Sunday Update - Week... ???

I could go look up the week #, but I'm too lazy.  And that's been the soup of the day since last I was here - instead of busy busy like I said, I was lazy lazy.  I stepped away from pretty much everything writerly and online-ish, and it felt GOOOOD.   But yeah, I should probably get back to some form of productivity.  Man can only sit for so long before she atrophies, ya know?

So, I am back working on Bloodflow again.  I realized that somewhere between the first draft and the current draft, I overworked the first chapter to the point where it didn't sound like me anymore.  Yesterday, I went back to every draft that had any noticeable changes to that chapter and I printed the sucker out.  Now I'm going through them all line by line and figuring out what worked and what didn't.  Last night I started cobbling it back together.  Since I'm doing this by writing longhand in my trusty notebook, I couldn't begin to tell you how far I am, but it's something.

When I took a break from writing, I also took a break from reading.  Not intentionally.  I just didn't feel like picking up a book.  That's okay, though, because I'm still 5 books ahead of my goal to read 100 this year.  It's also okay because it helped wipe the slate clean so I can focus on Bloodflow without having other writers all up in my head.

And we both took a break from working on the house.  Hubs needed that more than I did.  But we're both feeling refreshed now.  This week, the new utility sink will arrive for the garage bathroom and he can finally finish the plumbing project.  Then we'll be working on sanding the orange off and finishing the foundation sealing we started last year.  After that, we'll be able to complete the pea gravel project and start the south garden bed.  :collapse:  I'm tired again just thinking about it.  And he's already talking about next year's projects.  ;o)

So, what's been up in your world's while I was off being lazy?

Busy Busy Busy

Hey all.  I'm gonna be kinda busy for the next week or so.  If you leave a comment and it doesn't post right away, don't worry - it's sitting in my inbox waiting for approval.  I'll get to it the same day or the next day.  Please keep commenting, though.  I love your comments!

P.A.M.

Years ago I was a tragically negative person.  To the point where a co-worker and friend said he was going to start calling me Pam.  At my confused look, he explained...  P.A.M. is short for Piss And Moan.  (What can I say, I attract straight-talking people.  Someday I'll tell ya about another friend of mine, Larry, who wouldn't let me get away with anything.)  And whenever I would start being all negative around him he would refer to me as Pammy.  As in "Okay, Pammy, whatever you say, Pammy."

I don't know if that marked a turning point in my life.  I know I still get into moods where I am totally PAM. but they're less frequent than they used to be.

Unfortunately, it seems like more people are turning into PAM every day. Or maybe as I get more positive about life, I notice the negativity more.

One thing I do know is that negativity never gets you anywhere.

Sure, someone situations suck.  Sometimes your whole damn life can feel like it sucks... HARD.  But letting yourself get lost in all that suckage doesn't make the suckage any better.  Hell, most of the time, it makes it worse.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you shouldn't be bummed out because other people have it way worse than you do.  That never helps either - and it just makes you feel shittier.  Yes, there are people who can top your personal heartache with a royal flush of pain, but that doesn't mean you aren't entitled to feel like shit.  I'm just saying it doesn't help.

Lemme tell you a little story...

Once upon a time there was a silly girl who'd just been in a car accident.  Everything hurt.  She couldn't think straight.  She couldn't walk.  She couldn't remember stuff.  And every morning was just as sucky as the next.  Some chick she didn't know would roll her out of bed, into a wheelchair, and roll her down to physical therapy where she would have to undergo a serious increase in her discomfort.  And all she could do was bitch about it.  To anyone who would listen.

Then this dude ambles over to her one morning while she's bitching about how much PT hurt and how she COULDN'T walk so just stop making her try... DAMMIT.  Now at this particular moment her therapist had gone off to get some thing or other, and she was just sitting there, waiting to bitch at Blondie Therapist some more.  This dude who ambles up he was wearing one of those erector sets that keeps you from moving your head.  And he gets in her face - as much as he could for a guy who couldn't bend, and tells her "Will you QUIT WHINING."  He said some other things about how if she spent more time working and less time bitching, she could get off her ass and walk. 

Turns out he'd broken his back in a motorcycle accident.  But that wasn't the point.  He never said 'Look at how bad off I am and I'm not bitching'.  He just said 'Look at how good off you are, so quit your bitching.'  And he was right.  I mean, at first, she was totally shocked and offended, but by the next day, she saw how right he was.  She started actually trying, and learning to use the walker, and getting more active by rolling herself to therapy.  All of it got way better after I... I mean SHE got more positive.  (And okay, so I wanted to show that know-it-all nosypants that he DID NOT know everything.)

It's all in the attitude.  You can choose to be PAM or you can choose to kick PAM's ass and be Positive Polly instead.

It's like this weekend's golf tournament.  I don't know how many of you watch golf, but it was the US Open.  And there was this guy - Erik Compton.  He'd never won a major tournament in his life.  he wasn't even on anyone's radar for being in the top 10... 15... 20 players.  What he was that made him kinda noteworthy is a two-time heart transplant recipient.  One heart transplant when you're 12 is awesome enough, but surviving a second one when you're in your late 20s is spectacular.  That alone is an achievement.  He could've waved the flag right there and spent the rest of his years kicking back on his laurels.  But he wanted to play golf.  He wanted to thrive at golf.  And he tied for 2nd.  His attitude was phenomenal all the way through.  And every time he went in the weeds, he could've shrugged and given up.  Every hole he didn't birdie could've made him walk off the course.  But he didn't.  He kicked ass.

Attitude people.  If you don't like what's happening in your life, you have the choice of complaining and being all PAM about it, or you can choose to change your attitude.  Life sucks?  Well, it's better than the alternative.  Ya know?

Or you can sit and bitch.  Cuz, like that's the most fun thing ever. (Not really, but if you spend enough time on social media, it sure can feel like people think that some days.)

Now, what's something you can change your attitude about today?  Personally, I have an upcoming 'big thing' that I can't talk about online* but that's making me all negative and nauseous, when I should be looking at it as an adventure.  And since Friday, every time I start to get all Negative Nelly about it, I sing this in my head:  Think Good Thoughts by Colbie Caillat.  And I actually slept the last few nights straight through!  Wow.

*It's not anything crucial, but like everything else I tend to think ahead of time of all the bad things that could happen.  Prepare for the worst and hope for the best - that's been my screwed up philosophy for years.  Problem with that is that in preparing for the worst, I think of every potentially awful thing that could conceivably happen.  Which is also why I wasn't sleeping, btw.

Sunday Update: Father's Day

Since I haven't really done anything noteworthy in the past week, I'll just leave you with a pic of my dad and wish you all a Happy Father's Day!

Not a Casualty!

So there I was, sitting in front of the big picture window, watching Bones, when I see something out of the corner of my eye and then here a big THUNK.  Then I hear something moving around out on the porch.  By the time I got out of the chair, I could see something on the front step.  At this point, I'm thinking 'oh crap, our first casualty' - because birds hit that window all the time.

So, I grab a towel to wrap the bird in and head out.  There on the step is a red-bellied woodpecker lying on his back, blinking up at me.  I wrap him in the towel and carry him to the trunk of my car - as a flat space to evaluate him from. 

He laid there while I checked his wings and his neck and his belly.  Nothing felt broken.  I tried to get him to sit on the towel, but he kept tipping over, so I held him in my hand with his feet wrapped around my finger like a branch.  I petted him and talked to him.  I walked him over to the birdfeeder and tried to get him interested in some suet, but he was too stunned.

Over the course of 15-20 minutes, he slowly got more alert.  The other birds chirping got his attention, which I took as a good sign.  Eventually, he hopped off of my finger to the back of my hand, and then whoosh, he took off.  Hanging off the side of the big oak, he still looked a little stunned, so I gave him space for a few more minutes.  Then I slowly walked toward where he was hanging.  As I got closer, he scooted higher until I was right next to the tree and he was up at the crown.  They he went up into the leaves. 

I told him not to flew into the window anymore.  Let's hope he listens.  I would be sad if he didn't.

Have I mentioned how much I love living here? 

Sunday Update - Week 23

I'm kinda tired and bleh today so let's do this quick...

I only wrote 6373 words this past week, but that's because I finished the first draft of Djinn3.  In retrospect, I know I rushed the end.  (Because that's kinda my thing.)  I'll fix it and make it nice in edits. 

After taking a whole day... okay part of a day... off I opened one of my old manuscripts and started reading, figuring out how to edit this to make it work. (What can I say, it was the middle of the night.)  I think I can do it.  So, I promised that I would join in on my friend, JB Lynn's 100 day challenge.  Which means I'm committed to having this sucker ready to query by mid-September.

In other news, I bought and put together a bathroom medicine cabinet.  It's awesome.

I also updated the header for this blog.  (Look up there ^.)  It's the 'reading area' in my office slash library.  The title is over my new thrift store find - a $15 chair that I just love. 

Anything up in your world this past week?  Leave a comment. 

Monty Python is the I Ching.

With all propers to You've Got Mail, I must say that it isn't The Godfather that's the I Ching.  It's Monty Python.  Monty Python is the sum of all wisdom.  For all questions, Monty Python has the answer...

Where should I go today?  "Let's not go there.  It's a silly place."

What time is it?  "At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock."

What light through yonder window breaks?  "It's our grail-shaped nightlight."

Is there a god?  "He's no messiah.  He's just a naughty naughty boy."

What should I do for a living?  "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay."

How much should I pay?  "Bring us a shubbery!"

Do I need a doctor?  "It's just a flesh wound."

Should we do charity work?  "Oh, it’s ‘blessed are the meek’. I’m glad they’re getting something, they have a hell of a time."

Is there an afterlife?  "Bring out your dead."


;o)

Writer Brain

Hey guys.  I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I am currently experiencing writer brain.  If you're not familiar with this condition, it goes something like this...

Hip deep in the words of a world of my own creation, I forget stuff.  Oddly enough, one of the things I forget is words.  Not in writing, mind you.  In speaking.  So when I go to say something out loud, the words aren't there.  I suspect this is because they're all tied up on the pages.  In the biz, this is called 'word finding difficulty' or to use a technical term it's 'anomic aphasia'.  I have it anyway, but right now, it's especially bad.  And bless my Hubs' heart for the painfully slow conversations lately.  (I already apologized and he gave me one of those happy laughs and told me it was okay and that the writing comes first.)

Writer brain also means I get distracted easily.  Again, poor Hubs is the soul of patience because we can be smack in the middle of a conversation and I'll start thinking about the story instead of what we're talking about.  Then he'll say something to me, but I'll be staring off into space wondering if it would be better to end the scene this way or that way or the other way altogether.

This last thing is also making it really hard for me to fall asleep lately.  I mean, I lay down with every intention of sleeping.  Some nights I'm so tired that I have a tough time keeping my eyes open.  Until I turn out the lights and lay down.  Then my brain seems to think it's party time.  Scenes and ideas and plot twists and dialogue...  And then I get back up again to write stuff down so I won't lose it by morning.  Which restarts the whole process of trying to fall asleep again.

Which reminds me, the other night, I laid out the opening scenes for Djinn4 - regardless of the fact that I haven't sold the first one yet, edited the second or even finished the third.  (I did not write that down and have since forgotten it, but that's for the best, for now.)

So, if you know a writer who has any of the above symptoms, be patient.  And if you're a writer in the throes of this, be patient with yourself.  And... Crap, I forgot how I was going to end this post.

Damn writer brain.

Sunday Update - Week 22

Wow, I just realized a whole week went by.  WTF?  How can it be Sunday again? Needless to say, the past week was a blur.  I know it rained a lot.  I know I wrote a lot.  The rest?  A blur.

Anyway, onward to the rehash...

I wrote 14663 words last week, bringing my month total to 44465, which means I reached my goal of 44K in the month of May.  :muppetflail:  It also brings Djinn3 up to a total count of 53137.  I expect another 10-15 words should wrap this first draft up.  (I always flesh out during edits, so don't worry about the low total.)  The new goal is to have that done by mid-June.  Easy peasy.  :crosses fingers:

In reading news, I finished my 50th book of the year.  That puts me at 50% of my goal for the year a month early.  I thought about upping the goal, but who knows what the summer will bring.  :shrug:  I did read three of those books in the past week, and I'm about 30% through another one.  Not sure if I'll finish this one, though.  It's interesting enough, but it's dragging in a major way.

Like I said, it rained a lot last week.  I think we got a couple inches total.  Which left me inside reading and writing, but not much else.  The next home project finally has all its supplies, but we can't start that until we get a dry day or two.  Laying out a 20'x100' piece of plastic sheeting on wet grass is not a good idea - especially when the purpose of said sheeting is to prevent moisture in the crawl space. 

Since the project had to be put on hold, we both felt un-gimpy enough to go for a walk yesterday.  First time walking the loop* in over a month.  And I didn't die.  So I got that going for me.

In other news, Tickmageddon was only partially effective.  We're still getting ticks - just fewer of them.  Unfortunately, as the ticks die, the poison ivy is thriving.  (Not causal, just coincidental.) 

How did things go in your world last week?

*The loop is a 1.25 mile walk around the hill that makes up our neighborhood.  It's like this... down, up, up up up, upup, flat, doowwnn, flat, down down, flat, down, flat, doown, up up up up, uuuuup.  That last up is a killer but it's the only way to get home.  :shrug:  (Not that there haven't been times I thought about waiting at the bottom while Hubs gets the car.  LOL)