I am freeeeeee!

Finally! I actually know now what it means to bleed all over the page, and I've done it, and I had one last read-through and only wanted to fix minor typos or repeated words. And when I sealed the envelope after addressing it, all that obsession with this essay just disappeared.

It is SUCH a good feeling.

Even though I can tell my brain is already whirring away on solutions for revising the first chapter of the novel. Again.

Revisions Continue...

oh MAN. The more time I spent on this essay I'm writing, the less it looks like something anybody else would get something out of reading.

Also working on it is really taking it out of me.

And yet I can't let it go. I'm beginning to think there's something very wrong with me. Or maybe it's just a serious ice cream deficiency?

Footstool Syndrome

I think I mentioned here a while back about my dad wanting to play guitar and getting sidetracked by the need for a footstool to hold his knee at the right height.

Well, it really must run in the family because the piece I've been working on, which is keeping me from many urgent household matters, has led me to two pieces of music my brother used to play on his guitar. To check the titles of these tunes I went to YouTube, only to find that other people just butcher them. So now I want to hear his versions again, just to prove to myself how talented he was, and that means digging out the tape I have of him playing them. Which means remembering where I put it, or hunting through the house. And then I'll have to find a tape player, which probably means a trip to the gym because I have one in my locker there. And if I go to the gym, I should probably get on the elliptical trainer...

And so on, and so on, and so on...

I work best under pressure

Okay, I've been on vacation which means tons of prep ahead of time and tons of cleanup after and tons to do while on it, but I can't seem to stop working on a measly 5 pages I want to submit to a creative nonfiction competition at the end of the week.

I do mean that - the postmark on the envelope has to be this Friday. I've probably spent more time per page on this thing than on most short stories I've written, and it's still not there, and I've never had so many distractions as I do right now which makes it hard to keep going. But I'm driven. I'm thinking about my piece all the time and stealing back to the file whenever I get three minutes.

I'm hoping all this energy for something so impractical means it's worth something, and not that I'm learning the art of backwards procrastination.

Though I suppose that would mean, at least, more fodder for this diary...

Paying the Piper

Well, I survived months of armchair marathons while I took the first writing course, and I lost weight while I did Book Camp, but man. One week of vacation and I'm a wreck.

So, off I go to the gym right now, and this time it's not procrastination! But don't worry, I'll be doing that again soon now that I've realized I can download podcasts to listen to on the elliptical trainer. So many choices, and many of them from back issues of The New Yorker still sitting unread on my counter. Mmmm, New Yorker.

what can YOU do in just three days?

You can tour a city or learn to cook or unwind at a spa or host a convention or canoe into the wilderness or get married and celebrate or get wasted, the latter of which is a popular choice on long weekends in summer.

Any of these things would be more sensible than trying to write a novel in three days, but there's a contest to do just that, and I'm tempted. I mean, people have been doing it for thirty years now, so it can't be that bad. Hard, yes, but that's not the same thing. And in three days you can't procrastinate. It would be like stretching myself to the limits of physical possibility... though training for an Ironman is probably a more productive way to do that.

Check it out at 3daynovel.com and tell me I'm crazy to take a second look. I dare ya. Bet you're tempted too.

TripAdvisor is my Friend

I love TripAdvisor. If it weren't for that site and the fine people who post there, I would have booked a room this summer in a hotel with a bedbug outbreak. And I might have forgotten what a fine hotel the Minto Suites is (think about it, if you're going to Canada's capital any time soon. And why wouldn't you be?)

I mean, right now I'm sitting at a dining room table in a one-bedroom condo in the business core that's costing me $10 less than I spent two days ago on a bland Hilton hotel in a much less interesting city. Room service last night was super and breakfast is on its way. If I ever actually bothered to post on TripAdvisor myself, I'd be queued up with all the other people who rave about the place. But doing that would mean, you know, taking time away from other important things.

H'mm. Maybe I should set up a TripAdvisor account...