Tag Archives: writing

Who, Me, Multi-Task?

It is a well-known fact that I do not have my act together.  I don’t even pretend to have my act together.  Anybody who thinks I have now or have ever at any point in my life had my act together is deluded.  Anybody with half a brain who is paying the slightest bit of attention knows: I’m a mess.

This is not to say I have no hopes of ever getting my act together.  On the contrary, I keep thinking I might.  Some days I would settle for having the various parts of my act on the same continent — oh, hell, the same planet!  Where was I going with this?

I suppose it is an introduction to another Wuss-out Wednesday post.

I did some writing earlier today, while on breaks at work.  It was on the banana play.  I got a marvelous inspiration for the plot, but I dare not say a word about it.  If you talk too much about these things you lose all impetus to write them, although sometimes the urge to talk about them is overwhelming.  For one reason, I feel so clever and pleased with myself, I almost admire my ideas as a thing entirely separate from myself and my not inconsiderable ego (when it comes to writing anyways).  I generously desire to give others the opportunity to admire (yes, quite a large ego when it comes to writing).

OK, I’ll admit it, the other reason to refrain from telling people my brilliant ideas is the quite reasonable fear that other people will not find them, or by extension me, as brilliant.

Getting back to my day, I made not one, not two but THREE stops on my way home from work.  I picked up two pairs of shoes that had been repaired at Melfe’s in Ilion, also dropping off another pair for the same repair.  I had waited far too long since Melfe’s called to tell me the repairs were done, but the people at Melfe’s were very nice about it.  I also stopped at a big-box store to purchase some yarn and a couple of other items.  My third stop was by Curves, not to exercise but to drop off an afghan I am donating to a friend who has a team walking in the Sitrin’s Stars and Strips Run/Walk.  She intends to raffle it for fundraising purposes.

As I reached home I felt I did not want to — was not capable of — accomplishing all that I had wanted to.  I was impressed enough with myself that I had made my stops. Surely I could sit down for a while.  Long story short (I know, too late), I didn’t.  I walked our dog, Spunky (I was always going to do THAT, however tired and stupid I felt).  Then I changed into workout clothes and put a load of laundry into the washer.  While the washer ran, I ran in place on the mini-tramp.  Spunky stared at me for a while, apparently waiting to see if there was any point in my gyrations.  When he couldn’t figure it out, he went and laid down on the couch.

After a short run (so boring, even with the television on!), I put the laundry into the dryer, bringing the non-drierables upstairs to hang on the bars.  Then I took my shower, put on comfy clothes and went down to the kitchen to fix dinner.  It took a while to get stuff chopped and into the pot, but soon it was simmering and I could get on the computer to check my email and Facebook notifications.

The point of this long, dull post (I hope not too dull) is, I guess, that even though I did not write a good blog post during the course of the day, I got a few things done.  I thought of that headline earlier, before I got around to composing this post.  I’m not sure it really fits, but it will have to do.  We’ll consider it a little Non-Sequitur Thursday creeping in early.  I’m sure ready to move on to the end of the week.

 

When in Doubt, Eat Ice Cream

Once again I did not write a blog post while on breaks at work.  I spent my working hours thinking about my banana play and coming up with no ideas.  If I had picked up a pen to write, I’m sure all that would have come out was what a writing crisis I was having.  I worked on cryptogram puzzles instead.  On the brighter side, I solved one that had mystified me on several previous attempts.

I made a stop on the way home, but it was at a chain drugstore.  There is nothing wrong with picking up needed items at such a store, I suppose, but it hardly offers the Mohawk Valley cachet I seek for a blog post.  It has been a dreadfully hot day (I recently read somewhere that you should say “sweltering” instead of “very hot,” but I can’t say the day felt sweltering. At least I did not use “very” for once) and I was coated with sweat by the time I got home.  Still, I got right outside with my little dog, Spunky.  We did not take a walk, though.  It was more of a brief business meeting.  There was not a chance I was going for a run.  So a Pedestrian Post or a Running Commentary was not going to happen.

Getting on the computer, I stared at a blank screen for a while.  Nothing happened.  I went into Drafts and looked at a couple I never finished but thought I might some day.  Today is not the day.  I added a couple of sentences to one.  I am not displeased with either, but, well, they need work.  I pondered my future as a blogger.

Then my husband Steven said that after the show we were watching was over (a re-run of Snapped, incidentally), he was getting a bowl of ice cream, would I like one?  It is not a good way to meet my weight-loss goals, but as a boost to my spirits, it seemed the way to go.  I said yes.  That at least gave me a title.  While I waited for the episode of Snapped to end and Steven to get our ice cream, I typed in the first paragraph and a half of this post.  After savoring the Death By Chocolate (if they meant it literally, I would have died happy), I  wrote the rest.

We’ll call this a Monday Mental Meanderings, and perhaps tomorrow I will explain exactly how I think I am ever going to meet those weight-loss goals.

 

Not Writing on Bad Attituesday

Under the heading Glass Half Full:  I get hot flashes at night, so I don’t get good sleep. Then I get hot flashes during the day, and they keep me awake, so I don’t get into trouble for falling asleep at work.  Sometimes menopause does you a favor like that.

I posted that as my Facebook status earlier this evening.  I make bold to lead with it here because, quite frankly, I got nothin’.   Yes, menopausal brain fog continues.  Additionally, it is Bad Attituesday.  I had a TERRIBLE attitude earlier today.  And I was almost completely unable to write.  Could one have something to do with the other?  No doubt these problems feed off each other.  The inability to write came first, since I have been struggling with that for a while, as regular readers know and are probably getting quite tired of hearing about.  Sorry, folks.

My attitude is a bit better since I finished my articles and sent them, with photos for one, to Mohawk Valley Living magazine.  I hope they like them.  Now I must start looking for topics for next month.  I have a couple of ideas, which would make good blog posts as well.  A good blog post for today?  Oh dear, I only wish I had one!

Before finishing my articles, Steven and I took a walk with our new little Shih Tzu Spunky.  Then I ironed patches on a couple pair of work pants:  on the butt of my BDUs and on the knee of my jeans (they are what they call “mom jeans,” and in fact they are my mom’s jeans, which I borrowed once and did not return) (in my defense, she told me I could keep them; Mom has more jeans than I do).  I just thought I’d throw in that little bit of housekeeping, so you would know that I do other things besides sit around and not write.  Happy Tuesday, everyone.

 

Why Wuss out Now?

Earlier today I was afraid this would be a Wuss-out Wednesday post and, well, here we are.  I don’t have any excuse, although I suppose I could make something up. In fact, perhaps I ought to make something up.  It would exercise my fiction muscles.

Let’s see… inclement weather?  A tornado kept me hiding in my basement, where the dampness irritated my sinuses to the point that composing a post became impossible.  Nah, nobody will buy that.  Local readers know the weather has not been bad and non-local readers can check the National Weather Service or someplace.  What else may be keeping me from posting?  A traumatic experience on the way home from work.  I was accosted by brigands.  Or does that mean pirates?  Desperadoes.  No, that’s the Old West.  Common or garden muggers? No, no, I would just write a blog post about that.

Anyways, this is not a fiction blog.  Other bloggers post stories or portions of stories, or veer off into fantasy.  I enjoy reading them, but I have never followed suit. I write fiction in my non-blogging writing life.  Novels, plays, murder mysteries and the occasional children’s story.  And let’s not forget my resume (just kidding; I don’t have a resume).

The fact is, I have not been doing enough writing of any kind lately.  The only cure for that is to Write More.  I shall get right on that and report back tomorrow what all I have written.  As always I hope you’ll stay tuned.

 

Slacker Saturday

Welcome to a new feature here at Mohawk Valley Girl: Slacker Saturday.  When you haven’t done enough to warrant a Scattered Saturday post, you didn’t write a post earlier and you just can’t wait to make your post and declare it wine o’clock. Oh, who am I kidding?  I don’t have to wait till after I post to have a glass of wine.  We’ve talked about sipping and typing before.  It is acceptable behavior among bloggers and a daily routine for some (um, I don’t do it daily.  Do you suppose I ought to?).

I worked today.  Although I was able to sleep until 3:30 instead of my usual 3:00, I’m tired.  I tried to take a nap earlier but without success.  I had a number of projects I thought I might work on, but all I wanted to do was sit on the couch and stare into space.  Naturally I stared at Facebook for a while instead.

I did spend a little time folding laundry.  Talk about a task of Sisyphus (ooh, I just figured out how to spell Sisyphus; yay me)!  Of course I love having a washer and drier in my house, but ever since I stopped going to the laundromat, I never have all my clothes clean at once!  I just can’t get to the bottom of the pile one load at a time.  I keep thinking, if I do one load every day, I will get caught up.  I can do that for maybe two days in a row.  Then if you don’t fold one load, you naturally don’t fold the next, and then you don’t want to wash another load till you fold everything you’ve washed so far.  Then sometimes you wear something out of the pile and think, “Ha, ha, don’t have to fold that one!”  Or is that just me?

One thing I did after much dithering was begin to learn my lines for Much Ado About Nothing (remember, with LiFT Theatre Company; I’m the Friar).  I had a bit of a sticky wicket when I could not find my Complete Works of Shakespeare. What’s that all about? It’s a giant yellow book, how do I lose it?  It takes a talent, I suppose.  If only I could use my powers for good.  When I lamented my loss on Facebook a kind friend offered me some Shakespeare books she doesn’t want any more (duplicates, I believe).  Another friend shared a link to all the plays.  I hope to get the books from the first friend soon (greatly prefer paper; I’m old), but in them meantime, I checked out the link, found my scenes and started studying.  Oh, how I love being in a play.

I almost forgot to mention:  I worked on my banana play while on break at work (I only got one today).  I think it is going rather well.

And look at this, I am over 500 words for one of my silly posts.  I think that deserves a toast.  Hope to see you all on Wrist to Forehead Sunday.

 

NOW I’ll Pour the Wine!

Oh, thank Heaven it’s Lame Post Friday and Wine O’clock.  If only it was also Steve-fifteen, my life would be perfect.  Full disclosure:  I have not yet poured myself a glass of wine.  That’s next.  First I need to make a blog post.

I have been experiencing great resistance to writing lately (yes, I know, some people call that laziness; they could be right but I am not up to arguing semantics today).  Twice this week I’ve brought plays to work to read, to avoid staring at a blank page in my notebook.  I really have to stop doing that.   I mean, sometimes it’s fine.  I read the play on breaks, I put the play away and work. Sometimes not so much.

When I was reading Leading Ladies I made rather a spectacle of myself by laughing out loud as I read.  That did not bother me nearly as much as when I read Wrong Turn at Lungfish and started to cry.  I sat at the break table with the tears streaming down my face.  Finally I got up and went to the usual refuge for crying, the ladies room.  I went into the back and sobbed.  That would not have been so bad, except the guy was in there cleaning at the time.  How embarrassing.

Nothing particularly embarrassing happened with the plays I read this week.  The problem was, though, they were so good I could not put them down.  Well, one must put down reading materials and return to work.  Those are the rules.  This is why I stopped bringing books to work (no, not the crying thing; I rarely cry over what I read).

I have managed to write at least a little bit on my banana play each day.  I hope to write even more this weekend, among other activities planned.  One thing I have definitely planned is to write some non-lame blog posts.  However, those plans are for the future.  For today, this is what you get.  Happy Friday, everyone.

 

I Write, I Wuss

OK, I’m tired of typing that in.  I have not finished the post I mentioned yesterday, about the cheesy movie we saw, but I thought I would type in what I had and see if I couldn’t draw a conclusion.  I certainly get long-winded about these movies.  So now I’m stuck trying to come up with a Wuss-out Wednesday post.

Earlier I had thought to write a cooking post about what I made yesterday for dinner.  But when I was thinking about it, I realized that all my recipes are depressingly similar.  Put onions on the stove in some oil.  Crush garlic and set the timer for 15 minutes.  Add other stuff.  Eat.  Yum.  Not a bad recipe, really, but how often can I use it as a blog post?  How many times have I used it?  It is way too much trouble for me to check, so let’s count that as a rhetorical question.

I did do some writing while at work.  I began writing the banana play (I have a new working title now, but I don’t want to share it, because I’m afraid of its being stolen).  And I made up a new writing rule for myself: Don’t take breaks when working on a project.  I’ve attempted to implement this rule with novels.  I see now that it works with plays as well.

You see, I started working on the play (that is, started on yet another idea for that play) last week.  Monday through Friday I thought about it, and I got quite a few notes written.  Then the weekend came and I got a little busy.  So I didn’t work on it.  Sue me.  I thought I could jump right back into it.  Turns out not so much.  I spent Monday and Tuesday thinking about the play but felt somehow… outside of it.  I couldn’t get into it.  I made a couple of notes but felt ultimately stalled.

Today I looked over my notes some more and still felt stalled.  My problem was that I wanted to outline the whole play before I started writing.  I have never been able to do that, but since I have a problem with finishing things, I thought it would be a good thing to try.  I was not successful.  However, when I decided to just begin writing the first scene… it seemed to work.

So I have a page or two of Act I Scene 1.  I’ll keep you posted on how I’m doing.  In the meantime, I guess this is the best I can manage for a blog post today.  Happy Wednesday, everyone.

 

More Tired than ‘Tude

My original plan for today was to write a Bad Attituesday post AND a movie commentary post (can’t really call what I write a review) while on breaks at work today.  Then I would type both posts in and not have to worry about a post tomorrow, when Steven and I have a program to attend at the Herkimer County Historical Society (preview of coming attractions).  My real plan was to avoid running again today while allowing time to do so tomorrow.

Why do I even bother making a plan?  It never works out for me.

I had no ideas for a Bad Attituesday post, so I tried my hand at the movie commentary  I wrote quite a bit on it, in spite of being somewhat mortified to realize I had not paid much attention to the movie in question.  It was running into some length and I had not finished.  Still, I did not despair.  I could come up with an ending, sure I could.  Something would come to me as I typed it in.

As the day progressed, I thought to myself, why not run?  Why not run in place on the mini-tramp for bouts of ten minutes or so, interspersing this with push-ups, crunches, flutter kicks, etc.?  What a great idea!  Especially if it rained, which was beginning to look possible.  I could still type in the movie post.  I didn’t have to do a Running Commentary two days in a row.

The rain held off, so I ended up running outdoors, taking a different path from yesterday and running for a whole minute longer.  I ran slow, even for me.  It did not feel as good as yesterday.  I persevered.  When I walked my cool-down, my legs felt sore, but it was the good sore of having just worked out.  I felt reasonably content, but still not inclined to write a Running Commentary.

Anyways, I had to cook supper first.  Well, not really “had to.”  Steven works till 6:30, so it would be quite acceptable to grab something easy and let him do the same.  This might even be preferable, because I don’t want to wait till 6:30 to eat and if I don’t Steven will have to reheat whatever I fixed.  But I really wanted to use some leftovers, I had what sounded like a pretty good plan to me, and I could always take any leftover leftovers for my lunch tomorrow.

I know, I know,  I could have just done a cooking post.  I could not have PLANNED to do a cooking post, since I was not sure till I was actually taking the cast iron frying pan out of the cupboard that I was going to cook.  But I can write that sort of thing on the fly.  I’ve done it before (I know, I’m doing it now, but this isn’t a “real” post, as you can tell).

Does the phrase Tired Tuesday mean anything to you?

Well, it means something to me.  It means I am leaving the — Good God — THREE pages of movie commentary untyped for now.  I shall look forward to finishing it.  In the meantime, I’m going to think of a silly title for this piece of foolishness, hit publish, and relax with my crochet and a true crime show on cable television.  Happy Tuesday, everyone.

 

Is This Literally a Bad Post?

A point to ponder:  Why would you call a premeditated murder “unthinkable”?  If it was premeditated, obviously somebody put some thought into it.

Actually (now that I THINK about it), “unthinkable” is kind of a dumb word.  I mean, you can think about anything.  Try to think of something unthinkable.  You can’t, because you just THOUGHT of it!

I know, I know, it is not a word that is meant to be taken literally.  And here I am using “literally” in its actual (literal) meaning, not the way some people use it, indiscriminately for emphasis (as in, “I’m LITERALLY starving to death!”).  I realize that “unthinkable” means “I hate to even think about it” or “I would never even think of doing that!”  or words to that effect (incidentally, that is one of my favorite expressions: “words to that effect”).

Sometimes I just wish people would learn more words so they could use a word that means what they mean it to mean (if you see what I mean).

I suppose one could argue (and there is always one that will argue) (you know who you are, although you probably deny it) that the language is always evolving.  Expressions fall out of favor, phrases are coined, slang terms magically appear.  It just bothers me when they do because people are too damn lazy to find the right word so they just use any old word that’s handy.

Then again, who am I to complain about anybody’s laziness?  I am going to be lazy enough to end this post here and call it Non-Sequitur Thursday.  I hope you are not literally mad at me.  That would be unthinkable.

 

Just Not Writing a Lot

My Leading Ladies Limbo persists.  Who knew you couldn’t leap right from one major undertaking into several projects left hanging?  Oh, I know, you probably never left a project hanging in your life (you know who you are) (and I think you’re kidding yourself).

So here I sit, trying to finally write my blog post while on a break at work rather than later composing it on the computer, and all I can do is wonder if I don’t have a cryptogram puzzle or two lurking somewhere (I foresightedly took my puzzle book home to remove the temptation) (my computer does not think “foresightedly” is a word, but I think it is or should be).

At an earlier break today, I worked on The Banana Play (working title).  It seems to be going fairly well, at least in these early stages. One can rarely predict with accuracy how these things will progress.

You know, I’m pretty sure I DO have an unsolved cryptogram puzzle somewhere in this notebook.

It turns out I did.  The above paragraphs are what I wrote earlier in my spiral notebook.  Now I am at my Mom and Dad’s house, because it is Mom’s birthday.  Happy Birthday, Mom!!!  I’m sitting at the kitchen table typing on Mom’s laptop, and I would really rather be visiting with my family.   So I guess this is my Wuss-out Wednesday post.  In my defense, I am writing.  I’m just not writing a lot.  As usual, I will go for a better blog post tomorrow.  Happy Wednesday, everyone.