Tag: personal

Post-Holiday Readjustment

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Image courtesy of One Piece

The extended holiday weekend is over and, depending on how you look at it, things are either going back to normal or ramping up. It’s now officially the Christmas season. Local listen-at-work station KOIT has officially gone 24/7 Holiday Music, as they do every December until New Year’s Day. One of our neighbors got their Christmas tree on Sunday and I know this because there’s a trail of needles heading from the front door to the elevator. We’ve yet to put up our own tree (ours is fake and lives in the back closet most of the year), but I’ll most likely do that this week. And we are so well-stocked on turkey leftovers that we’ve been eating turkey wraps the last few days. (Not that I’m complaining.)

Also, I haven’t written any new words at all since last Tuesday, and I’m really itching to get back to it. I’ve been doing another read-through of Theadia (and will most likely do one of Queen Ophelia after I’m done with that one) the last few days and I can’t wait to get back to work. It’s also that time of year where I start thinking about my year-end music lists and mixtapes (I am woefully behind on mixtapes in general, so I may do a few of those this week as well). And it’s time for me to think about what I want and need to do come 2022, personally and professionally.

So it’s not so much post-holiday readjustment as it is mid-holiday readjustment, I suppose. I’m so used to my Decembers being busy as hell so I see no reason why I shouldn’t be busy creatively while I have the time and ability. With the old Former Day Jobs I’d survive them by hyperfocusing on whatever I need to do at that moment — get the new cd releases security-tagged and price-tagged, lay out the pallets for the 8,374,621 candle boxes that will come down only my lane in the next five minutes, figure out whose UrgentPLZHALP email needs to be looked at first, and so on — so I’ve done the same with my writing projects. That way I can start the new year fresh and already revved up and excited to get going.

Whatever is coming next, I’m ready for it.

The Real Thing

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There’s been some noise lately about a few companies and intellectual properties jumping on the NFT bandwagon, and this time they’re all about trying to convince everyone that it’s in an artist’s/musician’s/writer’s best interests, that they can make all sorts of dough fast and easy, just by creating these doohickeys! And surprising absolutely no one, an extremely high percentage of said creative persons are responding with a big fat NOPE.

I mean, other than the vague theoretical that an NFT is — a non-fungible token, which no one really seems to understand or be able to accurately describe in the first place, including those who are trying to shill them — these creative people aren’t really buying the idea of a person not owning, say, a signed book, or a limited edition vinyl record, or a one-of-a-kind painting one can hang on their wall, or a photograph printed by the photographer themselves, or a cd that one can get autographed by the band members themselves. That’s not what an NFT is.

So what is it? Who the fuck knows. In vague theoretical terms, it’s apparently an e-token of sorts. Something that says one owns not an original piece of created art or a copy of it that you can actually tangibly hold and appreciate in some sort of way, but…something that says you own said token that’s tied to it. You’re not a shareholder. You’re not an owner of the creation. You’re just an owner of the mere statement that you own something.

In short, it’s saying “hey look what I have”. What you actually have doesn’t really matter. You’re not even an insider or a collector. It’s the idea that you have it, and you can’t trade it for anything else. It’s a one-of-a-kind statement of ownership, with the pesky annoyance of what you own taken out of the equation. And in some weird theoretical financial world, that’s worth…something? I think?

So. Why am I yammering on about this?

Because I, as a writer, a musician, a photographer and an artist, have absolutely zero intention of getting in on that bit of vague theoretical nonsense. When I put my books out for sale, you get a book. I flipping wrote them on purpose. For you to read. Good Christ Almighty, why the hell would I want to put myself through multiple tireless months of writing, editing, revising, laying out and self-releasing novels otherwise??

If you buy my wares, you get the real thing. Not a vague theoretical.

Autumnal

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A and I were walking up to the Clement Street Farmer’s Market yesterday and she’d noted that the weather felt quite autumnal: clear, bright, and cold. Of course, our weather here in the Richmond District rarely gets truly autumnal. Depending on the fronts coming in, some days it’ll be clear and chilly, other days it’ll be forever overcast and damp.

I still miss autumns in New England, to tell the truth. I miss the chilly mornings driving into work with a large coffee to warm me up. I miss the back roads canopied with yellow, orange and red. I miss the quiet whispers of wind through the trees, helping the leaves fall.

These are the kinds of things I like peppering into my novels. In My Blue World‘s universe is New England-y, with several moments taking place in leaf-strewn woods, apple orchards and hilltop cabins at the start of the season. Meet the Lidwells! has the kids writing songs inspired by New England seasons. Diwa & Kaffi also sees the change of seasons as a passage of time and life. And even Queen Ophelia gets to experience weather changes as well. It’s my way of inserting some personal memories of autumnal moments. And I’m sure I’ll keep doing it with future stories as well.

Readjustment (Again)

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Image courtesy of From Up on Poppy Hill

It’s been a very long and exhausting weekend here, between the three days of Outside Lands (Friday through Sunday) as well as grocery shopping and laundry (today). This would of course explain the lateness of this post! Now that I have a minute, I have a few things on my mind.

For the most part I was extremely successful doing my daily sketch for Inktober! That’s a first in years, as I’d usually end up crashing and burning about halfway through. I only missed two days (one because the prompt was just too esoteric for me to think of anything decent, and one because I just plum forgot), so that’s a win for me. I did learn a few things: first, I’m still more of a doodler than an artist but I think with time and consistent practice, I could definitely get better at it. Second and semi-related, I finally figured out the ‘consistent practice’ part of it that always eluded me, and essentially that I just needed to find a good time to do it; in this case, it fit in perfectly with my morning journaling. Third, that I really do need to practice on keeping the overthinking to a minimum.

This third one’s the most important one for me, because that’s always been my biggest problem in writing, especially when I’m assigning myself things. I’ve said it before: you ask me to write a simple bit of microfiction about a goat in ten minutes, my brain will automatically try to extrapolate so many extraneous details — what kind of goat, where is the goat, why a goat, what weird plot can I come up with, and so on and so on — and it’s always driven me crazy. Maybe it’s undiagnosed ADHD or something else, I don’t know, but my brain’s always been that way, even when I want to do a simple and fun throwaway exercise.

So how did I work past it? Well, with Inktober, my initial plan was to make it simple: take the prompt and draw the first thing (or second if the first is too hard) that comes to mind, and running with it. Also, don’t take more than a minute or two on it. So in short: have fun and don’t think too hard about it!

And in the process, this has helped me learn how to work past writing blocks and Don’t Wanna/Distraction days — of which I had one not that long ago. I had to do a few needed errands and in the process my productivity just completely bottomed out that day. It got me thinking: why did something so simple as driving A to the BART station and some food shopping throw me so completely off my game? It’s not that I couldn’t find the inspiration…it’s just that I just could not get started. (Which really does make me wonder about that ADHD thing.) I was totally fine the next day, once I returned to my daily schedule. All I had to do is what I’d been doing over the last several months: compartmentalize these tasks. Write the journal. Do the daily Inktober sketch. Get my daily words for Project A. Get the daily words for Project B. Just one step at a time.

All of this is stuff I know I’ll need to adjust and readjust over time, depending on whatever life throws at me from here on in. But now that I know how to do it, I think it’ll be easier to handle.

Distraction

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The (in)famous Distraction Dance from Fleeing the Complex

Okay, I’ll admit it. I still get distracted, even when I’m on a roll with my writing. Some days it’s not bad…I’ll hear a song on the radio and temporarily stop what I’m doing to look it up and add to my shopping list, or I’ll take a quick peek on social media when I happen to slowly sludging my way through a scene. And yeah, I’ll also have those worse days when I Just Don’t Wanna and I’ll slide into a Twitter thread for a half hour.

I still get through them, though. I’ve gotten a lot better at saying No, you REALLY need to hit your daily goal, preferably before lunch/before you go to bed. I have my workarounds. Part of is that I’ve made sure I’m always conscious of the fact that I really do enjoy these current projects I’m working on, even if it’s taking me forever to get through them. I’ve also made sure I don’t overthink any problems I might encounter. Hell, one of the projects has multiple [FIX THIS LATER] notes all over the place. And that is something I’ve never done in the past, at least not before writing Diwa & Kaffi, and that one was added during revision when I realized I’d left out a major scene that tripped up the flow.

Still, today’s Friday and of course I’ll be heavily distracted because it’s New Music Release day. But I’ve gotten better at that as well. I’m no longer completely focused on the music; I’ll give it all a listen while I work, because I’ve prioritized work first. It works most of the time.

Distraction is no longer my enemy, I suppose. It’s just another sensory input that I’ve finally figured out how to manage.

Back to work

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Monday morning is here and it’s time for me to get back to writing. So what is it that I do on the weekends, anyway? That is, when we’re not out and about in the neighborhood or going on an afternoon roadtrip?

Well, for the most part I keep it as my catch-up-with-cleaning days, mostly house errands. Sometimes I’ll drive up the street to shop or get our car washed, but for the most part it’s the Sunday laundry and the Saturday walk around the neighborhood.

Then I attempt to catch up with my email inboxes. I have a terrible habit of sliding a lot of them in one of many TBR subfolders — I’m organized enough that I’ll have a general TBR for store ads and whatnot, a music-related one (no big surprise there), a creativity-related one (writing, art, and so on), a local one (opera, symphony, museum, etc) and a mailing-list one for the Patreons, Substacks and Kickstarters I follow. For the most part I’m good at keeping on top of them, but every now and again I’ll fall behind and next thing I know I have like thirty or forty piled up and a month old. Most of them I’ll delete as they’re mostly shopping mailing lists and news updates I already know about, but eventually I’ll get around to answering some of them. [So yeah, if I don’t get back to you for a bit, I’m not ignoring or avoiding you. I’m just behind.]

But anyway! Monday morning starts the whole daily schedule off again. I do All The Writing while listening to tunage with the occasional mental break to keep myself from overdoing it (and to shift out of that terrible slouch AGAIN), and by afternoon we’re doing our sort-of-daily walk around the block once we both clock out.

Yeah, I know, this is sort of a boring mundane post, but that’s the life of a writer when we’re not in our heads coming up with all sorts of wild and entertaining things for you to read!

Working When It’s Noisy

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Enjoying the show from Spare Oom

It’s Fleet Week here in San Francisco, which means that the Blue Angels have been flying overhead for a few hours over the last couple of days. I’m pretty much used to it by now, having always had a perfect viewing platform away from the public (read: one of our rooms!), so it’s just a few hours’ worth of loud each day. [Back during the Former Day Job, there were plenty of moments when I had to pause a conversation during a client call and say “Sorry about that, the Blue Angels just flew over. As you were saying?”]

Does this sort of thing bother me when I’m writing? Not at all. I spent most of my childhood and adult life in a busy house and I currently live in a major US city, so I’m quite used to it. In fact, it’s part of why I’m constantly listening to music; the tunes give me something to focus on so the erratic white noise of planes and whatnot don’t register all that much. I will let myself occasionally be distracted by the air show, especially when they’re flying close by, because why not? It’s fun and it’s only once a year!

Now, hearing the impossibly loud Recology garbage trucks idling and crunching and compacting and clonking outside our building at six in the morning, on the other hand…

Last Minute

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Image courtesy of Nichijou

I’m writing this on a Sunday night at 7:30pm and I’m reminded of my school years, when I was absolutely terrible at getting my weekend homework started. I hated having to take all the time doing it when all my friends were outside doing stuff without me, so like everyone else I knew, I’d do it on Sundays.

The downside to that is that I’d wait until after dinner, so I’d be starting it around 6pm. Which, you know, if it was doing math problems or fill in the blank exercises, I could get those done toot sweet. If they were essays or long-term class projects or studying for Monday tests, however…yeah. I was awful at all that. I’d be up well past my bedtime cramming and make the biggest damn hash of it ever. Added to the fact that I couldn’t do a damn thing without music playing. Which, you know, always the distraction. [It took me years to figure out that it wasn’t laziness that caused this. But that’s another post entirely.]

I do in fact have a decent excuse for writing this entry this late this time; we had a busy weekend filled with a movie (Venom: There Will Be Carnage, which was all kinds of ridiculous fun), walking (ALL THE WALKING), shopping, PC maintenance and quite a bit of house cleaning. The weekend is when A and I do a lot of things together, whether it be major events or just walking around the neighborhood and going out for brunch. And I’m totally fine with not getting any writing work done then. I’m not getting graded on it (or receiving a lower grade due to lateness), and it gives me some brain downtime so I can start in on the writing work week with a fresh start.

So yeah. I don’t miss those days of last-minute homework, not at all. Writing these entries might sometimes feel like it, especially when I get too stressed and overthink it, but the high school stress is long gone out of my life.

Of course, tomorrow I’ll have to figure out how to squeeze writing my Walk in Silence entry in between my multiple novel sessions and grocery shopping…

Counting On It

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September’s writing work: 57,111 words across three novels, twenty personal journal entries, eighteen blog posts (including this one, written last night), and eighteen rough-draft poems. And having enough time left to send out a few resumes, upload pictures to a stock photo site, occasionally play (and retune) my guitar, and do fifteen quick sketches in preparation for Inktober.

It’s been a super busy month, but this is exactly how I want it.

I’ve always noted my word count in some kind of moleskine pocket calendar. I’ve done it since the Belfry days. I’ve never used it for self-defeating purposes — you know, the ‘I only got 1000 words today, why couldn’t I make 2000?’ — because that never works. It’s more about figuring out my personal metrics, really. What word count am I comfortable with? What count do I think is good but could be a lot better? Which days are my worst, and which are best? Where can I do better, and when am I just phoning it in? I’m curious about these things.

About halfway through September I said to myself, okay: let’s try to make at LEAST a thousand words each for the three novel projects. I noticed, thanks to my word count notes, that I was hitting about 800 for Project A (which I’m doing on the 750Words site), roughly the same for Project B, but lagging on Project C at around 500. I knew it wasn’t because of burnout, though. It was because it was midafternoon and I’d start getting distracted. Whether it was comics, social media, cat gifs, or whatever, the problem with Project C was that I just wasn’t taking it completely seriously. And the last thing I wanted to do was let that one fall by the wayside. Or any of them for that matter.

So instead of saying okay let’s hit three thousand words today, I said let’s hit one thousand for each project. Very big difference there. It forced me to think that no, I wasn’t trying to Do All The Writing. I had three assignments due that day, all of them with specific word count. As soon as I hit one, I’d take a break (writing a blog post, sketching, practicing guitar, etc), then jump onto the next one. And if I didn’t quite hit it, then I could use some post-dinner time to catch up. And as for the journal, poem and sketch: all three notebooks for those are across the room on the (Not So) Hidden Bookshelf and I do all three in one go, taking no more than maybe a half hour at most. I don’t take them entirely seriously, and that in itself is part of another goal: stop trying to be so f***ing perfect from the get-go. And all of this is finely scheduled for most of the day.

See? There is a method to my madness! Heh.

Anyway — I’m quite happy that I managed to get that many words done this month, and I hope to do more. I’ll continue the journal entries, poems, sketches (it being Inktober and all). Keep up my daily creativity, and expand and elaborate on it. Reach out further with submission and freelance.

Let’s see where this goes.