Tag Archives: writing

Project you: Dec 23, 2015

How is your Project You going, peeps? As usual, I’ll start with myself.

I told myself I would post on ye olde blogge every day. Thus far (because I tend to update late in the evening as I am up late in the evening and it’s quieter then) I have technically missed two days. Solution: keep an eye on the clock later in the evening if I haven’t posted to it, since the time I post probably isn’t going to change much on an overall basis unless I want to write up an experience or what amount to notes for myself (about the bees, for instance) soon after completing a task. I expect I’ll be posting more earlier when it’s time to start seeding flats, transplanting seedlings, and getting back to the farming (ok, gardening, but you know, it feels like old-school farming some days because pretty much nothing is automated).

That was one. Number two: the fiction writing. Not so hot on this front. I started an outline for what would be the first in a (particular mystery) series. I subsequently threw it away. I can’t say it was horrid, but even as an outline I couldn’t stand it, so I am not sure what’s going on there. The story itself is interesting – at least according to those who have read snippets of what I’ve written on the actual work – and the outline is basically just a series of scenes that will eventually comprise the book, not those terrible Roman numeral-type outlines that bind you like a straightjacket. It’s more like sitting down with someone and having them tell you a story, which appeals to me in a sort-of-outline thing. I’ll be working again to get something in place as a map, which can then be fleshed out into actual chapters into an actual book. I figure if I can get through this process once, it will be easier the next time around.

I read an interesting comment (actually heard it, but whatever) from a very famous and prolific writer who says he doesn’t write down the ideas that come to him. He lets them stew in his brain, and if the ideas hang around long enough, he supposes those must be pretty good ideas, so he then takes them out and examines them a little, maybe making some notes around them here and there until he gets to them. On the other side is another very famous, but not quite so prolific, author who says shes writes down everything, as otherwise she sometimes has issues on the current work because of the ideas pinging around in her brain. After thinking on it a bit, I’m leaning more toward the latter – not that this will keep the things from invading the space in my head (because my mind is stuffed full of all sorts of things), but because at least they will be there if I want to add anything to them that comes to me during the course of doing something else.

Number three: the treadmill sessions. This has morphed into a general exercise item between walking and lifting heavy things, which is fine, because the point is to get some kind of physical activity in per day. I’ve only missed a couple of days of nothing particularly physical thanks to medically-related things, and that’s fine, too. Not every day is perfect,  despite the little perfectionist voice in my head that I’d like to swat out of the air. Or at least out of my head.

And there you have it. I’m hoping you’ve implemented some kind of plan to get to where or what you want to be or do, and that you’ve taken steps – no matter how small – on the path to getting there. The old adage about a journey of a thousand miles starting with a single step is an old adage for a reason. It’s true.

Until next time, peeps! Be well. Do your thing, whatever that thing may be.

Putting the gardens to bed

Good evening, peeps and rancherinos! The day began wrapped in fog at the ranch today, and slowly burned away the last wisps of it toward noon, turning it into the sort of spectacular day that makes me glad to live here.

The quiet of the fog is different than the quiet of a normal day, but both are welcome – and one of the reasons we moved out here. It’s easy to lose yourself in the silence and allows the mind to wander even while pulling weeds and cutting down asparagus fronds to continue the process of putting the rows to bed as Mother Nature slowly embraces the change of seasons. That runs right up to and includes a scene for a novel unrelated to the one I am currently working on that now needs to be jotted down to have it for that future work.

A pileated woodpecker kept me company this morning, pounding away at the trunk of a tree with which he was obviously familiar, given the various holes in the trunk. I checked on the girls in the beeyard, and they were enjoying their sunshine, darting away in all directions on the hunt for nectar and pollen to collect and return to the hives.

Whatever you did today, folks, I hope you enjoyed it.

“True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.” – William Penn

Writing. Writing. Writing.

Just received the best critique from my instructor for the five pages I wrote in the last assignment for a class I’m in about novel writing.

“Wow! Awesome pages. Very little I would change. Great sense of POV, forwarding plot and characterization. Your dialogue simply shines here.

I can’t wait for more.”

There were two changes she made, simply to better identify who was performing a particular action outside the dialogue. Nothing else.

Sweet!

Fall

I had originally started this post on November 1, thinking the end of hurricane season for us would be a good jumping off point to begin posting once more, and specifically, to begin ruminating about fall. Then two things came to mind: first, that the next day was election day, and I needed to post network traffic warnings (because of all the sites we host that would be posting/following various things) and take care of some things before the next day, to make sure all the pieces were in place for appropriate monitoring. Second, that it’s hard to think “fall” when it’s still in the mid-80s and there are various medical appointments that are weighing on your mind.

So I stopped, saved it as a draft, and thought I would pick it up again post-election, and when I might be in a better frame of mind. But I didn’t, and tonight I deleted it since it seemed rather pointless to pick up a draft of five sentences when anyone who knows me knows that five sentences takes about a minute flat for me to recreate in a new post. I do ted to be verbose.

I’ve been a blog slacker of late, for reasons I don’t quite know, although I am by nature a quiet, private person, something that drives (or drove) certain people nuts. As it happens, I now firmly believe this is also something holding back my writing, because although I’ve have ideas bouncing around in my skull for 20 years, I’ve yet to put any of them to paper, so to speak, as this may have the result of showing something within myself and as a bonus, it may also well and truly suck and not live up to what are likely impossibly high standards I usually set, even though I know at the same time I am perfectly capable of crafting good writing. Quite the dilemma.

As usual, I digress. Fall is indeed upon us, such as it is here, and this month we’ve had several nights where we’ve dipped into freezing temperatures. Not many, naturally, as this is the south, and fall here means mid-70s in the day and 40s-50s in the evenings. The freezes are here and there, scattered like so many leaves giving up and spiraling to the ground. Tomorrow night, and again in the latter part of this week, we’re expecting more freezing overnight, which means it’s time to drag out the plastic and make covered wagons to protect the tomatoes, peppers, and other things that are a bit fragile from the weather in hopes that we can baby them through and get a harvest out.

There is more to come, and I’ll be backtracking a bit to pick up the pieces of my tales that I have missed by not taking a break from work.