Coming to a VERY painful conclusion

by Rick Blechta

Two nights ago I woke up at 3:00 a.m. because I smelled a skunk, but that’s another story…

As I tossed and turned trying to clear my mind and get back to dreamland, something flitted through my consciousness that was exceptionally disturbing: my WIP is telling the wrong story. That certainly woke me up completely! Allow me to explain.

The basis of my plot is about skullduggery within high the US government and my protagonists are trying to discover exactly what’s going on and then how to make it public — without getting themselves murdered. And that turns out to be a very difficult thing to accomplish.

All perfectly normal stuff for a thriller, right?

I believe it was Barbara who first brought up on Type M the problems the pandemic is causing writers who are trying to write novels that are relevant. Do we acknowledge how societies’ are coping with the new reality of our lives or do we carry on as if nothing has changed? To my mind, that won’t work unless we set our plots in 2019 or before.

And that’s my problem. I was trying to tell my story ignoring the pandemic, and two nights ago it suddenly became apparent that this would flat out, not work.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night as I wrestled with what I could do. First off, would anybody right now — and in the foreseeable future — actually care about an illegal operation within the US government to make off with huge amounts of cash? Should I scrap the entire novel and come up with something else? Could I adapt the plot somehow and move it in another direction?

Now I usually don’t dish out much information about things I’m writing, but in this case I feel it’s necessary to make my conundrum clear.

As I puzzled through the issue over the course of several hours I began to see a possible way through the mess, to possibly improve my story by working in the pandemic.

I’ve gotten to a place where I believe much of what I’ve written can be saved, but there’s a lot that will need to be cast aside. Also disheartening is that a fair bit of research is heading right down the drain. 

Sad as the whole thing is, this is what writing is all about. It could have just as easily happen when the novel got to a publisher or editor, “We really like the story you’re telling but could you change it to…?

So it’s once again Back To The Drawing Board for moi. Sigh…

But perhaps in the long run, I’ll be saving myself even more work.

Too much time on my hands

by Rick Blechta

In these most novel of times, everyone has had to face new realities and new ways of doing things. Hell! We have had to come up with less than new ways of living our lives. The pandemic shutdown has locked us all in cages, nice ones if you enjoy your living quarters, but cages nonetheless.

One seemingly good offshoot of this is time. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job where you can work from home, everyone should have more time to do things that they normally wouldn’t. If you’re unfortunately not working, well all you do have on your hands is time.

But something is going wrong.

I was speaking with a musician-friend yesterday. He was lamenting that even with hours on his hands every day, he wasn’t getting much done. Sure, he was practising a lot, but he had other musical goals (recording, arranging new pieces, learning a new recording program he’d bought, but somehow he never got around to these things in any meaningful way. “I feel completely stalled.”

That really resonated with me. I, too, seem to be spinning my tires more than would expect. Part of that is due to the curse of the internet. Even though it’s like watching a slow-moving car crash, I can’t resist reading about current events on various platforms. It’s appalling and fascinating at the same time. Like being in the middle of a great novel, I’m constantly thinking, How is this all going to end? At least we don’t have a TV…

That’s my main time-waster, but there are others. We have bird feeders right outside our back door and I can easily spend a half-hour dawdling over a cup of coffee and watching our guests — especially since a pair of Baltimore orioles arrived last week. There’s also another male hanging around, so there’s lots of chivying going on. (Birds can be really quite nasty to each other.)

You get the picture on how much time can be wasted during the day. I’m sure many of you have similar stories to tell.

So this morning I woke up and vowed that I was not going to allow myself to keep being distracted, keep myself on a schedule and actually accomplish the things I want to accomplish — and above all, not waste so much time!

First off, make a list. Always make a list when you wish to Get Things Done (that’s my mom talking).

Here’s today’s list:

1. Write Type M post: 1 hour
2. Take birthday present over to our granddaughter (she’s 4 today!): 2 hours
3. Practise! : 1.5 hours
4. Record 2 flute pieces for darling wife’s students: .5 hours
5. Change water in fish tank: 20 minutes
6. Make dinner (ratatouille): 1.25 hours
7. Finish song arrangement and print parts while waiting for dinner to cook: 2 hours

Get the picture? You don’t see anything on there about writing, do you? This is how all my days seem to go. Sure, it does take more time whenever you have to go out to the store. It’s not currently a matter of bopping our to the , grabbing what you need and arriving back home in under half-an-hour. It just doesn’t happen.

Something’s got to change or I won’t be able to call myself a writer anymore.

Starting today, I have a timer at my desk and I’m going to use it. Need to ? I set the timer for my budgeted time and when it goes off, I stop cold and move on to something else.

And no looking at the internet between tasks!