Overwhelmed

I did write this week. H/h are no longer stuck in a doorway together. Non-fiction project has one more section completed. Dog was brushed, several times. His fur has filled a bucket so I need to wash that, blend it, card it and spin it.  yeah, that will wait. I worked on the latest quilt.  I picked up the Tunisian crochet and figured out where I went wrong.  I sorted through some photographs.  I went for a few long walks and took more photographs for the tree blog. 

I grieved for three lost friends. Two are hitting first year anniversaries, the body of the third was found this week.  All were too damn young. 

There are not enough hours in a week for me to accomplish all the tasks I've set for myself.  So day by day, one task at a time, I work on them.  For the most part, they are joyful endeavors.  It's easier to remember that when I'm not trying to cram everything into my day because my friends don't have the option of letting things slide.

Overwhelmed. It's pointless yet somehow I feel it.  What do you do when that feeling hits you?

Good habits are easy to break

I wrote every day for fifteen years. It was a good habit. It kept my mind sharp, my skills honed and my writing vibrant. Then a bunch of stuff happened and I was burnt out so I stopped the daily habit.

When I came back from North Carolina, I was enthusiastic again. I wrote every day. Then I stalled out.  Another idea was swirling around in my brain. A fresh idea. But it was completely different from what I usually write so I tried to ignore it. That didn't work.  I stopped writing all-together because the new project wouldn't wait its turn and the older project was stuck in the doorway uncertain about which direction to go.  I entertained the thought of combining the two storylines but ack that was ugly. Did I mention there is a third project?  Non-fiction and two-thirds done. I need to send some of it off to the cover designer. She's in the middle of a major life transition so I've held off  in order not to pressure her. I think we both need to get back into it and be productive.

Back to a schedule, back to a goal and back to writing.  That's the only way out of the ridiculous position in which I've found myself lately. I am a writer who doesn't write. That's not entirely true as my brain is overactive but words are not making it to the page.

Check back with me next week and see how I've made out.  I will write every day - for a minimum of one hour. I will send off the samples to the cover designer for the other project. I will get one set of characters out of the doorway. And write down the outline for the new ones who are demanding to be heard. 

What's your goal for the week?

Battle for Queenston Heights

Here's the view from Queenston Heights.  At one time much of the park land was owned by my great-grandfather.  When my dad and uncle were little, they were hiking up the back of Grandpa's property and ran into a Parks Canada guy staking the top of the hill.  It seems the government has never been very good at reading boundary maps.  Grandpa sold the land to the park for a tidy sum that supported two generations right into retirement.  Whenever we walk along there I think of that story.  It's a park rich in Canadian history as well but my thoughts always start with that canny Scot.

Triangles

I'm not a geomtry-cist (I made up the word, indeed I did, blame the head cold)While my Celtic background leans me towards lovely curving lines, I have to admit angles come in handy.  Nor is one type of angle better than another.  Cylinders, squares, rectangles and triangle are all equally important. Can you imagine a turret made like a square? It would be a courtyard.

Triangles though are often used as plot devices and they make me crazy. It's my own personal belief system that if you haven't chosen one lover over the other by book nineteen, you are not the type of person with whom I wish to spend time.  That's selfish, and cruel, behaviour.  At some point in time, your feelings towards one person are stronger than they are for the other person.  Rarely do all three form a perfect equilateral triangle.  As a plot device, they are the more common, and cliched, scalene triangle which has no equal sides. It's unbalanced from the beginning. Walk away.

What plot devices most annoy you?

Life as a television show

Lately, I've been watching a lot of dark, gloomy paranoid television. It's entertaining and stretches my problem-solving skills. I'd never last ten minutes in any of those scenarios.  I wouldn't want my life to be anything like them. I like Suburgatory.  It's funny, cute and no one dies. I can't think of a sexy rom-com. Hmmm, that could be the problem at home.

If your life was a television show, what would you like it to be?