Snowballing

Success is like a snowball. It takes momentum to build and the more you roll it in the right direction the bigger it gets.
— Steve Ferrante

Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill.
— Warren Buffet

I think very often problems are so big, people approach problems from the bottom up: ‘If only I do this little bit, then hopefully there will be some sort of snowball effect that will be bigger and bigger’.
— Boyan Slat

Have you ever started something, only to have it snowball into something much larger? Yeah, that was me last week.

As you know, I’ve been having problems when it comes to working in my office. Don’t get me wrong, I like my office, but I just wasn’t finding it inspiring to write in.

One of the problems is that it’s too bright in there. I know this seems like a strange problem for someone who claims to be solar powered, but my office has a large, south facing window. BK (before kittens) I had the bookcase that spans under the window covered in plants. These plants nicely filtered the sunlight.

Not wanting my plants to end up all over the floor, I wisely moved them to the bookcase on the wall opposite the window so the kittens could takeover the bookcase and window ledge. They’re happy, the plants are happy, but me . . . not so much.

My desk was set perpendicular to the window, and the light coming at me from my left is rather distracting. On sunny days it was downright annoying because the sun would be right in my eyes. Depending on what time of day it was I could wear a broad brimmed hat to block it, but often it would hit the screen of my lap top and I still couldn’t see anything.

Last week I was kicking around a few ideas on how to solve this problem and the solution I came up with was to turn my desk so it was facing the window. It seemed easy enough to give it a try to see how I liked it. To my surprise, I liked it just fine. This is where the snowball effect came in.

With the desk perpendicular to the window, I had easy access to the two-drawer filing cabinet that my printer sat on in the corner beside the bookcase that was under the window. Between the bookcase and the filing cabinet was my wire cart with the file drawer.

Turning my desk so it was parallel meant I needed to shorten up the space between the back of the desk and the bookcase to make room behind the desk for the chair. This made it more difficult to access the filing cabinet and wire cart.

So . . . I whipped out my trusty measuring tape and started measuring spaces before moving things around. The filing cabinet went against the narrow space between my office door and the closet door – this space was formerly taken up by a square table that had my antique typewriter on it. The square table went in the corner formerly occupied by the filing cabinet, my printer on top of it.

The wire cart fit nicely between the square table and my desk, leaving an alley between the bookcase under the window and the back of my desk so I can access the file drawer of the cart and the books on the bookcase. The new layout actually makes my office seem bigger. Then I realized I had a problem.

While I could still access the files in the filing cabinet easily enough, I’d have to get up and go around my desk to access the files in the wire cart – and these were my important files. So, instead of enjoying the new layout of my office on Saturday, I spent it moving file folders around until I had them where it made the most sense. Then for good measure I straightened up the two bookcases on the wall behind my desk.

And that’s where my writing time went Saturday. :-)

The only thing I don’t like about my new office layout, is that I had to put my antique typewriter on top of the filing cabinet. It looks silly there. So I went to my good friend Amazon Prime and looked at tables until I liked. It should be here sometime today.

Meanwhile, I get to sit at my desk and get some work done finally. The short hutch on the back of my desk (it’s a roll top) is just high enough to block the light so the sun (if we have any) won’t be in my eyes, nor will it hit the screen of my lap top.

All that’s left for me to do, is write.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

I really thought this would be the week I’d finally show words other than blog words. Funny how we can deceive ourselves, isn’t it?

This time the spirit was willing but the opportunity kind of eluded me. It wasn’t just moving my office around, but there was the shifting of files and cleaning up the bookcases too. And then there was the snow.

I don’t know what it is about how our house is positioned, but every time we get a snow storm with blowing snow, we get huge drifts right along the front. The first storm we got last week wasn’t too bad, but the one we got Friday through Saturday was massive and the snow was heavy.

Anyway, it wasn’t just the shoveling that took away from my writing time, it was the recovering from the shoveling. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. LOL

NEW WORDS:
1611+509+319+717=3,156
DOWN – 427 words from last week

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
3 hours
Look at that! I finally did some editing. Too bad it wasn’t on Elemental Spirit. *sigh*

I found a rather long story I’d forgotten about when I was going through my files, and next thing you know I was reading through it and making changes. And while I’d like to say that I spiffed it up enough to do something with it, that would be a lie. I realized I was going to have to do some research to move forward with it, and that was a time commitment I wasn’t able to make.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

TECH & TRAINING:
Nothing here but good intentions.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn to use Dropbox properly so I can backup my files.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Last week there was a meeting of the CPW (my poetry group). We were actually a week late due to a snow storm the previous week. Much poetry was shared, as well as a few laughs. Always a good time when the gang gets together.

My weekly form was actually finished early, and I did a post to be scheduled for the week I’ll be away at the writing retreat. I’m not going to count it in my words yet though, I’ll wait for that week’s wordage report.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share.

CRAFTING:
The closest I came to crafting was moving the craft files I had in my filing cabinet to a file holder to put in the craft closet.

There was a meeting of the stitchery guild last week, but that was the day of the first snow storm. Apparently only eight members were able to make it.

I’m kind of hoping that now that I’ve got my office whipped into shape I’ll be able to spent part of my day working in my office and I can get back to crafting in the evenings. Sounds good in theory, doesn’t it?

Goal For Next Week:
Work on the afghan. Figure out what to embroider on the granddaughter’s dress.

WHAT I’M READING:
Would you believe I read nothing last week?

Okay, well that’s not exactly true. I did start reading Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts, but I didn’t start it until yesterday, and even then I didn’t get very far along.

Goal For Next Week:
Maybe try to increase my reading just a little.

GOAL REVIEW:

While I still haven’t managed to get any writing done other than blog posts, I still think it was a pretty good week. I didn’t slide back into my bad gaming habits, I got all my blog posts done with no late nights, and I’m really looking forward to start working in my office.

I managed to get some editing in, even if it wasn’t on Elemental Spirit. And it didn’t kill me, either. Does this mean I’m finally ready to dive into Elemental Spirit? I sure hope so.

While I had nothing to show for tech and training, I’m hopeful that’s going to change too. I’ve got all those courses I’ve paid for but haven’t accessed yet, and I have a couple of books I’ve been meaning to check out. Even spending just an hour a day on this is better than spending no time at all.

I was on a roll with the poetry, and did two posts, including the examples. One of them won’t appear for a couple of weeks yet, but still, it feels good to have it done. I also did a poem for the poetry group poemwork, but it was super short. I could have made it longer, but I realized it would just be padding. The short poem said what I wanted it to say, so I left it as it was.

Crafting was a little disappointing. Not only did I not get any crafting done, I didn’t even get to go to the stitchery guild meeting. At the very least I’d like to finish that darned afghan.

Can you believe I did no reading last week? It’s rare that that every happens. But one of the things I couldn’t help but notice when I was cleaning up my office was the number of unread books I have lying around. Maybe it’s time I picked one of them up.

Hmm. It appears that other than blog posts and poetry, I didn’t get much accomplished last week. So what makes me call it a good week? I think it’s all in the attitude. Mine was a little better towards the end of the week.

Maybe if I can keep it up, I can make this week not only a better week, but a more productive one as well.