IT'S GONNA BE MAY
Apr. 30th, 2015 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
la_belle_laideI've been trying to catch that stupid cat in the trap, so I can put down a garden without it turning into a giant litter box. But so far I've trapped a possum, and a terrified raccoon. Callum saw the raccoon in the trap the morning I found it, so he's been talking all about the “maccoom” since then. And of course the dogs are going out of their minds. (I did let the maccoom go. It scurried under the damn shed, where it's probably got a nice little home and a ton of babies who are also going to spend their lives trying to eat garbage. But I don't know what else to do with it.)
National Poetry Month is over and thank god for that. Almost all of my poems were forced and really sucky this year. I wasn't feeling it, and I'd almost always rather have been writing something else or even just doing something else. And to top it all off, I got a message from a curator at hitRECord, and would I be interested in writing something for a science-related radio show? HELL YES I WOULD. What's the deadline? MAY 1st. Oops! I really want to whip something up tonight before bed. I hope I can!
Right now there's a guy outside cleaning the leaves out of the yard. I went and hired someone because it's been YEARS, the place looks like trash, and I just don't have time. He's doing it for really cheap. So I keep going out there every half hour to bring him some food and water and ask if he wants a sandwich or something like that. It's not even going to be perfect; it's just getting rid of years worth of leaves. The rest of the junk (old Xmas trees, tons of weeds and brush,) is still going to be there. Two hours a day, I get. I use them to write. The yard doesn't even come in second. But it's still hard for me to ask for help – even if I'm paying.
Mother's Day is just around the corner, and then Callum's birthday. I generally don't do much for Mother's Day—really just get a little something for my Mom—but I really look forward to Callum's birthday. Err, all two of them so far. Last year's one was such a beautiful and fun day. I hope this one will be, too. I actually just bought him that stupid LeapPad thing. There are so many things I said I would never do as a Mom that I have to do now, like microwaving things. Honestly, sometimes you just run out of time and you're like, “Okay, I fail as a Mom today.” I don't necessarily think that getting a Leap Pad is a fail, though; it's not like he's going to use it all the time. He's got a little toy laptop, and even a few other LeapFrog products, like toy phones and tablets, and he only uses them once in a while. This one has WiFi, though, and I figured I'd get it for the airplane ride in August, at the very least. We still mostly run around the house, or outside, and play, and read. I'm happy to say that I'm not really exaggerating with that. We do a lot of things that don't involve watching TV or youtube. So I think a little WiFi toy will be okay; it's not going to eat all his time.
You know, the way Tumblr eats mine. ^_^ Although when I really do have to get something done, I get it done. Right now I've got a manuscript out to two people (well, a partial, and a full after a partial, which is REALLY EXCITING because hi, you liked those first 3 chapters enough to ask for more!) And I'm still revising the NaNo one like a bitch. Like a HUGE bitch, I mean I keep changing things all the time. Soon, I'm going to have to put it somewhere so that close, trusted people can look at it, and then put it into OWSFFH and let people really have a go. Do major, major revisions. And then start querying that one, too. That story doesn't even know what it is, yet. But I'm to the point where I'm dreaming about it, so I think that's good.
Yesterday was 70 degrees. Today it's back in the low 50s. Damn it, weather. TURN HOT.
National Poetry Month is over and thank god for that. Almost all of my poems were forced and really sucky this year. I wasn't feeling it, and I'd almost always rather have been writing something else or even just doing something else. And to top it all off, I got a message from a curator at hitRECord, and would I be interested in writing something for a science-related radio show? HELL YES I WOULD. What's the deadline? MAY 1st. Oops! I really want to whip something up tonight before bed. I hope I can!
Right now there's a guy outside cleaning the leaves out of the yard. I went and hired someone because it's been YEARS, the place looks like trash, and I just don't have time. He's doing it for really cheap. So I keep going out there every half hour to bring him some food and water and ask if he wants a sandwich or something like that. It's not even going to be perfect; it's just getting rid of years worth of leaves. The rest of the junk (old Xmas trees, tons of weeds and brush,) is still going to be there. Two hours a day, I get. I use them to write. The yard doesn't even come in second. But it's still hard for me to ask for help – even if I'm paying.
Mother's Day is just around the corner, and then Callum's birthday. I generally don't do much for Mother's Day—really just get a little something for my Mom—but I really look forward to Callum's birthday. Err, all two of them so far. Last year's one was such a beautiful and fun day. I hope this one will be, too. I actually just bought him that stupid LeapPad thing. There are so many things I said I would never do as a Mom that I have to do now, like microwaving things. Honestly, sometimes you just run out of time and you're like, “Okay, I fail as a Mom today.” I don't necessarily think that getting a Leap Pad is a fail, though; it's not like he's going to use it all the time. He's got a little toy laptop, and even a few other LeapFrog products, like toy phones and tablets, and he only uses them once in a while. This one has WiFi, though, and I figured I'd get it for the airplane ride in August, at the very least. We still mostly run around the house, or outside, and play, and read. I'm happy to say that I'm not really exaggerating with that. We do a lot of things that don't involve watching TV or youtube. So I think a little WiFi toy will be okay; it's not going to eat all his time.
You know, the way Tumblr eats mine. ^_^ Although when I really do have to get something done, I get it done. Right now I've got a manuscript out to two people (well, a partial, and a full after a partial, which is REALLY EXCITING because hi, you liked those first 3 chapters enough to ask for more!) And I'm still revising the NaNo one like a bitch. Like a HUGE bitch, I mean I keep changing things all the time. Soon, I'm going to have to put it somewhere so that close, trusted people can look at it, and then put it into OWSFFH and let people really have a go. Do major, major revisions. And then start querying that one, too. That story doesn't even know what it is, yet. But I'm to the point where I'm dreaming about it, so I think that's good.
Yesterday was 70 degrees. Today it's back in the low 50s. Damn it, weather. TURN HOT.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Date: 2015-05-01 12:34 am (UTC)I'm of mixed minds about month-long challenges. Sometimes they are really inspiring and envigorating and productive, and sometimes they feel like a waste of words on a page. I mean, i am pleased with how doing Camp Nano this past month went, but i've also done stuff before (Nano, poetry month, etc) where i felt like i might ahve been better off just doing the fucking laundry instead.
Re:
Date: 2015-05-01 02:09 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2015-05-01 10:44 am (UTC)So when i'm at work, or otherwise NOT writing but conscious, i'm thinking about how i can best use that time when i CAN write, and if i sit down and my plan or my idea for what i was going to do isn't working for me, i do something else, write something else, because i just can't spend those precious hours writing shit i don't want to write just because i signed up for Nanowrimo or whatever.
I used to be extremely pro-Nano, but the more i've written and the more i've done it (or elected not to do it), the more i'm on the fence about it. There are a lot of great things about it--the encouragement from others, the write-ins and sprints and things like that--but there are also a lot of things about it that make me uncomfortable, like the framing of the achievement as a "win/lose" situation.
I had a woman in my cabin in Camp Nano this past month who "lost," fell 14000 short of her goal because her grandmother had a stroke and she had to drop everything and care for her, and she made a really thoughtful post about how, if that hadn't happened and she'd met her goal, what would she have actually "won"? And since it did happen and she didn't meet her goal, in light of the circumstances she hated having to say she'd "lost" anything, because she still had words of a story that she hadn't had a month ago. And i just thought, god, how many people every time they do this feel similarly jarred by the language of winning and losing? Because it's not a competition.
I digress bigtime. The actual point is: unless a publisher is breathing down you neck because you are contracted to turn in a draft and you aren't done yet? Writing shouldn't be stressful. (Unless it's a difficult section to write because hard stuff happens to your characters, but thats different than a writing challenge stress.) IMO.
But two agents reading, so fuck all that. :D
no subject
Date: 2015-05-01 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-01 04:05 pm (UTC)