One Of Those Days

Donis here. I understand that Saturn squared off with the moon yesterday, which is supposed to mean that things annoy you and stuff goes wrong. That's as good a reason as any for why yesterday was like it was.

 I stayed up too late reading. Didn't get to sleep until nearly two, then I had anxious dreams and kept waking up off and on. Couldn't drag myself out of bed until 9:30. Then I got dressed and sat at the dining room table, staring into space like a zombie for fifteen minutes. Don went to the gym. I ran out to Subway and brought home a sandwich. Ate it over the newspaper, spent way too long messing with the puzzles.

I'm thinking I need to write. But if I don't do a wash we'll have to run around naked tomorrow. While the wash is running, I dust and run the sweeper. I need to put away the dishes I washed last night. I hang the clothes and run another two loads. I need to throw the bathroom rugs in the washer, which means I'll have to mop the bathroom floors. I'll be danged if I'm going to put clean rugs on an unmopped floor.

I finally sit down at the computer, where I make the fatal mistake of looking at my email. I spend the next 45 minutes answering my email and looking at Facebook. Then I finally start to work on the guest blog entry I promised so-and-so last month. I have to get it in to her THIS WEEK. Oh, and this is my Type M week, too. I have to check in with my sister - she fell and broke her arm a couple of weeks ago and is going to have to have a shoulder replacement. And then there's the thing I said I'd do for the writers' group.

Can it already be 5:00? I have no idea what to do about supper. I ask Don if he has any ideas, but he'll eat anything I come up with. He says he can take care of himself if I don't want to worry about it. I root around in the cabinets. If I had a can of hominy I could make up a quick posole. I need to go to the store. We go to the store together and diddle around up and down the aisles until it's too late to make anything. We bring something home from the deli and eat it in the living room while watching Frasier reruns. Don went to the library today and came home with DVDs of Kerry Greenwoods' Phryne Fisher series from Acorn TV. After doing the dishes, we spend the rest of the evening watching that. It's great.

Can it already be 10:00? I watch ten minutes of the news, but it's so upsetting I go take a shower. When I get out, Tom Hanks is on Colbert, so I end up watching him until 11:15 blinking o'clock. I go to bed with a book, resolved I'll turn out the light at midnight without fail. It's 1:30 when I rip myself away from the story. I'm all wound up and can't go to sleep.

At least I no longer have to get up at 6:00 and go to work from 8:00 to 5:00, then try to have a reasonable relationship with my family crammed in in the evenings AND write a book/story/poem whenever I can cram in a minute. How did I once do that? (I'll tell you how. All that mopping and cleaning would have gone by the by) I'm amazed at how tasks expand to fill the available time.

For the umpteenth time, I resolve to do better.

p.s. you'll be glad to know I actually got quite a bit done today.

Finalist

This coming weekend I will learn if my 2017 novel, The Return of the Raven Mocker, has won this year’s Oklahoma Book Award. I was notified a month or so ago that Raven Mocker is one of the finalists in the fiction category. This is the eighth of the ten Alafair Tucker mysteries to be a finalist for the award. As of this moment, none of the eight have won. The truth is, though, that whether I finally win or not, I will not be disappointed. It's pretty good news to be a finalist for the award eight times for eight different books, and I am most happy about it. The entire finalist list is sent to every library in Oklahoma and it’s hard to top that kind of publicity.


Now that I think about it, I have to admit that I don't readily feel disappointment when something doesn't pan out, nor am I particularly elated by success. I've had a lot of both success and failures, and when the dust settles, nothing much is changed and I am still me. Another author told me once that she shopped a novel around for eight years, and she grew so calloused by rejection that when her agent did sell it, she felt nothing. I can easily be seduced by praise, though, and I wouldn't say no to an award of any ilk. Something has to keep you going in this business, because the likelihood is that it won't be riches.

A wall full of finalist consolation prizes.

I have just begun the preliminary research and planning stages for the next novel in my series. and soon I'll be in that apply-glue-to-rear-end-and-sit-down-in-front-of-computer-whether-you-like-it-or-not stage. Wringing out the first draft.

Or trying to. I find my mind wandering at the most inconvenient times, and considering that I have a tendency to give in to random thought as it is, I'm not having any luck completing the tasks I should.

For instance, rather than work on the manuscript I've just spent the last fifteen minutes thinking of names for a rock band. I discovered several books ago that if I’m going to be able to power through the pain of a first draft, I have to set myself a rigid writing schedule. This is difficult for me, since I’m not by nature a disciplined person. I don’t enjoy forcing myself to put words on the page, whether I’m feeling inspired at that moment or not. I’m always anxious and unhappy for much of a first draft. Why, I ask myself, isn’t this better? It seemed like such a good idea when it was still in my head.

Somerset Maugham follows a similar rule about sitting down to write whether you’re in the mood or not. An interviewer once asked him if he kept a strict writing schedule or if he simply waited for the Muse to strike him before he sat down to compose. He replied, "Oh, I wait for the Muse to strike. Fortunately she strikes every morning at precisely nine o'clock."

My piece of advice? The number one thing that works for me is just to sit down and do it and quit trying to figure out how to do it. Quit fooling around, Donis. The dishes will wait.

p.s. I looked up the Somerset Maugham in an attempt to get the above quote right, and I must say that Maugham is a fountainhead of quotable wisdom. Here are a couple that particularly spoke to me:

"The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected."
"There are three rules for writing a novel Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
"You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences."
And this, which seems especially apt right about now: "My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror."

Great ways NOT to write a book

by Rick Blechta

I’m certain I am not alone among writers in admiring how well I’ve polished my procrastination skills to a fine sheen when I sit down to advance a work-in-progress. Not.

It’s incredible how things transpire against me some days. Right now, the Blue Jays are playing. Okay. I decided beforehand that I would have the game on, but the sound off and the browser window down on the dock (in other words, not viewable unless I make it so). Well, that lasted all of ten minutes. As a matter of fact, as I’m writing this, the sound is back on, but at least my text edit program is covering up the browser window.

As for the WIP, um, I wrote two sentences before realizing it was Tuesday and I hadn’t even thought about a topic for this weeks post!

Here are some other favourite pastimes for not writing a book:

• Making dinner (or lunch or breakfast or a snack)
• Remembering I didn’t fill the bird feeder
• Answering the phone/door/an email petition
• Taking a nap because all of a sudden I can’t keep my eyes open
• Internet research for an upcoming plot point
• Sharpening pencils (oh wait…I’m writing on the computer today)
• Answering the phone and then talking at length
• More internet research
• Re-reading what I’ve already written
• Writing a blog post I could have written over the weekend (and meant to – honest!)

You’re probably getting the picture. It’s easy to just not get it done. Why this happens I don’t know. The only cure for me is a cabin in the woods with no internet connection, ear plugs so I can’t hear that mysterious bird song I’d like to identify, no one around to talk with and no phone. Unfortunately that can’t happen to often because of other commitments.

Next up after writing this post is to spend at least an hour designing a really fine sign for the wall of my office: Just Write The Damn Book! If I execute the design in colour, that will also mean a trip to Staples. While I’m at it, I'll print out a fresh Round Tuit*. My current one is getting rather careworn.
_________________________
*If you’d like your own Round Tuit, just leave a comment with your email address, and I’ll fire over a hi-res version that you can print out for yourself and all your friends.