I’ve talked before about how inserting vulnerability into my writing is a difficult thing. This came up twice for me yesterday and caused me to reflect on how society looks down on the emotion.

The first instance was during my Thursday morning coffee with some of my friends from MVRWA. The question came up as to how we feel when someone close to us reads some of the spicier scenes in our writing. As I expressed then, it isn’t the mechanics that bothers me at all, but the emotions and that peak inside my psyche that can be intimidating. i don’t like the idea of being laid out open and vulnerable to those I am especially close to.  The words were no sooner out of my mouth when I realized the irony. Shouldn’t we be able to show our vulnerabilities to those we hold closest? Shouldn’t those loved ones be the one who get to peek in all the dark, shadowy corners?

That is usually what my heroes or heroines have to come to terms with when I’m getting two people together. They have to allow the other inside.

The second was in my daily work on the current work-in-progress.  I have a rough and tumble hero, with a military-ish  background who is caught tenderly cradling a baby by the heroine. She later compliments his sweet, tender, and vulnerable side. As I was writing the scene, the hero (in my head) just went off.  He, by no means, liked the idea of the heroine calling him vulnerable, and his negative response to the compliment just spilled out into a very tense scene.

Part of this characters inner journey is going to be learning that being open to and caring about others may create a vulnerability, but what it doesn’t create is a weakness.  Something I think I’ve yet to learn, in light of the realization that I, like my hero, want to bury those vulnerabilities very deep.

It seems like the right thing to do; hating Monday that is. It’s back to the grind. The weekend is over, another five days in the rat-race ’til we get some me-time again. Hating Monday just seems to be one of those things we can all agree on.

This week, I need to take a new approach, since I really don’t have another choice. Last week was a wash as far a word-count on the WIP went. My remodel projects are done, but I’ve only completed about 90% of putting everything away. So, this week has to be about the fresh start. I have to embrace Monday with a big, warm smile and look to it as a new chance to get chores accomplish and a second chance to meet old goals.

I hit a stumbling block over the weekend. Yesterday morning I was in the mood to write, and though I usually devote my weekends to other things, the urge was strong so I decided to go for it.  Only when I opened the file the previous day’s work was gone. About 1,000 words had failed to save. Normally, and probably the logical thing to do, I would have just jumped in and tried to recreate the passages while they were still relatively fresh in my mind, but the frustration got the better of me and I froze:  shut down the file and walked away.

Several other times throughout the day I sat down and tried to regroup, but my mind and spirit wasn’t having any part of it.  So I used the same psychology I use with other disappointments. I gave myself the 24 hours to ‘mope’.

Well, that time has passed. It’s Monday and I need to get back to the grind. Only this week it’s with a smile on my face, hoping for good things to happen with this fresh start.

As a society, we’ve become so use to the immediacy of the internet, cell phone, and text messages that waiting for answers can take quite a toll. Research for an article, book, or child’s book report no longer requires a trip to the library. One no longer spends hours pouring over selected documents. We just take a seat at the computer and within a few keystrokes we can be looking at all the facts necessary.

The same goes for communication. We fire off an email or a text message and expect to receive answers, that may have taken days or weeks before, to come back to us in moments. When they don’t, we agonize.  Sometimes we forget how slow some aspects of the world still move. Weekends are still time for family, for relaxation, and for time away from the business world and our business. Or so they should be.

We should be able to enjoy a long walk in the park or hours spent with a good book, but I fear life has become so fast pace that true relaxation is a skill most of us have to relearn.

I can be the worse offender. When I’m expecting an email, I’ve been known to check my fancy phone to see if it’s arrived several times on the short ten minute drive to pick up my daughter from school.  Spending quite time reflecting, away from my writing or my work, can cause my hand to tremor and my lip to twitch as if I’m coming off a drug.  It’s really rather sad that we’ve allowed instant communication to wind us up so tight or tie us to the electronics.

It’s an old adage, but still quite true. Patience is a virtue.

Yes, I’ve spent an entire weekend impatiently waiting for a response to an email. And I’ve learned the waiting is, most definitely, the hardest part.  By the way, isn’t that a great Tom Petty song. Check it out.