Tag Archives: writing

Lazy Leo Gets Wake-Up Call

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Leo I’m not a hard-core believer in horoscopes, because, just as with most forms of prophecy and divination, we use our imaginations to make the predictions self-fulfilling. Mostly, I read them for entertainment.

Once in a while, though, a horoscope will be more than just a neat read. It will be a nudge from the universe, an echo of the smaller, less insistent voice of my own sub-conscious mind.

Today’s LEO advice from one of my favorite syndicated astrologers, Rob Brezny, is one of those cosmic nudges. For the week beginning tomorrow, he writes:

Renowned 20th-century theologian Karl Barth worked on his book Church Dogmatics for 36 years. It was more than 9,000 pages long and contained over six million words. And yet it was incomplete. He had more to say, and wanted to keep going. What’s your biggest undone project, Leo? The coming months will be a good time to concentrate on bringing it to a climax. Ideally, you will do so with a flourish, embracing the challenge of creating an artful ending with the same liveliness you had at the beginning of the process. But even if you have to culminate your work in a plodding, prosaic way, do it! Your next big project will be revealed within weeks after you’ve tied up the last loose end.

I spent a lovely ten days in Mexico, and have been pretty much avoiding the computer since I came home. But my brain and Brezsny’s can’t BOTH be wrong.

In the words of my favorite fictional American president, Jed Bartlet, “Break’s over.”

Time to get to work.

Cruise Control

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All this week, I’ve felt a bit like my life is on cruise control, except that while I’m going at a steady pace, there’s no one doing any navigation, so I’m just running in circles. padden-royal-mail-mediterranean It’s a frustrating feeling, because it’s this|close to stagnation without quite being so.

I did all my paid work this week in an unhurried fashion, and still finished it in time to get my invoice in yesterday. I’m where I need to be on some writing (paid and not) due tomorrow. I’ve worked out twice so far this week even though I had my period (I totally get a gold star for working through menstrual cramps, even if I have to give it to myself). I’ve edited a bunch of stuff for a good friend, and recommended her website to two other good friends.

I’ve taught the new foster dog (Zelda the boxer, who has been with us for nearly two weeks now) what her name is, and where her bed is. She’s taught me what her “I need to pee Right NOW” signal is. We’re working on commands like sit, stay, and come. She’s playing with my big, sweet pointer Maximus (aka Maximus the Monster Pup), now, and no longer getting all growly when one of the other dogs tries to take her abandoned bones.

But I haven’t been working on any of my own stuff. Not my creative non-fiction project. Not my novel. Not the super-skeret project I’m co-creating with a friend. Not the short story. Not even my fanfiction. I’m not blocked, exactly, just feeling really tired, and like I need to spend some more time reading before I do more writing.

I write every day for some reason or another, but I don’t always write what I want to write.

And I feel like I’m locked in cruise control mode, but not quite sure where I’m going.

Grid Lines and Aged Scotch

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Hemingway drinking and writing

My friend Becca recently moved from a house where she’s lived for decades into a new place, and her writings about the move have me thinking about my own routines.

Next month will be our eighth year in this house. As I just commented on Becca’s blog, it’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my entire life, and while I love my house, and really don’t want to go through the temporary hell that is moving, I’m also having periodic bouts of antsy-ness that are getting harder and harder to quell.

I wasn’t meant to live in suburbia, but I’m spoiled by the space we have, and the pool, and the fact that our neighborhood is generally pretty safe. I mean, I don’t hate it, and it certainly isn’t one of those raw, sterile subdivisions, but it’s a lot more white-bread than I really like, and I wish there was a cafe within easy walking distance.

There is nothing like being able to walk your dog to your favorite cafe, grab a latte, and sit outside with the pooch lying near your feet, both of you people- and dog-watching. When we lived in the condo in San Jose, that was part of my routine, as was bringing my dog to work, and grabbing the best ever chicken burritos from the tiny Mexican place on the corner when I didn’t want to have lunch with other people.

Here, my routine is centered on my house. I get into bad habits, like writing in bed all day, instead of going to the Word Lounge, all of 100 feet away. I like working up there, mostly, but I hate having to go all the way back downstairs when my water glass is empty. It’s not the walking up and down that bothers me, but the fact that doing so distracts me from whatever creative flow I’ve got going.

Then again, most days I have to finish all my work before I shower, or THAT will ruin my creative flow.

Routines can be helpful things, but I don’t like mine to be so rigid that I feel trapped. I prefer broad frameworks, not tiny grid squares (and, in fact, I take perverse delight in buying pads of graph paper, and writing bad poetry across the squares, paying no attention to the lines). I like guidelines. I hate rules.

More and more, I’m convinced that great authors – Dorothy Parker, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc. – drank so much because the alcohol buzzed forced the lines to go down and the creative walls to tumble into dust.

I don’t drink that much, or terribly often, because I have little tolerance for alcohol, but there are days when I can completely see the appeal. Sometimes I find that funny.

But sometimes, it scares me.