A Grand Day Off

I'm off to a conference today, even though I can tell I'm about to be able to write maybe 5,000 really good words after all the research I did yesterday. I know, isn't it weird? Sometimes research just sucks up time, and sometimes it spits out something you can use.

What I need is one of those crazy lightweight laptop thingies people who fly a lot like to buy. You know, just for days like this.

Spending Time to Save Time

One time, my Dad decided to learn acoustic guitar. I don't remember how long he lasted--ten minutes? a whole hour?--before he also decided he needed a footstool to get his knee to the right height to hold up the guitar. I sure remember how long he spent making that. And how long he spent sanding it to perfection before staining it a beautiful reddish brown colour. Then of course he had to improve on the design and his carpentry skills, and make a few others for people who'd admired the first one.

He never learned guitar. But that's okay, because he was a fabulous singer. I am no singer, but I realized this morning that my talent for productive procrastination may be genetic.

Having said that, I will NOT. NOT, I tell you, be acting on the intriguing ideas that occurred to me after watching a 1949 USDA film about efficient kitchen design, which I found when trawling Epicurious for recipes to add to my meal planner, should I ever get around to working on it. Just looking at all the recipes there drove me back to the novel.

But I'm still thinking about that kitchen this morning, and I've linked it in the Delay Tactics list. Just be warned that it might be risky viewing if you know a good carpenter or are one.

Food Glorious (high speed) Food

For quite a while now I've wanted to save time by writing down my weekly schedule and making a list to go with it of every meal I know how to make. This should tell you something about the vastness (or lack thereof) of the meals I know how to make. I'm especially keen to remind myself of meals that can be prepared in advance, eaten cold, and eaten very, very quickly.

Something along the lines of, say, a ham sandwich, but different because you can't have a ham sandwich every single day unless you're that guy who ate only Subway sandwiches a few years back to lose weight. I don't care how well he did weight-wise. That just never seemed healthy to me.

Anyway I need to write about 4,000 meaningful words by, say, Tuesday, and I'm booked all weekend, so this might be the week I do it!

Does steamed asparagus count as a meal? I can steam asparagus like nobody's business. Comments welcome, friends, and if you make none, I will assume the asparagus thing is good.

Research is a Beautiful Thing

They don't teach this trick in Mr. Zippy's Writer School, so I'll spill it here instead: when writing something hard, be sure to include lots of places and times you don't know a thing about. That way you can always read other people's books and still be 'working'.

I did that last night - reading other people's books. Not research! That's something I actually *need* to do, so naturally I'm avoiding that. But sitting and reading for a change was TERRIFIC, not a bit of that 'a' word I'm avoiding.

Today however I noticed that the ice cream diet did not produce its usual thrilling results. Perhaps the key weight loss factor was never sitting down?

Following a hunch, I did a search on the phrase "And then she sat down" in Google Books to see how sitting impacts my writing. (Yes, I'm typing this standing up.) 669 hits! Out of how many scanned books?? I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

The link for the hitlist is in the delay tactics list if you're trying to kill time. My gift to you.

Guilt

Procrastination is so great, isn't it? When you lose interest in whatever distraction project you started, or add too many steps to it to be able to finish, you get bonus guilt and plus side orders of shame and an awareness of wasted effort.

Which is to say:

The transplanted boxwoods out front look dead at the tips and

I'd like to get around to clipping away the very public proof of my gardening inadequacy but

I did too much research on pruners to have made a decision on one yet and

There isn't time to get out there anyway because

I AM WRITING, PEOPLE!

Thank goodness it's raining, or the poor plants wouldn't be getting watered at all.

Bags of (so cool) Bags

Note I did not say Awesome, even though they are.

I feel a new bag frenzy coming on since Bazura came out with a new line of woven bags. All their stuff is made in a co-operative from juice boxes, advertising banners, and other things with short lifespans that would otherwise go to landfill and never decompose. It's the indestructibility factor that makes them so amazing for bags: your arm is going to break from carrying two tons of milk plus apples, before the bag will. Also the juice box ones stand open when you put them on the floor - never fall over - and even if they had eyes, they could get wet without batting one.

I have a bunch of sizes of juice box bags for everything from groceries to beach time to treks with paperwork in tow, and I've given one of those or the banner bags to practically everybody I can think of who might enjoy them, but... yeah, I definitely need more things from Bazura.

Their website in the delay tactics list, if you want to check them out for yourself.

Word

There are some vocabulary trends I keep right out of my life, especially if they're synonymous with "How lovely, dear!" I'm going to type the word 'sweet' now, and that will be the closest I will ever get to uttering it in that context. I say it enough in food-related sentences.

But lately I stumbled into the weedy trench that is 'awesome' and I feel so ashamed. It's not even a hot word anymore! and way way too easy to say over and over, flinging it indiscriminately at people or food or shoes or the freshly polished first 15 pages I wrote yesterday (but not the Sex and the City movie, apparently, unless you were a huge fan of the show in the first place, which includes enough of the population to make a tidy profit, so who cares whether or not it's truly awesome?)

Even 'fab' is less sticky outie than 'awesome.' Must. Go. Back.

Still, it's not as bad as when I was saying "Zowie!" every ten words. You can congratulate yourself on not having had to read my diary in those days.


Incidentally, when you don't see a new post from me here, it's because I'm writing. So give a little cheer every time that happens, okay? I need all the support I can get.