But it’s weird; I can’t do nothing. I used to be able to do nothing, once upon a time. I could sit and just stare out the window, or listen to music and just daydream.
Daydreaming, I guess, has become my job. My daydreams go on paper to be shared.
Does that mean I keep none of my daydreams to myself?
No.
Because some daydreams shouldn’t be shared.
And some are just too big and don’t feel like they’d fit in the world outside of my head.
This wildly random absolutely stream of consciousness post was brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt here and join in! It’s fun!
I’ve kind of abandoned my fiction blog for the last few years, but I want to revamp it and start posting there occasionally again. Especially since I’m still paying for it. I’ll let you know when that happens.
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This morning I woke up ready to take on my to-do list. I was pumped and raring to go.
I got out to get my grocery shopping done as I usually do every Tuesday morning … and it only took me 20 minutes to clean off the car and shovel it out.
Got back home at a decent time, and after a bit of doom scrolling I took Alex to his program. Great! I had a couple of hours to get some things crossed off my to-do list.
I just had to get gas first. And pick up Alex’s computer from Best Buy. And stop at Tim Horton’s for lunch—gotta keep my energy up for my to-do list. Oh! And I needed sausages from a different store than I get my groceries at.
Finally I got home … just in time to pick Alex up from his program!
Now, at 4:30, I’m sitting at my computer getting the first thing done that was actually on my to-do list (blogging), and feeling a combination of satisfaction at getting so many things done and frustration that only one of them was on my list.
I don’t know if I need a longer list or I should just say to hell with everything else. 🙄
I’m sitting at my desk in front of my laptop, drinking my coffee and staring at a blank page. Okay, not quite blank, because it now has two sentences on it.
Hmm.
When I’m writing a story, I often launch into it with no idea what’s going to come out. What’s going to flow from my fingertips. That’s why I love stream of consciousness writing so much, I guess. It comes natural to me.
Far more natural than, say, speaking.
If I’m faced with talking about something? If I don’t know what to say, I usually end up saying something stupid. Something that plays on repeat in my head, making me want to slap myself.
Why is it always the stupid things you say that you remember most often?
This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “hesitation,” comes to us from Wendy. Check out her blog here!
Hesitation has to be my biggest downfall. It happens on different levels.
At the smallest level, take this post, for instance.
I got the title and the first two lines ready to go almost two hours before I finally started writing what was going to be in the body of the post.
At the most critical level (of my writing and publishing career), I tend to hesitate before I publish a book, putting it off—putting off the steps to getting ready—sometimes for months, leaving me to scramble at the last minute to get everything set to go.
I’ve often thought this might be a form of self-sabotage.
And maybe it is.
But the core reason behind my hesitation is the NEED for everything to be perfect.
And it never is and never will be.
What sucks is my hesitation causes me actual physical pain.
Before I started writing this post, my heartburn was extremely painful. Now? After, like, four minutes of writing? It’s almost gone. In fact it was gone before I started writing this paragraph, but now that I’m thinking about it … (Stop thinking about it, Linda. It’s entirely stress-related.)
So yeah. I wish there was a cure for hesitation.
For perfectionism.
And for worrying about screwing up when I’ll never know if things will go smoothly unless I actually start doing them.
This woeful post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!
A lovely snowy day for a walk, aka I’m one of the few people silly enough to be out in this.
Photo: A snowy sidewalk stretching off into the distance with the road on the right side of the frame and houses, fences, and trees on the left. The snow is falling gently.
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1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a “jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
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1. Make it one sentence.
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This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “confusion,” comes to us from Dan. Check out his blog here!
Now that I’m in my sixties, I expect to get confused occasionally. Or at least my younger self expected it.
And yeah, sometimes I do.
But when I sit down to analyze why, I realize that if I’m focused on something, I don’t get confused at all. It’s when I’m thinking too many things at once.
And yeah, maybe I used to be able to juggle a thousand things in my head and not forget why I walked into the kitchen, but in my defense, I think I’m juggling three thousand at the moment.
Take my writing for instance.
In the space of ten and a half months (November 1, 2023-September 18, 2024), I wrote three novels in a series—approximately 271,000 words total. Now I’m editing two of them at the same time.
Which makes sense because although they’re about different but related main characters, the second half of Book One takes place at the same time as the first half of Book Two.
It’s all about the details. If it’s snowing on January 12th in the first book, I have to make sure it’s snowing at the same consistency on January 12th in the second book.
If information comes to light on the common enemy in both books, I have to ensure everyone is on the same page, both literally and figuratively, twice.
You can see where that might be confusing at times.
Thank goodness I have a program like Plottr to help me keep track of the timelines.
Would I have been able to keep track of all that without a program back in my twenties? Maybe. But I didn’t have all the responsibilities I have now on top of juggling two books simultaneously.
A thousand things vs. three thousand.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
This enterprising post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!
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