A Day in the Life of a Procrastinator

Today I’m going to write.  A lot.  I’m going to write at least ten chapters, and they’re going to be AMAZING.  They’re going to be epic.  They’re going to be the best ten chapters anyone has ever read.

I’m just going to lie in bed for another half hour first.  It’s only 11am.

Right, here goes.  Let’s just get this computer on first.  I better check in on my various non-writing related forums.  After all, some of my fellow Disboard members are battling to death over Fastpass return times.  I better see how that’s going first.  And I’ll have a read through Twitter and see what’s been happening there.

Oooh, Bless The Child is on Sky Movies.  It’s a weird choice for a Saturday afternoon, it wasn’t very good when it was first out 12 years ago and it’s not any better now, but I’ll just watch that for a few minutes.  Just a few minutes then I’ll get started. 

This really is a very silly movie.  I wonder how it ends.

Okay.  I need to start.  What I’ll do is just have a read through the first couple of chapters in the last two drafts, just to see what needs to be fixed. 

Computer has crashed.  I’ll have another read through Twitter, have some lunch and come back later.

I don’t really like these jeans.  They’re not very comfy for writing in.  I better change.

I wonder if anything exciting has been happening on the Disboards since I was last on there.  I’ll just have a quick look.  Oh, someone has been asking about the Sci-Fi Dine In Theatre.  I was a little disappointed in the food there but I liked the restaurant and would like to give it another try next time I’m at Walt Disney World.  What was on the menu again?  Hang on, I’ll just check the menu online.

There isn’t a lot happening online, now’s probably a good time to start writing.  Husband is watching football so I’ll put my Ipod on to block out the noise. 

Why do I have that song on here?  Come to think of it, I haven’t liked any of the last five songs.  I should make a new play list before I start writing.  I need a Bridget Jones-style mood compilation to go with the genre of my book.  It’ll only take a few minutes.

I should really go to the shops before the lottery desk closes. 

I’ve had a total plot breakthrough in the car on the way to the shops.  I’ll just pop in for a lottery ticket and head home quickly so I can start writing.  I’ll just have a quick look at the books as well while I’m in.

The Oscars are on tomorrow night.  I better pick up some snacks to see me through the night.

Right, it’s time for dinner.  I’ll watch Take Me Out and Let’s Dance while I’m eating, then it’s time for writing.

I changed back into my jeans before going to the shops and forgot that they’re not comfortable enough to write in.  I’ll just change quickly. 

Computer is back on.  I’ll go on the internet for a few minutes and look at some fancy houses so I can pick which one I want to buy when I win the lottery.

I didn’t win the lottery.  I’ll just have a quick look at the Disboards to cheers myself up.

Is it too late to start writing?  I’m not sure if it’s wise to start at this time of night.

Okay, I’m going to start.  Ipod in.

I didn’t put that song on!  Ah, I only charged my Ipod, I forgot to actually update it.  I’ll do it quickly now.  Wonder what’s on television.

It’s almost midnight.  I should probably go to bed.

Tomorrow, I’m going to write.  A lot.

I Was Virtually There...

I had a new and peculiar experience today…conference by Twitter!

After narrowly missing out on the Writers and Artists conference last year, I was looking forward to attending this year’s event and soaking up the wealth of advice and knowledge on offer. 

Unfortunately, another financial commitment (also known as, ahem, a deposit for another trip to Walt Disney World) has once again stood in my way and it’s with a heavy heart that I woke up today, knowing I would be missing out on the day’s event.

Or would I?  After starting my day in the usual way (i.e. immediately checking my Twitter feed to catch up on the overnight news), I noticed that there would be a near-to live feed from the conference. 

Fast forward a few hours and I can honestly say I’ve had a more rewarding time on the internet today than I had any right to expect from a random Saturday afternoon.

Thanks to the live tweeting of the Writers and Artists Yearbook account itself (@Writers_Artists) and to the even more comprehensive - and lightning fast! -  tweets from literary agent Carole Blake (@caroleagent), I have page upon page on notes full of the kind of advice and information I had feared I would miss out on completely.  I’ve been sitting glued to my computer for most of the day, pen and paper at the ready, taking notes as if I’m actually there (though the sitting around in my pyjamas with husband bringing me drinks does somewhat shatter the illusion!)

Of course nothing comes close to being there in person, but if nothing else a live Twitter feed is a savvy marketing tool – did I find the tweets useful?  Absolutely.  Will I miss the next conference?  Absolutely not.  One of the fears I associate with events of this nature is the cost versus benefit debate.  Will it be useful?  Will I learn anything?  Is it worth the long journey?  Just from seeing the Twitter updates I can answer yes to all of those questions.

Benefits aside, it’s also been a genuinely enjoyable and interesting day (and arguably a refreshing change from my usual celebrity-stalking activities on Twitter!).  The information coming through is compelling, the advice invaluable, and it’s an entire Twitter feed of usefulness.  What more could you ask for?

I particularly enjoyed some of Barbara Trapido’s comments on the writing process – “plots drop onto the page like presents from above” is a particularly freeing notion and I intend to embark on this evening’s writing with that thought burned into my mind.  

It was all going so well…

This was supposed to be a Writing Weekend.  It was meant to be one of those wonderful weekends when two whole days are lost completely to working on my novel, ignoring anything and all around me - just me, my Ipod and my book. 

After a week spent in a cabin with no noise, no neighbours and no Sky TV, I was off and running, flying through the editing process and feeling pretty good about myself.  I was smugly checking the word count at the end of each chapter and revelling in the hundreds of superfluous words that I’d successfully excised, congratulating myself on finally having broken through my editing horrors.

So at ease with my progress was I that I happily allowed myself a little break last night to do some reading, watch a couple of episodes of The West Wing and prepare myself for The Big Writing Weekend.

Where did it all go wrong?!

It happened sometime between 8.30am and 10am this morning.  The fact that these are not hours I usually experience on a Saturday morning may have been a factor – any other Saturday I would be grieved to be woken before 11am.  This however, was no ordinary weekend.  The Big Writing Weekend called for an early start, and much to the genuine shock of everyone else in the household an early start I had. 

I started off simple – making some notes.  Easy, right?  Em, not really, as it turns out.  Trying to organise my thoughts and ideas on a page seemed harder than leaving bed before noon on a Saturday. 

Then I turned to the book itself, and after reading the first couple of chapters I discovered a rather worrying truth – I have no talent. 

In true melodramatic fashion I announced to my husband that I was retiring from my short (and, ahem, non-existent) career as a writer, citing lack of talent and imminent torching of my manuscript as mitigating factors. 

My husband is mercifully rather more sensible than I am, and took this for what it turned out to be – a petulant fit of self-doubt and a symptom of advice and information overload.  The book has not been set alight (though the shredder was a serious contender for a while there, too) and I will shortly be resuming the editing process at an hour more suited to my serious lack of patience. 

I think too much.  This, I know.  Too often I find the writing process hampered by my being three or four chapters ahead of the one I’m actually working on, and every time I come across another piece of invaluable advice I immediately start to worry about how I can make it work in my story, and then worry some more that I can’t make it work, and then I have a tantrum.  Someone please tell me I’m not the only one…

So, now I have that off my chest it’s time for The Big Writing Saturday Night.  Music please…

A Guilty Pleasure?

Amidst the usual news and nonsense on my Twitter feed today I stumbled across this post on the Los Angeles Times blog that reminded me of my third year English teacher.  

During a discussion of an upcoming assignment involving an extended reading report, he outlined the types of books that were acceptable and the type that were not.  Top of the list for unacceptable books was anything written by Stephen King. 

The objection, it seemed, was less to do with the issue of what is or isn’t age appropriate (and believe me the novel I eventually chose for my own report was much darker than any of the King novels I have since encountered) and more related to the “quality” of the work.

I recall that teacher’s words each and every time I pick up a Stephen King novel - and those occasions are not infrequent - and while I have never doubted his good intentions, and I can't help thinking it was just a little bit of snobbery.

In his article, David L. Ulin suggests that Stephen King is often “written off because he appeals to a popular audience.”  If the views of my former English teacher are anything to go by, he’s absolutely right.  The literary world fascinates me in that so many writers strive for commercial success yet when it is achieved they’re often berated for it.  That anyone could be “written off because he appeals to a popular audience” baffles me.

I am not completely ignorant of the reasons for such a view, and it’s true that I am an unabashed Stephen King fan so this ramble is as far from an unbiased point of view as you can possibly get.  It’s also true that I have no aspirations as a book critic – any reviews I offer on a subject are limited to “I liked it/I did not like it and here’s why,” but I confess, I just don’t get it. 

I’m long past counting the books I have read, and returning to a book for a second, third or fourth time (or tenth, eleventh, twelfth) is one of the great pleasures I take from reading. In spite of the spectre of third year English hovering over me, I often find it’s Stephen King’s books that I return to most often.  The reason is simple – I love a good story, and few people tell a story quite like Stephen King.

Some of my King collection

How many of us are afraid of clowns?  And how many of us are afraid of clowns because of Pennywise?  (Now personally I have no issue with clowns, but cornfields are entirely different matter…)

It’s too easy to cite the obvious though.  I could wax lyrical about the iconic King moments (I can practically hear my husband’s ‘don’t get her started’ now) but many have been transformed into cinematic images with varying success and are easy targets for dissenters.  The devil, literally in some cases, is instead in the detail.  When people ask me what I love about a Stephen King novel, that’s usually the answer.  

The detail that brings so many of the characters to life is enough to make the aspiring novelist in me sit down and weep.  I so rarely encounter a character in King’s work who doesn’t feel like a living, breathing person, such is the history and lifestyle crafted around them.  They are often intensely believable characters in unbelievable situations and his horror stories are all the more frightening for it.  Take Under the Dome – a  novel so richly detailed that the events of only a few days require 800 plus pages to unfold and not one of those pages seems superfluous, or The Stand, a genuinely epic novel that even when reading the uncut version I am still left wanting to know more. 

I started reading Needful Things on a flight to Prague and I remember frantically devouring as many pages as possible as the plane made its final descent, more than a little peeved that landing was interrupting my reading.

If I could turn out a novel even half as compelling I'd never complain about anything ever again.  Probably.

In summary, I like Stephen King novels, and that’s why.

Something About Nothing

This week’s news roundup equates to exactly that – something about nothing.  Or nothing about something.  Or something like that.

I know, it’s the most exciting blog post ever, right?

Hmmm.  On my mind this week are resolutions.  Hardly original given the time of year, I’ll grant you, but nevertheless I’ll plod on. 

The whole idea of New Year’s resolutions fascinates me.  Why do we make them?  What is the point?  I’m not sure I buy into the whole idea of a new year and a new beginning, especially when the first week of the new year is almost exactly the same as the last week of the year before.  Actually that’s not even accurate because it’s worse – you no longer have any reasonable excuse to eat chocolate and drink wine at random hours of the day.  (Not that I would, of course.  I’m just saying I could, you know, if I wanted to.)  Yet even without any real understanding of why I’m doing it I’m compelled to make a resolution anyway. 

This year, though, I have so many resolutions I’m practically a whole different person, and I don’t have an original one among them.  Write more.  Watch less television (will never happen).  Exercise more.  Reduce my daily intake of Coca Cola to resemble a normal human being’s.  The usual stuff.

(At least with only one can this week (so far) I’m sort of sticking to the last one.)

I’ve almost convinced myself I’m going to be a ‘new me’ this year.  I did, after all, recently learn to make soup, and I’ve started watching Come Dine with Me.  That right there is already a sign of self improvement.  Next week I’m attempting to master the ability to get out of the bed when the alarm goes off (as opposed an hour later after repeatedly hitting the snooze button), have breakfast and leave the house in an organised, grown up manner. 

I feel my mere consideration of it is already a sign that I’ve grown as a person.

In other news, I have writing guilt.  The printed copy of my manuscript is lying on my desk, staring at me in a mildly accusatory manner each time I pass by the study door.  Every time I open a new tab on my internet browser I’m confronted by a list of bookmarked agent websites and writing pages scowling at me and reminding me that publishing success is not likely gained by lurking around the Disboards and pricing imaginary trips to America.  Even my poor blog title is practically wilting in shame – what happens in Hayden?  Well, erm, not much really, not lately.  But between the Christmas revelry/insanity, soup-making antics, a delinquent bunny and all the resolution-making I can hardly be expected to find the time to write, can I?  So for the sake of my sanity – and my plot – I’ve had a two week hiatus from the painstaking editing process lest the crucial plot points become less about lies and murder and more about the correct ratio of lentils to vegetables.

Thank God it’s January.

Now there’s something I never thought I would say.

Coming soon (probably) – the trials and tribulations of losing the snooze button.

Lacking in Life Skills? Not Anymore...

You might recall a previous pair of posts highlighting my rather woeful lack of anything resembling a common life skill.  Sewing presented the most arduous challenge.  Finding that thing that turns off the water was achievable only after a frantic call to someone who would know such things.  And cooking?  Forget about it.

Until now.

Yes, I have at last mastered a skill I thought would forever be just beyond my reach.  I can now make soup.

I can sense the rolling eyes now.  True, it may seem like a rather simple task not involving anything that might previously have been considered skill, and for many well it may be.  However many people don’t also require a diagram depicting a leek and a turnip to assist with the identification process.  (I maintain my position that there was previously no reason whatsoever that I should know what a turnip looks like having had no occasion to encounter one in its original form.)

I quickly discovered that the worst thing you can do is ask an experienced cook how to cook something.  They immediately burst forth with all sorts of technical terms expecting me – as they would any ‘proper grown-up’ – to know what they mean.  So the first task is to idiot-proof the conversation.  “Mum, tell me as if you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know what a stock cube is for.”

Eventually, armed with my step-by-step instructions and a list of necessary ingredients it was off to the supermarket, where I felt very grown up and sensible as I perused the items in aisles I had not previously frequented.  Needless to say my trolley was much more nutritionally balanced than ever before. 

Preparation, it seems, is the key to these things, and I had it all covered – the ingredients were all laid out in the order in which I would need them, the lentils had been soaking overnight, and I had finally discovered the purpose of the food processor that had never been out of its box and it was all set up and ready to go.  (In my opinion the instructions for these sorts of things aren’t nearly detailed enough – it’s like the manufacturers assume if you’re buying one you actually know what it does.)  By Christmas Eve morning I was ready to begin.

I can’t describe the deep sense of pride and satisfaction I felt as I prepared carrots for something other than a snack for the rabbits.  I felt there was a real possibility that a domestic goddess lay dormant inside me and that I would turn out to be a rather good cook after all.  Until, that is, I tried to turn the processor on.  (Is it really too much to ask for a ‘troubleshooting’ section in the instruction manual?)

I will insist on giving myself credit on this point, however.  I only almost burst into tears, and I only hit the food processor twice before further investigation found that I had the bowl on the wrong way around.  After that small hiccup it was full steam ahead, and several hours later I had created that most elusive of all things – soup that was ‘just like Mum’s.’

So, with one life skill mastered, who’s to say I can master others?  I could be a proper grown up yet.

Now wouldn’t that be scary?

Mission: Christmas

Mission: Christmas.  That was the title of the to-do list I wrote down today.  It’s my list of everything that needs done not just before Christmas itself but before I can even think about putting up my Christmas tree, and the list is long.  Whoever said it’s the most wonderful time of the year had clearly never been Christmas shopping.

Worryingly, the list looks rather like the list I had before going to Florida.  Clean out the cupboards.  Organise the DVD collection.  Check all rooms for signs of impending crisis.  How is it that after spending weeks reorganising the house in September I need to do it all over again in December?  Then there’s the rest of the Christmas shopping, the wrapping, the visits to various family members to drop off presents, the card writing, the food shopping…am I really the only person tempted to hide under a duvet until it all goes away?

What’s really scary is that I am considered by some to be a fairly organised person, though this tends to be based more on my having a to-do list than my ability to actually complete it.  I would love to live up to the image – I have some very grand ideas of sitting at home in front of the fire, sipping a glass of wine and enjoying the festive atmosphere in a perfectly decorated house.  Instead I am side stepping pockets of chaos all over the house, surrounded by shopping bags full of unwrapped presents and scraps of paper with half-written reminders about who knows what, ducking my head guiltily every time I see another neighbour putting up their Christmas lights.

I am not, however, one of those Bah Humbug types.  The madness of the festive shopping experience and cynical commercialism aside, I actually like Christmas.  I have the Santa hat to prove it.  So like Santa I’ve made a list and checked it twice (ha, see what I did there?) and I’m going into these next two weeks with a can-do attitude.  Or at least a hope-to attitude.  Or at the very least a must-do attitude. 

I think I’ll have a lie down first.