Working With Max

This one probably calls for a picture but I don't want to work that hard.

Right now, I'm "working" with Max. I'm not sure when we started doing this, probably around the time James went back to school full time. (James's last week of school is this week.)

Max is pretty good at entertaining himself...wayyyy better than James was at that age...but he likes to be with people. It's like he never really outgrew parallel play. So he brings his crayons and markers and a coloring book or paper to the table and sits with me. At first he wouldn't let me be on the computer because he thought that was just messing around, but eventually he mellowed. I sit with him and write on the typewriter or in my book journal or do book reviews or whatever it is I do and he colors and chats with me about what he's doing. Sometimes I have a cup of tea. He can do this for upwards of an hour and when he's done will often wander into the living room to play and let me continue to "work." 

I did notice how I put my work in quotes. I really need to stop devaluing what I do. Yeah, I don't get paid for it but I'm trying not to let that define me. I like that Max sees my work as valuable and equal to the work Daddy does (you sit at a desk or table and do your thing and I let you) and I need to see myself that way.

As to what I am working on, other than book reviews and bookstagram and this which I'm not going to beat myself up about not really doing so much anymore, I have a few things that I'm working on. I finished my rough draft of the life story I'm writing for my dementia patient and got great notes from Josh on that so I'm on to draft two of that. Draft two is really going to be a lot of expanding on and adding more details...I'm realizing I tend to be a more simplistic writer these days so revision is equal parts cutting and adding rather than being just more of the former. I also started a new writing project today which means I am cheating on my work in progress novel in verse which totally kind of sucks but I've decided to let myself do it because it has been a lifelong DREAM of mine to try writing this way. Rather than typing or hand writing, I'm doing this one by dictation. I'm using my digital recorder that I got while I was podcasting and speaking my rough draft into it. I've been making up stories by saying them out loud for as long as I can remember and I'm finally going to actually draft this way. The available of low cost transcription software helps, because of course this is just a rough draft and once it's done I will need to edit it, but I'm okay with that. I'm really hoping this method will help me push through first draft freeze that I tend to have and just help me get a first draft out there. I've been feeling lately like a giant failure as a writer. I think it's my age. I've been saying since I was 8 that I was going to write a novel and that's a lot of years never having done it. But I need to get past that because if I stay frozen in that guilt phase I still won't get anything written and will continue to feel this way. So hoping the new method will help. The advantage is I like it and it is super easy...no setup, no having to be anywhere specific, just switch on the recorder and start talking. The downside...the recorder is a little glitchy and I'm afraid of losing things so am going to have to be good about regularly transferring files and it's very difficult to write this way with kids around.

Life updates...last week of school so summer is looming. Some giant road trips planned, great timing as the cost of gas is now $5 a gallon. But flying is also super expensive right now and driving gives us more control. I'm looking forward to the summer. I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but I'm looking forward to it.

Media consumption: I just finished a great book by favorite author Karina Yan Glaser called A Duet for Home about homeless kids. And I read Last Night at the Telegraph Club which was a hugely touted book last year. It was good. I'm starting one of my books I get in the 1980s series called Virago/Beacon Travelers which reprinted travel writing by 19th and early 20th century women. This one is about life on a New Zealand sheep station in the 1860s which is the one of the series I wanted. I also read the first Heartstopper graphic novel which was good if overrated and am about to start my book group book called Ghosts by Dolly Alderton. And I am knee deep in pride picture books. I'm also rewatching Grace and Frankie from the beginning because I finished the series and the end season isn't awesome so I went back. And Josh and I just finished season 1 of Severance which messed with my head but is good.

Today I'm grateful for one last week of school, a car show with my family, my church, my kids, my books, being a writer, and warm socks. When will summer weather get here?