Excuse #792

After I got the ekphrastic poem written last week the writing pretty much took a nose dive.

I had a little extra babysitting last week, and as I mentioned before, the grandbaby is transitioning out of her naps so that gives her an extra hour and a half to drain the energy from me. Plus the weekend was a holiday weekend for us here in Canada, so I had to focus on getting the house cleaned up. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

We had some family from out of town come for a barbeque on Saturday and sadly I’ve never been what one might consider a “Suzy Homemaker.” Normally that wouldn’t matter because it was a barbeque – we were going to be eating outside. However, we’ve had an unnatural amount of rain and there was a good chance it was going to rain on our barbeque, which meant people would actually be in my house. Therefore, the house must be cleaned!

And being the anal retentive weirdo I am, a lot of what I did was stuff no one was going to notice except me. But my fridge has never been cleaner, and you can actually see your reflection in the stove. So Sunday I got to kick back and relax and enjoy my clean house. I celebrated by…not writing, but sitting out on the deck to read. Close but no cigar.

However, whilst reading I did get an idea for that scene I wanted to add to Wandering Wizards (the one I skipped over), and I got a brand new idea for a quirky, maybe even funny, romantic short. So at least my mind was on the right track.

Now you’d think that would mean yesterday, which was the actual holiday, I would have been all gung ho to write. Well, it was a thought, but just a passing one. Instead I went down to the local Waterfront Festival. Twice. And then we went down again after supper to watch the fireworks, which is why this blog post is late (I usually try and write them the night before and schedule them, only there wasn’t any night before).

Anywho, while the fireworks weren’t all that impressive this year I did get some (unintentionally) interesting pictures. I took my good camera down with me and put it on the sports setting which is for action shots. But it’s hard to keep still when you shoot 600 pictures in the space of 10 minutes, so some of the pictures came out . . .weird. Those were the best ones of all. :-D

To prompt or not to prompt, that is the question…

Oh! Lookee what I found! Too lazy to go to my office to peruse my writing materials, I did a quick Google search for prompts and found this cool page:
Writing Exercises
This page has a whole bunch of neat prompt generators like Random First Lines, ‘Take Three Nouns,’ and Random Image Generator. There are about 21 of them to choose from and I hereby challenge you to pick one (or two) to give your creativity a boost.

And hey, if you have fun with it let me know. And if you like what you’ve come up with (or even if you don’t like it but still had fun) send it to me at crward(dot)author@gmail(dot)com so I can post it along with mine on Saturday.

C’mon. You know you want to!

Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

No words in the last couple of weeks, so it follows there’s no wordage report.

I think you should know, this is not an isolated incident. This sort of thing happens to me every year about this time. The words seem to dry up in the month of October and I can only assume it’s my brain preparing itself for NaNoWriMo. You know, saving up the words for November.

It’s just so weird – September was such a good month writing-wise. I was establishing good writing habits, making progress on not one but two WIPs, getting some editing done, and then along comes October and . . . nothing.

And of course it doesn’t help that instead of beautiful autumn days where it’s crisp and cold, yet bright and sunny, we’ve had an unnaturally long series of grey, dismal, gloomy days. Sometimes with drizzle, sometimes with high winds. And if that’s not enough to depress a weather driven person (like me) I don’t know what is.

However . . . after a really bad end to last week I indulged in some shopping therapy on Saturday which seems to have revived my spirits somewhat. I have actually decided on my idea for NaNoWriMo this year. I sent a selection of five synopses for potential NaNo novels to a couple of writing buddies, but before I heard back from them I started getting ideas for one of them. And ironically, my friends both picked the same idea and it is not the one I’m going with. LOL

Seeing as NaNo starts at midnight on October 31, it’s pretty safe to say I’ll have words to report next Monday. Maybe even an excerpt to share on Friday. AND I already have a poem picked out for Wednesday from an author who’s better known for his prose than his poetry.

Wait a minute, what’s that? You’ve never heard of NaNoWriMo? You must be new to the blog. It stands for National Novel Writing Month. The best way to describe it is as writers from around the world joining together (figuratively, not literally) to write 50,000 words during the month of November.

It’s free to join and the prize is 50,000 (or more) words you wouldn’t have had otherwise. If you’d like more information and/or to sign up, click on this LINK. And if you do sign up, look me up on their site and add me as a buddy! You won't regret it, I promise. It's the most fun a writer can have.

Writers . . . start your lap tops!

Hey, Wagon, Wait Up!

Short Fiction - 0
Long Fiction - 1596
Poetry - 322
Total Words - 1918
Editing Hours - 0
Paragraphs of Notes - 5

I may have written a few more words, but I didn’t keep track of them. But yeah, I pretty much fell off the writing every day wagon last week. And I don’t even have a good excuse lined up, other than I’m still fighting my sinus cold.

Now as to why I got no writing done over the weekend, I have excuses coming out the wazoo. Saturday I had a pile of errands to run, many of which took me out of town, and Sunday I was re-organizing closets plus I had the family dinner for Thanksgiving.

And then there was this:

This is what I’ll be dealing with today instead of writing. One of these days this is going to be my new office. That day will not be today, nor will it be tomorrow. If I’m real lucky, maybe by the end of next weekend.

That whole desk like area has to be cleaned off and the stuff on it and in it relocated. That big sheet covered thing is my desk, and I’m not quite sure where I want it. Facing the window for sure, but right under the window? Halfway back from the window? Turned so it’s edgewise to the window? I have no idea.

Then of course there’s the stuff from my old desk to bring over, which I can’t really do until my new desk is in its place. And most of the stuff from the desk area in the work room will be going on the old desk, which needs to be cleaned off first. You see my problem?

Oh, yeah, and I’ll be bringing the narrow book case over from the current office to replace the white one. And don’t forget that futon needs to be dismantled. And that white blanket? Yeah, you can’t tell from the picture, but it’s not really white any more. It’s mostly dark grey. I put the blanket on the futon to keep the cat hair off it, but the cat likes to sleep under the blanket. Needless to say, add cleaning the cat hair off the futon to my list.

All I have to keep in mind is the big picture - which is the satisfaction of sitting behind my dream desk in my new writing space.

Then all that will be left is the writing.

It’s Not My Fault!

My master plan for this long weekend (at least if you’re Canadian it’s a long one) was to get myself all organized, writing-wise, for the week. This was to include making some cosmetic changes to my blogs, make a list of things I wanted to accomplish, and come up with a workable writing schedule that would take me beyond my week of holidays.

What happened was not entirely my fault. The hubby has to shoulder some of the blame for agreeing.

For a long time now I’ve felt that the landing at the halfway point going upstairs needed something. It just looked so empty.

I thought it would be the perfect spot for a bookcase, maybe two, and the hubby agreed. The result of this brilliant idea is why neither of us got anything we’d planned on doing during our long weekend. You can read about the first part of the story HERE. In fact, I suggest you do because this is really the second part of the story.

Swapping out bookcases is a pain in the butt at the best of times, and of course five shelves are not enough. Even if you only buy hardback books you still need at least six shelves. And a lot of my tree books are paperback, which take up even less space. So my old bookcases had extra shelves. Unfortunately, they were in the wrong colour.

So off the hubby went to the lumber store to pick up a couple of shelves. Except they don’t sell shelving in the colour we needed, the best they could do was real wood that would have to be cut and finished and still wouldn’t match exactly. And it would be expensive.

Then it was the hubby’s turn to get a brilliant idea. It wouldn’t cost that much more to just buy another bookcase and cannibalize it for parts. So we went to Walmart, again, and bought a third bookcase. But wait!

The bookcase that was already in my office was just a slightly different shade than the two new ones, so the hubby thought why not put together the third bookcase and swap it out with the mismatched one?

One of the things I don’t like about the new bookcases is the fact their permanent shelf is in a different place than the old ones, so I can’t adjust the shelves the way I had them. But this is the only reason I was willing to swap out the last bookcase, so the permanent shelves would line up.

Anyway, by the end of the day the bookcase wall of my office looked like this:

I have run out of both energy and extra shelves. It wasn’t until I tried to use one of the shelves from the old bookcase that I discovered the new bookcases are close to an inch wider than the old one, making the old shelves useless.

The good (?) news is that Walmart also sells a much shorter version of this bookcase which has shelves exactly the same size. The bad news is I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get one. And then, of course, I’ll have to take the time to finish re-stocking the bookcase.

And that, my friends, is why I not only didn’t get any writing done, I didn’t get organized for writing either.

Maybe once I get my books organized. ;-)

It’s My Birthday and I’ll Post if I Want To

Yes, it’s my birthday. And what better way to celebrate than with a blog post?

Okay, I can think of plenty of better ways to celebrate a birthday, but the blog post is all I’ve got. Although I did treat the grandbaby and myself to McDonald’s for lunch. What can I say? You gotta have something bad for you to celebrate the day with, and it’s not like anyone remembers to make/get me a cake (I refuse to make my own anymore). So fatty food it is! ;-)

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been doing so great on my goals for the year so far. Um, in fact, the only one I’ve followed so far is the reading - I read a book of fairy tales over the week end. Sandman’s Fairy Stories to be precise, it was a thrift store find in really good shape.

Last week I still had Monday and Wednesday off from babysitting, so you’d think I’d have all kinds of time to write and craft and settle into a routine. But, well, did you forget this is me we’re talking about?

Since it’s a new year, I think it only far that I start with a new numbering system for my excuses. Therefore, I present excuse #001 (notice the optimism that I won’t be exceeding three digits worth of excuses for the year): cleaning.

If you read my Other Blog you know all about the bathroom renovation. For those of you who don’t... In a nutshell, the in-laws got one of those walk-in tubs and since their old tub with the jets in it was only a couple of years old, they didn’t want to just trash it so they gave it to us. This necessitated a remodel of the main floor bathroom, which has been an ongoing project since September.

Anyway, in the course of things the hubby used an electric sander on the walls and even though he had the door shut a toxic cloud of dry wall dust settled over the entire house. Especially in my office, which is almost right across the hall from the bathroom. So, from Christmas through New Year’s I spent a considerable amount of time in my office, cleaning away the dry wall dust. By Monday it was mostly clean again, but I still had to put all the stuff back where it belonged. By the end of Monday (last Monday, not yesterday), all that was left was de-hairing the reading nook (which still isn’t done).

Excuse #002: the tile guy. The friend the hubby was going to have show him how to tile the bathroom became unavailable, so he hired someone to just do it. Tile guy (who did an amazing job) showed up shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday through Friday and I was too intimidated by his presence to work in my office, even though the desk was now cleaned off and everything was organized.

Tile guy finished up on Friday, which brings us to the weekend and excuse #003: I got sick. *sigh* Stomach issues with slight back pain on Saturday, turning into more increasing back pain on Sunday. And Monday. Today the Advil finally kicked in so I’m not feeling too bad *knock on wood* but ... you know, it’s my birthday. So I figure this blog post should count for something.

:-D

At any rate, this is the time of year I usually use to shake things up a bit on the blogs, so don’t look for any kind of consistency or actually sticking to the goals list until the dust settles after I’ve finished thinking about what I’m doing.

Me. Thinking. Might be dangerous. At the very least I’m sure it’ll be interesting. ;-)

What’s Your Excuse?Fun With Quotes

So how, exactly does one have fun with quotes?
Glad you asked! If you’re like me, you start by exchanging quotes on a daily basis with your Best Bud. But not just any quotes, writing quotes, to give each other inspiration. And then you pick the two best quotes of the week to share with the rest of the world - because ... why not? :-D

You can always tell I had trouble picking the quotes for the week when I’m late with this post. Once I decide which quotes I’m going to use the rest of the post seems to just fall into place. Unless, of course, I pick a quote and then change my mind, which happened this time.

I started out with a different quote from Jamie from last week, but I had a lot of trouble expressing why it stood out for me. Darn you Jamie for making me think! LOL They were all good ones though, and this one was my second choice:

What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you - what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind - you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.
~ Jeff Bezos

This certainly applies to me - the “complaining isn’t a strategy” part. Not that it stops me, but complaining about something is almost counter-productive. All that time spent complaining about the spanner life threw in the works would be much better spent working on a solution - how do I fix this?

Life rarely runs smoothly - how boring would it be if it did? There are going to be ups and downs and unexpected events that impinge on your schedule. Instead of bewailing your loss of writing time, you need to face these changes head on and learn to work with them or around them. If your writing is important to you, you’ll find a way.

My quote for last week kind of dove-tails into Jamie’s, because aren’t excuses born of complaining?

Fiction was invented the day Jonah arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Talk about your excuses! It ranks right up there with “the dog ate my homework.”

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know I’m a champion at making excuses. Why haven’t I been writing? It’s too hot, too cold, the stars aren’t in the right alignment.

To be perfectly honest, for the most part excuses are just a way of covering up sheer laziness. Like my excuse from a couple of weeks ago for not writing: it’s too hot and the bathroom renovation is too noisy. Well yes, that was true. But the hubby was home doing the renovating that week, which meant the car was home. There was nothing stopping me from driving to the library to get some writing in. Not only would it be quiet there, it’s air conditioned.

Excuses are the gateway drug that leads to more dangerous things, like procrastination. It’s too hot to write, I’ll put it off until it’s cooler. I really want to write, but I have to do seven loads of laundry first. I’d like to write but my family needs me. And once you start putting it off it gets easier and easier for other things to become your priority.

Homer Simpson said, “I wasn’t lying, I was writing fiction with my mouth.” That pretty much sums up what writing fiction is all about - getting paid for telling lies. And the lies we tell ourselves that prevent us from writing are just the excuses that keep us from getting paid.

So ... what’s your excuse?