The Hard Refresh: Wiping your creative slate clean
It occurs to me that some people don’t know about the hard refresh command. And that I take it for granted that I do.
Basically, your browser caches web pages (or files and remembers them on your computer). So, if something changes on a website, you might not know – because when you type the web address into your browser bar, it returns the last page it remembers for that address. (Didja get that?)
The browser doesn’t always go back to the site’s server and look for a new, updated page. (The hows and whys of when it does and does not do this are soooo not important here – and highly technical in a way that I have chosen decidedly not to be!)
However, if you engage the hard refresh – by holding the shift key down while you click on the refresh button – the page reloads anew. This is particularly helpful when you’re building or updating a website. (Which I find myself doing a LOT of these days with my uber-team.)
What a handy tool to have at the ready when you have an automatic reaction to something.
Like:
- When you see potato chips and then eat the whole bag – because your browser remembers that that’s what you did the last time.
- Or when you see that someone that’s just no good for you and you run to them as fast as you possibly can – because your browser remembers that that’s what you did the last time.
- Or when you have a lot of work to do and instead you clean your house or eat or watch a movie or play solitaire or go out to dinner or surf the web – because your browser remembers that that’s what you did the last time.
- Or when you’re trying to write a new post, paint a new picture, solve the oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico and you just keep coming up with the same crap or stagnation or theme or brilliance – because your browser remembers that that’s what you did last time.
Ahhh…to be able to hit shift+refresh and clear the slate, load something new and see an entirely updated screen.
Image credit: CeeKay
Filed under How To | Tags: creativity, hard refresh, inspiration, living, reboot, refresh, reload, second chance, write, writer, Writing | Comments (7)Controlled Burning
The other morning when I was rollerblading through the woods, the most horrid smell entered my nose. Like burnt hair or, I don’t even know what, it was just bad. Which was when I realized that a good portion of the woods and brush beside the path had been incinerated. About a mile long, there was a charred patch about 20 feet deep. And then it stopped.
When I turned the corner, so that I had a side view of the burnt patch, I looked for some sort of clue as to how the fire had been contained. I assumed that I’d see a wall of sand…or steel or something.
But there was just the thinnest sandy dirt path. In most places, it was only a few inches wide – grass and brush seconds away on the other side.
And I thought, is that all it took to stop that fire’s burning and raging and all consuming flames?
Huh. Wimpy fire.
Your fire’s bolder and brighter than that, right?
Image credit: Sister72
Wide open
Warning: this post is kinda gross.
My birth experience was horrid: preeclampsia, 2 lb. baby, NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). All bad. I also had an emergency c-section. Let me tell you, it is a crazy thing to be awake while you are cut open. Then, it is a terrifying thing to move about the world with your abdomen cut open.
Yes, there were stitches binding me together. But I wouldn’t move without pressing a folded towel tightly against the incision. Granted, I was in a trauma state from the whole experience, but my fear that all-of-my-everything would spill out of me was as real as the hormone induced tears that I couldn’t make stop.
Then, yesterday, I was having a conversation about the fact that you can feel 180 degrees different about the same ‘thing’ depending on the circumstance.
Because when I write – and when I’m on – I feel like my head, my heart and guts are sliced wide open. But it’s glorious. I pray the cut will deepen. I would do anything to keep it open. To plant stakes in the sides and let it all flow without constraint.
Somethings you’re desperate to keep inside. Others you urgently need to release.
Image credit: Martin Clifton
Filed under Writing | Tags: copywriting, creativity, parenting, Writing | Comments (3)A tale of two bags
This is what happened to me last night:
Women on Fire
I went to hear a phenomenal speaker, executive coach, the founder of Women on Fire and the author of the book by the same name, Debbie Phillips. She talked about, well, being a woman on fire – the steps that you have to take for courage, inspiration, following your heart and the like. She was funny and motivating and charming – and everyone was très fired up.
And, then, Debbie invited us to have an experience. We each wrote on a card the following three things:
- What is your biggest accomplishment from the past year?
- What are you fired up about right now?
- What do you need to help turn that fired up thing into an accomplishment?
Speaking out
We all wrote down our answers and then got into groups of four to discuss them. Five minutes later, Debbie asked people to stand up in front of the room (120+/- women) and share. If you haven’t noticed, I have a big mouth and I jumped right up – though not really because of my inability to keep my mouth shut.
The thing I’m fired up about is the writing of my book and the big mama publishing house that’s interested in it – but I’m watching myself stand off to the left of this fact. Do you know what I mean? I’m so excited, but when I tell people I feel like I’m peering around the trophy, not holding it square in front of my gut. I have a toe in the shoes, but I’m not standing in them. The news is too big. It is too much ‘everything I’ve ever wanted’. So, I thought, well, I’ll just get up in front of all of these women and say it, loud and proud. And I’ll feel it, believe it, own it.
After all, Debbie said again and again how important this process was – to be on fire and share it in the safe company of other women on fire. She said safe and connection and support so often during her talk, each enveloping and practically obliterating my fear. So I stood up. I said what I was on fire about. People clapped and cheered. Afterwards, many of the women asked me about the book and gave me huge hugs…
Pause
I’m going to pause now and tell you that someone very near, dear and wise to me believes that we have miraculous powers of manifestation and creation. That we call to us exactly what we need when we need it.
Obviously I’m struggling with some fired-up issues, which is one of the reasons I wanted to attend Debbie’s talk in the first place. I felt pulled to be around other women and to be inspired. Debbie herself says it best:
“I’ve always been inspired by the energy of brilliant, dynamic, caring women coming together to create something more vibrant than what they could on their own. I live near the ocean on Martha’s Vineyard and call this my ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ theory.”
Yes! So, according to my friend, I created this event last night so that I could experience the rising tide. But what about all of the worry and self-doubt? Where’s that energy going? What’s it creating?
Un-Pause
…and then BLAM. A woman standing right in front of me, eyeing me with a hardy dose of skepticism and perhaps a little disgust quivering about her upper lip, says, “Soooo…what’s this ‘book’ about?” I told her, and I swear on my MacBook, she says, “and they want you to write it?” As if she was questioning Hitler’s ability to pen a benevolent history of the Jewish people.
The safety had disappeared, vanished. I wanted to call Superman and beg him to fly backwards around the Earth several times so that I could pull the fire-laced words back into my mouth. Keeping them safe…you know…inside.
And so it is…
I’m carrying two big bags around on my shoulders. One is full of the excitement and thrill of a dream being realized. The other is a sack of shit: self-doubt, creative blockage, paranoia, isolation and fear. And when I walked into that room – both sacks were waiting for me to confront, absorb and choose between.
The good bag was warm and spirited – it led me to achieve my answer to #3 (What Do I Need?) – which is a stable, consistent group of women that meets regularly to share, support and inspire each other. I started forming it last night, and I can’t wait to get started. I seek community.
The bad bag was a mean, nasty, seething troll. Competition, greed, insecurity, doubt…they all live there.
I’m going with the good bag.
Whew!!! It feels good to say that out loud.
Who’s with me?
Image courtesy of anikaviro
Filed under Critical Copywriting, How To, Networking | Tags: creative writing, creativity, debbie phillips, inspiration, motivation, self-doubt, support, women, women on fire, Writing | Comments (28)A room of one’s own
Wait, that title seems familiar… Alas, those are Virginia Woolf’s words, not mine – but, the concept, oh, the concept. It is so important to have this space, your own space for your work. To leave the computer on, to leave 5 reference books open mid-look, to save a piece of pizza in your own mini-fridge. I crave this space! My writing space has been shared for years now. Don’t get me wrong – I am grateful that I have space to write – period. But I would love to have my own little shack. So, two things, 1. Where do you write, work, create – really and in your mind. And 2. Here is my dream shack…it lives in Chilmark, MA (Martha’s Vineyard) and was built as a community effort by the amazing South Mountain Company. I don’t need this exact one…but something like it, maybe with a little splash of color! Bring it on, Universe!
