Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.
— Joseph Stalin
Ideas are like slippery fish. They seem to have a peculiar knack of getting away from us. Because of this, the creative person always has a pad and a pencil handy. When he gets an idea, he writes it down. He knows that many people have found their whole lives changed by a single great thought. By capturing ideas immediately, he doesn't risk forgetting them
— Earl Nightingale
If you run out of ideas follow the road; you'll get there.
— Edgar Allan Poe
Sometimes I have a clear idea of what I want to talk about in my Sunday posts. A lot of time I just start typing and hope something will come to me. This is one of those times and I gotta tell you, I got nothing so far.
One might wonder, why even do a post today then? Well, because even a little, do nothing post is better than no post at all. And I feel like I’ve been such a slacker lately that I can’t bring myself to have another zero in my wordage report.
I keep saying I work better from a list, but so far I haven’t done much in the way of making any lists. I have a very specific process for list making, and every time I get up with the intention of going to my office to start my master list something distracts me, or I see something else I need to do first, and then I forget what I got up for. So then when I sit back down again at my lap top I remember what I got up for in the first place and figure, “Oh, I’ll do it later.”
Later. There’s always a later, isn’t there? Especially when you’re a champion procrastinator like me. Add to that having all the time in the world (AKA, no outside job to go to) and you’ve got a very dangerous combination.
Never put off till to-morrow what you can do the day after to-morrow just as well. ~ Mark Twain.
Words to live by, eh?
Well, they’ve been the words I’ve been living by lately, anyway. And it really has to stop. It’s appalling, the amount of time I waste doing pretty much nothing. I need to put on my big girl underpants and start spending more time in my office. Any time in my office!
Maybe it’s not as comfortable as sitting in my easy chair in the living room, but that’s a big part of my problem. I’m too comfortable in the easy chair. I can rock, or recline, and if I’m lucky one or more of the kittens will come and pin me down, usually lying on one of my arms so then I only have one hand free. Since I can’t type one handed, I’m forced to play mindless games on the laptop.
My office is a nice room, and it’s got all my stuff in it. I guess it’s like getting up in the morning to go to the gym. I just have to do it without thinking about it. Of course going to the gym is easier than going to my office. I get up in the morning and throw on my workout clothes, and I’m halfway through my first set before my body realizes what I’m doing.
But then I come home and have my shower and breakfast, and I’ll sit in my recliner checking my email and Facebook while I’m eating said breakfast. And then I never seem to get around to leaving my recliner. Because, you know, comfy.
As much as I hate to break with routine, maybe I need to start eating breakfast at the dining room table, like a normal person. And when I’m done, avoid the recliner and go down the hall to my office. Even though it’s still dark out. And cold.
And even if I start out just spending my mornings in there, sooner or later my mind will reset itself to realize this is where I’m supposed to be, and I’ll start getting some actual work done.
Hey, miracles do happen. Today is the start of the Year of the Water Rabbit. Anything is possible!
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
WORDAGE REPORT
Well . . . we did start out with some sun last week, but it took two days before my solar batteries were fully re-charged, and then it was back to the doom and gloom. One more day of sun and I might actually have accomplished something.
I dug out my compression gloves to see if they’d help my aching hands. They did for a while, but only somewhat. I don’t know what else I can do about it. It’s not like I can halt the march of time. But I gotta tell you, getting old sucks!
I did help a friend organize her poetry chapbook, or at least tried to. What seems easy to me is apparently not so easy for other people. Add into that her partner, who’s heart is in the right place but really seems to be determined to make things harder than they need to be, and you’ve got lots of frustration on the friend’s part and an unfinished chapbook.
NEW WORDS:
1526+0+626+705=2857
DOWN – 93 words from last week
Goals For Next Week:
Try to get my blog posts done earlier in the week.
EDITING:
0 pages
Still trying to get Elemental Spirit organized. There are going to be journal entries (kind of) at the beginning of each chapter, just like in Elemental Fire and Water, and I’m taking way too much time to decide whether I should writing them ahead of time, or just as I go along.
I can’t remember what I did for the other two, but I know they were a pain in my ass and I spent as much time on those two little paragraphs as I did on the whole chapter they headed. Still, I’m leaning towards writing them as I go along. Or maybe add them in after . . .
Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.
MARKETING:
Yeah, nothing new here.
Goal For Next Week:
Set up author page on Amazon; update book page on blog
TECH & TRAINING:
Nothing new here, either.
Goal For Next Week:
Install software for inkjet so I can print to the colour printer.
POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Yes, I totally cheated on the poetry post. I used a form from 2009 – the Sestina. An oldie but a goodie. I did have a form I pulled out to try, but left myself short on time for the example. So maybe this week.
And I’ve made no progress on the poemwork for my poetry group, which meets this Wednesday. Guess I need to get on that, it’s not a short poem. We’re supposed to do a couplet for each month of the year, sharing our words of wisdom on dealing with each month’s challenges.
Goal For Next Week:
Share a new poetry form; work on my poemwork.
CRAFTING:
I need to buy a couple of medium sized bins to move my fabric stash from downstairs to upstairs, and I need to buy a (folding) work table. And deal with the toys I have kind of piled up where the work table is going to go.
The spare bedroom had originally been set up for the granddaughter’s use – night light, music thingie to help her sleep, books, toys – but other than a few naps when she was little, she’s never used it. Who knows, maybe we’ll both use it for doing crafts.
No progress to report on the afghan. *sigh*
Goal For Next Week:
Work on the afghan – the person it’s for has a birthday coming up. Finish craft migration.
WHAT I’M READING:
Still on a Nora Roberts kick, unfortunately. Just can’t seem to help myself. I re-read The Liar, and I’m working on Brazen Virtue.
The daughter and I are both curious about Prince Harry’s book, Spare, but not enough to actually pay for a copy ourselves. So I talked my father-in-law into buying it, and we can just borrow it from him. LOL
Goal For Next Week:
Continue making a little time to read every day.
GOAL REVIEW:
When you spend the previous week alternating reading and playing mindless games, there’s really nothing to write about in a blog post. Add to that the weather was spectacularly uninteresting, and there was nothing else going on, so I just didn’t have anything to say for my Monday blog post last week.
Tuesday we had just enough freezing rain to cancel the school buses, so I had the granddaughter for part of the day. But that’s still no excuse for not being able to present a new form on Wednesday. At least the poetry post was up on time though.
No editing as such, but some strategizing on Elemental Spirit. Not even a passing thought to marketing or tech. I have the installation CD right here, waiting for me to install the other printer onto my laptop, but it means having to dig out my external CD drive and that borders on having to, you know, actually get up off my lazy butt and do something.
At the very least, if I’m going to recycle a poetry post, I should write a fresh poem to go with it. But we’re talking Sestina here, and they’re kinda long. And hard. So I used my original Sestina. It is what it is. Going forward, however, I think that would be only fair – that if I use an old post I should at least write a fresh example poem.
I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get any work done on my craft room. I really can’t do any more until I get the table and bins, and I kept putting it off, figuring I’d do it on the weekend, forgetting of, course, that I was invited to go to Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto to help celebrate the granddaughter’s 8th birthday.
Which is why this post is so stupendously late. Normally I write it on Saturday, or at least the wordage report part on Saturday and then the rest early Sunday. But I got none of it written yesterday, and then I dozed my morning away today. Oops!
But today is the first day of the Year of the Water Rabbit, and I firmly believe that better days are on their way.
Or at least more productive ones. :-)
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