A Night of Snipping, Hacking and Honing

Hallelujah, I got some writing in. Finally! And now, because it's 1:30 in the morning and I'm in the mood to share: a snippet. Just because.

"The temperature had plummeted, carried on a north wind that beat against the house and whined of snow, waking Emily from a fitful sleep. She blinked in the dark, curled in a tight ball on the wrong side of bed. Beside her Ralph and Hope slept back-to-back, taking up three-quarters of the available space and keeping her warm.

Wiggling to claim enough room to lie on her back, she reckoned it was a fitting end to the interminable night. She had slept without peace, visited in dreams by a bear, then a stag and a parade of other animals she was supposed to remember, but couldn't."

A large chunk of the 'bridge' is now written and I have two more Blessed days left in which to write, write, write. I pray the winds of creativity, inspiration and motivation continue to blow. Upon me.

And you. Should you so desire.

~ Olivia J. Herrell

A Date with Destiny

"She had a date with destiny. And this time she was ready. Unlocking the door, she opened it to the druids, standing back with a smile to let them pass." ~ Blessed Are The Peace Makers

May 1st approaches. May Day. Beltane. The beginning of the Summer season. For me it is timely, heralding the beginning of The End: the end of rewrites and first revisions of Blessed Are The Peace Makers.

Soon it will be ready for other eyes.

I am chafing to write, yet I feel stifled. I balk, turning to Netflix after work, then go to bed feeling cheated.

To ease myself back in, I commit to one hour a day, butt-in-chair writing, beginning today. Journaling doesn't count, nor does blogging. Or research.

One hour a day forwarding Peace Makers to press. No Netflix or Hulu until I am done.

Them's the rules.

Just saying.

~ Olivia J. Herrell

He Told Me To (Part II)

Back to Brian and our session. (If you missed Part I, find it here.)

We talked. I shared about my trip to the ER. And about the screaming fit two days later. Oh yeah, that. It began when an empty coat hanger had the audacity to fall out of the closet. I bent to retrieve it and something snapped inside me. I grabbed that hanger and beat it mercilessly against the closet door, screaming at the top of my lungs.

What did I scream? The words don't matter. But I beat that clothes hanger until there was nothing left but tiny, little pieces and I was hoarse from all the emoting.

On to Brian, talking about 'power surges' like these and the connection they have to identity. For two years now, we've been divorcing me (energetically) from my parent-family-of-origin. Here was another clue, another layer. And for once, instead of stuffing my anger in to tumors, I let it out. Yay for me!

He led me through a series of questions (and answers) and let me assimilate. The net result? I am freed, finally, of ME.

Whaaat?

I am free. Of the me. I have identified AS. Since the ripe young age of two, the age when we first begin to grasp such high concepts as 'me'.

Imagine little Olivia in the terrible twos, exerting my will and creating my Me. But I'm two. I don't know jack, much less how to go about making a Me. So I watch my parents, my siblings, close relatives, family friends. And I piece together a Me, the persona I will wear, the person I will believe myself to be. For the next fifty-plus years. My identity.

The Me. I think. I am.

But I'm not. I am not that hodgepodge, that Franken-girl, nor am I that Franken-woman. I am not that Me, that selfish, self-serving, fearful Me.

I am the I AM. And that's all that I am. Shades of Popeye.

I get it.

For the first time ever, I get it. (oh yeah. we think we know. but we don't.)

My declaration?

"I desire to live in the glorious I AM and to let go of the Me that really wasn't.

Thank you for stopping by That Rebel. I hope it was worth the wait. Stay tuned for more in He Told Me To (Part III) coming soon.

~ Olivia J. Herrell