chalkdust

I dropped off to sleep Thursday night at 3:30 or so, then woke up Friday at 8:00 to check my work email (on my phone, flat on my back in bed). If the draft I’d submitted a few hours earlier was okay with my boss, I wanted to forward it right away to the DO who was waiting on it. It was okay with my boss, and I did forward it, and then I went back to bed for a couple more hours.

Did a few tasky things, then my boss emailed me to ask if I’d submit an invoice for her. I’ve never done it, and I’m terrible with money and with administrative paperwork, but I did sit through the training in May for the new system, so I figured I’d learn to actually do it. Anything that makes me more useful is good.

It took two hours for what I think most people do in five to fifteen minutes, but now I know how to do it. Now it will take me only half an hour, I think. Yeah, paperwork takes me extra extra long, something I’ve told all my bosses since I got hired at Assets. I know what I do quickly and well. I know what I do slowly and poorly. You gotta communicate that stuff.

I also worked on my monthly report. No actual writing, even though I still have one late story. It’ll wait until Monday. The wounds on my wrists where I slit them open for the last story still haven’t healed.

Watched the news, did the crossword, listened to music. Got writing at close to nine, then made a chocolate mug cake, something I haven’t repeated since I first did it in April or May. At about 9:30 one of the other Skypers asked how I was doing, and we agreed to a fifteen-minute word war.

My new idea for finding my review voice? Write as much as I can in ten two fifteen minutes. I’ll find my voice by writing a bunch of these, and I’ll write a bunch of these if I turn off my internal editor and just write. NaNoWriMo-learned skills, but for something different.

I wrote kind of a lot in fifteen minutes, and it absolutely did not suck. There’s something there. It felt good to realize. Needs editing and thinking, of course, but not yet. I’ll write some more and see what emerges, the same way: sprinting.

Called it a night half past midnight or so, then did a few chores and went to bed around two.

Breakfast and lunch was some cold tofu, cubed, with kimchi and blanched bean sprouts. It was delicious. I could eat like that every day if someone else would make it for me.

Dinner was leftover hapa rice with corned beef hash and a couple of eggs. It didn’t fill me with the remorse it did the last time I made this.

I texted with Crush Girl a little about weekend plans. Texted with Sharon about work stuff, but it turned into some casual chat about one of our former coworkers. We were good friends but when she left I lost touch with her. So I emailed her, finally, after almost a year and a half, chatting about the Bachelorette (which she’s a huge fan of) and how much I miss her. I do not think I’ll hear back from her, but I had to try. This is why I texted Sharon, actually. She knows how it ended and she knows I’m unlikely to hear back from her and she knows how I’d really like to. It felt good not to have the ball in my court anymore.

Jennifer texted me a photo of these Japanese Kit Kats aged in old whisky barrels. It makes sense. Some of Scotland’s venerable distilleries are owned by Japanese companies now, and Japanese scotch is excellent. Ali texted me from working at home and we had a little conversation about what that’s like for her. And I wished her a happy weekend.

Before bed, I watched a little bit of the first episode of The Morning Show, that Apple TV+ program with Jennifer Aniston. So far so good, but the episodes are an hour each, and I had to get sleep.

Comments are down there. Leave one if you’re not connected sufficiently as the holidays barrel upon us like barrels full of Japanese Kit Kats rolling down a hill.

In Friday’s issue of Thursday’s mundania:

• Waking up
• Dragging myself to the desk
• Staring at static words on a field of white
• Breakfast and lunch (the turkey’s bad)
• A Zoom meeting and some editing — tiptoeing
• Stickers!
• Dinner: Everyone needs a can to hold onto
• December writing project one: rougher seas
• Opening a vein
• Too much snacking
• “I like to give joy away for free”
• Do ya think I’m texty?
• I wanna text you up

Not the worst sleep in the world Wednesday night but neither the best. I think I got five good, solid, uninterrupted hours, and was shocked to discover it when I awoke. There are mornings when I wake up and I just know I slept so soundly that a succubus could have visited me in my chamber and had its way with me and I wouldn’t have stirred one bit. Well maybe ONE bit, but that bit, as we all know, is completely disconnected from my brain.

In the world of writing for a nonprofit: nothing meaningful happened for several hours. Words sat there on the page, stubbornly refusing to budge. Whiteness surrounding them refused to be sullied further with my clumsy attempts at poetric prose or anything resembling meaningful exposition.

The solution to my illoquacious, half-hearted attempts was of course to take a break for breakfast and lunch. I used up the last of my turkey broth, some fresh hapa rice, rosemary, garlic powder, salt, vinegar, and a couple of eggs some delicious turkey jook. I had a few pieces of turkey left for this last Thanksgiving memory, but they had turned, so I threw them in the trash, tearfully.

Still a great bowl of soup. I don’t know why I thought Tuesday that a great bowl of soup would be made better with bean sprouts.

We had a good weekly Zoom meeting with the department, during which I shared my struggles with sleep and productivity, not to mention my difficulty getting to the beach for some fresh air and salt water. Others shared similarly, ‘though on the whole, nobody was especially talkative. I think my boss was disappointed. I know she likes spending the time with us.

I got some stickers in the mail from a vendor on Etsy. I really just wanted the dart sticker, but what the heck. She does good work and I had $20, so I got these. One favorite quote from the series I have yet to see on any third-party merch is, “I like to give away joy for free.” My phone case is transparent, so the dart sticker went right in there after I snapped this.

I was sorely tempted to get takeout from somewhere. Or anywhere. I just couldn’t get interested enough in anything to make the effort. And I still had a bunch of fresh rice. So I opened a can of whoop-ass on a can of chili. It was lovely. I added ketchup and extra-sharp cheddar and read the news.

When it was time to write (that is, 8:30 or 9:00), I had a short list of stuff I wanted to get done. I wrote the week’s Friday 5 questions, my journal entry for Wednesday, and a quick review of Haunt’s Mind Freeze. Only it wasn’t very quick.

I’m trying to prepopulate my metal blog with content before I unleash it upon the foolish and the damned, but geez. I couldn’t settle on an approach or a voice, and it was frustrating. I want the writing to be sharp and clear, and I do want to inject my personality, as honestly as I can, because you know how it is when you write about certain areas: you want to establish some cred, and maybe you want people to know you’ve been listening to this music since you were fourteen, and that was a miiiiiiiiiillion years ago.

Except that the “honestly” part involves admitting what I don’t know and what I haven’t listened to. Yeah, I can name metalcore bands but I honestly don’t know what separates them from certain other -core bands, and post-metalcore is still a mystery to me. Yeah, I really enjoyed the Winterfylleth album this year, but black metal, as it grows on me, is still a little bit of a mystery to me. I don’t know yet what I like and why I like it.

This is the stuff I want to communicate because I’m not writing it for an audience. I’m writing it as an exploration of a music I love, and if the writing isn’t candidly reflective enough, it doesn’t serve its primary purpose.

I didn’t figure out until I was brushing my teeth before bed that I have to write a bunch of these before I find the voice I want. This may involve going back later and re-writing some of these early reviews, but that’s cool. I revise for living anyway. Onward. Let’s write a bunch of bad, schizophrenic reviews in order to learn to do this well enough for my intentions.

I saved the most pressing for last, one of the two stories for work I’m late with. I didn’t begin with the most urgent because I knew I’d take as long as I had. I finished at about 1:45 in the morning. If I had begun with it at 9:00, I’d still have finished it at 1:45 in the morning and wouldn’t have finished the other stuff. It sucked to be working so late, but I was determined, and moonlight is very slimming on my prepositional phrases. I opened a vein and bled myself onto the page, stopping periodically to lick the tip of the quill so as to save a few drops for my vampiric self.

When I’m in the middle of a ton of writing I’m not especially enjoying, I eat like a maniac. I’m a hundred percent sure it’s the sensory stimulation I want, something that doesn’t distract me from my work but makes me feel something besides the strain of squeezing transitions out of an already wrung-out brain. During my evening writing, I had a small bag of chips, three clementines, a large bottle of hard cider, and a Diet Pepsi. I caught myself several times wandering to the fridge just to open it up and see what might ignite one of my senses without taking me off my task. I very nearly made a tofu-kimchi salad, and I considered making a small pot of penne with a drizzle of olive oil and some grated cheese. Ugh. It was frustrating, but I’m glad I didn’t go too far overboard.

Writing is unhealthy, I tell you.

Then instead of going to bed, I re-watched a few of my favorite Ted Lasso moments from the “Diamond Dogs” episode. The darts scene. The “I like to give away joy for free” scene, and its subsequent “You, with the effing eyes” scene. I think I watched them three or four times each.

There was some silliness in the Cindy-Suzanne-Julie group text, which I stayed out of. I sent Ali this photo of my Ted Lasso stickers, which led to a short conversation. Crush Girl and I talked a little about one of my favorite coworkers who’s leaving next week. A real bummer, and she’s being mysterious about what she has lined up. She mentioned some things she’s lining up for the holidays. Good conversation, if a bit brief.

Here they come. The holidays. Are you ready? Are you connected? Are you drifting with the flotsam, hoping to be left by the receding tide with the rest of the jetsam? Don’t float alone. Leave me a comment if, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, you could use a little tethering.

Got up Wednesday at 2:30 after a 2:15 alarm. Filled the water jugs, went through the McD’s drive-through, and had the laundry all to myself until I was just about done.

I hadn’t had enough sleep, but I still felt okay to head for the beach when my wash was washed. I was really tempted. I just had this feeling, though, that I should get home. So I picked up a few things at Safeway (including eggs so I wouldn’t have to make jook without them anymore) and got home and back to bed for a couple of good hours.

I was super unproductive at work. Tried to finish the two late stories but ugh. I just couldn’t make things connect. The big pieces are on the page. I just couldn’t knit them together into stories. Didn’t complete anything.

After work, I mostly just listened to music. I’m going through all the 2020 albums I spun in order to make my year-end best-of list. It was kind of fun. Haunt, Sons of Apollo, Odious Mortem, Mark Morton, and Ryte, new albums in January this year, the days of innocence. Before the fall of man. I was mostly surprised by how much more I liked the Odious Mortem album than I did eleven months ago. Listened to it twice through, in fact.

Met with the NaNoers in the Skype. Nobody was in the mood to write, but I was committed, so I wrote an album review while chatting with the others. I know one of the others was writing, the one who Skypes from South Korea, but you know. It’s so soon after one month of wringing a novel out of our brains, I don’t blame anyone for wanting more time off.

I kinda hoped to go to bed early, then wake up early and finish those two stories. I soooooorta did the first part but not the second. “Early” is relative, and I was in bed by midnight. Baby steps, I guess.

Breakfast was a Big Mac combo in the laundry. The fries were a little disappointing. The sandwich was very good. The two large Diet Cokes with extra ice were kind of amazing. I only really like Diet Coke when it’s from McD’s with extra ice.

Lunch was a bowl of jook, this time with a couple of eggs. Good but not great. I added a splash of vinegar and some bean sprouts. The bean sprouts did not make it better. I was annoyed with myself.

For dinner, I got takeout from Liliha Bakery. You know, considering how close I live to Liliha Street, it’s kind of weird that I don’t go there more often, although I remember a period about a year and a half ago when I stopped there two or three times a week on my way home from work just to get a doughnut. I don’t drive home on the freeway, so I kind of go right through Liliha twice a day when I’m working in the office.

The good old days.

I got the meatloaf plate. Used to be a once-a-week special but it’s on the regular menu now and it’s the second-best thing on the menu. The pancakes are the best.

Meatloaf is one of my favorite things my mom used to make. I’ve seen some decent recipes for IP meatloaf. Maybe I’ll make one. I’ve made a few over the years but haven’t really gotten it right. In fact, I bought a silicone loaf pan specifically for meatloaf, but I’ve only used it for that once.

After all that writing, I ate the glazed doughnut I also brought home, for dessert.

I sent Sharon a link to this great Match.com commercial where Satan and the year 2020 hook up through the dating service. It’s hilarious. It led to a short talk about dating apps. She’s encouraging me to try one. She’s the second female friend in a month to suggest it.

Crush Girl texted me to talk about a power outage, and how she opted for a different store (not Target) and it was quiet. Safer. I also had a long text conversation with Ali about stuff I can’t really record here. It started with some talk about some people at work, and how she misses working with us.

Wednesday was kind of a blah day. And this week feels like it’s speeding by even though it has no reason to feel this way. I’m stuck in slow motion on seemingly everything, but pages on the calendar keep turning.

Leave a comment if you need more connectivity than you’re getting. These are dark days for us all, as I wrote in a comment on a friend’s blog. If you need a little bit of bonding, let’s do it.

Uggggggh. Crawled out of bed at 9:45 and punched in (figurative) at ten. Immediately put in for a half day’s vacation so I could catch up on a few things left unfinished over this last weekend of NaNoWriMo. Not enough sleep by far, but I did get more than five hours uninterrupted with Darth Vader, so it was the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.

I took a little while to get warmed up but worked steadily on the website thing they asked me to put up. This one was a little interesting because I worked closely with two DOs on the proposal, then they did their thing with it, and we raised the targeted amount (more than a million dollars). My boss wrote the press release, and I posted it on our website. Circle of fundraising life.

This shouldn’t have taken my entire half day of work, but I worked too slowly, and then there were late corrections, one of which took me a lot longer to figure out than it should have. Yeah, my brain is a long way from mossy these days.

I didn’t check out as early as planned because of it, but it was enough time to take care of my laundry night prep, and I had time to make dinner and watch The Bachelorette which continues to be stupid but I can’t take my eyes off the star. She’s beautiful.

I do believe in the possibility of love at first sight. A colleague once expressed his believe in it such that I could see it happening while I doubted I could ever experience it myself. I mean, not love. It’s one reason I think this show and others of its ilk are ridiculous, because even if you could fall in love in this setting, which I doubted, would you want to?

My feelings are evolving on this as I have now watched three episodes. These people are all physically attractive, and most of them are personally attractive too, although competition certainly doesn’t bring out the best in some. As we all know.

Here’s the thing, though. The bachelorette and her wooers get pretty handsy, and there’s some intimate kissing going on, the likes of which I’ve never done before knowing a person for years. Yeah, I know I’m not typical, but I think I’m naive, too. Is this the kind of making out people do on first dates when they’re into each other? It’s pretty steamy to these innocent eyes.

If you put me in this setting, where I exist solely to gain the favor of an incredibly beautiful woman, I think I present as my best self, or at least my best self away from a classroom. Which means I’m present, confident, focused on others, sensitive, and that thing I have where I know the right thing to say at the right time (whose flipside is knowing the most hurtful thing to say at the wrong time as well). This version of me kissing a woman like that in this way has a pretty darned good shot at believing he’s in love, and I don’t know. Maybe believing you’re in love is a step.

My experience believing the ineffable would indicate that you could slide right into true love, although I doubt you could be certain of it. Still, not being certain doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Anyway I can’t wait for this program to be over so this bachelorette can leave and I can be free.

I slept but not well. Kinda dropped off before closing any loops. Left my dinner dishes on my desk, unwashed and just about every light in the house on, so I forced myself up at about midnight to put stuff away and brush my teeth, then of course it took me a while to get back to sleep. I was going to go to the beach Wednesday morning, another reason for my taking that half day off, so I could reset my sleep schedule, but it’s not going to happen now. I’m at the laundry typing this now and I think it would be irresponsible to show up for work on the bad sleep I got.

For breakfast I made a small pot of turkey jook with hapa rice, lots of rosemary, and a little bit of garlic powder. It was yummy, but I didn’t have eggs, and I love to put an egg in my poultry soup. It was filling enough to cover lunch, too, so I skipped that and had a bag of chips for a snack. Dinner was a bowl of pasta with jarred sauce. I made the sauce with garlic flakes, tequila, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes, then topped the dish with extra-sharp white cheddar. It was quite good, although tequila’s not as good as vodka in red sauce.

Got a text from Crush Girl. We talked a little about Wednesday’s surf forecast and whether or not this evening was a good time to try Target. JB texted to talk about some spiritual stuff. Good conversation. Jennifer sent me another photo of some of her recently framed movie art. It’s nice. I questioned whether she had enough wall space for it all. Tiger sent me and those classmates in the Zoom call more info about her MLM.

A few of the NaNo Skypers did chat for a while Tuesday evening, but I stayed out of it. Laundry nights are going to be my no-writing nights this month. I think that’s going to be only a couple of times, though, because I think every other week is going to work well for me, especially during these holidays.

Someone left a Bible here in the laundry. I’m going to flip through it to see if there are interesting notes in margins.

Don’t go through pandemic days in a pandemic haze. Minutes hours and days run together in these times, and if you’re not doing what I’m doing — journaling the meaningless trivialities of daily existence — you can get lost. If you need someone to connect with, please leave a comment and I’ll send you some contact info. Especially if you’re watching The Bachelorette.

Sunday night. It’s such a mood. I stayed up far too late for no good reason other than dreading the weekend’s end. I was up until past five in the morning. Yeah, I’m a doofus.

So I got up at about 9:20 to check in at work at 9:30. I had stories I was behind on and website content to put up, but I wasn’t looking forward to any of it. Then a development officer needed help formatting a proposal. She’d done all the writing; just had some trouble with pictures and text and alignment and stuff.

It’s not her fault. I have the same problems with Word and layouts. It’s just not built for that kind of thing. I must prefer InDesign, as anyone doing this kind of work prefers it, but then the DOs I work with can’t do their own editing, which means lots of back and forth as they tweak it and I follow directions. When I get a little more juice around here, I’m going to urge very strongly that we get MS Publisher for the DOs who more actively build their own proposals.

While I had it, of course I gave it a little bit of an edit.

The rest of the day was pretty much working similarly with this DO on similar proposals, three in all. It was good work, good problem-solving without having to cut open my own vein for creative thinking. Late in the day another DO sent me copy for a case statement and asked me to do my thing.

I like editing. And the people I work with seem to appreciate it. And I got to procrastinate longer on those stories I’m behind on.

After work, I rewatched some of my favorite Ted Lasso moments and did some personal writing. In the middle of it, I got an email from Reid inviting me to a Zoom call, which I normally would completely ignore but a few of my other classmates were in the same email, so I figured I’d drop in and say hi.

It was nice to see the classmate, including Reid. But the call was just an hour, which was about all I could take. We talked sports, and then I encouraged my classmate Tiger to give one of her MLM pitches. Muahaha. I figure if I don’t spend money with her maybe someone else will. I’m trying to honor everyone who’s got a side hustle.

By the time the NaNo Skype got going, everyone who was going to get across the finish line had already crossed it. A couple of us weren’t going to make it, but we gave it a token effort. Mostly we just chatted about writing. It was a good way to end it.

We also talked about continuing the sessions. Not nightly, but at least weekly. This a good indicator that we had a good month.

I wrote 383 words, not exactly pulling in at the gate, but definitely landing the plane and taxiing a good distance.

It was trash night, so I took an hour for a little bit of decluttering, mostly throwing out stuff that’s been waiting a really long time to be thrown. I did not fill the bin, but the bin was very heavy as I rolled it to the street. Decent progress for the last week of NaNo, a holiday weekend, and a sleep-deprived few days.

It was around 1:00 in the morning when I was finished cleaning up. I don’t know what I did for the next four hours but it wasn’t going to bed.

Ugh.

I got a short text from Sharon about her BF meeting my friend Jeff for his job interview. That seems to have gone well. Also texts from the panicking DO about one of the proposals. I put that fire out quickly. Sylvia sent me photo of her dual monitor setup at home. Pretty nice. Also a photo of her dinner from JitB. She hates that place and swears she’s not going back. I stuck up for it. Ha.

Julie sent me a Christmas card even though I told her not to. I texted the Julie-Suzanne-Cindy group text a thank you, then Cindy sent a photo of the card next to her cat. That doofus Julie. She didn’t send the usual family photo of everyone in red jammies. She sent a selfie of her missing a front tooth. Kind of brilliant. I opened my card and declared her the victor.

Crush Girl texted to ask if I bought anything on Cyber Monday. This led to some nice conversation about stuff she had her eye on and stuff she bought. I said I was pretty much done with my Christmas shopping except for a few things I was getting in local stores, but I dropped a ridiculous sum on Prime Day this past summer so it was okay.

Breakfast was a fresh pot of hapa rice with some canned mackerel. Very good. Lunch might have been a slice of custard pie and small bag of chips. I definitely ate those and nothing else but I’m hesitant to call it lunch because what does that make me? Dinner was a bowl of canned chili with hapa rice.

I’m pretty sure there was another slice of custard pie for dessert.

You need more connection? Leave a comment. Pandemic sucks. Don’t be alone.

The virus is wreaking havoc upon the National Football League, which means it’s wreaking havoc upon fantasy football. Despite my dropping off to sleep very late Saturday night — it was Sunday morning not far from dawn — I was up ahead of my 7:30 alarm, set at that ridiculous hour so I could check last-minute NFL COVID news and set my lineups accordingly. In this case, “accordingly” meant “in a mad panic.”

Got back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 10:30 or so. I hadn’t made my mind up about going to the office, but as the morning went on I kept thinking of things that would be better done there. I took my time about it, and headed down at about 1:00. Picked up a phone-ahead order at Zippy’s. A custard pie and a Surf Pac. They bring it to your car.

I got out at about 6:00 after a decent amount of work. Came home, did a few chores, watched a little football and a little of A Simple Favor with the Paul Fieg commentary, took a short nap, and got to writing with the NaNoWriMo Skype people. Several of us have gone over the finish line, so there was a lot of congratulations and cheering the others on.

Since I finally worked through the horribly flawed climax, I got to write the resolution, which is much more fun. With one day left I have a conclusion and some loose ends to attend to, and then I’m putting it all aside until January so I can work on other personal writing projects.

I’ve written for at least a couple of hours every night for a month. Might as well ride that wave and take care of some long-neglected things on my to-write list.

This is the last of the NaNoWriMo pep talks I read that one night. Sue Grafton in 2009. This one makes me a little sad because she died last year.

Believe me, getting from beginning to middle to end is an incredible accomplishment in itself! Literary quality is in the eye of the beholder and who’s to say your novel won’t be right up there among the greats? All you have to do is work. All you have to do is push. Focus on the job at hand. Ignore the urge to second-guess yourself. This is not the time for introspection; it’s a time for charging on. Believe in yourself. Be determined to keep the promises you made when you first began. Your commitment to do this will see you through, even over rough ground.

So. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and write. You said you would do this so nod your head and say, “I will do this. I will do this. I will do this.” And then do this.

She wrote twenty-five novels about the same character, most of them good, a few of them outstanding, and a few of them terrible. I’d take that success rate.

I kind of skipped breakfast. Lunch and dinner were the Surf Pac, and dessert was a slice of the custard pie. Yes, I’ve been getting takeout a lot lately. Not sure what’s come over me, but I’m going to ride it for now. I did make that lovely two quarts of turkey broth, and that counts as cooking. I just haven’t actually dined on it yet.

Sunday texts included Jennifer, who sent me a photo of some beautiful box-office-sized movie poster art she framed. Harry Potter films. Yeah I have cool friends. I sent Sharon a text to tell her where Jeff’s business is so her boy could find it Monday for his job application.

Ali finished watching Ted Lasso so we spent a little bit of time chatting about that. Crush Girl and I texted a very little about her Thanksgiving.

I’m grateful the end of the month draweth nigh. Lately a month ends and I can’t believe it — where is all the time going and what have I to show for it? But this month I believe the month is over and although I’m not exactly looking forward to December, which I imagine is going to be a bit of a downer, I’m glad to be done with another NaNoWriMo.

Don’t go through the holidays disconnected. Leave a comment and I’ll send you contact deets. You can tether yourself to me as we fling through the deep space of pandemic holidays. Yikes.

I intended not to stay in bed all Saturday morning, scheduling myself for an afternoon nap if I needed one. So I got up around eleven, I think, to read the news and do some puzzles. I think there was a nap but I honestly don’t remember. The day passed idly, quietly, and quickly.

I watched my Blu-Ray of A Simple Favor, that Paul Feig film with Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, and Henry Golding. I reviewed it here. I had it in my Amazon cart for months and one day it came down in price to about a third the box office price, so I pulled the trigger a month or so ago.

I only saw the film a couple of years ago but Saturday almost felt like it was the first time. I remembered a couple of details and a couple of surprises, but the general arc of the story felt new. I appreciated that, and look forward to a few more screenings. This disc has a ton of extras, including three commentary tracks. I’m about a third of the way into the Paul Feig commentary, but of course the one I really want to get to is the Kendrick-Lively commentary.

I had a few chores to take care of, easy ones but time-consuming, including straining my turkey broth and putting it in storage containers. I don’t have a freezer for the broth, so I’m going to have to use it this week. Turkey stuff doesn’t last as long in the fridge as you’d think.

Did some personal writing as I watched the evening news, then met with the NaNoWriMo Skype to try and close the loop of my story. It was difficult. I don’t know how to wite the climax of a mystery, and I was kind of a wimp. I finally declared a word war, just to try and power my way through, and although it’s messy as heck and will need major, major revision, the story does break through the climax, so Sunday night and Monday night I just have to wrap it up. I’m expecting the resolution to be much easier than the climax.

My problem is that a climax in a mystery like this needs to have some action, and action is really my weakest thing. I’m a lot like Kevin Smith: I’d much rather write about people hanging out and conversing. It’s too bad it just doesn’t work at the apex of the narrative mystery arc.

Another problem: My character is a forty-something-year-old teacher, a small geeky woman who plays video games and listens to heavy metal. I absolutely do not want the climax to involve someone else coming to her rescue, but she’s no Kinsey Milhone. Kinsey is a former cop, so she was trained in hand-to-hand, and of course she carries a gun. Her series is hard-boiled. Cozy mysteries are soft-boiled (I didn’t make this terminology up; that’s what they call them), so there isn’t supposed to be much shooting for violence. Violenct acts occur away from the narrative.

If I’m going to write a female heroine in this story, as I am determined to do, I have to make her the agent of her success, but if I want to make it believable, she has to use her brains and somehow overcome the person threatening her life.

I’m not smart enough to think of a way for her to do it.

But I wrote something involving a pair of scissors and not too much personal injury. Terribly, I then had her running away to escape while the police move in. This doesn’t satisfy me. I need her to actually have the situation mostly under control by the time the police arrive.

In Pitch Perfect 3, Fat Amy is trained in hand-to-hand combat, but in addition to out-fighting her opponent, she also throws a handful of wasabi powder in his face. I need something like that. And then maybe a hit on the head with a heavy object.

Too cliche? Maybe.

I actually have another idea involving some bonsai wire, and I thought I was going to write that, but in the frenzy of getting words on the page, the bad guy forces himself on the heroine and she plays along, making out with him before she uses the scissors. I couldn’t think of a way for her to get the bonsai wire around his throat while they’re in the kissing position. I’ll work it out. I think the bonsai wire is really my best bet here, and not as cliche in this genre.

Oh, you know what might make more sense? Those super flexible saws on wires. I just Google “finger saw” and it took me to what I wanted: wire saw. That would totally be appropriate for the setting.

See? Journaling helps with all kinds of different thought activities.

Now I kind of can’t wait to do a revision. In January.

This is from Piers Anthony’s 2008 NaNoWriMo pep talk:

Here’s a secret: fictive text doesn’t necessary flow easily. Most of the time it’s more like cutting a highway through a mountain. You just have to keep working with your pick, chipping away at the rock, making slow progress. It may not be pretty at first. Prettiness doesn’t come until later, at the polishing stage, which is outside your month. You just have to get it done by brute force if necessary. So maybe your ongoing story isn’t very original. That’s okay, for this. Just get it done. Originality can be more in the eye of the reader than in any objective assessment.

You can make it from a standing start, even from a foolish daydream when you should have been paying attention to the Pep Talk. You will want to try for a bit more quality, of course, and maybe a spot of realism. Garner an Idea, assemble some Characters, find a suitable place to start, and turn them loose in your imagination. Now go home and start your engines!

His pep talk is actually not nearly as inspiring as the others I looked at that night, but for a time in the 80s he had to be the most prolific writer of speculative ficion in the world, publishing three novels a year, almost all best-sellers. He always had one novel in the first-drafting phase, one in revision, and one in proofs, so every four months, a new Piers Anthony novel.

Yes, of course he sacrificed quality for quantity, as almost any of his fans will tell you, and the beginnings of his series were always great, with subsequent novels in every series not as good as the ones before. But his good stuff is great, and I would happily publish four bad novels if it meant two very good ones as well.

He uses the same metaphor Katherine Paterson uses in her pep talk. The slab of stone. Let these words on this date be a reminder to me that when NaNoWriMo organizers ask me, the esteemed and favorite novelist of teens and middle-aged female math teachers alike, to write a pep talk, I will use the Great Pacific Garbage Patch metaphor.

Breakfast was cold pizza. A very late lunch was turkey sliders. A very late dinner was the last of the cold pizza. In between I had a few clementines, a small square of lemongrass chocolate, an impromptu cocktail with Maker’s Mark, vanilla extract, simple syrup, and bitters with lots of ice, and a few sips of turkey broth, which came out wondefully.

I texted Ali to remind her to check out Ted Lasso, which led to a long conversation about why and how, but she watched the first episode for free and then binged the rest. I’m happy I’ve gotten at least one person hooked on it.

I also texted Penny a reminder and haven’t heard back. I got one text from Crush Girl responding to something I said a few days before. She’s bee a little quiet this weekend. I’m hoping it means she’s having a blast.

I’m having a good weekend but I may take a few days of vacation leading up to Christmas. Just don’t really feel like working my butt off as this crappy year ends.

Leave a comment if you need more connection in the crappy days of this crappy pandemic. Don’t be alone.

I woke up a few times Friday morning after putting myself to bed at just before sunrise. Still managed to get some decent sleep. I guess you can when you don’t sweat getting up at a certain time. I think I crawled out of bed at half past noon.

Did a little bit of writing. Ate cold pizza for breakfast-lunch. Watched a bunch of Ted Lasso episodes again. Laughed some more. Cried some more. Go watch it, will you?

Thursday night I put my half of the turkey carcass in the IP and used it as a slow cooker for the first time. Ran it for twelve hours, then let it rest, then ran it for eight more on Friday night. The letting it rest isn’t part of the process. I should have just let it go all that time. One cooking blogger I looked at said she leaves the carcass in the slow cooker on low for two days.

I’ve got my own method, of course, but it was my first time using the IP for turkey broth, and I wanted to see if there were any cautions. There weren’t, as far as I could tell.

I took it about as easy Friday as I ever take it, spending most the day lounging in bed or watching Ted Lasso. I did finally take Pitch Perfect 3 out of my DVD player, but didn’t put anything else in. I figured I’ll find something later. I just wanted to get out of my Pitch Perfect rut.

Readers of this space who are keeping close track will notice I didn’t go to the laundry this week. With the stress of Thanksgiving and work, plus NaNoWriMo, I figured this would be a good time to skip a week. I did have to get drinking water, so around eight in the evening I drove to the gas station convenience store on the corner, across the street from Rainbow’s, and filled four gallon jugs. I may go back and fill a few more before my next laundry night.

The NaNoWriMo Skype was low-key, but the others wrote well. I took really long getting started and I worked slowly. I was at the climax of my story and I don’t know how to write the climax of a mystery. We did a few word wars and I made my characters keep going and at about 11:00, I went over the 50,000 word mark. Another NaNo project completed.

Not completed by a mile, though. Still, it feels good.

For dinner I had my entire half of the Chinese chicken salad from the Thanksgiving meal. It wasn’t going to last another day, so I just focused on that. It’s a dish I don’t have very often. I can’t even remember when I last had it, but it was really good. I love that dressing, whatever it is, and think I would like to adapt it for my next tofu salad. Thankfully, there are at least two or three recipes in the HBA cookbook.

Ali and I texted quite a bit in between my short naps. She wanted some advice on some photos she was about to share. That was a fun conversation. Sharon’s BF is going to apply for a job with one of my friends, so I was the intermediary, getting info from the friend and sending it to Sharon. I told Sharon to make sure the BF mentions Cheap Trick during the interview. Jeff’s favorite band.

I finally called it a night (sort of) at about three in the morning, then re-watched the final two episodes of Ted Lasso and dropped off to sleep around six in the morning. The timing there is weird because that’s not even two hours of video, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it went down.

An unremarkable day, aside from completing another NaNoWriMo project. I’ll take it.

Leave a comment if you want someone to connect with in these cold gray days of doing nothing. I may not be as useful to you as I was to Ali and Sharon, but I can try.