Do you have a space to be creative? Is that important to you?

5 Thoughts I'm Having

A little sneak peek into my renovated office.

Dear friend,

Sorry for my absence last week. I really am trying to build a habit of posting “5 Thoughts I’m Having” every Saturday. This is my baby step back into developing a habit of writing more consistently.

“5 Thoughts I’m Having” started three weeks ago when I wrote a newsletter mainly to myself to flush out thoughts I was having about why I had stopped writing and other random distractions. It is my plan to continue with this theme until I develop a weekly habit.

The reason I missed last week is because I was on a deadline to read and edit my daughter’s latest novel, which is due out in January. If you enjoy dark fantasy romance stories, then her books are for you. Be sure to read the content warnings. She also has a fantasy series that is less dark.

Anyway, that project needed my full attention outside of regular life, which is jam packed with life stuff.

But let’s get into 5 thoughts I’m having this week in no particular order. They’re rather random this week. It happens.

1. My office/home gym/art studio renovation is coming along. I purchased and hung a new piece or art, as well as a light fixture this week. The lighting in this room had been absolutely terrible, so this was a necessity. I ordered new blinds/curtains for the windows because the blinds that were there previously had broken from years of the children yanking on them. When I say this room needed a makeover, that is a complete understatement. My children are fully grown and out of the house, for the most part, so it was time to take back control of this space. I couldn’t me more thrilled or grateful for the creative space that this room is becoming.

   Question: Do you have a space in your home that you feel most creative?

2. For the most part, I have stopped reading and listening to news in recent weeks, and I could write an entire article about the amazing benefits this has had on my mind and productivity. I have discovered that I can keep up with headlines, by intentionally going to my preferred news apps and scrolling through those headlines at a time that is convenient and appropriate for me. I try to never do this first thing in the morning, and often, I will find that it’s lunchtime or later before I remember that I haven’t looked online for what’s happening in the world. So far, I haven’t missed anything important that I couldn’t read later after I’ve had a productive morning (or that my husband, friends, or children wouldn’t tell me about), and when I’m more prepared for that distraction. In addition to avoiding the news early in the day, I’m very picky about which headlines I’ll actually click on and explore more fully, and I’ve stopped going to social media to see how the world is reacting to the biggest headlines.

   Question: Have you considered taking a hiatus from the news and/or social media? I didn’t mention social media above, but I’ve written about my complicated relationship with social media in the past, and I have written an update to that article that hasn't been posted yet.

3. Speaking of headlines that I have kept half an eye on… After spending two years immersed in the arena of true crime with a weekly podcast, because I write thrillers, and because I am obsessed with the injustice of our health care industry, I was of course drawn to the headlines surrounding the shooting of the UnitedHealth Group CEO. I have way more than 5 thoughts about this incident and about how the public and the media have reacted to it. And believe me, I see many sides to this story. At the same time, I don’t think it’s healthy for me to go down true crime rabbit holes any longer, so I don’t… usually. One thing I didn’t mention in the post linked above is the fact that I haven’t watched true crime documentaries or listened to true crime podcasts since I quit my own podcast—another topic we could explore in the future, if you’re interested.

   But on the subject of the health care industry, murder, generational wealth, and Luigi Mangione, I will probably make an exception. There is so much to this story, and I don’t even think we’ve scraped the surface yet.

4. I’m truly bothered by Americans’ inability to simply hang out. Coffee, lunch, dinner, and simple hangouts must be scheduled (if our schedules even allow for such a casual get-together), and typically, those scheduled events get postponed at least once or canceled altogether. And when the hangouts do occur, someone is either late, under time constraints because they’re overbooked, or they’re distracted by something else and must continuously look at their phone. You can Google America’s problem with loneliness, and you’ll see countless articles about America’s “loneliness epidemic.” According to a poll from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) earlier this year, “30% of adults say they have experienced feelings of loneliness at least once a week over the past year, while 10% say they are lonely every day. Younger people were more likely to experience these feelings, with 30% of Americans aged 18-34 saying they were lonely every day or several times a week, and single adults are nearly twice as likely as married adults to say they have been lonely on a weekly basis over the past year (39% vs. 22%).”

   I don’t have a solution to how bothered I am about this, but it’s something I’m working on. And it’s something I read about often in terms of loneliness in America, and how other countries don’t tend to have the same problem.

   It’s my hope that we will all work on gathering with friends (old and new) in the new year.

5. A client from the CPA day job asked me about my books the other day. I’m always tempted to quickly change the subject when this happens, separating my professional life from my creative life. This time I didn’t. The novels I’ve written are a part of me, and why should I hide that aspect of myself?

On that note, I’m going to sign off from this week’s letter, because it’s my goal to spend some time today in the novel I’ve been trying to finish for the past couple of years.

Until next time,

Heather

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Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a consistently inconsistent publication of my thoughts. You can find more of my shorter thoughts and links to things I’m reading in my Notes.

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