Tag: Carnival

Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer

Wednesday morning. I was very tired last night, and after watching the Australian Open (Greg: well, 2019 is starting off as a really shitty sports year, isn’t it?), I read for a little while before going to bed. I slept well last night, but this morning am feeling a little bit less lively than I should, all things considered. I also don’t have a short day tomorrow–eight hours, hurray–but that’s fine. Friday is back to normal and next week is a normal work week, for what that’s worth. Routine? Back into the groove? Let’s hope it’s all of those things.

I still feel slightly discombobulated. Adjusting to a new routine is difficult, particularly when that routine is regularly disrupted again once you start to settle into it. Ironically, I think once I get used to it again and get into a groove it’ll be Carnival parade time and it’ll get disrupted all over again. I guess that’s the trouble with being someone who likes routine and yet lives in New Orleans, where routine is routinely disrupted.

It’s kind of gray and misty outside the windows and everything is dripping. It’s rained over night and is still raining a bit this morning; which will make the drive uptown to get the mail and then to work all the more fun. It is a source of constant amazement to me that people in New Orleans can’t drive in the rain–you’d think, by the way they drive, that it never rained here.

And you’d be incorrect in that assumption.

Heavy sigh.

I tried to work on the Scotty a bit yesterday to no avail; I think I added an entire sentence to the revision/reboot of Chapter One. My mind was scrambled and tired last night when I got home, and of course watching Serena lose wasn’t uplifting or motivating. This weekend is the US National Figure Skating Championships, so a lot of time will be spent this weekend watching that event, which will be kind of nice–I do love to watch figure skating–and that leads me back to my story “Moves in the Field,” which I’d like to get revised and edited and rewritten this month–it and “The Snow Globe” and “And the Walls Came Down” and “The Problem with Autofill.” The last one needs a serious rethink; I like the basic idea of it, but as written the story doesn’t work. The conceit of the story is something I also like, but again is problematic because there’s no way anyone would ever be that stupid, I think; that’s the hole in the story that needs to be fixed. I have a better idea, a glimmer of a thought, on how to fix this problem (the problem with “The Problem with Autofill”, ha ha ha ha), and I am hoping to get that attempt out of the way this weekend. I know I am biting off more than I’m going to want to chew this weekend, but if I don’t make a massive to-do list I always feel like I am doing nothing.

Which of course is part of the insanity.

I’ve also been toying with an idea I like, for a novel–something to write after I finish the WIP. I do like the idea, but it’s very malformed and ethereal at the moment; it would need to be more solid before I start actually doing any writing on it. I think maybe if I spend an hour on it, just brainstorming and figuring out the plot and characters and how to structure the book, I’d be able and be more ready to sit down and write it when the time comes.

Ideas aren’t my problem; my problem is too many ideas.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me.

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Babe

It’s late Friday afternoon, and I am home already. The car maintenance stuff went extremely well, and I did some grocery shopping on the West Bank since I was already over there–and who knew there’s now a Five Guys on Manhattan Boulevard? I was torn between my usual Sonic and going to Five Guys; Five Guys won out in the end. I did console myself with the thought you can always come over here more often to shop, you know. And the Sonic is not going anywhere.

And I am now on my three-day weekend. Tomorrow I am off to Costco–woo-hoo!–and Sunday of course is the Saints NFC championship game. The city is, of course, awash in excitement today; everyone wearing the colors or a jersey, flags waving from the tops of cars, etc. I am going to try to get to Costco relatively early, come home, and then relaunch my workout program before coming home to do some cleaning and writing (I am also cleaning tonight). Sunday I pretty much assume I’ll be completely useless; I’ll be drained and exhausted one way or the other after the game…and then there’s Monday. Paul will be at work, and so I can go to the gym and spend the rest of the day writing. Maybe I can even get the Scotty finished once and for all on Monday? No, not likely; it’ll probably happen the following weekend, after which I can spend the rest of February finishing the first draft of the WIP before the madness of Carnival.

Christ, Carnival is late this year but it’s still just around the corner. #madness.

I also am going to launch myself back into the Short Story Project by reading and talking about all the stories in Murder-a-Go-Go’s, the fabulous anthology of crime stories inspired by the music of the Go-Go’s edited by the amazing Holly West. I also have my own collection coming out around the same time, Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories, so I will also be talking about those stories as well. And if I can find the time, I am hoping to work on some of the short stories I’ve written and are just in some kind of limbo, which is also kind of exciting. I am also excited to get back to watching Titans, and of course the Australian Open is also going on…and Schitt’s Creek is back. Huzzah! (So is Riverdale.)

And now tis back to the spice mines. Just thought I’d check in with you Constant Reader. I also hope you’re having a three-day weekend as well.

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Funkytown

Monday morning and it’s another work week staring us all in the face.

I didn’t get any writing or editing done yesterday; but that’s okay, really. Maybe not in the over-all scheme of things, but I do need to take some down time periodically, to rest and recharge the batteries. I cleaned and organized and cooked and read The Shining, mostly, which I am enjoying a lot more than I did when I read it when I was seventeen (?). I also think I know why I disliked it–well, that’s a bit strong; let’s just say I now understand why it wasn’t one of my favorites of his earlier work, and why I stayed away from rereading it for so long: I hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of caring so much about characters who die in the end. King had already done this to me with Carrie and ‘salem’s Lot, but because The Shining had so few characters the stakes for me as a reader were higher. There’s no question the book had to take the path it took, as well as why it had to end the way it did. I’ve just finished the section that ends with the snow starting…the three standing on the veranda of the grand old hotel, watching their true isolation begin. It’s a terrifically written scene.

I also didn’t sleep well last night–hardly at all. I don’t feel tired this morning, or wrung out the way I usually do when I didn’t sleep, although I imagine I’ll hit that wall soon enough, and will be praying for death by the end of my long day today. This week returns my work schedule back to normal, which is sort of lovely and nice; trying to get used to my new work schedule while adapting my writing schedule around it got rather derailed due to the holidays….which kind of sucks because now it’ll be like starting over again, which isn’t precisely optimal. We’ll see how today turns out, won’t we?

One of the things I realized I need to do is gather all my notes on this Scotty, to make sure I am getting everything included and wrapping up all loose ends by the end of the book. As I edit, I am also outlining, trying to make sure I’ve eliminated all inconsistencies. There’s probably going to be some rewriting that’s going to need to be done–last night as I watched the Golden Globes, it occurred to me that there’s one scene in particular that either needs to be completely rewritten, eliminated, or has to be set up in a completely different way. I am going to have to put the WIP aside until I get this revision finished; it’s simply far too easy to get caught up in it rather than doing what I need to be doing.

Which is counter-productive, and more than a little annoying.

Heavy heaving sigh.

We watched the Golden Globes last  night rather than finishing Homecoming, which we will probably either finish tonight, or stretch over tonight and tomorrow. As the new year progresses, shows we regularly watch will be returning, which solves the problem of what do we watch tonight, at least for a little while. Schitt’s Creek will be returning for another season, and so is Futureman on Hulu, and How to Get Away with Murder should be coming back relatively soon; it’s gone way over the top and is completely ridiculous, but it’s still so much fun to watch.

So, onward and upward with this week. I am going to finish rereading The Shining if it kills me (I don’t think it will) and I need to start gathering all my notes on the Scotty to ensure it’s the best it can be so I can get back to work on the WIP, and make it the best it can be.

Did I mention it’s king cake season officially? I believe I shall have a piece with my coffee this morning.

And now,  back to the spice mines.

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White Christmas

Christmas is now over, and New Year’s looms; Carnival is just around the corner. Mardi Gras is late this year, I believe; but I can’t be bothered to look it up at the moment so take my word for it.

Our holidays were lovely and relaxing; now there are simply three days to get through before the next holiday, so getting through the rest of this week should be relatively simple. One would think, at any rate. I am quite pleased with how the weekend turned out; I didn’t read or write or edit nearly as much as I should have, but that’s the way the holiday weekend goes sometimes, you know? I did get some brainstorming in, which is always important, and I got a lot of computer filing done. I almost got all the physical filing done as well. There’s a sink full of dirty dishes that I hope to take care of this morning as well; but we shall see. I am a little groggy this morning; as I suspected, getting up to an alarm earlier than I’ve been doing these last four days was just as problematic as I had feared it would be this morning. And I have to get up even earlier the next two mornings…heavy heaving sigh.

But I am sure the coffee–once it kicks into gear–will be most helpful.

We continued watching that Australian series Wanted yesterday, and paid to stream Avengers: Infinity War from iTunes. It was quite enjoyable, and very well done for what it was, despite having to juggle all these stars and super-heroes and story-lines, and the ending was just as sad and heartbreaking as everyone said it was when the movie was released. And yet….being an old hand at comics and super-heroes, isn’t it obvious how this will go? Thanos will somehow either be defeated in the sequel, and/or convinced to use, the Infinity Stones that control time and space to go back and not allow him to erase half of the life in the universe.

Which is fine, and makes for great drama, but it’s precisely the problem that eventually drove us off from watching Arrow and Flash: the stakes aren’t high when people can be brought back from the dead, or you can change the time-line to save them.

Although watching this movie gave me the idea of how to write the epilogue for the new Scotty, which is incredibly cool. Yay?

Well, not so much as gave me the idea as the idea came to me while I was watching the movie.

Which is a completely different thing, really.

Maybe for New Year’s, I’ll watch The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi again, back-to-back.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Talk to you tomorrow, Constant Reader!

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