Tag Archives: journaling

2017: New Year, New Goals, New Dreams

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I’m not going to lie. During November and December I fell off so many wagons I couldn’t work out which one I wanted to get back on first. So I drank another glass of wine, enough cheese and crackers to sink a small boat and opened a box of chocolates instead.

But now that has all changed! By the mystical power of the calendar year flicking over, my willpower has returned and I am wholesome and virtuous again!

I wish.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been wholesome and virtuous. But I have begun to steadily correct course this week to get back on track. But where did it all go wrong in the first place?

I suspect much of it came down to illness and exhaustion. I failed to achieve a lot of things in 2016 because I felt worn out or ill most of the time. Listening to the Creative Penn podcast, it was great to hear another writer making health a priority in 2017. It is very easy to set ‘business’ type goals only. We’re taught how to focus on finance and career, but not necessarily spiritual or health goals. Last year was a harsh reminder of how if I don’t sleep and maintain a healthy lifestyle, eventually I’ll fail in other areas as well. I had two (because I’m a slow learner) fairly serious burnouts last year. I’m determined not to make the same mistakes again.

I’m tracking my sleep on my Fitbit and have once again begun the process of detoxing from sugar. I got a huge morale boost from seeing my book, The Realist’s Guide To Sugar Free at #2 in the kindle personal health charts in the first days of January. Hopefully I’ve been able to help a few people on their journey towards making the change too. Throw in a daily journaling and gratitudes practice and I can keep moving towards a physically and emotionally better me.

I’ve also challenged myself to read a book a week in 2017. With an English degree, I find it easy to read quickly, so the only excuse I have for not doing it is that I simply haven’t made it a priority. I have to hold myself accountable for that.

Mainly, I want to work on more exciting and challenging writing projects in 2017. I won’t give the numbers, but I have set myself a pretty hardcore stretch goal for increasing my writing income compared to 2016. Like health and reading, it will come down to prioritising and commitment. I’m good with that. When the 6am alarm sounded each day this week, I got up, got coffee and did the work. That’s how you achieve anything, right?

So those are some of my goals and plans for 2017. I want to get into a more consistent blogging schedule as well, to hold myself accountable to these things as much as anything. It also means I’ll get to share some tips and tricks I find along the way.

2016 was a terrible year generally, but with some major personal highs. I want 2017 to be the year to give back. To use my voice to make a change in the world when I can. That sounds lofty and ambitious. But if you haven’t been happy with the way things went politically in 2016 then you have to raise your voice. You have to do something. As Shonda Rhimes said, a hashtag is not a movement. Do something.

Subtle discomforts

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I haven’t posted here for a while. As well as being very busy, there was a strange discomfort that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

This morning, I realised what it was. I’d probably known all along, but I finally acknowledged it.

When I published my Sugar Free book, I decided to give Facebook a go, despite disliking it as a concept for years. Obviously, if you’re going to use it for marketing purposes, then it made sense to link my blogposts to it.

I still hated it. More importantly, its open door policy and spooky algorithm meant that everyone I may have ever known was being suggested to me in other places, such as my Instagram. Even people who I don’t want to be part of my life. It was like a sledgehammer of suggestions that kept poking sore spots.

So this morning I deleted my Facebook account. I’m under no illusions that it will make all the problems instantly go away. But I realised I don’t want the downsides it brings, no matter what the upsides might be.

It feels good. If something bothers you, then get rid of it, even if other people tell you it’s a ‘must have’ item. Trust your own instincts. They’re probably right about things more times than you realise.

How I Did It: The Realist’s Guide to Sugar Free

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After almost a year of being sugar-free, I’ve finally written a book about it. You see, despite being stubborn and competitive (mostly with myself), living a life without sugar was hard. Really hard. Despite understanding all the associated health risks, I still struggled to give it up and then remain virtuous in the face of temptation.

Let me tell you something about myself: I don’t like failing.

Every self help book will tell you failure is necessary. Trying and failing is how you learn what works and what does’t. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. So despite several epic failures that resulted in a large tub of ice and a spoon, I have been determined to find a way to remove sugar from my diet, yet still live in the real world. Along the way I’ve been keeping track and it is the results of my journey that I’ve put into this book.

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This is not a cook book. It is not a detox plan. It is a step by step programme of strategies to help you eliminate sugar in the face of the temptations life will throw at you. Knowing how to cook a delicious four course sugar-free meal won’t help you at all if you don’t actually find the motivation to do it on a daily basis. Most people I know are too busy working or chasing after small children to be able to put that kind of time into planning and prepping a meal. It’s a nice idea, but it just doesn’t work for most of us.

So if you want a humorous and honest guide to eliminating sugar from your life, then this is the book for you. Even if you’re not sure you want to quit sugar completely, the easy to understand information will still help you make better choices when faced with the temptation and sweet food marketing you’ll encounter every day.

Blurb:

A humorous and honest guide to eliminating sugar from your diet. For good.

Quitting sugar in the real world is hard. Sugar is everywhere and your friends think you’re mad for not eating cake. You’ve done the 8 week detox plan and part of you still craves chocolate so much that you develop a mild twitch when you see a brightly coloured wrapper on the shelves in front of you.

Deeply addictive, sugar is everywhere. Even added to the most unlikely foods, the majority of us exceed the recommended daily intake without even realising it. Instead of teaching you how to cook fake cake, or pretending that quinoa really is an exciting grain that will revolutionise your view on salads, this book guides you through the myths about sugar in our food and through the realities of addiction. The 9 step action plan then helps you make the change and really stick to it.
Even if you’re not quite ready to eliminate all sugar from your life, this book contains practical tips to help you shop wisely, create good habits and sustain better lifestyle choices.

Available at amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Everyday carry for a writer

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Over the past year, I’ve become endlessly fascinated by people photographing and describing their everyday carry. Of course, because I don’t live in America, I still find it odd to see so many knives and guns as part of that. The knives I can understand from a practical sense, but the prospect of having a gun as an integral part of your everyday life still baffles me.

Anywho, I am a person who has a few items with them 99% of the time. I might not have them with me when I go out for a special occasion requiring a little black handbag, but that’s about it. So below is my everyday carry:

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I adore my nockco holder. Whenever I have an idea I just pull the whole thing out, rather than having to ferret around in the bottom of my bag to find a fluffy pen and an old receipt to scribble on. I have three notebooks with me most of the time: my current notebook, the Shelterwood Field Notes which contain details of a series I’ve been working on for a decade and the black nockco dot dash contains all the notes for the manuscript I’m currently submitting. For the writing utensils, a mechanical pencil, a retro 51, my sheaffer, pilot metropolitan and a lamy safari. I love to have a reliable selection of varying nib sizes and colours.

I also carry a set of worry dolls down around that were made for me by my sister a looooooooong time ago. They’ve travelled quite literally around the world with me and have huge sentimental value. No matter where I am or what is going on, I always have my family with me that way, all tied up in a little bag. Wait, that sounds sinister. Never mind…

The other things are purely practical: Swiss army card (has got me out of a few scrapes over the years for sure), a wallet ninja, lip balm, ear plugs (a sign I travel so much) and a USB stick, because you never know when you might have to grab documents on the go.

So, no guns or knives, but still the tools of my trade!

Life hacking my year

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I set myself some pretty big goals in 2015 and intend to make 2016 my most successful year ever. Of course, we’re still in January, so making bold statements like that before the grudging reality of the daily grind kicks in is still possible. Even so, I picked up a few life hacks last year that I’m going to carry over into this year. They apply to daily life, so they cover off all my goal types: writing, financial, spiritual, physical etc.

Top tip number 1 – the standing desk.

Several personal development pros I follow have recommended this, but the biggest influencers for me were Jeff Sanders and Michael Hyatt’s blogpost and podcasts on the topic:

7 Amazing Benefits of a Standing Desk

4 Reasons you should buy a standup desk – right now

Previously I would spend 6-8am sitting writing, 9-6 sitting for my job, then often 7-9 sitting doing more writing. That is a lot of sitting. Now I still do the writing stints sitting down, but the day is spent standing, unless I physically need to be at head office. That persistent twinge in my left shoulder has gone, along with general back pain. I’ve recently added a balance plate to keep myself moving too, rather than just standing still.

Top tip number 2 – a really good morning routine.

I’ve had a morning writing routine for at least 5 years now. Time flies, so I can’t really be sure. Over 2015 I really upped my game on this. My morning routine now includes more than just knocking out 1000 words on my latest writing project each day. It includes affirmations and journalling (my form of meditative practice). It all felt very American at first, but once I got over being all British and reserved, it’s had huge benefits. It’s a real mental health compliment to the physical health tip above. For an idea of how to start setting it up, Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning is a great place to start (he has a pretty full on personal story to check out too).

Top tip number 3 – carry a notebook and pen EVERYWHERE

The more I did the above top tips, the more my brain seemed to become able to throw out ideas and see potential everywhere. As I wrote in my last post, I made a habit of capturing them straight away, rather than lose them or have to waste a ton of mental energy trying to remember them for later. It could be that sudden strategic insight that you needed to get a result on that big project, or it could be that you need to add cheese to the weekly shopping list – it doesn’t matter. Getting it down on paper means that your brain can then carry on being the awesome beast that it was designed to be. Field Notes have become my pocket notebook of choice, but it’s all personal preference.

Top tip number 4 – track it

Digital or analogue, tracking what you’re doing is the easiest way of making sure you’re doing what you need to do. I use coach.me and have a few habits that I’ve done so many days in a row that I will now go out of my way to complete them so that I don’t break my streak. I’ve done 10 pushups (upgraded to 20 nearly a year ago) each morning now for over 500 consecutive days. There is no way I’d do that without the app.

These all work for me, but if anyone else has any suggestions then feel free to comment. I’m always looking for ways to up my game…

Capturing ideas wherever, whenever

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Intuitively I felt like I was capturing so many more thoughts and ideas as I moved through 2015. So at the end of the year I collected together all the notebooks I had completed into one place to confirm the theory. Yep, I had indeed had a lot of thoughts:

2015 notebook stack

Because I’m a bit of a GTD fan, I was in the habit of capturing things to do the moment I thought of them, but story ideas and general everyday thoughts and feelings, not so much. I made much more of an effort to do that and it shows. I have a whole treasure chest of ideas for stories I can now return to, as well as all the highs and lows of the year that I’ve recorded for posterity.

Broken down into three notebook types:

  1. The filofax was my daily log book for 2015. For 2016 I’ll be moving over to a Hobonichi which is already proving to be an amazing experience.
  2. The large, hardback notebooks were for novel plotting and extended meditative journalling, including daily gratitudes to set my days up right.
  3. Pocket notebooks (especially Field Notes) were always in my jeans or handbag for keeping track of what I had to do each day, but also for those random confluences of inspiration that happen when I’m out and about. Now I can capture them immediately (I’m guaranteed to forget them if I put it off until I get home).

2015 Notebook collection

I made leaps forward in my writing processes and achievements in 2015 and I fully intend to keep building on the momentum in 2016. More than ever I believe the best way to succeed at anything is to just write it down!

The importance of finding peace

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Saying things have been crazy lately is an understatement. I know everyone in today’s world feels overwhelmingly busy most of the time. I’ve spent years putting systems in place to allow me to manage multiple products and still be uber-productive, but even I have had several moments of complete overload. I already know my yearly review of 2015 will be quite something.

Even my morning journalling, a time solely dedicated for quiet reflection, has been interrupted by a compulsion to check my phone, having random ideas that need capturing elsewhere and, quite frankly, the fidgetiness of a five year old.

It kind of defeats the point.

But the absence of peace and stillness has made me realise how important it has become to me. Not to sound like some hippy white person trying to be an eastern self-styled guru, but there is so much to be said for the practices of mindfulness and gratitude. Of just being in the moment and being part of the world around you. Of being able to appreciate an autumn sunset, rather than just whizzing past it on your way to somewhere else.

Lake Windermere

It has been manic, and there is more to come. Nanowrimo is coming up and I have six days to complete it in. This is not one of my crazy, self-imposed deadlines and I’m certainly not going to try and beat last year’s three day completion, but I won’t actually have access to my computer from day seven. So it’s either type or fail and I’m not the kind of person who relishes failure.

But it seems to me that in order to keep moving forwards, one needs to be intentional about standing still. About appreciating where you are and where you are going rather than just charging forward blindly. Life is about progress, but not necessarily about speed.

It will be over before you want it to be anyway, so don’t rush to a final location that may not really be where you ever dreamed you would go.

Making Notes: Emerald of Chivor

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It’s no secret that I find any creative project starts out best when I put good old fashioned pen to paper. The majority of my first drafts are then created in Scrivener, but I’ve never found that plotting and discovering characters really comes alive if they’re not discovered on paper first.

Most people have creative slumps. I know authors, actual real life get paid to write books for a living people, who have found themselves with writer’s block. There are so many ways of getting out of it, but one of the things that works best for me is to find a really engaging tool that makes me want to write something – anything – down. That can be pen, paper or ink. As long as it’s decidedly analogue, I’ll give in to the temptation to try it.

So without further ado, my latest inspirational find: J Herbin Emerald of Chivor:

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This ink has taken the pen world by storm and from the moment I saw the samples coming out, I could see why. That sheen! That colour! The hints of red were more intriguing than the flecks of gold. All better than I can capture on an iPhone, but I refuse to buy a better camera for the sake of doing blogposts. Anywho, I needed to go back to an old project and work out some knots that were bogging the whole thing down. So, with a trusty NockCo DotDash black pocket book (I’ll definitely be telling you more about those at some point in the future) and a TWSBI Eco 1.1 Stub (again, a pen worth knowing about), I started to tease apart the strands of my story to work out where it was going so spectacularly wrong:

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This is where having such a fascinating tool to play with comes into play. I was so distracted by wanting to put words down, to try and create the different flow using the stub nib, that I worked out what was annoying me the most without even thinking about it. I was too busy thinking about how there were differences when you shook the pen up a little first, how the red wasn’t as strong in my sample as I’d seen in some others and not about the fact that it was a point of view issue I was having.

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So, for me, it’s a big thumbs up for Emerald of Chivor. I want to use this so much, I’ve already decided that tomorrow it will be part of my morning pages routine. I think that J Herbin have got this one right (being the fourth in the series of inks using this gold flecking), and so far I haven’t had any issues with it clogging my pens. That being said, I think it definitely needs to be used with at least a broad nib if you want to get full enjoyment out of it.

Feel like kicking your creativity old school? Then this might not be the cheapest place to start, but it gets a huge thumbs up from me.

Emeraldofchivor

Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook Review

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I mentioned in my last post that I had grown to love the Leuchtturm 1917 notebook for journaling. It’s also true for any kind of creative writing. I should apologise now, this post is probably going to have a lot of link love for those of you who are interested.

I don’t use the pocket size. For that, my love of Field Notes and the new NockCo Black DotDash notebook wins out every time. That’s my ‘shove in my pocket’ daily carry.

But using the A5 size Leuchturrm for plotting and planning has been an absolute joy. Anyone who like to write longhand or do their creative outlining by pen and paper should seriously check this brand out.

I’ve written before how I’m a fan of bullet journaling to keep track of things. The biggest pain in the backside about this method is having to number your pages in order to be able to create a table of contents for yourself. Voila! No longer a problem with the Leuchtturm, which is one of the reasons Ryder made it his notebook of choice for his kickstarter.

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The second winning feature for me is simply the page quality. The slightly off-white, creamy colouring is really easy on the eyes. When using a gel ink pen it is like writing on glass it is that smooth. When writing with fountain pen, there is very little feedback, feathering or bleedthrough, even with a 1.1 stub nib:IMG_9258And despite the off-white colour, it still allows the colour to come out, like here with the gold flecking that comes with the J Herbin Stormy Grey ink. A lot of people love this ink concept, but were disappointed by how little it actually stood out on a lot of paper types. The Leuchturrm handled it beautifully, even if my photography is crappy and you can only see it here on the ‘I’. Forgive me, I’m only using an iPhone and the summer weather is once again verging on apocalyptic end of days when it comes to natural light.j herbin stormy grey

I should note that this isn’t a cheap notebook by any stretch of the imagination. It’s also quite hard to find in the UK in any retail stores, but you can always Amazon it. Or go to the airport. That’s where I found mine. If you’re prepared to pay for a Moleskine though, I would suggest trying this as an experiment. You also get a lot of pages for your money (248 in the A5), so it’s going to last you quite a while. They also do a range of sizes to suit your preferences, even if the huge master planner dimensions sound a little bit intimidating!

Writing should be a joy and good tools make this much more fun to do.

Finding my inner calm

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One of my goals for this year was being able to meditate for 30 minutes. I am nothing if not ambitious. I think the most I achieved was 4 before getting completely frustrated and distracted. Oh, and really, really uptight and anxious.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s meant to happen. It was certainly not what I was hoping to get out of it.

Then I had an interesting conversation with someone at work who pointed out that feeling the state people (other than me) achieve while meditating is more to do with being in the state of flow, rather than specifically being able to put your ankles on your hips and say ohhhmmmmmm.

A lot of people get this state from running. That’s never worked for me either. The only thing I get from running is aching hips and a weird heart rhythm for the next three hours. Again, not relaxing.

That’s when I heard that people were using Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages principles to not only become creatively unstuck, but also to get that sense of peaceful personal insight that comes from meditation. I took one look and realised I had the four things needed to make this engaging for me:

  1. Plenty of attractive notebooks
  2. Even more pens
  3. Even more inks
  4. Also some coffee and candles to create a bit of ambience and a sense of ritual.

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So I decided to give it a go.

I started on the 6th July. Since then I’ve got through nearly three A5 lined notebooks (think moleskine, although I’ve discovered that a Leuchtturm 1917 is much better in terms of paper quality and features. Especially when using my current favourite fountain pen and ink combo, the TWSBI 580 1.1 Stub nib with Iroshizuku yama-budo). Turns out I’ve got a lot of thoughts going on.

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The benefits have been pretty significant. I make sure that I start each set with three gratitudes. Not just in a list form, but really describing what I’m grateful for and why. After that, it’s whatever springs to mind. It can be positive, negative or just really, really boring.

Even though I’ve only been doing it for just over a month, I’ve already found I’m calmer and less responsive to external stress when it happens. I’ve become better at creative problem solving, both at work and play. I’ve become more willing to trust the universe, or whatever it is out there. Slowly, I’m becoming more accepting of myself. With that, comes a growing confidence too. Those last two points are a much gentler curve, but there is progress now where there used to be none.

So I’ve redefined my goal. It is no longer meditate for 30 minutes, but instead 30 minutes of daily meditative practices.

Sometimes, it’s about walking the road that’s right for you, not the one most travelled.