The week that started 4th November

I nearly cried at my job this week. Which has happened at previous jobs too. But this was the first time it was out of happiness. I feel extremely blessed to be where I am.

 autumn leaf
Cherry leaf

Things I love about my work

So. Many. Things.

  1. Love that people talk about my expertise and experience like it’s a given, and tell me how much they’re looking forward to learning from me. Sadly people often make crap assumptions about me, because misogynoir is a thing.
  2. Being surrounded by extremely competent, proactive and supportive people
  3. So many interesting challenges I’m equipped to help with

Love how supportive everyone is too. Makes such a difference in a working environment.

Reflections on writing

I’m feeling very grateful for my past self writing weeknotes, and tagging them. I was looking for some poetry I’d written. Not only did I find it, but I found some wise words from my past self to my present self. As well as music.

So.

What are my 15% solutions for feeding my writing, becoming more playful and practising creativity?

What would life even look like with writing, workshopping and agile all key players in my life, each receiving a balanced distribution of time, attention and energy from me?

What would I be like in that life?

So, workshopping and agile are key parts of my work. Workshops more than I had realised, which is awesome.

And I’m writing on my way into work, and sometimes on my way home, and first thing on weekends. It’s hard though.

Maybe more writing workshops? Doing a poetry one today.

I’m doing Nanowrimo, but I’m not really enjoying it. Having read my previous weeknotes I’m wondering about having such a focus on the product (i.e. 50K.word novel). I’m finding it so demotivating because it feels unrealistic and like I’m toiling away at a thankless task.

Today I took a break by participating in a poetry class. And I really enjoyed writing poetry. I’ve been avoiding doing that, telling myself to focus on my novel. But I want to follow my joy. So I’m pivoting. And I’m setting a new challenge. Writing 25 mins twice daily. And treating myself to a 5 min break after each session, with comedy on YouTube or timed Twitter breaks.

This week in audio

I created a playlist for all these weird and wonderful, bold and beautiful, mysterious and magical tracks. Mixture of podcast episodes and music.

  • Skinny Love by Birdy
    Rediscovered via the Repeat Rewind personalised playlist. I love listening to stuff that I’ve been listening to a lot lately, but I worry I’ll get bored of stuff I like that way. But, listening to stuff I used to listen to a lot, is awesome. That extra layer of nuance is perfect. Peak nostalgia too.
  • Catching Feelings by Drax Project & SIX60
    Such a beautiful song

This week in video

Great video about inclusive design