Me, Too (Writing and Post-Covid)

Both Charlotte's and Donis's posts this week struck home with me. At the best of times, I procrastinate even when I have something I want to get done. The only thing I don't do this with is moving around odds and ins that I'm inspired to move around while flipping through home decorating magazines. I love those magazines even though I get sticker shock when I realize I picked up one with an enticing cover and tossed it into my grocery shopping basket without checking that tiny little price. I think they make it tiny just so people who need to dig out their glasses won't bother to stop and do that. And those $10.99 magazines have occasionally costed me even more because I have stopped reading to go to the site where I can see the options and sometimes I buy that perfect thing with one tap of my finger. In my own defense, at the trail end of the worse of the pandemic, I did finally get around to getting my handyman in to paint because I had spent so much time looking at the yellow walls that came with the house when I moved in. And then, when I had refreshed my walls with blue, new accessories were required.

But . . . as I was saying about procrastination, I have now reached "Master Level". It happened during the height of the pandemic when my brain ceased to work. The one good aspect of that was that I started an on-going email letter writing habit again with a friend from grad school. Back in the days when people  wrote letters in long-hand and sent them off by stopping at a mail box, we communicated more often. But in the age of emails, we had gone astray. During Covid-19 we have gotten back into the habit of checking on each and what is going on in our lives. I did the same with a friend here closer to home. And with other people who I communicate with regularly. But even with all this communication, I had curled up in my little nest, tossing mail on my desk unopened, and opening the front door only to walk the dog. I even joined a grocery delivery service -- actually that last decision turned out to be a wise one. After trying at least four other services, I found one that delivers protein, healthy fruits, vegetable, and cookie dough made of ingredients that all look healthy and can be eaten from the container or baked.

My improved communication habits and strategy for getting dinner in less than 30 minutes are in place, and I hope will continue. What hasn't change is my habit of spinning my wheels longer than I should each day before I get going. That means that when I finally start I end up going later in the day than I would like because I have more writing time to try to make up. But this morning when I was putting off getting out this post, I checked today's tip from Ancestry DNA and discovered that the fault is in both my environment and my genetic tendencies. In keeping with that I stopped to read the accompanying articles about other traits before finally getting to my post. Actually, today I have a semi-good excuse. I got up early to take my dog to daycare because I scribbled a faculty event in the wrong box in my old-fashion planner. It would have come up in my electronic calendar, but this week I planned to be proactive -- and I ended up being a week early. So, today, I was so early dropping off Fergus that I thought I could spend time thinking about whether to have brunch or lunch while wandering off to read those "when you have the time" articles that are fascinating when I should be doing something else.

I have found a good idea or two reading those articles. My only problem is sometimes I read something both useful and fascinating but I don't have pen and paper at hand and I'm too comfortable to get up and get both, so I tell myself I will remember, and I don't. I know enough to immediately write down whatever I wake up dreaming. But this week I was having a dream -- a solution to a plot problem -- and I woke up almost there but Fergus had shut himself up in my bedroom when he was pushing at the door trying to get out. I got up to let him out, and as quickly as that my dream was gone. I've been hoping it would come back, but it hasn't.

Like Donis, I am hoping that the more I get out again, the more I will get to at least "re-set" when it comes to socializing again. In one area at least, having animals in the house has helped out. When my beloved Harry died, I found both Fergus and Penelope -- not as replacements for Harry, but as animals with their own personalities. It has taken me a while to settle in with the two of them. But it has also given me a Covid interest. With Fergus, the wonderfully socialized puppy I received from a breeder, the task has been to contain some of that bounciness and train him. With Penelope, my rescue cat from Louisiana, it has taken almost a year between the time she began to talk to me when she wants something and expect me to understand and last month when she began to curl up against me on the sofa and even stretch out in my lap. That would be great except I gave myself a physical excuse for researching rather than writing when I grabbed my lap top to keep it from falling from the sofa and managed to loosen the hinge on one side. She jumped right up and finished the job. Now, I'm going to have to take it back to my computer guy again  after having broken both monitor hinges this time. 

But I have a fully functioning desk top at home and in my office at school. It is only a matter of sitting down at either. Note to self: Ideas rattling around in head have to be put on paper in timely fashion.

 

Creative Procrastination

 by Charlotte Hinger

My all-time favorite way to avoid the onerous task of writing a novel used to be through excessive research. I really knew how to milk that one. But I was saved by a scoldy part of my brain that monitors such nonsense. The rescue was quite simple. I forced myself to write a quota of pages every day. Five pages a day, five days a week. 

After producing the five pages, I allowed myself to research until the cows came home. It worked beautifully. Especially before the internet became my prime source of information.

 Now I've fallen prey again to my relentless curiosity. I have an instant attention span. I'm hooked immediately by obscure bits of useless information. When I watch TV, I frequently pause the program to look up tid-bits. 

For instance, the other night I watched an old movie about Mary Queen of Scots. Did she and Queen Elizabeth ever meet, I wondered. The answer was yes, Safari informed me. Frequently in movies and even in one of my favorite operas, but in real life, never. Was her second husband, Lord Darnley really that bad? Yes. He was a real mess. Did she really marry Bothwell? Yes. But historians don't know why. Not for sure. 

All of this carrying on interrupted my TV watching. It didn't matter. In fact, learning more about the background of this period in history increased my pleasure. 

However, excessive interruptions are deadly to the creative process of writing a novel. For this reason, I've switched to longhand for the first draft. Through the years, I've learned more about the craft. I'm convinced it's very important to get the story down on paper as quickly as possible in accordance with the writer's natural bent. Some of us are simply slower than others. I am not a fast writer, but writing in long hand does away with accessing the internet or responding to email. 

What's more, longhand stops me from "improving" a chapter into infinity. Through longhand, I have to get on with the story. Editing kicks in when I transfer the pages to the computer. 

But much to my dismay, I've acquired a new way to procrastinate. I tend to become overinvolved with other activities. Committees, meetings, etc. Some of this was accidental when I was too stupid to realize the work involved, but on other occasions I take too much on through an over-developed sense of duty. That condition evolved from growing up in a very small town where everyone had to pitch in or a community wouldn't hang together. 

I say yes when I shouldn't. But after giving the situation some thought, I've decided to go back to a set time. All I have to do is say, "I can't between 8-12 in the morning. That's when I work." That's a simple declaration that will force me to man up to writing difficult scenes and tackle plot problems. 

Worse, I'm very clever at finding ways to escape when I'm not sure where a book is headed. Who wouldn't want to run away?

Lazy, hazy days of summer

 I laughed when I read the last few posts by my blog mates, something I always do when I'm searching for a topic. After many years on this blog, I've written about almost everything, often multiple times. And right now I am facing the very issue being described by these recent blogs. Call it writer's block, procrastination, distraction, whatever. It's also stalling, because I have not one idea in my head, either for the blog or for a book. I am between writing projects. The final, FINAL page proofs of my Amanda Doucette novel are done, and everything is now in the publisher's court. ARCs are being prepared, along with catalogues, distribution and promotional material - all that stuff they do. My brain is on summer vacation. In the past, when I have no deadline or next project in the works, I write a fun short story that's been percolating. In the old days, there was always something percolating and no time to give it attention.

Not this time. All I have are vague ideas for the next books, and I won't do anything about those for now. 

I've been writing all my life. It's in my bones. As my colleagues have noted, unless you love writing or are driven to tell stories, you probably wouldn't be doing it. So I'm going to trust that this blank brain is just me taking a break and revelling in the freedom after years of deadlines, rather than some more permanent sign of mental vacuity. I expect that at some point, a story will pop up that I will have to write down. Will it take a month, or several months? Who knows, but I suspect all this freedom from creativity and the absence of fictional friends in my head will get boring.

Charlotte's idea about dusting off an old manuscript and trying to find it a home intrigued me briefly. Like most writers, I have two or three books that never found a home and eventually I got discouraged and put them in some forgotten basement drawer. Are they salvageable?. Do I like them well enough to haul them out and see what can be done with them? Once again inertia (stalling) interferes. I don't know exactly where they are stored electronically (a floppy disc, a memory stick, or a dead computer?) and whether I can even access them with my current software. They could be in WordPerfect. I don't know where the hard copy is either. And if they weren't good enough to land a publisher back then, why would they be now? I probably would have to make huge revisions. Do I want to commit that time, possibly all for nothing? Do I care enough?

You see where this endless mind meandering is going. Back to my lazy summer. Waiting for the muse to visit again, whispering something exciting in my ear.

On Justice and Writing Don'ts.

As you may know, my daytime gig is as the president of our county’s chamber of commerce.  As such, I’m not in a position to support or oppose any political party or candidate, in spite of the fact that many chambers do.

In this political climate, it’s extremely difficult for me to keep my big mouth shut.

That’s why as I write, there’s a certain freedom that I can exercise. Through my recurring protagonist, a wise-cracking crime reporter, I can pretty much say whatever I damned well please.

I’m nearly finished with the second round of edits for my newest book, Shadow Hill, and in it, climate change figures prominently. So do greedy corporations and lying politicians.

I get to take them all on.

I guess what prompted this particular blog was seeing a certain “political dirty trickster”, after being convicted on seven felony counts including witness tampering and lying to investigators, had his sentence commuted.

In my book, the political dirty tricksters get what’s coming to them.

In real life, I’ve watched as a certain attorney paid hush money to a porn star to keep her from talking about a brief affair she had with the president.

In my new book, I write about a company CEO who does the same thing, he pays hush money to his mistress. Guess what? He’s murdered in the very first chapter.

So, what's the point of this rambling blog? I'd like to point out that the reason mysteries continue to be so popular is because there is justice. Most of the time, in the end the good guys win and the bad guys lose.

We want to see the bad guys go down.  As a mystery writer, I’m happy to do just that.

Okay, rant is over. Here are a couple of writing don’ts I’ll be discussing with my creative writing class on tonight.

Don’t procrastinate. 

Honestly, I can be one of the worst offenders.  Just as I’m sitting down to attack a new chapter, I’m up and headed downstairs for a cup of joe, or taking a look at my email, or skimming online news sites. Just sit down write!

Don’t believe that you won’t get better.  

I liked the way that Rick compared writing a novel to mastering a musical instrument. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. With every day that you sit down to write, you get better. It took me five attempts at a novel before I scored a publisher. Looking at my earlier work, yes, I have gotten much better.

Don’t Quit. 

Do most writers find a publisher right out of the gate? Hell no. Back in 2001, I was signed by an agent in New York. I thought I had it made. But as it turned out, he shopped my book to the major publishing houses in the Big Apple but was declined. Then he dropped me like a bad habit.

I didn’t write again for a year. Fear of failure is a powerful force to be reckoned with.

But as I’ve said before, a writers gotta write. Oh, and who else will bring the bad guys to justice?

www.thomaskiesauthor.com