Da Plan

Goals are good. Goals keep us motivated. Goals are probably going to shave off a good seven years from my natural life :)

As a proud, card-carrying member of the Distressed Guild, I like to craft unrealistic goals for myself, and then go after them all Beowulf-style* so that I can be properly dismayed and destroyed by my inability to meet said goals. I don't know when I started doing this, but I'm going to guess it had something to do with being a hall monitor once in grade school.

Sometimes, those goals are just throughout the day: I will get up at 7, I will be showered, fed, and dressed by 8, I will have three chapters edited by noon, I will--wait, when did it become night time again? I was just looking at one picture of legitimate female battle armor!

I do hope that illustrates my point. And I am trying to do less of that, because the stress that goes into making strict schedules tends to eat more time than I ever gain. That being said, I am trying to adhere to a stricter schedule for myself--time allotted after Dayjob and with a healthier amount of sleepytime and oh Lord this is boring to even type about! But it's helping me actually accomplish things, which is some good clean fun the whole family can enjoy :)

Doing creative, fantastical things is sometimes a little odd to cram into a working, real-world schedule. At least, it's not something I've perfected. Sometimes I wish I could move into a little commune full of writers and sketchers and crafters of all kinds, because then all of my neighbors would, like...get it. You know? However, lackaday, that is not the way of the world.

So, more realistic schedules, less babying of the self, less abusing of the self, and I think it's turning out okay.

All of this only really matters because I'm taking a trip in September, and I insist to myself that the work must be done before I go!

But for the first couple of weeks in September, I'll be driving towards or around or away from The House on the Rock. If you've never read Neil Gaiman's American Gods, first, shame on you, second, do it, third, The House on the Rock is a conglomeration of vaguely haunted insanity and roadside nonsense that appears in a really good book. And I'm going to explore it for a while, and also all of the things between hither and thither, because I will be driving there.

There will be much reporting when I go, and probably several photos, which I'm trying to get into a better habit of taking.

Supposedly it takes thirty days to develop a new habit. I have about ninety days to snag this one :)


*unarmed, undressed, unstable, and eventually set on fire on top of a pile of gold. You should read the book.

Tyler: A Confession

Dear Blogalogalogs:

There's something we need to talk about.

Please, don't be upset. It's not your fault. I just have needs...needs I'm not comfortable sharing with you right now.

There's...there's someone else.

Tyler.

My stolen poetry book.

We've been seeing each other...for about six months.

I'm going to need my poetry key back.

...still friends?

So What Are You, Really?

So there I was, elbow-deep in shallow revisions, and then I set my computer aside for a minute so I could stare into the horizon and contemplate how much I loathed my manuscript.

I don't, actually, by the way. I really, really, would-totes-date-like my story, and it has been an impossibly wonderful journey working on it and so on. Trip of my life so far, actually! It's just that I've been reading a lot of TransMet lately, and I can't help but idolize Spider Jerusalem. Just...read the comic some time.

Back to rant:

I was flustered because I am doing a thing I have never done before, in a time and place I've never been, and new things are bothersome when you secretly pine for easy things because you are a Lazy Person. I had a moment of weakness and a bit of a pout, and then a nasty thought crept into my head:

"What if I'm just a bakery clerk?"

Oh, shudder. Gag. Stifling sounds. Please, no. Anything but that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being a bakery clerk. I don't think there's anything wrong with working in a deli, or with washing dishes, or any means of doing what it is that fulfills you. Go you! You have made it!

It's just that I don't want to be a bakery clerk. It doesn't make me happy, because it doesn't make me feel like I've put my best work into the world. It's just not what I can do best, when I am at my best. And that's something I need in order to be a happy Lark. It's something that I hope everyone gets to experience, at least once.

So frustration is okay. Because that at least means I'm trying, right? And I'd rather try and try until I'm blue in the fingertips (because typing) than know that I'm always going to have to cringe when people ask me what I 'do.'

So, bowler cap back on, manuscript reloaded :)

We'll talk again soon!