Tag: writing

Birthday in retrospect

My most humble thanks to everyone who sent me natal day greetings. I cannot possibly answer all of you, and hope that a blanket appreciation gives no offense.

I was off-line yesterday, as has been my habit since my birthday was appropriated as a National Day of Mourning, and most especially yesterday, which was the Magic Number 25.

I had breakfast out, then headed over to Stonington. I had A Plan: go to Stonington, park, and wander about on foot, and when I had done, to go back up to (the town of) Deer Isle to ditto, thence to Blue Hill, where I planned to visit the co-op, do some shopping, and take on lunch, which I planned to eat in the park. Alas, road work had its way with me, so! Blue Hill, the co-op and the pleasant picnic some other day. Yesterday, thwarted, I skated over to Bucksport, walked the riverwalk, had lunch at Sweet Cheeks Diner, and eventually wound up in Belfast, where I treated myself to ice cream at the Wild Cow Creamery (Vanilla ice cream with inclusions of cherry and chunks of dark chocolate. Yes, it was every bit as good as it sounds, and I very wisely got two scoops). I took my ice cream to the Belfast Town Park (see? I did get a picnic), and sat on the rock that had been my “outdoor office” decades ago when the laptop and I wanted to a change of scene in which to work, in the breeze and the sun, overlooking the water, and it was very satisfying.

Pizza for dinner rounded out the day, and this morning I arose, refreshed, and wandered back to Steve’s office to write.

One of the … comforting things about yesterday was recalling certain spots on my journey. Deer Isle/Stonington/Blue Hill was not one of our more usual rides, though it wasn’t completely new territory for me. I was — warmed — when I passed the spot where we had pulled over on the little spit of land with the open ocean on one hand, and the tidal pool on the other, to eat — yes — a picnic that we had purchased at the Tradewinds. I was happy to see that the ice cream stand where we had stopped to get milkshakes that time was still there, and had a line. I recognized that intersection there, and the place at the side of the bridge where the reversing tide can be viewed.

So — it was a pleasant day, and this morning made so by all those good wishes from near and far.

Since I goofed off yesterday, I have some chores to do, now that the day’s work is done (for those keeping track at home: 1,020 new words, WIP total 55,260. Ish.)

What’s been happening with you?

Random pics from yesterday

Proceeding in a Tuesdayish Direction

Tuesday. Trash and recycling set out and collected. The recycling bin is back in the garage. Breakfast was leftover leftover soup. Lunch will be … something.

Eleven hundred new words today, bringing the WIP to something approaching 53,490 words.

I was craven yesterday and did not attempt the Anthropic mess, so I have something to look forward to.

Tonight is needlework, and I’ll have to stop at the grocery on my way home — or perhaps I’ll do that tomorrow, since I have to be out early to a doctor’s appointment, anyway.

It occurs to me that it might be beneficial to find if there’s a sauna someplace near at hand. It might help with the ongoing aches and pains. I should also try to locate a reputable massage therapist. This is not a new thought, but every time I have it, I get overwhelmed by the “reputable” part. Well.

Oh. And I really do need to get a flu shot.

The cats are giving me a little more freedom today, so I’m guessing whatever it was that concerned them yesterday has passed off, so that’s good.

How’s everybody doing today?

Cats inna meeting:

 

Saturday in retrospect

There had been a question about the differences between dragons.

Herewith, a link
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So, this morning’s work was heavy on research, naming sectors, and also clan houses, which are the wages of the speedy writing days when Past Me didn’t want to stop wiggling my fingers, so when the name of the sector wherein we would find the system occupied by the planet Delium, Past Me just typed HERE, and kept on going.  Did she care, I ask you, for the work and chaos she left for Future (now Present) Me?

She did not.

I’m also Very Sleepy, and am weighing the benefit of taking a nap instead of coping with lunch, either the prepping, or the eating of it.

It’s a lovely, coolish, breezy day. I have the sliders open in Steve’s office and I can hear the trees dancing…
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So, a short nap, followed by a blueberry smoothie. I’ll have to do a little better for the late meal.

Right now, though, I need to do some chores and pay the bills obscuring my desk, including the property tax, which didn’t go up nearly as much as I had expected it to do (this is not a complaint).
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Kind of a brief, messy day, but I’m done now. The bills are paid and waiting to go out in Tuesday’s mail, so there is that.

Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe.

I’ll check in tomorrow.

I needed money ’cause I had none

Friday. Though Google swears otherwise, it’s raining. No, really. It is. I don’t say that it won’t quit raining, later, and the day star emerge from its cloudy boudoir to burn off the fog, but right now, it’s raining.

I have an invitation from Boskone to attend as a panelist in February, which I’ve been angsting over for the last week, trying to pummel myself into going and — I just can’t. I mean, I went down to Baltimore, because Steve would have had it so. BaltiCon after all had been our home con, not to mention that I personally owed a life-debt. But the thought of packing for a con, traveling, and arriving in order to perform inadequately on panels — even doing a reading, and I love to read to people — makes me want to simultaneously curl up into a ball and scream.

So, I’m guessing that answers that, and I had best just send my regrets.

Sarah will be by in an hour to clean. I fully expect to finish my in-depth reading of the first half of the WIP this morning and begin making Adjustments to the file. I’ve decided to pull the questionable sections for now and just concentrate on the main line, since that’s what I know, and keep on writing until I either reach the end of what I know, or the end of the book. Then I can piece in these other things. And it certainly won’t be the first time I/we built a book that way.

I am still planning to go to the Block Party this evening. I figure to go downtown earlyish, get a desert at Holy Cannoli and dawdle over a book until the festivities begin.

I had almost forgotten that today is the start of a Long Weekend, freelancers not always indulging in Long Weekends.

Who has plans?

And, once more, “I Fought the Law,” this time from the Bobby Fuller Four.

“Anything” is just a . . . suggestion

So, that’s 1,080ish new words this morning, for a WIP total of 52,570ish.

I may — that’s may — have figured out how to write two books at once, so I’ll be setting up the framework this afternoon, after I pay my tithe to the house.
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So, the cats are expecting a Chewy order, which will arrive via FedEx. While I was paying my tithe to the house, I happened to look out the window, and there was a FedEx truck in my driveway, which stayed there for, oh, four minutes? I went to another part of the house to get something, came back, and the truck was gone.

Well, I said, said I, noticing the lack of heavy box on the steps. I guess it’s in the (open) garage.

Only it wasn’t. That’s right! In a new Personal Best, FedEx not only failed to follow the long-filed instruction to leave packages in the garage, but! Failed to unload a package at all.

I? am actually Impressed.

I’ve been plodding along through the bookclub book — it’s interesting, but not a page-turner — and I just reached the part where Our Hero had realized that the actions he takes as an Official (in this case a high-level law enforcement admin) Actually Impacts people in addition to those who have fallen under his jurisdiction, and — this is the important part — that he, as a representative of The System, needed to do better. I salute Our Hero. Really, I do. And I wish that more people in positions of influence were not only able to have that insight, but gather the courage to act on it.

In other news, I think I have the method figured out for working on two writing projects at the same time. I think I’m going to be helped by the fact that the two projects are completely dissimilar. I guess We’ll See.

Taking a break now to do my duty to the cats and PT homework. Then! To the couch with me, notebook and pens in hand.
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. . . Dolly Parton and Tim Curry?

And if you lie, you will lose it

This morning’s cat census here

Tuesday. Sunny and already warm. Trash and recycling at the curb patiently awaiting the advent of the trash truck.

Back with Jethri today and writing the rest of a sticky scene. It still needs work, but, hey! First Draft, amirite? The WIP now stands at 51,490ish total words. Next scene, tomorrow, already sketched in on the pad, and ought to be more fun.  For writer values of “fun.”

I have, I think, figured out what to do with the character from Chicago, and her friends, too. Now, all I have to do is find time and energy to do it. I know — some of us wish we had such problems.

This morning, I purchased a ticket to view Coyote vs ACME on Thursday, September 3, which makes next week Media Rich, as I’m also seeing a play on Sunday.

Social butterfly, ayuh.

Crafts, this evening, and before that I have chores, correspondence, and lunch to cope with.

So! What’s on your schedule today?
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So. . .somebody just stole my recycling.

I mean, not the mixed recycling that is in the covered wheeled bin, but the broken down cardboard boxes that were in the open recycling box. I s’pose somebody needed cardboard?

I wouldn’t — well, I don’t — care, particularly, except that I’m in a very wobbly state where I’m kind of second- and third-guessing everything, and when I looked out the window, and saw the bin was empty, while the rest of the trash was still where I’d put it, and the wheeled bin was still upright and had its lid down — I thought that maybe I’d been inattentive enough to have put out an empty bin. Which is nonsense; getting that bin out is non-trivial, and I clearly remembered that there had been cardboard in the damned thing when I dragged it out to the curb earlier.

Sigh.

Speaking of which, I just read some advice in an advice book on how to remember if you’ve done one of those things that you’ve been doing daily for decades, today, and the advice was to PAY ATTENTION.  Which, while reasonable, isn’t, oh, I dunno, helpful.

Anyhow — off to do my chores.

Today’s blog post title courtesy of Eric Clapton, “It’s in the Way That You Use It”

 

Remote writing

So, Sunday. Dim and damp. Big breakfast of scrambled eggs with inclusions. Need to make something for lunch realsoonnow.

One thousand two hundred five new words written today, putting the WIP well over fifty grand — 50,570(ish), for those keeping a spreadsheet.

I’m contemplating a nap. I prolly won’t take one, ref make lunch, above, but jeezlouise is it a day for a nap.

In totally unrelated news, this morning I was thinking about Something Else, and a character wandered into my head, as they do, this one bearing the conviction that she’s from Chicago. Well. Everybody’s gotta be from someplace, I guess.

How’s Sunday treating you and yours?
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Bread’s in the oven. Remote arrived. I have achieved a kludge blu-ray system by which I need to start the disc playing manually, but once that happens, I can use the remote to start the movie, fast forward through previews and all like that, which is to say!

I will, indeed, preorder a copy of Hadestown, and when it arrives it will be more than a pretty ornament.

I would like it noted in the log that my test disc was Jupiter Rising and that I did not watch all of it.

I am a Tired Woman, for whatever that’s worth.

Everybody have a good evening. I’ll check in tomorrow.

Dance with me, I want to be your partner

How does that dance go? One step forward, two steps back?

Today’s writing session saw me delete one of the two scenes I wrote yesterday in favor of a better scene that I will write, um . . . *squints* probably Monday? Because! Today’s writing session also saw me making Meticulous, Step-by-step Notes for the next five scenes. No, I don’t know how many words that will be.

The WIP currently stands at 49,370ish words.

And I really do need to go to the grocery store.

After lunch.

How’s your day progressing?
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Back from the store. Groceries put away. Strawberries over ice cream et. Desk cleared. Duty to the cats dispatched. Got some pots ‘n pans to wash, after which it’ll be Coon Cat Happy Hour, and I’ll be pouring a glass of wine and finding someplace comfy to sit and read.

Everybody have a good evening. I’ll check back in tomorrow.

Today’s blog post title brought to you by Orleans, “Dance With Me,” recorded in a Simpler Time.

Friday’s cat

This morning’s editor was paws-on:

Friday. Sunny, breezy and cool as I type here in Steve’s office, both sliders open to the day, and sleeping cats all around me.

Sarah has been and gone, leaving a clean house behind her.

I’ve written about 1,150 new words, but stalled because I have to Figure Something Out. The WIP right now stands a bare 170 words from 50,000. Well. Maybe I’ll Figure It Out and not only finish the scene, but cross over into Half Done, Optimists Edition.

For right now, and what will be a good assist in the Figuring Out Department, I need to put the house back together and decide whether or not I want to go to the grocery store. Actually, I don’t have to figure that out — I don’t want to go to the grocery store. What I have to decide is do I need to go to the grocery store.

First thing, though — put the house back together.

So. Are you going to the grocery store today?

Where were we?

Earlier today:

To the best of my knowledge, it’s Thursday.

It is definitely sunny and breezy. The weatherbeans are calling for warmer than it has been, but not Stoopid Hot. Windows and sliders are open at the moment, but the pest control guy is due in an hour, so I’d best close up before he gets here.

Only about 820 new words today, finishing out the scene I was working on yesterday. Did some tweaking, which lost me some words, there, but that’s writing for you. The WIP currently weighs in at 48,680ish words, and 207 manuscript pages. Or, short form: progress is still progressing. Jethri’s got a meeting with the Combine commissioners coming up, and there’s some other business elsewhere that needs to be checked in with, so I’ll just be puttering around the house, and letting the backbrain work.

I ordered in a drag-behind cart that goes up and down stairs! It’s supposed to be delivered today, and I’m excited. Also, go! me! for thinking ahead of time about how I really don’t want to do my back the favor of carrying my Stuff to class in a bag over my shoulder.

I have a ticket for Unabashedly at the Opera House on August 30, but I haven’t yet been able to nail down tickets for Coyote v. Acme. I also need to decide if I actually want to buy the Hadestown DVD. In theory, I should be throwing/giving Stuff away, not acquiring more. Well. Maybe I ought to make sure that the DVD player still works before I get out the credit card. There’s a plan.

So! What do you have to decide, today?
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My teaching cart arrived, and has been constructed (go! me!) I am now officially ready to rock ‘n roll.