No One to Blame but Themselves

Favorite quote from The Fireman by Joe Hill

The sound of an English accent distracted her and lifted her spirits. She associated English accents with singing teapots, schools for witchcraft, and the science of deduction. This wasn’t, she knew, terribly sophisticated of her, but she had no real guilt about it. She felt the English were themselves to blame for her feelings. They had spent a century relentlessly marketing their detectives and wizards and nannies, and they had to live with the results.


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Unabashedly Curious

According to The Washington Post on Twitter today, “Nearly half of white Republicans say it bothers them to hear people speaking foreign languages.” How strange. I’m the opposite way. I love foreign languages. When I’m out and about, I’m usually not that interested in what the random strangers around me are saying to one another (i.e., I’m not nosy). But, if I hear a foreign language being spoken, my ears perk up. First I try to figure out what language they’re speaking, then I try to understand it. If I can’t understand it, I listen anyway, because I like the music of it. I also gawk at ASL conversations.

Am I rude in this way? Maybe, but I make no apologies. I am unabashedly curious about other languages and cultures.

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Writing Report

I worked hard on my rhymes for a few weeks, and now I’m taking a break from that project and going back to my novel. I know that sounds silly, since I was working on the rhymes to take a break from the novel. What can I say but that I’m moody and that it’s easier to swing with my moods than it is to fight them.

So, over the last couple of days, I reread parts of the novel and took stock. The word count stands at just over 37,000. That’s less than the previous word count (50,000), but only because I removed most of the irrelevant/inconsistent/duplicate passages. What’s left is a genuine rough draft.

Obviously, I don’t have enough words yet. There are many scenes left to write, but I’m feeling optimistic. I made a lot of progress last time I worked on it, and I also left myself a clear trail of breadcrumbs to follow by organizing the text into chronological order, finishing the outline, and making a list of “jumping-off points” for writing the remaining scenes. It’s like a kit now. I have all the pieces plus a manual that explains how to fit them together. No more wandering around in the dark!

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Step 1

While we were furniture shopping last week, we also bought a bunk bed for Marshall. We ought to have gotten him one long ago, when he was younger, but at least he is not yet too old to enjoy such things. We installed it on Monday while he and Livia were at school. It was a surprise gift, and he loved it. For me, it was Step 1 of getting the upper half of our house in order.

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The Problem With the Plan

The major problem with my plan to put on my headphones and write is that listening to music on headphones, even at low levels, affects my hearing negatively, something which I had already learned once but forgotten. After just a few days of headphone use, I started to feel like I couldn’t hear conversation. Whole words went unheard, and I couldn’t distinguish between words with similar sounds, like “bob” and “pop.” Every time anyone spoke to me, it seemed like my answer was always “What?”

I have to believe that my hearing will recover in time, but this problem definitely puts the kibosh on the headphones plan. I will have to get by on headphones with no music, or music with no headphones, or find some other way to block out the world when I’m writing.

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Furniture

My husband and I went furniture shopping yesterday. We weren’t necessarily planning to buy anything. We just thought we’d just check out what was available. The experience turned out to be sort of depressing, though. None of the couches was quite what we wanted, and everything was so expensive.

But then we went to the bargain area and found a pair of couches that looked pretty good. They had just arrived on the floor. They were half price, because they’d been returned. I wasn’t sure I liked the color, but my hubby did, and the price helped to convince me. I said to him, “Let’s buy them, and if I hate the color, we’ll replace them in a few years.” He agreed, and we shook hands on it.

Earlier today he trucked home the larger of the two couches. The thing was nearly too heavy for me to lift my end of, let alone carry it all the way into and through the house. But, where there is a will, there is a way. And thank goodness we had a moving dolly to turn the task from almost impossible to merely difficult and awkward.

The couch is now in place. The color seems OK. I’m happy we finally have somewhere to sit in the great room, and it’s comfortable.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that I hurt my back, of course. And there’s still another couch to move

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What Pictures Cannot Show

There are many things a picture cannot show. It cannot show a taste, a sound, a smell, or a physical sensation. It also cannot show just how vividly purple the violets are against the wet grass and the grey weather, or how that makes me feel. The violets are nearly glowing with a purpleness that goes beyond color and into a state of mind that fuses hope with serenity and merriment.

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Change

Change is coming. I can feel it in the air. Change to big things. Change to small things. I wish I felt that it would all be good.

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Music for Writing

Listening to Into the Trees by Zoe Keating. Good music to listen to while writing, or anytime

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Headphones

I haven’t done much writing for my rhyme project or my novel lately. I have done a lot of journaling, though, which is good. Even better, I have programmed myself to start writing when I put my headphones on. So all I have to do now is remember to put my headphones on. Every day. Headphones.

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