Writerly Wackiness

My brain and priorities were all over the place today, so I won't pretend to have tried to stick to the slug-fighting schedule. But I wasn't entirely unproductive.  Actually, I got everything done except the exercise and the writing, and I spent a hefty chunk of time going over a grant proposal I had volunteered to help with for the chorus I sing with. So I guess that counts for something.

On a sucktastic note, Realms of Fantasy closing is a major bummer.

On a pleasant note, I saw that I was among the "Other nice work came from..." folks mentioned in Rich Horton's yearly summary of Hub.

On a random note, AsYouKnowBob told me that I was singing in my sleep last night--the night after reading the chapter on music and dreams in Musicophilia.

On another random note, I need to see if I have anything in Ye Olde Costume Trunk with which I can steampunk myself up a bit.

Didn't have time to post the productivity report last night.  The spousal unit and I went to see a friend in a production of 42nd Street.  Man, is there ever a special place in hell reserved for people in the audience who sing along with the show.  I paid to hear the actors on stage, lady, not your caterwauling.

Onto yesterday's productivity report, in which the slug gains some more points:

Reading: Finished the third section of Musicophilia

Exercising: 25 minutes on the strider

Music Stuff: Didn't happen again, and I have no good excuse not to have snuck in some piano yesterday. Point to the slug.

Writing Business: Another story came home, hanging its head and sniffling before finally admitting, "Mom, the teacher gave me a form letter again." I patted the little guy on the head, gave him a pep talk ("Don't forget all those encouraging notes you've gotten, dear"), and sent him back out the door.  Sure, he's not as gifted as some of his siblings, but he works hard, and he's still got something to offer.

Writing: This is where I achieved epic fail yesterday.  One word.  Maybe two.  The slug triumphed. Stupid slug.

On a better note, if all goes well, I may soon have to alter the daily productivity schedule to include gainful employment. Not definite yet, but as of this morning, it's looking pretty good.

The slug almost triumphed today. Almost. I was still feeling sick and crappy, yet managed to achieve a small level of productivity.

Reading: About a chapter and a half of Musicophilia.

Exercising: I took a sick day on the exercise front. Point to the slug.

Music Stuff: Piano lesson in the afternoon, though I had to skip out on choir rehearsal in the evening. Stupid sore throat.

Writing-Related Stuff: No writing today.  Instead I decided to get critiques done for this weekend's writing group meeting.  I was going to space them out over the next few days, but possibly because of the lovely world of medication, I wasn't feeling my usual critique dread today and thought it best to take advantage of that.  Tomorrow, though, it's back to the writing.  I've got a zombie story I started a while ago that needs to be finished.

Cold snowy Monday + overflowing toilet mishaps = not the best start to the day

Despite that math, the daily checklist is still complete. And I also managed to put in some work on the monthly church newsletter I edit. In other words: suck it, slug.

Reading: Another chapter of Musicophilia, this time about amnesia and music

Exercising: About 30 minutes of pilates

Music Stuff: Tonight was chorus rehearsal, and I got some piano practice in over the weekend

Writing: Some more work on chapter 2. Ah, real life experience has made sibling rivalry so easy to write.

If the brevity of this post didn't already clue you in, I'm a bit busy and brain fried at present.  So if I don't comment on anyone else's LJ over the next few days, rest assured that it's not you, it's me.  Well, me and my smoking black crisp of a brain.

This little experiment in posting my progress to keep myself on track has been going pretty well.  My brain really wanted to slack off earlier today, especially when I looked out the window and saw snow, but as soon as I threatened it with public shame on the internet, it stopped whining and got to work.

Reading: Two more chapters of Musicophilia. The first one dealt with stereophonic hearing and wasn't as interesting as the rest of the book has been, but the chapter after it about musical savants was a lot more engaging.

Exercising: 30 minutes of yoga

Music Stuff: Practiced some piano, then had to go audition my song for this Solo Artists Showcase thing.  I didn't think there would be any issues with my song choice, and there wasn't, so I'm glad to have that out of the way.  And I was entertained by the director's comment to someone about it afterwards: "If she could sing it in spite of my playing, then she must really know it."

Writing: Some more work on chapter 2.  My progress is still dreadfully slow, but it seems to be picking up a little more steam each day.  Another week or so, and maybe I'll have worked up to a non-embarrassing writing pace.

...and fired it directly at my head while I slept.  I woke up to a hell of a migraine, which pretty much wiped out my morning and left me drained the rest of the day. Amazingly, though, I still managed to slog through the daily schedule.  Must have been those capsules of Advil Migraine I fired down the Death Star's exhaust port.

Reading: Today's chapter of Musicophilia was about people with perfect pitch

Exercising: 20 minutes on the elliptical strider

Music Stuff: Didn't do much, but I at least went through the song I have to audition Thursday night for this Solo Artist Showcase thing the chorus I'm in is doing in February.  I'm feeling rather grumbly about the policy change this year that requires everyone to audition, unlike last year when you didn't have to audition if you had sung in it the year before.

Writing Business: A story came home, hanging its head in shame, so I sent it off to play at another magazine.  The kids there will probably make fun of it and send it home crying, but I've assured the story that it will never make any friends if it doesn't at least try.

Writing: I really had to force myself into the writing tonight, but once I started, it actually wasn't too terrible.  Got a few hundred words done on the chapter 2 rewrite, which isn't much, but it's at least more than I did yesterday.

Now I know why the slug was dormant yesterday. It was resting up so that it could launch a stronger assault today.  And yeah, I may have done some more internet goofing off today than the rest of the week, but I still did all the productive stuff I was supposed to do.  Take that, slug! And stop trying to recruit rogue_psion  to your cause. :p

Reading: About a quarter of the way through Musicophilia now.  After reading about people who developed musical hallucinations that would plague them 24-7 a day, my newest paranoid fear is that this will happen to me, and that my brain's hallucinatory playlist will include the Macarena and the Chicken Dance.

On a related note, anyone ever read a story called "Fabrikant's Way" by Daniel Stern? It was mentioned in the book as being a novella about musical hallucinations, but a quick internet search didn't turn up much other than the fact that it was published in a story collection called A Little Street Music.

Exercising: 20 minutes on the elliptical strider

Music Stuff: A little bit of singing, a little bit of piano, a whole lot of sucking

Writing Business: A story came home without a job, so I sent it off to Weird Tales to see if it can find work there

Writing: More on the chapter 2 rewrite.  I've only managed a few hundred words per day on it this past week--a shoddy showing, but more writing than I did in December, so I'll call it a success.  Hopefully I'm just winding up for some serious word crankage next week. What's been cool, particularly today, is that I'm finding some fun new nuances in a character thanks to some of the plot-level changes that have been made.  Whether I've successfully communicated those nuances on the page, however, is another matter.

On that note, I'm off to relax and watch some TV and see what the weekend brings.  Then Monday, it's back to the Great Slug Battle.

In its efforts to derail me, my inner-slug has apparently hired gremlin henchmen.  First, AsYouKnowBob and I woke up to no heat in the house.  That was thankfully restored, though it figures that the repair guy didn't get here until the 3 part of the noon to 3 window we were given.  Thank god for the fireplace.  Before then, the power dipped a couple times at one point, which had me worried, but luckily it stayed on.  And then my normally reliable Macbook had a moment of spazzitude (more on that later).  Stupid gremlins.

Reading: Continued reading Musicophilia.  Really fascinating stuff.  I feel a short story coming out of this.

Exercise: 20 minutes on the elilptical strider

Music Stuff: Choir rehearsal night, so lots of singing

Writing: Here's where the aforementioned computer spazzitude comes in.  I started doing some more work on chapter 2, and just as I was happily typing along and picking up steam, my computer freaked out.  So I rebooted, opened the auto recovery file Word had created . . and it was blank.  Luckily, I remembered what I had done up to that point, so ultimtately nothing was lost thanks to my memory working for once.  After that, though, it was a slog-fest.  But I slogged forward, and that's the important thing.

I've discovered that it might be possible to trick my brain into productivity.  The minute I decide I'm going to go exercise because my brain isn't working, it suddenly gets all, "No! I can work!  Look, ideas!  Beautiful sentences!  Write them, woman!"  Next thing I know, the time has flown by and I'm like, "Ok, I really do need to go exercise this time."  So maybe I just need to threaten my brain with physical exertion earlier and more often to kick it into gear. 

My goal for 2009: avoid 2008's slackery and slug-like tendencies, which were no doubt aided by my unemployed bum status.

To help achieve this, I decided to establish a schedule, which I have been sorely lacking until now. A flexible schedule, granted, as occasional things like doctor appointments or theater tickets usually require shifting the routine around. My weekends tend to be all over the place, so I'm not even going to try to impose any order on them. But for weekdays, I have my "things that need to be done before I can call it a day" list: read, take care of any writing business (submissions, queries, etc.), write, run any necessary errands, exercise, and practice singing and/or piano (unless it's a rehearsal night). Once I've checked off everything on the list, any time remaining before bed is mine to do with as I please.

In the past, I've found it way too easy to violate my attempts at maintaining routines like this, and I think it's been an issue of accountability. When I working at any of my past jobs, for example, I had an employer to answer to and was therefore quite diligent about doing what needed to be done when it needed to be done.  Now, not so much.  So I'm going to experiment with posting progress updates here to see if helps keep my ass productive, the theory being that if I tell you all I'm going to do it, then I'd better damn well do it.

Today (or technically yesterday at this point) was the schedule's official start day.  Despite trouble with the getting-out-of-bed portion of my day, I am happy to report that I completed the "things that need to be done before I can call it a day" list:

Reading: Finally got around to finishing issue 7 of Doorways

Writing Business: Will be complete as of my posting of the following plug: if so moved, you can throw some vote love my way in the Preditors & Editors Readers' Poll.  "To Someone Who Needs Prayer" (Hub, issue 61) is in the Horror Short Story category, and "Lucky Clover" (Flash Fiction Online, March 2008) is in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Story category.

Errands: After a productive weekend full of cleaning and re-organizing, I dropped off some stuff at Goodwill

Writing: I rewrote my "poorly researched" (she says sarcastically) zombie bunny flash story, "Mr. Fluffy."  The original was 400 words. The rewrite is now complete at 1,000 words.

Exercise: 30 minutes on the elliptical strider

Music Stuff: Spent about 20-30 minutes on some vocal technique and a song I'm thinking about doing for the annual Solo Artists Showcase held by a chorus I sing with

All of that, and I still had enough time to goof off and watch a movie with AsYouKnowBob.  Now I just need to do it all again tomorrow, rinse, repeat.