It’s been less than 24 hours since yesterday’s post and already you’ve strayed…
How to hop back on? Elizabeth Grace Saunders offers these four guidelines.
image courtesy of gratisography.com
Category Archives: procrastination
Writers Horoscope September 15: The publishing world is against you. It seems.
Ever had that submission spur an immediate rejection?
We’re talkin’, ‘Click ‘send’ and within minutes, boom! your inbox has a ‘Thanks, but…’ message. It’s almost as if that evil editor, assistant or, in 2017, maybe an automated script, has been just waiting for your query letter or sample chapter.
Time to give up, right?
Uhhh, no.
Jordan Rosenfeld, author of A Writer’s Guide to Persistence: How to Create a Lasting and Productive Writing Practice, offers these tips.
No, I have not yet bought her book, but for almost a year, I’ve followed her Twitter feed, which abounds with inspiration and advice for writers.
So hang in there and move on to the next potential client.
Writers Horoscope September 14: You’ve given in to distraction. And now…
it’s crunch time.
You lost out in the eternal tug of war between what you’re supposed to do and what you prefer to do.
It’s now crunch time and you need to focus.
Seriously–focus. And focus some more. [I know, I know, I do see the irony of launching you further away from your work, but these tips should prove helpful in the end. And now…back to the cat videos. ;->]
images courtesy of gratisography.com
What’s on my bookshelf? If You Can Talk, You Can Write
First of all, I love short chapters.
Thank you, Joel Saltzman, author of If You Can Talk, You Can Write [1993]—50 chapters squeezed into 190 pages.
And he practices what he preaches, as Saltzman might as well be playfully preaching to us over coffee in the kitchen.
Three of my preferred chapters:
- If You Don’t Know What to Say, Start Saying It
- Write About What Matters to You
- But It’s Not Even Close to Perfect
My favorite Saltzman quotes:
- “What’s needed is entitlement, the firm belief that ‘If it interests me, it interests others.’ “
- “All you have to do is learn to stop rejecting your thoughts and start writing them down.”
- “…you can adopt a much saner, more productive point of view: PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION.”
Saltzman also weaves in short anecdotes, pop quizzes [Ten questions you can’t get wrong], and valuable quotes from other writers, including:
- “In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts.” —Goethe
- “If the result of something I do is that someone feels 10 percent less crazy because they see someone else thinking what they’re thinking, then I provide a service.” —Albert Brooks
This is one of about a dozen books I would snag from my shelf in case a fire broke out at home. [If it wasn’t already been planted in my back seat box of writing stuff…]
What’s on my bookshelf? If You Can Talk, You Can Write
First of all, I love short chapters.
Thank you, Joel Saltzman, author of If You Can Talk, You Can Write [1993]—50 chapters squeezed into 190 pages.
And he practices what he preaches, as Saltzman might as well be playfully preaching to us over coffee in the kitchen.
Three of my preferred chapters:
- If You Don’t Know What to Say, Start Saying It
- Write About What Matters to You
- But It’s Not Even Close to Perfect
My favorite Saltzman quotes:
- “What’s needed is entitlement, the firm belief that ‘If it interests me, it interests others.’ “
- “All you have to do is learn to stop rejecting your thoughts and start writing them down.”
- “…you can adopt a much saner, more productive point of view: PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION.”
Saltzman also weaves in short anecdotes, pop quizzes [Ten questions you can’t get wrong], and valuable quotes from other writers, including:
- “In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts.” —Goethe
- “If the result of something I do is that someone feels 10 percent less crazy because they see someone else thinking what they’re thinking, then I provide a service.” —Albert Brooks
This is one of about a dozen books I would snag from my shelf in case a fire broke out at home. [If it wasn’t already been planted in my back seat box of writing stuff…]
Writers Horoscope September 7: A loved one will exploit your weaknesses.
This chapter is killing me!
A whine emanates from the other room. He knows…
A little he-and-I time wouldn’t hurt.
A deadly whimper-whine combination.
Stop right there! You know deep down once you leave that keyboard, there’s little chance you’re coming back, not even to turn things off.
Aim for a quick win, or at least a compromise. Set the timer for 20 minutes. You power through till the buzzer goes off and then Droopy-Eyed Ralph can get his walk.
Other anti-distraction tips:
http://published.com/magazine/how-to-create-distraction-free-writing-life
…and for those with family members who can’t read ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs and who claim to not understand clearly-stated boundaries: http://www.diyauthor.com/distraction-working-home-when-you-have-pets/ .
I should have been writing. Instead… [the sequel at 375 degrees].
The weather is cool enough to fire up the oven, so it’s time to roll out the crusts I made on Saturday.
My French teacher, Brother Reinkens, would prefer I call it a ‘galette’–do you get the feeling I’m haunted by my high school years?…time out…my facial tics are back…….okay, the medication’s kicking in…I call this, not so simply, “If Picasso made a rustic apple-dotted-with-raspberries pie.”
This is the smaller, experimental cinnamon-with-vanilla crust, so you’re looking at a pastry with six-inch sides. I turned over the larger crust to my wife, who opted for those plums from the neighbors. That hummer is still baking.
However, here is the real reason to make extra pie crust–in this case, sour cream pie crust.
These food-like mutants of dubious origin will soon morph into strips of bubbling butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
Like this, for instance…
Finally, lest** you think barbarism reigns supreme in the kitchen, my wife dials things back with symmetry, order, even beauty [though don’t think I’m not reveling in the plentiful ooze on the right edge].
**My apologies for the snooty use of ‘lest’. Trying to make up for the ‘arson aftermath’ look of the pie crust strips, I’d say. [An aside: I really don’t get why Food Network hasn’t come calling for my descriptive flair. I think Ina Garten and her Hamptons crowd and I would hit it off quite well.]
Geez, the kitchen smells good. Time for an afternoon mug of Mayan Blend…
I should have been writing. Instead…
First of all, I’m thankful my boss is so forgiving, so understanding, so
- interested in cooking as I am.
- accepting of the power of displacement activities. [i.e. baking, procrastination in the form of picking up apples from the backyard, watering the front yard heathers to stave off the 100 degree heat, baking some more, making poblano pesto, watching golf–a sure sign that I’ve completely succumbed to the lures of the passive life]
- open to writing tasks being mere suggestions in one’s life, not mandates.
Of course, I am he. [Yes, that’s grammatically correct and it sounds so wrong, so snooty, so…sophomore year English class.]
Well, anyway…[picture Brother McCarthy hovering, arms crossed, berating me for not getting to the point within the first 20 words]
I’ve pounded out my first 1000 words already, but I’m in debt from the two previous days of productive weenieness.
I blame my neighbors.
You see, no matter how misguided and unjust the practice, my boss is also firmly on-board with
Those nice folks dropped off a bag of fresh-picked plums and my wife [and co-boss] mentioned the word ‘galette’ and since I took French during my first two years of high school, I really had no choice.
And because I am extremely intuitive when it comes to baking, I concluded that I needed a crust.
No big deal. I like to try different crusts, but I would say any crust should work for you.one-and-a-half of these little hummers are sitting in the fridge–
I now have one-and-a-half of these little hummers [aka crusts] sitting in the fridge–all those gluten strands relaxing, all those fat/flour/butter globules [hardly prime terminology for cookbook authors] hydrating.
The half of a crust resulted from me thinking, ‘Hey, I have a half cube of butter, plenty of flour, plenty of salt, plenty of sugar, full-fat yogurt, and an adventurous spirit!’. Okay-yes, my inner monologues aren’t quite that formal, but I threw those together in proper proportions, fed that adventurous spirit by tossing in cinnamon and some vanilla, and well…
Will let you know how this all shakes out.
Writers Horoscope August 28: Today, beware of overanalysis.
The dreaded ‘hypercritical eye’–set to 500x zoom–has popped in for a visit.
Second-guessing your every paragraph. Questioning your every sentence. Dissecting your every word.
Before you know it, your moments of genius fade into…
Reach for the keyboard and pound out a quick 500 words, no matter the topic–though I might suggest a cathartic rant at your inner critic.
There’s nothing as satisfying as thumbing your nose at that loathesome toad [figuratively, of course. Not easy to type with one hand otherwise occupied.]. With apologies to all members of the Bufo bufo classification…
I should have been writing. Instead…Fudgy Mocha Bars
There’s nothing I like better than seeing my wife drive off for a few errands–now, now, now, let me finish–so I can dive into a baking project.
The best part? When she returns, she is enveloped in the aroma of chocolate decadence at 350 degrees.
[Even better? When I have time to clean the kitchen before she gets back. Nailed it!]
The task at hand was Fudgy Mocha Bars from Dorie Greenspan’s Dorie’s Cookies.
I eased up a bit on the flour [adds to the candy bar effect] and pushed the cocoa [measuring? I don’t think soooo.].
The 30-minute cooling-off period [in other words, infinity] gave me some mulling time:
- Since when did manufacturers [aka the insidious “they”] start making chocolate chip packages ‘adult-safe’? Am I now so pathetic that I need to pack a trusty pair of scissors wherever I go? And am I now so lame that I’ll also need a scissors-holster? [“T, how many times have I told you?! No hobbling through the house with scissors!”]
- Since when did I drift into a parallel universe where I started dicing, spreading, and/or kneading along the edge of the counter? Have I suddenly forgotten gravity’s peculiar powers? I can see it coming– Roombas pre-programmed with: “Clean up at the east wing of the kitchen!”.
Result on the Fudgy Mocha Bars: I broke off an ample hunk for breakfast. [Note: food tastes better in hunks. Well, except for soup…and salads…okay, you know what I mean.]
When I saw the photo of the Fudgy Mocha Bars, I wondered how different they would be from just plain brownies. And yet, there was a different, and welcome, consistency.
Speaking of brownies [and I can’t think of a reason not to speak of them], here is my favorite recipe: Best Cocoa Brownies from Alice Medrich’s Cookies and Brownies.
Gotta tell you…these two ladies know their way around an oven.
Word Inventions 