Catching Up Is Hard to Do

So do we pass the ghosts that haunt us later in our lives; they sit undramatically by the roadside like poor beggars, and we see them only from the corners of our eyes, if we see them at all. The idea that they have been waiting there for us rarely crosses our minds. Yet they do wait, and when we have passed, they gather up their bundles of memory and fall in behind, treading in our footsteps and catching up, little by little.
— Stephen King

With the only certainty in our daily existence being change, and a rate of change growing always faster in a kind of technological leapfrog game, speed helps people think they are catching up.
— Gail Sheehy

In our frenzied attempts to catch up with life, we run right past it. Once we have run past it, what we are in reality attempting to catch is ourselves.
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

The problem with catching up is, it seems easy enough in my head, but I forget that I also have other things to do. And when it comes to writing, the muse doesn’t always come as quickly as I’d like, especially for things like poetry.

Things I thought would be little things kinda turned into big things. Like cleaning up the detritus from working on the granddaughter’s dress. I ended up doing a minor organizing blitz in the craft closet, which included doing an inventory of all the projects I have in various stages of completion. There are a lot of them.

I picked a few of them to have on hand for when the crafting mood strikes, and they’re each a little different to fit different moods. That being said, while catching up on the poetry and three-minute words I lost the desire to craft. LOL

There’s also, as I was complaining whining mentioning to my pal Jamie, the problem of my easy chair being a little too comfortable. I have a bad habit of sitting in my easy chair to have breakfast, and my easy chair is super comfy. And with the weather being as crappy as it has been lately, there’s no good reason to leave the comfy chair and go down to the somewhat less comfy office.

Okay, okay. I confess. The other reason is that I tend to read while having breakfast, and I’ll usually finish eating before I finish the chapter, which means I keep reading. And if the book is really good, then next thing I know it’s almost noon and time to start thinking about lunch. *sigh*

It might be time to start thinking about eating at the table. ;-)

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

Honestly, I don’t know where my time goes. I feel like I should have more to show for my week, but I always forget that I have other stuff to do besides write, other stuff that takes up a lot of my time too. But considering how far behind I’d let myself go, it wasn’t a bad week overall.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 989+720+456+943=3,108

Poetry
121+55+105+79+37+25+162+70+84=738

Total words: 3,846 words

Three minute words – 102+98+104+113+120+118+104+99+101+97=1,056

Goals For Next Week:
Finish catching up on my words, and forage ahead with new ones.

EDITING:
While I didn’t exactly make great inroads on Magickal Mayhem, I did think about it. AND I just received a new manuscript to edit for someone else (which is always more fun than editing your own stuff). Can’t wait to dive into it!

Goal For Next Week:
Start editing new manuscript, get going on Magickal Mayhem.

MARKETING MONDAY:
To be honest, I forgot all about it. Bad writer!

The winners of the Toronto Star Short Story contest were announced Tuesday – needless to say I’m not one of them. While I’m not surprised, I’m still a little bummed.

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

TECHNO TUESDAY:
Again, I just didn’t think about it. I was busy catching up and doing other stuff.

Goal For Next Week:
Set up Paperwhite

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I did a little better last week, but I’m still about a week behind on the PAD challenge. I mentioned in my poetry post that I’m not liking the prompts Writer’s Digest is offering so sometimes it takes a bit to get me going. Or sometimes I’ll sit down, thinking I’ll just dash off a quickie just to get it done, but then some of the poems turn out longer than I planned. Good for the poem, bad for the catching up.

Goal For Next Week:
Catch up on the PAD challenge

CRAFTING:
This is one of the reasons I found time getting away from me last week – I kind of got carried away with cleaning/organizing the craft stuff again.

Goal For Next Week:
Find something else to embroider.

WHAT I’M READING:
Last week I read The Hollow, The Pagan Stone, Morrigan’s Cross, and Dance of the Gods, all by Nora Roberts. I am seriously trying to hold off on reading The Valley of Silence, but it’s the third in Circle Trilogy so good luck with that.

The good news is, I haven’t started the stack of Eve Langlais books I received, so at least I’ve avoided the mindless binging. (For now)

Goal For Next Week:
Keep the reading under control

GOAL REVIEW:
More wins than losses last week. I got all my blog posts up. Maybe they weren’t all on time (like this one) but they’re there.

I actually sat down and did a bit of plotting for the end of the Cave serial and I’m really hoping I’m not writing myself into a corner. The three-minute words can be a bit challenging when it comes to working them into the narrative.

I am still not caught up on the PAD challenge, but I’m getting there. And I swear, if I don’t start actually doing the marketing and the techno thing this week I’m going to take them off the list.

Not altogether a bad week last week, but hopefully this week will be even better.

Happy writing.