He spent all last weekend riding it around the neighborhood and city streets. After the first ride on Sunday, he announced that he was ready for me to hop on the bike. So a very nervous jaymi tossed on her 20-year old leather biker jacket, jeans, and kender’s old autocross helmet and fitted herself on the back of the bike for a short loop around the neighborhood. I wasn’t sure about how I’d feel but after a week’s worth of rides, I can say that I’m loving it.


We’ve been riding together for every day this week, with me growing more and more accustomed to the bike, kender’s ride style, and the gear that we’ve purchased for me now. Since various attempts at getting photos to various parental units have failed, I’m using this time to share some of the images of the bike with ya all. Hopefully we’ll have some images of me on the bike in the future.

This is not a bike that we’ll be able to go cross country, or even camping on. Mostly it’s to save gas money for kender’s commute and for us to have some weekend fun with. Who knows, in the future we may upgrade to a touring bike and join the ranks of people who use their motorcycles for camping adventures.

TL;DR version: I’m not sure if what I write below is a system, but I do have a daily order to getting things done. Breathing helps, so does focusing the attention on where the passion lies and then working on one thing at a time.

I don’t deal well with overwhelm. I love having lots of projects going on at once but of course, this means that occasionally they collide and I feel lost and overwhelmed with it all and wish I can do it all, when i know i can’t. Today is one of those days.

My current writing to-do list looks like this:

• Write RS11 posts (about 5 of them)
  
• Continue writing ETT book draft
  
• Write emails to peeps
  
• Work on reviews for W&P
  
• Write potential tarot essay for publications.
  

Earlier, I posted this to my Twitter feed:

Feeling overwhelmed with all the things I gotta write and catch up on. It’s another hunker down and do it day.

Which got this response on Facebook from a friend:

Would love to know how you deal with that. Do you have a ‘system’ or other advice?

To tell you the truth, there is no real cut and dry thing to how I get so much done. I’m not even sure I have a system. I do keep a list of everything I want to do in a day but I don’t really nail it down with priorities. Setting priorities usually backfires on me because while I may set a deadline, my mind will want to work on the bottom thing. So I’ve decided not to do this unless I have a HUGE external deadline looming.

I usually work on a project until I run out of steam, or need feedback, or whatnot. This allows me to rotate through various projects during the day and never allows me to feel bored.

All this said, however, I do have some bits of a system that I do daily that gives me large chunks of time for writing.

First thing every morning, I go exercise. Running is my meditation and it allows me that sacred 30 minutes of having no thoughts fluttering through my mind. My mind is so hyper that there are times when I wish I could turn it off.Lately I’ve been adding 15 minutes of weightlifting and another half hour of stationary bike into the mix.

Once I’m done with the exercise, I stay out and about to complete any errands. This includes library runs, post office runs, groceries, etc. I find that if I don’t get the out of house items done, then these tasks weigh on my mind and nothing “gets done” at home.

Once I am at home, I take some time to check email and then clear out the social media clutter. I’m horrible at replying sometimes, so I do a quick scan to make sure I’ve written a response that needs to be addressed. (I usually try and respond to things in 24 hours or less. If not, it’s because I feel overwhelmed and have no idea what to say.)

Then I look at my writing to-do list and pick one item that can be completed in short time. Usually, this is a blog post or email. Something to get the juices flowing and the achievement meter up. Sometimes, I’ll fire up the industrial music and pick a good hard beat to get the juices going. Having the music pumped in through headphones also helps to focus that energy.

Once quick items are out of the way, I get to the long-term projects. These I work on in small chucks– half hour to an hour. Doing short bursts of energy on these projects gives me the ability to feel like I’ve worked on them, as well as giving my body a break from being at the keyboard for so long. I sometimes forget to breathe, so this regime also allows me the time to breathe and refocus energies to the next item on the list.

I also try not to write past the time my hubby comes home. I want to reserve the time during the evenings for him and me. So far, it’s worked pretty well.

Feel free to post any questions about this… until then, I’m off to work on those Readers Studio posts!

Recently I dusted off that notebook and revisited the idea of keeping a usable writer’s notebook. Having done NaNoWriMo for a decade and relearning how to do scene tracking helped spur this decision as I needed to figure out how to collect all the new data.

The first thing I did was to think about what I wanted to track and how much obsessive organization I wanted to dump into this thing. When I write by hand, I tend to write haphazardly and without rhyme or reason. I write longhand in short bursts of time because of the death grip I grip pens with (I am getting better— big barreled pens help). Therefore, realistically, I need a notebook that’s simple and flexible to manage both fiction and nonfiction works in progress (WIPs). I didn’t want to micromanage sections down to plot, theme, character, dialog, setting, because I’d never use it. So, this incarnation of my writer’s notebook had to follow the Keep It Simple, Stup!d method.

The new notebook, then, contains the following sections:

Submission Tracker. I wanted to keep a written list of current projects and their status of Draft, Revision, or Published. In the past I just listed the names and then a date of publication but I decided that this wasn’t really good book-keeping. So in the new book, I use a Cornell Note sheet and in the open left hand space, I list three boxes: D (for draft), R (for revision), and P (for published). Next to this, in the gridded box, I have the name of the project, and then I list the start date, any info on the publishing place, and when the item got published. I draw an X through each D/R/P box as the piece goes through my writing process.

Work In Progress. This section contains whatever notes and scenes I track on each current fiction or non-fiction piece. It also contains tarot readings done for characters and plot.

Freewriting. Occasionally I enjoy taking time to just write with a pen and see where the Muse takes me. This section contains those bits and pieces that may or may not end up being entered into Scrivener.

Quotes. I collect quotes and wanted a place to write or paste sections of prose that I enjoyed reading. I’ve got quotes from fiction titles, author interviews, and other various locations stored in here for my reading pleasure. Sometimes this reminds me why I’m in the writing biz altogether.

Blank papers. What’s a good notebook without a steady and handy supply of blank papers to jot things down. This section seems pretty self explanatory, really. I hope.

Pocket Folder. Trailing the blank papers, I have a pocket to stuff handouts, biz cards or materials that I’ve printed out and don’t want to manually bind into the circa notebook. I foresee items in the folder rotating in and out depending on what I’m working on and where I am at in my career.

And there you have it. This the new writer’s notebook, and amazingly I do use it and have been since I made it.

Creating a playlist of songs, helps me set my story pace. There are fast songs and slow songs and I find that I have to have a certain pace or beat to fill the gaps between each major plot point. So, behold… here’s the playlist for my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel. Enjoy!

1. Branwen Slayne by Faith & The Muse from Annwyn, Beneath The Waves
2. Twist by Tones On Tail from Everything II
3. Who Am I? (Animatrix Edit) by Peace Orchestra from Animatrix Soundtrack
4. Silent by Fiction 8 from Forever, Neverafter
5. Jacob’s Chain by Jamin Winans from Ink The Complete Soundtrack
6. Sister by She Wants Revenge from She Wants Revenge
7. Devotion by Necessary Response from Blood Spills Not Far From The Wound
8. Who You Were by Jamin Winans from Ink The Complete Soundtrack
9. John’s Walk by Jamin Winans from Ink The Complete Soundtrack
10. Light & Dark by Mind.In.A.Box from Lost Alone
11. You by VAST from Visual Audio Sensory Theater
12. Don’t Fade Away by Dead Can Dance from Toward The Within
13. I Melt With You by Nouvelle Vague from I Melt With You/Teenage Kicks

Today I pulled out one of my writing notebooks and decided to put my own writing to the scene test. I broke open a new pack of Circa storyboarding sheets (sadly, Levenger does not make these anymore) and sat down to practice this process using the past four years worth of NaNo novels. I sat down with each novel’s plot outline and started unraveling the story into scenes.

For each storyboard bubble, I wrote down a location and then listed all the actions underneath. Here’s what I found out:

• In 2006, I had 11 scenes.
• In 2007, I had 11 scenes.
• In 2008, I had 8 scenes.
• In 2009, I had 12 scenes.

What does all this mean? Well, it means that I am well under the 20 scenes of a modern day script masterpiece. (However, the quality of my first draft prose is debatable). This gives me a bit of a new quantifiable way to break down my novels and story structures to see what is going on and perhaps give me some insight into fixing any issues when it comes to the revision process. And using storyboarding paper is fun, especially if you know how to draw and can create images to go along with the scenes. (Sadly, my bubbles have no pictures yet.)

I have not started a plot outline for this year’s NaNo novel entry. But now that I’m aware of the value of tracking scenes, I know that I’ll try and have no more than 12 scene changes in the whole book.

The big news? Well, I learned how to crochet a few months ago. There was a particular thing I wanted to learn how to make so two of my fiber friends muddled through and taught me how to do it. And the amazing thing is that it’s stuck. I’m making thing after thing after thing and actually enjoying it. So, go figure.

A few seconds ago, I was sitting here in the Comfy Chair ™ crocheting a project for a friend and I started thinking about a strange side-effect to crocheting. It’s helping me work things out with my writing in my head.

Spent most of this week working on sorting out thoughts for various reviews and instead of just sitting in front of an open Scrivener screen doing nothing, I pulled out one of my WIP projects and started going at it. That’s when the strange thing happened, I was focused on crocheting rows but my mind was actually rambling off good ideas and sentences. Every now and then I’d pause to jot the ideas down, then I’d go back to working on my row.

I’m a bit surprised at this discovery and look forward to seeing what other insights and effects crocheting has on my other lifetime passions.

Instead, I told him to let me give it a shot. So, we recorded a bunch of snippets of me singing and the result is “Make Me Bleed”. Go listen and be gentle please. This is my first attempt at singing since womens’ choir in college.

I start clicking on the thumb nails to expand the images to their large size. That’s when I come across this:

OMG! I totally spotted Neil’s copy of Ravens in the Library. *insert fangirly squeeing here* Go read the original blog post to get an even LARGER photo where you can distinctly read the spine and see that it has been opened. While you do that I’m going to try and calm down and maybe do some back posts to the site.

Well, I thought I clicked on the first of 3 empty lists… and then… realized to my horror… that the first thing that got deleted was my SIX FREEKING PAGE amazon wishlist that I had since 2000 or so. Everything gone. Never to return.

Needless to say, I now have a clean slate to fill. Anyone got any pagan, tarot, paper arts, young adult, fantasy/scifi, or horror books, DVDs, or industrial/techno CDs you’d like to recommend? Comment away and I’ll link them up to my new “Massiv Wish List”. This is your chance to help influence my book habit in 2009.