Things I Do, and Things I Want to Do

If you look on this blog so far you can kind of see a pattern in terms of things I do and things I want to do.

The things I do every day or think about every day are:
- my job
- my dog
- my weight loss (though I don't think about this one too much as walking every day and eating three meals a day are automatic for me now)
- my reading (finished both books I started a week ago: I read one on my Kindle at work and one at home in paperback before I go to bed at night)

The things I want to do are:
- Write every day (and more than just this blog)
- Go back to school and get my degree

The 'write every day' bit is not to get paralyzed by the fact that I'm having trouble focusing on writing itself. This blog is going okay for me right now because I have a limited space and can confine myself to one page at a time. My writing projects on the other hand are more than one page and for some bonkers reason that's pinching me in the throat and pulling me back from doing any work on them.

So what do I do about that?

Move the 'write every day' into the 'Things I Do list and out of the 'Things I Want to Do' list.

The things I do:
- my job
- my dog
- my weight loss (though I don't think about this one too much as walking every day and eating three meals a day are automatic for me now)
- my reading (finished both books I started a week ago: I read one on my Kindle at work and one at home in paperback before I go to bed at night)
- Write every day.

There. I did it. Now, what to do write every day? It seems like I every time I set up a plan or a schedule it goes to hell in a basket as soon as the pencil led settles on the paper (I write mostly with mechanical pencils because pens always run out of ink for me). It seems that I can come up with ideas just fine- it's just fleshing them out that's the problem.

How did I do it before then? I actually had a spreadsheet I used to track what project I was working on and the daily word count. For me it was like seeing that I was making progress on a project and seeing what days were good for me in terms of word count kept me working, like a schedule or progress chart. It also showed me what goals were realistic for me. So add that to the To Do List for today: set up writing spreadsheet.

Finally, I think another thing that's hindered me with the writing is that the ideas I come up with are what I'm calling 'books'. My first thought when I think of writing a book is 50,000+ words. Trust me, that's a lot of words. But I know I know I don't have to use that as my word count every single time. These new ideas are probably better in a shorter format though if they hit the 50k mark that's fine, too.

Writing Project - Darcy's Story

Right now I'm working on a non-fiction book I've tentatively titled 'Darcy's Story'. Two months ago I had to muzzle my Darcy when she's outside at the apartment complex I live in because she'd snapped her leash and went after another dog. That day ranks in the top-ten worst days of my life because I seriously thought I would have to give her up. I thought I was the absolute worst dog owner in the world for letting Darcy's aggressive behavior get out of control. I felt like a complete dumb-head because I hadn't trained my dog right. Thank God stubborn pride kicked in along with my roommate talking me down out of that tree because I dug my heels in and have been working with Darcy ever since.

The book is my way of sharing my story because I read somewhere (I still can't find the exact article) that over fifty percent of dogs are turned in to shelters and rescue groups due to behavior issues. The thing is, behavior issues are solvable problems. They involve a lot of training, constant work, and dedication to the end goal of having a well-behaved dog. My training with Darcy consists of reinforcing positive behaviors and correcting negative behaviors. It also involves lots of repetition, and lots of treats. But the result is a dog who is getting better at obeying every day and who gives me hope that she'll be the dog I know she is meant to be and that I can learn how to be a good and responsible dog owner.

Like right now for instance- she's sitting under my desk looking outside. She growls and barks at people and dogs and cats outside and I'm getting her not to. It's not just a loud 'no' but the better command of 'look at me'. Of course I have a treat in my hand but that's her incentive. Eventually she'll learn that she doesn't need to bark and alert me (especially in the middle of the night).

This is the kind of thing want to include in this book. Earlier I was working on the introduction and I'm sure a lot of it is going into the garbage as there's a lot of bitchiness to it right now. But this is just free writing until I get my traction and figure out exactly what I want to write and the tone I want for this book. I have a rough outline of the chapters and some bits and pieces of those.

So the goal this week is to get the introduction in some semblance of order and to edit out some of the bitchiness.

Drive By Monday

This is kind of a drive-by post as it's Monday and I have to go the salt mine where the phones will ring off the hook (Monday is the busiest day in a call center).

I got out of bed at 5:30 which is an improvement over my usual 6 or 6:30. I walked Darcy in the muggy dark with sprinklers all around and a resident stray cat slinking around. Amazingly Darcy did not bark at the cat. Of course I was moving her away from the cat and going 'leave it' all the while. Now if I can get her to look at a cat and not want to lunge at it or play with it that will be an accomplishment. At class on Saturday the trainer told me that when a dog approaches another dog (or cat or human) that they have one of two thoughts: 1) I want to meet you, and or 2) I want to eat you. The second seems to be Darcy's default sometimes and learning when she's thinking that is the next step in my training with her.

Yesterday at work I brought my big red zip binder and Alphasmart to work though I didn't work on any writing. I have some good notes in the binder but the tentative schedule I made for the writing went out the window last night. And now I realize why: I would love to work on my novel more but I think during the work week I'll work on the non-fiction projects with my days off reserved for said novel. It seems like my brain is okay with shorter times for non-fiction but not fiction.

I bought a new book for my Kindle this morning: The Long Way Home by Jessica Scott. It's the sequel to one my first Kindle purchases To Iraq and Back by Jessica Scott . To Iraq and Back is a collection of writing from the blog she kept while she was deployed to Iraq for a year. Ms. Scott is an Army officer, wife, and mother, and I read the blog when she was over there but it's great to read it all in one sitting. I've been looking forward to the sequel as coming home is nowhere near as easy as most people think. Also, her fiction books are most excellent also (she's an auto-buy for me now).

Well, back to the grind.

Fear This, and Write Anyway

This is the background on my computer right now.

 

I read this article on The Huffington Post Saturday and it's got me thinking about the last couple of days and how I've begun to realize I need to step out of my shell and do more with my life. Race Day (as I'm now calling Friday's day at the track) proved to me that I have a sense of adventure without fear.

So my realization is that if I approach doing something out of my comfort zone as an adventure I'll embrace it and do it to the max. Next question I have then is, can I apply this sense of adventure to my writing?

And my answer is a resounding yes. Now I've been writing since I was in my early teens and have had my ups and downs to say the least. I've been dutiful, fanciful, and lazy as all get out. I've had days where the words flew from my fingers and days where each one was pulled out of the muck. But never did I have any real fear until the last couple of years. Because it seems that when I got knocked off the tracks of my life (when my Dad had a stroke in 2009) I got rocked to my core. My writing, like a lot of other things in my life, got pushed to the wayside. And each time I went for it and tried to get back in the grove I haven't been able to.

This blog is the first time I've felt that grove become a possibility in my life. But the fear that I have with the writing is more of that it will take away from my life. Which is complete and utter bullshit as I have plenty of time and can make it happen like I did before. What I was thinking and feeling yesterday was that I should be doing something else. Tension and anxiety gripped me as I sat in front of the computer wanting to write but being paralyzed with anxiety and the awful feeling of writing not being a worthy activity.

Identifying fear is the first step in combating it. The fear I have is that if I sit down and write I'm taking away from someone else or something else I need to do. But the thing is I know I have a right to my time and time to write if I want to. And I want to because when I think about that writing grove I get a terrible craving for it. Not like a junkie craving but like a craving for a cup of coffee in the morning- a need almost.

So instead of writing being a burning need I'll approach it as an adventure. It'll be like sitting down at the computer and seeing which way the wind takes me. It'll be knowing that I can climb into the stock car of a book and grip the roll-cage bar as the writing-car takes off at a 110-miles an hour.