It’s February, and my mind is on matters of love and motivation.
On Love:
I may be single, but I adore experiencing second-hand love.
Here are two of my favorite Valentine’s reads.
One is from my friend Ginni Simpson on being in the moment with her husband.
The second is my blog post about my dear brother Danny and his wife Joan.
On Motivation:
I told myself that my New Year’s resolution to get rid of cable TV would be key to increasing my writing time.
It was not.
Instead, I’ve filled my time by enjoying more sleep, and have done a lot more reading. But recently, I’ve started putting myself on restriction, and not allowing book or movie time to happen until I’ve written a set amount of words. It’s motivated me to make baby steps during a time of year when I’d rather crawl under the electric blanket after work than open my laptop and keep plugging away.
Here are a few of my recent favorite rewards.
Films
They Shall Not Grow Old- a must-see documentary that renovated 100 year-old film footage from WWI and carefully gave it sight and sound.
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Old Man and the Gun
Books
Inheritance by Dani Shapiro (memoir).
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (fiction) by Gail Honeyman.
You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero (nonfiction, self-help). As much as I don’t love the title, it’s a fabulous read for reframing self-talk and changing attitudes about money, body image, and living life larger.
Entertainment-wise, my greatest find has been finding the series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel on Amazon Prime.
My book events are picking up again. Tonight I get to spend time with a set of dynamic, now retired social workers I was mentored by twenty-plus years ago when I was a child abuse investigator.
Who says writing doesn’t pay?
How about you? What’s keeping you motivated this time of year?
Thank you for sharing your time with me. And if you have friends in the San Jose, California area, please let them know I’ll be doing a book event there at Recycle Book Store on March 20th at 7PM.