26 December 2010

Kaizen Writing

Found a great blog post about six small steps you can take every day towards your writing. It has helped me a great deal. Even during busy days at work I can find five minutes to brainstorm a project or one minute to describe a stranger ...

It's also worth keeping those six steps in mind if you're away for Christmas: stuck on trains or bored at family dinners ...
And I'd like to add one point to the list: go for a walk, even if it's just ten minutes. Reflection time is so important. Whilst the whole of Sweden watched the Christmas Disney special at 3pm on Christmas Eve (a tradition to be missed, same programme every year) I went out for a walk and made a snow angel.

Read more about Kaizen writing in Jurgen Wolff's blog here.