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Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Time
I read an article yesterday that talked about what is important to us and how we spend our time doing things that aren’t important. The article went on to say what you do is what you are.
To a certain degree I agree. I write, I am a writer. I take care of my family, I am a mother. But what do I do that makes me simply a human being? I spend time thinking about what I can do to help others, I try to spend time relaxing and even more time attempting to be inspired by something that I would like to write. I don’t think it’s possible to ever really be doing nothing. Even when we’re playing mindless games or watching crappy television programs, our minds are active.
The article stated also that if we laze around doing useless things then our lives are useless. If we spend all our time working for things we think we need (extras, that is) then we’re probably even worse off, especially if our goal in life is to provide for our family. A family we rarely see.
Anyway, it got me thinking about what I spend my time doing. I often say I’m doing nothing, and it’s true that many days little gets accomplished that I can actually see with my eyes. The dishes pile up, the dusting and vacuuming don’t get done. But in all, my children are happy and I’m pretty content. Sitting with Alex, even if we’re both on our laptops, keeps him happy and avoiding Chris unless he wants something – and then being available to talk to him when he does – makes for a peaceful household. The dishes, the dust, the vacuum cleaner – they don’t really care what I do with my time.
This post is part of SoCS. Find this week’s prompt here and join in! https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-1614/
Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions
P.S. Here’s the link to the article: http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/the-60-second-guide-to-bullshit-free-life/
The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS August 16/14
It’s an understatement to say it’s been a crazy week. I don’t think there’s anyone in the English-speaking world who hasn’t been affected by the recent news, if for no other reason than being sick of hearing about it. It was difficult to decide, with that in mind, on a prompt for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. I considered making it completely open-ended, but then I thought of all the people who are having a hard time concentrating on anything but the news. In light of that, I’ve chosen to make the prompt something people can focus on. Focus has, these past few days, been an expensive commodity.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “time.”
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
We have a SoCS badge now! Paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and paste the following: This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-1614/ The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. Have fun!
One-Liner Wednesday – Now
If there is ever enough money there won’t be enough time, and vice versa; before you know it, time will have run out – do it now!!
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Anyone who would like to try it out may feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post. If you do, please ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet. It’s a great way to meet new bloggers!
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Make it either funny or inspirational.
Have fun!
Likeable Villains – Opinions Wanted
I’m back home from my weekend in Ottawa where I had a chance to do some writing. With the work I accomplished, I’ve arrived home with a question for all my followers who are fiction lovers. But first a little information.
I have a new villain in the sequel to my novel and I’m finding I like her. She’s as sharp and witty as she is rotten to the core. So far, 40,000 words into the novel, she has yet to show how bad she can be. My question to you is, have you ever loved a villain despite the fact that they’re cruel and horrible people? Is what I’m doing a no-no?
In the comments, please let me know if you’ve ever read (or seen in a movie) a villain you’ve liked – who you’ve been excited to see when they turned up in a scene.
P.S. I’ll be answering all the comments from the weekend and reading as many of the SoCS entries as I can after I put Alex to bed. Thanks to everyone for your contributions to both!
The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS August 9/14
I’m posting the Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday early (it’s 12:09am as I type) because I need to have time to write my own Saturday post before I leave the internet behind for the weekend. The inspiration for this week’s prompt comes to you from a conversation I had about Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s – I confirmed today that there is more fat AND calories in a large double/double (2 cream, 2 sugar) Tim’s coffee than there is in a McDonald’s hamburger. Crazy, right?
Anyway–drumroll please–your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: double/two/bi-/twin or anything else you can think of that means “two.” Use the prompt at will!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in! Remember, I won’t be around this week so please double-check to make sure your ping-back showed up in the comments.
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and paste the following: This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-914/ The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. Have fun!
Random Life in Progress
As you can see by the photo, I’m thoroughly enjoying the weather as I sit on my back deck with a glass of white wine, writing this post. Life is good. After I finish this post I’ll probably go back to editing my novel. Just yesterday I found a huge, gaping plot hole wherein the history of my character’s family didn’t match up with the present. I had to go back and write an entire backstory (to keep it straight in my own mind) on a character that won’t even exist unless I end up writing a prequel to my novel. On a happy note, I have enough history to write a prequel. Seriously, I’m putting an awful lot of effort into this mythical epic that I keep talking about. It WILL see the light of day if it kills me.
In other news, I’m going away for the weekend. My son Christopher wishes to go on his annual pilgrimage to Ottawa to visit the museums. I found a great deal on a place to stay: one of the colleges in town is offering a whole two bedroom apartment, including a kitchen, for $64/night. Can’t beat that! And since I lived close by for fifteen years I know the area, so getting around is going to be a breeze. On the way home we’ll pick up Alex, who has been visiting with his dad all week (which is why I’m able to sit outside in peace) so it’s a bonus for my ex too, not having to make the three hour drive to get him home. Long and short of it, I won’t be around to read the SoCS posts this weekend. I’ll do my best to get caught up early next week though.
The best news of all comes on the heels of my post from a couple of days ago entitled “How for would YOU go?” I looked into getting backstage at the venue that my main character performs in at the beginning of the sequel (written in July as part of CampNaNo) and guess what? http://nac-cna.ca/en/special/event/9938 So I’ll be going back to Ottawa again on the 28th of September to tour the National Arts Centre backstage! I’m so excited! 😀
I tell ya, sometimes the universe comes together just right.
The Editing Process
It occurred to me this morning as I was working on what will probably be the second-last edit of my novel The Great Dagmaru, that editing is an inherently ugly process. When I read my novel as a whole, it’s like taking in a picturesque landscape, with rolling hills, still lakes and vividly coloured birds, twittering and flitting from branch to branch.
But as I edit it, sentence by sentence, all I can see are the caterpillars, munching on the leaves and weaving themselves gauzy tents where they squirm like maggots. My job, of course, is to get them outta there looking like pretty butterflies.
It’s easy to get discouraged when I’m gazing at my work under a microscope. I agonize over single words; I look at them sometimes until they cease to have meaning. I forget how phrases go together in natural speech because I’ve contemplated them for too long. Thankfully this only happens occasionally. There are also parts which I can read through and not want to change a thing, except to delete a word here and there.
Today, however, the ants are crawling with the spiders and the worms are aerating the ground to allow for new growth. And I’m seeking oxygen to keep going.
My Element
Earth, air, fire and water. Of the four I’ve always been most drawn to water, though according to my zodiac sign I should be more of an air person.
I love being near water, and living near it as well, though not too close. I’ve seen what floods can do and I’m far too practical to want to risk having my belongings ruined by one. I do have a natural spring running through my basement, however. Come over on laundry day and you’ll see me filling up my washing machine with a bucket of non-stop drinkable H20.
But this:
this I could sit beside all day. Water like glass, I can imagine myself walking across it, skimming like a bird catching a fish just below the surface. I love the way things reflect upon it, ever-changing and yet it accepts whatever is put before it.
I love the way it smells, and the way the breeze rushes over it to the shore. I want to be floating upon it in a boat – any size boat, though my favourite is a canoe.
I want to read beside it, to write beside it, or to walk beside it.
I’m happy to be living close to the water; just close enough to visit any time.
Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Now I’m Here
I’m here. I’m always here. But aren’t we all? Where else would we be but here?
Here, for me, is usually my living room couch with my laptop on my lap. At least when I’m at rest. And by ‘at rest’ I mean working, because working on my novels, whether writing or editing is right up there with relaxing with a good book. I may call it working but to me it’s nothing like work.
Back to the ‘here.’ There is a marked difference between being here and sitting next to Alex than there is being here when he’s at his dad’s. I’m afraid, most of the time, to allow myself to concentrate on my work. There’s nothing worse than being wrenched out of it by someone demanding something of me. It’s like laying down for a nap when you know the phone will probably ring. What’s the use?
Not only that, but the difference in noise is also a factor. When I’m alone I can put my music on–when I’m writing or editing it’s always the Japanese band, Buck-Tick–but when Alex is here I’m usually listening to him sing. And by singing I mean a long, drawn out single note, because he’s Deaf and doesn’t understand that singing means more than one sound. The good news is, he can watch TV and play video games with the sound off and he doesn’t know the difference. At least I don’t have to listen to Dora the Explorer all day long.
So here I sit, now trying to decide if I should take the plunge or just give up on the idea of working for the day. It’s stressful not to work.
Especially when Buck-Tick is playing.
This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-214/ Click the link to see how you too can join in!
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