composeconceivecreate

In the last month I’ve had several reasons to panic.  Not good reasons, but reasons none the less.

My filing system is yet more proof that I’m on the slippery slope to hoarding. This two foot pile of files was from ONE DRAWER…I have six.

I panicked when I discovered that somewhere, deep in my filing system that is less a system and more a jumble of things I wrongly think I have to save, I’d lost my birth certificate.

Not normally a problem right? After all, how often do you have to prove you were born? Apparently the answer is one more time. Seriously Passport Canada, you saw it last time. It hasn’t changed.  But not to worry, I found it. Eventually.

Rides that are not on my Hell NO! list. The carousel. The teacups. The big slide (big being a relative term) and the small swings that used to be the big swings before they brought in the suicidally big swings.

Then I panicked when I Andre calmly told me, while spinning at 70 km – 218 feet in the air – on a ride with FEAR in the name “we’re higher than the Drop Zone now”. NOT. HELPING. In his defence he had to tell me how high we were because my eyes were closed and I was chanting “I’m in a car. The windows are open. I’m in a car.”

Btw, the Drop Zone is one of may rides at Playland on my Hell NO! list.  AtmosFEAR has now joined it.

And finally I got to panic when I went to buy groceries and realized that I didn’t have my debit card. (I think the nice folks at the Husky station have it.)

Each time I felt my blood pressure rise. There was a deep sense of dread and some part of me (probably the part that remembers being bitten by the family dog, chased by a rogue lawnmower and targeted by thousands of stinging insects) was screaming that the end was near.

It’s the same feeling I get whenever I give my writing to someone else to read.

In good news, none of those things has killed me yet.  In other good news, I think my willingness to write despite these feelings means I’ve finally found that illusive “something” in my life that’s worth suffering for.  Half a chapter left and I’ll be ready to send “Super” off to a beta reader. “I’m in a car. The windows are open…how come it’s not helping this time?”

Writing Exercise:

I wrote today and was inspired by the image of the red and blue of police lights strobing. In my case I was imagining a character coming home to the lights illuminating their front yard screaming danger. I didn’t want to just describe the lights strobing and say my character was afraid or apprehensive, so instead I thought about describing how the patters of shadow and light of those strobing lights would change the character’s house and the neighbourhood.

Choose a scene that is lit in an unusual way.  Perhaps a flood light, fire or police strobes.  Then try to convey the emotion of your character without saying how they feel, but instead describing the way that light changes the character’s environment and perception.

Happy writing.

Does it make me a bad person that I nearly stole someone’s Chinese food order?

Buzzzzzz

Me: Hello

Stranger: Is this 2306?

Me: <Pausing to think. I’ve been sick…>  No.

Stranger:  I have a delivery.

Me:  For who?

Stranger: You ordered Chinese.

<Pause while I consider stealing someone’s Chinese food order.>

Me:  You have the wrong number.

The decision was even harder when she called back ten seconds later and I had to have the identical conversation.

When I was younger and stupider I tried to convince people that they had the wrong number by telling them the address they had actually dialed. At the time, I hoped the information would clear up the confusion.  (Sometimes I wonder how I never ended up as a cautionary tale.)

I still want Chinese food.

NB. I finally finished the latest round of edits for Riveted, and sent them off to the interested agents.  So excited. So nauseated. But in good news if my fever stays down maybe I can make some progress on my next project.

Writing Exercise:

I’m writing a super hero story at the moment and I’m having trouble with costuming.  It shouldn’t be hard, super hero costumes are pretty homogeneous: skin tight lycra, mask, done.

The problem is that my super hero doesn’t know they are a super hero so putting them in a costume feels really artificial. Can a super hero be a super hero without a costume?

In fact, I can’t think of a good reason for a super hero to even have a costume other than to help with their marketing efforts. If a super hero truly wanted to stay in the shadows wouldn’t they wear something different every time they went out?  Or at the very least wear something bulky that would disguise their physical characteristics? Now that’s a smart hero.

Consider a super hero that really didn’t want to be identified.  Not just to protect their secret identity, but because the hero doesn’t want to get a stupid nickname, or raise the expectations of a city that they now have a dedicated protector (how exhausting). How would they dress to disguise themselves?  Is the solution nondescript clothing or a rotating super hero wardrobe? What if that hero later needed to be recognized?

Happy writing.

If you don’t start making sense, bad things will happen. Just to be on the safe side, why don’t you just sit in the corner all day and hum. This is your last warning.

This can’t be my real life.

Colleague:  The project is ready.

Me:  Great. I’ll put in my request with IT.

Colleague:  You might as well wait.  We’ve got a hold on for the next six weeks while we work out an architecture thing.

Me:  So it’s not ready?

Colleague <sounding offended, like I hadn’t been listening>:  It’s as ready as it’ll ever be.

Me:  I don’t think you know what ready means.

In good news, I have many supportive colleagues who actually heard this conversation, so I had someone to check with to make sure I wasn’t the crazy one. I feel the need to confirm that way too frequently.

In bad news, the above conversation was neither the most frustrating, nor the most puzzling conversation I had today at work.

In other good news, an agent asked for a copy of Riveted and I’m so super excited I can’t stop grinning.

It goes on, but I’m going to stop the example chain there (so I don’t cry…or quit….or go to the office tomorrow and punch someone, then have to explain to my manager why my actions were justifiable and probably deserving of some sort of award for teaching my colleague not to be an ass-hat.  Not a nobel prize or anything, but maybe a certificate of merit and a coffee card…)

My day has been one long series of “ooooh cool” and “WTF?!”.  I can’t decide if the Universe saw all the great things that happened to me today and threw in a few bad ones to balance me out, or if the good things were a karmic reward for not going postal about the bad things. I’m still waiting for someone to jump out and yell “You’ve been punked!”

Writing Exercise:

As a reward for not punching my colleague I watched American Ninja Warrior.  I know, right?  You wish you’d watched it too.  Well, plan better.

Anyway, while I was watching the incredibly fit, amazing (totally animatronic because no way real people can be that fit) athletes.  I wondered what real Ninjas would think of the show.  Would they think the obstacles were difficult?  Would they be offended by the co-option (totally a word) of their name?  Would they sneak into the obstacle course late at night and take turns running it, then discussing the perfect place for pit traps or archery placements to “up the difficulty level”? Happy writing.

I do not have the flu. Yet.

Price is not object. But if you have one to sell it needs to come with a warranty.  I need at least six months between break downs.

FYI, I’m sick. Again.

I’m not sure if I’m a generally sickly person, or if perhaps I’ve offended some virus deity and now all of her minions are hell bent on attacking me one by one until I finally realize my mistake and make the appropriate sacrifice.

(BTW, if anyone knows what the appropriate sacrifice is, and where the alter can be found, I’m totally in…reward for information.)

In good news, this cold is way less bad than my last illness.  (I hesitate to call anything that took me out for six weeks solid a cold but…)

In bad news, the memory of just how bad I had it last time left me thinking “I can work through this”.

I was wrong.

By eleven am I was shaking and I’d missed a rather important meeting because I dialled the wrong conference code and rather than thinking I must have done something wrong, my viral ridden brain assumed that I was the only one (of 7 people scheduled to attend) that had actually showed up for the meeting. (How disrespectful and inconsiderate of them. Hack, cough, wheeze.)

Anyway, long story short I spent most of the day in bed.  And in between naps I felt bad that I wasn’t working because “it’s not as bad as last time”.  There is seriously something wrong with me…other than the virus.

In good news, edits are something I can pick up and put down between naps, so I made some progress today on Riveted.  Yay. Cough. Hack. Wheeze.

NB.  Totally serious about the virus deity. Reward for information. I’ll do anything at this point.

Writing Exercise:

Write a prayer to the gods of illness.  Or a poem expressing what you’d do to prevent or lessen your next illness.  I can’t be the only person who believes right?   And if it works, share a copy.  Like I said, I’ll do anything.

Happy Writing.