Reading, Writing, and Routines
Posted on October 4th, 2012
Sorry for my absence. My free time has been given over to writing and reading.
On the writing front, a couple of months ago I decided to ditch my outline and go for a (physical) corkboard and index card system…and holy plotting epiphanies, Batman, but my output is crazy. It’s like it’s writing itself.
I’m never writing without a corkboard again. For real. The spec fic is now mostly written and I am very happy with it, as much as I have ever been with a first draft. I wish I’d figured this out, oh, a year and a half ago, when I first started tinkering with this version of the story.
On the reading front, I finished 1812: War with America (highly recommended) and I’m now working through the first volume of Robert Caro’s biography of LBJ (very interesting, but occasionally turgid; I’m never a fan of purple prose, but particularly not in biographies) as well as a collection of Lord Rochester’s poetry.
All this fits in with my Pea routine as well as it can. Today I used my “free” time while she was at school to get the oil changed in the car and go grocery shopping. Whee! This is about as much fun as it sounds. Are there people who like grocery shopping?I despise it, but we have no good delivery options.
Pea is supposed to be taking a nap so that we can go to her dance lesson in a couple of hours. I have a migraine that medication isn’t touching — so listening to an hour of bagpipes is probably not going to do much for my sanity. (I’ll sneak up to the car and read the LBJ book instead.)
I like grocery shopping, but I do it at a small local store that I can throw a rock at from my house and hit it. Not that I would. To prove a point or anything. Ahem.
I really, really miss living close enough to walk to a grocery store.
Omg, I LOVE grocery shopping! Yeah, maybe i’m a weirdo.
Glad your writing is coming along!
I love organizing shelves and drawers. And books by topic and height. But grocery shopping — I miss Home Grocer!
I love grocery shopping.
Candice: I know you’re close. Maybe we can work out a trade?
There is an old Scottish joke… “Do you know why bagpipers walk around when they play? To get away from the noise.” But, such wonderful noise it is.
If you are fan of index cards, have a writing software application for you to check out. Scrivener is a complete writing package, complete with index cards on a digital cork board. I love it and you don’t have to redo your house in cork work on multiple projects.
I hadn’t heard that one! Too funny.
I use Scrivener and I love it. (My husband, by the way, asked why the heck I needed that when I used Scrivener already?) But for some tasks, I need the visual reminders/feedback. I have a paper to-do list, a paper journal, and the corkboard with the index cards. I cross things off the to-do list, I love to scribble in the journal, and I have “draft” and “revised” stamps left over from law practice that I stamp on my index cards as soon as a scene is complete.
I do understand where you are coming from. Waiting outside the studio for my 6yo’s cello class to finish all the parents are playing on tablets and smart phones. They look at my funny as I scratch away in a notebook.
What?! No bagpipe lessons?
He would totally go for that… but, I am selfish- Daddy first on that one.