66th ROW80 Check-In

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 4 2012
The writing challenge that knows you have a life

My goals are all time investment and are detailed on the  ROW80 page   I keep track of the time invested with a Google Doc spreadsheet linked on the goals page and also in each check-in along with a screenshot of the most recent days.

These check-in posts will contain any commentary I have about encounters with the goals since the previous check-in and any relevant links.

Below the commentary is my current reading list for the READ CRAFT goal.

View the spreadsheet Google Doc directly

View the goals list

Holding steady on all fronts tho at the bare minimum in all cases but READ CRAFT and DAYDREAM STORY.  Am also reading more fiction and keeping my blog post prep down to under an hour on most days to make time for the fiction reading.

This week, starting on Wednesday I was on duty here at Mom's for meal prep and seeing to Mom's needs while my sister who is her caregiver attended a day retreat.  That was to last through Sunday evening but on Friday my sister-in-law came up from Portland to get Mom and take her to spend the week-end with my brother's family.  I was still responsible for lunch and dinner prep for myself and my nephew but that freed up many extra hours unexpectedly.

Did I use any of those hours for writing?  No.  :(

I did extra reading in craft and fiction and some extra daydreaming in the storyworld.  But for the most part I used those extra hours for catching up on news podcasts (5 hours worth) and playing in the metadata of my ebook library which has become my substitute for playing solitaire--fixing author, title, series name and number, priority, tags, blurbs and cover image.  I find it both addicting and soothing like I do playing solitaire and crocheting and when I don't put a boundary on it grows like morning glory aka bindweed.  I easily find myself still at it after 12 or 20 hours.

I mean it is absolutely ridiculous to find oneself spending more time fiddling in the metadata of an ebook database than actually reading the books in there.  And to think that I'm thinking about creating a database for my tree books!  And another one for all those library books that I have kept records of for the last twelve years.  And my sister wants me to create one for my Dad's books and one for her's.

I suppose I could choose worse stress relief activities.

I'm having a harder time than usual with the transitioning this visit.  It is more than just homesickness it is the stress of the change in environment and extra social expectations.  Sometimes writing has been the stress relief.  Fiction writing can be therapeutic that way.  This time the freewrite has become a kind of journaling that serves that purpose but there is something in me resisting actual scene writing in my fiction files, turning from it like from a cup of soured milk.

In fact it is more like it is I that is the cup of soured milk.  Which makes sense in that the well from which the stories spring is the well of one's I and if one feels soured it is no wonder the stories would reek of it.


READ CRAFT:

Currently Reading

What to Do When There's Too Much to Do by Laura Stack (Part of my attempt to organize my life around my priorities. So part of my ROW80 reading list)
Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton
Write Good or Die! edited by Scott Nicholson (a collection of essays by inde authors.  many of them self-published)  
The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler
What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Muller  Net Galley a NF that purports to answer many puzzles in the Austen novels. Since this discusses writing and techniques of fiction
Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff I left this book at home so I can't continue until I return in mid February but I don't want to remove it so I'll just use strikethru for now.
Jung and the Tarot: An Archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols Since I'm reading this for an understanding of character type and the language of symbol understood by our unconscious as well as research for a character who is a Tarot reader
13 Ways of Looking at a Novel by Jane Smiley  This was one of the 24 items I checked out of the Longview library on my sister's card last Thursday.
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.  Found this while spelunking the stacks looking for the Smiley book.  Who knew.  Dick was a mystic.  I've only read one of his novels and a few short stories but now I've got to try to find and read everything!
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor  This is a reread for me and has had significant impact on the development of my storyworld in the early months of its inception.  My Friday post was about my current encounter with it after checking it out of the Longview library again for the first time in over a decade.


Recently Read:

A Cheap and Easy Guide to Self-publishing eBooks by Tom Hua read this online
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Leher
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg  Just finished this last fall and wrote an overview of it for that check-in along with my musings on how to apply what I learned..  This is where I've been getting the most help with learning how to recognize a habit, determine if it is desirable and if so maximize it but if not change it.