I’m supposed to be writing something that’s due very soon, which means all I want to do is write the blog entry that’s been sitting in my head for a week. I’ll get this out, and then I can go over to Word and finish the outline for the new novel. I procrastinate work with other work. It’s not healthy, I’m sure, but it’s what I do. Continue reading
Tag: Excuses
Remember Me?
I had an idea for an entry last weekend, but never got around to writing it. I tried three times this week to sit and write something. But it’s been pretty busy. So instead I uploaded some pictures to Flickr. Does that count?
meshed.
reality.
reality is this: i’m currently blogging in my kitchen, waiting for an english muffin to toast in the toaster oven. i am toasting an english muffin because it is the only thing I could find to eat, and i’m blogging because I don’t know what else to do with these five minutes. I’m reading a book and it’s cold in the house and stee’s at poker and I’ve been home for less than an hour and I already went through eight Oprahs on TiVo and can’t find something to do that doesn’t remind me that I haven’t had any dinner. Continue reading
page one.
I’m at the coffee shop, sitting at a table, getting ready to start on my new novel. I haven’t come into this shop for the past two months except for an early morning coffee to go a couple of times. But I’m pretty sure I started my last two novels right about here, and I thought it’d be a good place to get the first couple-hundred words written. I’ve just sent in the last edits for Why Moms Are Weird, and I got the phone call this week asking when the next novel will be finished. Finished!
So, here I am. Starting over. Page one.
more excuses
I’m glad Irwin’s giving some excuses as to why the very last thing I want to do right now is write a blog entry. It’s 12:30 in the morning and I’ve just finished writing something that’s due tomorrow. This is the first night in a week that I got home from work before midnight. I got home at 11:15. I’m crazy tired. Whacked-out tired. Tired like I just realized I originally typed this without Irwin’s online pseudonym and then wondered what would happen if I’d outed him and then I giggled because I still need to get him back somehow for capping on my hair last week.
[scripty]
Pamie
Holy crap, it’s early, but we just left here and now we’re here again and do you know what we’re supposed to be writing right now?
Irwin
You look good today, pamie.
Pamie
[after a beat]
Asshole.
[Pamie runs to the bathroom and fixes her hair, which was messed up because it was cold and raining.]
Pamie
Better?
Irwin
Yes.
[a few seconds later]
Kimberly
You look lovely today.
Pamie
Would you do me a favor and tell Irwin what you just said?
Kimberly
[into phone] Why you busting on my girl?
Irwin
Did pamie tell you that she only looks lovely because I told her to pull herself together?
[I know both parts of this conversation because these two are sitting ten feet away from each other.]
Irwin
Did you see her when she came in?
Kimberly
Oh. Actually. Well. I don’t know if I should say anything, but my friends have this expression… “Rode hard and put away wet?”
Pamie
I am through with all y’all.
[/scripty]
And as Irwin mentioned, last Tuesday I thought it was Friday. Actually, just about every day this week I thought it was Friday. When you leave work on Monday when it’s actually Tuesday, it might as well be Friday. I woke up Tuesday at 5:30 (I’d gotten home at 12:30) for my 7am call thinking I was late. Full-on late-for-school-missed-a-test panic, walking down the hallway chanting, “No, my call is seven. My call is seven. My call is seven. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
So I’m sorry I’ve been away. It’s not you, it’s me. I’ve had a headache in my eye for three days. I’m gonna go try and get a couple of hours sleep.
[Note: This doesn’t mean if you’re my friend you get to stop calling or emailing, going, “Well, you seemed so busy.” I need you to call me, understand? Pretend I’m away at camp or school and this blog is the postcard I sent that says, “I’m having a great time. Please send pictures of home because I miss you.”]
Dear Microsoft Word,
Please stop crashing. Why do you hate these five pages I keep trying to write? I’m so close to finishing this draft of the manuscript and I really need to send it to my editor and I’d really like for you to stop having to “unexpectedly shut down.” Because it makes me cry, Microsoft Word.
“It looks like you’re trying to write a letter!”
No. It looks like I’m fixing to have a breakdown. Please stop crashing. Continue reading
writer’s ear + office ass = runner’s tears
Well, it’s official. Lately when I order my coffee from whichever boy is behind the counter that day, he calls me by my name and makes a joke about either my current order, or one I’ve had before. I’ve never had a coffee shop where people know me by name. This means I have logged some serious hours here, and the staff is very friendly. Continue reading
I keep starting entries and
I keep starting entries and then deleting them, which leads me to think it’s time to take a little Spring Break. My days are spent deep in book revisions, which is way too boring to discuss over here. I’ll come back when I start to have something that resembles a life.
work in progress
I’m trying to work on a novella to meet my deadline (More info when available, but the anthology should be hitting bookshelves this June!) and decided listening to the new Bjork album for the first time would get me in the right mood to type up edits and rework certain paragraphs.
Track Three has me terrified that someone is sneaking up behind me with a knife. Continue reading