Tag: writing

Ice Cream Sunday

Sunday, damp and sullen.

Wrote 1300 words this morning, bringing the WIP entirely to 35,865. More or less. My fingers apparently know more about where this is going than I do. Possibly Steve finally figured it out.

I’ve been listening to various of the Liaden books, and more than once (or twice, or a dozen times) I find myself saying things like, “How did I know that? I don’t know that.” I listen to my colleagues talking about writing and they all sound so controlled, making such deliberate storytelling decisions as they progress. While I? I can remember writing this scene or that, but if anyone is actually making calm, reasoned, and adult decisions about the story, it’s not me.

Yesterday, I made it my business to vacuum and do some minor amount of house pickup. I am today of course achy and ill-tempered. Sarah will be arriving on Friday to do a real cleaning, but, between double-scheduling on my part and the family vacation on hers, not to mention those 10 days when things just stayed where I dropped them (Well. Not the cats. Cats hardly ever stay where you drop them.), and, yeah, there was work to be done. You could sculpt a bobcat from the fur the vacuum took up.

Also, in a Personal Best, yesterday, I dropped my phone on my face, and now I have a shiner.

After that, I did some work toward my writing course, in case anybody actually signs up, which — I fear it’s going to be a very strange course. OTOH, it could hardly be otherwise.

I’m remembering something I read a long time ago, about two writers on a panel — one a professional essayist/news writer, the other another sort of professional who has embraced fiction writing as an avocation. The panel is asked questions like, “Do you rewrite?” and “Is writing hard?” and “What do you do if you don’t feel like writing,” and the fiction writer gives all the Breezy Answers: No, he doesn’t rewrite. Writing isn’t hard, it’s a blessing, a release. If he doesn’t want to write one day, well, then, he doesn’t; there’s no forcing the muse, after all.

The essayist is left in the position of saying exactly the opposite: Yes, writing is hard. Rewriting is a necessary part of the craft. When you have an assignment, that means you have a deadline, so you sit down and write, even if you don’t feel like it.

And the thing is? Neither one of them is wrong. And neither of them is right.

Yeah. Strange course coming up.

So! The cats are in Steve’s office, indulging in a Sunday afternoon nap. I’m tidying my desk in anticipation of next week, and waiting for the pot of rice to finish cooking before I go downstairs to do my duty to the cats.

What’s going on in your life that’s both magical and mundane?
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Spent some time this afternoon sorting photos, and came to the dismal conclusion that I’m going to have to dedicate an entire box to cat pictures.

Have also happened upon two discussions of weight and BMI in “Elders,” which suggests that said “Elders” benefit from carrying more weight. If true, I will have gone from, Fine, you’re healthy; was that so hard? to Good GHOD woman, eat some ice cream!

This does not, mind, take into account the stated preference of the Cancer Ladies for thinner, as opposed to thicker, survivors.

On the other hand, one doesn’t need to be told to eat ice cream more than once, and I had a banana that needed to be used, so! Banana split it was.

And on that note — everybody have a good evening. I’ll check in tomorrow.

Thursday on the move

Woke up early — too early — after a not-very-good night’s sleep.  Honestly, it was more like I decided to give up pretending to sleep than anything like “waking up.”

Wrote 1,100ish words bringing the WIP to 34,530.  I’m getting very close to the point where we leave Sactizzy behind us, and I’m going to have to sit down and Plot, which likely means the word count will come way down, way fast.  Still, it’s kind of nice to have written a full third of a novel in eight weeks — no, wait.  Six weeks, taking ten days off by reason of backache.

Speaking of backaches, a kind friend ordered me a heated mattress pad, which was delivered today.  Now I’ll be able to keep my back reliably warm when it hurts.  And I’m pretty sure it’ll come in handy during the winter, too.

I had a haircut scheduled for the afternoon.  Why, you ask?  This is why:

While I was out, I donated used batteries to the jar at Holy Cannoli and stopped at the grocery store for milk and grapes.

Here’s the after-haircut picture:

And a picture of the WherethehellyouBEEN Committee, which had convened in my absence.  Or because of my absence:

It’s supposed to rain this evening, though not tomorrow, so I’m holding out hope that the nature cruise will come off tomorrow morning without a hitch, and that will be an Official Writer’s Day Off.  If the captain has better weather information than I do and the cruise is cancelled, then Saturday will be a Writer’s Day Off and I’ll go to the gem show in Belfast.

The glamor!

For now?  I’m going to have an early glass of wine and curl up with a book until it’s time to serve up Happy Hour.

 

Sleepy Wednesday

Earlier this same day: So, that’s 1,300 new words, for a total of +/-33,630 words.

Breaking now to rustle up something to eat — apparently breakfast was a little lighter than it should’ve been — and then to the sell copy for Kin Right, which I at least found my conceit last night. Also, I need to fill out the paperwork for Friday’s nature cruise, and perform Other Needed Household Chores.

The day is damp and dim and not really very pleasant. Tali and Rook assisted my efforts on behalf of the WIP, while Firefly napped on the cellar stairs. I don’t fit on the cellar stairs, but I gotta tell you, a nap is really tempting.

That’s all I’ve got, I fear.

How’s the weather where you are?
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Sell copy sent on. Heat pump filters removed, vacuumed, and re-installed, release form filled in and directions to the boat reviewed. I did have a brief nap in the bed, and Firefly was gracious enough to leave her step to join me. Duty to the cats accomplished.

Coming up on Coon Cat Happy Hour and so, also, my evening meal. I feel — I really do feel very strongly — that I’ll be hitting the bed early tonight.

Ah. A note from the Captain/Maine Guide who will be conducting Friday’s educational cruise. It may be that rain will require a postponement. Rain date is the following Friday afternoon. Definitive information to arrive tomorrow evening.

Well.

I hope everybody has a good evening. I’ll check in tomorrow.

Monday Update

Proof of Life. Writing this morning, movie this afternoon. Movie is Hadestown.


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So that’s 1,085ish new words for a WIP total of 31,220ish.

Someone asked the other day if Trade Lanes had “ever been written.” I’m writing it now.

Now to do my duty the cats, call for a haircut, catch-up the blogs, and see about a pre-movie snack.
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Came around the corner to find that Rookie has made an art installation.

Catching up Sunday

Sunday.

So I figured I was hale enough to do the shopping, which I was. I bought two different kinds of protein shake (so I can perform a taste-test), along with other needed supplies, along with Sanpelligrino Lime, and so-called ginger ale. Didn’t ginger ale used to Actually Have ginger in it, rather than “ginger flavoring”?

Though I was fit enough to get the shopping done, I am now, I suppose predictably, exhausted. Had some pudding after I got everything put away, and listened to a couple chapters of Salvage Right, which — writing a character with PTSD isn’t easy, but I think we did a credible job. Also? I do so love Seignur Veeoni.

In a couple, I’ll start the oven to heat lunch, and then I think I’ll concentrate on bookkeeping and mundane desk work, and correspondence.

The cats think I should take a nap, and they may be right, but, if that’s found to be the case, it will be after lunch, not instead of lunch.

How’s everybody doing?

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I see I forgot to update yesterday.  Herewith, the cold news from Saturday:

A break for PT homework and to throw a load of towels into the washer.

This morning, I have been in the comfy chair in my office, Sitting With The Big Ideas. I have Notes. I have an inclination toward More Notes, so I’ll head back to the comfy chair after I finish this note and collect a cookie as my reward for doing my homework.

I’m working with notes that go back to 2022, at least, trying to identify recurring themes. I wish to honor Steve’s vision for what were his character and story, far more than it was mine. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds.

I had early cat assistance, but just before I broke for homework, Tali and Rook decided that I was well in hand, and took themselves off to Steve’s office to recharge. I know they’re recharging because they’re curled up in the plentiful sunspots.

On the health front, I have this morning decided not to take naproxen, which is really not something you want to be taking all the time, even given anti-nausea meds. So far, I’m maintaining at a whisker over ignorable levels, so that’s Good. Naproxen does have a long half-life, so I’m guessing any increased discomfort will start showing up this evening.

Interestingly, for values thereof, while I can concentrate on the WIP, and am doing good, sharp work there, for anything else, it’s an extremely fuzzy day in the neighborhood. I hate feeling stupid, OTOH, pay copy is being written and/or plotted, so — onward.

Looking at next week — The 1:45 showing of Hadestown on Monday, needlework, and on Friday, which would have been Steve’s 76th birthday, a morning nature cruise on the Messalonskee, if it doesn’t rain. Maybe, if I can keep to current levels, I’ll actually be able to get my hair cut by a professional some day next week, and before I take a pair of kitchen shears to it.

How’s Saturday treating you?

Saturday’s editor:

Prince Siegfried and the Black Swan

Friday.

Watched the 2010 Swan Lake last night (aka “the Swan Lake for our times”), after I decided that the production I was offered–The Velveteen Rabbit– was taking too much of my limited store of patience. My state of mind might have come over to Swan Lake, which was … not riveting, but certainly watchable, and I did watch it. I did not at all like the man who danced Prince Siegfried, and found the Black Swan much more compelling than the milquetoast–ahem–White Swan. Still, it took my mind off my problems for a while, so that was a thing.

Had a bad night, despite the best effort of cats, and only this morning realized that I have an answer to the problem of wanting to put heat on my back during the night. I have two heated throws, one of which now joins the bed furnishings.

Got grumpy on an email list, did PT homework, ate breakfast.

Wrote +/-660 new words, bringing the WIP entire to 30,145ish words. I’m still subscribing to the Write What You Know then fill in the scenes that are left mode of writing, and this morning I did leave a space for a chapter that has to be there, but the guys in the cellar haven’t gotten me the deets yet, and went on to write a scene I didn’t know I needed, until I looked at what my fingers were typing.

The cats were Very Pleased that I decided to join them at work, and they are still in Steve’s office, taking in the air from the sliders. I’m increasingly glad that I had the French windows replaced with the Andersen sliders. Yes, they were heart-stoppingly expensive, but the entire household is made glad by their presence.

I need to do my duty to the cats, then find something to eat. After, I intend to find someplace comfortable to sit-or-lie-down and try to work out some of the WIP’s future bits. I’m really enjoying the daily writing momentum. I’d like to preserve it, if I can, and give the whole Descent into the Slough of Despond a miss this time.

It’s a good plan.

How’s your Friday shaping up?

Tuesday morning

I wrote new words. Eleven hundred new words, in fact, bringing the WIP entire to 27,888. So that’s a thing.

Yesterday’s visit to the walk-in clinic was both lowering and interesting. Interesting: The walk-in clinic Does Not Prescribe pain relief medication. They do prescribe muscle relaxants and anti-nausea medication.

The PA sent me to the hospital for an x-ray of my back, just to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently broken something since the last time my back was x-rayed. As I had not broken anything, I was given a prescription for muscle relaxants and anti-nausea medication.

Since one is strongly discouraged from taking T3 and muscle relaxants, I have broken into the (still in date) naproxen left over from last year (because now I have anti-nausea medication, in case naproxen turns ugly), and took the first dose this morning. The muscle relaxants are to be taken at bedtime, and I perhaps have seen a slight lessening of the pain — well. I was able to write new words today, and do all of the PT homework, instead of just the Good Parts, so, yes, muscle relaxants had an effect.

I have also unearthed a crazy little hand massager (a big plastic marble in a holder) that I’ve been running firmly over the hurtin’ bits, and also still with the lidocaine roll-on (yes, I know about lidocaine patches. Have you ever tried to put a goopy, floppy, patch on your own back? Sticks to itself. Sticks to your hands. Sticks to your clothes. To your back? Not so much. And that’s without mentioning the necessity to twist around with an aching, spasming back, trying to get the fool thing in place.)

The clinic’s diagnosis (this is the “lowering” part of the program) is bone spurs, aka “small anterior osteophytes” and “mild mid thoracic spine spondylosis,” which is age-related, degenerative arthritis, and therefore nothing to be done, save what I’ve been doing, and wait for the flare to ease up or I manage to increase my ability to ignore pain.

(Aortic atherosclerosis was also noted, as an aside. This is not New news, and aside from being separate from the reason I was at the clinic, I’m thinking it wasn’t mentioned verbally because the plaque level hasn’t reached the Magic Number yet.)

Onward.

Ellen Richmond is yesterday’s hero. She brought me to the clinic, the hospital, CVS, and picked up the prescriptions. Later in the day, Beth and Steve Symonds stopped by to replenish the cookie supply, which was much appreciated.

I now need to figure out something that looks like lunch, and whether or not I’m going to take a nap, after.

Rookie is clinging like a clingy coon kitten, which–he really is too big to curl up between my cheek and my shoulder, but he’s doing it anyway.

So, there’s my news.

What’s your news?

Home at last

In breaking news, the Perambulating Package has arrived!

Credit where due, the box was in perfect shape, despite having  traveled ten thousand extra miles, as were the contents.

Today has otherwise been a day of parts. I worked until I couldn’t push through anymore (bearing in mind that the goal is not to make myself sick, but to extend my useful hours), then took a break until the pain eased off, and went back to it..

I have finished reading/proofing the 114 pages of the WIP, ate a kind of wandering breakfast, and a better lunch, plus ice cream with blueberries on top.

I’ve also listened to quite a few chapters of Accepting the Lance, washed the dishes, and done my duty to the cats.

The plan going forward is to read until Coon Cat Happy Hour, have a hardboiled egg sandwich for the evening meal, and go to bed early-ish, hopefully waking up in fit case to write.

Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe.

I’ll check in tomorrow.

What if I’d been the one to say good-bye?

Aaaand. Back pain has returned. We. Are. NOT. Pleased. Currently working on trying to up the efficacy of my superpower by doing what needs to be done, and when there’s a spike, telling myself, “It’s only pain,” and keep on with whatever it is I’m doing. Let it be known that I’m not doing the wire act, and certainly not the trapeze.

The local post office gives me to understand that the Perambulating Package is on the route jeep and scheduled for delivery at my house today.

Yeah.  We’ve heard that before.

A question for the Tech Folk, Internet Domain Division. If someone has registered a domain through a wholesale service and “can make any changes to the domain” that they wish to make, does that not make them the owner of that domain, regardless of if they allow someone else to register the domain with a provider, post content and act in all ways as if that name belonged to them? That the person registering the domain can, in theory, and at any time, evict the person using that nameserver?

Spanish Aunts.

…it seems that standing up is the current correct position insofar as my back is concerned, so I’ll be bringing the pages I have left to read of the WIP to the standing desk for perusal.

I have Tali in position under the standing desk in my office, and Rook in his box on the edge of the big desk, where he can get the breeze from the open windows, it being a nice enough day, so far.

What’s happening with you, today?

Today’s blog post title brought to you by .38 Special, “If I’d been the one.”

Anything can happen day

Wednesday. Sunny. Temp 74F Humidity 74%. Windows are closed.

I? have ordered in breakfast on the theory that I will eat an omelet if all I have to do is open the damned box and get a fork out of the drawer. I’m flailing around for strategies to get myself interested in eating food — and I don’t at this point care if it’s healthy, particularly — and came to remember that I never had any strategies for that particular quirk in a stupid quirky nature. When I was living with Steve, he cooked 90% of the time, and I’d sit at the table to be sociable, even if I didn’t feel like eating, and would have a bit of this or that while we were talking. Yes, Steve was a genius. However, that solution is no longer operative, and I’m a bit at a loss. And before anyone panics — I’m not sick, my stomach doesn’t hurt. I just — don’t want to eat. The urgency is that I cannot allow this to fall into a habit.

Argh.

Moving on to more amusing topics: The perambulating package is now in! South Portland. USPS promises delivery, but we’ve heard that song before.

We had a bunch of thunder and some lightning, but if there were violent thunderstorms in Maine last night, they were someplace else. While I don’t regret the violence — or the possible tornadoes — I do regret the thunderstorm drama.

Today’s Plan is to read the 100+ pages of the WIP, which will not only hopefully hang together as a tale, but provide sufficient hooks to hang the rest of the story on.

Writer math.

break to eat breakfast Which. Was. Good. Remember this, Self? Food tastes good. Sheesh.

A friend posted a meme yesterday about “When I was growing up, we were thrown out onto the street, helmetless, with our bike after breakfast and told to come home before dark.” Which encouraged some conversation including, “What is this “helmet” you speak of?” And that got me to thinking about How Things Change.

For instance. In my life — which, we do have to factor in the determination that we were writers above all else, which did have an enormous bearing on finances — I think that people who have two homes, or a camp, are well-off. The course of my life being such that we could barely afford one house, and were always skating the edge between solvent and me presenting Steve with a fanned hand of bills and saying, “Pick a bill. Pick any bill. The bill that you pick is the bill we won’t be paying this month.”

So, that. And then I think back to — my parents. Who had land in the mountains of Pennsylvania that they intended to build a camp on. They never did because they’d gotten taken in the matter of boundary lines and water, but that aside — they owned property other than their primary residence. My father was a spotwelder at the General Motors factory in Sparrow’s Point, Maryland. My mother was a stay-at-home mom.

Going back a generation, and the reason I’m so “surprisingly” at ease on the water, my father’s parents had a camp on Middle River in Maryland to which they retired every summer. They also had a mini-farm at what was then the edge of the town of Parkville, Maryland. My grandfather was a tailor for a large tailoring house (I often remember the name, but not this morning) in the city. My grandmother was a stay-at-home mom.

Tailor and spotwelder — these are not positions associated with great amounts of wealth. And yet, they were able to buy “extra” properties.

Well. The past is a different country.

Time to go to work.

What was your childhood summer like?