Drowning My Muses

I can’t believe we’re at the end of 2015. On Tuesday we’ll be in December. Combine that with how I put things on my blog so I can remember them, and then needing to remember them lately. Like how to light the pilot light, or measurements of the Christmas tree stand. The two together have me in a reflective mood.

On that note: KD, the turkey neck is in the butt, but the giblets are in the neck-hole! Because it’s funny to have a turkey with its head up its ass, but if they put the giblets in there too things might be too easy. Despite this, do not cook the giblets in the turkey.

All right, now that’s out of the way…

In my recent old-blog-wanders, I’ve noticed that I make a lot of promises. Sometimes I find where I said I was going to read twenty-five books this year, or read everything on my shelves two years ago, or finish some fanfic at last, or write this or edit that, or straighten up this, and then I look and realize I never did the thing.

Yeah, I’m not exactly dependable.

In my defense, I’m far from the only one. I know lots of people who do the same thing, but you know what? Consoling myself with “I’m not the only one” is not how things get done. So maybe it’s time to make not only some promises–but some real plans for how to get these things done.

I should probably wait for the new year, but I’m not the traditiional sort so I’ll just jump in where I am as Flylady says.

Remember these old goals? Let’s have another look at them.

• Write instead of playing on the internet.
• Stay on top of stuff so you can write instead of clean
• Promote
• Get healthier
• save money

Any time management or self management or productivity guru can tell you, a goal without a plan is just a dream. I think I’ve done a little better in some of these areas since making these goals, but as many a guru can tell you, we have to keep learning. And when we know better, we can do better.

Let’s take these in not-quite reverse order.

I got How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck. I started using the budgeting spreadsheet. I’m not doing great so far, but I keep trying, and I am doing better teeny bit by tiny bit. I put a bright pink post-it note on my debit card, reminding me what I’m saving money for right now. “Get out of debt” isn’t on the list, unfortunately, but I am making progress towards paying the things that must be paid before I can really think about getting out of debt.

Get healthier–I’ve been doing this! But I need to refocus. I’ve been stalled around 62-64 pounds lost for more than a month and I’m freaking tired of it. Today, with Thanksgiving behind me, I’m rededicating. I’ll make some of my delicious mason jar salads to get me through the week, and I’ll do a Jessica Smith workout and I’ll be heading down before I know it.

Clean–yeah, umm… I keep my room clean. I keep my bathroom fairly clean. I do pretty well on the kitchen, except when things get backed up because one of the kid’s oh-so-hard chores is to empty the dishwasher when it’s full of clean dishes. And if she doesn’t get to it the day it was run, she then has to load all the dirty dishes that have stacked up on the counter and in the sink while she was not getting the dishes dealt with. This generally results in a few days of her going AAHH IT’S GROSS and me going “yeah, that’s why I make you do it–because you’re the one leaving them there to GET gross” and there’s lots of arguing and then I go to do something else and she still doesn’t put the damn dishes away.

Anyway. I’m going to, once again, drag out my Flylady control journal and try to get us all moving in the same direction. It’s ridiculous how I let things throw me off. I can do my 750words for 103 days in a row, then just…blow it. Not go type at all. I can do Duolingo, two Spanish lessons and a German lesson, every day for 35 days, then one morning I’d rather just sit and listen to music.

No matter how much I want to do something, it’s astonishingly hard for me to be consistent. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t maybe talk to someone about how hard it can be to manage my brain. Is it normal that it’s nearly impossible for me to be consistent? Is it a sign of something someone could help me with? I think of my friends with depression who are so tired and meh but think it’s a character flaw instead of an illness until they realize “this isn’t normal!”

I’m not normal. But should I be more normal than I am? Who knows?

It’s the same problem with promotion, number 2 on my list. Sometimes I do a great job. Other times I just hunker down and hide, and never get around to even tweeting a link to my books. I used to have a few stock tweets saved, with quotes from reviews. I don’t have them easily accessible anymore. And it occurs to me that I could so easily put them in OneNote (looooooove OneNote) and access them super quick and easy, and then there would be more promotion going on even when my brain isn’t in a place where I can personally engage.

Yeah, it’s not great, but it’s better than completely disappearing when I’m just not up to more.

Which brings me back to number one on my goal list, to write more rather than wasting so much time on the internet. That’s going…not so well. I mean, if I tell you that I’m counting this blog as a blog article that one of my characters is reading in my NaNo, after I already switched projects mid-month, does that tell you how my writing is going?

I think I’m burnt out. I think I spend so much time writing (not that much), editing (still not much), or beating myself up for not doing either (lots!) that I haven’t been feeding the muses much at all. And they’re sick of it. I need to read some books. I need to watch some movies, take in some TV. I need to make a date with Netflix.

But I’m not willing to just take a long break. I have to learn to balance my life.

Recently I read a book, The Chunky Method Handbook, that made a lot of sense to me. Basically the idea goes–a writer naturally works in “chunks.” That amount of writing you get in before your brain tries to go AWOL is your “chunk.” It tends to be pretty steady–maybe 500 easy words every time you sit down to write. Maybe 800 words, maybe 2,000. I know that way back when I was first writing consistently, I noticed that I wrote about 800 words in an evening of work, and after that 800 words, I was probably going to be just screwing around. 800 words a night is a pretty good number, until you’re spending four hours to get there. Or rather, maybe an hour getting there, and then three more hours trying to get more. AND NOT GETTING MORE.

Anyway, the idea of the Chunky Method is that 1) you’ll probably write more if you plan to get a chunk written, than if you tell yourself you need, say, 1200 words tonight when your typical chunk is 800. Or that you’ll get more words planning for eight 800 word chunks in a week, than trying to write a thousand words every night. There’s also the matter of life gets in the way. If you plan for 8 800 word chunks, you can fit extra in on some days, and not do any on others, and still be making appreciable and planned progress so you don’t get discouraged.

The other idea she advanced is that it’s possible to increase your chunk, slowly but steadily. Your chunk is 800 words? Go for 850. It’s not so hard to increase your wordcount 50 words at a time.

It’s a short book, but well worth the price if these suggestions make sense to you. I really like her “this can be done, here’s how” attitude, and her suggestions for adapting the technique to make it your own.

So anyway. That’s my plan. I’m going to finish NaNo (and I’m going to win, by gum!) and then I’m going to read things. And I’m going to write things–I’m going to find my chunk (because it’s probably changed in the past ten or so years), and I’m going to plan for five chunks a week, on my to-do list. I’m going to watch movies and TV shows. I’m going to get out and walk, maybe while listening to audio books. I’m going to do drink or drown on my muses dose my anemic muses with good stuff, AND I’m going to write. And clean, and promote, and save, and finish some dang fics and stories…

I promise. >_>