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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Take a Break, Most Recent at Top [Help]
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1. #AtoZChallenge, M is for Morning Tea (and Other Small Pleasures)
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By: Valerie Storey, on 4/15/2016
Blog: Valerie Storey, Writing at Dava Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  A-Z Blogging Challenge, Art Journaling, Take a Break, Add a tag


It's Friday and here I still am: collaging, journaling, blogging my way through the alphabet, landing on M and thanking the heavens for my morning cup of tea. 

Ah, tea. Solves everything, in my opinion! It also makes a good subject for drawing and art journaling. For today's journal page I drew (during my morning tea break!) my office tea cup, adding, amongst other things, the tag from one of my favorite tea bag flavors: Jasmine Green, and a scrap of origami paper.

For me, my morning tea is a much-needed daily ritual and respite. I don’t like to hurry any aspect of it. It's also loaded with memories: tea shops in England and New Zealand as a child;  visiting an organic tea plantation in Taiwan last year; my parents receiving annual shipments of Murfee’s tea from Canada when we lived in California. I remember when we went together to Vancouver to place that first order. The building was from another century, dark and paneled in Tudor black oak, with all the bins of tea arranged in orderly rows that made me feel I was on board an old clipper ship. I really can't drink tea without thinking about it at least once!

Tea, writing, drawing, and "M is for memories" just all seem to go together. Some journal questions you might like to ask are:

  • Did you ever play "tea party" as a child? You know, with a little tea-set and mud-pies?
  • What morning rituals do you now follow every day? (Even making your bed can take on quiet significance).
  • What's your favorite way to take a break from daily stress, e.g., daily blogging?
  • If you are a tea-drinker, what are your favorite brands and flavors? (Fortnum and Mason’s Royal Blend for me!) 
  • If you're not into tea, what makes a good morning for you?

Tip of the Day: Art journaling can be about the simplest things. Tomorrow morning, make yourself a cup of tea. Sit down with your journal. Watch the steam rise. Take a sip. Start writing.

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2. Make Every Day a Vacation
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By: Valerie Storey, on 1/29/2016
Blog: Valerie Storey, Writing at Dava Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Travel, Vacation, Writing, Art, Take a Break, Add a tag


2015 was so travel-filled for me that I'm actually looking forward to staying home as much as possible this year. There are dozens of fun things to do in here in Albuquerque and never enough hours in the day (or night) to fit them all in. But as much as I love seeking out new museum displays, creative groups, or shops and restaurants, it can also be too easy to to become complacent and take them for granted. This year I want to change that.

One of the things I was most aware of while I was traveling was how different everything felt to me--from the air I breathed to the way the light struck a windowpane, and how quickly I stopped noticing those little nuances once I was back home. Around Christmas-time I was desperate to know why that was. 

Beyond the obvious answers such as, "Well, you don't have to wash the windows when you're on vacation," or, "Each day abroad is a chance to re-invent yourself," I realized that when I travel I put a lot more effort into what I can only call mindfulness, probably because I know it might be my only chance to experience that particular travel destination ever again.

So my major question for the year is: How can I cultivate that same travel mindset here at home and not just when I'm riding a tour bus? How can I make every day a vacation day? To get the ball rolling, I made a list while I was writing out some morning pages and here's what I came up with.

Have afternoon tea. One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to have afternoon tea either in a tea shop or right in my hotel room. I especially like trying out different flavors and brands that are foreign to me. Lesson learned: relax, savor, and enjoy some new tea brands (yay, oolong . . .).

Get up early, even when I don't have to. When I travel, I can't wait to get up and get out the door. All those places to see! Here at home, struggling to wake up before it's entirely necessary can be torture, especially in the winter. Then I remembered how much I love those fancy little shampoos and body washes the hotels provide. Stocking my bathroom shelves with spa toiletries has made my mornings a lot easier to face and far more luxurious--just like when I'm on vacation.

Sketch, sketch, sketch. Take photos. Of anything and everything. Sketching and photographing my surroundings lets me to see the world with new eyes--even the places I already know. Having a sketch plan or goal before I leave the house each day reminds me to take the time to look.

It's okay to draw like a little kid. When I sketch in my travel journal, I don't care how it turns out. I'm just going for first impressions and ways to capture the memories. The same applies to my daily journal entries. It's a viewpoint that cuts out the angst and makes creativity a joy to pursue and express.

Love the day without expectations. It's impossible to know in advance what you'll encounter in another country outside your own, yet, somehow, that never seems to matter. As far as I'm concerned, if it's a vacation, it's all good--exactly how I want to experience my day wherever I am.

Trust I am being taken care of. Goal: Give up daily worry, anxiety, everything negative that keeps me fretting and wastes my energy. The bus driver knows where we're going--so let him drive. My one and only job is to enjoy the view.

Eat well, eat small. Thanks to my vegetarian lifestyle, it isn't as easy as it should be to find a wide array of food choices when I'm on the road. And that is probably a good thing--less chance of stomach upsets, less chance of over-eating, and less chance to spend/waste money on not-so-great meals. This year I want to stay more conscious of only eating when I truly need to, rather than because "it's so yummy I can't resist and I don't care about stupid old calories." 

Walk more. Walking in Albuquerque (at least for me) isn't always a great idea: lots of traffic (and drivers who run red lights), broken and uneven sidewalks and streets with potholes, and the neighborhood shops aren't close enough to home to bring back groceries, etc. on foot. What we do have to counter that, though, are beautiful parks, open-air shopping malls, and a number of museums worth visiting throughout the year. It's no problem to drive to these places and then go for a good long walk once I'm there--with my sketchbook in hand. A wonderful way to stay in a holiday mood.

Travel light. I've always been a big fan of down-sizing, minimizing, and de-cluttering, but even when I think I've done my best, sure enough I find something more to give away, toss out altogether, or purchase yet another storage bin for. This year I am going to put a lot of thought into what I buy, asking myself: will it fit into my suitcase (i.e., my house/life) and how heavy will it be? And do I really need it? The answer, just like when I dithered over purchasing an entire set of Portuguese tiles last year, will probably be "no." And that's fine with me.

Tip of the Day: Whenever I travel I like to immerse myself in learning about the history, the food, the art, the entertainment, and of course, the people of each new place. One way to make every day a vacation is to do the same in my own backyard. A concentrated "course of study" about subjects as diverse as New Mexico's santos or native plants will go a long way to make being at home more interesting to me. I'm sure you'll find just as many fascinating topics in your own home town!

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3. Return to Writing: Twelve Ways to Get Back on Track
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By: Valerie Storey, on 8/19/2015
Blog: Valerie Storey, Writing at Dava Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Music, Writing, Inspiration, Genres, Letting Go, Freewriting, Magazine Cut-Outs, Take a Break, Add a tag

The last few weeks have seen me getting back into writing full-time again, hence my long blog hiatus. And with writing comes, of course, editing and revising, and then revising again, and well, you know how it goes. An endless cycle of chop, change, doubt, re-organization, and finally having to say, "That's it! This book is FINISHED. No more edits until a copy editor tells me what to do." 

It wasn't easy to settle back into a writing routine. Most days I just wanted to go through my photos from Taiwan and play with watercolors. Fun ways to make the hours fly, but nothing that was going to get my WIP ready for a potential agent or publisher.

In order to instill some discipline into my writing life, I desperately needed to remind myself of all the things I've ever taught and encouraged my own writing students to do. (Sometimes you have to be your own teacher!) 

Grabbing a new dry erase board and pen, I made myself a flow chart listing the top 12 ways to get me and my manuscript back into the writing zone. Here's what I came up with:
  1. Focus. Boy, did I need this one. After Taiwan, my mind was a mess: I wanted to work on my novel, only to then want to write poetry, or work on a screenplay, or hey, what about that Young Adult thing in my filing cabinet, or no, a picture book might be even better. . . .  After several false starts, I knew this had to stop. I had to narrow my vision, forget about the other projects (they're all lined up in boxes ready to be tackled one at a time), and concentrate solely on the most important manuscript, the one I was working on before I went on my trip. That's it. Just one manuscript at a time.
  2. Mindfulness. Because I so desperately wanted that manuscript finished, I started to slash words, sentences, and paragraphs without thinking about how much work had gone into creating them. It seemed easier to toss phrases and pages that were bothering me rather than try to improve or rewrite them. After several hours of draconian "ruthless revising" I went back and retrieved all those toss-outs, learning that it was far better to savor each unwanted word, sentence, and paragraph until I knew how I could either fix or use them elsewhere in the story to their advantage.
  3. Brevity. That said, sometimes my choices were right. Less is better in a manuscript. Focusing with mindfulness, I looked for all the ways I could say what I wanted to say without having to say it twice or with too much description.
  4. Let go. It was imperative that I let go of everything that was blocking my way forward or eating my time: unrealistic expectations that I could be finished in a few days (leading to speed-editing); unnecessary shopping trips; housework that was simply routine and not because the house was dirty; and especially social media sites, including, unfortunately, my blog. It was hard, but I got so much done. And I'm back now!
  5. Ritual. For some people it's lighting a candle before they start work, or choosing a favorite pen. My writing ritual, at least for this current book, was to make myself a cup of jasmine green tea, go out of my office and upstairs to my breakfast nook, and read a Chinese poem (translated into English!) from The White Pony before I began freewriting or editing. It was a great system, and one I intend to continue with my next project.
  6. Music. I've always loved the idea of writing to music, and have enjoyed doing so when I've been in workshops or seminars, but it's often something I forget to do on my own. Recently I bought a small portable radio that I can use in both my office and the breakfast nook (or anywhere else for that matter). I've found it very helpful to put on what I used to call "elevator" or "waiting for the dentist" music to calm me down and set the tone of my writing session. 
  7. Magazine or artwork prompts. Using cut-out images from magazines, old books, and catalogs has always been my go-to story starter. Whether the pictures are of fashion models or reproductions of famous artworks, I couldn't live without my image library. For my current WIP I thought I had more than enough pictures to keep the story flowing, but I also realized many of the images had become somewhat stale--I had looked at them so often I had stopped seeing them. Starting a new collection solely for the last stage of the book seemed to revive all my interest in the story again, and gave me a fresh perspective on the older pictures when I paired them up with the new ones.
  8. Meditation. I've never been a "good meditator" (whatever that means), having hopeless monkey mind and a tendency to squirm when I have to sit still without a book or a pen in my hand. That said, I have always appreciated the need to be quiet for a bit before I start my day or any creative work. The secret I've learned is to not set a time: "I will meditate for twenty minutes straight or else!" but just to give myself permission to stop and not be so busy-busy from the minute I get up or the second I sit down to write. Take a breath, take a minute, relax. Let go.
  9. Choose a path/theme/genre/medium. My usual working style when starting anything new is to just let it happen. More times than not, genre or theme is something I choose for my work after my first draft. This time, though, and following through with #1: Focus, I decided to study and develop my genre/theme before I did anything else. It was a good decision--I found myself taking less side trips and getting right to the heart of my story a whole lot faster than in the past.
  10. "How can I help?" It's nice to help other people, wonderful, in fact, but how often do we stop to help ourselves? I once read a quote that has always stayed with me about how the writer would never work for a boss as mean as she was to herself. Me neither--nothing but constant criticism, impossible deadlines, food and drink deprivation, and definitely no bathroom breaks allowed! When I'm writing, I can be horrible to myself. To break this tyranny, I wrote a "Letter to Me" asking what kind of help I needed to change the pattern. Some of my reply includes writing in 25-minute increments, followed by 15 minutes of anything non-writing related; rewarding myself with something special at the end of each day (can be as simple and inexpensive as a new library book); and making sure I put my writing, rather than the laundry, first.
  11. Find a problem, brainstorm a solution. Halfway through my manuscript I realized I was being far too darn nice to my characters. I hated it when anything bad happened to them, so I'd hurriedly make it all better so they wouldn't suffer. Bad idea. Characters crave suffering--it's what makes them whole in the end! My solution was to make lists of terrible things that could go wrong for each of them, and then brainstorm several dozen ways to prolong the trouble. The lists also gave me ways to solve the problems without relying on coincidence or magic wands.
  12. Write a gratitude or daily achievement list (especially after a rejection or a bad writing day). Not every writing day is a good day. In fact, a lot of them can be downright horrible, or at least they can seem to be until you really examine how the day went. Writing a gratitude list at the end of every day is an amazing practice. I like to go for a list of twelve. Even if the best I can do is write, "I have enough ink in my printer to send my manuscript out again." Or, "I got rid of four typos in Chapter 3," it's a win. (It's also positive proof that you're making progress, a good thing to remember and remind yourself when you don't even have ink in the printer.)
Tip of the Day: My absolute all-time favorite writing tip ever: Take a nap. Yes! Seriously! Napping can be a real creativity-saver, and it doesn't have to take up a lot of time. Whether it's in the middle of a hot Saturday afternoon, or as soon as you come home from work, don't fight the need to snooze--use it. To turn naps into real productivity, always have pen and paper right by your side so that as soon as you wake up, you can start writing. The results can be miraculous--new insights, new characters, new energy. I love it.

So what works for you? Drop a line in the comments section and let me know some of your favorite tips, too. Thanks for visiting!

0 Comments on Return to Writing: Twelve Ways to Get Back on Track as of 8/19/2015 11:38:00 AM
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4. A Pearl of a Story
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By: Valerie Storey, on 7/23/2014
Blog: Valerie Storey, Writing at Dava Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Art, Collage, Beads, Art Journaling, Take a Break, Add a tag

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Last week I promised I would share the result of my “take time off from moving” project, and here it is: Pearls! 

First some back story: a couple of months ago while I was searching for interesting blogs to read I came across MiShel Designs, a lovely blog focused on pearls and pearl jewelry. I was intrigued because a) I don’t really know very much about pearls; and b) for the last few years I’ve had a serious desire to make jewelry. I even blogged about it with "Lessons from a Bead Class" after a fantastic workshop I took and that I thought would propel me into the world of gemstones and earrings galore. Except I never seemed to get there. Novel writing, pottery, watercolors, and learning to draw puppies ate away at my "free time." The closest I got to any jewelry-making were the dozens and dozens of little ceramic beads I made last year and have yet to turn into anything useful. (They look very pretty in their plastic case, but I don’t think that’s quite what they're for.) But still I dreamed. . . .

So when I found Shel at MiShel Designs and discovered she was having a Pearl Blog Hop—I signed up, thinking, oh, wow—here’s my big chance to MAKE JEWELRY! I also totally forgot that the hop reveal would be on the day I would be moving and would have no Internet connection, let alone time to make anything. 

I was so excited to sign up and design some pearl jewelry that I also forgot I had no jewelry making tools (other than a very scary and sharp awl), no pearls, no studio space to make jewelry, and absolutely no way to have  these things magically materialize. 

I also felt that despite these shortcomings, if I didn’t participate, even on a very humble level, I would be letting Shel and myself down. Shel's post about the hop did say you could make non-jewelry items, too, just as long as you used pearls. So I put the packing on hold for a few hours and went to the craft store. The first things I found were some sheets of little stick-on faux pearls. Yay! It seemed like a great start—to what, I had no idea, but from there I bought a package of ribbon scraps, followed by some pre-cut, hole-punched brown cardstock tags that looked promising. I took my purchases home, got out my glue stick and collage papers and voila, I made . . . well, whatever these are supposed to be.

To begin with I just had fun making different designs and compositions on the cards. It was super-relaxing to play and not worry about the end result. When I was finished I put the decorated cards in a row and wondered what I could do with them. 


 Brainstorming included:

  • Bookmarks.
  • Writing my name and contact info on the back and then using them for business cards.
  • Turning them into price tags for when I do make some real jewelry and am ready to sell it.
  • Same for my other artistic endeavors: pottery, wall art, etc.
  • Gift tags for birthday or other presents.
  • Mini-collages for an art journal.
  • Add-ons to larger collage pieces.

Whatever they are, I want to keep making more. For this particular project I stayed with an ocean/beach theme that fit with the pearls, but there are many different directions I could go using a variety of stick-on faux gems with matching papers.


So even though I missed the hop (wah) I certainly was inspired by MiShel Designs. Thank you, Shel—looking forward to your next post. Everybody hop on over there ASAP! 

Tip of the Day: Life doesn’t always go as planned, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on the essence of your original intention. For me, I truly wanted to participate in my first blog hop, and I was disappointed not to get there. On the other hand, by playing along as best I could, I got some new ideas for future projects while taking a much-needed break. A real pearl in the oyster, if you ask me!

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