Tues. March 7, 2023: Working on the Balance

image courtesy of Pexels via pixabay.com

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Full Moon

Partly cloudy and cold

Time for our Tuesday catch up. Pull up a beverage and let’s get to it.

The bright sun on Friday meant everyone was cheerful as they ran around getting things done before the storm. I dashed down to Big Y to get coffee. Really, that was in the interest of public service, because being around me if I’m without coffee causes unnecessary pain to all. I grabbed a few other things, just in case they were right about 14 inches of snow and I couldn’t dig out by Sunday to do the early month Big Grocery Shop.

Did the social media rounds to promote the day’s episode of Angel Hunt, and to visit the blogs that are, once again, part of my regular rounds. Those of us who’ve never believed the blog is dead and steadily kept at it have built steady readership. I was amazed when a stat report came in, at how many people follow the various blogs, even if they don’t often comment. Thank you! I am grateful for the support, and I hope my mistakes save you pain, and that sharing my experiences make you feel less alone.

I struggled to settle into the page in the morning. The piece I was noodling with yesterday will work; I just have to figure out some of the points so that the structure fits its chosen genre. The piece (meaning my subconscious) chose the genre; I did not intentionally aim for it. But the structure is tight and unforgiving, and I want to make sure I hit the necessary points so I don’t just dive in and flail.

The Heist Romance script was calling me and demanding attention. I knew I had to re-read what I’ve done so far to get back into the voice, and I didn’t want to start that until I’d finished the deadlined work for the week.

I didn’t want to do script coverage in the morning, because then it would be too hard to switch my headspace back into the creative landscape, rather than the critical one. I managed to do a polish, upload, and schedule on the next couple of weeks’ worth of Process Muse posts.

I checked the plants out on the front porch, and it was so nice I sat out there reading the latest issue of THE NEW YORKER, joined by Tessa and Charlotte. There’s a great satiric piece on the pay-for-checkmarks at Twitter in the issue.

I did the necessary coverages and was done for the week, which was nice, I could relax in the evening.

Busy dreams, Friday into Saturday. Not bad, just busy.

It had started snowing late on Friday night. By Saturday morning, we had about a foot of snow, and it kept coming down until about noon. It was very pretty, and the power held, so I enjoyed watching the snow from the living room couch and reading.

I noodled with some ideas for poems. I have themes, ideas, image that I want to explore, although I’m not sure yet how. I have a notebook just for this type of noodling. Part of the notebook is similar to a commonplace book in that I write down quotes which resonate.

I finished reading POEM CRAZY, and started reading Mary Oliver’s book about the craft of poetry.

I was thrilled, on Saturday, to be offered a slot in this autumn’s Boiler House Poets Collective’s residency program at MASSMoCA. A weeklong intensive in the museum’s studios, with the other poets in the collective. It’s such an unexpected honor. I accepted, of course, and I am thrilled and slightly terrified. I will learn a lot and grow in new directions. It also gives me time to figure out what I want to work on. I think I want to write about shattered dreams around the Cape Cod experience (and Chiron will be in retrograde, so it makes sense); at the same time, it has to be more than catharsis, and stand on its own wordy feet. But I can play with themes and ideas and forms, and have something to actually bring in and work on with the Collective, while also creating new work while I’m there.

I started reading Tara Laskhowski’s ONE NIGHT GONE. Author Greg Herren had recommended it over on his blog, and it sounded interesting. It is. It’s very well done.

The Goddess Provisions box arrived, and it was lovely, as usual.

In the early afternoon, I went out to dig out the car. I was highly irritated because the guys who have the spots on either side of me – who are half my age – shoveled the snow behind their cars and dumped it behind my car instead of walking the five steps across the lot to put it where it was supposed to go. So instead of having a foot to shovel, I had three feet. Not a happy camper. They can bite me.

I don’t expect them to shovel my car clear. But it’s unacceptable to add more work to my slot because they’re lazy.

I used to always conscientiously shovel the space between the cars on both sides, but I don’t do it anymore, because I was the only one who ever did it and neither of these guys – young, strong, strapping guys – can ever be bothered.

I grabbed scripts for the week, and then was requested for a coverage, so now I have too many scripts for the beginning of the week (I’m only reading the first three days). But I’ll get it done.

Heard from the extended family up in Maine. They are all down with COVID (because they stopped being careful). They’re annoyed that we haven’t had it yet. Annoyed because we keep following protocols to remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible. No time for that. Makes me glad I started keeping a distance after the whole issue around the move, before we found this place, when they told us I’d have to put my mother in a nursing home, get rid of the cats, get rid of my books, and rent a room and work a minimum wage job. Nope. That’s not my life.

More busy dreams Saturday into Sunday. The good thing about having Tessa sleep on the bed is that she lets me sleep through the night, while Charlotte wakes me up every two hours.

I did a lot of ironing on Sunday, on various fabric that I’ve handwashed over the past few weeks and that has stacked up. It stores better when it’s ironed. I set out the board and plugged in the Rowenta and got to work. I enjoy ironing. It was part of the prep as a wardrobe person I found soothing.

Did some tidying up, broke down some boxes. Got some paperwork done.  The chop wood, carry water part of artistic life is just as important as the rest of it. It keeps one grounded.

Worked on contest entries. I’ll have to do that every day for the next two months, to make sure I give the entries their due.

I re-read what I have of the Heist Romance Script. It holds up, in spite of knowing it needs work. Back to the research on Corsica and Sardinia, so I can sneak work on the next sections in around other work.

Sunday night into Monday, I dreamed about creating art pieces out of layered tissue paper that resembled stained glass (my uncle used to work in actual stained glass). It made sense in the dream, and looked pretty darn good, but I have no idea how to pull it off on this side of the Dreamscape.

Monday was sunny. Yeah!

Did the social media rounds early, took care of administrative stuff, then it was off to the library and the grocery store. Of course, as soon as I got home, another slew of books showed up at the library; I’ll pick them up tomorrow or so.

Did the big early-in-the-month grocery shop, hauled everything home and put it away.

Turned around three coverages and started on a fourth before I ran out of steam. Got requested for another that has to be done this week, so now I’m really overscheduled. However, I’m also grateful that writers find the feedback helpful and get excited to create more, and that they want my take on it. So I will get it all done.

Soup class was fun.

Worked on contest entries after.

Cancelled my subscription to Tamed Wild. I’ve gotten some beautiful things from them the past few years. But last year, they upped the shipping cost, so it’s an extra 40% on top of the cost of the box. They claimed it was “temporary” but we all knew that was a crock. However, since then, the shipping has gotten completely erratic. They can blame the post office all they want, but the post office can’t forward what hasn’t been given to them. The box that arrived yesterday was paid for on 13 Feb and supposed to ship by the 18. It shipped last Friday, 3 March. So much for a ritual meant to be specific to February.  On top of that, the quality of the box contents has gone down and become repetitive. And, for instance, with the jewelry, now the pendants and chains aren’t put together, and when one tries to put the pendant on the chain – it doesn’t fit. Which means I have to go out and buy findings to adjust it and spend time trying to make it work. I’m not a jewelry artist. I don’t know how to do it and I shouldn’t have to for something I’ve purchased. Now they’re talking about going quarterly with a bigger box at more than double the cost with the shipping being an additional 25% on top of the cost of the box. No. Just no. So I cancelled.  I’m grateful for the good months, but the direction they’re taking isn’t working for me.

Goddess Provisions has much more consistent quality, pricing, and on-time delivery.

But a new moonstone was part of yesterday’s box. Tessa loves moonstones, and she’s kept it close.

Slept decently, although the feline shift change at 4 AM woke me. I had trouble getting back to sleep after, going down negative spirals. I kept reminding myself, that’s not reality. I can choose that not to be reality. On a couple of points I realized the irritant was either none of my business or a situation I could choose to remove myself from, so why fret?

Today I have at least three coverages to turn around, and I will try to at least get started on a fourth. I have yoga this evening, so that will help me reset.

I have some pain-in-the-ass-but-necessary admin work (again, cleaning up the mess of the inept), but I’ll get that done, and hopefully write a bit, too. I took the writing pressure off myself early in the week because I knew I was only doing client work M-T-W, so I’ll gear back up on writing Thursday and Friday, along with the other stuff planned, and get back to a more stable writing-in-the-morning-client-work-in-the-afternoon schedule next week. I’m still writing in longhand first thing in the morning, so I’m still writing every day, and that keeps me on an even keel.

I had an epiphany about another layer for the play FALL FOREVER that will be written in April, so I’ll jot those notes down in my outline. It gives deeper motivations to several of the characters, and makes it more nuanced.

I also realized I haven’t scheduled the promos for this week’s episodes of LEGERDEMAIN and ANGEL HUNT, so I’ll have to do that first thing. Hint: Episode 65 of Legerdemain drops today!

I better get going, huh? Have a good one!

Tues. Feb. 7, 2023: Variety as Spice and Obstacle

image courtesy of Reimund Bertrams via pixabay.com

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Last Day of Full Moon

Sunny and cold

Well, that was quite the weekend. Let’s sit down and have a catch-up, shall we?

Friday, I did the blogging. I drafted two episodes of Legerdemain. That felt good, and the arcs I have intersecting and weaving in this second big arc are coming together. I’ve adjusted the outline slightly. I know where I’m headed; I’m just not sure how many episodes it will take to get there. I’m also using Legerdemain in the Writing Wonders game over on Mastodon, which is fun.

I took care of a bunch of admin. I finished a script coverage and did a scoring sheet on another project. I did some research on some residencies, and there’s one for which I’d like to pitch, but I have to decide which of my projects makes the most sense to apply there.

I finished reading a book in the late afternoon/evening that was recommended, but I lost patience with the self-sabotaging protagonist who wasn’t very bright and didn’t grow. She wasn’t someone I wanted to spend that much time with, and she wasn’t interesting enough to hold my attention once she lost my respect.

Started re-reading Anne Truitt’s DAYBOOK. If you’re not familiar with Anne Truitt’s work, she was a visual artist/sculptor/painter/writer. I was first introduced to her work through her books, published diaries and musings about her relationship to her art in the 1990s, when working on a collaborative theatre piece about women’s diaries. I re-read her books DAYBOOK, TURN, and PROSPECT regularly. If you do any type of creative work or enjoy others’ creative work, I recommend these books. They will give you a lot of insight into process.

On a trip to Washington, DC, a few years before moving to Cape Cod, there just happened to be a retrospective of her work at one of the museums along the Mall, and I was thrilled to spend quality time within the physical pieces about which I’d read over the years.

It was -10 when I went to bed on Friday night and -17 when I got up. The power held overnight, but the internet fluctuated (which was fine, because I slept through the whole thing).

I made vegetable stock on Saturday morning. I did the rounds putting up the day’s prompt, and then I sat down and drafted a couple of first drafts of short stories inspired by the prompts. Most under a thousand words.

I had three ideas for the first one, at the airport bar. The first two worked pretty well (especially the second one, set in the TWA Sunken Lounge). The third, I literally lost the plot. I had an idea Friday night, and lost it, although I remember the opening. The story for the second prompt used a character from one of the first stories, and had a unique twist, but I haven’t yet decided where I want to do with it. The third prompt was a lot of fun, kind of a sweet story, and the 4^th is okay, but needs more of a climax. But that’s what first drafts are for, for me. To figure out what I’m trying to say.

I don’t know if I’ll use all the prompts, but these were fun. If I can take the character in the middle story I wrote for Prompt 1 and used in Prompt 2 and come up with fun interlinked stories all month (aside from whatever else I do), that would be a good challenge.

A lot of paying markets now want speculative and horror, and, of course, none of these so far are that. Oh, well, it just means looking at the markets. The linked stories are action/thriller; the others are contemporary women’s fiction.  They’re under three different bylines, at this point, because the tones of the pieces fit those bylines.

I’m writing all month, then going back to rewriting, and not even thinking about submitting until later in the spring. I doubt I’ll do something for every prompt, but it’s a nice warmup.

Turned around three coverages on Saturday. Read one of the books for review.

Went to bed early, because I was tired. Slept decently, and up at the usual time on Sunday. I went out a did a big grocery shop in the morning, restocking staples we’ve used up, and getting stuff for recipes I want to try this week. Five overflowing bags. That should keep us going for a while.

I read up on Corsica, which is where the next section of the Heist Romance script takes place, with the focus on the romance portion, rather than the heist portion. I realized  that they can’t take the ferry out of Nice, it has to be Toulon. Researching Toulon, I found out about Mont Faron and the cable car ride, and used that as a setting for a couple of scenes. Wrote 8 pages, and they’re on the ferry to Corsica now.

I have more research to do on Corsica (and I watched a bunch of great videos) before I can write this section. I came up with a way to tie it in to the main plot at two points, too, and I might even send them across to Sardinia for a day or two.

Obviously, I am doing this script as high-concept, big budget and not limiting my parameters at all. Which is kind of fun.

Turned around three coverages. Spent some time on Spoutible. When it runs, I have to say I enjoy it. It’s like Twitter without all the screaming and trolling, although I suspect that will change when it opens up to the general public this week. There are still some glitches, and it’s clunky moving between screens, but they fix problems and listen when people bring something up. So we’ll see. And I’m having a lot of fun on the Writing Wonders game over on Mastodon.

As I’ve said before, Twitter mostly makes me sad now. The algorithm hides followers from each other, unless they pay the monthly fee. There are a few people I regularly interact with, and I just go to their feed and see what they’re up to, but it’s even making that more difficult. Of the “writers” that are still there, most of them are posting either faux engagement questions they got off a clickbait list,  or expecting other writers to do their work for them. I’ll have the data by May or June to see if the promotional posts are even driving traffic anymore (I doubt they are), and then I’ll make my decision.

Because, for me, social media can’t just be about hanging out. It’s part of my business. It needs to drive traffic back to the websites, and translate into purchases or other forms of mutual support. Sites that don’t do that need to fall off the daily rounds, because my time and energy needs to be spent elsewhere. I love hanging out and chatting with people on a wide variety of topics, but when it’s all one-sided (as in chatting, and I’m supporting their projects, but they’re not supporting mine), it becomes an unbalanced relationship. Since I”m being far more careful to avoid those in real life, I also need to avoid them virtually.

Started reading the next book for review.

Honored the full moon.

Slept reasonably well, was up earlier than usual on Monday, and had to override the automatic start time on the coffeemaker because I couldn’t wait that long.

Drafted an episode of Legerdemain.

Revised/edited the next four episodes of Legerdemain, with the multi-colored draft, followed by two more rounds of revision and a polish. Uploaded those four episodes, which gets me to the beginning of March. Now I can draft a bigger batch of episodes, and that will help, if, in revisions, I have to plant something earlier than I thought.

Put in a couple of big orders for things I need (cleaning supplies, etc.) shipped. Still waiting for the Midnight City Tarot that should have arrived last week, but the “tracking” doesn’t show where it is; just says “moving through network.”

I hate DeJoy and he should be in prison, not running the post office.

Picked up the stack of books waiting for me at the library.

I got a coverage turned around and was almost through the second when I was hit with a bunch of admin stuff that had to be done immediately. Some of it is tax-focused (a company for whom I’ve freelanced a lot this past year is screwing me on the 1099 – I really need to find a replacement for that client). And there’s other paperwork that’s come through for a big project, and I’ll share details as soon as I’m allowed and everything is signed.

Of course, the printer ran out of ink during all of this.

I was too out of sorts to go back to coverage. I made Eggplant Mykonos for dinner (from Moosewood, of course), using graffiti eggplant rather than the usual dark eggplant, because that’s all that was in the store. I really liked it.

I read more of the book for review in the evening. I couldn’t settle back into coverage, and I’ll pay for that today. It means I have 5 coverages that HAVE to be turned around today, AND I have soup class tonight.

The Goddess Provisions box arrived, and it’s wonderful.

Slept well until Charlotte woke me at 1, then had trouble getting back to sleep, and had stress dreams until the coffee started. Hauled the laundry over to the laundromat and got that done. I did some work in longhand on a project – I’m a little over 50 pages in to that one. I need to type it up and then outline, because I’m flailing, and it needs an outline. Also read some of Victoria Glendenning’s biography of Edith Sitwell.

I have to give tomorrow’s Process Muse post a polish and get it up, work on Legerdemain, and do the social media rounds. Then, I’ll spend the rest of the day on script coverage, and finish the admin work tomorrow.

Hope you had a good weekend, and are having a good start to the week.

Newest episode of Legerdemain drops today. I hope you enjoy it.