January Retrospective

I was going to finish up my NaNoWriMo story. I was going to finish up other stories. I was going to roll up my sleeves and start carving up some older drafts to make them more fit for human consumption.

Instead, the only writing I've done has been diary entries and the new walk log.

But I have walked more. Quite a bit more, in fact. In the past there have been times when I pretty routinely got in three miles before work (plus a brief warm-up and cool-down bit I don't count in my pencil logged mileage). This month, I wondered how much longer five miles would take. About thirty minutes longer, as it turns out. And the turn around point brings me to one of the more scenic parts of the trail, right alongside a river (albeit generally a river in the dark at the moment).

I like it. I've been getting up that half an hour earlier to get in those extra two miles, me and my Black Diamond Gizmo headlamp, which has been a trooper. And I've walked through wet weather and cold. (But not ice--I don't do ice. See a few entries back where I fell down the stairs. That's clumsy me WITHOUT ice. I really, really don't do ice.)

I started doing a little quick math, and if I can average 25 miles a week (doable, if I'm willing to stick it out in the rain and occasionally sneak in some evening and weekend walks when I have to miss the morning excursion), I can walk 500 miles by the first week of June. (And IIII would walk five hundred miles and IIII would walk five hundred more...)

It's a nice round number to aim for. We'll see how long my gumption lasts (not to mention my shoes).

But I haven't really managed any of my other resolutions this month.

Maybe I should start one resolution a month until I finally (hopefully) have all of them going at once. Like learning to juggle, starting with tossing a single ball from one hand to another.

Next month should probably be "Play More," as in music. Wintergrass is just around the corner!

Walk Report (AKA Yet Another Excuse to Scribble in Field Notes)

As part of my "walk more" resolution for the year, I thought I'd start keeping a notebook, because I'm a nerd and I like the idea of being able to look back on at least some of my data. Bonus: knowing I'll get to write something down with a nice pencil in a cool notebook is motivation to get my fanny out the door in the mornings.

Don't have a set format yet, but I'll get there.

Kaput

This is apparently Kaput Week around here.

This weekend I bought new sneakers. Because I am a knucklehead, Monday morning I went for a three mile walk in said sneakers, without having worn them around the house long enough for them to get used to me and I to them. Gave myself a blister.

I limped in to work that day to find that one co-worker had messed up his back and another had pulled a muscle in her calf and was also limping. And one of the uninjured had to leave early because her furnace broke down. Also, Comcast throughout the region had network glitches and intermittent outages most of the day. Not fun.

Well, I chalked it up to "Monday" and figured it was over. Bought blister bandages on the way home, and was able to walk as usual on Tuesday (albeit in old shoes). The work day was hectic, but without major outages. Everything seemed to be looking up.

Then this morning I stepped out the door onto the waterlogged front steps (which, I might add, I've traversed hundreds of times in far worse conditions) and my feet went out from under me. Came down HARD on my tailbone, wrenched my shoulder. It. Hurt. One of those moments where you can't decide whether to curse, cry, or maybe both.

So I'm back to limping.

Is there a lesson in all this? Not really.

Except that, maybe, though we've escaped the Polar Vortex, we in the Pacific Northwest are in the grip of a Vortex of Kaput.

Be careful out there, folks.

More and Less

We all know the usual New Year's Resolution drill. My usual approach is a laundry list of detailed goals. There's really nothing wrong with that--it works well in many cases. It's nicely defined, black and white. But speaking of black and white, I tend to be all or nothing. If I miss a goal, it makes me want to just throw in the towel. At that point there's no way I can get a perfect score, so what's the point in finishing?

I'm going to try something a little different this year. Yes, I do have a few concrete goals: for example, as I mentioned in my last post, I want to finish editing a particular story. I'd also like to finish the first draft of another particular story. I have some tunes I want to work on. Etc.

But mostly, this year I've decided to work on "More" and "Less."

Pray more.
Write more.
Play more music.
Learn more.
Bike more.
Walk more.
Love more.
Forgive more.

Spend less.
Complain less.
Worry less.
Eat less junk.
Waste less time.

Quantifiable? To some extent. But there is no exact point of failure or success. It's meant to make me reflect, as opposed to my usual over-analyzing.

I can use more reflection.

Happy New Year!

A Number of Housekeeping Items

1. As one New Year's Resolution, I've decided to finally complete the editing process on The Secret Princess: a kids' chapter book I wrote some years ago for my little sister. It's a princess-and-goblins-and-dragons-and-a-quest sort of thing, pretty lighthearted and silly. I'll hopefully be looking for a few beta readers by late January. Preference given to those who have or have been young children.

2. I have too much fountain pen ink. I really have a handful of colors I like best, and now that I can get samples from Goulet Pens when I have the itch to try something out of my usual realm, I don't see the need to keep a lot of it around. I will be selling off a bunch, at least if The Fountain Pen Network ever comes back up. In the meantime, though, if anyone wants dibs on a bunch of Private Reserve blues and greens (Avacado (sic), Sherwood Green, Midnight, Black Magic, Lake Placid), or a 90% full bottle of Noodler's Blue-Black, let me know.

I may also be selling off or giving away dip pen nibs, some pencils, and a few fountain pens (nothing super fancy), so watch this space!

3. You must go read Mike Clemens' and Richard Polt's reports of the Bay Area type-in on the 27th. (Please feel free to add to my list if you were there!) Looks like a great time was had by all!

4. And now back to actual, real housekeeping. I'd like to start off the new year feeling like I could at least have my more forgiving friends over without fatal shame...

Type Tweet: Merry Christmas!

Apropos

Ran across this G.K. Chesterton quote today. It seems a nice antidote to my last post, so I thought I'd share!

"WE read a good novel not in order to know more people, but in order to know fewer. Instead of the humming swarm of human beings, relatives, customers, servants, postmen, afternoon callers, tradesmen, strangers who tell us the time, strangers who remark on the weather, beggars, waiters, and telegraph-boys--instead of this bewildering human swarm which passes us every day, fiction asks us to follow one figure (say the postman) consistently through his ecstasies and agonies. That is what makes one impatient with that type of pessimistic rebel who is always complaining of the narrowness of his life and demanding a larger sphere. Life is too large for us as it is: we have all too many things to attend to. All true romance is an attempt to simplify it, to cut it down to plainer and more pictorial proportions. What dullness there is in our life arises mostly from its rapidity; people pass us too quickly to show us their interesting side. By the end of the week we have talked to a hundred bores; whereas, if we had stuck to one of them, we might have found ourselves talking to a new friend, or a humorist, or a murderer, or a man who had seen a ghost."

~G.K. Chesterton: 'The Inside of Life.'

Inadequate

Hey, it's been awhile since I did a woe-is-me post! How about we break that trend?

I've been feeling pretty down lately, cheery Facebook and Twitter posts notwithstanding. You could call it post-NaNoWriMo slump, and I suppose that's part of it, but not merely because of the change of pace. The truth is, my story was much smaller and less meaningful than I hoped it would be. Less mystery. Less complexity. Not much more than ordinary people in a slightly less than ordinary setting. Simple, fairly predictable. All right, I guess, in its own way, but nothing like my original vision and certainly no Great American Novel.

Which is pretty much always how these things turn out. And I end up feeling rather like someone who sets out to create a symphony, only to find themselves unable to compose anything more than a predictable little single line melody. Depressing, especially when you know enough to appreciate and admire the complexity and texture and richness of something deeper, but can't summon any of that into your own head.

Sometimes I feel like a poseur in the writing and blogging world in general. For one thing, it seems like writing, at least in today's world, primarily belongs to people who come from appalling-but-colorful circumstances, or to people you might call the elite: well educated, well traveled, highly experienced. People who have had the time and money to volunteer in remote locations, or to travel to historic sites all over the world, to brush elbows with the best and brightest in a variety of fields--or who are, in fact, among the best in brightest in their fields.

On the other hand, people from lower middle class but stable backgrounds, shabby but never quite destitute; people without college degrees or exotic experiences; people who settled into dull jobs at a rather young age and who have never had time or money for anything more exciting than splurging on a CD or a new pair of shoes or a trip to the beach now and again: these are not writer material, at least not unless they are geniuses or "edgy" or are extroverts with incredible drive and originality. Or so it seems sometimes.

So I haven't felt much like blogging or working on finishing my story, because it feels rather pointless. And yet, writing may be what I'm best at (which is not at all the same as saying I'm good at it), and I feel a bit lost when it isn't part of my days.

I suppose the secret is to accept one's limitations and work within them. Paint with the palette you have at your disposal instead of packing it all away for want of better materials. If you can only write simple little slightly-formulaic stories about more or less ordinary folk, make them the very best simple little slightly-formulaic stories about more or less ordinary folk you are capable of writing.

But it's hard sometimes not to get so bound up in frustration and envy that you tie your own hands until you are incapable of creating anything at all.

NaNoWriMo 2013 by Pencil: SUCCESS

I scored this little fella late last night.

50k+ words completed in 26 days. One composition book filled, plus the first few pages of a second, in which I'll continue working on the story until the first draft tells me it's complete.

Just over half a Field Notes Expedition Edition filled with notes--I'll continue to use that. Yes, almost everything smears on that paper, which annoys me, but I do like how sturdy the thing is and how smooth it is to write in. I also like the fact that the front cover is BRIGHT HI-VISIBILITY ORANGE and thus easily locatable the dozen times a day I drop it or lose it amongst the things on my desk.

I can work at a slower pace now, but I'd like to finish this draft by Christmas if I can. (Self, please revisit this statement frequently.)

Brains are Weird

Last night I had a really horrible dream.

I was driving down the road, minding my own business, when there was a loud sound from the car in front of me: part explosion, partly tearing metal, and a rod or chunk of metal shot up into the air. The driver swerved and pulled over to the side. I stopped to see if they were OK, and found that he--a Hispanic man in his early twenties--was trapped, pinned in his seat with a piece of metal sticking out of his abdomen. I couldn't see to get a good look, because the frame of the car was broken and I couldn't get the door open, plus he was bleeding heavily.

There was no way I could pull him out without making things worse, so there wasn't anything I could do for him but hold his hand and talk to him. Another driver pulled over and I asked her to call 911, but instead I overheard her talking to the switchboard operator at the local hospital, going through step after step. In the end I was left having to fumble out my own phone to call 911, and then I couldn't get the dispatcher to grasp the seriousness of the man's condition. And while trying to stress how bad things were, I was simultaneously trying to tell the guy it wasn't so bad, he would be OK, he just needed to hang in there. He was cold and frightened and obviously bleeding out.

He died just before the EMTs arrived. THe EMTs seemed surprised to find an actual serious injury--I could only guess what the dispatcher told them. I was sobbing, covered in blood, overwrought by the whole situation and angry people hadn't helped, angry I hadn't been able to do anything.

It was horrific. I hate dreams like that.

But it's frustrating that I obviously have the imagination for that kind of drama (realistic or no), yet a lot of time can't seem to find my inner dramatist when it comes to writing. Garrrr.