Indigo North London
86 Fanshawe Park Rd, London Ontario
January 27th
12-4 PM
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Category: Goals
How to Be Productive
Click to enlarge.
It’s five AM, I haven’t been to bed yet, and I’m planning on Getting Shit Done today. Hope springs eternal.
(via Stephen’s Lighthouse)
This Week in Sniderville: 20
I am beat.
I had the most pleasantly productive week! A quick rundown, since it’s Saturday night and this is a long weekend and I got shit to do:
I wrote an entire short story, from scratch, front to back, in one three hour sitting this week. I’ve never written so much so quickly in my life. It’s still in its rough stage, of course, but still… I was riding high after that one. Expect it soon!
I’ve been on a mad “homeowner” kick: rearranging our family budget to reach our financial goals for the next house, and doing lots of little things around our current house in the meantime. I’m planning on using a chunk of my upcoming vacation to paint the front porch, and I stayed home today to “putter around the house”, which makes me feel old. But you know what? I’m loving how things are coming together.
We donated a ton of old clothes, talked over our Big Plan for the next few years, and next we’ll start the conversion of our front bedroom from ill-used waste of space into our dressing room. I’m just a tad excited.
I swear there was more, but between the fireworks outside and the cool breeze and the siren song of the alcohol in the kitchen, I’m feeling a tad distracted.
How was your week?
This Week in Sniderville: 18
People have been asking why I’ve been updating less these days.
This week, there were two reasons: one, I was working the morning shift and getting up at the ungodly hour of four AM, which would turn all but the morning-est of morning people into shambling zombies. I was lucky if I made it past twilight before crashing hard into bed. (And people wonder why I’m trying so hard to make a writing career for myself — when I’m fully self-employed, four AM will be the result of a long night hunched over the keyboard, AKA “heaven”.)
And two (and by far, the better): I’ve been writing my ass off. I have a big, exciting project in the works, and by the time I bang out my daily quota (and then, thank you Universe, double and sometimes triple it) I’m pooched. Writing is my second job right now, and as anyone who’s worked more than one job knows, by the time your second shift is over the last thing you want to do is… well, anything, really. After I’ve worked DayJob then worked WritingJob, the most I feel like doing is staring at the tv or reading a few chapters before passing out for the night. Good for my career — each day getting me closer! — but not so great for being social.
It takes a lot out of me, being my own cheerleader and drill sergeant at once, but it’s the only choice I have for the moment. I have only 3.5 years left of my Five Year Plan, and I have to hustle if I’m going to make it.
So apologies (and much love!) to those of you who’ve been asking for more from me. I love hearing from you, and I do listen. I just need to get my head on straight again first. That fifteen hours of sleep I got last night is a good start.
How was your week?
This Week in Sniderville: 17
This week I learned that apparently the Internet hates Canadians. My sister-in-law called and asked me to grab something off Amazon for her, since I shop there all the time and have an account already. It was an inflatable pool slide, and she wants it for my nephew’s upcoming birthday. Sure, no problem. It was just over a hundred bucks, not bad considering its size. I plopped it into my cart and went to finalize the purchase.
The item was selling for $114. Any wager on the shipping price?
$205. TWO HUNDRED AND FIVE DOLLARS. What the everloving FUCK, Internet? We’re a good people, I promise. What did we ever do to you?? Needless to say she quickly selected something else instead.
The Evil One approves.
Last night I went to see The Purge with my friends Dani and Leslie. I’m not sure we all saw the same movie. Dani said it was lame, and Leslie posted a scathing review. I left wishing I’d written it myself.
Today I posted this on Facebook:
“I’M GROUNDED.
In an effort to catch up on my hilariously-behind writing schedule, I’m grounding myself for 24 hours. Effective 5:00PM today, I will not be answering texts, phone calls, or messages on Facebook.
Exceptions are family and if your hair is on fire. And if it’s your hair I’ll require photographic proof. I got shit to do.”
I need to keep reminding myself: if I keep on track with my Big Plan, someday this —
— will be my day-to-day life.
How was your week?
When I Think How Good (Life) Can Be…
“Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.”
– Truman Capote
Today is a holiday for most of Canada, including Ontario, where I live.
All long weekend I’ve been having these… flashes, presentiments I guess, of what life would be like if I were ready to write full-time. I mean, for the last 72 hours I haven’t worn a lab coat; I haven’t worn safety glasses or gloves or sensible footwear. I haven’t spent any time at all doing things according to what other people wanted.
Instead I spent time outdoors, with family. I rose when I felt like; I stayed up late, reading. In short, I made my own schedule, a privilege denied me by my workaday week. And while I never stopped thinking about writing or where my career is headed, it was with excitement and hope, not dread.
When I came to the page I felt refreshed and thrilled to be so lucky, and I can’t help but yearn for the time when this will be my daily routine. Nothing excites me more than the idea of spending eight, ten, twelve hours at my desk, watching movies play in my head while I chase the words that describe them.
I had one of these little flashes just now, sprawled on the bed reading We Need to Talk About Kevin (which is brilliant, by the way). The sun’s going down, and the branches of the trees are starting to do that black-silhouette thing I love so much. I just felt so calm, so at peace, and it makes me want to move forward into the time when I won’t be under fluorescent lights at this time of evening. When I can look forward to spending time watching my bats after a long day of writing, when I can sit on the back deck with a hot cup of coffee and not have to worry about whether it’ll keep me up that night.
I get these little glimpses, and they make me briefly so happy. But like a junkie, I want more. It used to hurt unbearably, reaching for something that seemed so out of reach. But every month my writing’s earning a little more, then a little more, and it makes me start to think: There could be something here, if only I can keep on track and push myself a just a little further each day.
Damn You, Netflix.
I haven’t really watched tv in years.
Not in a snobby, pretentious, too-good-for-such-frivolity kind of way, where you tell everyone ever that you don’t watch it in order to sound more interesting and clever. More in the sense that DayJob, which is also sometimes AfternoonJob and even NightJob, hampers any sort of consistent schedule. I’m simply not always home at the same time, so I don’t catch shows with any kind of regularity.
And yes, I know about PVR. And I’m too cheap to buy one.
So, enter Netflix. I’ve wanted it forever, since it neatly solves this little dilemma. We finally cracked about a month ago and set it up.
Oh sweet merciful crap. All those box sets I wanted? Right there. Cheesy, campy horror movies at my beck and call? Ditto. I don’t waste time cursing terrible buffers or trying desperately to stream a show from a website with cramped bandwidth. I press play and it’s there.
Terrible for productivity.
The thing with working on an art career is that you have to cram as much work in as you can, around the confines of day jobs and family and scant nutritional intake. You need to wake up early, or stay up late, chasing your Muses down and pinning them until they squeak out ideas. You need to love your desk, since you’ll be there for hours. That’s the idea, anyway.
But now that my desk is in our living room, the siren song of the bigscreen is almost too much to bear. I have all the Charmed you could ever watch, it says. Come watch Pumpkinhead for the hundredth time. Then the couch gets in on the act, reminding me that I have a wonderfully comfortable pillow and blanket awaiting me, and maybe I could just relax for half an hour.
Which becomes an hour.
Which becomes two.
Lame as it is, it looks like I need to start scheduling blocks of tv watching for myself. Scheduling time and sticking to it. I’m not getting anywhere being tethered to this remote.
But the couch really is comfy. And they have the whole series of Alfred Hitchcock Presents…
I think I’m in trouble here.
This Week in Sniderville: 8
I came here to update about what I did this week, then realized: I didn’t do anything.
I mean, I went to DayJob, I came home drained from DayJob, I camped out on the couch in front of Netflix and I just sat, like a zombie, and not a cool gore-covered-horror-zombie, but a half-asleep vegetative zombie in coffee-stained corporate clothes.
It’s times like this that I remember: this is not who I was cut out to be. I’m not the corporate type — I don’t find fulfillment under fluorescent lights. I don’t find joy in obtuse lingo, or pleasure in progress reports. I’m not big on meetings or memos on company letterhead.
I don’t want the carrot.
I’m not unique: I’m sure most of us probably don’t really dig working for The Man. I’m not trying to paint myself as special. I just find it frustrating, to be so completely in love with writing, and then for something that I… don’t love (is that PC enough?) to use up so much of my energy. It’s exactly like that Onion article: the thing I want to do most in life is being hindered by the thing I like doing least.
I have a plan in place for working at home, as a full-time writer. It’s something that could happen in the next few years. I just have to push through this slump, to not let office politics wear me out before I can make the rest of my life happen.
I wish I had something more interesting or lighthearted to write about this week, instead of a whiny tantrum. But honestly? Sniderville posts are for recapping the week, and this week was pretty much a write-off.
Sorry, dudes.
Here’s to a better week, next week.
This Week in Sniderville: 6
This week was a quiet one.
I worked long shifts at Day Job, until all I wanted to do was get home and crawl into bed and consume worrying amounts of Netflix.
I wrote. I wrote more than I have in a long, long time. The novel is coming along.
I held onto the belief that someday I will write for a living.
I made lazy-person crab soup:
Chicken broth: boil. Pad Thai noodles: boil in broth until delicious. While waiting: chop up obscene amounts of cilantro and green onions. No, that’s not enough. More. Then more. Throw fake-crab chunks in the pot. Throw green onions in the pot. Cook it for like another minute, until the crabby chunks start to fall apart. Slop in a bowl, add so much cilantro that you can’t see your soup anymore. The end.
I went to have the car serviced, and found out that some part I didn’t even know existed needs replacing, and they pretty much want me to pledge them my firstborn child. I signed happily, because I’m not having any children. Joke’s on them.
Tonight I’m going out drinking with my girls; tomorrow will either be very productive or very slow, depending on recovery needs.
How was your week?
The Onion Weighs In on Chasing Your Dreams
“I have always been a big proponent of following your heart and doing exactly what you want to do. It sounds so simple, right? But there are people who spend years — decades, even — trying to find a true sense of purpose for themselves. My advice? Just find the thing you enjoy doing more than anything else, your one true passion, and do it for the rest of your life on nights and weekends when you’re exhausted and cranky and just want to go to bed…” – David Ferguson
Any of my fellow Creatives need a kick in the butt today? Find the rest of the article here.
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