20140501 Mayday!
Friday, May 2, 2014, 4:32 PM. I had a happy Mayday even though start out very well. This is a new day and I am running late. I worked on my new poem from yesterday and also wrote a silly limerick:
There was an old lady from B'ville
with only a single well-known skill
She always was late
and would procrastinate
Until she got thrown on the dunghill.
Me, of course. Here I am at 4:35 just starting my stupid walk. I have so much to do. I waste too much time online.
I am walking along mckinley or some sreet across from one of our local "crazies." A man with two dogs is approaching. The sky is a mottled grey. It's cool. The gress is greening up The man with the dogs passes. The "crazy guy" walks faster than I do, by a little. A robin patters along the ground.
Here are my dream tasks: 1)remember where I put the car key. (also other lost things, but the car key first.) 2)where do I need to go and what do I need to do to get there? This because I keep dreaming that I trying to get somewhere and can't. I assume it finishing my novels, but I want to know for sure. (Not that one can, of course.) I want to know what I think.
I did have a dream about the key, but it didn't seem helpful. In the dream, I had lost the key to the house (my mother house?) The house had one of the lever tyrpe doorknobs, gold colored, new looking. I was looking and looking for the under the curtains. At the base of curtians. Iw as sure it was there, but not finding it. My mother gave me a new key, which I did not want to take; I wanted to find the lost one. The new jey was bend sideways, and wasn't sure it would work. I tried it and it did work. If there is anything in that dream that would help me, I don't know what it is, other than maybe looking around the curtains, but that doesn't seem right. If it fell to the bottom of the curtains in the dining room, I'd have to unearth hug piles of crap.
And to do that with very little hope of success would be time-consuming, frustrating and probably wasteful. And it's hard to imagine where I would have stashed it where it would have ended up there.
My mind knows where I put it, so my mind can remember. Theoretically!
I went out to look at the plats I planted (pansies and ranunculous) and something(s), a squirrel or squirrels, I assume) have eaten all the flowers off them. Sad and wasteful of money.
The "crazy" guy is carrying a bag like a lunch sack, a borwn paper bag. He crosses the street and walks in front of me.
I meet a grandmother and a little girl named Nina. She just turned three. She is pushing a shopping cart filled with sicks. She loves sticks. One of them has little cup shaped white fungi on it. She has sparkly pink princess shoes. We have a nice converstaion. I tell the grandmother about Franke and how I miss him. She says when you live nearby, you may end up babysitting a lot and that can be tiring. I really do wish I live closer or could more often or both.
Graham and his profligate (?) ways are depleting our resources. The amount of money we've sunk into him this year is stunning. And my health is somewhat questionable, but does seem to be improving some. Slowly, know on wood.
Someone drives by going about 50 in 25 mph zone and think of little Nina and feel angry.
and worried.
I am back on our block and in sight of the house. I K doesn't seem to be home (It's 5:00, so if he didn't get my message, he may be), then I may keep walking back and forth and see if I can at least get 45 minutes. I wish I wasn't so stupid and slow about getting going in the morning.
K doesn't seem to be home. The garage door is shut, his boots and backpack aren't there, so I'm out walking again, up and down in front of the house so hopefully I won't miss him, since we're going to take G and Kristina out to Buffalo Wild wings. I think I will go 5 out, 5 back, 2.5 out, 2.5 back.
Then quit and prepare a boredome kit for the retsaurant. Lots of gorgeous hyscinths in flower at a nearby neighbor's. but no new thinss in flower today.
There are flowering almonds, which I also saw elsewhere tweo days ago and pink azaleas, which actually, I think are the first.
My plan of walking 5 and back and then out 2.5 and back did not work. I walked faster going back, so I still have more to walk.
The girl next door come out to retrieve the trash cans and I say hi but maybe she doesn't hear me. I walk by the house yet again, enjoying our display of jonquils and daffodils and checking out the tuplip buds, only one of the really early ones flowered, I wonder if the squirrels got all the others. But the early ones, next in lines after the really early ones, seem fairly abundant.
I turned back before the designated time because a car was getting ready to back out of a driveway, so I passing the house yet again with still 2.5 minutes to go. This is stupid!
I wander around the backyard until I've got my 45 minutes, and then I pull some garlic mustard. I am not going to walk another 15 this way, it's stupid and I hate it. I'm getting hungry.
Did I mention we had good and inventive sex last night and good sex the night before, too?
Saturday, May 3, 2014, 4:40 PM It's sunny, warm and nice. I am annoyed at Keith. He came home from work and said he would walk with me, but started reading his paper. It also started raining and he said that he didn't want to walk in the rain. Then the rain stopped and the sun came back out, ut he was engrossed in his stupid paper, which he could read AFTER DARK and wouldn't even carry on a conversation. So, no walk. I mean no walk with wildflowers.
I was so annoyed, I sat and finished a sprout on Cowbird and now I am walking to the store. I admittedly got a very late start on the day and wasted time myself, but it is incredubly nice outside and spring wildflower season is so short. I feel guilty going off by myself, but if he wants to a lump and starts making a habit of it, I will have to just getin my car and go. I am afraid that may have a deleterious affect on our relationship, but so does his lumpishness and unwillingness to even talk about it. Admittedly, he just worked 6 days in a row and deserves a break and to sit and rest if that's what he wants to do. And the fact that it rained right at the crucial moment when we were deciding to go, and that he had to get a prescription and he returned a book for me to the library all contributed to my bitter disappointment. But the day is not over yet.
This is a sucky place to live, in some regards. There's no real wild places anywhere nearby (that I know of). That means to see real spring wildflowers, one has to invest time and money (gas) to get there.
He's probably hungry, but I haven't had my walk and after I get home from the store, I will wantt to walk at least a half hour before being invovled with food making etc.
Some kid on roller blades, maybe 9 or ten years old, a boy, with a small dog on a leash and a very high voice came up behind me suddenly and said excuse me and stepped aside onto the grass but almost got tripped by the leash as the little dog tried to ran around me on the wrong side.
At village, a smiling man budges in front of me. I indicates his basket, has only 3 things. I don't have that many, but I let him in. The person behind me is trying to let the person behind him ahead of him because she only has three things. He only has 5. The woman, who is very pretty, refuses to cut the line. People are strange.
I've been nicing how people "give themselves away" or tell about themselves, intentionally or often apparently unintentionnaly by how they repsond. When I send out the smae email to a number of people or post about my health issues etc, some people are very sympathetic, some very encouraging, some ignore me, and so on, and how they repsond often says more about who they are than about my concern. Not that my concerns should be center stage in their lives. But there are times when repsonding apporpsriately to another person'as needs would be a useful skill.
I pick up someone's garbage can and lid that has blown in the road and put it on the gras. I notice that I tend to repsond defensively, as if I am being attacked, even when I am not, which is a prickly and often inappriate way to respond. If I could only learn when I feel that sense of defensiveness coming on to PAUSE, breathe deeply and try to determine what the person means and where they are coming from.
5:42 PM So, now I am out walking again, in the neighborhood. I put the groceries away and I want to walk because once we eat, we tend to sit around like lazy useless lumps doing nothing and that's OK for Keith who's worked 6 days, ten hours yesterday and 8 every other day. But it doesn't get anything accomplished.
Today I wrote a little piece about what I thought I might have accomplished 5 years from now and what I said was reasonably accurate, in once sense. I said I had so many projects near to completion that if I focussed on them ONE AT A time (or, in the case of divergent projects, several at a time), I could probably actually finish things.
So, ere is my current list:
1)Children's picture books: 1)Frankie and Noah have a party. I still have some art to do, and art to plan before I can do it, and new verses to write. I may be 2/3 to 3/4 of the way done with the first draft, because I do also have many of the pieces done and many of the verses done, though they could, in some cases, use some tweaking. It's a fairly massive project. The reason I am putting it first is because I would like to finish it before Frankie grows up too much. One problem with it is that he keeps changing and thus looks different in the pictures and anbother is that He's wearing different clothing in some of the pix, because I used photographs as references and am not a good enough artist at this point to chnage his clothes. I mean, maybe I could, but it would be challenging for me. Also, some of the verses may be difficult, because the images were painted for a different book (sam Cassimally's book). I could paint new images, but that would be setback. The problem is that the images as they are do not lend themsleves well to the kind of verse I've written for the other images.
Originally, I had intended to do the artwork only in the passing Moles, but the moles have tremendously slowed their passing rate. Before, I could theoretically do 4 new images (paintings) a month. There are some disadvantages to doing them in other people's books or pockets, like my losing the files when computers or external hard drives die. Or being able to get larger files (more dpi) than the ones I have for bigger books.
I also discovered what I had suspected would be true, that I canpaint a better quality imagee on a larger size paper. EG, in my big Mle, whose sise I can never remember. A2? A3? I think it's 11 x 17 instead of 8 x 10, but I'm not sure The one picture I did in there came out really well.
Too bad my scanner isnt' working and I can't locate the software for it.
so that's project #1 in the Childrn's picture book categore and I do not want to get started on other children's picture books, if I can help it, until that one is done.
#2 in the Children's picture book categore is Welcome HOme little one. Since that is a joint project with Erin, I'd like to complete it and send it out. It requires a different set of jobs so it could actually be concurrently with number 1. It has its own set of impediments. First, the Cintique has never worked with Harry Potter and although I have searched for it, I do not know where its software is, and I really need it to complete the task. Secondly, all the files that are still extant are over at R'dale, because they were an external hard drive attached to Leo which will not work with Harry Potter. I am sure they could be trnasferred back on a thumb or something, but there's no point in it since harry Potter has no external hard drive at this point. That needs to be remedied. Then, Erin and I have some details to work out. The book, as it stands, is aimed at Baby showers and birth gifts rather than at the childhim or herself. I am not sure if it could do both, but at this point, it doesn't do it well, as as well I think it could. This would require negotiations. And, if the truth be told, I am dreading the whole thing about trying to find an agent and get it published. I wish publishing on Create Space was easier-othey make it so complicated. Shutterfly is much easier, but they don't sell stuff for you, only for themselves. You do the work and they get ALL the profits. On Lulu, you can at least get something. Theoretically. I didn't have much luck on Etsy. But I wasn't putting heart and soul into it either. The ideal situation seems to me to have an agent and sell it to a real publisher. But that may not happen, and it could still have a life.
OK, so that's project #2 in the Children's picture book Category.
Project #3 in the Children's picture book Category is Benny's favorite Color. Although I could redo the illos, it's really ready to be sent, as is, to an agent. Yikes. But I didn't want to spend time working on it until I'd completed #s 1 and 2.
Above and beyond that, there is Benny and the Dragonfly, A good day to stay Home, the one about the Urchin boy, the Sea Witch, The Girl who loved wildflwoers, etc etc.
And then there are Children's novels, young aldult novels, adult novels, etc. I am not sure which one(s) I should choose to concentrate on. It seems as if I should start with one(s) that are as close as possible to being finished and which have the maximum likelihood of being successful without major changes.
Here are some of the things I have underway:
• Frog Haven and mutiple sequels of Frog Haven.
• Taming Uncle Beast and all the associated books that I've started
• The Herpetologist
• Discovery at Hog Island
• Disappearing
• The book about me and Keith. (That one has soem major issues.
• After Wolfie
And More Besides. Lots more.
Monday, May 5, 2014. I just talked tot he neighbor, the dentists son whose name I can't rmember. He's so shy. I talked to him quite a while, I didn't want to be rude. I told Keith I'd be back in 455 minutes, but I didn't know the neighnor would be out mowing and turn off his mower and run over. And like i said, I didn't want to be rude. BUT if Keith starts dinner and I don't show up, then I'll be being rude to him. Between a rock and a hard place. I did finally tell him I had to go, maybe I will walk half an hour instead of 45 minutes and peek in to see if K is cooking dinner or champing at the bit and if not, sneak away for another 15 minutes. But I'll have to somehow go some other way so I can quick walk without being rude to the neighbor. I don't mind talking to him, it's just that I had JUST told Keith I'd be back in 45 minutes and I don't know how long I was talking to him. I'm thinking the neighbor might be Walt. (?) Not sure though. I always used to talk to his Dad.
he's been through some rough times. Helathwise. last year he went ten days without sleeping.
If I walk the other way, I might run into to Kim. I need to do my walking earlier.
Although it's pleasant to talk to Walt (?) or Kim. But just not while K is waiting for his dinner.
so I interrupted myself thinking about my goals. What I need to do is think which of the adult novels would be easiest to finish and work on that. Or even a kid novel or YA novel.
Here's what i can do. I can work on a kids book because that involves painting and I can do it in the evening with K at dinner time. I can work on Uncle Beast or any other novel that is being newly written, because I can work on it while walking. AND I want assign three days to working one one major project (a novel) that seems doable. The problem is making a choice. And then hopefully sticking with it until I complete it. I get discouraged when I hit too many obstacles.
It could be the novella, After Wolfie. I have a place to send it, if I get it done. And it's short. The problem is, it's too short. and some of the changes I made to make it longer caused a loss of some parts I liked.
Another problem with Wolfie is the POV. The narrator is Jaison. Max, I call him. But a lot of stuff takes place off stage, maybe too much.
Another problem is the trip to Vegas or New Mexico etc. There's an introduction of other characters who may not be needed (Tanya, and Jaison's girlfriend.) Max's. The more characters, the more complcated, the harder it is to make sense of it. Is it moving the story foward, or is it too much of a sidetrack from the main event.
These days, kids have sex pretty casually and don't make a lot of effort to hide it. I may need to allow that to happen in plain sight, although it would change some of the things that happen later. It wouldn't be a surprise, the pregnancy. Not to Max, or shouldn't be. If Max is telling the story, he has to be a witness. and, or, the other charcters have to speak up for themselves in talking, phone calls, letters etc..
Also, right now, there is repetition. I've been trying to cut that out, but the second or tird to the last time I worked on it, I coped large pieces of text and pasted them the end to srt through and then was unable for soe reason (my health issues?) to do so. Meanwhile, I lost the thread of what I was trying to accomplish, and that causes a huge chore in sorting through the Ms.
The story was a long short story that I am trying to make into novella. I donlt have much experince wit novellas, but it seems to me that should be more complex and detailed that a short story and less so than a novel.
I liked the idea of Max taking Tanya and his girlfriend to Mexico, BUT maybe he should just take the kids soemwhere. No. Maybe they should go someplace closer?
Well, Keith does not appear to be making supper or standing in the kitchen looking forlorn. so I am continuing to walk. O there he is, driving by and woowooing. well, he saw me and knows I'm walkin, but not why. I've only walked 31 minutes.
Another probelm is that Max is the narrator, but not the protagonist, exactly, and if he's not, who is? And if he is, how does this afftect his life? How does it chnage him? How does he grow? Rosie and Doug need to grow and chnage, too But maybe Max is the protagonist.
Shit, I've only walked 34 minutes and now K is home.
IF Max IS the prtagonist, like the girl in (DUH), then something needs to be going on in his life that his decision about Rosie and Doug changes. Or seriously afts, some major change. Each of those three characters have to have amajor chnage.
Clearly, until I figure those issues out, I cannot finish the novella. Or fill in the missing details
What is it that Max wants? He wants to protect David (Doug) from harm. He wants to protect himself from getting in trouble. He wants to be footloose and fancy free, to live the life of a young adult male partying, smoking dope, being an easy going happy-go-lucky guy. His girlfriend wants to get married and have kids. He's been putting it off.
Now he realizes that Lisa, his girl friend, sees her trip to Mexico as an opportunity to experiment with being separated from him. (see that there are indications of this, in her begging or hinting to marry and her anger, sadness and depression when he keeps putting it off. Have David question him bout it, and even the spacey Tracy.) He worries she might have sex with the handsome artist she is flirting with at the bus rendezvous in Taos (or wherever.) Now he has mixed feelings. He wants to hold onto to her, but not let go of his freedom. As he deals with Tracy and David and makes a commitment to care of the kids and their kid. And he finds out near the end that Lisa is also pregnant but didn't want to tell him, since he didn't seem to want to Marry him.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 6:57 PM I am walking toward Rolandale. Yesterday, I did not walk, so today, I wanted to walk both ways. The day sis not go as plnned. My days rarely do, but this time, it wasn't enyirely my fault. Graham wanted me to drive Kristina to work, mail a letter for Kristina take him to the store, and take him around to look for jobs. (And then to get Kristina at work and then we made tacos etc. So I didn't get to go to R'dale. Nor did I have time to work on my homework for poetry class, and extended metaphor poem. Nor did I have time to email myself The Following Wolfie story from Moran to R'dale. Because I didn't walk yesterday, I wanted to walk both to and from R'dale, But I have only gotten as far as Mack and it is starting to rain. It's been raining and getting worse.
7:37 Of course, I was planning on writing while I was walking, but it was raining too hard to use the Psion.
Poetry idea??? Sauerkraut at 3 AM which is a metaphor for what?
* * * *
In Uncle Beast, Harmon is supposed to preach tonight in Bon Matin and then take them out to eat at (). Tiny has learned that he has fake ID.
In Tiny's post apocalyptic story, Leah, Troy and Alys have just eaten groundnuts and hog peanuts and 2 have told their stories and they are dirty. Not the stories, the people.
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