Dogs and writing…of course.
I should be writing. Instead…trolling the newspaper.
Just read that 10,000 polling sites could be hacked because they’re still using Windows 7. How about if they cross up the Russians and backslide to Windows Vista? Windows ME, anyone? How about if we use Apple Newtons as the sole voting device?
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Skipping sports [who cares about players holding out for more millions and the latest Vegas odds anyway?] and head over to Dear Abby…
One writer signed her letter as ‘Not Pregnant in Texas’. So, if she crossed state lines, would she then be pregnant?
Then there was the concerned mom who wanted to know the proper etiquette on how to end a phone conversation with her son serving overseas in the military. The ol’ ‘night time on her end, the next morning on his end’ quandary that at one time or another has vexed pretty much everyone…okay, perhaps no one.
“Sir! Yes, sir! Failed to properly inspect munitions dump, sir! Confused by mother’s wishing me a good night at 0900 hours, sir!”
And really, why nettle poor overworked Abby with that question? Send it straight to Congress and, after months of wrangling, mud wrestling, and filibustering, she’ll have her answer.
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Finally…
I should be writing. Instead…scanning.
Prior to a marathon years ago, seems a fellow runner had a pre-race issue…
Not sure how many other inane posts I’ll have time for, considering my literary endeavors the rest of the week…
Rants and Riffs Installment #11: Kickstarting my daily words
I try to get in 500 words in the morning, but even if I only generate that first hundred, that’s usually all the momentum I need to finish the additional 400 later on.
Also, because I can forget a topic I want to address, I have lately found myself jotting them down at the top of my page, almost as if they’re agenda items…bullet points and everything. Pretty sad, isn’t it?
Somewhere out there is an audience for your work…
This guy found his audience…
But seriously, Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn has five suggestions for identifying your target audience.
Rants and Riffs Installment #10: July 4th Fireworks ‘Solution’
Total rant: We’re doing it all wrong.
Rather than go to the trouble of buying and administering tranquilizers to skittish pets on July 4th, how about we track down and tranquilize the mouth-breathers who set off fireworks in the late night?
Not enough? Partial lobotomies or personality transplants come to mind.
“No need to pay a fine, you guys. Just step right in for a quick noise abatement orientation…”
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And while I’m at it, how many of the folks who slap together those fireworks stands for a quick buck are also owners of skittish pets?
Not writing? Stop the fingerpointing.
My last post dealt with blaming others for my not writing.
Hey, whatever gets me generating text…»
But on a more serious note, I ran across Steven Kotler, who has a popular course called Flow for Writers.
So I looked further into the topic and ran across this informative interview. Compare your strategies to his.
https://www.writingroutines.com/steven-kotler/
Highlights:
Do you listen to music when you write, or do you prefer silence, or something else on in the background?
“…70 percent of the time I will listen to music with headphones so it’s right up in my ear. I will usually make one or two playlists for a book and I will listen to the same playlist over and over and over again…if I find a playlist that I kicked into a flow state with really early on in my process and was very successful I will keep using it because it will keep driving that flow.”
When you’re staring at the screen at 4:00 AM, do you just start clicking away? What’s going through your head at that initial moment?
“Even if the day before was a terrible writing day, I am so fired up to go at it again. I can be an absolutely miserable writer sometimes, but I wake up every day so fired up to do this.”
And finally, to put me to shame with all my finger pointing…
“When I wrote West of Jesus I had spent three years in bed with Lyme disease and I needed to tell that story to open the book, but I thought, ‘I spent three years in bed with Lyme but who cares? Compared to getting cancer or losing a limb, so what?’”
***
What’s your favorite music to carry you through your writing sessions?
What do you do to help you get into ‘flow’?
Not writing? I’ll blame anybody.
I directed one of my morning pages blaming others for my not writing.
Sooo satisfying…
For starters, I blamed Hilary Mantel, who said,
“If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, 
, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.” [The Guardian, 25 February 2010]
One small segment of her message seemed to resonate…
I repeat…all her fault.
And I blame Trader Joe’s who is selling organic strawberries for $2.50 a pound. Let’s face it, most of those gorgeous ones in the supermarket have very little flavor and considering they are one of the dirty dozen, well, that doesn’t help in the ‘appeal’ category.
But back to my relentless search for scapegoats…let’s see…yes! Sam Merritt’s to blame for serving up this winning recipe for strawberry cream cheese pie.
My only complaint: “Return to refrigerator and allow to set at least 4 hours (preferably overnight) before slicing and serving.”
Okay, in what world do people actually wait that long?
Rants and Riffs Installment #9: Thoughts while eating za’atar popcorn…
I wonder if the result is better if I sprinkled the za’atar in warmed olive oil to allow the seasonings to bloom…Worth trying the next time out. I know readers are riveted.
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By the way, my favorite popcorn maker is this easy-to-clean Likue [sounds Hawaiian, doesn’t it?] brand of microwave popper. [BTW: Not an affiliate link.] Drop in the butter [I use olive oil.] and about a quarter cup of popcorn. My microwave’s ideal settings are: Two minutes on high. I don’t use the ‘popcorn’ setting. Bit of advice: Start tuning in at about the 1:50 mark. If corn is still popping at faster than ‘pop per one second’, let’er run. If the pops are less frequent ‘shut’er down’. [Geez, that whole rural twangy terminology gives me such a rush.]
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Answer me this: Why in the name of Arnold Palmer do I even listen to the Dennis Silvers’ Golf Minute? Maybe I’m just a captive audience between segments of other stuff, but really, what part of ‘positioning your club face’ keeps me listening? I haven’t picked up a club in over 40 years.
Note: I’m still haunted by a psyche-scarring event when I was 11 years old. I scuffed a drive over to an adjacent putting green and it found a woman’s left calf. She was writhing in agony. I guess I too have been writhing ever since. [Pssst…probably not. Small comfort>>My ill-targeted shot bounced at least five times before making contact. Still, it does cross my mind whenever I revisit the idea of my hitting the links.] Okay, confession is over. Not sure if my penance has ended, however…I guess St. Peter will let me know…assuming I’m sent to the ‘escalator-up’ line.
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And yes…now you’re all wondering…what about our post-mortem transport mode? If we’re directed toward an up-escalator, is that sometimes painfully deliberate climb the equivalent of ‘purgatory’? As opposed to a high speed ‘blink-and-you’re-there’ up-elevator? And is there music involved? And is TSA involved at any point in our journey? Gotta tell ya, if I’m issued one of those flowing robes, I’m not cottoning to any security frisk.
Rants and Riffs Installment #8
