Crap. Missed last Friday, and now it’s 10.35pm and all I have is notes on my phone.

This is the Friday review of week 4 of my Year of Opening (because it’s good to make big declarations about lessons learned notice things).

Opening/Calm/Conscious/Conflict/Crisis-y type noticings

My Opening Alarm helps.

Like a lot.

Every hour on the hour I ask myself (through my phone alarm): Opening?
Just that reminder is helping me to worry less (as by bringing myself into the present moment, it interrupts unexamined thoughts), to notice what I’m feeling and to practice opening.

I highly recommend it.

Opening isn’t about being calm

‘Learned’ this lesson again this week. Sometimes I have to open to a wide range of emotions, some of them at the same time as each other. The alarm helps with reminding me that just because I’m feeling worried, stressed, scared, pissed off… that it doesn’t mean I can’t open.

Thinking about what my feelings want is great, so far

I know I already talked about this here, but, well, I think there should be at least 3 noticings, right?

Meta-blogging noticings

I’ve got a bit of a writing rhythm

I get a lot of writing done on the bus and in cabs, sitting on benches in malls…

Seems to be that I plan a post in my head, make notes on my phone, type it into a text document, stick it in WordPress, format it a bit, preview once for mad typos and non-sequiturs, then hit Publish.

Doesn’t feel like writing is costing me anything.

Which is nice.

Internal Editor? Not so much these days.

Continuing that train of thought, there is much less interference from the Internal Editor.

But he is there a bit.

Since I asked for feedback this week and got it, he’s starting to feel a little nervous. Had to do a wee bit of work on that today.

In-other-news noticings

Twitter is the most rad office ever

I started off with Twitter and found it really distracting. Now that I am a bit more discerning as to who I follow, it’s great. I followed back a whole bunch of people this week, and because I was checking each one to see if they used Twitter in a similar way to me, I am excited to see them in my stream.

Feels like I’ve gathered a great ‘group’ of people around me. Because, face it, Twitter is my office. It’s where I get banter, feedback, entertainment, brain-rest, news… Works for me.

(In fact, I’m thinking of running a class…)

I’m a professional writer

Yep, I’m being paid to write. And good money too. I think that means I’m a professional writer, right?

Loving my Kindle

Largely for the percentage gauge, getting books NOW and for the ability to highlight things and have them appear in a text doc. How cool is that?

Er, very.

***

Books

Finished:

~ On Being Certain (Rad.)
~ Summer Knight (What can I say? Supernatural detective novels relax my brain.)

Actively reading:

~ Searching for Memory – Daniel Schachter. (Extremely interesting, already.)
~ Death Masks – Jim Butcher (See Summer Knight, above.)
~ A gazillion blogs.

Movies

~ 14 Blades - Save me from Chinese historical martial arts war movies. I fell asleep, like, nine times.

~ It’s Not Me I Swear – cried my eyes out at this one – hit the soft spot. Lovely lovely acting from the kids.

~ The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus – don’t fall asleep in a Terry Gilliam movie. You’re never quite sure you ever woke up.

***

This week:

Much typing. End-of-year finances. Teaching some acting students presentation skills.

***

Feel free to leave a tiny noticing, too.

Otherwise see ya after the weekend.

And for those of you it’s appropriate to, gong xi fa cai!

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