Sudden inspiration, or fruitless distraction?

Today I am almost frantic to work on my historical novel, THE WITCH OF BADENOCK. The main character keeps talking to me, but I've had such a hard time with that story that I've almost decided not to go back. It's the history part - I'm constantly doubting myself, is this accurate? Is that accurate? I should just say to feck with that, and write the story to please me and only me, because the truth is that's where the best stories come from.

So I might plug in to her later, but first I must work, work, work! Christmas cards to sign by the hundreds. Customers calling, customers leaving voice meessages and sending emails to follow up on their voice messages. I love my work, I'm just sick of it right now. I'd rather be writing.

I have some lovely new recipes to share, one for turnip gratin you can find over at Simply Recipes, and one for Bread Pudding with rum-butterscotch sauce and raisins.

For now, there's a customer at the counter who wonders why the computer he bought four years ago was fine then, but not now. (Sigh)

Because there's really only today.

Today, I will write morning pages to try to clear some of the static out of my brain. There are some family dramas that are looping through the old gray matter, and it's interfering with how much I enjoy my life. I'm a little rattled - I cannot find my center. These things shall not be tolerated!

Today I will eat a ham and swiss cheese sandwich with extra swiss. And whatever else gets in my way that looks chocolatey.

Today I will not answer any call originating from a 1-800 number. So piss off, whoever you are. I'm bloggin', heah.

Today I will remember that I am awesome - divine, even - and I expect you to remember that you are too, young lady.

Today I will remember the importance of gratitude.

Today I will reconsider the begining of the novel. I need another scene, 2-3K, to go before the graveside scene. Plus, I have not forgotten my halloween X. It's coming, promise!

Decisions slow in coming, but well made

"Stephenie Meyer was a stay-at-home mother to three boys, and she wrote TWILIGHT in three months. Nobody even knew she was doing it."

My husband didn't immediately turn from the television to address my remark, but when he did, the expression in his green eyes was cautious and a tiny bit resigned. We've had this conversation before. It never goes well. Why do I always bring it up again?

It's not about Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling or any otherbody writer who has manged to type out enough consecutive, related words to tell a story. It's not about the fact that they did it while their lives were full of other commitments. This conversation is about the fact that I. Can. Not.

My husband is the kind of person who never walks away from an unfinished job. I know this about him, and if he's in the middle of something I know he needs to give it most of his attention until it is done. Behind this man is a list of fixed things and stuff taken care of that boggles my mind. I respect him, and all the people in the world that are like him. I want him to tell me that I can do that too. I can be like that.

Except if I could - if I was - I would have finished this effing novel by now.

The conversation lead into deeper and deeper emotional waters that churned with my frustration and feelings of failure. I wanted him to reach in and pull me out, tell me what a capable and effective person I am.

But my husband - he tells me the truth. Always. And what he said sounded something like: if I want to write a book - and he does not doubt that I CAN - I will have to crack down and Actually Do It. I might even have to stop wasting time on the internet reading blogs and such.
Damn that man. He really makes me mad sometimes. Clearly he just does not understand. (S)

But he also said a few other True Things. He said that I need to remember that I am a mother - and that I have always wanted to be a mother, and the children come first with me. Since I am away from them at work full time, I spend my home-time doing crafts with them, reading to them, baking with them, and screaming my fool head off at them. I take care of people. That is who I am, and it is good.

I like that. That makes me feel better, but still, I walk around with this thing I could not accomplish. Other writer friends - the ones on the internet, of course! - have told me and told me that I need to get myself a system that works. If I'm serious about writing professionally then I need to BE professional about it. Eventually they got bored of telling me this and wandered away. I don't blame them, actually. I have been moaning about this and beating myself up about this for years and It. Stops. Now.

I am a mother first, and that is just who I am. I am a business owner, and I have to be that too. I am proud of who I am wearing both of those hats. I am a wife too, and a very lucky one (as you can see.) I want to keep that in good working order. So all of these things are right with my world, and I think I forget to remember that.

I have made a decision: I am leaving the guilt behind.

I'm not letting myself completely off the hook, though. I can't face the prospect of leaving my writer-self on some deserted island. I will continue to write, and I will continue to ask more of myself, just without the anxiety that rides high in my chest when I don't get to the page. It's just too much drama, man. It's always there, in the back of my mind. And I am not a failure.

Let's face it: I am not finishing this novel this year. It's just not on. But I will build a better writing habit. I've decided that I will write something every day. No word minimums for now, just something - whether it's morning pages or a journal entry or a scene for the novel. I'm not giving up. I just want writing to be a joy and an outlet in my life, and eventually - some day - a success to add to these other important things I'm working so hard at.

A post, in honor of...what was I saying?

Every once in a while, I have a day through which I am forced to wander wide-eyed without the benefit of any attention span at all. Goldfish Day, I call it, and it's roughly oh, say, every 28 days. Today is that day. Blink. Blink.

In honor of Goldfish Day, some nonsense and trivia.

What do you get when you cross PMS with GPS?
A crazy b*tch who WILL FIND YOU.

25% of Canadians do not consume fruits or vegetables on a daily basis. According to a study cited by CBC, anyway. 40% - no milk or milk products. What are people DOING to themselves? And where is the chip dip?

New music loves - I highly recommend you check out Missy Higgins, Eric Hutchinson, and Tristan Prettyman. Hey look, my grapes have seeds today! Life is full of surprises.

I need to write my punishment scene for M:A today. I think I have it planned out, and if the customers would just let me RELAX already, I'd type it out.

Try this. Get some Sherrif cooked banana pudding, and prepare it according to the package directions. Pour it into oven-safe bowls, timing it so it's setting for about 45 minutes before dessert. Then you mix 1/4 cup of brown sugar with 1 tsp cinnamon. When it's time for dessert, top the bowls with a hefty sprinkly of the cinnamon sugar, and 5-6 slices of sliced banana. Pop them under the broiler until the sugar melts and bubbles a bit. You're welcome! (And that's fruit AND DAIRY, Canadians. Scientific fact.)

So, I'm going to have to answer these voicemail messages, and I'm thinking maybe it's best if I get back to people before they get angry. It's much harder to focus on what they're saying when they're yelling at me.

In which summer is over, and the time to blog is nigh

Has it really been over a month since I blogged? Really?

The truth is, I actually blog in my head all the time. I plan what I'm going to say about whatever shiz is going on at the moment, and I just skip the unnecessary step of posting it to the intenet. because, you know, same difference. (This is how I can tell when I'm not writing enough, I start describing everything in my head.)

But for those of you who are actually following along - or are trying to - I see you and I loves you. Here is a quickie version of my life lately.

We took an end-of-summer camping trip with my parents and it was all sorts of wonderful. Sunny like crazy. We went to the beach, we watched the kids, we swam in the ocean, we drank beer. We ate a lot. We sat around the campfire on warm, starry nights. We might have had more beer. We did not drink a lot of water. That's how we ended up meeting those nice firemen the day we went to Sandspit and I wasn't feeling so good. No, really, not good. First my thumbs curled toward my baby fingers, then my hands curled toward my elbows, and my arms curled toward my chest. I couldn't keep them still. Close sounds were far, far things seemed close. My husband was talking, saying something unimportant like "What is the matter with you?" and "Ok, we need some help now." My legs were numb. I couldn't form thoughts into words, and I didn't really care. I was just too busy being sick.

So that's what dehydration feels like. Hunh. Water, anyone?

And then we worked a little more, and then we went to my parents' cottage. We made up nicknames for each other, like Leggy McTallsky (my sister), Jealous McShorty (me), Wacky McLoonybin (mom, who else?) Grumpy McKnow-it-all Jr and Sr (my husband and my father, peas in a pod) Noisy McStinkyfeet (my son) and Temper McScreechyson (my daughter.) We ate birthday cake, we walked beside the ocean. We flew a kite. Dad and Hubby installed a new washer and dryer. Hey, whatever floats your boat.

Now, it's workworkwork, and Mercury is in retrograde again. Go ahead, laugh. Forgive me if I don't join in; I've been hung up on, threatened, and told off more in the past two days than I thought was possible. People are out of their minds. And no, I don't believe in astrology, but this thing works. We'll have a stretch of crazy people, bizarre situations, and someone will say, is Mercury in retrograde again? And it is. It works.

So I called my husband, and I asked him to meet me at Costco after work. Bulk therapy coming right up.

I have been so out of touch...I miss people!

Bizarro Thursday

Yesterday was a write-off. I managed to keep a smile on it most of the time, even when the one guy asked me if I've been saved by Jesus.

Today I feel good, even though I was up late again. New Moon. And the shower tap exploded at around midnight, woke up the littlest. It actually could have been the shockwave of my dear husband's frustration that woke her - nearly silent but felt all through the house nonetheless. It raises the hair on the back of your arms, your skin goes cold and then warm again, it messes up your hair, and you tiptoe away laughing and hoping he won't notice.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, right. I hereby declare that today I WILL BE EFFECTIVE. I will harness the full force of the almighty caffeine buzz. I will eschew all forms of distraction.

Like this blog. And yours too.
See ya!

Gang Agley

Sometimes, when a day starts out gang agley, it wants to keep going in that direction.

And I thought today might be like that, because I was late getting to bed. Or rather, I was late getting to sleep. You mothers know the difference. There's the midnight call from the littlest - the one with such a knack for knowing when Mummy has just drifted off. And then, while I was getting her settled, I just had to listen to her talking in her sleep, and laugh quietly to myself because she really never stops arguing, even in her dreams. And then I noticed how much she's grown, and I was watching the splay of her little limbs in the lamplight, and reaching out to touch her from time to time when I just needed to.

And then I was reading New Moon, and it isn't the least bit boring.

Then I remembered that Biggest pulled out a tooth just before bed, and brought it to me on a bloody tissue, a new hole in his grin. (When am I going to get used to the way he changes?) So I found some money, and crept up into his bed. It was a quest, let me tell you. The boy has seven pillows, Pokemon cards and Bakugan toys, four books and two long legs tangled in a Hot Wheels comforter for me to get around, just to fetch an itsy bitsy tooth from the farthest corner of his kingdom. (We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious.) Note to self: tell him the tooth fairy likes the tooth left at the top right corner of the bed, next time.

So it was something like 2am before I got to sleep, so I arrived at work five minutes before the store opened.

There was a car parked in my spot, and the owner of it had one foot propped on my window ledge. He was staring through the darkened Window, and I called him a very rude name (under my breath) as I pulled in beside him. Seriously, man. The sign says we open at 9:30. The door is locked, the lights are off. Back off.

He's a courier, and I'm grateful for that because it means I can just sign his paper and take my box and then he'll move his car out of my spot and I can open the store on time. Right? No. Turns out, he's also an A+ certified Computer Technician from Fancy College in Who Cares. And he'd love to work with us? Maybe even just on weekends? For free? No?

My first customer wanted to know why one of the processors on my website has the letters NA beside it. I told him it was because it's on allocation, and my vendors have (temporarily) stopped providing pricing on it because they have no stock. He assured me that there were other stores in town who have it, for $169. I told him that was lovely news.

Sometimes, this shitty stuff just sinks through your skin and colours your outlook for the whole day. And when you're dealing with the public, I find you usually get what you expect. If you approach a person expecting they're going to be a pain in your ass, that's how you will perceive them. I know this. I take a lot of deep breaths.

And when I am standing in front of someone who does not value my expertise or appreciate the time I am taking, when I can feel anger rising, I focus my inner eye on my littlest's sleeping face. I think about talking with my biggest, quite a while after he was supposed to be in bed. I remember that this is not my life. They - and the man who gave them to me - are my life.

And I have it pretty damned good.