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Posts from the ‘Cathy’ Category

Jan 25

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Cathy: Editing Hump

This morning I had every intention of zipping along through a few hours of editing the final pages of my manuscript. My mayhem dictated otherwise.

1. Honey woke up late, and I didn’t feel like getting out of bed either, even though I heard the boys stirring downstairs. So we got off to a later start than usual. And then Toots slept in a bit and didn’t want to wake, and for about the third time in six years of living together, I woke up Grandma, who I knew had an earlier exercise class on Tuesdays, to ask her if she would take Toots with her so I could edit. And, by the way, Toots only wanted Grandma to get her out of bed this morning, too.

2. I was getting into the shower when the last family members to leave for the day were already out the door — that put me about an hour into the precious writing time.

3. I experienced a few technical difficulties that caused much smoke to emit from my ears and unsavory language to disembark from my mouth. Good thing I was home alone, but that did not prevent me from calling my tech support, Honey, at work to fume and swear in his general direction. Poor guy was working on a big project at work. Like he needed my vitriol in his ear at that moment, too. Thanks for putting up with me Hon, even though you didn’t really help and I ended up figuring out ‘go arounds’ myself.

4. I figured out ‘go arounds’ myself. Even re: stuff I didn’t bring up to my dear spouse.

5. I opened the Document.

6. I stared at it, knowing full well what I needed to do to it, and I stared at the critiqued copy which was telling me what to do with it, but apparently I did not have my listening ears on.

7. I called a fellow writing friend who thankfully was home sick from work up in Boston (how selfish of me, I know, but I did wish him to feel better, and he did help a lot with giving me a better perspective of why I was using a device that I was at the moment struggling to edit).

8. I listened to a couple of songs on youtube. Those youngsters today are making some good music. Please check out bands: A Day To Remember, Rise Against and Snow Patrol. Be forewarned, these are my rocknroller teen’s current favorite bands.

8.5 I whined on Facebook.

9. I kicked myself in the figurative butt and started typing.

10. I ended up pretty happy with what I got, and called my Boston writing friend again to confirm, and he gave me one more good piece of advice: put it dialogue instead of the main character’s thoughts. Actually, I think I screamed it over him as he said it, but it would have taken me longer to get to the realization if I hadn’t called Mr. Snuffles.

11. I saved it, in two places (always back up, lesson learned a long time ago when I was writing my thesis and my hard drive crashed taking my thesis with it, and I had 3 days and nights to cobble it all back together from old notes while hallucinating from sleep deprivation) and then

12. Grandma walked back in the door with Toots.

So I will finish the last few pages another time, maybe when Toots goes down for nap. Or tomorrow morning before I go to work…

I guess, I’m saying (and I have to thank the same friend in Boston for this one, too): “Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.” ~Doris Lessing

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Crossposted from Musings in Mayhem

Aug 3

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Cathy: Writing, Editing, and Not

This post is kind of a way for me to work out hitting a wall in my manuscript.

All I want is to finish it. In my heart, I still love it. But after so many edits, this edit is really a bore to do. In my house, two kids are gone for a month, including the most distracting one. In and around my house is a lot of neglected house stuff, largely due to my trying to focus on the manuscript.

When I try to write at home, even if I have my mother-in-law take the 3-year-old out of the house for a couple of hours, invariably I putz around finding other things to do until, lo and behold, they return, and I haven’t even pulled the critiqued manuscripts out of my tote bag. Like the day last week, when Toots decided waking up throwing up was the way to go that day rather than out of the house with Grandma. I sank her into the couch with Netflix streaming kid videos, and the next thing I knew, I found myself hacking branches in the yard in 100 degree heat, because that apparently was immensely preferable to actually finishing my novel.

And I had a good session on it the day before when I did my usual Tuesday routine of packing everything up and taking it to the library to edit. Okay, so the next day, off to the library I went, and knocked through two chapters in a fairly painless edit session.

As I write this, I look back over this very morning, noting that, yes, I had an early doctor appointment, from which I left a bit upset, mostly just burnt out on doing the specialist shuffle, so I gave myself permission to see another human being, I mean tea chat with a friend, and then another friend who is back in town visiting from far far away showed up, and finally I trotted myself off to the library. I couldn’t settle in as the place was teaming with people, and then the summer camps came tromping through in droves, so I turned right around, having never even opened the laptop. Read more

Jun 21

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Cathy: Breakfast

The other morning, I brought the corn husk materials from last night’s dinner out to my compost pile. I perused the pickings around the peas. I popped one pod in my mouth. I’ll let the others linger and grow another day or so. I strolled by my little swiss chard piece of a plot in front of the okra, and was struck with an idea for breakfast. I picked a few leaves thinking of combining them with eggs, and considered what else to add as I reentered the house.

Last week’s storms broke Grandma’s hanging tomato plant. The remaining tomatoes are ripening on our kitchen counter.

I chopped some garlic as I started to scramble the eggs. I gave the swiss chard a few licks with the knife and tossed those in. I took a small tomato from the opposite counter and did the same — a little salt and pepper later, and voila!

Garden-fresh swiss chard and tomato scramble, from garden to plate.

This is why I love to garden. Everything you grow yourself inspires and tastes better, from plant to table in 10 minutes.

Crossposted from musings in mayhem.

Feb 23

5 Comments

Cathy: Love and writing

I really do often feel stuck between what I “should” be doing instead of writing, and my writing. If I don’t put it first right now, I will only be a resentful pig of a mother and wife. And that’s the truth. Plain and simple.

So yesterday, when I needed a moment in the midst of writing, I doodled this instead.

It’s really almost done. This is the final push. So if my family sees less of me, if you see less of me around the blogosphere, etc., this is why. I am hard at work. I will be back in my family’s life more when I can focus on them better because I will not be dissecting and rearranging a manuscript in my head during our interactions.

And that’s it.

[Cross-posted from musings in mayhem]

Feb 8

4 Comments

Cathy: Rebirth

Duck, NC, 1.14.2011

This time of year is so odd. For most of the Northern Hemisphere, and certainly for my own 40 years lived in New England constitution, the world lies most fallow, yet there are hints of the promise of spring. The renewal of the land.

In Ireland, it is the celebration of the birthing of the lambs, the burgeoning of dairy abundance, the harrowing of the fields. St. Brigid’s Day celebrates the creative fire that burns within all of us of poetry, childbirth and craftsmanship, esp of iron.

Chinese New Year is now, the time of the seedlings underground, and the promise of abundance crops. The sun is returning, and so the fire within burns a little brighter.

Now, when winter can be so brutal, we find signs in a random clear bright day that assures the sun has not forsaken us after all.

Here, in this most wintery winter since I’ve lived in Virginia, last week I saw robins flocking in the trees. A raven cackled at me from high up in a tree whose branches were tipped in buds. Some of my gardening friends reported daffodil sightings. Mine have not made an appearance.

This weekend I went out to a handful of events, obviously overscheduled. I missed spending time with my family, I missed the rarity of hours spent with Honey. But I took time to pay attention to myself at two different meditations, and to have fun with friends.

I wore myself out, also because once again Honey and I squeezed in a Home Depot date on Saturday afternoon, too. But I needed to take time to find my focus again and these meditations really worked. I found my personal strength and was reminded that my personal strength isn’t only for giving away to everyone else. I need to keep some reserves for myself in order to focus well on my writing and finish the manuscript.

I went through a period toward the end of 2010 in which I started taking better care of myself physically, but let it drop off again, various reasons, the main being that I am allergic to the first gym altogether. Then in joining the local Y, I found I was allergic to their workout room and their yoga classes were inconveniently scheduled during my precious writing time. And then it was too cold to consider waking up before dawn to go swim laps and freeze in the winter morning air with wet hair.

But now, it is beginning to warm up. I ache all over again when I wake up in the morning, and all day long. This ache will never completely go away, I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and I am aging. I have a significant lack of collagen to take care of my muscles, even less now that I age. I am more prone to muscle injuries and not so great in the healing department. But when I take the time to exercise, whether I do laps in the pool, or walking around the neighborhood, it makes a huge difference. Not just in my muscles and posture, but in my mental and spiritual well-being.

The meditations and the game night Saturday with friends I rarely see, took me out of my daily rut and into my interior to wake up my creativity and sense of purpose.

Honey and I have planned and he started some spring household projects — mended the porch rail himself while I was out and about yesterday. And he did the taxes, which will net us a much-needed return. For this, I thank him. He’s my guy.

We’re going to build some storage solutions and a partition in Mr. Cynic’s room in order to move the boys in together, and move Toots into currently Captain Comic’s room. I’m going to milk paint some antique twin head and footboards for Toots, and sew new curtains for both rooms.

Honey and I agree it’s definitely time to move our little miss nearly three-year-old out of our room. That decision has definitely begun a sense of renewal for our relationship.

So you can see, not just this weekend, but leading up to it, I’ve been doing some harrowing of the fields of all the acreage of my life.

1. In writing, I am rewriting for the third time my little novel with the purpose in mind to send it out come spring.

2. Shifting around and taking care of the house.

3. Will also take care of Honey’s and my relationship.

4. The changing of the season is renewing my health needs, mentally, physically and spiritually, not just so I can take care of others and contribute more for their well-being — mainly I mean the kids, but that in taking care of my personal strength, I will be giving myself the gift of self-respect and confidence to be who I really am and accomplish what I set out to do. All of it, with a clear head.

Is any one else finding themselves in this place of assessment and focus on change for a better life?

[Cross-posted from Musings in Mayhem]

Dec 6

7 Comments

Cathy: New favorite thing

Please forgive me if my sentences make no sense today. I had a cahrazy weekend, which included Honey’s birthday, on which I barely saw him. It was a good weekend, a celebratory weekend, but I have been having a cold coming on for a few days, and I think it hit me full force today, when I can finally rest, while catching up and critiquing two manuscripts for tomorrow’s writing group, that is. How’s that for a run-on?

Oh, and for some unknown reason, Captain Comic has decided that somewhere between 3 am and 4:30 am is primo wakeup and run back and forth with lights on and doors slamming time.

Anyway, in time for the December challenge, one of my old writing friends from my Boston days turned me on to a new writing tool. It works like Julie Cameron’s Morning Pages from The Artist’s Way, but it’s online. It’s typed. It’s private, and you can let your mind wander for 750 words, the equivalent of three pages. And you don’t have to find that notebook or pen. I think most of us are sitting in front of a screen these days anyway, right? And it gives me a community of people who are also writing, whether or not I make any more of a connection beyond just knowing they are out there somewhere doing the same thing: http://750words.com.

I am a horrible typist. It takes me about 20 minutes per day to meet the 750, averaging about 35-40 words a minute. all typos are left in place. I try not to go back and correct. I don’t think about what I’m writing, I just let the garbage fall out of my brain through my fingers tips and up onto the screen.

Usually about three quarters of the way in, I hit my stride and there’s at least a phrase if not an idea that I like or that I can work with in something else, later.

Here’s the thing:

When the boys were younger, and I was single and working three part-time jobs to support them, when I woke up in the morning, I put the baby gate across the kitchen doorway of our little condo, got the coffee started, and while it brewed, I started my morning pages with pen and notebook amidst the dulcet tones of Captain Comic hanging on the opposite side of the gate, rattling it and screaming for my attention, Mr. Cynic momming me, and the themes of Blues Clues or Bob the Builder running from the tv in the background. After a few months, they got that I was not going to give them the time of day during “Mommy’s morning pages.”

And that’s when I started writing my almost finished editing this draft manuscript — later in the day, somewhere between job number one and the first school bus arrival, I had 30 minutes in which I wrote the first thirty or so pages of this book. But I was only productive on that if I had been productive earlier by getting through the mess of my daily concerns to hit the subconscious, where the better writing sprung from, like an underground spring of fresh water. First I had to clear away the mud.

So why have I not been writing or editing what I really want to be working on lately?

I think the key is in these morning pages. I think it’s in getting the garbage out of my head. It only takes me 20 minutes, so why not? Here I am, doing it online. And this site has some interesting tools to help you see what mood you’re writing in, for instance. Or what words you repeat, or what senses you are using, and how dominantly you write in one over another. It also has a healthy dose of competition that fuels some of us to write. For me it’s much needed accountability. I highly recommend it: http://750words.com.

C’mon….you know you want to.

 

Dec 1

2 Comments

Cathy: Weekword — pyrophoric

I am hosting the Weekword Challenge this week and hope you’ll join in on the fun. Weekword is a creative challenge that gets passed around the internet and each week a new blogger is asked to host and chooses a new word to inspire others to share their response. You can do anything: from poetry to photography to pottery to pensive ramblings. Whatever happens is good as long as it prompts you to do, to make, to create and then to share.

pyrophoric

I flipped open my old red Merriam-Webster, and found this week’s word. I like it. It’s sparkly. In fact the official meaning from Dictionary.com is

py·ro·phor·ic /ˌpaɪrəˈfɔrɪk, -ˈfɒr-/ [pahy-ruh-fawr-ik, -for-]–adjective Chemistry .capable of igniting spontaneously in air.Origin: Gk pyrophór ( os ) fire-bearing ( see pyro-, -phorous) + -ic

Dictionary.com Unabridged. Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.

World English Dictionary

pyrophoric (ˌpaɪrəʊˈfɒrɪk)— adj1. (of a chemical) igniting spontaneously on contact with air2. (of an alloy) producing sparks when struck or scraped: lighter flints are made of pyrophoric alloy[C19: from New Latin pyrophorus, from Greek purophoros fire-bearing, from pur fire + pherein to bear]

I hope it sparks something in you! (I couldn’t resist.) Please add a comment here to indicate if you are participating and I will post a link to your blog on Friday to share with with others.

Have fun!

crossposted from musings in mayhem

Nov 9

5 Comments

Cathy: I must be crazy

At the end of October, an old writing friend e-mailed to ask if I was going to do Nanowrimo again this year.

What I e-mailed back to him I cannot repeat here for the sake of children’s eyes, but it amounted to a firm No Way.

Last year, I drove myself insane. I resented when life took precedence in the form of repeated visits to the pediatrician for infinite reasons including the virus sent from the inferno below that I along with the entire family contracted, amidst the usual mayhem challenges to write that abound around here. I also wrote a whole lot of crap, of which I haven’t opened the document to see the results of and edit. The novel was supposed to take place in Ireland and 31,000 words in, the family was still on the plane from Logan Airport, crossing the Atlantic and playing gin.

I am currently STILL editing the novel I wrote before last year’s Nano, and barely have the time and headspace for that, let alone start another project.

But then I was in the shower one morning — the only time and space I have completely alone to sort out whatever might be going through my head with minimal distraction — and a funny thought occured to me, which included a nonsensical opening novel line I could take in any direction.

And as I said, no, no, no I will not NOT do Nano this year, the idea grew. A plan fell into place.

I couldn’t help it, by the love of all things chocolate with caramel. I have to do it now. But first I am setting some ground rules:

  1. Being likely a children’s novel, I will accept 35K words as a good win if that’s where it seems to end.
  2. I will not make myself crazy if life gets in the way. I have a very full life. I will not resent the vicissitudes and interruptions, because really Nano is an interruption to my everything else. And my everything else is mayhem enough, thank you very much.
  3. As long as it remains fun, is a catalyst for inspiration and I enjoy it, I’m in.
  4. As soon as I break any of the above, and it becomes not fun, I am out.

Inspiration is my game this time, not racing to the finish line.

Call me crazy, but I’m in. How about the rest of you?

[Crossposted from musings in mayhem]

Sep 23

7 Comments

Cathy: Finito!

[Editor’s note: Cathy suggested we just add a link to her last post to point to the finished product, but I think this accomplishment merits a full display right here, don’t you?]

The quilt is finished! Phew!

And Toots is very happy.

Final ironing and pinning stage to close the open, stuffing edge:

Here it is before I threw it in the wash, so I can put it on her bed tonight.

The stitching isn’t perfect, neither is the stuffing, but you know what? I did it. It’s my first quilt. I’m proud of it.
And Toots’s toes will not be hanging out the foot of it when she sleeps for a looong time to come.

Nope. They sure won’t!
And you know what else? Look at the look on her face in both shots. I’ll wait. Go ahead.
She knows I love her, big time.
[Crossposted from Musings in Mayhem]

Sep 21

8 Comments

Cathy: Trading words for stitches

It all started here, which led me back to the fabric store, which led to obsession. From which I have only slightly recovered, as I continue to quilt approximately an hour or so per day. Some days I skip. Others net four or five hours of poking myself in the finger with a needle and going blind from close up examinations of threading the needle or trying to find where it came out the back so I can tie it off and thread the needle again.

I am enjoying it, meditatively, methodically producing something of use and pretty, too. Toots can’t wait to wrap it around herself, sleep with it over her in bed.  She woves her kiwt so vewy much.

Some photos of the process, which is nearly complete:

Stage one, in pieces:

Watch the dates, folks, most of these were taken during the 48 hour endurance obsession initial weekend. Pieced together by evening, sorry it’s blurry, so was I:

Next morning, the border is completed.  I wanted to try fancy cornering, but then I said it’s good I got this far:

Blood was shed from my cuticle! twice:

(Addendum: That is my grandmother’s thimble!)
Back panel sewn and turned right-side out:

Lost a day to finding a fabric loop and oh yea, paying attention to my family.
Quilting begun:

See? Not perfect, but getting the hang of it.

Weeks later, I am still quilting.
Mr. Cynic took this on Tuesday:

What may not be readily apparent is that most of the quilting is complete. I’m in the final blue panel now. I also now have a better understanding why at one point in my glasses clad young adulthood, a guy in a bar thought, What are you, some kinda librarian? was a good pickup line. It wasn’t, but I can see why he said it.

[Crossposted from Musings in Mayhem]

Aug 26

4 Comments

Cathy: Back to writing

Yesterday, I met with my writing group. I had not opened my manuscript since the session I went to about month ago. I kind of feared where I was in it and was pleasantly surprised that I was at page 93 in my purple line edits. I won’t use a red pen — looks too much like violent spilt blood.

The significance of being at page 93 is that I was much farther along than I thought I was, and being a middle reader novel, I was darn close to the end. So guess what?

Yesterday, I finished my purple line edits.

Now to go into the document to make the changes official from the purple scribbles. Toward the end, my purple pen ran out of ink, so the end edits are in black, which is what I had in my purse.

Anyway, I feel good about the book, still. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it since I started it back at the dawn of time. At this point, the changes I was having trouble believing in, make better sense to me. The bottom line is I still cried while reading the end. My main character’s growth is evident.

And I love him. He has been growing up alongside my boys, as if he is one of them himself. Mr. Cynic was a year or so younger than him when I started, and is now in entering the halfway point of high school. Captain Comic was in preschool when I first wrote the 12-year-old into existence, and now he turns the age of my character in a bit over a week from now.

So, from here on out, I want to try to see if I can pick my way through the manuscript document, inserting the scribbles by day, instead of waiting for my writing group to meet in silence and commitment to writing. I am hoping that transferring the changes won’t take as much concentration as the purple lining did. I hope I can do it while my menagerie runs around the house.

Draft 2 (er 5,010) complete. Phew — kind of.

[crossposted from musings in mayhem]

Jul 12

2 Comments

Cathy: oh writing, let me count the ways…

…you can frustrate me:

1. my new printer won’t communicate with my computer, so I can’t print out the edits I did at writing group to read and redline a bit more by pages in hand.

2. you come to me in fits and starts while occupying half my concentration all the time.

…you make me do cartwheels, figuratively speaking, of course:

1. I love a new idea, it makes my heart race and my arms want to write or type in that very moment to the exclusion of all else. I get that tingly feeling like a teen falling in love.

2. I love rewriting, reworking, getting it right.

3. (Please let there be a 3 so the positive side can win today.) That netherworld feeling of one foot here, in the house with the kids and the laundry, and one foot there, in my imagination with my character and his family and friends and dog. This week has been hovering around 100 degrees outside and in my manuscript, it’s Thanksgiving in New England — bare trees, the beginnings of snow, nose reddening winds.

Ah, thank you writing, for the cool, cool breeze!

[Crossposted from musings in mayhem]

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