Tag: procrastinating

Friday Change

Slow for a Friday, the coffee shop was relatively quiet. The baristas’ joking behind the counter was actually heard across the business.

Only three other patrons occupied tables. Regulars, he knew their names, drinks, and faces. He supposed that they knew the same for him. Maybe not. Maybe they weren’t as observant as him or didn’t care.

A thin sigh passed his lips. He was supposed to be writing but it was one of those days when procrastination stopped him like a mudslide blocking a road. He was a little bored, tired, and restless. I’ll begin in a minute, he told himself, and noted the time. Yeah, like he was really that disciplined and focused. More coffee will help, he decided.

Reaching for the cup, he glanced at the coffee shop table. The blond wood – he didn’t know what kind it was – had a dark knot which resembled a mustache. As he chuckled at that, he spotted two small symmetrical knots above the mustache. They were like eyes, he mused, sipping coffee.

The eyes blinked at him.

His body quailed with alarm as his mind shouted, “What the hell?” He set the coffee down.

A new knot rose, forming a mouth below the mustache.

He looked around the coffee shop. No one was near. He wanted to show someone as validation for his sanity, and then pulled out his phone to photograph the small developing face. As he raised the phone for the photo, the mouth moved.

“Help me,” he heard. “Help.”

Pulling back, he lowered the phone. Friday was about to change in ways he’d never planned.

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The Frustrated Writer

I’m not a fast or organized writer. I have more ideas and concepts than I can keep up with it.

It’s pretty damn frustrating. Just now, working on the novel-in-progress and starting a new section and chapter, I’m struggling to keep up with the writing. Meanwhile, I want this novel done so I can resume writing the rest of the series, and get on with writing other things. Being disorganized, though, I recognize a need to stop to organize.

I don’t want to do that. This is specifically about what volunteers, soldiers, platoons, and squads are in what scenes when things go down, and what happens to each. Who died, lived, went missing, set off the alarm? Who was on-planet, off-planet, on sentry, and on patrol?

Going through this reinforces my admiration and respect for writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin and J.K. Rowling and their respective series, or even Andy Weir, with The Martian. Once again, looking for secrets and magic formulas, I recognize, what must be done must be accepted and done. No way around it, except to have less characters. Unless most of my writing process, this is work, but the work has to be done. The conundrum is whether to carve out more time specifically to do this work, or use the writing time. Shortcomings exist for both solutions.

It’s a *shrug* matter. It must be done, just as bricklayers must lay the bricks one by one, and building a house requires each drawing and every nail. I’m petulant and whining, because that’s my personality. I think about the problem, realize there’s an issue, and then complain about it. Once that’s out of me, I put my head down and do what I must do.

For today, I’m going to write like crazy, one more time. Meanwhile, I’ll let my mind stew about my problem, and then address it later.

Procrastination is a good friend of mine.

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Signs of Change

We saw ‘Captain Fantastic’ yesterday. Although we’re Vigga M fans, the story didn’t draw us. However, the writer & director, Matt Ross, is an Oregon product, a graduate of a little town’s high school, so there was a lot of local hype.

I won’t say that ‘Captain Fantastic’ was enjoyable, because that’s not really a word (if you’ve seen the movie, you understand) or interesting, for the same reasons, but the actors were well cast, with excellent deliveries, and the story compelled me to follow and root for Captain Fantastic (Vigga) and his children, and wonder, what will happen? Some scenes caused post movie discussions. It was two well spent hours, and I recommend taking it in.

Afterwards, we went to Louie’s on the Plaza by the creek for food, as we’re both off the green cleansing smooths, where I enjoyed my first beer in two weeks and a wrap. My wife will continue on a modified cleansing smooth beginning today. I might do the same, something I need to decide later today.

There are sign that the seasons are changing and tempus fugit. Looking around, I’ve discovered we’re almost at the August’s finishing line. The schools’ marquees have announced the first days, and they begin tomorrow with new student orientations, full orientation following the day after.

My wife is planning an end of summer picnic in Lithia Park. We’ve scouted locations and brainstormed ideas. She checked a few schedules for vetting and then launched invitations. Friends are planning overnight visits, so an attention list has been compiled, that is, a list of things requiring our attention before they arrive.

Cooler weather is gracing us, and the temperature has stopped stirring itself past 95F. Importantly, the temps drop into the low fifties at night so windows can be opened to air us out. Most of our area fires are contained or out. We watch and worry about those in other areas, especially down in SoCal, which is suffering a terrible season.

But I’m on a treadmill, walking, writing, eating and sleeping, with ancillary tasks like cleaning and feeding the cats, and other chores, taken care of but not really my focus. Sable posted about his ToDo list and its lackings. Between that and Kate’s post about the business side and my awakening that time has pissed by without me really attending the business side, I’m creating my own Todo list for the business side. JR’s comments about not doing those things caused me to think more deeply about what I’ve done and not done, but more, why I’ve not done these things.

So with the signs of change taking place – the NFL season almost upon us, school starting, the leaves turning, the nights cooling, the World Series shaping up, Formula 1 moving toward the schedule’s bottom half, and eight out of the twelve months gone for another year – time to do more than just cross my fingers, write like crazy and hope for the best. I must work on the dreaded reviews, the dreaded marketing and advertising, and the dreaded website.

Time to begin addressing the business of writing.

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When Does Food Go Bad?

First, we must consider, what do we mean when we say Food has ‘gone bad’?

Short of Food killing other Food or leaping out of the refrigerator or cupboard with weapons in their hands or explosives strapped around its jar or box, it’s often difficult to determine when Food has gone bad. Some will consider Food bad much more quickly than others, refusing to eat it because it’s ‘gone bad’, while others, particularly bachelors, will dismiss claims Food has gone bad and eat him anyway. This is often true with Food like Pizza, but not Beer and Wine. When Beer goes bad, it becomes skunky, with a foul taste, or flat. Wine takes on a sour, bitter tone that reminds you of Bitter Ben.

Milk, on the other hand, doesn’t fake it when it goes bad. Beware of Milk that has gone bad. Milk that goes bad can become violent, even explosive, with lingering results.

Also watch out for Fish and Meat that has gone bad. You know what I mean.

Food can go bad for many reasons. Food sometimes goes bad as an acting out mechanism when he’s not getting the attention he thinks he needs or deserves. Sometimes Food isn’t happy with his home life, or he gets left out of activities, locked up and forgotten. He might go bad because of his environment. The temperature might be too low, permitting low life bacteria to affect Food. Or Food is shut up with undesirables who put out gases, pressuring Food to spoil.

But that is the nurturing aspect of Food going bad. Sometimes Food goes bad because he was born bad, co-existing with other materials that negatively affects Food, like when Food wasn’t washed properly after he was picked. Personal hygiene is very important to help keep Food from going bad.

When Food goes bad is like many problems throughout human existence, with multiple facets to consider for dealing with the situation. Constant monitoring and early detection is important to save Food. Sometimes bad Food can be saved by re-purposing it. Some Food can be frozen and used later when they go start going bad. The thing to remember is that every Food is unique, and what you learn about one Food may not apply to other Foods. If in doubt about whether Food has gone bad, ask a cat. If a cat walks away from it, the Food has probably gone bad.

Cats just don’t tolerate bad food. Just ask any cat person.

Note: no food was harmed while I wrote this post, but several cats were annoyed and disappointed. Now they want something else that isn’t ‘Food gone bad’.

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