107 posts tagged “writing”
Here are my yay things today:
- I got the edits on my book a couple of days ago, apprehensively opened up the electronic copy of the manuscript last night to have a look, and was quite relieved. There are hardly any changes to make. And doing it actually makes me feel like an author!
- The weather is finally warming up. It's been a cool, gray, rainy week up till now.
- That flight BA said she was going on yesterday? Was to Toronto. So we're meeting up for dinner before she goes back tonight. W00t!
- I'm likely going kitten-catching this weekend. Due to it being very much kitten season all over the city, my rescue group is out of foster space, so I don't know where these two are going to end up, but they're the right age to catch and socialize (and we'll be getting the mom spayed), but if this is the opportunity to get them off the street, I'm there.
Now that TK is safely on the road to recovery, we can turn our minds to more frivolous things again.
Today was a dedicated writing day (once I got home from my morning yoga class), and was diligent at it, because I'm going to get edits on the novel that's being published soon, so until those come, I figured I should blitz away on the current novel I'm working on. I spent a good deal of time up on the penthouse level patio, only coming back down when I needed to recharge my battery, and took a break for about an hour to go see a photo exhibit nearby that one of my yoga classmates had photos in. (After all, if I want people to come to a book launch for me, I should show support for their talents, too, and the photos were really quite excellent.)
And it was a reasonably good writing day in that there were no lengthy stretches where I couldn't think of what to write, and I even came up with some funnish sentences. Since I didn't remember to post an FSotD last weekend after writing (though I did pick one out from that session), I'm posting it now, too:
Naomi pinned him with the kind of look that, had David had been a bug (and her expression pretty much suggested he was), it would have speared him in flight, dunked him in formaldehyde, and impaled him to a board under glass before he could stop flapping.
She spoke with more forced airiness than her heating system at home.
“That’s right, just a regular work day around here,” Naomi said in a peanut brittle voice—too sweet, rather nutty and ready to crack
I don't think that middle sentence is quite right yet. It's about a word off. Suggestions?
It's nearly 9 p.m. here and I've only come down from the patio again to make a quick dinner. I feel like I've earned a break (I have Superbad taped and two library books I'm very close to finishing), but I'm also thinking, "Well, this has been going pretty well all day, why stop now?" I hate these decision points.
yoga class (Saturday) done
- get groceries (Saturday) done
- clean house (vacuum, tidy, clean bathroom, clean kitchen) done
- make cork board with real corks (I've been collecting them for over two years, which isn't as easy as it sounds, since I don't drink)
- try a new recipe: the panko-coated cheese balls (finally) done
- make rabbit ravioli - started (I roasted the meat)
- do all houseold filing (several months' worth) done
- sort tax stuff and bring to accountant (will drop off Monday -- as good as done
- finish changing drawer knobs on triple dresser (half done - it's harder than it sounds - the threading in the back of the knobs wasn't done properly and it's hard to get the screws in)
- change sheets done
- find Day of the Dead fabric online for a bedspread (YGRS's kitchen curtain material inspired me)
- find source of cat pee smell in front closet & neutralize!
- eye appt. (Wednesday) done
- mount various mementos in shadowbox (half ALL done)
- hair appointment (Friday) and spend afternoon with sister
- meet up with author friend I only see every six months (if that) also Wednesday - momentarily, I'm counting as done
- trap momcat and kittens at an artist acquaintance's place (maybe) I'm off the hook so far since she hasn't got back to me.
- WRITE! - been doing some but just realized I have to re-think the whole ending -- sigh
So most of the hard chore stuff is done (especially productive this morning after a roofing crew across the laneway started ripping shingles off a row of garages nice and early). Now it's the crafty, cooking, socializing more fun stuff, And writing. Which is going to be a chore because I don't know how to re-think this ending, I've been mired in its minutiae for so long.
That Jane—cagier than a boarding kennel.
So I did a little more writing this afternoon and came up with this FSotD:
Walton’s crisis of confidence was pants-crappingly total.
Here's the little mystery patio on the penthouse level of my building. And part of the view from it (10 floors up).
I thought it would be bigger. I took this standing against one wall. That's my knapsack on the table, and my teeny laptop on the chair in the shade.
Here's the view straight south. That's Lake Ontario in the background, and the white domes in the middle distance are the tennis club where I go for Saturday yoga.
After writing, I went down to feed the boxcar cats, so that I don't have to go before work tomorrow morning. It's been a lovely day here and as I approached, I could see four of the cats out sunning themselves on the stairs of one of the boxcars, so I stopped and got a photo.
It was only after I downloaded the photos at home that I realized you can actually see FIVE cats in the photos. (I hadn't noticed the Blanca underneath in the shade when I was taking it.)
Now, having had dinner (and made more red velvet cupcakes -- normal style, not roses -- while it was cooking), I'm loafing for the rest of the evening.
I'm more productive on the writing front today. I buckled down at 10 a.m., and ignored Vox and the internet until I deserved a reward for accomplishing something. So, only looked in a few times in the morning.
I write my novels out of sequence, and though I have 3/4 of it written, some chunks of it haven't been placed in their rightful spots in the manuscript yet. So this is what I started with today -- and have so far got a lot of floating scenes placed. Here's one of the funnest sentences I found in the scenes I was pasting in:
The hamsters on the wheel in Naomi's brain lost their footing again with an audible squeak that came out of Naomi's mouth.
After a couple of hours of that it was time to take Tumbleweed to the vet. It's a nice day, so I walked him up (35-minute walk). Now I'm back, and about to go see the penthouse-level patio in my building, with laptop under my arm, in case there's a good place to sit. I had no idea there was such a patio here, and I've lived here for four years. There was a notice about it now being open, so maybe it's the first time they've made a patio space available.
And once I'm up there, I shall get to work on a new scene, now that I've got some momentum going.
Update for the Friends of Tumbleweed, I'm glad to report the vet says his mouth looks "fantastic" and his weight is up.
Another Saturday blown to hell. I sat in front of the computer for hours and got virtually nothing written. It wasn't writers, block, exactly. It wasn't the internet distraction, entirely. I don't know what my problem is, all I know is this is the umpteenth Saturday afternoon that I crapped out after sitting down to write.
Maybe it's in my pattern. I get up at least an hour later on weekends. I'm an insomniac and weekends are the only time I get nearly enough sleep. I have yoga Saturday mornings at 11. I usually have enough time to read the Saturday paper before I go. When I'm done yoga, I usually get my groceries right after, because I'm halfway there. So I'm not home till one, groceries get put away, some lunch is had, and I have a bath with Epsom salts which helps me not have aches the next day from the muscles I just spent an hour stretching that don't get stretched all the rest of the week. So I'm not really sitting down to write till 2 or a bit later. Maybe that's just too late, or I've done too many other "productive" things all in a row, that I feel like I need some downtime once I get to that point.
Maybe I have to write off (no pun intended) writing on Saturdays and make Sunday my only writing day, and leave all of Saturday for other life chores. But since the weekend is the only time I have much time to write, writing only on Sunday feels like leaving one's homework till the last minure. But I sure as hell hate to sit around trying/pretending to write on Saturday, and spending hours neither accomplishing it, nor getting to any of the chores, either. But there will still be things that come up on Sundays, too -- like tomorrow's vet appointment for Tumbleweed smack in the middle of the day.
It feels like falling off a diet week after week, with the attendant sense of constant disappointing myself. With a diet, there's always tomorrow to start fresh and start eating carrots for snacks instead of chips. As I head for bed tonight, I have this inward vow that tomorrow, I won't even read the Sunday paper over breakfast -- I'll be virtuous and start writing while still in my jammies and get several hours in before leaving the house at 12:30 with cat.
I'm sure you'll hear how that goes.
I've been getting some writing done here at my friends' cottage this weekend (though not huge amounts -- I'm picking my way through the climactic last act and knitting existing bits together), and have a few FSotDs for you. In no particular order:
Shooting from the hip in, let’s face it, unfamiliar Arab robes put on just to look scary to a narrow-minded white guy, fucked big-time with all those rapid reflexes Zane had honed in training.
It could have been performance art, so stunned and uncomprehending was the silence that followed, above and below.
Somehow, having the only weapon he’d been worried about in his possession still didn’t dial Zane down off of Threat Level Apeshit.
The internet connection isn't great here, so I'll wait till I get home tomorrow to upload a great oriole photo and video of me feeding a chipmunk out of my fingers.
It's a long weekend here in Canada, and I took this afternoon off to add to it. I'm catching the train to Belleville later this afternoon t go and join my friends D & R at their cottage for the long weekend. Real downtime!
This is the view from their back deck, where I sit and watch bunnies and birdies and chipmunks and rest my urban eyes on refreshing fractal images instead of rectilinear ones for a few days.
It may look grayer and damper than this, since it's not predicted to be a sunny weekend, but it's still time away, with D feeding me fine stuff (she's chef-trained) and both of them thinking I'm a great guest because I don't expect them to entertain me.
Speaking of decks, my kid sister provided me with these at the Mother's Day get-together.
Yes, the next seven books in the seafaring Aubrey/Maturin series, of which I've already plowed through one and a half since Sunday. I'm tempted to bring several and do nothing but read all weekend, but I'm also mindful of the great expanse of writing time the cottage offers, so I'll be working on the new novel, too. And rewarding myself with virtual turns upon the quarterdeck with Jack and Stephen.
We have all the conveniences up there except internet, so I won't see you peeps on Vox till sometime Monday. Take care!
This is rom the edits I was making today on the novel that's coming out in the fall, not the usual one I've been working on. But I figure, hey, I spent time writing, I still get to post an FSotD:
“It’s kind of an urban legend thing. You can’t Mapquest an urban legend.”
That is all. I'm off to see Iron Man.
