3) write a daily blog post, and if that becomes too difficult, reduce to three posts per week;
4) participate in at least one A Round of Words in 80 Days challenge, which is no problem for anyone who sets out suggestions and then blogs at least once a week;
5) fix up an office in the spare room;
6) go to bed before midnight so the rest of this list has a chance of being done;
7) keep a timesheet;
8) trim this list to #s 1, 2, and 5 if necessary; do some calculations and acknowledge that #s 1-6 won’t be a burden if the person doing them just gets up and DOES them.
Amen.
***
For the first week of A Round of Words for 80 Days, I’ll focus on Suggestion #2.
Promotional photo of Tallulah Bankhead. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I owe A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) another Wednesday check-in. Fortunately, I finally have something significant to report.
My original goals were to sleep (get to bed before midnight, I believe); eat well (get off the white stuff, processed foods, added salt, sweeteners); and show up at critique meetings with something to be critiqued (in other words, write).
Before I discuss progress, I’ll note that Austin Mystery Writers (AMW) is alive and well. Several members have been on hiatus, dealing with other projects (such as work), another can’t attend regularly (again, work), and this week our Grand Pooh-Bah moved a hundred miles to the north. Only two non-Pooh Bahs remained to stay the course, and we considered four eyes insufficient to ferret out the flaws in our respective manuscripts.
Last night, however, concern vanished. Two new members joined us, a third has promised to drop in next week, and two others have listed themselves as maybes.
American writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Being in a critique has been a good experience for me. In addition to ideas and advice, I’ve received encouragement and support for my writing and for my personal life. My partners have helped me over some rough spots in the past couple of years.
I’ve also learned a lot. Since we’ve been together, one partner has published a novel and has more in line for publication. Two others have completed manuscripts. While in one sense I’ve been stalled–scrambling down bunny trails, trying to get my plot under control–I’ve learned about the business of writing.
As to my own WIP: Pieces continue to fall into place. Listening to a presentation at the Austin Sisters in Crime meeting last Sunday, I had a brainstorm–a detail that would make a central character’s motivation much more credible. I flipped to the next page in my notebook and scribbled it down. I’ve also had another idea about reframing the novel to update it a bit. When I realized that Molly hadn’t once, in nearly three hundred pages, gone online, I pulled out Chapter One and inserted Internet.
Today I retyped Chapter One. The experts say not to do that–especially considering the number of times I’ve rewritten it, trying to get the foundation right–but I’m not revising so much as remembering. It’s been through many incarnations, and typing requires me to read more closely than I would if only my eyes were involved. I’ll continue this process for three or four more chapters, inserting new segments where appropriate (I hope!). Projected changes add originality. They give Audrey Ann, a minor character, more opportunity for mischief-making. Audrey Ann is a hoot, and I look forward to spending more time with her.
(One of my critique partners suggested Audrey Ann would make a good victim, but she’s too much fun to kill. Very much like my first intended victim, whom I couldn’t bring myself to knock off. If this becomes a trend, I’m in big trouble.)
I’ve added a progress meter to the sidebar on the left. Five percent represents progress on the current draft–in other words, what I retyped today. I’ve been working on this project, and talking and writing about it, for a long time. I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve eked out just four thousand words.
Now, as to my plan for eating real food: Sometimes I have and sometimes I haven’t. I have, however, dropped nineteen pounds since the first of the year, so I claim at least modified success.
(Who am I trying to kid? I rock.)
Regarding sleep: It’s after 1:00 a.m. No excuses.
One last thing about Austin Mystery Writers: When the other left-behind critique partner mentioned we might need to put several of the coffee shop’s tables together to handle the potentially large turnout, it occurred to me that if we works things right, AMW could become the Austin equivalent of the Algonquin Hotel’s Round Table. A heady thought. Critique partner said I could be Dorothy Parker. She wants to be Tallulah Bankhead. I wish I could be the glamorous one, but with my evil tongue, Dorothy P. is right down my alley. More’s the pity. I’ll try to be nice.
Here’s my progress report for the first week of January:
On Tuesday, I attended Austin Mystery Writers. I had not submitted anything for critique, but I took a bit of the newsletter I was editing for CP to proof. My printer had cut off an inch or two on the right side of the document, so CP had difficulty proofing. I learned to look at documents while I’m still able to try again.
On Wednesday, I saw I’d made no progress, and I was lethargic, wanted to sleep all day, so I postponed reporting until Sunday.
On Thursday, I fell victim to cedar fever and wanted to sleep all day, but I went out and bought a stationary bike and allowed David and the cats to assemble it while I slept in a chair. I woke up and rode the bike for twelve minutes, whether I wanted to or not.
On Friday, I attended the Just for the Hell of It Writers, where CP and I discussed changing the name of the group. We discussed several other things as well, including the fact that I had made no progress because I was perpetually sleepy. I rode three minutes on the stationary bike before sitting down and going to sleep in a chair. I woke up and posted on my blog that cedar fever was upon us.
On Saturday, I developed a light case of allergy flu (I rarely have hay fever, I prefer to host a virus) and sat around the house feeling miserable and moaning and sighing several times an hour so David and the cats would know I was miserable. David decided to visit a friend. They cats hid upstairs. I didn’t ride the bike. I finished putting together a newsletter, prayed for accuracy, and published it.
Today I woke up feeling better, no flu, but looking disgusting enough for David to offer to cook breakfast. He prepared dinner several times during the week, too. I updated the blog for my writing practice group and posted the link on Facebook. Then I corrected the date and posted the correction on FB. Then I corrected the address and posted the correction on FB. Then I corrected the address in the address correction I’d already posted on FB and posted that to FB. Then I made a correction to that correction; I had said it was the fourth correction, but it was really the third. The correction process having taken a lot out of me, I considered going to bed but decided to post my report instead.
Summary: I did not meet my goal of working on my novel every day. Instead, I coughed, moaned, and felt sorry for myself. To my credit, I did not eat a gallon of Campbell’s tomato soup made with condensed milk and further gooey-ed up with smashed saltine crackers. Said soup is the only halfway effective palliative for a condition involving the sinuses, but it is chockfull of sodium, preservatives, coloring agents, and various other chemicals I’ve sworn off. So ate baked chicken, salad, fruit, and cough drops. And suffered.
So that’s my report. Cedar fever isn’t the best excuse in the world, but it beats the dog ate my homework.
*
Note to my former students (and all others who monitor my grammar, usage, and punctuation): I know this post contains a comma splice, and I know I told you all that using a comma splice qualifies as sin. But I’ve loosened up a lot over the years, and now I find that the judiciously placed comma splice can be just the ticket for getting my meaning across. Using run-on sentences, on the other hand, those jammed together with no punctuation mark at all, still constitutes sin.
*
Image by DonES at en.wikipedia. Later version(s) were uploaded by Hohum at en.wikipedia. [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
A Green Tree Frog (Not Yet Boiled) Sitting on a Palm Leaf--Image via Wikipedia
A friend says resolutions should be brief. Her resolution for 2012 is Move.
Ten years ago, when she was into metaphor, she adopted, Boil the frog slowly.
The former refers to being more physically active. The latter might be phrased, Make small, incremental changes.
I admire her artistry, but deplore her lack of clarity. They’re her resolutions, however. If they work for her, that’s all that matters.
A Round of Words in 80 Days #5 begins today. I was supposed to announce my goals January 1, but didn’t get around to it. Whether such tardiness portends good or ill remains to be seen. I’m pretty sure I’ll accomplish more than I did during ROW80 #4, when I met about 1% of what I’d set out to do. I offer no apologies for the lapse. I remember 2011 as one long series of lapses.
A medical professional, and my hero, once told me, “You can’t tell your hypothalamus what to do.” Unfortunately, my hypothalamus has no problem at all ordering me around.
Anyway, while good old HT and I are on speaking terms, I re-enter the challenge and state my goals:
1. Write about Molly at least 5 days a week.
2. See #1.
There it is. Simple. Measurable. Doable.
Concerning goals for the non-writing part of life, I haven’t made it beyond the one that’s topped every New Year’s list since I was fifteen. I’ll come up with something else before the end of the month. The process is complicated this year because I’ve gotten so many good ideas from other bloggers:
Ariana at Pearl’s Twirl introduced me to “The Anti-bucket List.” Those resolutions are no trouble at all to keep.
I’ve been working on Molly but haven’t been averaging the 1667 words per day required to reach the target by the end of November.
According to the NaNo stats page, at my current rate, I’ll reach 50,000 words on September 28, 2015.
But there is hope—if I write 2,753 words each and every day for the rest of the month.
Is it possible to write 2,753 words in one day? Of course. Call it a blog post and I’ll write twice that.
*
Sick of staring at Times New Roman, I switched to Accord SF.
Now MS Word 2007 asserts it independence by saving Accord SF in italics. The italics icon on the toolbar, however, isn’t highlighted, and no amount of clicking or unclicking it affects the text. Nothing affects the text. It’s in italics and it’s going to stay that way.
I think the dysfunction is related to repeated crashing of blog documents several weeks ago. I saved in Accord SF but after each crash reopened to italicized Accord SF. Why italics have leaked over into text documents, I cannot say.
If anyone can shed light on this case, please feel free. In the interim, and probably forever, I’ll be using Open Office, which I like better anyway.
Except for blog posts. I don’t have time or patience to read the OO instructions. And Word blog format is on its best behavior.
*
They say the secret to winning NaNoWriMo is Never Delete.
That’s not my way. I revise as I go. Like this:
Word word word word word word word Delete delete delete Different word different word different word Word word Delete Different word…
It’s slow, but my OCD feels comfortable with it.
NaNo, however, despises it.
NaNo likes something like the following:
Word word word word Wrong word Right word Word word word word Wrong word Wrong word Wrong word Right word Right word Wrong word…
Which just drives me up the wall.
*
I saved. Word crashed. I reopened to italics.
What it will look like when it’s published to WordPress I won’t try to predict.
Just once, I would like to live through a day in which I don’t have to eat my words, my hat, or a large portion of crow.
Ever have one of those days when you have a zillion things to do, but you can’t get them done?
Because you start one thing, but then you think you should be doing another thing, so you start that, but you remember you need to do something else?
So you stop starting anything at all?
And the next day, you face the same tangle, except worse, because another zillion things have piled up on top of yesterday’s zillion, and now you’re even more overwhelmed and hopeless?
And then one day, the Mt. Everest of multi-zillions topples over and flattens you?
And you lie under there all squashed and miserable, wallowing in the knowledge that all you have to show for the past year is the unframed honorable mention certificate they sent you from the national Bejeweled contest, senior citizen division?
Neither have I.
Because I am not merely efficient. I am effective.
That’s Franklin-Covey language. I picked it up in the Franklin-Covey seminar where I learned how to use my Franklin planner. (Covey hadn’t joined up when I went to seminar.)
I learned to use not only that Franklin planner, but each succeeding Franklin planner: the black one with the zipper, the teal one with the zipper, the little red one with the clasp. There might have been others.
Two were later stolen. I left them in a tote bag on the front seat of my car, and while I slept, certain parties (“I know exactly who it was,” said the constable, “but we’ll never prove it.”) smashed a window and made off with the bag. They also got a can of asparagus and a couple of tins of sardines.
That was in August, the first day of in-service. I called the insurance company. I called the school and said I would be along as soon as the deputy had dusted for prints.
My prints, as it turned out. No others. But that made no difference. When juvenile offenders, both alleged and convicted, have completed their respective judicial processes, their fingerprint records are destroyed.
The deputy shared that information. Up to that point, I’d been calm and resigned, but on learning the fingerprint fact, I expressed righteous indignation. At length.
In my father’s day, the boys around town celebrated Halloween by turning over outhouses. People expected their outhouses to be turned over. The next day, they stood them up again.
My uncle once swapped Mr. Langley’s and Mr. Mercer’s milk cows. On November 1, Mr. Langley and Mercer went out with their milk buckets, found alien Jerseys, laughed, and walked them back to their rightful barns. No cows were harmed. They might not even have noticed they were waking up in the wrong bedrooms. Bovines aren’t famous for their powers of observation.
But that’s kid stuff. Breaking into a car and trying to hotwire it is not the same as swapping cows. (Franklin planners were just the consolation prize.) Nor is burglarizing a house several blocks north (one new television set) or stealing a cell phone and tools from an electrician’s van around the corner from me.
A childish prank shouldn’t cloud anyone’s future. But it is my considered opinion that the second time a juvenile ends up in court, his fingerprints should be kept on file. Just in case.
Oh, never mind.
After the dusting, I scraped glass out of the driver’s seat, draped it with towels (deputies do not clean up after themselves), and proceeded to commute. I met the superintendent coming out of the general convocation. He expressed amazement at my calm demeanor. I said if he wanted to see fireworks, I’d be glad to explain about fingerprints.
Well. This started as a lament over mental paralysis, and it’s ended up as a nostalgic tour through the good old days of cow swapping, plus a diatribe on the juvenile justice system.
Back to the present. There are books to be written, blogs to be read, comments to be replied to, software to be learned, and a sink to be blessed. Franklin-Covey would tell me to make a list, prioritize, and get busy. They would tell me to use a Franklin planner for listing and prioritizing, of course, but somewhere along the line I discovered a sticky note would suffice.
So, Dear Readers, I’m off to find a sticky-note and scale–effectively–Mt. Everest.
*
Image by Tlarson at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
This week I did not meet my writing goals, and I joined four groups.
The groups are activity-optional, so I can’t get too bent out of shape about signing up. One of them sends me recipes I have no intention of trying.
Although I didn’t achieve my target would count, I worked on plotting Molly. A couple of knotty problems appear to be unraveling. It’s about time.
I also offered to read and comment on three novels. I initially volunteered to read only two, but the one I left on the table had a very pink cover, and the face of the young man across the table from me was very pale. Because if I didn’t read the pink book, he would have to.
Sometimes you just have to give in and do the decent thing.
For the current Round of Words in 80 Days, I set a goal of 1000 words a day, exclusive of blog posts or the newsletter I edit.
Tuesday, the first full day of the round, I wrote 921 words. That number doesn’t meet my self-imposed standard.
If, however, we round 921 to the nearest 1000, then I achieved my goal. Exactly. On the nose.
While I’m on the topic, I’ll admit Wednesday’s word count won’t meet yesterday’s. Because I began drafting those words at 10:00 p.m., after the Austin Mystery Writers meeting, and finished at 2:00 o’clock this morning.
Yes, you’ve read it here before, and yes, you’ll read it here again, because I’m at my most creative in the middle of the night. And because when it comes to connecting the dots between staying awake all night and being a bear of little brain the following day, I can’t even find the dots.
Now I’m going to un-gracefully transition to another topic:
I’ve been reading Roger Rosenblatt’s Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing. I may have more to say about the book in later posts. But I came across something today that, even though it has nothing to do with the rest of this post, I have to share.
Discussing the nature and the importance of poetry, Rosenblatt says, “It may be that poetry is favored by my students, including those who do not write it or intend to, because it seems like history’s protectorate, kept safe for no other reason than its aim of beauty.”
He continues–and this I find startling and beautiful–
In ancient Ireland, poets were called The Music. When one king would attack another, he instructed his soldiers to slaughter everyone in the enemy camp, including the opposing king. But not The Music. Everyone but The Music. Because he was The Music.
*****
To see what other ROW80 participants are writing, click here.
A pleasing development: Story Circle Network has awarded a star to To write is to write is to write.
Story Circle Network is a nonprofit organization “dedicated to helping women share the stories of their lives and to raising public awareness of the importance of women’s personal histories.” It sponsors publications, workshops, writing contests, reading circles, writing circles, and other programs, many of them online. There are SCN chapters worldwide.
Membership is open to all women who have stories to share. No writing experience is necessary–just the desire to record life experience and to read about the experiences of others.
Over one hundred SCN members are bloggers. For a list and links, click here.
The assignment was extraordinary because someone asked me to write it.
People don’t often ask me to write. I usually ask myself, and then I either grant or refuse my own request.
If I want me to write a blog post, I write it.
If I want me to write something requiring effort, I make a list of all the housework I need to do, and then I sit down and start an old P. D. James mystery on Netflix and immerse myself in e-mail.
Or I take Ernest to the vet.
Never mind. That was last week. Monday has arrived, and with it new resolve.
Today: Draft new Molly scenes and send to critique group.
I’d like to add a sunny little punch line here. If one occurs to me later, I’ll add it.
*
Image by Dmgerman at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
I did not wail, Alas!, and fall to the floor in a faint. I said, Okay, I’ll send the story out again.
A fair and balanced response.
#2 was a little more difficult. I held out until the last day, weighing my options: Retreat or new chair, retreat or new chair…
Friend Emmie helped me with the decision. She said, “Listen, the chair will fall apart whether you go or not. And when it does (after you’ve gone to the retreat) you will be amused at the incident and will write a great bit on your blog which will make all the folks that read it very happy.”
I value Emmie’s advice. She knows what I want to do, and she always tells me to do it. Her justification misses the point, and I don’t know how I’ll blog, or make anyone happy, after the chair collapses and I’m buried in the rubble. But I’ll think about that tomorrow.
#3 proved more difficult. Because of street maintenance scheduled for today, David parked my car on a designated side street. I forgot to ask which side street. Wanting to use the car, I called David at work and asked where he had left it. He told me. I tramped down the street and around the corner.
The car wasn’t there, but the street had been plowed up. We hadn’t been told that street would be plowed up. We had been told to park there.
I asked two young men manning some kind of truck where they thought the car might be.
They said they were just subcontractors and didn’t know anything, but that it hadn’t been impounded, just towed somewhere else so they could plow up the street, and they were sorry. I said I understood and it was okay.
One of them gave me John’s phone number. The number bore a Fort Worth area code.
I called John and got his voice mail. I left a message. Then I tramped back to my air conditioning.
Did I mention the temperature was approaching triple digits?
John called me. He said he was just TXDOT and he didn’t know where the car was and he was sorry.
I said I understood and it was okay.
He said it was probably on Summersby.
I said, No, that’s the street we were told not to park on.
He said he was sorry but he didn’t know anything and it was definitely on Summersby.
I said Summersby is only two blocks long, and I had stood on the sidewalk and looked both ways, and the car really, really wasn’t on Summersby.
He said what kind of car was it.
I said I didn’t know, because I wasn’t sure which one my husband had taken this morning.
He said there was a blue car down on Silverdale.
I said that was my car, and thank you so much.
He said he was so sorry but he was just TXDOT.
I said I understood and it was okay.
I hung up.
As soon as I did, David called to say he had found the car on Silverdale and was driving it home.
Technically, I suppose, I didn’t really find the car. David did. But I did extensive research that produced the desired result. Except by then I couldn’t have cared less.
I had no intention of hiking down to Silverdale until Hell froze over.
*
To see how other ROW80 writers are doing, click here.
A business teacher of my acquaintance, when asked by a student what arrears meant, answered, “It means you’re behind.”
Not the definition her class expected.
But a good story for the teachers’ lounge, and a fitting introduction for this post.
For I am in arrears.
In reading blogs, in answering comments, in answering e-mails, in reading books, in preparing for tomorrow’s meeting of Just for the Hell of It Writers, and in submitting Wednesday’s A Round of Words in 80 Days report.
Last things first: the title of this post will have to suffice as my ROW80 report.
It will have to do for the rest of the post as well, or I shall also be in arrears with respect to sleep.
One specific item: This morning I shot off my mouth and announced to a Facebook group that I would submit a story for publication as soon as I’d proofed it five or six more times.
But after a good twelve hours, I still haven’t clicked Send.
I’m not afraid of rejection per se. I’m afraid of rejection because of some idiocy on my part: omitting the word count, formatting incorrectly, forgetting to do some tiny but important bit of business.
So the story sits in the draft folder, waiting for one more proof.
M. K. Waller 