Tug of War

That’s creativity in a nutshell. A messy tug-of-war with imagination to erase that feeling that nothing really matters anyway.
— Zoe Whittall

From my experience, the best advisors help in three ways: encourage you to look at the problem or opportunity from multiple angles; help you balance the tug of the short-term with important long-term priorities; and ask the tough questions you need to know to reach the best solution.
— Margo Georgiadis

Is there a word for the moment you win tug-of-war? When the weight gives, and all that extra rope comes hurtling towards you, how even though you've won, you still end up with muddy knees and burns on your hands? Is there a word for that? I wish there was.
— Sarah Kay

As you know, or should by now if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’ve been struggling for a long time trying to juggle all of the things I’ve got going on in my life. And what I’ve finally realized is this. It comes down to two sides of my creative nature – the writer’s side, and the crafter’s side.

You’d think it would have been a little more obvious to me by now, but it wasn’t. See, the thing is, most people I know focus on one or the other. If they’re writers, they’re able to focus on their writing. While the crafters seem to spend all their free time crafting.

With me I feel a conflict. I’ve always been a crafter, although my crafting never consumed me. And I’ve always been a writer, but never to the exclusion of all else. Well, except during Nano. ;-) But lately, I’m feeling an internal tug-of-war between my crafting and my writing. How did this happen?

Some time during the last couple of years I started to become more active in my stitchery. Though I’ve always been a crafter, it’s something that’s always been sporadic. I’d be really enthusiastic in my crafts, and then my interest would wane for big blocks of time. But since joining the stitchery guild I’ve taken my crafting more seriously, just like I take my writing seriously.

Which leads me to my tug of war. When I’m working on a craft, I feel guilty because it’s time I could be using for writing. And when I’m working on my writing, I feel the urge to work on a craft. And I feel guilty for spending too much time on one or the other.

I have a whole list of writing projects I want to finish, with more waiting to be started. And I have a bunch of stitchery projects in various stages of being done, with plans to do more. I’d really like to get into fabric art. I’d really like to start a multi-volume science fiction series. Tug, tug, tug.

I don’t think the crafting is going to go away anytime soon, so I’m going to have to learn to reconcile the crafting with the writing or I’m going to drive myself crazy. So last week I made myself a list of all the things I wanted to get done, and then picked out the few things I needed to get done that week and prioritized them. It seemed to work out quite well.

Well, it did until I made writing a letter to my sister a priority. I haven’t written her since June (yes, I’m a bad sister) so it was long overdue. Fortunately, I keep a journal and I could refer to it to keep me on track. Unfortunately, it was more time consuming than I counted on, and the whole time I’m thinking I should be working on a Christmas craft for the upcoming Christmas sale, or I should be working on the next installment of the serial story. And I’m not finished yet.

But a new week is upon us, and that means a new list to prioritize. We’ll have to wait and see if it’s still working.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

The good news is I brought the total words up again, the bad news is that it wasn’t extra words, just longer blog posts. *sigh*

I started out the week with the assumption I’d get a couple of installments on the serial story done early, and maybe my poetry post done ahead of time, but this didn’t happen. And why didn’t it happen (you ask)? Because I got sucked into the hidden objects gaming universe.

Hidden object games are so much worse than solitaire or word games because they’re always changing, so you don’t get bored quite as easily. Oh, you can tell yourself, “just one more round,” but next thing you know it’s time to make supper.

The list I made and prioritized as to what needed to be done helped, but I still have to stay away from the games to do it.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1,911+574+323+695=3,503
Poetry – 88 words (included in blog post) + 171 word poem for CPW
Total – 3,503+171=3,674

Goals For Next Week:
Try to keep up with my writing while I’m away.

EDITING:
31 pages
Be still my heart, there’s light at the end of that very long, dark tunnel. I have a handful of scenes I marked for rewriting, but for all intents and purposes, the edits on Magical Mayhem are done! That’s not to say the book is done, however. I still have the final polish, and the cover, blurb, and tag line. But still . . . woot!
Get the cover, blurb, and tag line figured out.

MARKETING:
No Marketing. Not even an attempt at marketing. Too much other stuff on the go.

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

TECH & TRAINING:
Nothing that relates to writing, but with the help of YouTube I did learn how to use the rolled hem presser foot on my sewing machine. Oh, man, does it ever make hemming a breeze! I only wish I’d known about these presser feet years ago. And I also consulted the book that came with the sewing machine and re-learned how to do button holes properly.

Goal For Next Week:
Check out the features of Dropbox.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I really struggled with my example for the Virelai poetry form. But I got it done, and posted on time. And then I was going through my files I found I’d done a Virelai many years ago and the example I created back then was a tad better. Oh, well, it happens.

After spending so much time and effort, sweat and toil, on the Virelai, it was a pleasure to work on the poemwork assigned for this month’s poetry gathering. I could write whatever I wanted, as long as I stayed on topic. So I did.

As far as an anthology goes . . . I figure I’ll stick to traditional poems, that is, poems whose forms you can look up online. If that goes well, maybe I’ll do one with non-traditional forms next.

Goal For Next Week:
Find an easier form to share.

CRAFTING:
Well. The crafting didn’t go at all as planned last week. I really expected to get more done. No work on the pillow case. No work on the cancer blanket. No work on the Christmas crafts, although the granddaughter is coming over this afternoon to do some with me.

But I did get the alterations done to the sleeveless blouse and got the hand sewing done on it, and then I got the button holes and buttons put on it. I also put a new casing on the skirt and finished it up. My outfit is done!

Honestly, I have never taken so long on a single outfit in my life. Of course, I was doing a lot of other things at the same time – normally I’d take an entire day or two and just work at something until it was done – but still . . .

I also hemmed a pair of track pants for my mother-in-law and used my new rolled hem presser foot to hem some pajama pants for my father-in-law. Man, that thing is handy! And so easy to use, I wish I’d known about them years ago.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on Christmas crafts. Work on the cancer afghan. Work on pansy pillowcases.

WHAT I’M READING:
Honestly, I didn’t do much reading last week. I only read a couple of chapters of The Book Haters Book Club by Gretchen Anthony before I got distracted away from it. And then I read a few chapters of Hook, Line, and Sinker, by Tessa Bailey before realizing that although I liked what I read so far, it wasn’t what I wanted to read. So then I started reading Unnatural Creatures, which is an anthology of stories chosen by Neil Gaiman.

Goal For Next Week:
Suck it up and update my Goodreads account!

GOAL REVIEW:

My total word count was back up from last week’s, but the only real gain was the extra poem I wrote, and I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t had a poetry gathering to go to. I was late with this post last week, but all the others were up on time. I didn’t get as early a start on my serial installment as I would have liked, but I also didn’t have to stay up late to get it done so I’ll take that as a win.

After I got sucked into a third hidden objects game and wasted an entire day on them, I realized something drastic needed to be done. So I deleted the shortcuts off my desktop, uninstalled them from my programs, and even deleted the installation files from my downloads.

I really need to at least start a list of the books I’ve read, and then start updating my Goodreads account say, five books at a time. I’ve fallen so behind on keeping it up to date it isn’t even funny.

I got more stuff done after getting rid of the games – got my skirt and blouse finished, did the hemming that’s been hanging over my head, and finally got to put my sewing stuff away, at least for a while. But I made no progress on my Christmas crafts and I have another stitchery meeting this week. I’m hoping that with my granddaughter’s help today I’ll have at least a little something to show for my time.

So another up and down week for me, but the week ahead is going to be more writerly focused because it’s off to Writersfest 2022 – four days of lectures, seminars, and classes in beautiful Kingston, starting on Thursday.

Happy writing.