Best laid plans

 A writer's day is always fragmented. Time spent procrastinating on social media and more spent figuring out how to promote on social media, time spent staring into space supposedly thinking where on earth the work in progress should go next, time spent responding to the latest demand from the publisher related to another book in final proofs (this latest a "dear reader" letter to accompany the ARCs), time writing this bi-weekly blog, and time reading another author's manuscript for a blurb. If I'm lucky, I have time to walk the dogs and talk to my friends and family.

Don't you love it when people ask "How's retirement?"

So this week started off with great intentions to get all of the above done, especially the things with deadlines. I had arrived at the cottage in late afternoon, planning to cook two lovely little beef tenderloins for myself and my sister, who was joining me for the week. Then we would sit on the dock to enjoy the sunset over the lake, share some wine, and then I would retire inside to continue reading the blurb book. 

I had the table set and the food all prepped, and was down on the dock having a swim and enjoying a beer while waiting for my sister to arrive, when my dog Kenzie took off up the hill, barking furiously. By the time I got to him, he was in full tussle with a porcupine. Those of you with dogs know that the dog almost never wins. But my dog was determined, and by the time I had got him corralled and leashed, he had probably 100 quills or more in his snout and face.

This can mean a very expensive and time-consuming trip to the Kingston emergency vet hospital an hour away, which I've done with previous dogs and wanted to avoid. So I got him up on the dining table and spent some time trying to pull them out with pliers. It took a while and an increasingly frantic dog to realize this was never going to work. So I phoned the vet to alert them, phoned my sister to tell her to fend for herself when she arrived, and piled the dog into the car. I had to tie him to the back seat to prevent him climbing in front and scratching me.

The sunset, what I could see of it from the car, was spectacular. Possible the most beautiful of the summer so far. I stopped to take this photo, which really doesn't do it justice. The sky was on fire.

An hour and a half later, after some confusion about the hospital's location, I was waiting in my car in line to be seen. Kenzie was apparently the third "quill dog" the vet was seeing that night.  So we had another hour and a half wait and they finally took him in at 11:30 pm. I had meanwhile grabbed a take-out fast food burrito, while thinking fondly of the steak I had planned. 

The vet returned my de-quilled, slightly wobbly dog to me at 12:30 am and we began our return trip to the cottage along the dark and deserted highway. I arrived at 1:30 am, tried to persuade the dog to take his pain med with a little food (he was having none of it) and finally stumbled into bed.

Not quite the day I had planned. And all those things on my to-do list are still there, except this blog, which is thankfully done!

Life Balance

In addition to having written three novels (the third, Graveyard Bay is scheduled to be released in September), I have a day job.  I’m the president of the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce here on the Crystal Coast.  It’s a fantastic gig.  I’m the cheerleader for one of the most beautiful places on earth.

In itself, that’s a full-time job but additionally, I sit on numerous boards (economic development, public school foundation, transportation committee, downtown development, juvenile crime prevention, etc.).  On top of that, this year I’m the president of the Business Alliance Protecting the Atlantic Coast, BAPAC,  an organization representing 42,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families from Maine to Florida.  This group is dedicated to doing what its name says,  protecting the Atlantic Coast, primarily from offshore oil and gas drilling and seismic testing.

When do I get a chance to write?

Sometimes early in the morning, even before the coffee is brewed, I might be jotting a few thoughts down.  At lunch, while I’m wolfing down a chicken salad sandwich at my desk, I’ll knock out a few sentences or rewrite a paragraph.  After work, before I start making dinner, I’ll hammer out a page or two.

Where I do the bulk of the writing is on weekends.  Before my wife is up, I’ll walk down to the ocean, then come back and work out.  Then, I always have breakfast with Cindy while we read the multiple newspapers we get on weekends.  Yes, we still enjoy getting newspapers delivered to the curb and spending time with them at the breakfast table.  And we always find something interesting to talk about.

Then I’ll go upstairs to my office over the garage, dither for a while on the internet, look at my watch and figure I’ve wasted enough time.  I turn on some ambient music and begin work in earnest.

A balancing act.

Luckily, my three children are grown.  I don’t have to drive them to soccer practice, or help them with their homework, or take them to the park or the beach.  More time for me to write.

Unluckily, my grown children and my grandchildren are a long way from where we live. I would love to see them more often.  But the fact that they’re not here gives me more time to write.

I take time for the things I enjoy doing.  I love reading (I’m nearly finished with Don Winslow’s The Border, a 720 page thriller I can't seem to put down), and I do all the cooking.  Something else I love.

Cindy and I make certain that we spend time together and with friends, we watch movies on HBO and Netflix together, and every couple of weeks, we go out for dinner.  This part of North Carolina has some world class restaurants. And being the president of the chamber of commerce, we’re often invited to events on weekends, most of them revolving around food.  It’s a wonder that I don't weigh 300 lbs.

 Writing is a solitary adventure, but life is meant to be lived with the people you love.

Knowing that this is Easter weekend and my wife’s birthday, this blog will be blessedly short. My advice is this: write when you can but always stop and smell those flowers.  It’s springtime here, and in our little patch of the world, the flowers are spectacular.

Calm Down and Write

I don’t know about you, but I can’t write when I’m too stressed out. Right now I’m a bundle of nerves with all of the tasks to be done in preparation for the launch of my second book while trying to write book 3. Yes, I know, every writer goes through this. Yes, I knew it would be a challenge going into it, but I didn’t realize just how stressful it would be until I signed that contract and the roller coaster ride of writing truly began.

So I’m always looking for activities that will calm me down enough so I can focus on writing the story that’s rolling around in my brain, trying to get out. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far: 

Exercise. That’s my number one calming activity. I’m not a huge exercise fanatic, but I do try to ride my stationary bike, do step aerobics or walk to one of the many Leslie Sansone DVDs I own five days a week. Walking down to the beach and watching the waves roll in is nice, too, as long as there aren’t too many people around. 

Adult coloring books. They seem to be all the rage these days. (No, not that kind of adult coloring book!) I see them everywhere, marketed as a de-stresser. I’m not sure why we can’t just color in kids’ coloring books, but I suppose we adults want fancier patterns or something. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try one out. There are a lot of coloring books filled with geometric patterns, but I opted for one with lots of ugly holiday sweaters. That’s one of the pages I started coloring in the photo. 

Going barefoot. Woman’s World magazine often has stress-buster tips. In a recent issue, an article claimed that rubbing bare feet against something soft like carpet or grass for four minutes will cut your tension 33% for 90 minutes. I don’t know if that means pacing said soft object or if sitting in a chair and rubbing your feet against the carpet would do. Haven’t tried this one yet, but we do have some nice soft carpet, so it’s been added to my list. 

Tai chi. I have a tai chi tape that I do occasionally, which calms me down quite a bit. 

Music. Certain kinds of music calm me down: Baroque, some Celtic instrumental music, Gregorian chants, and the music of Hawaiian singer, Keali’i Reichel.

A lot of people I know swear by massage and meditation, but those activities just stress me out even more.

So, Type M readers, what about you? What are your favorite calming activities? How do you de-stress your life?

An Unexpected Gift

Even before I became a writer, I was a big-time reader. Fiction, nonfiction, mystery, thriller, historical. You know the drill. I pretty much still am, though I have less time to read these days.

When I do get the chance to pick up a book, I notice things about stories that I never used to. How they're constructed. How the choice of a word makes a difference in how I feel as a reader. And, when I find a novel or short story particularly satisfying, I'll go back and reread parts or all of it, trying to figure out what makes it tick. Why I liked it so much. How the author managed to make me feel sad, happy, angry, etc. at a particular point.

The same goes for television shows or movies though, with them, it's less about the words used and more about the construction of the story. The other day, I watched an episode of a crime drama that involved the kidnapping of a baby. At the end, the child was found. The man who had him was driving a car along a road and the police gave chase. The writers could have just had the police stop the vehicle (after whatever is deemed the appropriate amount of chase time for television) but, instead, they added a further complication. The vehicle ended up in a lake, completely submerged. Don't worry, the baby was rescued after someone dove in, broke a window and grabbed the infant out of the backseat. I don't remember if the kidnapper was rescued. I'm not sure I cared.

I appreciated that plot twist. It reminded me that you can't ever make it too easy for your characters. Just when they seem to be reaching their goal, add a complication. In this case, the car going into the lake and the possibility the baby won't be rescued after all.

This change in mindset is similar to what happened to me when I studied Hebrew in college. When I'd leave class, I started looking at the world from right to left instead of left to right. Things looked just a bit different. And when I did some script supervising on student films I started noticing continuity errors in movies I saw that I would never have noticed before. Though those two abilities both faded away as soon as I stopped studying Hebrew and doing continuity for films.

Some people might consider it an annoyance. You've lost the ability to simply enjoy a story instead of analyzing it. For me, it’s a gift, giving me the opportunity to appreciate an author's work even more.