Archives for November 2017

Yesterday was the first day of teaching again after fall break. I was worried because I still don’t have my voice back but in the end things went fine. And my voice is even a little better. I did teach the one singing student without singing myself which was a little odd. I usually sing along a lot.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about the new novel, and about my process, and how much planning I really want to do or not. Because I find myself procrastinating like crazy, and I also find myself reading the first third or so of any given writing book, and then I tend to lose interest and wander off. One reason is that when the book says, „And now you need to do the exercises and not just read them.“ I get a pen and some paper, stare at the exercise, get a serious case of the dunnwannas, and put the book down. Maybe I should just read through anyway. Or maybe it is alright to abandon a non-fiction book somewhere in the middle. I did read once (and I don’t remember where) that a lot of non-fiction books have the problem that their great idea is usually not substantial enough to fill a whole book but they need to make it into one anyway, and so something between half and two-thirds of any given non-fiction book is mostly filler. I’m not sure about that but on the other hand I do have a huge pile of non-fiction books that I abandoned somewhere in the middle.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is my pile of unread books, and my burning need to buy more and more books on top of that. It is becoming quite ridiculous. I tend to pre-order books I’m particularly interested in, like novels that belong to a series I enjoyed, or the books of certain authors. I also tend to download samples like crazy which makes me add to my „buy later“-pile. At least these days I don’t buy all of them outright.

The books I devour, though, are usually ones that I sample, download, and read immediately. And there are so many of those that the ones I have been looking forward to reading for months get pushed to the back. And I have a constant bad feeling about the piles of unread books. And the money I spend on them.

In the past I had decided at one point that I should read everything I own first, before buying more. But my tastes and needs change.

I do feel like I need to change something, though. Maybe I should stop pre-ordering books, and just put them on a list of when they get published. I also should make an effort to read the books I already have. And maybe I should stop downloading samples, though I’m a little doubtful about that.

Also I think I need to go through the non-fiction books I have marked as „currently reading“, and push through some of them, and just abandon some others. Why should I make myself read a book that I don’t enjoy? If I start reading a book on writing that I thought promising from the sample, and two chapters in I find that it’s not helping me in the least, it might be the better decision to just not finish reading that book. Just put it on its virtual shelf and forget about it.

And while I’m doing all this thinking work I also need to prepare for tomorrow’s doctor visit. I have decided to compile a little essay with my history and symptoms. Usually I go in with something like a practiced speech that would last for ten minutes, and then when the doctor asks me why I’m there I say something like, „Well, I’m tired all the time, and I think it’s hormones.“ and then I become mute and get swept up in the usual medical procedures. Someone on ravelry said that she prepares something in writing these days. I have, in the past, made a list and took a notebook but I was always to self-conscious to pull it out. We’ll see how things go with the essay.

Lots to do today, and only the usual time to do it in. Like usual.

I am feeling pretty hopeful about the novel, and my voice, though. I might be able to sing a little again on Friday when I’m teaching the next singing student, and if I write about 2,000 words per day until the end of the month I can still „win“ NaNoWriMo.

So yesterday I was completely without voice for most of the day up to a point where my husband felt like I was mad at him all the time because I wasn’t talking. Which is funny because he knew perfectly well that I wasn’t mad, just sick.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the new novel idea. I also spent some time helping my husband set up his very old computer in the basement for recording which included searching the whole house for the right kind of firewire cable.

Then my husband had a friend over who wanted to record her congas so she could sell them better. She brought cake:

We now own a new pair of congas, by the way.

In the late afternoon I started waiting for the boy to make his way home. When I checked his train it said that it wouldn’t stop where he was supposed to get on which threw me into panic mode. I looked up alternate trains and sent him a message.

In the end his train was merely late. But the train app never said so. He also managed to step on the wrong part of the train, the one without his reserved seat, and didn’t buy himself dinner because he was too shy to ask if there was any vegetarian food left in the train bistro.

He came home at 10.30, finally had dinner, and we all went to bed around midnight. Which means I’m a little tired today.

It’s back to teaching today which will be fun without my voice but it’s starting to get better already.

I’m planning to do some more work on the new novel idea, and that’s mostly it.

The best thing will be falling into bed early. I hope I’ll manage that.

Yesterday was mostly spent feeling miserable and sick. My voice was almost completely gone which meant that I was really happy to have recorded the podcast episode the day before.

Not having a voice usually makes it hard for me to make music, even play the piano or guitar. Somehow when I can’t sing I feel like music is out of the question.

I did get the podcast episode published, at least, as you might have noticed.

There were zero words written on the novel. Which is really, really bad.

I did start researching books that are similar to the one I’m trying to write and found that I didn’t enjoy reading a single one of them. Lighthearted books about women, control over their lives and matters of weight should be fun to read, and I have read some that I really enjoyed but right now I found them all somewhat uninspiring. I lent a few through Kindle Unlimited, and downloaded a bunch of samples and by the end of the day I deleted them all from my ereader, and was completely fed up with the genre as a whole.

And then I turned back to the paranormal mystery series I’m currently reading, and the steampunk novella that I’ve been looking forward to for ages now.

This morning I woke up somewhat refreshed with a new main character in my head.

In order to get the novel finally moving I turned the laptop on while still in bed, and thought about what the next scene would be. I had had two ideas and couldn’t decide.

And then I reaized how much I couldn’t be bothered. The idea for this novel is good, it has potential for a nice character arc, the setting is enjoyable, and in theory this should be really easy to write, but…

I won’t.

In just a second I decided not to force myself to finish this story.

Now normally I would not recommend that to anyone. It usually feels like getting cold feet on your wedding day.

But right now this feels like so right, I can’t even say,

So. New plan: I will spend today reading „Story Genius“ (affiliate link) by Lisa Cron, and then I will work my way through some of Holly Lisle’s workshops about creating worlds, and characters, and plot.

Then I will outline, and then I will start writing the next novel. Which will be the first in the next series that I’ve been wanting to tackle for more than a year. Not that I have an idea already, so that will be interesting.

This might mean giving up on NaNo for this year. Or it might mean working like crazy and doing NaNo anyway, we’ll see.

This is all very exciting.

So today will be spent reading and knitting. My husband is having another friend over today who wants to record audio samples of the congas she wants to sell. We haven’t seen her in ages, and I’m supposed to stay mute because of my voice. But then she already thinks I’m weird.

And the boy will be back home tonight. Rather late, I’m afraid. I’m really looking forward to him being home again. And I am rather nervous about him catching the train on time. But then he will have to navigate that on his own.

So. Lots to do today even though I have ditched exercise and cleaning. Who would have thought.

I mean, the day went better. I’m still pretty sick, though.

I did finally manage to write some words (almost 2,900), I started cleaning, and I recorded a podcast.

The podcast episode might be shortest I’ve ever done but then my voice was so bad that I couldn’t even do my usual singing warmup beforehand. The cough has gotten worse, and I had a headache all day so I’m guessing I did well.

My mother-in-law seems to have had an anxiety attack rather than something heart-related so that is good too.

I went to bed early again but not quite as early as the day before.

Today I want to finish the cleaning, write at least 3,000 words, and publish the podcast. I guess that will be enough. No exercise again because I’m still nursing that cold.

The cardigan I’m knitting is growing nicely, and turns my hands blue every time I work on it. Lovely.

As you can see my life is full of exciting things at the moment.

So I had great plans of writing all the words but in the end I didn't. I'm not happy about it but it's all my own fault.

You see, yesterday was a day of waiting. Waiting for the boy to get up, waiting for him to be ready so I could help him pack for his trip, waiting for lunch, waiting for the boy to leave, waiting for him to arrive at his destination, waiting until I heard he stepped on a bus heading in the wrong direction, then he sat on there all the way around town until he managed to miss his stop, and then he couldn't find the person responsible. By then he was somewhat late. Funny, that.

In the end he arrived safely, or so I gather, and since I didn't hear anything else I'm assuming things are fine.

I did try to write some after that but found that I was just too tired and frazzled, and so I went to bed at 8.30 and slept for nine hours.

Which made me think that today might go better but then it turned out that my mother-in-law is still not feeling well. She already made an appointment with her doctor for Monday but decided that she feels unwell enough to want to be in the hospital over the weekend.

So I opened the door for a bunch of paramedics and doctors before even having breakfast this morning, and they gave her an infusion, and carted her off.

I'm sure today I'll be all calm and focused and productive, don't you think?

If I manage it I want to clean the house, help making pizza, write all the words and record a podcast. This will be fun for sure.

Oh, and my cold has settled in and has added a lovely light cough to the symptoms. The throat isn't hurting as much anymore, though, because of all the mucus, so that's alright.

Maybe I should admit defeat, go to bed and stay there for the rest of the week. What do you think?