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With coffee and writing implements at hand, I can determine the shape of today. |
| I tend to write in the morning. After morning coffee and writing comes whatever the day holds...work, more writing, family time, reading, maybe even some gaming. It just depends...but writing first, always. And once I start writing, I get an idea not only of what I'm writing about, but how the rest of my day will go. Hence, the shape of today. |
| It's funny, how things work out. On Sunday a guildmate who also happens to be an aspiring writer returned to GW2, and we chatted a bit and exchanged email addresses. He's someone I've always found to be quite pleasant, so I was happy to see him come back. I asked him to keep me updated on his work and his progress, so naturally he asked the same of me. For some reason this jogged my memory of another long project I'd started once, so I did a bit of digging in the ol' filing cabinet...and sure enough, I found the binder for that showing that I'd done quite a bit more work on that than I remembered...and I realized I can not only resurrect it, but its similar theme to my "main" long project means I can tie them together with a fleshed-out mythology. Grandiose? Possibly. Fun? You bet! So when I wasn't attending to household matters yesterday, I was writing. And thinking. This will take a lot of work and time, but if it works out it will be my own magnum opus, which every writer wants to have. Plus, it's the type of work I always wanted to see...and one that might just sell. I've spent a lot of time in imagined worlds. It's time I did some worldbuilding of my own. |
| Facebook is full of groups for every conceivable interest, so naturally when the writing desire stirred in me I joined a group that looked good to me. Long story short...it didn't work out. For some reason political posts keep making it onto the group wall (it's a heavily populated group and the mods and admins can only do so much, I expect). And every time this happens...toxicity happens. Squabbling, name-calling, everything that is a natural result of our toxic political climate. One reason I'm rebooting my writing is to both escape this toxicity, and to provide myself and any readers with the tools to remove its taint from our minds. So after finding two more groups that appear to have stricter guidelines on this matter, I quietly left. So, on to happier matters. After joining a group devoted especially to writing genre fiction, I remembered the fantasy novel I'd started to outline years ago and dug out the binder. I found, to my delight, that the world and its backstory are far better developed than I recalled. There's some work to be done (among other things, I'm debating whether or not to keep the sentient nonhuman races I'd created to share the world with humans), but I can start on it immediately. It may or may not be a YA-level novel...I'll have to look into that. I can probably retool it for either adult or YA audiences. What better project for a rainy, chilly November Sunday? |
| A wet period this week has given way to the sort of raw, damp weather one associates with November...meals from the slow cooker, night falling by 6 PM (ugh, I dread the commute home from work this evening!), and much time spent reading and writing. See? Everything has its perks if one cares to look hard enough. Perched on my nightstand at the moment are a couple of books devoted to the writing craft...On Writing Science Fiction by Messrs. Scithers, Schweitzer, and Ford. It's been on my "to be read" shelf forever, high time I perused it. I also ran across Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life edited by Monte Schulz. This is a collection of classic "Peanuts" strips chronicling Snoopy's literary adventures from atop his doghouse. I loved Snoopy as a child and am delighted to revisit these old strips as I join him in the struggle to create. Some would-be critics dismiss the advice by the many contributors to the book (people like Danielle Steel and Fannie Flagg) as "lame and obvious". However, I'm ready to listen to anybody give a few pointers. Every little bit helps, as the old lady said when she peed in the sea. Now it's time to head to work and discover another dozen or so books I ought to be reading... |
| So, after a weekend of unexpected encounters of the automotive kind and the time change which has thrown off my rhythm, another workweek has commenced. And something else, too...I find myself wanting to tackle the clutter here in the house. Living in a home for nearly thirty years means you accumulate a lot of stuff, not all of it necessary. Books are easy enough; I can cart those off to the library by the boxful when we need "freebies" (few of mine would pass the "sellable" test, they're old). But I want to take my desk and filing cabinet back, get the kitchen in some kind of sane order, and not have to shift stuff in the living room every time I want to sit down. Something's gotta be done. Ergo, I'm going to have a look at The life-changing Magic of Tidying Up : the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. by Marie Kondo. I can recall a patron or two talking about this book and how remarkably they were able to improve things at home by adopting its tenets. It might make for an interesting read while I wait for The Day of the Triffids to get here, at any rate (it's being sent from a library in Milledgeville). I doubt it's going to have a stunning impact on this household, but at the very least I might be able to take away some pointers to chip away at the clutter here. The "housecleaning" I do these days is mostly tidying up the bits that aren't cluttered yet, and that needs to change. It's not healthy. So, time to shake off the rainy day funk and get busy. I have a meal to put into the slow cooker before I head off to work... |
| I just realized, what with the hustle and bustle of this week, that I missed the deadline for entering NaNoWriMo. Dang it. Well, it's still National Novel Writing Month, regardless. I'm not in the official competition, but I can still celebrate by supporting those who are and by working on my own stuff. What matters is that we get the word out! Have I got a novel in me? Why, yes! Even went so far as to yank out the old binder I've been keeping my notes for it in all these years, so I guess my subconscious knew all along that it wasn't a completely dead project. What better way to celebrate this month than to get busy with it? |
| Maybe it's all the "spooky", Halloween-centric stuff I'm seeing and hearing, and maybe it's just that I need to get this out there. I've got a secret to share... ...I've never been able to finish Half-Life 2, because the "zombie" noises absolutely freak me out. Crazy, right? In my time as a gamer I've been roared at by Orcs, by dragons, by the very lords of Hell themselves. I've been verbally abused by sassy rogue AI's, and most recently I was threatened by a deposed war god. I should be able to handle anything. But somehow, my nerves simply tie themselves in knots even if I go to YouTube and listen to a video of the HL2 zombies in an attempt to steel myself. I'll boot the game up and think, "Okay, that's just some dev moaning into a mic, get over it." And then I decide quickly to do something else. There's some deep part of my psyche that just can't stand that sound. I know I could kill the game sounds and continue, but on general principles I want to get over this. Perhaps I should view this struggle as a metaphor for a real struggle in my life. There's a number of things in real life I despise dealing with; maybe I'll eventually talk myself into dealing with both the imaginary road block and the real ones. Household clutter, at least, does not moan horribly at me. Yet. Happy Halloween! |
| Well, the first real temps of fall have arrived. This morning there is ice on my windshield, and I'm pondering throwing a quilt and a heavier coat into the wash this weekend. While my joints don't appreciate the arrival of cold weather, the forced extra time spent indoors has its perks...it allows me time to work on reading and writing, which I never feel I do enough of. Multiple writing projects are calling to me...some started, some not. I can probably start with the planned announcement for guild activities for this weekend, then move on to one of the "serious" projects once the juices are flowing properly. I can probably get a decent amount done in the little over an hour I have before work, if I wrap up and get busy... |
| So. After flailing around for a few days, I think I've finally hit on something more "serious" to write here, and have others review. If it works out right it will be a continuing series that will keep folks entertained. As always, time is the big factor. But if it grows as I hope it will, making time will be no problem. Now to sketch out the bare bones of my idea... |
| There are a lot of things I'm used to seeing here in the mountains during the fall. The leaves putting on their spectacular show, the people who come to admire it, pumpkins all over the place, and stores trying to cram early Christmas merchandise alongside the Halloween stuff. This fall brings a new sight: chipmunks. Of course, they've been here all along. What's notable is that I'm seeing them competing with the squirrels to play "chicken" in traffic. Had it happen to me at least three times this week. They're such tiny creatures that one doesn't even see them until one is nearly on top of them. Cute as can be, too. I just with they'd stay out of the road. There are people driving in this area who wouldn't notice an elephant in the road, much less a little chipmunk. Why so many, though? Have we had a chipmunk population explosion? Or have they been observing the squirrels' suicidal behavior and decided they want to try it, too? Is there a story in here? I bet there is! Maybe chipmunks are aliens... |
| I can hear them as I type: the fun seekers. It's an irony when one resides in a scenic rural community; on the one hand you have the peace and quiet of country living (or so people imagine), and on the other hand if you have any kind of tourist attractions you can expect to be overrun by tourists on a regular basis. When I first moved here back in '88, you could literally walk down the middle of the highway even during the day without fear. Now simply approaching the mailbox is an act of courage, and there are days when it's nearly impossible to pull into the road to get to work. The annual Big Fall Festival is this weekend; the library won't even be open because none of us will be able to get to it. The plan is to get some supplies in tomorrow morning and avoid town for the rest of the weekend. Of course, I've fallen into avoiding town as much as possible all the time. People are pouring into the region much faster than its infrastructure can handle, and it's starting to show. We see entire families coming into the library for cards and while that's good for us, it's a little nerve wracking because these families inevitably arrive during busy times--and our staff is small. New residents are often shocked that the only grocery shopping opportunities in the immediate area are one badly managed grocery store and the local Walmart. They bring with them their noise, their pollution, their poor manners, and their big ideas on how things can be improved around here. It tends to involve paving something. And the traffic never, ever stops anymore. Well, all I have to do is get through the workday today and tomorrow morning's grocery trip. Then I'll hibernate while these good people fall over each other as they get away from it all... |
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