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Laziness on Thursday …
2004 - 09 - 30
(1 comment)
One of the things I struggle with in my writing life is laziness. Mine is the sort of job where I don’t have a boss leaning over my shoulder waiting to read all the stuff I’ve written that day. Plus, there is always something more pressing around the house for me to do than work on my next novel. For example, do you know, you can plug into Google all the ingredients you want to use in your supper meal and it’ll spew out a recipe for you? Television is another distraction. Dr. Phil, and HIS characters are so much more interesting than my own characters. And of course, it’s SO very important that I be there to watch Oprah give away cars. I mean, seriously, you expect me to miss that?
I wish I was more disciplined. I wish I could be the kind of person who rose at dawn, meditated for half an hour, did aerobics for the next half hour and then spent the rest of the day diligently spinning wool and flax, and then walking around a field and buying it.
I’m not like that. I’m easily distracted. I need to give myself all kinds of rewards in order to keep going. Get another chapter written and you can answer two emails. Another 200 words and you can surf the web for the pictures of the hairstyle you want to print to take in the next time you get a haircut. Another chapter and you can surf the web for that medical condition you’re sure you have. Get a good morning’s work done and you’ll be allowed to watch an entire taped episode of Law and Order.
Something else I do to stem my natural laziness is to take my writing away from home. Coffee shops are a favorite haunt of mine. Maybe it’s the people around me. I can’t seem to spend time examining my fingernails for irregularities in the polish job when I’m sitting in Tim Hortons with all these people around looking at me wondering why I’m not busy. No, they’re not really looking at me, but did I tell you I’m also paranoid?
So, I struggle. I fidget. I take two steps forward and one back. But somehow the novels get written and life goes on.
Linda,
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has trouble concentrating. The Internet is a huge distraction for me, but I'm quite capable of finding other activities too. Hence the many story ideas I've never fully explored, the jigsaw puzzle that remains on my Roll-O-Puzz for months, and the cross-stitch project I received a year ago...
It may sound odd, but I am encouraged by your dilemma and the solutions you make for yourself. I'm not alone in this, and I believe I can overcome my tendency to laziness!
Have a great weekend!
Becca
http://zionsdaughter.blogspot.com Posted 6:43 pm ast
I am ready to begin again...
2004-09-29
Two weeks ago, after a horrendous five weeks of writing non-stop to meet a novel deadline, I emailed the completed manuscript to my editor. I was pleased with it. I was happy with the ending. And after it was all over I crashed. Well, not exactly. The day after - I’m not kidding here – I put in a Fleetwood Mac CD and began dancing around my office. I love the hard hitting bass in the song, Rhiannon.
After that I crashed. All I felt like doing for days was lying on my couch with a blanket and watching all the episodes of Law and Order and CSI that I’d taped all summer. All reruns, yeah, I know. But my brain couldn't process anything new anyway.
After a day of couch-potatoing, I worked on a few short stories, and put the plot and ideas of my NEW novel firmly into the thinking part of my brain.
Last night I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, thinking about my new novel. And suddenly the characters began living in my brain. I lay there thinking about them, and slowly, slowly they began to live in my head. They are slowly, slowly demanding that their stories be told. And they are asking me to do it.
I woke up ready to begin again, ready to meet a whole cast of characters who want their story told. I walked over to Tim Horton’s, got myself a large coffee and wrote pages of character sketches and ideas.
Part of the difficulty of moving onto a new novel is the ‘saying goodbye’ to the characters in the last one. Those characters are real people to me. Ask any writer.
What I’m reading now: Scribbling in the Sand by Michael Card. In his chapter about listening, he writes: “The best way to learn about prayer is to pray. And the best way to pray is to become a good listener and allow the Other to speak.”
Listening to God, I’m trying to get better at that.
4:01 pm ast
Whale Watching in the Bay ...
2004-09-24
Yesterday I had one of those experiences that make me yell, I LOVE MY JOB.
I spent the day on a 27 foot ocean-going cigarette boat looking for whales.The guy I went with uses it as a whale watching research boat. When he sees whales 'blow' in the distance he can get there quickly. He also takes groups of 6 people at a time out to find whales.
Since the main character in my next mystery series runs whale watching tour boat, I wanted to talk to a real live whale tour operator. So, on the recommendation of a sailing friend, I called him, told him I was a mystery writer and could I meet with him.
His response was - "I'm checking out the whales on Thursday, you want to come?"
"Sure!"
He's also a researcher, and so when we would see a whale (and we saw quite a few) - he would document it with pictures, and then time the minutes between blows with a stop watch. Quite interesting. And of course I got LOTS for my book.
My husband and I have a sailboat (for pictures, check my website), and, well, with sailboats it's all about the journey not about the destination. His boat? Definitely destination.
We saw minke whales surface. We followed a Right Whale for quite a while, saw him blow and do the tail fin in the air thing a few times. We saw fin whales blowing in the distance. But, I think the highlight was seeing a huge (whale-sized) basking shark breach. He came completely up out of the water, then dove in again. It was one of those, "Wow! Did you see that!" moments.
On the way home, I stopped at Tim Hortons to get a coffee and wondered why the girl behind the counter was looking at me funny. Then I went into the washroom. It looked like I had this weird sort of comb-over. Well, that's what you get when you ride in a 'convertible' cigarette boat for four hours.
For pictures of this boat and info about whale watching, see:
http://www.whale-watch.ca
Another whale site
A friend emailed me this neat site today for whale info. If you're a whale enthusiast look at: www.whales-online.net
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