Hope you all had a smiley start to your weeks :)
Showing posts with label priorities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label priorities. Show all posts
22 February 2010
Busy Day
No writerly post today. I've been busy with this:
Hope you all had a smiley start to your weeks :)
Hope you all had a smiley start to your weeks :)
09 November 2009
Why Write?
Ta da!
*looks around, beaming, arms outstretched*
*notes looks of confusion*
What, you don't like my magic trick? What magic trick? What do you mean, what magic trick? I just beamed myself all the way from October to here! I totally skipped the first week of November! I time travelled!
What do you mean, you didn't?
*eyebrow* No, of course there weren't any posts for you last week, I skipped it. Time travelling, remember? Yes?
...No? *sigh*
Well, in that case, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you... Maybe with chocolate O:)
ANYWAY.
On to today's post!
Many months ago, before I had discovered the wonders of time travel, I wrote a post asking why we, as writers, indulge in the activity of writing that most people will agree is not entirely sane.
I mean, hello: We write things down because the voices in our heads tell us too.
If they were telling us to do anything but write, let's face it: we'd be in a mental institution.
Maybe we should retrain mentally ill people to write down what the voices say they should do, rather than to do it? Just a random idea there. And yes, a close relative died in a round about way of mental illness, so I'm allowed to say things like this :P
Ahem.
Writing. It's an insane pursuit, in an insane industry; and yet we do it. We do it because we love it; we love it because... why?
Why do you love writing?
If you haven't already, go read the post from February. I came to the conclusion then that of all the myriad reasons I write, the key ones are:
a) because it makes me happy;
b) because it provides entertainment both to me and others;
c) I can push boundaries, explore emotions; and because
d) I can explore foreign experiences and worlds.
But you know what I realised last week (in October that is, because I skipped the first week of November, remember)?
All of this can be summed up in one pretty little phrase. It's so simple, it's so real, and it strips away all pretenses of things like writing for fame or money or approval, all of which can become dangerous addictions that make the act of writing something that really is insane.
No.
I don't write for any of those reasons, although sure, they'd be a nice bonus.
Why do I write?
I write because it makes me a better person.
If you're interested in reading the full essay I wrote on this, you can! Right here.
And tell me again - why do you write? Is this the same reason you used to write, or has it developed?
*looks around, beaming, arms outstretched*
*notes looks of confusion*
What, you don't like my magic trick? What magic trick? What do you mean, what magic trick? I just beamed myself all the way from October to here! I totally skipped the first week of November! I time travelled!
What do you mean, you didn't?
*eyebrow* No, of course there weren't any posts for you last week, I skipped it. Time travelling, remember? Yes?
...No? *sigh*
Well, in that case, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you... Maybe with chocolate O:)
ANYWAY.
On to today's post!
Many months ago, before I had discovered the wonders of time travel, I wrote a post asking why we, as writers, indulge in the activity of writing that most people will agree is not entirely sane.
I mean, hello: We write things down because the voices in our heads tell us too.
If they were telling us to do anything but write, let's face it: we'd be in a mental institution.
Maybe we should retrain mentally ill people to write down what the voices say they should do, rather than to do it? Just a random idea there. And yes, a close relative died in a round about way of mental illness, so I'm allowed to say things like this :P
Ahem.
Writing. It's an insane pursuit, in an insane industry; and yet we do it. We do it because we love it; we love it because... why?
Why do you love writing?
If you haven't already, go read the post from February. I came to the conclusion then that of all the myriad reasons I write, the key ones are:
a) because it makes me happy;
b) because it provides entertainment both to me and others;
c) I can push boundaries, explore emotions; and because
d) I can explore foreign experiences and worlds.
But you know what I realised last week (in October that is, because I skipped the first week of November, remember)?
All of this can be summed up in one pretty little phrase. It's so simple, it's so real, and it strips away all pretenses of things like writing for fame or money or approval, all of which can become dangerous addictions that make the act of writing something that really is insane.
No.
I don't write for any of those reasons, although sure, they'd be a nice bonus.
Why do I write?
I write because it makes me a better person.
If you're interested in reading the full essay I wrote on this, you can! Right here.
And tell me again - why do you write? Is this the same reason you used to write, or has it developed?
21 September 2009
Look Ma, I Aten't Ded!
A thought has struck me - as thoughts are wont to do.
Motivated by said thought, I re-examined my writing stats spreadsheet; and the thought was affirmed.
It's a curious one, somewhat paradoxical. Un-intuitive. And it might not work for everyone.
But wow! It works for me, and I'm glad: it's made things much less stressful, now the pressure's off.
So what's the thought, I hear you wonder.
It's something that I was, for a long time, afraid of. You see, although I called myself a writer - I wasn't really sure. I didn't know that I could do it, not in my heart of hearts. And I wasn't sure it was what I wanted; and I couldn't be certain about why I did it.
And so, for a long, long time, I laboured under the fallacy that if I admitted that it didn't actually matter when I got published, the motivation to write would vanish - zip! - like that.
But here's the thought:
It doesn't actually matter when I get published. No one else in the world cares if I get published or not. And not being published isn't going to kill me, or make me a Bad Person, or worse, a Failure.
And here's the stunning part: I've admitted this, at long last, and I'm not actually dead. And neither is my writing. And neither is my motivation to write.
Wow.
Even more than this, I have statistics to support the conclusion that when the pressure's off - the pressure to polish, to get the novel ready to submit, to work to a deadline, to force myself to write when I don't feel like it because that's what writers do - my productivity actually goes up (an expected 30% this month over the previous two Septembers).
Who knew? :P
I've been having a tremendous amount of fun with writing lately, not forcing myself to commit to any one project, but letting the Muse wander spontaneously. I've got more ideas brewing than ever, I've worked through some major plot problems in a few stories, and I've written no less than three flash fictions in a week - when I'd written a total of one in my life before. I have - for me - a record number of things out on submission, and I'm not feeling stressed about my writing. It's fun.
I'm not feeling blocked - or when I am, there's no pressure on me to break the block and solve the problem now; I just hop over and work on something else, and every time thus far a solution has arrived of its own volition within a week. I'm not stressing, I'm not panicking, and I'm not beating myself up because I haven't met my word count goals for the day.
And, contrary to my expectations, all of this hasn't made me less determined to write: in fact, just the opposite. I'm more determined than ever that I will one day publish novels, in the plural. But I'm also more willing to wait for that time to come.
So I can't work from home next year. Big deal? I will, believe it or not, live. Things will work out; they always do. And in the meantime, so long as I keep doing something, I'll win out in the end: sometimes quantity trumps quality after all.
It's long been known that fear is a barrier both to creativity and success.
So join me in being radical: what do you fear? Why does it matter? How can you change your approach - your attitude, your practices, whatever - so relieve some of that pressure that we as writers inevitably put on ourselves?
Go on. Change something. Be daring.
You just never know what the results will be :)
Motivated by said thought, I re-examined my writing stats spreadsheet; and the thought was affirmed.
It's a curious one, somewhat paradoxical. Un-intuitive. And it might not work for everyone.
But wow! It works for me, and I'm glad: it's made things much less stressful, now the pressure's off.
So what's the thought, I hear you wonder.
It's something that I was, for a long time, afraid of. You see, although I called myself a writer - I wasn't really sure. I didn't know that I could do it, not in my heart of hearts. And I wasn't sure it was what I wanted; and I couldn't be certain about why I did it.
And so, for a long, long time, I laboured under the fallacy that if I admitted that it didn't actually matter when I got published, the motivation to write would vanish - zip! - like that.
But here's the thought:
It doesn't actually matter when I get published. No one else in the world cares if I get published or not. And not being published isn't going to kill me, or make me a Bad Person, or worse, a Failure.
And here's the stunning part: I've admitted this, at long last, and I'm not actually dead. And neither is my writing. And neither is my motivation to write.
Wow.
Even more than this, I have statistics to support the conclusion that when the pressure's off - the pressure to polish, to get the novel ready to submit, to work to a deadline, to force myself to write when I don't feel like it because that's what writers do - my productivity actually goes up (an expected 30% this month over the previous two Septembers).
Who knew? :P
I've been having a tremendous amount of fun with writing lately, not forcing myself to commit to any one project, but letting the Muse wander spontaneously. I've got more ideas brewing than ever, I've worked through some major plot problems in a few stories, and I've written no less than three flash fictions in a week - when I'd written a total of one in my life before. I have - for me - a record number of things out on submission, and I'm not feeling stressed about my writing. It's fun.
I'm not feeling blocked - or when I am, there's no pressure on me to break the block and solve the problem now; I just hop over and work on something else, and every time thus far a solution has arrived of its own volition within a week. I'm not stressing, I'm not panicking, and I'm not beating myself up because I haven't met my word count goals for the day.
And, contrary to my expectations, all of this hasn't made me less determined to write: in fact, just the opposite. I'm more determined than ever that I will one day publish novels, in the plural. But I'm also more willing to wait for that time to come.
So I can't work from home next year. Big deal? I will, believe it or not, live. Things will work out; they always do. And in the meantime, so long as I keep doing something, I'll win out in the end: sometimes quantity trumps quality after all.
It's long been known that fear is a barrier both to creativity and success.
So join me in being radical: what do you fear? Why does it matter? How can you change your approach - your attitude, your practices, whatever - so relieve some of that pressure that we as writers inevitably put on ourselves?
Go on. Change something. Be daring.
You just never know what the results will be :)
17 August 2009
Smarter Than I Thought Week
Two weeks ago, I was in a bit of a funk. I was chatting online with a friend. She asked me for some photos that I knew I had in an old post on this blog, and I started browsing through my own archives. And you know what? I'm smarter than I thought :)
So many things I've learned, so many things I've explained - and I'd forgotten all about them. So this week, to celebrate the things I've learned, the lessons I've discovered, I'm going to revisit some older posts.
Today, something I really needed to hear that day when I was poking through my archives - and something I constantly need to remind myself: Always Do Something.
PS Never fear: The series on Editing Jesscapades will continue next week ;)
If you're looking for one more reason to do Nano, here it is. In their book Art and Fear, Bayles and Orland discuss the principle of quantity over quality. The relevant bit is quoted on the webpage, and goes like this:
"The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A".
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. "
Right now, I'm struggling through a first draft. I HATE first drafts with a passion that sometimes makes me wonder why I'm doing this whole writing thing. First drafts SUCK because they are never, ever, EVER perfect - and I'm a perfectionist.
When we're stuck in the quagmire of an imperfect first draft - or caught in the death grips of editing, for those of you that hate that bit of the process - it's so easy to lose sight of what we love about writing. It's so easy to fall back into the default position - everything I write is terrible, I'm no good at this, I think I'll quit.
Don't. Quit.
Every word you write, every sentence you think, every scene you bash your head against the desk over - everything you read over later and wonder what you were on at the time... It's Something. It's Practice. You're Learning.
Quantity. To improve, you must practice. And practice means volume.
Go. Write. Do something.
25 March 2009
Having Not Done Anything...
Lately, I've been really flat when it comes to writing. My stats for the month are terrible - less than four thousand words so far. I think I'm going through a general Isuckitis phase due to tiredness.
But I realised, the other night, that the real reason I've not written particularly on Jesscapades all month is not only due to a lack of time, but also to the fact that I've been avoiding it. How? Why? I think the problem is that I've lost faith in the story. I'm not sure I believe it's good at the moment; I hit that big wall at the end of Feb, where I nearly gave up on the project because it turned nasty on me. I figured out what I needed to do, of course (see pretty diagrams here), but it's going to be a lot of work. So between that, and the fact that I've lost faith, I've been avoiding it. And I'm not sure what to do to regain my faith in it, either, other than just sit down and write the horrid thing. I loathe drafting so much :S
However, the good news is, I've been doing a bit of work on short stories. Thanks to a couple or fabulous crits, I've fixed a couple I had in edits (Ice Wolf and Murder) and sent them out again. I'm also making progress on the new short, Death and Foxes. It's going to be long at first draft, maybe 5k, but I can probably shave at least 1k off that in edits.
Which brings me to my point. For the first two thirds of the month, I'd completely forgotten about this. It's an article I wrote a few months ago, titled 'Always Do Something'. In my avoidance of Jess, I'd been writing altogether, and we all know that habits snowball: the longer I didn't write, the harder it was to write.
So, I have a new goal. It's to write something everyday, on something. It doesn't matter what it's on, even if it's the start of a new story or just a creative description or something, as long as I'm exercising my writing muscles for at least 500 words a day. Muscles need to be exercised, or they atrophy, and I'd hate to lose all the progress I've made over the last year.
And this, I think, I can do.
But I realised, the other night, that the real reason I've not written particularly on Jesscapades all month is not only due to a lack of time, but also to the fact that I've been avoiding it. How? Why? I think the problem is that I've lost faith in the story. I'm not sure I believe it's good at the moment; I hit that big wall at the end of Feb, where I nearly gave up on the project because it turned nasty on me. I figured out what I needed to do, of course (see pretty diagrams here), but it's going to be a lot of work. So between that, and the fact that I've lost faith, I've been avoiding it. And I'm not sure what to do to regain my faith in it, either, other than just sit down and write the horrid thing. I loathe drafting so much :S
However, the good news is, I've been doing a bit of work on short stories. Thanks to a couple or fabulous crits, I've fixed a couple I had in edits (Ice Wolf and Murder) and sent them out again. I'm also making progress on the new short, Death and Foxes. It's going to be long at first draft, maybe 5k, but I can probably shave at least 1k off that in edits.
Which brings me to my point. For the first two thirds of the month, I'd completely forgotten about this. It's an article I wrote a few months ago, titled 'Always Do Something'. In my avoidance of Jess, I'd been writing altogether, and we all know that habits snowball: the longer I didn't write, the harder it was to write.
So, I have a new goal. It's to write something everyday, on something. It doesn't matter what it's on, even if it's the start of a new story or just a creative description or something, as long as I'm exercising my writing muscles for at least 500 words a day. Muscles need to be exercised, or they atrophy, and I'd hate to lose all the progress I've made over the last year.
And this, I think, I can do.
16 January 2009
When To Let Die, A Spoonful Of Soup, and Think Sideways
First up, the soup. What am I talking about? A mini version of Link-a-bet Soup, of course! :D
So, I and a few writerly friends are getting ready to query. Where do you go to research agents? Lots of places - but QueryTracker is a great start, and they even have a blog.
Of course, if you're querying you're going to need to know How To Write A Great Query (whee, don't we love free downloads?!).
Secondly, the Think Sideways course. Hopefully by now you're all aware that I've been taking Holly Lisle's How To Think Sideways course, a writing course with a difference. I love it, I adore it, I want to marry it... *ponders the implications of marrying an online course* Er, okay, strike the last one O:) But anyway, I love it. I have a few reviews up - yes, I need to do more - but basically, let me assure you, it's pretty jolly awesome.
The course is open full time for enrolments, so you can enrol anytime you like. Don't forget that I offer a 20% rebate on any subscriptions made through my links (conditions apply).
HOWEVER. As of February 27th, the course will CLOSE to Charter Member enrolments. Which means that to get any of the cool bonuses that charter members (rah, go us guinea pigs who test-drive the course!), you'll have to pay extra.
If you've even been thinking about maybe taking this course, let me encourage you to do so before Feb 27 - I'll let you know what the bonuses are when I get the all, but I can assure you that they're going to be worth it.
And remember, you can drop the course at any time, no questions asked, and receive a pro rata refund for any month for which you've already paid. So sign up, already! :D
Right. On to the meat of the postiness.
It's a question that's been playing in my mind this week, what with my recent discussion about what I learned from the partial novels I wrote in '08: how do you determine when to keep on at something, and when to let it die?
I've come to a few conclusions, though they're not by any means all-inclusive.
First of all, I need to explain something. Yes, this comes back to my favouritest circle of topics: meaning, themes - and your legacy.
Legacy? I hear you ask. What on earth is our legacy, and why should we be concerned with it?
Well, you might not be. That's fine. But we all know that I'm striving for work that's meaningful in some way - I want to write something that Matters. So I'm concerned with it, because I want to leave an impression - I want my writing to have a legacy. Even if you don't have any particular desire to change the world, it's still important to consider the work you're writing as part of your eventual body of work. Not convinced? Think of this:
Any book you write, at any point in your career, for any reason, will be, at some point, the first book of yours that someone picks up.
Do you really want someone's first impression of you to be based on a book you hate but wrote for the money, or something that's nothing like any of the rest of your work, or, or, or...?
Don't give the reader another reason to switch off to you; they have enough already.
So, why do you ditch a book? Either 1) because it's not something you're capable of writing at this point in time, due either to lack of ability, or lack of distance from the subject matter, or 2) because it's not something you want as part of your legacy.
Reasons as to why you might not want something in your legacy include:
* It's just not a genre you see yourself being happy to write in long term. This covers books 2 and 3 in my original post, and to some extent book 5.
* The story itself is okay - but for whatever reason, you can't stand to write about the main character any more. It's okay to hate the main character - hate is a force of attraction, after all - but if you have no respect for your character, if nothing about them interests or engages you, it might be time to ditch the story. That's number 4 in my list of false starts.
* There are so many problems with the plot it's just not worth fixing - many first novels suffer from this, and remember, 'plot problems' can be all sorts of things: gaps of logic, plot bunnies, cliches, 'devices', etc. On their own, these things can be tackled; only you can decide where the boundary is between 'wrecked, but salvageable' and 'utter garbage; too much work to fix', and a lot of it will hinge on how much you love the story in other ways. Book #1 in my list comes here: it's a mess, but the underlying premise is fun, and one day I'll fix it.
But what about those borderline cases? What do you do when you can't quite decide if it's worth it or not (a la me with the whole concept of short stories right now)? And what if you want to work on something completely different just for the fun of it?
Of course it's okay to muck around with stuff that you don't actually intend to be part of your 'legacy': writing different styles and genres pushes out the boundaries of our ability, and helps us to learn and grow. But bear in mind that there's a fine line between playing around for fun to increase your ability, and wasting time on things you never intend to be serious about.
Personally, I think that if you don't intend to get involved in the style you're experiementing with (or genre, or voice, or whatever) in a big way, then you should at least be keeping an eye on what you're learning from the experience. The question is, are you a) going to learn stuff that b) no other story could teach you and c) will be applicable to the stuff you actually intend to make a career out of?
If you're not going to learn anything from it, or if what you learn could be learned by doing something more directly related to your career, or if what you're learning isn't going to be applicable to anything else.... Well, we're all allowed to do things just for the hell of it. Just realise that if what you're doing doesn't fit any of those criteria (which are, let's face it, pretty broad), you're probably not doing something which can be classed as 'work', in terms of writing ;)
And that, dear readers, is my random thought of the day. I'll be away all next week, so you'll get automated posts, bwa ha %-) But watch out the week after where I'll be back to completely contradict myself and discuss the importance of having 'just for fun' projects :D
For now - have you ever thought about your 'legacy', and the fact that every book you write will be someone's first glimpse at you as a writer? Does this matter? Does it or should it influence how you decide which projects to let die? Why have you let projects die?
So, I and a few writerly friends are getting ready to query. Where do you go to research agents? Lots of places - but QueryTracker is a great start, and they even have a blog.
Of course, if you're querying you're going to need to know How To Write A Great Query (whee, don't we love free downloads?!).
Secondly, the Think Sideways course. Hopefully by now you're all aware that I've been taking Holly Lisle's How To Think Sideways course, a writing course with a difference. I love it, I adore it, I want to marry it... *ponders the implications of marrying an online course* Er, okay, strike the last one O:) But anyway, I love it. I have a few reviews up - yes, I need to do more - but basically, let me assure you, it's pretty jolly awesome.
The course is open full time for enrolments, so you can enrol anytime you like. Don't forget that I offer a 20% rebate on any subscriptions made through my links (conditions apply).
HOWEVER. As of February 27th, the course will CLOSE to Charter Member enrolments. Which means that to get any of the cool bonuses that charter members (rah, go us guinea pigs who test-drive the course!), you'll have to pay extra.
If you've even been thinking about maybe taking this course, let me encourage you to do so before Feb 27 - I'll let you know what the bonuses are when I get the all, but I can assure you that they're going to be worth it.
And remember, you can drop the course at any time, no questions asked, and receive a pro rata refund for any month for which you've already paid. So sign up, already! :D
Right. On to the meat of the postiness.
It's a question that's been playing in my mind this week, what with my recent discussion about what I learned from the partial novels I wrote in '08: how do you determine when to keep on at something, and when to let it die?
I've come to a few conclusions, though they're not by any means all-inclusive.
First of all, I need to explain something. Yes, this comes back to my favouritest circle of topics: meaning, themes - and your legacy.
Legacy? I hear you ask. What on earth is our legacy, and why should we be concerned with it?
Well, you might not be. That's fine. But we all know that I'm striving for work that's meaningful in some way - I want to write something that Matters. So I'm concerned with it, because I want to leave an impression - I want my writing to have a legacy. Even if you don't have any particular desire to change the world, it's still important to consider the work you're writing as part of your eventual body of work. Not convinced? Think of this:
Any book you write, at any point in your career, for any reason, will be, at some point, the first book of yours that someone picks up.
Do you really want someone's first impression of you to be based on a book you hate but wrote for the money, or something that's nothing like any of the rest of your work, or, or, or...?
Don't give the reader another reason to switch off to you; they have enough already.
So, why do you ditch a book? Either 1) because it's not something you're capable of writing at this point in time, due either to lack of ability, or lack of distance from the subject matter, or 2) because it's not something you want as part of your legacy.
Reasons as to why you might not want something in your legacy include:
* It's just not a genre you see yourself being happy to write in long term. This covers books 2 and 3 in my original post, and to some extent book 5.
* The story itself is okay - but for whatever reason, you can't stand to write about the main character any more. It's okay to hate the main character - hate is a force of attraction, after all - but if you have no respect for your character, if nothing about them interests or engages you, it might be time to ditch the story. That's number 4 in my list of false starts.
* There are so many problems with the plot it's just not worth fixing - many first novels suffer from this, and remember, 'plot problems' can be all sorts of things: gaps of logic, plot bunnies, cliches, 'devices', etc. On their own, these things can be tackled; only you can decide where the boundary is between 'wrecked, but salvageable' and 'utter garbage; too much work to fix', and a lot of it will hinge on how much you love the story in other ways. Book #1 in my list comes here: it's a mess, but the underlying premise is fun, and one day I'll fix it.
But what about those borderline cases? What do you do when you can't quite decide if it's worth it or not (a la me with the whole concept of short stories right now)? And what if you want to work on something completely different just for the fun of it?
Of course it's okay to muck around with stuff that you don't actually intend to be part of your 'legacy': writing different styles and genres pushes out the boundaries of our ability, and helps us to learn and grow. But bear in mind that there's a fine line between playing around for fun to increase your ability, and wasting time on things you never intend to be serious about.
Personally, I think that if you don't intend to get involved in the style you're experiementing with (or genre, or voice, or whatever) in a big way, then you should at least be keeping an eye on what you're learning from the experience. The question is, are you a) going to learn stuff that b) no other story could teach you and c) will be applicable to the stuff you actually intend to make a career out of?
If you're not going to learn anything from it, or if what you learn could be learned by doing something more directly related to your career, or if what you're learning isn't going to be applicable to anything else.... Well, we're all allowed to do things just for the hell of it. Just realise that if what you're doing doesn't fit any of those criteria (which are, let's face it, pretty broad), you're probably not doing something which can be classed as 'work', in terms of writing ;)
And that, dear readers, is my random thought of the day. I'll be away all next week, so you'll get automated posts, bwa ha %-) But watch out the week after where I'll be back to completely contradict myself and discuss the importance of having 'just for fun' projects :D
For now - have you ever thought about your 'legacy', and the fact that every book you write will be someone's first glimpse at you as a writer? Does this matter? Does it or should it influence how you decide which projects to let die? Why have you let projects die?
27 November 2008
Unwhelming: More on priorities
Right now, the mouse is my best friend.
Odd way to start a post, but nonetheless painfully true. Very painful. And consequentally, today's post will be brief.
I was talking to a friend yesterday and discovered that I (attempting to) follow 91 blogs. A few months ago I counted over 40 queues that I was a member of on CC. And we all know what my TBR pile looks like. Add to that the fact that we're mid-reno in preparation to sell our house, and everything else in my life right now, and it's no-jolly-wonder I've been feeling perpetually behind on EVERYthing.
[Right about now, I'm chickening out. You'll see what I mean at the end; but my sentences can now be longer again O:)]
But anyway, what I was saying. Given the round of blog posts last week on finding your priorities, etc, it all got me thinking. Why do I feel the need to (attempt to) follow so many blogs? Why so many queues? In short, why, in all areas of my life, am I over-committed?
And I think it's because, once again, of fear. Fear that I'll miss out on something worth having, something worth knowing, something worth reading and doing and seeing and experiencing...
But it's the old maxim: try to please everyone, and you please no one. Try to do everything, and I end up totally overwhelmed, paralysed, unable to do a thing because there are too many options.
So, as of today, I'm unwhelming. My priority, first and foremost, is my family. Second to that, my writing. As in actual novel writing, getting words on a page, acheiving word counts, writing. Not reading about writing. Not learning about writing. Writing.
To that end, I'm going to wade through my blog roll and unsubscribe to all those that I never actually end up reading anyway - and I'm going to do a queue tidy-up on CC.
I'm also doing something I've been toying with for months now, but have been too afraid to leap into: I'm changing my keyboard layout to dvorak. I've used it all morning at work yesterday (which is when I wrote the beginning of this post), and I'm using it again here at work today (in all windows except this one O:) Yes, I discovered you can be tricky and manage it so you use qwerty in some windows and dvorak in others!).
It's challenging. I've read this post in particular about dvorak many times before - it's what first gave me the idea - but this time, I nearly cried. It's the kind of thing you don't understand until you're actually doing it. The way you can be thinking the same thoughts, having the same ideas, but be totally unable to express them; the way you avoid chatting; the way you start to censor what you're saying for length and brevity, the way you mentally edit everything into as few words as possible... It's probably good practice for writing crisply, but boy is it frustrating.
It's so going to be worth it though. I've been using it off and on for maybe a few hours all up, and already I'm in love. It's so much gentler on your hands and wrists, so much more logical and intuitive... And for someone who is prone to wrist pain, it's simply brilliant.
Thankfully, I have a good memory and can read fast, so I already 'know' where all the keys are, and when I can't remember fast enough, I can read quickly enough to find it on my little chart without spending hours searching. Apparently I'm doing about 19 wpm (compared to my usual ~81wpm on qwerty).
What's been really amusing is how much it's confused my poor brain: I'm trying to maintain proficiency in qwerty as well, so it's like learning an additional language, instead of a replacement one. This morning, checking requests at work, I was using windows that were qwerty, windows that were dvorak, AND hand writing. Never expected it to confuse my handwriting, but a couple of times I had to stop and remember that I was writing, not typing :D
How is changing the way I type related to unwhelming? Because it's something that, in the long term will both preserve and improve my ability to type. I'm abosolutely confident that I will eventually be able to reach far faster speeds with dvorak than I have have with qwerty, simply because of the superior layout; less distance and movement between letters in a word means you can type it faster. For me, this is, like writing, one of those terribly important but not so urgent things that can all too easily be swept to the side to make room for urgent-but-not-important things.
From now on, I'm not letting it.
Thus, my unwhelming, clearing the unnecessary, and focusing on the important. What things are you spending time on that you could cut out, and where could you look at investing time now to make things more efficient in the future?
Odd way to start a post, but nonetheless painfully true. Very painful. And consequentally, today's post will be brief.
I was talking to a friend yesterday and discovered that I (attempting to) follow 91 blogs. A few months ago I counted over 40 queues that I was a member of on CC. And we all know what my TBR pile looks like. Add to that the fact that we're mid-reno in preparation to sell our house, and everything else in my life right now, and it's no-jolly-wonder I've been feeling perpetually behind on EVERYthing.
[Right about now, I'm chickening out. You'll see what I mean at the end; but my sentences can now be longer again O:)]
But anyway, what I was saying. Given the round of blog posts last week on finding your priorities, etc, it all got me thinking. Why do I feel the need to (attempt to) follow so many blogs? Why so many queues? In short, why, in all areas of my life, am I over-committed?
And I think it's because, once again, of fear. Fear that I'll miss out on something worth having, something worth knowing, something worth reading and doing and seeing and experiencing...
But it's the old maxim: try to please everyone, and you please no one. Try to do everything, and I end up totally overwhelmed, paralysed, unable to do a thing because there are too many options.
So, as of today, I'm unwhelming. My priority, first and foremost, is my family. Second to that, my writing. As in actual novel writing, getting words on a page, acheiving word counts, writing. Not reading about writing. Not learning about writing. Writing.
To that end, I'm going to wade through my blog roll and unsubscribe to all those that I never actually end up reading anyway - and I'm going to do a queue tidy-up on CC.
I'm also doing something I've been toying with for months now, but have been too afraid to leap into: I'm changing my keyboard layout to dvorak. I've used it all morning at work yesterday (which is when I wrote the beginning of this post), and I'm using it again here at work today (in all windows except this one O:) Yes, I discovered you can be tricky and manage it so you use qwerty in some windows and dvorak in others!).
It's challenging. I've read this post in particular about dvorak many times before - it's what first gave me the idea - but this time, I nearly cried. It's the kind of thing you don't understand until you're actually doing it. The way you can be thinking the same thoughts, having the same ideas, but be totally unable to express them; the way you avoid chatting; the way you start to censor what you're saying for length and brevity, the way you mentally edit everything into as few words as possible... It's probably good practice for writing crisply, but boy is it frustrating.
It's so going to be worth it though. I've been using it off and on for maybe a few hours all up, and already I'm in love. It's so much gentler on your hands and wrists, so much more logical and intuitive... And for someone who is prone to wrist pain, it's simply brilliant.
Thankfully, I have a good memory and can read fast, so I already 'know' where all the keys are, and when I can't remember fast enough, I can read quickly enough to find it on my little chart without spending hours searching. Apparently I'm doing about 19 wpm (compared to my usual ~81wpm on qwerty).
What's been really amusing is how much it's confused my poor brain: I'm trying to maintain proficiency in qwerty as well, so it's like learning an additional language, instead of a replacement one. This morning, checking requests at work, I was using windows that were qwerty, windows that were dvorak, AND hand writing. Never expected it to confuse my handwriting, but a couple of times I had to stop and remember that I was writing, not typing :D
How is changing the way I type related to unwhelming? Because it's something that, in the long term will both preserve and improve my ability to type. I'm abosolutely confident that I will eventually be able to reach far faster speeds with dvorak than I have have with qwerty, simply because of the superior layout; less distance and movement between letters in a word means you can type it faster. For me, this is, like writing, one of those terribly important but not so urgent things that can all too easily be swept to the side to make room for urgent-but-not-important things.
From now on, I'm not letting it.
Thus, my unwhelming, clearing the unnecessary, and focusing on the important. What things are you spending time on that you could cut out, and where could you look at investing time now to make things more efficient in the future?
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