Too Much Work

I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Masks is eating my brain and I don't want it to stop until every last cell is gobbled. I've got to get the water sealing problem fixed on the sliding door while the weather holds--when I have no idea because it'll be almost dark when I get home and I can't do it now because it needs to be cleaned up under there first. I have to work on House of Goats, I have to get two book covers done, and I haven't touched my Wyrd Goat website (I have the domain but I'm still working on the bones of the actual content.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I wish I could call in sick but I'm too ethical. Okay, that's totally untrue. The wishing part is untrue, not the ethical part, because wishing for it would be wishing that I was unethical, and I don't. Argh, I'm confusing myself! Help meeeeeeeee

There's only one cure. Soup for lunch. Soup for lunch makes it all better. I'll go pack some into my snapware container that I use for hot lunches and just focus on day job work.

Maybe I'll take my laptop with me to work and get something, anything done during my lunch hour. Yeah ....

What do you do to cope when you have too much to do and not enough time?

Waste Not, Live Larger

It's the start of another week.  I've had a lot more energy lately, so I'm going to take advantage and try to finish up a bunch of projects.

Do unfinished projects keep anyone else out there from writing at full speed?  I know I write more slowly when my dishes aren't done, and the house looks like a clutter monkey went on a rampage, and the garden is disappearing in the weeds.  But it could be the other way--that I'm falling behind on all these things because I'm not managing my time well.  Writing ends up being just another victim to my snail's pace.

On the other hand, I think there's a danger for a lot of people to over-schedule to the point that it's impossible to get everything done.  I've done that lots.  Sometimes the only remedy is to buckle down and get out from under your commitments, but it's also important to simultaneously say no to additional commitments until I get where I need to be at whatever energy level I'm working at.  People with disabilities or chronic illnesses are probably nodding their heads emphatically, because they know they can only do so much in a day, and on some days just getting up, getting dressed, sitting for a while, then getting undressed and back into bed is all they can really do.  Some can manage even less.  BTW if you haven't read about the Spoon Theory it's definitely worth a look.

The lesson we can all learn from that is to really look hard at our time as a whole, not just where we think we're wasting time.  Professional writers look at how many words they can write in an hour, and how many hours they can work before they start to bleed out of their eyes or before their heads explode.  Folks responsible for cleaning their own living spaces have a good idea how long it takes them to do a load of dishes, or run their laundry for the week (or the day--around here it's a daily chore.)  If I've been struggling for a while, I try to make a mental tally, but it might be more useful to do an actual physical one--making an actual list that includes all the little stuff, and assigning time to it.  It may be that a list like that may reveal that a particular work load is much too heavy when compared against our very human limitations.

Or it may reveal that I've actually been slacking off, playing too many rounds of Snood or surfing the internets for hours rather than the perceived minutes I think I'm surfing.  If I really do need a break, I'd prefer to make that choice and choose something (which may still be Snood or web surfing) than to just do something out of habit.

And that's what it boils down to:  real choices.  Choosing what you do with my life is a huge gift.  I don't want to waste that gift.  When you have a limited amount that you can do in a day, you don't have many options.  When you have a million options, it's easy to not put very much thought into it, which is a shame.  Because when the sky is the limit, the choices we make can lead us to accomplish amazing things.  

Reading like there's no tomorrow

I'm turning into a reading machine.  I take the reading I do for a certain award pretty seriously, and put effort into that, but now that I also have reading to do for a writing course, and I have a bunch of research reading to do, I'm under a lot of reading pressure.  

This is a good thing.

When I'm under pressure I accomplish a ton more than I otherwise would.  Yes, I lose sleep and I don't blog as much and I don't write as much, but all that effort poured into the goals helps.  The writing time I have is more precious, therefore I tend to focus more.  I tend to multi-task more.  Laundry?  On a busy day it goes in first thing in the morning.  Breakfast?  I can eat that at the dining table and read.  Bath?  I can read in the bathtub.  Need to go out on an errand?  I can go work out on the same trip and get some exercise in so that my metabolism peps up and I can work faster.

I can't be like this all the time, but for now it's working.  Eventually I'll return to my steady plod and relax a bit, at least until the next time-pressure event arrives.  Those show up on a regular basis.  Life is anything but dull.  As far as getting anything specific done (like artwork for a book cover, ahem) I will get it done ... in my so-called copious spare time.

I knew you were going to say that (30060)

The echoes of insomnia are still bouncing around inside me.  Fortunately the kids have a Veteran's Day holiday, so I can sleep in.  I had reasonable rest last night, but it started late.  It ended up tanking my whole day, writing-wise, as I ended up taking a nap, then rushed off to work out (yay writer's constitutional!) grocery shop, and took care of some chores including vacuuming out the electric wall heaters (if you have them, do this please and don't forget to shut off the power to them!) downstairs, vacuuming the stairs, sweeping (yay!) the downstairs and transplanting a plant.  

I'm too punchy to write effectively at this point, but guess what!  I'm going to write at least a hundred words.  Maybe one hundred will turn to a thousand, and maybe I'll end up pushing past that thousand to my daily goal of 3000 words.  The prose will probably be rough, silly and repetitive, but it'll be on the page.  I'm 100% in agreement with Pullman in his emailed pep-talk to Nanoers--better teh suck words than zero words.

Soon I have to go to sleep.  I know, I know.  Break the cycle by getting up early, and don't take a nap.  Hopefully I'll be able to get back on the sleep track by Wednesday.

Opportunity

I've been bumming around the garden and keyboard trying to work out a time/rhythm for working out.  Almost everyone has this struggle.  What's worse for me is that I used to run on a regular basis, and at one point in my life I was working out 5 days a week between martial arts, yoga, weight lifting and other pursuits.  (Boy, that was a long time ago now.)  I know I can do it.  What's more, I know I enjoyed it.  What's keeping my butt in the chair?

The ten thousand little excuses.  I should be writing.  I should do housework.  I don't want to drive over to the 24 Hour Fitness without multitasking because of the gas.  Oh look, I'm in the area but I forgot to bring workout clothes (or a towel, or the right shoes.)  I'll do it later tonight.  I'm tired I'll do it in the morning.  Okay, I'm here on the floor watching a DVD but all I really want to do is stretching and a few situps and oh look, there's that sudoku I was working on.

It's insane.  I want off the roller coaster and back into a routine.  It won't take me long to get there and stay there, but I know me.  I do best with outside pressure.  Whether it's working out steadily with a friend (if I don't go my friend won't go and I can't be part of the problem--must be part of the solution!) or taking classes for money or the gym membership (which is languishing but apparently not enough to make me get out there more than once a month) or whatever I do better with external structure.  I think I've found something, and I'd like folks to spread the word because this could be a lot of fun.  And work.  And fun.  And work.  If Steve is serious about 101 volunteers to beta this then even if you read this post in a couple of days chances are pretty good that you'll make it in.  

If you're on serious meds or have health problems do consult your doctor.  Most of the program should help except the intermittent fasting in combination with certain medications or health problems.  I think folks should still be able to do IF in most cases even if they're on heavy medications but personally I would modify it in some way so that you're getting something in your stomach, even if it's just all veggies for the 'fasting' day, so that your blood sugar or meds in an empty stomach don't damage you or cause you excessive pain.  

One thing I really love about IF is that when I know I'm not going to be eating all day I make with the busy work like crazy.  I write more, I garden more, I clean more house, I get out of the house to do stuff, etc.  I also drink lots more water.  I let myself get dehydrated yesterday so the extra water today will be grand.  Yet another thing I really love about IF is that when I'm disciplined about my food, that bleeds over into discipline in other areas.  And when I do eat, I crave the good stuff.  Fresh or lightly cooked veggies.  Home-cooked meat.  Salads.  Cheeses.  The pre-processed, pre-seasoned, deep fried or empty calorie junk just doesn't do it for me when I'm on IF.

Anyway, I'd be very happy if folks joined me or spread the word.  I'm really looking forward to this and I can't wait to start.  Literally can't wait.  I decided to fast today.  Interestingly enough, I decided to fast today before I read the post.  Coincidence?  Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.  I'm comfortable with synchronicity in the universe.

Making Time

This is the first Tuesday I've missed Fireside writing in a long while.  Well, I guess just a month.  Or maybe three weeks.  More than two weeks straight, anywho. 

And what am I doing?

Straightening out some silly problem our medical insurance is having with keeping track of paperwork.  Dental is a done deal.  Medical?  I dunno.  They dunno.  No one knows who knows.

And, of course, I'm blogging here.  Ah yes, the deadly distractions from writing.  There's only one thing for it.  Finish up my faxing, finish writing this blog entry, and go forth and write.  It's just that easy, and just that hard to work for an opportunity to write.  If I waited for a quiet moment to settle in and type a few words, I'd have zip, zero, nada done.  

Have a good night, everyone.  See ya in the morrow!

Flash! AaAah!

Don't forget to check the current issue of Flash Fiction Online!

I've been thinking a lot about flash fiction.  It's still coming to me mostly by accident the same way that finding a penny in the parking lot happens if you look around long enough.  I told a good friend of mine today that I can come up with several novel ideas in a single bath, enough for 10,000 years of writing within a lifetime, but it takes days of racking my brains before I come up with even one possibility for a flash.  Take a shower, she suggested.  She knows about me and water and ideas.  But then the water would get cold, I whined.  So take a quick shower and come up with the idea before you're done, she replied.

I'll try a prompt tomorrow.  In the meantime I've got a new short story close to done and some stuff to critique and more stuff to read.  Maybe later this week I'll have time to work on one of my novels.  Sheesh.  I knew I'd be able to focus more on writing once I quit my day job, but I didn't expect all my projects and plans to pig pile on me as a result. 

What I'm reading:  Lace and Blade, edited by Deborah Ross

Quality:  Very high

My quality ratings:  Struggling, Emerging, Average, High, Very High

My brain is full

Normally I post something pagan-ish around the solstices and equinoxes.  Aside from a late night feast and some indulgence for the kids, we didn't do much religious observance on the longest day of the year.  I often get up with the dawn during the solstice, but I didn't set my alarm.

I could theorize, but it boils down to my brain is full.  I've got too much to do in too little time.  Oh well.  Life's always been busy.  As long as I keep breathing, the family and animals stay healthy, and the house isn't falling down around our ears I guess it's okay.  I feel a little weird in my summer dress stinking of sweat from stress and muggy weather, but weird is okay too.  Dakota sighs, content to lay on the cool tile in my office.  The cats demand attention and purr like mad when they get it.  The kids laugh while watching a silly movie, and I smile in answer.  

In writing projects, I'm juggling two novels and a short short.  That's two editing projects and one naked writing.  I really need to send out another agent query for Masks too.  Habits are formed through repetition.  The habit I need to form is the submitting habit, and I've definitely fallen down on that in the past few weeks.  Yeah, yeah, blame the man of the house, but honestly I have hours, daily, to myself now and that excuse doesn't hold up.  

The sad lot of the writer is the same sad lot of a self-employed anyone--by being able to schedule your own hours, every moment can be a potential work or play.  Play can make you feel guilty for not working, and work can seem endless and without sane limits.  When my focus is on I don't feel the stress from self-scheduling.  Right now I'm very unfocused and it's bothering me.  Bother bother bother.  Fortunately I have nice escapes in all directions.  When the writing feels too heavy I try art to get away from the pressure.  It's work, and yet play.  Same with gardening.  Same with gardening as work--the overwhelming sense of endless mowing--I can escape it into writing as work/play or art.  It's still not easy.  But when my brain is full, it helps.  A lot.

The Fire Swamp

I've been swamped, not by just any swampety swamp either, but by a fire swamp.  Luckily, there's a popping sound right before the flare so I'm able to get out of the way.

But Kami, what about the ROUS's?

For those of you unfamiliar with The Princess Bride, what I'm saying is that I'm navigating a well-rumored but previously (to me) unknown landscape.  My DH is going to a hot, sandy place for a long stretch and I'm still working part time until the middle of the month (which is rapidly approaching, both a thank goodness and an eek.)  We're trying to get paperwork done, to go on friend visiting rounds, etc. around two work schedules before he leaves.  

Laundry?  What laundry?  Dishes?  I think they're just a myth.  Writing?  Ah yes, the fond days of daily writing, I remember those!  

I hear tell of a thing called vacuuming that cleans carpet.  

Really?  Tell me more of this thing you call vacuuming!

If it weren't for the kids I'd be irretrievably sunk in lightning sand by now.  I hope they still remember what I look like.  Boy, there's nothing like mom guilt when, while getting ready for school, your son is looking into a glass of dry cereal, his expression sunken by the realization that there's no milk.  

So those are my lame excuses for not reaching the pirate ship Revenge today.  I've got a load of work clothes running and an itinerary prior to going to work that looks like a full day's worth of out-of-house chores.  What doesn't get done today I'll leave for tomorrow, provided I don't get chained up in the Pit of Despair.  Thankfully I don't have to do all this alone.  My Wesley will come for me, and we'll brave the Fire Swamp together.

To Short or not to Short, that's the Question

Of the four stories I've been focusing on, all four are out knocking on doors.  Makes me feel good, but also it reveals my shortcomings as a writer.  Now I've got quite a few short stories, but many of them are old.  I've grown as a writer since I've penned them.  One of the more promising older ones I wrote way back in 2002, and rewrote in 2005.  That's a long time to spend on a short story, even if most of that time was having it sit in a deep freezer.  I want to write more new stuff, but ...

I'm primarily a novelist.  My strength is in novel length.  When stories bud in my brain they're peonies, chrysanthemums, hydrangeas and thistles rather than hibiscus, clematis, jasmine and tulip blossoms.  I'm pleased as punch when I get a daffodil, blueberry or an orchid opening up in my brain, but they don't grow as well.  

That's no excuse, though.  Over time I hope to develop my short story growing skills, and the only way to do that is to write them.  They're a great art form.  Besides, every novelist knows that the skills you employ to write a short story will only help you in a novel length story.  Twists, vibrancy, characterization, plot, theme--all that stuff and more needs to perform at peak efficiency in a short length.  

It's a lot less painful and very educational to write a hundred short stories.  If you do, it doesn't automatically mean you'll become a great novelist.  Not everything learned in writing translates from one length to another or one form to another, as we've seen with tv shows that have big screen 'episodes' made, big screen movies that are turned into tv series, shorts that are expanded into novels but never have that novel feel, novels that are, in essence, a series of related short stories, shorts that should have been novels, etc.  But good storytelling is universal.  I don't think learning to write in short lengths better will harm my novel skills, and I think there's a whole lot to be gained.  Now I just have to set my priorities, so that each time I sit down at the computer, I don't waste a bunch of time thinking about what I should be doing.

Gee, just like right now ...

Don't Want to Stop

Yum, I love the sunshine.  Yay!  I've been gardening like a madwoman.  It's one of those things where everything hurts, especially my back and my legs from trying to support my back and my hands which are no longer accustomed to pulling blackberries.  Yanking blackberries is hard, nasty work, but rewarding.  So why the rush?  Because it's time to put out some of the seed I have set aside for broadcast and I have to work tomorrow.  I have no expectation that the weather will be nice on Saturday (or ever again until June) so I'd like to get it all done now.

All is strong word.  Let's say a lot.  I'd like to get a lot now, and get the crimson clover and wildflower seeds sprinkled out there in sufficient quantities that the birds can go to town and there will still be plenty left over to sprout.  Out there, at least the part I want to seed, happens to be covered in blackberries.  So there we are.  

In the meantime, my greenhouse is set up and the seedlings have been transferred to a location where they can have sunlight in sufficient doses to keep them from getting even more straggly.  I've filled about half my hanging baskets and set them in there too, and some pots with calla lily starts (the red/orange kind) and started my tomatoes better-late-than-never.  It got cold last night, but the greenhouse kept everyone safe and warm.  Looks like it's going to be a great growing season this year.

But only if I can get enough blackberries pulled before the rains come and stay until June, like they almost always do.  I guess all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and enjoy what I've got going so far.  Not too many years ago it rained solid from February through the first week of June and nothing got planted--nothing--before June.  That was a sad kitty year for the kitty gardener.  I'll count my blessings.  But first I've got to go pull some more blackberries.

Here are some of the plants waiting for warm weather, sunshine, frost-free nights and plenty of blackberry-free zones to grow in.

I got another rejection in the mail(form) and tomorrow is my deadline for getting another query out.  My pile of things to do is starting to look like a pig pile.  Here comes Radcon, and he's six foot seven and 350 pounds.  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!

The good news with Radcon is that I've been playing with my art mats (which were poorly cut thanks to my primitive mat cutter) and I developed a technique that bevels the edges, looks sharp, and gives me lots of opportunity for expression.  If you're wondering, since I've been working at my day job too, when I get a chance to write the answer is oh, between 11pm and 2:30am when I'm not spending that same window on art.  On mornings when I have to get up with the kids at a wee tad before 6am, this doesn't allow for much sleep (she said, yawning.)  Thank the status quo that I could sleep in this morning.  I still have to work, but I got about six hours of sleep--feels like heaven--and I work a short shift so I can work out at 24 Hr Fitness (maybe soak in the hot tub too,) get home in time to fix a semblance of dinner, finish messing with my last matting projects, and then write.  Oh, and see if I can put together a query.  If I can't, well, I'd rather pay INK a dollar for missing my deadline than turn out another package that will only earn me another rejection.  From the pattern I've seen so far, query letter and synopsis, sharp, opening is torpedoing me.

Time Warps

Man, my schedule has been eating me alive lately. Not the work schedule--that's staying nicely at 3-4 days a week with quite a few stretches of two days in a row off. No, it's how I've been arranging, or rather not arranging, my days. It seems that no matter how I focus my time, something gets neglected. Yeah yeah, I can't do it all. But lately I've been trying to achieve a rhythm where at least the most important things get done, and it's not happening. Grr. Grr I say!

Anyway.

Late summer feels more like autumn around here. There's no rain, though. Sometimes there's a chill in the air, but it doesn't quite have that zip that autumn mornings do. Still, we're getting that autumnal/harvesty/winding downess in the veggie garden (go, my zucchini minions, go!) (winter crop planting time rapidly reaching critical end zone) and some of the trees are getting color in protest of the dry, not-August-hot weather.

In kitty news, The Wiz seems to have an abcess or a bite or something on his flank. The hair fell out (which is normal and good) and it looks--well--it looks terrible and yet it's dry and appears to be mostly healed. This morning, as if proving that there's no need to haul him off to the vet, he was tearing around the house like a maniac. So, we're keeping an eye on him. But not a close enough eye that he licks the eyeball. I hate it when that happens.

In goatie news, we're getting close to breeding time. The gestation period of a goat is roughly in the five-six month range, closer to five. The plan is to breed the girls so that we're not delivering baby goats in February or sooner. The trick is that prime breeding time is (in my understanding) around September/October as far as goatie hormones are concerned. This is probably because in nature (this is my guess) that the babies will be on mommas milk while the grass is still dead, and about the time they're ready to get weaned, poof, there's tons of green grass with the spring flush.

But I don't want them running around in the cold, and also I definitely don't want to be lying on dirty straw in freezing weather at 2 am messing with assisting a goat birth for the very first time.

Any chance they might breed in, say, January for a nice June birth?

I didn't think so. Oh well.

Well, it's back to work time. And this time I won't neglect anything critical. Really.