Kitty Bucholtz's Blog

A few years ago, I was trying to figure out how to get more done and feeling a bit overwhelmed. If you listen to all the podcasts and read all the books and go to all the conferences, you may throw up your hands and quit! But just for a moment. Because there really are a lot of things we need to do.

Even if you don’t publish your writing, you probably write because you need to. But that’s just one of the many things you have to do. You also need to take care of your physical and mental health. You need to pay your bills. There are people in your life who need your attention — and hopefully you want to spend time with them too! The list goes on… But I had an idea a few years ago and I made a list of everything, then broke it into categories.

Those categories became my WHOLE PATH System for Writers! Here they are:

I use this system to bring balance to my life, especially right now when I’m suffering from hormone issues in menopause. I’ve shared it with clients and put it on my website. And I’m finally getting my ideas down on paper so I can help more writers create a sustainable life that keeps them happy and healthy. I’ll be writing more about the Whole Path System here, and I’d love to hear what resonates with you. Please leave a comment and share what works for you, or what you’re still struggling with.

I’m also thinking the name of my nonfiction book series may end up being “The Whole Path System for Writers.” Everything I'm getting ready to publish for writers fits into those categories — writing, perimenopause (health), time management — so it makes sense to me. Does it makes sense to you or does it feel too long? Let me know in the comments!

I hope this list gives you food for thought. In future posts, I’ll dive deeper into each subject. Meanwhile, happy writing and have a great day!

Cheery topic, eh? If you haven't experienced peri menopause (all the changes before actual menopause when your period stops forever), or if it all went smoothly for you, this post probably won't be very interesting to you…unless you have female friends in their 40s and 50s. In which case, my upcoming series of posts on the topic may be enlightening and even helpful.

Looking back, I probably started the process when I was around 50, maybe 51. At first, it seemed pretty easy to the point that I wasn't even sure I was in peri menopause. Some late periods and some changes to them, getting hot flashes when I drank red wine, sometimes feeling irritable. But I think I know what a frog in a pot coming to boil feels like — at first, you think, “I can survive this,” but eventually it becomes “Kill me now, please” and you have no idea what to do.

It took a full-on boil before I decided, after months of saying I'd go see a doctor, to actually make a doctor's appointment. I was a wreck. Snapping at my husband, crying for “no reason,” getting incredibly pissed off over things I could normally handle, tired all the time, and — worst for me because I run my own business — the absolute inability to put two thoughts together for more than a few seconds. After canceling more than one client appointment that week, I finally made the doctor appointment.

When the receptionist asked me who I wanted to see, a male or female doctor, I started crying and said, “Whoever will listen to me.” A few days later I met Dr Sara, my new hero. Again, I started crying as soon as she asked how she could help, but I'd had enough presence of mind to make a list before coming in. This is what I told her I'd been experiencing a lot of, especially in the last couple months:

Mood swings, angry all the time or depressed/crying, snapping at my husband, forgetful within seconds, either can't think straight or can barely think at all, fatigue, sleeplessness, hot flashes and night sweats, constant overeating (although I know I have issues with emotional eating, so it could be 100% that since all of this was making me so emotional), vaginal dryness and discomfort during sex, muscle aches, went from running regularly to rarely exercising or even leaving the apartment.

By the end of our 30-40 minute conversation (I've never had a doctor spend that much time with me in the U.S.), I had two prescriptions and hope for the future.

I'd also decided, despite growing up in a culture that insisted “you don't talk about those things” (meaning anything related to women's health), I would start blogging about the information I find and sharing what I learn on my own journey. Five years ago, when I started Googling anything about peri menopause, I mostly found articles written by male, white, American doctors that generally concluded with “don't worry, it should only last five to ten years.” :-O Seriously?!

But now I'm finding a lot more women, female scientists, and even a few white, male, American doctors are providing helpful information to help women (half the population of the world!) regain the healthy life they had before the hormonal changes. My journey won't be the same as yours, but I hope I can at least point you to some of this helpful information…and help you not to feel the embarrassment I've felt most of my life when talking about female health.

Watch this space for links! And talk about it with your girlfriends! (Or your wife or your sister or your mom!) There's no reason for this topic to be something hidden in the dark nor for anyone of any gender to feel embarrassed to talk about it.

We're six weeks into the new year and some days I already feel behind. How about you? There is sooo much I want to accomplish in my life, and my To Do list for this year makes it look like I think my life only has about 12-14 months left! Haha!

If you want to take better control of your time this year, and finish writing your books, check out my online class, Going the Distance: Time and Project Management for Writers. I've been teaching this class on and off for over 20 years…because it works.

I made a couple short videos for you to help you get started whether you take the class or not. (It starts February 27, 2023.) This first one is the simplest way to plan to get the most important things done. And if you're not so sure you're much of a planner, check out this one on micro- vs. macro-planning. I think it will help you.

You have something important to say, and I want to help you say it. Because I absolutely believe that you just might write a book that changes the world! Let's do it!

Woohooo! I'm so excited! At the moment I'm writing this, the website isn't completely up yet, but it's getting there. Yay! I LOVE IT!! Thank you, everyone at InfoTeam!

So now that I can use my Blog page and Podcast page again, I'm going to try to be more prolific in both areas. And you may have noticed that I've decided to combine my Kitty Bucholtz Author site with my Write Now Workshop site — an area for readers and an area for writers! But the blog space will be 100% Kitty, no trying to split my personality here. Haha! So I'll have posts about writing, reading, teaching, running, health, vacations — all the things that make up ME.

In fact, I'll often mention my WHOLE PATH System, a way of looking at life that keeps us from compartmentalizing too much. For instance, instead of you or me trying to figure out how much more writing (or ) we can get done this year, at the expense of our health or relationships or more, we can look at the WHOLE PATH.

Writing, Heart & Soul, Organization, Laughter/Fun/Rest/Play, Economics/Money, People & Relationships, Accountability to ourselves and others, Time Management, and all areas of Health (physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, etc.).

You may or may not have heard me talk about burnout a lot on my podcast. It was the first time I went through something in my health that I couldn't find enough information about to help me get better. So I had to start talking about it, no matter that culturally it wasn't something people wanted to or were comfortable talking about. Well, now I'm going through another culturally taboo (in my Midwestern American culture) health challenge.

Peri menopause.

I can hardly believe I just wrote it down. To be read in public. By strangers. Who might shake their finger at me and say, that's not the sort of thing we talk about in public. (Or private.)

But doggoneit, I've been miserable, freakin' miserable!! And today I'm going to see a doctor about it for the first time. I've been living in Sweden for the last five years, but I have such good overall health that I've rarely seen a doctor in my life and only twice in Sweden, so I don't know what to expect. I will tell you one thing though, I am sick and tired of taking “you're just going to have to deal with it” as the medical answer! (No thanks to you, white male doctors who write articles about this on American websites.) Not happening anymore! So expect me to write about peri menopause regularly.

If you have any questions about anything in this post, anything you want me to find out about peri menopause, writing and editing and publishing questions, anything at all — just let me know and I'll try to reply here in the comments or in future posts. Have a great day and we'll talk more soon!

I haven’t written about running for ages! But I haven’t stopped. Oh, down times when I don’t have a reason to run, no race to prepare for. That tends to make me lazy after awhile, but I still do a little.

Then my friends Iulia and Charlie told me they ran the Copenhagen Marathon and the Copenhagen Half Marathon in May and September, respectively, and I got excited. Since Copenhagen is only a half hour by train from my home, and it’s a pretty flat city, and it’s a pretty city, I really wanted to run there!

Iulia and I talked about it on and off for months and finally decided to sign up together in January. Yay! (She was pregnant at the time, so she wanted to be sure she’d be ready to run again by September.) I downloaded the Run With Hal app from Hal Higdon, and subscribed to the 6-month plan in the app that changes it as you run, according to how you’re personally doing. Sweet!

Let me say, it’s easy to use but the advice is very confusing. I haven’t read a ton on how to get faster, but I assumed you just keep working at it little by little. However, the changes in my speed have been very little over the last 13 years that I’ve been running. I’ve been pretty good about not getting injured, but not good at losing weight, which is another assumption I have – less weight to carry should mean I go faster, right? In any case, I’ve only made small improvements in speed. My fastest half marathon was around 2:50 or so (2 hours, 50 minutes).

So the app asks me when my next race is, how long (you can use it for any length of race), how many miles I’m currently running a week, and what my target speed is for the race (my race pace). Then it tells me what to do.

The beginning of the trail I run

And what it’s been telling me to do is run slower. What?! It has me running so slow, I could speed walk at the same pace. I want to wave a sign at everyone who passes me on the trail that says, “The app is making me run this slow! I can run faster!”

But over the 12 weeks of the training plan, it asks me to run “race pace” every other week for a few miles. Uhh..app dude…I can’t run that fast, that’s why I bought your help. What are you thinking?

So last Friday it asked me to do my first race pace run for 3 miles. I knew I could do it for one, maybe two. But three? That just seemed impossible to run 3 miles at 12:30 when my usual was 13:00 to 13:30 and Run With Hal had me running at 15:00 to 15:30! But John cheered me out the door and I promised myself I would give it my best shot.

I DID IT!! I ran 3 miles at 12:29 minutes per mile. I had to take five walk breaks because I couldn’t keep up the pace, but that means I was actually running much faster when I was running. I was heaving at end, felt like throwing up, legs like noodles, but I did it!

Well…the changes in our lives have been coming pretty fast this year, haven’t they? And we’re not even through the first quarter!

It’s been a long time since I posted here – you might be wondering, where have I been for the last year?!

Every time I hear “two weeks” in almost any context, I think about Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall. LOL! I can’t help it!

Anyway, I’ve been at my new job for two weeks already! It seems like I’ve barely been there a day or two but I’m starting week three. Sheesh!

He thinks it’s so silly that I count the years since the day we met, but I like to think that deep inside he thinks it’s cute.

It’s Sunday evening here, and I have just finished getting ready for tomorrow. Normally, that means I’ve thought a little about what I’m going to do tomorrow, maybe set out a couple things – papers or notebooks usually – to remind me of things I have to do. This whole “getting ready for Monday” process generally takes me less than five minutes.

Today – not so! Tomorrow I START A NEW JOB! Woohooo!!!