Tired and Sick

I had such an odd, off day today that I nearly forgot to do the blog entry. Joe and I went out for drinks after supper last night (after he locked his keys in his car and we had to drive back to his house for his spare set). So the day started off good, but after I walked fence and got back to the house, I started feeling really bad. I didn’t feel like working, even though I had a great scene between Tay and Ana in my head, so I curled up in Dad’s lay-z-boy with Zip and a Robin of Sherwood novel and slept. If I hadn’t felt so strung out and just out of it, I would have given myself a serious upbraiding. But, I got up later (much, much later) and wrote a few drafts of a query letter, three pages of Taylor (tentatively book 3), and started changing my paper edits to Word. Hopefully I can get more done tomorrow. I feel really lazy.

I finished “The Harlequin” this morning. Great read. And our house-guest, Bruce, gave me a copy of “Seven Centuries of Verse” that he got for a dollar at the local book swap place. So I got some poems to keep me out of trouble for awhile.

I do have one, final observation for the evening. I fall asleep reading quite often. And that is always really odd, ‘cause I start dreaming where the book left off and it gets mixed up with other stuff I’ve been doing or reading lately. So today Robin Hood and Anita Blake were in Sherwood forest hunting vampires and fixing tractors. I think I need to get out more. Any one to second that? :-)

Ponies and Pages

One garden and a hundred pages later and I can finally take a minute to actually write something. I try for pages everyday, but yesterday I really got in the groove for editing Taylor one more time and did the whole damn thing over the course of the day. I had an epiphany (complete with light bulbs blinking and angels singing) about the editing process. Before, I’ve always had it in my head that “this is what I’m trying to do and this is what I will make this text do, so help me, if I have to beat my head to a bloody pulp against this damn brick wall I keep banging into!”

Well, needless to say, that may have not been the most effective strategy.

Instead, I put all that out of my head and approached the text from a reader’s perspective. See, I question things when I read and look for links and details and questions abound, like “what does he look like? What does she do?” and those questions usually are answered later on. So I tried to apply that logic to reading Taylor, instead of letting my “great master artist’s vision” get in my own way. I think it worked, to a point, and I only have one scene I need to add now. It’s a fight scene, not my favorite. I can do sex scenes all day, but violence… guess I just need to get over it. I’m just not a violent person and haven’t been in many violent situations. So it’s a stretch to write fight scenes.

There’s, of course, some details to check and recheck, but for the most part I have my first working manuscript. Start to finish I think it was about three months. And I wrote a lot of backstory and scenes that might make it into subsequent Taylor novels, but certainly not the first one.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. --Emily Bronte

Got it going my way today. Already got most of my workout in, walking fences and biking, also got the lawn mowed at the farm and dishes going. If I get to the laundry and plant the garden, I’ll be on top of the world.

My new favorite song is “Johnny and June” by Heidi Newfield. Let’s just say it reminds me of someone (and its not just Zip for a change!)

Dad and I got a lot done yesterday. We got plants and seeds for the garden and got the space raked and prepped for planting. The wind got to us though, and we called on account of the wind making us nutty. The wind is still up today so I got blasted mowing. Also took a tree branch to the shoulder. That should leave a nice mark. It’s already pretty sore. But I brought enough grass and dirt in with my hair that I could have filled a window box. Oh well. I made Gram happy. Everyone else will have to wait a week.

Started The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo yesterday. Good so far. I’ve just started to wonder how the translations of French novels compare to the original. How much is lost in translation. I assume a lot, just because the romance languages are so… well, romantic. But I don’t intend to be able to read French anytime soon. I struggle with “una mas cervaza, por favor.” Two semesters of Spanish and that’s all I got and Dad taught me that beforehand! Oh well, can’t be good at everything.

We all have a cradle-to-the-grave journey to make and, in between, what do you do? There's got to be something hereafter. Robert Duval

It’s my dad’s birthday today. In deference to my aunt and uncle’s math, he’s either 53 or my aunt’s younger brother who is now older than her. My cousins are still in their late twenties and I’m still nine. (I can pass for fourteen, not nine.) So happy birthday to Dad, even though I know he doesn’t read the blog.

On a completely different note, I wrote eight pages yesterday. Sweet bliss! Few things in life feel as good as words pouring effortlessly from your fingertips. And I’m not dried up today, just easing into a Saturday. I think that feels even better. I’ve been stuck editing the first book for so long that actually writing, making things up from nothing, flexes a different muscle. And the research, at this point, is enjoyable as well. I love animals, and since Taylor has so many animal guides, I get to do a lot of research on animals.

I’ve been reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte and just finished Laurell K. Hamilton’s Kiss of Shadows. Both are great books in their own way. I love how the Bronte sisters are working within this proper framework but their stories, especially Tenant and Wuthering Heights, are so improper. There’s premarital sex, spousal abuse, all these things that weren’t talked about. I love it. And LKH always makes me want to go and write.

Again, on another note, I made some kickass lamb chops last night, marinated in a sauvignon blanc with garlic and rosemary. Then I grilled them and served them up dill and onion bread, steamed broccoli, and grilled asparagus, deglazed with more wine. It kicked ass. Now I gotta think up something as kickass for Dad’s birthday dinners, tonight and on Sunday with Gram. (Heavy sigh.) Good thing I enjoy cooking. I’m not always good at it, but I love doing it.

If I was a guy...

It’s Friday and who doesn’t feel good about a Friday? I’d feel better if I knew if I was driving up north to ride colts tonight, but we can’t have everything. I got a lot of plotting done yesterday, not very much text, but a lot of what happens where, when, and why. For me, the how it happens is the text, so I’m trying to get to that this weekend. If I just knew what a train ride was like I’d be all set. I also did a lot of research on shamanism and mental control for magic, so meditation and chakra points. Hey, I still think the tractor research was a lot more interesting, but I gotta go where the book tells me to. Or rather, where Taylor tells me to. She’s a demanding bitch. Good thing one of us is.

Started off slow again today, just like yesterday, only for different reasons. Last night, Dad, Bruce, and I gave up on cooking and went the local watering hole for dinner. Of course, profuse amounts of beer later and I still have a headache this afternoon. When I got up this morning, just after 7, I thought Dad was already up and gone, but the coffee pot was cold and his truck was still in the driveway. Lo and behold, I looked over while making cereal and yogurt (quite a complicated gourmet feat, I tell you what) and there’s a lump still in Dad’s bed. It’s unheard of this man to be in bed after 7 a.m. I don’t think he felt that good, but my ego got a boost and I could quit calling myself a good-for-nothing loser for a few minutes. Hard on myself? Moi?

So I got to the store, took thirty dollars in beer cans (and two pop cans) back, and made it back home in an hour and a half. Now I’m trying to settle in for an afternoon of writing, or at least working until I hear whether I got colts to ride. Then I’ll be doing laundry and packing like a manic. Or is that Maney-ic? Oh well. ;-) Happy days.

Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it. -- Sam Ewing

Despite mulching at Gram’s for two days, I’ve been on this Robin of Sherwood marathon, the BBC series that was on tv in the ‘80s. The DVD version was a graduation present that I am very much enjoying. I still sob like a school girl during “The Greatest Enemy.”

I did a writing exercise yesterday and realized something important. I took this time off in order to write, to try and make that a career. But I’m not taking myself seriously enough. It’s like, since I’m home all day, I should be able to do this, that, and the other thing. The writing suffers because I don’t sit my ass in a chair and do it. That has to change. But no one ever said working from home was easy. I guess I’m exploring what works for me. So far, I’m fucking off and messing with the farm, which needs attention too since its also part of my self-employment plot, plan, whatever.

Oh, I don’t know. All I want to do is tell stories. Why does it seem like some days the whole world and everything in it is stacked against that? I really try to be a positive person and make a difference in the corner of the world I live in, but sometimes it’s more difficult than others. The global problems just seem overwhelming. The odds seem stacked against the unconventional person trying to make a living in this world. It’s great to enjoy the little things in life, but they don’t put food on the table.

Sorry for being so negative. I promise to try and shake it off by the next entry.

And here comes the rain on the windows. A perfect day to stay in and write.

For all you overachievers out there -- fucking knock it off

Oh joy, its Monday again. Out of all the days of the week, it’s generally the day I feel the worst about myself (except those days when I wake up and can’t find my clothes and have to chew my own arm off, but luckily those days are fewer and farther between). I always make these grandiose plans for Mondays. Clean the house, top to bottom, get all the bark mulch spread, do laundry and dishes, read tons and tons, exercise like a fiend, and get lost in a rush of glorious pages that never need editing.

Yeah, right.

About 10:30 I get dizzy from low blood sugar, binge eat, feel bad about that, but too full to do anything, so I curl up with a book, inevitably fall asleep, and lose track of all the much more productive things I had planned. (Yes, I know I need to get a job, but work with me.) I beat myself up so bad for not sticking to my schedule (aka giving in to my human failings), that I never get anything accomplished. And once my Monday gets thrown off, the whole week might as well be gone, because I failed, etc, etc. You get the idea.

Maybe it’s because I’m female, maybe it’s because of this damn Calvinistic work ethic, I’m not sure. Well, goddamn it, I hate this attitude. It’s unhealthy and counterproductive. I’m comparing myself to other people and that will bring me up short every time. After all, in the broad scheme of things, I don’t work that hard. But instead of getting down on myself about it, I should use that energy to make something, to invigorate and motivate myself. You’re not a failure until you stop trying, after all. And in the end, the only person I really need to compete against is myself. I would do well to remember that.

And that Mondays always blow.

And the next time I get these impulses to stack all my jobs on one day, make it a Wednesday.