Month: November 2017

NaNoWriMo WINNER!

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Well, I did it. I hit the 50,000 mark on my manuscript and won #NaNoWriMo. Actually I did it first accidentally when trying to see where I was in the official word count. I forgot that I’d started with about 12,000 words and pasted the whole manuscript in.

Instant winner.

Luckily now you can edit your count by day, so I went back, undid it, and wrote a total of about 5,000 words yesterday. The draft isn’t finished yet, but it’s picking up speed. This one hasn’t been smooth for me, the book or the NaNo, and I didn’t decide to do it until the night before, but now I’m glad that I did.

It was a good reminder that even when things don’t come easily, even when each little step forward is difficult, they’re still forward steps.

As for the dishwasher, in case you’re wondering, it’s safely ensconced in its little corner, ready for its first meal of dishes. I’m still figuring out the best way to load it, like so many new things it has more options than what came before.

Meanwhile, I’m giving myself a little break from the writing today, now that the pressure is off. Good luck to everyone still cranking away, and congratulations on the effort itself.

And to my fellow finishers:

Check out my recap of the hit new show “All My Traitors.”

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

 

 

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My Dishwasher Wasn’t Done with Me

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© Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar, via Wikimedia Commons

Last week, with my blogging limited in the throes of NaNoWriMo, I talked about my dishwasher, and specifically how much I hate emptying the dishwasher.

Well, apparently I hurt its feelings. Terminally.

Shortly thereafter, I was running it through empty for a periodic clean when I walked into the kitchen to discover foam oozing out of the bottom panel. Now I may not be a technical genius, but I’ve seen enough of the world to know that liquid oozing out of a part of a machine that is supposed to be water-tight isn’t exactly a good thing.

I tried to get to whatever obstruction there was that wouldn’t let the water drain, but that dishwasher would probably fetch a pretty penny on the antiques roadshow, and it was not easily disassembled. New dishwasher it was. Especially given it happened during Black Friday week, the traditional time of year when dishwashers are begging for new homes.

So today is the day, and I eagerly awaited the quick switch-out. I mean, I already have one, right?

Um. Yeah.

So as I type there are two men stretching their ingenuity to the absolute limit trying to make it happen. Very kindly.

Hopefully very shortly I will have a functioning dishwasher, and if you’ve ever wondered why the installers are late with your appliance, well, it’s me.

And what of NaNoWriMo? Well, I’m not done yet. There have been other distractions along the way, worse distractions, and while I’m not behind, at the rate I was going, I should be done by now. Oh well.

Hopefully I will see you all at the finish line. With plenty of clean dishes in hand. Which would make it difficult to type.

Check out my recap of the hit new show “All My Traitors.”

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

The Mindful Dishwasher Writing Hack

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I hate emptying the dishwasher. I don’t know why; it’s not the most arduous of tasks, and it’s the one thing that can prevent your kitchen from going from reasonably clean to a disaster area in the space of a day.

And yet I resist it.

It’s a mindless thing, and maybe that’s the problem, it doesn’t use up enough of my attention, so I think about all the other things I could be doing.

I should be doing.

So this is going to sound somewhere on the wrong side of ridiculous, but I use it, sometimes, to practice mindfulness. I try to stay in the moment, and give myself permission to do only that one task at that time. I don’t have to reflect on what comes next, I just have to do.

And often, that’s when ideas come.

We’re in the deep end of NaNoWriMo, and even as that word count grows, getting to it can feel more and more difficult. In my case, this year I haven’t really had a period of skating, I jumped in at a slog. Perhaps it’s because I picked up something I’d started; those blank page, wide-open days are really the best.

So if you’re having some trouble, find your dishwasher. It doesn’t have to be your literal dishwasher, I assume you know where that is. Find that task you don’t enjoy, that doesn’t need your attention, and just experience it.

You can always make your characters pay for it later.

Check out my recap of the hit new show “All My Traitors.”

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

The Work of Writing Seven: Harnessing Procrastination

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(Previous Work of Writing posts)

Currently in the throes of NaNoWriMo yet again, I find myself with the same problem year after year: sitting down to do the work. Making myself gather my thoughts and typing.

Perhaps it’s just me. But I doubt it.

I have a secret weapon, though, and this nearly-midway point, when the thought of daily word grabs starts to wear, seems like the perfect time to trot it out. And to share it. Are you ready?

Procastination.

“What?!” you cry, hypothetical reader, clutching at imaginary pearls and closing the web page in shock. OK, maybe not quite so dramatic, but what do you want from me, we’re in the middle of NaNoWriMo.

Procrastination can work for you. How? I pick a task that is generally less appealing than getting into my words, especially at those tough bits where you question all of your life choices and think perhaps you should have joined the circus after all.

For me, that task is usually cleaning of some kind. I know for some of you, cleaning is a joy, and I have to tell you, I don’t understand your kind. And I’m a little jealous, but I digress.

So I give myself two options. I can do the task — clean the bathroom, for example — or I can sit down and write my blog.

You can see which I chose in this instance, but no worries, the bathroom is next. Because I still have to do my words.

You use the procrastination to your advantage. You still get something done, and if you’re like me, while you’re doing the other thing, the ideas flow like bleach from the bottle of imagination.

Given that metaphor, I guess I’d better get going on cleaning that bathroom.

Check out my recap of the hit new show “All My Traitors.”

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

NaNoWriMo’s an Energy Vampire. Hey I Should Write That Down.

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NaNoWriMo 2017 Participant FlairI’d forgotten how tiring NaNoWriMo can be, how it colors the world until everything is the word count. And no matter how long or how little time it takes to get the words out, afterward, it’s as though you’ve depleted a finite internal source.

Or maybe that’s just me.

I’m still trucking along, with a total over 15,000 so far. A NaNo rebel, I continued with a manuscript I’d already started, so I should top 30,000 total on the manuscript today.

Huzzah.

I hope you will understand if this blog is a little less frequent while I’m churning out words as quickly as my fingers can inaccurately get them to form. Anyone else finding it tough to keep a blog going during NaNo? Or maybe finding it cathartic to keep one?

Life is a juggling act, no matter whether you’re juggling cannon balls, oranges, chainsaws or words. Sometimes we drop a few. That’s perfectly fine.

Just watch your feet.

Check out my recap of the hit new show “All My Traitors.”

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

Check out my ‘All My Traitors’ Recap!

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In case you are missing my sparkling…errrr…wit? while I am snowed under (figuratively only at this point) with NaNoWriMo, I posted a satirical piece over at Medium. Here’s a taste; just hit “read more” to see the rest.

As if you didn’t know that.

Anyway, here you go! Hope your November is going well, and your NaNoWriMo too if that’s your thing.

#AllMyTraitors Episode One: Indictment Day

Hit new show “All My Traitors” premiered to some pretty heavy buzz recently. Kept under wraps by tight-lipped showrunner Robert Mueller, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the pilot ep shocked viewers worldwide.

“All My Traitors” also boasts a bold new show element….

READ MORE

 

Back in the NaNoWriMo Saddle Again

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Well, I got Day One down, and I wanted to finish Day 2 before blogging but I haven’t, in that I’ve written precisely zero words so far today. Zero, zip, zilch.

But that’s OK, I’ll get there.

That’s the thing with NaNoWriMo. It doesn’t have to be pretty or elegant or even any more graceful than an elephant in a tutu, which, come to think of it, could be very elegant and I’m sorry elephants.

It just has to get done. Whether that’s bright and early before the sun does it’s daily dramatic entrance, or way late at night when it’s just you and the owls and the raccoons.

Raccoons are always working on their novels late at night. That and eating garbage. Those are their things.

Some NaNos are painless spigots of daily word counts, with barely a sweat raised.

Others are so tough, sometimes you just don’t hit that 50,000 mark. But you know what? That’s fine too. Perfection is overrated. And nonexistent, but that’s a whole other blog post.

What are you still doing here? We have words to write. Or, at least one of us does.

I’m not naming names.

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

All Right, Planners and Pantsers Alike…

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NaNoWriMo 2017 Participant FlairThis pantser is IN! And as pantsering as always, given I didn’t really decide to go for it until this morning. Or possibly late last night.

Tough to tell.

I’ve logged in, created my “novel,” which never has anything to do with my novel, not really, but I fill out the form.All that’s left to do is pull up my spread sheet, trim my nails to word-sprint length and hit the writing starting blocks.

Who else decided to jump in this year? Any avoiders?

What am I doing blogging? I have words to write. My chart is looking awfully flat.

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.