Life in progress

Tag Archives: wasting time


by 15 Comments

The Endless Circle

I need organisation. First, I must state that this post was inspired by our lovely Belinda at Idiot Writing. (You can find the post here: http://idiotwriting.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/organisation/ .) In it, she tells how much more organised she is than I.

When I do finally get a moment to myself to sit and write, I invariably get comfortable with my laptop and, before I begin, I look around the room. It’s a mess. I think to myself, “I need to be more organised,” but do I do anything about it? Of course not! I just got comfortable.

So I write, but in the back of my mind there is the mess I should be cleaning up. I’m unable to fully relax and enjoy myself. Why don’t I just clean it up? Because it will take hours–hours that I could be spending writing. And what’s the use when my darling children will just mess it up again anyway? Doing a little bit at a time is useless. I’ll just end up doing the same little bit again the next day.

It’s a vicious circle of discomfort for me.

I did, actually find something that worked for me once. When I was selling my house back in Gatineau, Quebec, I had to clean up the place to show it to perspective buyers. So I took a picture of the mess, one room at a time. I then worked my ass off, non-stop, until I was ready to take an “after” picture. I was truly amazed at the progress I was able to make, and I had a reward at the end to boot–a picture of my immaculate room.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Before

After

After

I swore I would do that again when I moved. I made a New Year’s resolution, four years ago, to make and keep this place clean. I did it again three years ago, two, one, and this year as well. HA! The difference? First, I’m not selling, and second, back then I wasn’t writing.

One of these days…

 

How do you deal with organisation? Or do you? I’d love some suggestions.


by 43 Comments

Writing, But Not Writing

You have to love it when your utility company sends the most gorgeous man on the planet over to your house to upgrade your internet speed. Needless to say, as my day has progressed it has gotten better.

I’m currently procrastinating over picking up my manuscript. Oohh, a muffin!

Despite what I said yesterday – wait, was it yesterday? I’ll go check. No, it was Thursday, in this blog post. Anyway, despite what I said in Thursday’s post, procrastinating when it means completely putting off something is detrimental. Allowing my mind to wander whilst doing something mindless, as a break from hard work is nothing like what I’m doing now.

It brings to mind an excellent article that my new blogging friend, Angie, shared with me in my comments. In it, she cites the well proven fact that sometimes we procrastinate for fear of failure. What if we finish what we’re doing (such as writing a manuscript) just to have it rejected? It’s silly, really, to think that way. Why begin something in the first place if you’re never going to finish it?

I wrote the novel I’m editing as a NaNoWriMo project in 2011. When I started it, I was writing it for myself. I needed a distraction from the chaos that was my life at the time. Had I not written it, I probably wouldn’t be here right now – I’m sure I’d be in a padded cell, plucking my arm hairs out one at a time and tying them into the rope which would become my escape – one way or another. By the time I finished my manuscript, I knew I wanted to share it with the world. And so, editing began… and continues. It’s a huge project and is going to take many more hours of work before I’ll even allow it into the hands of beta readers.

So why am I typing a WordPress post instead of working on the manuscript I can’t wait to get out? I’m up for suggestions.

You can find Angie’s article here: http://familyanswersfast.wordpress.com/tag/procrastination/ Fascinating stuff.

Off to work. Really. And I’m not going to stare off into space and think about that telephone installation guy AT ALL.


by 29 Comments

How Random

I live in a town where dog poop is front page news. It was thrown over a fence. In tiny baggies, no less.

I shit you not.

In other news, I’m still working on the article which will reveal the person behind “Boy Series…” I want it to be perfect. In fact I don’t think I’ve worked on any short piece of work this hard, ever. I hope someone actually reads it. 😛

It’s still as cold as a polar bear’s poo … thrown over a fence … Never mind.

My mind is too muddled by all the things going on in real life.

Scream

What random thing happened in your life today?


by 30 Comments

How Are Chickens Like Days Off?

I’m within an hour of the end of two days off. Yesterday I got a fair bit of work done on my manuscript – almost fifteen pages edited, which for me is flying through. I managed to take the evening off from everything and just watch an episode of “Breaking Bad.” I’ve only watched two so far – still wondering what all the hype’s about.

Then today I was woken up early with a phone call – Chris was sick at school and they couldn’t reach his dad. So I texted my ex, got up, delivered the papers, had a piece of toast and lay on the couch … and proceeded to sleep most of the day away. No editing accomplished.

How are chickens like days off?

Don’t count them before they’re hatched.

I need a week off.


by 20 Comments

What Do You Say To A Naked Lady?

Memories. They go back, if we’re lucky, to our early childhood. I remember waking up in the summer to hear my dad mowing the grass, or heading out to play golf. I remember playing with Barbies – I had this really cool miniature floor lamp that plugged in to a battery. I’d set up a living room in the 18″x18″x18″ cupboard in my parents’ coffee table for my dolls and turn on the light and close the door. Now that was exciting for about 30 seconds.

One of my earliest memories of television though, apart from the show “Laugh-In,” is a trailer for a movie, called What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? Thanks to Youtube, I can revisit that disturbing memory.

Allow me to share it with you:

What’s your earliest memory, disturbing or otherwise?


by 32 Comments

JusJoJan 23 – Dream

Okay, so I had this dream just before I woke up this morning. It was dark outside (in my dream) and I was looking out my front door (which didn’t look at all like the scenery outside my real front door). Leaning up against a post about six feet beyond the door, was a dead, flattened squirrel. Two black cats came along and started fighting over it. They dragged it away. They were trying to eat it.

Then, on the front lawn, I saw two moose (mooses? meese?) chasing a dog. The dog stopped and looked at me only to be caught by a horse – the horse grabbed the dog (it was a collie with a collar) by the scruff of the neck. Somehow the dog got away but the horse and the moose (mooses? meese?) were chasing it so they could eat it.

Then I woke up.

Analysis anyone?

P.S. I had fish for dinner last night – not dog, and not roadkill.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!

1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!


by 27 Comments

You know you’re tired when…

… you wake up to the alarm at 5:30am and forget what it means and what you’re supposed to do about it.

… the phone rings on your bedside table and you answer your remote control and can’t figure out why it won’t stop ringing. (I watched my ex do this.)

… you don’t realize until you go to put the tea cozy on the milk that you put the teapot full of steaming hot steeping tea in the fridge.

The last I did years ago, the first was just this morning. What notable things have you done or seen when exhaustion sabotaged your poor, defenseless brain cells?


by 42 Comments

Writerly Procrastinations

In all honesty, I have to say I don’t believe Candy Crush Saga is a procrastination tool. It’s a way for me to escape my story for a few minutes and do something mindless that allows my imagination to wander.

When I’m not hungry but I get up to get myself something to eat anyway, that’s procrastination. Candy Crush Saga keeps me in my chair.

When I check my WordPress stats or my email, that’s procrastination. Candy Crush Saga takes far less time than that, especially if I have comments on my blog.

When I post a new blog to ask other people what they do to procrastinate, that’s procrastination.

So, how do you procrastinate?

Oh look, I have a new life on Candy Crush Saga! Gotta go.

 


by 28 Comments

How the Internet is Hurting our Kids

I’m going to start off with a disclaimer, because what I’m about to say, I realize, doesn’t apply to everyone. While I don’t want to generalize, I do find that there is a prevalence, with the introduction of the internet to the general public, toward people getting used to instantaneous gratification. It comes in the form of ‘likes’, having people agree with us, being able to buy something and have it delivered within seconds… the ways are countless.

But I have to wonder how much this bleeds into our real lives. Those of us who grew up without the internet know that sometimes you have to wait for things. We have learned how to save up, sometimes for years, to get what we want.

I’m finding that it’s much harder to teach my children the value of waiting than it might have been had it not been for the internet, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. It seems to me that there are more young people these days looking for handouts because they can’t manage to save enough – they don’t want to wait. And from what I’ve concluded, observing many young people (in this country anyway) there are more of them sitting at home on the internet relying on government assistance than ever before. For instance, according to  Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, in 2012 the unemployment rate for those aged 15-24 was 14.3%, compared to ages 25-54 at 6%. What this tells me is that more kids, in or well out of high school, are living off either their parents’ or the government’s back than those who are wise enough to have figured out that they’re not going to live long if they expect everything to be handed to them. These are supposed to be their brightest and most energetic years, and yet they sit in their rooms and surf.

Are we enabling this behaviour as parents? I think so. It used to be that families who lived off welfare taught their kids to do the same. (See disclaimer.) But now, how do those of us who do work, teach by example when our kids are learning more from the internet than they are from us, their parents? The obvious solution is to cut off the internet – easier said than done. If we do so temporarily and take the time to teach our children the values we grew up with, how long is it going to take them to go back to their “regular programming” once the computer is turned back on? I’m thinking five minutes, if we’re lucky.

It’s a difficult situation we’re in, and one that isn’t going to be solved overnight. Kudos to anyone able to resolve it before our kids turn 25.

Oh! Oh! Can I play?

by 11 Comments

noughtsandcrosses (1)