April 4/0 words
Vacation.
Ohmygod, I thought it would never get here.
My plans for the week include car repairs, car smogging and registration, a trip to Mom's, medical appointments, and exercise. I have a day planned to clean the classroom, time for practicing the Easter Vigil music, and a wedding veil to make for my future daughter-in-law.
So yeah, it's a vacation to get every freaking thing accomplished that I haven't had time to do because school! And dead teacher! syndrome.
I've had an eyelid tic for the past week or two, which is terribly annoying. I finally researched a little to discover a. I'm not going to die. (D'oh.), b. extra sleep takes care of a number of these tics, and c. it could be related to stress.
Ya think?
I am looking to destress myself. Someday. Somehow.
I've been fighting off the desire to take my desert novel in a steampunk direction--it would mean rewriting everything I have, naturally. But I do have technology that would fit right in (although it hasn't made an appearance yet. But will. Cross my heart.)
Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that the change would make mincemeat of the political/religious conflict that is the backbone of the novel. Damn.
Which means, I suppose, is that I would have to write a damn steampunk novel at some future point.
*shudders*
Luckily, I am not insane enough to consider having two novels in process. Two or three shorts that I can hop between? Fine. Novels?
Ohmygod, no.
But there is writing in my future. I'm transferring stuff back onto the laptop, so it'll come to Mom's with me. I'm also going to set aside an hour a day just to write, and engrave the time in stone.
It's only a week, but maybe I can instill some sense of scheduling.
The last goal is to add regular exercise into the mix. I've been avoiding it. Again. And it's time to take charge over my stressed-out self and its avoidant behaviors.
It's bad enough that I have to fight myself to accomplish everything I need to get done at school. To fight on two three other levels at home (I really do have to include my housework avoidance here) is just too much.
So yeah, Operation Get Your Shit Together is about to commence.
I'd take a step back unless you want to get swept into my undertow.
April 5/0 words
Day 1 of Operation GYST finished fairly well yesterday. Housework accomplished: downstairs vacuuming, a cleaned bath, two loads of laundry. That's superb for my first day of vacation. Usually I'm in a fog of sloth.
I'm dealing with calorie count at SparkPeople. Unfortunately, that didn't translate into actual walking. I'm going to get to that this morning before I throw my body in the car and drive for three hours to Mom's. Well, that and another load of laundry and a crit for my posse.
But the true miracle was word count.
650 words in... wait for it!... thirty minutes. That's prolific for me. If I'm not the slowest writer in the world, I'm definitely a contender.
I did not write them in Word. Someone on my flist linked to Write Or Die: Dr. Wicked's Writing Lab, and I took the plunge. (And you might want to try it yourself. It's freeing.) You choose the word count and a time limit, a box appears to write in--that's it. Well, that's it except for your choice of remonstration should your fingers stop typing. I chose gentle, so when I did stop, I received an admonition to continue writing. There's normal, where the screen reddens and you hear an unpleasant song. There's also Kamikaze mode where your screen begins unwriting your words one by one. I don't believe I'm ever going to chose that mode myself. My word count is too precious.
It's not the most deathless prose in the world by any means. But I was stuck on the story, and this section got me into a locked room with a bunch of other prisoners. So hey, progress. (Yeah, the part where I've just written myself into another corner? We're not talking about that. Something Will Come Up, I'm sure. *crosses fingers*)
So mostly I'm happy with what I accomplished yesterday. But today I only have three hours to get everything on my list finished before I drive.
As for the tic? I didn't get enough sleep--I woke up unhelped by dog at 5:30A, and what's that about I have no idea. But I consumed a banana yesterday, and another today, and the additional potassium seems to have settled it down.
I've just got a big bunch of pluses all around.
Now to do it again.
April 10/0 words
This entire week has been a flop in terms of writing--I hope to fix that later tonight or this afternoon. I never got to writing at Mom's. It was too quick a trip and she planned too many out and abouts for us. On the other hand, I finally saw my middle brother's garden. The exact one I've not seen in any of the trips over the past five years. He was either out of town or working or I was cooking the holiday meals.
Chalk one thing off the list. And it's a beautiful backyard, with the front plantings proving to be equally as beautiful in the next few years once they grow in. Two things about my brother I learned: he collects ancient Korean pottery and guitars. I think I counted nine of the latter hanging on his walls. Also, he has a recording set-up that I envy. And did I mention the huge telescope in the backyard?
Attention deficit can be a cool attribute if applied well as an adult.
The rest of the week has been all about the medical appointments I've been putting off, culminating in the fasting/systemic roter-rootering required for a colonoscopy. Everything I'd heard about the procedure led me to expect the worst of the prep, and I was not disappointed. At all. As a matter of fact, I went through the entire day totally pissed off, and it wasn't simply due to minimal calorie count, although that probably helped. Everything's normal, though, as well as with my stress EKG, and I shouldn't have to think about anything else for a while.
Last night was all the Easter Vigil prep--and although I thought I'd escaped cantoring since I wasn't there for the practice before (tickets to 42nd Street, and ohmygod, that was wonderful) one of my fellow cantors generously donated some of her cantoring so I would not be left out.
It's only the Haas Gloria, but because I always sing alto on it, I'm freaking that I don't know the melody, and today is about finding the sheet music for it. I will be haunting the choir director who supposedly has a spare copy in his file cabinet somewhere. And, if he can't find one, I'll tackle the cantor who donated that cantoring assignment, because she has one.
In addition, before Sunday, I must sew a wedding veil (the purchasing took place on Wednesday morning, and while I didn't buy the pattern then because cutting an oval out of tulle? So not difficult, but now I'm thinking about the security of having the pattern, so another trip to JoAnn's is in my future) and somehow I've got to spend a couple of hours in my classroom, too.
We've still got to make the Easter paska (the spousling found a nearby source for Solo fillings, yay!) and get my car in for an oil change, tire rotations, and re-alignment. I found a Pysanky egg page open, and now I'm worried that he's thinking of trying Pysanky this year. He'll have to do it without me, though. I'm completely booked.
Note that I said nothing about cleaning. I'll have to work that in here and there. And find my 3" white binder stuffed with all my music neatly arranged in alphabetical order, because it wasn't in the trunk when I went to search, nor in my room upstairs, nor downstairs where it had been for a while before I put it in the trunk. I suspect children and a quick dump in the garage. So yeah, add in a search for that, too, because it has everything I need for tomorrow night. Since we're bringing headlamps/small flashlights to sing from while the church is in darkness, my own music is critical, dammit.
I am tired just thinking about my list of to-dos, but hopefully it will all come together. Somehow.
And yeah, the writing will happen. Somewhen.
ETA: Oh, thank heavens, the binder is found. (Buried under my yarn stash in the corner, so I have strong suspicions the Spousling was organizing/cleaning my office space again, while avoiding his own. I would so not do that.)
April 18/0 words
It's spring. Late spring, which means it's warm and too much like early summer for my taste. Where is my cold of two days past?
The knee has been painful, for nearly two weeks. Heels tweak the damn thing. What did I do this morning? Sing for confirmation, which meant, of course, me in heels for the past four hours. My knee is not happy, and an ice pack is next on the list. I'll walk later, when it cools again.
In between, however, lies the way of the housekeeper. The Spousling is incapacitated by his back pain for another week or so, can't take his pain meds until after the procedure on Wednesday, so I am responsible for everything. I've got to get my act together and stop playing the slacker. No matter how worn out I am by the time I get home from school.
Naptime won Thursday and Friday. It can't win today.
Thanks to our Easter get-together, the back hedge is pruned, (Doesn't everyone rush out to do yardwork on Easter Sunday and plant a vegetable garden? No?) and the remains awaiting shredding until tomorrow. It will be nice to have that mountain of limbs and leaves disappear.
Writing is on my list, seeing it never got handled last week. (See stealth naps, above) I might try icing the knee and writing simultaneously. If I'm going to be on my back anyway, surely I can perch the laptop on my tummy and type. Sort of.
I also have to prep my next novel segment for the posse, since I'm pretty certain I have to upload my next chunk tomorrow or Monday.
I'm not even going to mention what has to happen in the classroom. Suffice it to say that our field trip to the zoo is Friday, the spring performance two weeks after that, and our Open House a week later. Oh, and I sing three First Communion masses in between. So yeah, it's a busy time of year.
I did manage my first cantor gig (quite limited, actually) and survived, although I sounded quite discombobulated in the beginning. Kevin gave me four measures to get to the podium, but I attempted to knock the podium over as I leapt for the mic, and since the Gloria is when the church finally lights up, the light for the cantor rolled, so I couldn't see the words. To a song which I have sung for fifteen years at least, so could I get the words nailed without my music?
(That's rhetorical, of course. It's a whopping big fat NO.)
However, after the first two lines where I clutched the light like a lifesaver, things settled down and I was okay.
Go me for flubbing up in front of four hundred people.
I will be so grateful if I can ever get over the nerves--I can't decide if it's related to my desire and fixation on doing well, or if it's just the fact that I have to sing on display.
I'm determined to improve, though. And get used to the entire concept of singing in front of a crowd. It certainly doesn't bother me when I'm singing with my kids for a performance. And I'm always in awe of those teens who can get in front of a mic and let loose, regardless of errors and/or ability.
I wish.
I want to be good, dammit. Which also impacts how I send fiction out--I still send my stuff out to pro markets primarily, with only a very few specialized markets that don't fit that niche.
And now, onward. The rest of the day is waiting for me to take advantage of it.
If only I could take it back to bed in good conscience.
April 19/0 words
When I wasn't paying attention, a story idea snuck up and smacked me upside the head.
I hate that.
Not that I hate the story ideas themselves. No. It's just that they show up unaccompanied and armed with a club. The club is, of course, to get my attention. And it works quite well.
But they're loners.
Characters avoid them. Settings are non-existent; ideas trust me to come up with a time and place. They wave plot flags in my face, in the hopes I'll believe one exists, but did I mention that these ideas are the biggest liars evAR?
Cross my heart.
They will promise me anything just so long as they get a shot at a short story. They're the vamps of literature.
They flash Google at me. Psst! I can find any information I want on Google, my idea whispers seductively. Use the terms 'memory retrieval'. You will find more information than you know what to do with.
I'm a first-class sucker every time.
So here I am, searching for research on memory retrieval, since I'd rather write sf than fantasy. Surely this idea is near-future. Surely it takes place on Earth instead of some far-flung outpost. Surely it has nothing to do with Alzheimers since those stories have been done.
I want a tale of loss, bitter-sweet and full of yearning for might-have-beens or should-have-beens or once-upon-a-times.
Google does not offer any of that.
Meanwhile the idea is skipping about in my brain, and it's ducked any smackdowns I've thrown.
I go to sleep with it curled in a corner of my amygdala; I wake up to it doing push-ups in my frontal lobe.
And that little stick-figure of potential story is ticking me off.
April 25/275 words
It's been a horrific week in terms of my energy, culminating with the zoo death march. However, I lost no children and spent much of my time counting heads to ensure that. Have you ever counted moving targets? Yeah. It's count, recount, count, recountrecountrecount....
No animals went on a murderous killing spree, none displayed their mating abilities to curious eyes, and toilet habits went unremarked. This year no one shrieked, "Hawaii!!!" when they saw the beaches for the first time as we proceeded north towards Santa Barbara. I guess it was too cloudy. However, the SoCal oil drilling platforms are now reclassified as islands, and several of my kids wish to construct houses on them. (With Lincoln logs or Legos--the only materials they're certified for.)
Next week is more of the same as I attempt to work simultaneously on Mother's Day gifts (shrunken heads--or, in laymen's language, silhouettes), two pages of the memory books (rainbow butterflies and flowers created by painting little hands and smooshing them onto paper), the spring performance (on the 6th) and Open House (on the 13th). After that it's the end of the year stuff, and I'm squishing in two fast units on math in three weeks. Testing the new math series this year really screwed with my yearly plan.
I am not mentioning the union stuff or the latest financial cuts we've made at school--just in case our site loses another 300K's worth of state funding. But at this point, we don't even have half of that money to cut, so then yes, it becomes teachers and class size reduction.
It's enough to make a person dream of retirement.
Or a large glass of cab and bed by 9P on a Friday night.
Rewriting did happen this week, and I sent out my clockwork story to the next market. I hopefully tightened the beginning enough to keep an editor's interest (because it failed miserably on its first trek out) and I won't know for a month or two if I succeeded.
Next up, the novel returns. It's a compelling tale of a poor innocent writer, the novel, which once loved her, but has turned stalker, and how two lives are so miserably intertwined that the PIA must file a restraining order.
Over and over again, because the paperwork keeps getting lost.
I'm pretty sure if I had to pay a hefty tax on all the words I write and delete, this whole process would be a. a lot faster, or b. non-existent, with non-guilt on my shoulder. I would also not hate the damn thing as much as I do at the moment.
Today is about exercise, some cleaning, icing my knee (again) and swallowing massive doses of ibuprofen, Ideo icons, laundry, and writing. Thankfully, a few tasks can be accomplished simultaneously, because that's more than a day's worth of accomplishments.
I've been up for an hour and a half and accomplished nothing but breakfast. Who is sucking my morning into the time vortex?
Time to change out of the jammies and go water the garden. (Tomatoes are almost knee high! Woo!)
April 26/625 words
I'm in love.
It's promised me a girl driven wild by unrequited love, a blackbird changeling who needs someone else's strength and is not averse to stealing it, and a sad, sad ending.
I'm in so deep.
Six hundred words yesterday on a tale I had no idea I would write that morning.
I made one mistake--jumped ahead a scene, so I've already had to go back and start the scene I need between the two. From there, we'll see. Catching the hole this soon was a step forward. Fixing it before I write more will eventually help me finish the entire thing sooner. Right now, I need to learn what other events take place for I only know the brother dies, the blackbird girl escapes, and the POV sister is left contemplating loss and survival on her own.
Here's the opening bit:
I envied my brother his love. Cordia of the raven hair, Cordia with the pale hands that fluttered to her throat when she laughed, Cordia of the limbs long and sweet.
I envied him. But I did not kill him. I never had desire for broken wings.
#
Isaac met her the fifth day of January when snow had first settled, promising to tent on our lands for but a brief time. Snow changed its mind, for later that day it brought ice, and then, later still, Cordia.
She stumbled onto our doorstep as the winds howled a warning and whipped her skirts.
*pets her new story*
I also whipped out all the Ideo images for the June issue, I have laundry in process, and the kitchen is fairly clean. More awaits, but it's a start, and I have the entire afternoon once I get to my posse crit for tonight.
I'm relaxing for a few minutes, but I do want to write more and find out what happens.
I wish the novel would grab me the same way, but it's so choppy--when it's not being completely recalcitrant--I want to run far, far away.
Still, word count. That's consoling. And the last three days out of four, I've written.
