Life in progress

Monthly Archives: November 2013


by 87 Comments

Getting views is like pulling teeth

Has anyone else noticed that their view count has gone down? I’m blaming it on the new pop-up window in the reader that allows people to read a post without going to the site.

While this new feature is sometimes handy, it discourages other WordPress users from clicking on the actual post. When they don’t look at the post, they don’t see our site, and when they don’t go to our site, they don’t see what else is on our site.

Just think about it this way:  One of the people you follow may have found the cure for the clap yesterday, but if you only read about how his or her cat looked cute rifling through the cantankerous neighbours trash bin today, you’ll never know! That’s valuable information there you’ve missed out on!

So tell me, is it just me? Or has your view count gone down too?


by 43 Comments

NaNo Nono

Do you ever have one of those days when you want to write – you really do – but everything that comes out of you is sheer crap? I’m having one of those today.

On a happier note, I handed in what I consider another eight pages of utter drivel for my short story course today. Well, okay, maybe it’s not that bad. I hope it’s not. But I wasn’t allowed to polish it since it had to be a rough draft, so I certainly wasn’t happy with it.

It’ll at least be interesting to see if my professor sees the same things wrong with it as I do.

So unless I get a reprieve from this creative brain fart I’m having today, my NaNo wordcount is going to pot. I am so due for a weekend off – it’s been five weeks.

Maybe after 48 hours of solid sleep this weekend I’ll be back into the swing of things. Back in the saddle.

Back to being creative enough not to keep falling back on proverbs.

Or maybe I’ll feel better after a good night’s rest tonight. After all, tomorrow is another day.


by 40 Comments

Eavesdropping Fun

So yesterday I was sitting in an unnamed coffee shop

080729_tim_hortons_3202

with my friend John, and we were chatting over lunch. A couple of twentysomethings sat at the table next to us and proceeded to scratch their lottery tickets.

When John and I got up to leave, he commented that he needed his jacket cleaned soon – he works in the automotive-type industry and it is covered in grease. The man at the next table said, simply, “Baby shampoo.” We both looked at him and he explained: “You can get grease off clothes with baby shampoo. Oh and it costs $300 to ship a car from Vancouver to Toronto by train.” The latter was something John and I had been discussing earlier on in the conversation. We both thanked him for the information, like the polite Canadians we are, and left.

Since then I have thought about all the things we could have been talking about, and one conversation I had years ago with my ex sticks out in my memory.

Being a writer, sometimes I talk about my characters as though they’re real people. Just imagine what the eavesdropping couple would have made of this:

Me: So it turns out Helen is fooling around on Frank.

John: That bitch!

Me: I know, right? But I don’t want him to find out.

John: Because…

Me: Well, you know. He’s in jail. There’s just so much a guy can take.

John: True.

Me: So I’ve decided to kill her.

John: Huh. How?

Me: I can’t decide. I was hoping you’d help.

John: I’ll do what I can.

Me: I mean, I’ve thought about drowning her in the bathtub.

John: That’s a good one.

Me: Or I could just drop the hairdryer in with her.

John: And fry her…

Me: I don’t know though. It seems too convenient.

John: How about killing her in a car accident?

Me: She doesn’t drive, so that would mean killing someone else as well.

John: How about Martha!

Me: YES! Great idea.

You’ve got to wonder if the couple at the next table would have been quite as ready to make suggestions…


by 15 Comments

Does it count?

I wrote a 2,100 word short story and a blog post today. Can I count that on NaNo? Coz I didn’t get a word written today otherwise. 😛

Look at the picture!

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

*runs away*


by 6 Comments

NaNoWriMo Challenge

“Write what you know.” It’s one of those things we’re told to do, along with “show, don’t tell,” and a bunch of other guidelines we’re given as writers, that will apparently give us the tools we need to make us better writers and bring home our first million. It’s the “write what you know” thing I want to focus on today though, and I’ll tell you why.

I almost got hit by a bus today.

Don’t panic, I’m okay, but it was a close call. I’m talking inches. Millimeters even. It got me to thinking about my NaNo project, as does everything in my life – when I decide to write a novel, I live and breathe it, almost literally. Having something as dramatic as a real-life near-death experience happen to me (okay, okay, the mirror of a bus moving half a mile an hour nearly clipped my ear as I walked along the edge of a sidewalk) being worth mentioning, could happen to one of my characters, right? You can bet it will.

So back to writing what you know. I don’t think they really mean it in the strict sense of writing what you do for a living outside of writing, for instance. Or even writing about characters who write, though many writers do (I’m looking at you, Stephen King). If we did that, everything we wrote would be autobiographical. And what would the fantasy writers do? I’m thinking an elf accountant would be rather boring.

I think writing what you know can be taken in a more broad sense of feelings, emotions, and yes, little experiences like almost getting hit by a small, slow-moving school bus that’s coming to a stop beside the curb.

So my challenge, for all my fellow NaNoers who are reading this, is simple. Write into your story the next time you write, about something you’ve experienced in the last week. If your characters are in space it can be a sensation, or a sentence you remember hearing or saying.

And if you’re writing an autobiography – oh what the hell. Lie! I dare you!

P.S. Let me know how it goes!


by 15 Comments

Post-Hallowe’en Indulgence

I have a love/hate relationship with Hallowe’en.

I’m in a unique, somewhat unenviable position of having a child who enjoys trick-or-treating but doesn’t eat – all of his meals are administered through a tube. So while he’s at school, I must either hide the candy or eat it.

indulgence

Though I do my best to resist temptation while indulging in my second love (after my kids) of writing, as they say, resistance is futile. After all, what better way to pass the time whilst NaNoing than eat sweets?

Thank goodness for running around the mall doing Christmas shopping in December, eh?


by 20 Comments

All for the Cause

It’s Movember again and time to raise awareness for men’s health issues. Last month we wore pink ribbons for breast cancer.

I find it strange: when I was a kid there were no colourful ribbons, nor were there people shaving or not shaving to make others pay attention to their cause.

Now I’m not knocking anyone who decides to put themselves or their adornments out there to attempt to raise money or simply let everyone know what they’re fighting for; far from it. In fact, it makes me feel bad that I don’t have the resources to help out everyone.

But that’s the thing. It’s because there are so many different causes that foundations have sprung up, that ribbons are being worn, etc. because every one of them wants to be noticed.

Were diseases just not talked about years ago? Was research played down? Or is it that horrible diseases are so prevalent now, disabling and killing off our populations that our governments can’t keep up with the demand, and so the public must find a way to pay for the fix themselves?

The logical, dispassionate side of me wonders if it is the earth’s way of depopulating and renewing itself. The paranoiac side of me wonders at the possibility that the governments have a hand in it…  One way or another, it is natural selection – survival of the fittest.

But neither of these scenarios slow us down. We will always fight for what we believe in. Whether we are acting as survivalists or puppets, we can only do what we can to save those we love from the ravages of disease. I’ll be thinking of that, every time I see a ‘tache this month.


by 23 Comments

Above and beyond

Good Saturday morning! I hope everyone is having a nice weekend, particularly those who don’t have to work. If you have a regular 9-5, you shouldn’t be working today, right? Then again…

I was reading the paper (it’s become a habit now, since I did my challenge) and was struck by an article in the entertainment section about Jared Leto and his loss of 30+ pounds for the sake of his role in the upcoming movie, “Dallas Buyers Club.” You can see his picture here. It’s really quite shocking.

Reading this lead me to think about what we do for our jobs. Sure there are some of us who flatly refuse to wander outside our job description, but at some point I think we’ve all been in a position where we’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty for what we do for a living. Some of us do it all the time.

My own job, as a stay-at-home mom is 24/7. You might say being on call all the time IS part of my job description, and it is. But at the same time, I didn’t go into it with the expectation that I was going to be in it alone.

His Majesty

His Majesty, for whom I slave night and day

 

And speaking of my ex, over the last ten years he has been working at a few different retail chains as manager. Budgets in these places always seem to be a concern, according to him, and he is constantly having to work overtime so as not to tax the budget by having to pay employees – he is on salary.

I’d be interested to hear what you do that is ‘above and beyond.’ Come on, toot your own horn. After all, it’s rare that we get any appreciation from all we do, isn’t it?


by 20 Comments

And so the true paranoia sets in

I had no idea that it was a ‘thing,’ but apparently, with senile dementia comes paranoia. As my mother ages I’m thinking more and more that I need to research the stages, before she goes through them.

Last night she told be that she had been talking to her sister, six years her senior, on the phone and that her sister is losing her mind. My mother loves to complain about anything, but when it comes to her siblings, nothing has ever been more delightful to her than being superior to them. Being an only child I can only assume that this is a result of early childhood bullying, or simply being told what to do, since my mother is the youngest of five.

Anyway, she was gleefully informing me about how her sister had related the same thing story times in the space of five minutes, and then the subject of my mother’s apartment came up. To backtrack a bit, before my mom moved to town, I lived in her apartment since I hadn’t found a place of my own. Her apartment came available on the market, so I bought it. Then when her old house sold, she bought my house and I moved out of her apartment the day she moved in. Confused yet? Just keep going.

She forgets that she came to visit me when I lived in her apartment. She swears up and down that she never saw the place before the day she moved in. When I tried to remind her last night, she not only denied it, she told me that I was the one who was losing my mind, not her – she’s obviously worried about it even if she won’t admit it.

What really got under my skin, and is worrying me, is that she accused me of saying she saw her apartment before she moved in just to make her think she is going crazy – like I’m doing it maliciously.

I’m getting close to the point where I’m going to have to move her into a place where she can have assisted living. Not a nursing home, necessarily, but a retirement home at least. She wants to move in with me, but I just can’t handle it. My children have to come first, as well as my own health. She is just too much work.

I’m just afraid if I wait too much longer, she’ll think I hate her. This paranoia thing is really scary.