Do you feel like a chicken whose lost its head somewhere over the past year and found it again over Christmas vacation? And having found it, you placed it firmly on your neck and started writing again?

That’s funny- same think just happened to me. And I want to keep that head firmly planted this time. 2 weeks of vacation is hardly the time needed to finish that novel I may or may not have been desperately planning for many, many, years.

So, writing is what happens when recently headless chickens re-acquire their functional brains.

To keep my head: I cancelled the newspaper which I didn’t really want any more. I cancelled my gym membership- too much time spent getting there and then exercising humiliatingly at half the speed as the super achievers on either side of me.  Now I just exercise in my living room and coincidentally, exercise more often. I use former travel (to the gym) time to write.

I  deleted my Facebook site. The one where I felt so obligated to check daily, lest I miss a birthday of some classmate I haven’t talked to in over 30 years…

I put my phone on ‘silence’ so that I wouldn’t feel the urgency to answer it every time it rang; just as I was in the middle of developing some article or novel scene.

As always, I declutter. Stuff clutters the mind. Sometimes, decluttering isn’t what you think. For example, one thing I decluttered was chocolate. When you receive a lot of chocolate for Christmas, there are many places you can donate it to: soup kitchens; homeless shelters; neighbors with lots of children.  Why do I mention chocolate? I find myself unable to consume the quantities I did when I was young, energetic, and burning through calories like an Olympian in training!  I gave it to places that service the poor: some to a food pantry and some to a soup kitchen, depending on how it was packaged. I know that some think this is short sited…”Won’t you want it later?”  Hanging on to things one doesn’t want, or need, is short sighted. There are plenty who can use it today while it’s still fresh.

The worst? T.V. I recently read that those writers who use T.V. to relax, should learn to relax with their writing instead.

Besides, letting go helps you grab hold. When you let go of clutter, problems, and unnecessary time wasters, you can grab hold of time for the other stuff you actually do want in your life; like writing that Novel!

Guess what? I am still writing after vacation ended. Less free-falling for me?