Much ado about little things

I popped open my word document to start working on Crowmaker this morning and discovered that the running word count I'd become used to seeing at the bottom of the page on Power Writer was, of course, no longer there. Since I was no longer in Power Writer. (No kidding.) Which left me with the options of obsessively checking word count with the word count tool every five seconds (a temptation too great for me to resist) or returning to my old way of counting daily word count which is translating it to more of a daily page count utilizing the standard publishing practice formula. Either works; the second is allegedly more accurate and foregoes the obssessive temptation bit, so I went with that. Standard practice formula is to use Courier 12 font and whatever margins will yield you 25 lines per page (EDIT: and 60 characters per line, including spaces, usually right around a 1" margin on all sides), which gives you an estimated 250 words per page. For my current summertime goal of 1,250 words/day, that's 5 pages.

(Why, you ask? Here's the most succinct response I've seen about it. Go pretty much anyplace that writers gather and you'll find heated debates on the topic, however. It's the method I'll continue to use for submitting purposes until someone gives me a good reason to stop, but I stop short of stating "OMG, that's how you HAVE to do it!" See this for a really good opinion on the word count debate.)

Anyhow. Since I'm in rough draft mode, it doesn't matter a whole lot how I track word count, except for my own purposes to provide me with tangible proof that yes, I am getting work done. When I did a quick and dirty count on what I had so far, I found that my publishing method gave me a different cumulative word count than my previous Power Writer tracking tool had--no great surprise there. To make everything jive with my Storytoolz progress meters, I adjusted my word count on my progress meter. So no, I didn't write quite THAT much today. Although the muse has dragged me out of bed before my alarm every day this week, so maybe 5,000 words in one day isn't entirely out of the question. Someday.

Toiling upward in the night

(Yes, I have been playing with the random quotation page again.)

I mentioned having put together a writing schedule for myself through the end of the year. The schedule includes a goal daily word count on days when I'm supposed to be producing rough draft of projects, with some specific dates for bigger benchmarks, mostly revolving around the quarterly due dates of the Writers of the Future contest. I also built in some days for producing no word count even during rough draft work, as a nod to my knowledge that sometimes I just need to step back and reassess and let things bubble a little.

This will be the second such reassessing and bubbling day this week, so I'm glad I built them in. I needed the time to reconnect with Crowmaker and to do a little more note making on the cultures involved and the overall plot structure. I hear bubbling, even if I don't know yet how the stew will turn out. Something yummy, I hope. I definitely need to get back into producing new word count soon, though--I can feel my writing muscles stiffening up and aching for a good run.

County fair this week. Balloon race was kind of a fizzle--fewer balloons than usual and they blew the opposite direction from us--but still a good excuse to sit on the deck and eat fudgesicles together. We'll hit the midway some afternoon/evening this week (the boys and I, at least), since Joey insists he really does want to ride the parachute drop and the double ferris wheel, and Michael must have funnel cake. (I might be a sucker for a lemon shakeup, myself.)

One moment to the next

Yesterday, I caught a good chunk of quiet time to assess stories and my schedule and take a stab at semi-organizing my writing time for the next couple of months. The Q3 story will be back burner for a couple of weeks, to do its stewing thing before I take a second look at it. In the meantime, it's back to Crowmaker. I have plans to visit the folks the week of the 20th, but the boys and I will be staying in a hotel in order to take advantage of the pool, so I should be able to keep up some kind of word count while I'm away. (Yay for laptops.)

I have also decided to move Crowmaker off Power Writer and into traditional, plain old word processor files. I've copied over note tabs already, just need to print them out and put together ye olde three ring binder of notes. (Call me old-fashioned, but I find it easier to track down what I need on paper than scrolling up and down through a zillion pages of on screen notes.) I really do like Power Writer--it's almost the ideal setup for me, in theory. But the whole undo button that doesn't really undo anything and other assorted glitches have made me a little nervous. Once I get up and running, hopefully I can spend less time fussing with software and just write.

The really good news is that Ein and Kellen popped into my head and started talking to me this morning, without me even having to go looking for them. The others can't be far behind, which means Crowmaker is still alive and kicking.

Our county fair opens today, which means we will have a hot air balloon race to watch this evening. Sometimes they come right over our house, one year so low we could look up inside the balloons and hear the burners hissing and flaming. Very cool. (Or so I thought. Avie was less enthused and went from standing against the fence barking as they approached to cowering under my chair and growling as they passed overhead.)

Hurricane season, year-round

(Or, Why I'm Not Writing Right Now)

If you're a parent, you're already aware that some days you can tolerate your children's little quirks, and some days it turns into an experience more akin to Chinese water torture or surviving a force of nature.

My youngest son is ten. He is and always has been... exuberant. And fearless. And a tad forgetful. The combination, as you might imagine, is good cause for a number of the gray hairs on my head. He's still working on learning to swim with a degree of consistent results, for instance--not because he hasn't had lessons or isn't trying, but because he'll get halfway across the pool and simply forget that he's supposed to be swimming instead of giving me a thumbs-up.

He is brilliant at math and understands concepts at a level I don't quite get. I can't count the number of times, when we were home schooling, that I would plan out a lesson that should take half an hour and wind up spending 10 minutes on it, because he figured out where I was going before I got there. He's good at his other school subjects, too, and he has that uncanny ability to listen without appearing to listen at all. But he is bouncy. (Raga would love him.) I've been known to state that he vibrates--this is not an exaggeration. If he were a cartoon character, he'd have those little wavy lines around him at all times. He rocks in chairs and car seats; he rocks side to side to put himself to sleep at night. Send him up to his room to get dressed, and pretty soon you'll hear him bouncing around and telling himself a story, and you'll know it's time to call up and remind him. "Michael?" "What, Mom?" "Are you getting dressed?" "OH YEAH! I forgot."

He CAN be still. When he sleeps, he doesn't move all night. He's just boom, out, and that's that until morning. Give him a book he's really into, and he's... well, mostly still. His current habit is to hang his increasingly long legs over the arm of the chair and use his toes to flip the piano bench open and shut, open and shut, open and... "Michael!" "Huh? Oh. Sorry, Mom."

I'm only half kidding when I say that this child has not just a guardian angel, but an entire flock. And I'm betting they have to rotate assignment on a pretty frequent basis, to cut back on on-the-job stress. Watching him hop-skip-dance his way up and down stairs is an exercise in motherly composure. Every once in a while he'll miss the last step or two and finish the trip down on his butt. The first time, I thought it'd cure him and make him more careful. It did--until the very next time he used the stairs.

This morning, I had to run to the store when I first got up, so I was late getting around to writing time. By the time I sat down, Michael had used up his morning video game time, so just as I was opening my Power Writer file, he came hop-skip-dancing up the basement stairs, whammed the door open and shut, whammed the bathroom door shut, whammed the toilet seat up and down, ran the water full blast to wash his hands, whammed the door open again, and bounced down the hallway and into the kitchen, which is open to the living room, which is where my laptop is set up. By this time, I already had an inkling that today is not a day where my tolerance threshold allows me to not notice the banging and bouncing.

Fridge opens and whaps shut. "How long do I need to microwave the jam, Mom?" (Joey and I made refrigerator jam with fresh strawberries the other night. They got almost too sticky, so we heat them a smidge to loosen them up again--and warm jam is yummy, too.) "About 10 seconds, Michael." Whap, microwave open, whap, microwave shut. Whirr, ding. Whap open, whap shut, slamming of jam container on counter. Bounce, bounce, bounce of bare feet on the kitchen linoleum. I glance over my shoulder and see him dancing around the kitchen island with no apparent goal other than dancing around the island. "Michael?" "Yeah?" "Are you going to put the jam ON something?" "OH YEAH! 'Wholesome grain goodness,'" as he drags the bread wrapper out of the basket. I look away at this point; I know the bread will be balanced precariously at the edge of the counter, I don't need the extra twitch seeing it will give me. Whap whap, toaster oven open and shut, and craaaaaaank on the timer. More bouncing while he waits. Ding!

At this point, I didn't see exactly what happened. "UH OH! OH NO!" Smack, the (thankfully plastic) jam container hits the linoleum. Now, this was on the far side of the kitchen. By the time I looked up, it was rolling on its side under the table, which is on the nearest side of the kitchen AND on the opposite side of the island in the middle of the kitchen. The dog, having amazing OMG FOOD reflexes, was a step ahead of me, wagging her tail in an "Oh, for me?" manner. Michael grabbed the dog, I grabbed the jam, and we scraped away the section of jam that we thought she might have actually managed to get her tongue on. "Sorry, Mom." "Just try to slow down and be more careful, OK? I think it's one of your extra-bouncy days, pretend you're moving in slow motion and you should be moving about the right speed." (Yes, this is a common instruction. When he remembers to follow it, he does pretty well.) Back he goes to his toast, jam and spoon in hand. I get back to my computer, glance over my shoulder, and see him holding the jam-laden spoon over the toast and whipping it up and down in an attempt to dislodge the sticky jam from the spoon.

"Michael."

"Yeah, Mom?"

"Use a knife to scrape the jam off the spoon and spread it around."

"OH YEAH!"

I'm going to settle for browsing the web for historic events and other miscellania from 1976, the year my Q3 short is set in, and call it research, and wait for my nerves to stop jangling before I try to write for real. I'm not complaining, really, or upset. I'm laughing too hard. Because some days, that's just what you have to do.

Waiting game

Some days, it seems like I spend more time waiting to write than I actually do writing. I feel that tell-tale itchy feeling inside my skull that indicates I am ready to write (I think), even if I don't know exactly what I will write. But there was the kid I promised a round of Heroscape, and there were the kids who needed lunch, and there is the kid watching No Reservations across the room. Soon there will be the kids I promised a trip to Dairy Queen this afternoon, and the dog who expects a walk right about now, and the laundry and supper and other assorted everyday things that constitute my "real" job, the actual reason I stay home during the day instead of trekking to an office somewhere for a paycheck.

Don't get me wrong. I love this job. In spite of the 24/7, every week of the year hours and the lack of tangible rewards. And I am happy and pleased to have my boys home with me, and I enjoy the Heroscape and the Rock Band and the Uno Attack and the trips to DQ. (I mean, come on--who would object to DQ?)

Except there's this itching in my head, and my computer is right here, and the PW document is open on that tab, right over there. Only I know that if I open that tab and start trying to write right now, there will be inevitable interruptions. My best hope is to wait another few minutes, when they settle in for their allotted video gaming time and a lack of interruptions will be almost guaranteed. Because I love my family, and the only thing that makes me crankier than not being able to write when I want to is being interrupted in midthought. I get snappy. I don't like this about me, but there it is.

So, yeah. Waiting to write. Remembering why I'm really home. Taking a deep breath and trying to enjoy the moment, even if it's not the one I think I want right now, because it won't come again, and I might regret missing out on it later.

Sshh, my brain is sleeping

I just realized I've missed a couple of days on the blog entries--although I've been putting lots of word count into the Q3 story process document over there on the sidebar.

The other day, I mentioned motivation and a Holly Lisle article. This is the one. I'm not saying we should all go out and make enemies to drive us to greater and greater writerly heights. But you know, I think we all have those people in our lives who, even if they mean well, spout those little remarks and lacks of faith that can either drag us down or push us. I've been lucky the last few months--most mornings I wake when my alarm goes off and can hardly wait to get to the computer and slap down the words to shape out that next scene, even when it's hard going. But on the days when I just can't seem to get myself going, the magic mantra of "Oh yeah? Just watch me" gets me moving.

There's a fine and dangerous line to tread, between writing just because I love it and feeling I should prove myself, those two things that I think must be necessary to become a "real" writer. I've crossed over onto the wrong side of that line before, and it about buried my writing impulses for good. I think, though, that being aware of the line's existence is helping me keep my balance; I know it's there, so I can glance down and make sure my feet are firmly planted in the center. I can use the updraft from both sides to keep me where I need to be.

This morning, for instance, I woke up and tried to make myself think about the current story and realized that I do not yet feel a passion for it--curiosity, yes, but nothing that makes me really like and care about these characters. I've been writing it because I said I would. And that's fine, because I read somewhere that the first draft is usually the getting-to-know-you draft; by the time you get to the end you're finally really getting to know your characters. And then you can go back in the second draft and rewrite so that those characters you know say what they really meant to say all along. Sometimes the biggest sparks come out in the actual writing, the little truths that magically make everything about the story make sense. So as I continue my process on Monday, I'll be remembering to look around as I write that first draft, and not just drudge through it because I said I would.

That's the plan, at least.

But not until Monday, because I told my brain it could have the weekend off. It didn't realize how exhausted it was until it got away from the work and laid down for a little nap, but it is now sleeping quite deeply and does not wish to be disturbed with anything even faintly resembling shop talk about those stories, thanks much. That's fine, I did approve the vacation days, after all. And quite possibly, when the brain returns on Monday, it will be all full of renewed creative energy.

Productivity outburst

More creative process blogging happening over here. You can bet on two things--there is or will be fire, and it will be awesome to behold.

I got my monthly Flash Fiction Flash Newsletter today, and it occurred to me that even though I'm not using it right now, there might be people out there interested in trying their hand at flash fic. Pam Casto's monthly newsletter has all kinds of tidbits about markets and contests and so forth, related specifically to flash fic. You can find it here.

In other news, wasps have been eradicated, windows have been stained, and the shed is half-painted. We're looking good today.