Patience

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.
— Napoleon Hill

The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.
— Arnold H. Glasow

Only those who have patience to do simple things perfectly ever acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
— James J. Corbett

Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.
— Barbara Johnson

How do you define patience? The dictionary defines it as: the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like; an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay; quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence

Earlier this week I had a blue jay in the birch tree beside the pool, asking politely for some peanuts. Okay, he was basically in the tree shrieking his fool head off, but that’s what jays do when I don’t have peanuts waiting for them. I was too lazy to take extra peanuts and seeds down to the lower patio for the birds and squirrels, so I just opened the deck door and threw a few handfuls of peanuts onto the deck.

The jay flew off of course, it always takes them a while to get used to humans again. By the time summer rolls around they’ll be waiting in the tree and I’ll be lucky to get the peanuts down before they start diving for them. In fact, I can put peanuts on the rails of the deck and they’ll come for them even if I’m sitting at the table out there.

Anyway, the jay flew off, but to my surprise I had a crow come in his place. Then he flew off and came back with a couple of buddies. Now I have a thing for crows, I find them fascinating. So naturally my first impulse was to take a picture of them. They loitered on the deck, sifting through the peanuts, as I stealthily approached with my phone.

Unfortunately, they’ve got a sixth sense or really good vision or something, because as soon as I got within range they were gone. I waited to see if they’d come back, but they didn’t. Until I sat down again.

I tried sneaking up to the door, but they flew off before I could get a shot. We played this game for about half an hour or more, before I gave up. And I swear the one that was left in the tree was laughing at my frustration. I figure it’ll take some patience, standing as close to out of sight of the door as I can manage, but eventually I’ll get a couple of decent pictures of my crows.

And then I started thinking about this in relation to my writing. Some things you just can’t rush, whether it’s taking pictures of birds or writing a story. One thing I’ve learned while working on the edits for Magickal Mayhem is that sometimes I rush the story. When you rush, you leave out details that are important for bringing your story to life.

I think a lot of this comes from focusing on flash fiction the last couple of years. With flash you don’t want to be bogged down with a lot of detail. You write in a flash, you read in a flash, hence the name. But with anything longer you want to take a little more time, have a little more patience, and include details that will make the story richer.

I need to learn some patience with my writing. It’s not a race, and I’m not under any deadline (as a rule). I need to slow it down and take my time and add some detail.

It’s always easier to cut some out than add it in. :-D

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WORDAGE REPORT

I did my Monday post, so there’s a few more words for the week. I’m starting to think Mondays are going to be an every other week.

As for other writing . . . it appears I’m still in my slump. I’m getting my ten-minute words done, but that’s pretty much it. The weather hasn’t exactly been conducive to creativity – grey and dismal and up and down.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1326+726+816=2,868

Total words: 2,868 words

Three minute words – 130+93+103+96+81+93+86=682

Goals For Next Week:
Write something new.

EDITING:
I had a fit when I opened up Magickal Mayhem in Word 2019 – I didn’t see the lines that attached the comments to the place in the document where they belonged. Turned out you just had to rest the cursor on the comment to see the line, but still. It makes it much easier to edit when you know where the comments go.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep editing Magickal Mayhem.

MARKETING MONDAY:
*sigh* Nope, didn’t happen last week.

And I haven’t heard back about anything I’ve submitted so far, although the Toronto Star Contest is supposed to contact the winners this month, so there’s always hope.

Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.

TECHNO TUESDAY:
I don’t know what I did on Tuesday that kept me from setting up my Paperwhite, but it didn’t get done. Again. Part of it is because I don’t want to face all those books I’ve downloaded to my Amazon cloud. With my old Kindle I could do everything on the device. With the new one I have to sign into my cloud and do my organizing online, starting over, as it were. I know it’s a pretty lame excuse as excuses go, but it’s the only one I’ve got.

However, I did manage to figure out why my printer would print from my old lap top and not the new one, and I fixed it all by myself. Does that count for techno?

Goal For Next Week:
Set up the Paperwhite

CRAFTING:
I received the new transfers I ordered, but none of them really fit with my granddaughter’s dress so there was no progress on that. I finished the baby quilt squares, and now all I have to do is put it together.

I was really jonesing for something to work on while watching night time TV last week, so I broke down and started a new afghan. This one is a hexagon shape, just one big giant hexagon, and I’m using yarn leftover from the previous afghan. At least to start with.

Goal For Next Week:
Finish baby quilt. Start the embroidery on granddaughter’s dress.

WHAT I’M READING:
Oh, boy. Did I fall off the wagon or what? I didn’t do any reading on Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens, but I did do a crap load of other reading. I started with Key of Light, by Nora Roberts, and I was making it last like I did Whiskey Beach, but then Indigo delivered the first three of the Freakin’ Shifters series by Eve Langlais, and I only meant to take a peak, but next thing you know I read Delicate Freakin’ Flower, Jealous and Freakin’, and Already Freakin’ Mated in two days. Oops! Then it was back to the Key Trilogy and I read Key of Knowledge and I’m just about done Key of Valour by Nora Roberts. No wonder I didn’t get anything else done.

My Kindle saw no action last week, but I still have Curse of Christmas: A Collection of Paranormal Holiday Stories, by assorted authors up on it.

Goal For Next Week:
Fish or cut bait with “Crawdads” so I can pass it on, and otherwise get a handle on my reading. Which means no ordering any more Eve Langlais for a while, and stay away from Nora Roberts.

GOAL REVIEW:
My goals were pretty much an abysmal failure all around last week. Partially to blame was the crappy depressing weather, the other part was my weakness when it came to reading. I really have to get to work on the granddaughter’s dress, but the daughter was pretty vague on what she wanted and I really don’t want to screw it up.

Some books are easier to binge on than others, and I did receive a few of those books in the mail last week too, so maybe it’s time to crack one of those open for reading time.

As for the writing . . . I don’t know what to tell you. The three-minute words are easy enough, but my cave story seems to be winding down. When all is said and done, it’s not a great story, but it was an unintentional serial and it is what it is. I’ll be happy when it’s done so I can move on to other things.

Happy writing.