I’ve had a busy summer so far. MG and I are celebrating a big anniversary this year. We’re doing things throughout the year to celebrate. Recently, we spent a week in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, with our sons and their families—all under the same roof in a large house we rented. About ten days ago, we hosted an anniversary brunch to celebrate with family and friends. In the fall, we plan to take a Polynesian Islands cruise. All that planning, travel, and celebrating takes time. Mostly, it takes time away from my writing. That spells trouble with a capital T for me.

When I go too long without writing, I lose my momentum. My creative juices dry up. My enthusiasm flags. Disinterest rears its ugly head. My energy takes a hike. My drive disappears. Hard as I try, I just can’t work up the oomph to drag myself to my office, sit my butt in front of my MacBook Pro, and pick up in my WIP where I left off.

I find chores that must come first, and therefore writing will have to wait till last. I have laundry to do, bills to pay, flower beds to weed, vegetable plants to water, floors to mop, email to answer, social media accounts to check, thank you notes to write, skin to exfoliate, and so on.

I don’t get away with slacking off for very long. Soon the headaches begin. It’s them. I know it’s them—my characters. They’re responsible for my pain, and they are unmerciful. They pound on the inside of my skull, demanding to be let out, insisting I write the rest of their story or they will drive me insane. More insane than usual, that is.

I suppose I should thank them despite their antisocial behavior. Without their insistence, I might go even longer without writing. Their demands force me back to my MacBook Pro as a matter of survival. Remarkably enough, once I begin writing about them again, my headaches vanish. There has to be a connection, don’t you agree?

Tonight, I have to chance making my characters wait a little bit longer for me to write about them while I take care of one last chore—my blog post for this week. I sure hope they’ll understand. I’m awfully close to running out of aspirin.

One of my works in progress is a science fiction romance entitled The Star Tripper. [Think Xena, Warrior Princess meets Star Trek meets Pirates of the Caribbean.] I aimed for 400 pages worth of manuscript. Star Tripper topped out at 598. Whoa. Talk about verbose. Apparently, I write the way I speak—too much and too long. ::sigh::

Star Tripper needed a trim. A few months back, I went through it to cut here and there, hoping it would do the trick. It didn’t. I was too emotionally attached to my brilliant prose to eliminate very much of it, and I didn’t make a dent. I cut only ten pages. Major fail.

Something, maybe many things, had to change. My work habits for one. I took some advice I received at a recent Mid-Michigan RWA luncheon program [Thank you, Darcy Woods!]. I ignored my email. ::gaaahhh:: I weaned myself off social media. ::gasp:: I turned off my Wi-Fi connection altogether. ::gulp:: I stopped watching TV. ::funny, didn’t miss that:: I did it all cold turkey and it was amazingly freeing.

I needed to change my mindset too, obviously. I was far too enamored with every word I wrote. Not long ago, I did some editing for an online publisher. I was objective and professional with the work of others. It occurred to me that I need to adopt that attitude when editing my own work. I needed to be objective. I needed to be ruthless. I needed to be page-slashing Machete Woman.

On my first day as my new persona, Machete Woman, I cut five pages from chapter one. On the second day as my new super hero MW, I cut five pages from chapter two. That was as many pages total as I cut during my first round of cuts. Wow! On day three, I cut four pages from chapter three. I cut four pages from chapter four on day four. Yay, me!

Last night, I revised chapter twenty-two, cutting seven pages, my best effort to date. As of yesterday, my total of pages cut is eighty-six. I have twelve more chapters to go, and the new me is rocking the cutting.

Machete Woman rules! 

Walking through the bookstore entrance was the first challenge we faced. Discounted books lined up temptingly on bookshelves against the outer wall. Both Margo and I are book sluts. We couldn’t resist their come hither siren call. After we finally tore ourselves away, we were enticed by half-price books stacked on both sides of the entry’s airlock. I spied Razor Girl, a Carl Hiaasen novel I hadn’t yet read. I drooled, but I managed to get my book lust under control. Into Schuler’s we went.

First stop, the Chapbook Cafe to get coffee and find a spot for our write-in. It was a warm day so we elected frozen lattes, vanilla for Margo and mocha for me. We settled ourselves at a table near a corner and out of the sun. It was far enough away from other patrons so their conversations wouldn’t disturb our concentration. We were also far enough out of their earshot. If I felt the need to brainstorm–my work in progress contains a murder–I didn’t want to alarm other patrons enough for them to call 9-1-1.

We buckled down and worked for about an hour and a half. A man who sat at a table close by received call after vitally important, earth-shattering call on his unmuted cellphone. We were certain he believed the calls were of worldwide significance because he spoke loudly enough to share his end of the conversation with everyone in the cafe.

We accomplished a lot despite cellphone man and his megaphone mouth. I revised two chapters of my second draft, cutting as much fat as possible, Margo reviewed two chapters in her novel’s galley proofs. We agreed we got more done in the cafe than we would have at home with all its distractions.

Hunger caught up with us at about the same time. We ordered salads and while we ate, the cafe began to fill up with groups of women who were there to lunch and to play a table game of sorts. A noisy group sat at a table to the right of us. Another group of four women pulled a table so close to us that one of them practically sat in Margo’s lap. They were noisier than the group on the right. Cellphone man and his megaphone mouth was still at it too.

We were going to resume our write-in after lunch, but the din on three sides of our table made concentration impossible. We decided to do our write-in on a Thursday next time. Margo suggested we do a little shopping. I’m not a big fan of shopping as you may know from previous posts, but I did need a new set of pots and pans. Williams Sonoma was a few shops away.

We packed up our gear and were on the way out of Schuler’s when my book lust suddenly returned. We almost made it past the half-price books. I turned right around and snatched up the Carl Hiassen novel. You knew I would buy it, didn’t you?

I felt so sorry for those poor body parts. What have they ever done to invite such vilification? From my perspective, the obsession of so many writers and writing instructors aimed at preventing the use of common idioms and figures of speech is the equivalent of putting a straight jacket on the imagination of writers everywhere.

I blame it all on Philip K. Dick and his whimsical short satire titled The Eyes Have It. My theory is that a very no-nonsense writer or editor, who perhaps had a tenuous grasp of satire, actually took Dick’s send up seriously. Dick tells his tale from the point of view of a reader who takes a story’s idioms literally. He misinterprets commonly used idioms as actually meaning the body parts mentioned are detachable and therefore the story’s characters must belong to an invading alien race capable of disassembling its bodies.

The aforementioned humorless writer/editor must have taken The Eyes Have It so seriously that he/she began to spread the suspect Clarity in Writing Gospel of No Flying Body Parts Ever. Most writers never questioned its validity and followed it off the Clarity in Writing Cliff like literary lemmings, drowning their individual voices in the sea of conformity below.

Case in Point:

In her September 8, 2013 article Most Common Writing Mistakes: Animate Body Parts, in line with prevalent thought, K.M. Weiland introduces the topic thusly:

You might be writing a horror story and not even know it. Picture this: body parts scattered all over the room. We’re talking a regular massacre. But it gets worse. These aren’t just any ol’ body parts. They’re . . . aliiiiive!

Counterpoint:

In her article Breaking the Rules: In Defense of Flying Body Parts, Tami Cowden points out the following:

According to Merriam-Webster, an idiom is “an expression that cannot be understood from the means of its separate words.” There is absolutely nothing wrong with using one. Or even, in moderation, more than one. In fact, writers who write in English ought to have command of the language in all its richness.

I don’t hold with the rigid, inane, suffocating No Flying Body Parts Rule. I believe Tami Cowden has it right. Let me give you an example that should put the ridiculousness of this rule into perspective. Collectively, we are probably more familiar with the same song lyrics and titles rather than the same novels, so I’ll use two song titles to make my point.

“Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” is a 1967 single by Frankie Valli. The song was among Valli’s biggest hits, earning a gold record and reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week, stuck behind “Windy” by The Association.[1] It was co written by Bob Gaudio, a bandmate of Valli’s in The Four Seasons. It was Valli’s biggest solo hit until he hit #1 in 1974 with “My Eyes Adored You”.[2] “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” has had a major cultural impact, with hundreds of cover versions, many of which have been on the charts in different countries. The song is a staple of television and film soundtracks, even being featured as part of the plot of some films, such as when the lead characters sing or arrange their own version of the song. The Valli version was also used by NASA as a wake-up song for a mission of the Space Shuttle, on the anniversary of astronaut Christopher Ferguson.

Here is something for you to ponder. How successful do you believe those two recordings would  have been if they were titled “Can’t Take My Gaze Off You” and “My Gaze Adored You”?

Our local chapter of Romance Writers of America^® has a combination writing challenge and chapter fund raiser that we call “I Will Write a Book.” Any member entering submits the title of her Work in Progress and five dollars by June 30. The challenge is to then submit the last page of the completed manuscript by November 30. All who finish have their names entered in the drawing for the cash award. The chapter gets one half of the cash entry fees; the drawing winner gets the other. There is nothing like a cash payday to get a writer motivated.

Along about November 1^st, the procrastinators among us suddenly realize time is running out—thirty days to deadline. Other writers have already submitted their last pages. We have several chapters yet to go and may not finish in time. The horror!

You may have already surmised that I was among the procrastinators. Never fear. I determined to buckle down and make it to the finish line.

I advised Macho Guy that in the month of November, while I was trying to finish my manuscript by the deadline, the dinner menus would be sparse in the category of culinary delights. Only dishes that took minimal preparation time would grace our dinner table. Pizza (from the supermarket frozen food department), chili, fried chicken take out, Chinese take out, Deli take out, canned soup and salad, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, PB&Js, and anything he might choose to cook while I wrote, etc. He suffered in silence, thank heaven.

As the days went by, I became more and more driven to finish the damn book. I started skipping little things to have more writing time. I showered and shampooed every other day, then every third day, then every fifth day, and finally only on Sundays before church. Showering and shampooing took up too much time when I could have been writing. I skipped exercising for the same reason, and I skipped lunch when MG wasn’t at home.

The most important item of all that I did without was enough sleep. I got less and less as the month wore on. At first, I stayed up about an hour past my usual bedtime, and then it was two hours past, then three, then four, and finally five hours past bedtime on the last two nights before deadline. During the last week of November, I was getting between four and five hours sleep a night. I don’t know how Einstein and Edison managed it.

The main reason I got so little sleep is that Schnoodle Dog never lets me sleep past 8:30 a.m. most mornings, even on the morning after a late night of writing. MG taught the little guy to wake me in the morning when he was just a pup. Schnoodle Dog takes his job very seriously, and MG appears to take perverse pleasure in seeing the little guy rub his cold wet nose on my face. ::shudder::

Well, I finished the damn book, but sleep deprivation took its toll. I was so exhausted Tuesday morning that I never made it out of my pajamas and had to take a nap that afternoon. I couldn’t bear to sit at the computer for another day of writing, so I postponed writing my blog post for a day. It was for the best. My brain was mush. I actually had trouble thinking and remembering. I believe I lost half my vocabulary—temporarily. It found its way back home today.

I’m afraid to read the last two chapters of the manuscript. I have the nagging suspicion that as sleep deprived as I was, I most likely wrote crap there at the end. That isn’t the worst of it. I had to slap all the chapters together into one document file and paginate it so I could submit that last numbered page. I discovered that my manuscript is too long—195 pages too long. I have a bit of cutting to do before revisions and polish. O joy.

I tried to hide my astonishment. She has a completely equipped home office, every writer’s dream, and she doesn’t use it? What manner of madness is this? Should I summon the paramedics?

Dana assured me that she wasn’t crazy, just practical. There are too many distractions and too many items on the dreaded To Do List to discourage a writer from writing when she’s at home. She’s spot on about that. There are floors to mop, meals to plan, dishes and laundry to wash, plants to water, a recipe collection to alphabetize, and so on.

She reminded me that writing is still a job even though we’re self-employed, and she assured me that it feels more like a regular nine to five job if you leave the house to go to work. An off-site office was too big an expense, so she began to patronize a coffee shop with her laptop in tow. For the price of a designer cup of coffee or two, she had a “satellite office” in which to write undisturbed on a daily basis. The manager and staff at the Biggby Coffee shop she haunts befriended her, and she has occasional book signings and writing-related events there. Dana commented that Biggby’s is where she wrote most of her published novels.

Hmmm… If coffee shop writing worked for Dana, and for Harry Potter’s mother J.K. Rowling, it might work for me.

This morning, Schnoodle Dog had a grooming appointment in a nearby small town. I knew I’d have to wait around and kill an hour until he was beautified and ready to be chauffeured home. I decided coffee-shop writing was worth an experiment, so I snagged my iPad on the way out the door. I asked the groomer at the Pink Shears Pet Spa if there was a cafe or coffee shop nearby where I could hang out while I waited for His Highness. As luck would have it, there was one directly across the street from the pet spa. How is that for karma?

[I know what you’re thinking. The designation pet spa makes the grooming salon sound grandiose and expensive but it’s not. Even salon makes it sound grandiose, but again, it’s not. What is grandiose is the excellent job the groomers do at this little storefront hole in the wall and for a very reasonable price.]

I ensconced myself at a table for two closest to the back corner of the little cafe where I hoped to become invisible. Since I already had my morning tea before I left home, I ordered hot chocolate instead. Granted, it was a flimsy excuse but it was the first excuse that came to mind–and yes, I got it with the whipped cream on top. Judge me if you believe you must. It is my considered opinion that if one intends to be bad, be bad to the bone. Keeping that in mind, I asked the server about the cafe’s baked goods.

She recited the list and recommended the grilled cinnamon roll. My taste buds leaped to attention, urging me to follow her recommendation. It took massive self-control to refrain from drooling when the waitress placed the warm, gooey treat before me. You’d better believe it was as yummy as it looked and smelled. Considering the likely humungous calorie count, I’ll have to be sensible and not eat anything else for the rest of the day. Right. Not one single bite. Seriously?

So I got down to writing. Actually I got down to alternating between writing and daintily shoveling forkfuls of grilled cinnamon roll in my mouth, washed down with an occasional gulp of sinfully rich hot chocolate. I was amazed at how much I was able to write there in the cafe and how easy it was to tune out the other patrons. They were mere background noise, strangers who didn’t require my attention and didn’t get it.

I checked my watch a few moments ago, and it was then that I realized the other patrons were gone, every one of them. I never noticed that they left or when. It is now 11:25 a.m. and I have the cafe all to myself except for the staff.

The lunch crowd will probably show up soon, but I’ll be gone by then. I’m nearly at the end of this post, and it’s almost time to collect the magnificently coiffed [I hope] Schnoodle Dog. I’ll be out of here as soon as I pay my cafe bill, which amounts to a staggering $3.71 for a cup of hot chocolate, two huge slices of grilled cinnamon roll, and one hour of uninterrupted writing.

I plan to contact Dana and thank her for her brilliant suggestion. Today’s experiment worked so well, I believe I’ll try it again at the tiny coffee shop in the even smaller small town closer to my home. I’m so looking forward to it. I happen to know from previous non-writing visits that the tiny coffee shop has cinnamon chip scones that are to die for. Tea and cinnamon chip scones, and an ideal place to write uninterrupted. Surely Eden exists.

It cannot possibly be 2015 already. Where did the time go? I cannot believe how fast the years go by of late. Years lasted a lot longer when I was a kid. Of course, I was still in school so it is understandable that a year dragged on into infinity back then—until summer vacation, which went by in a flash.

It seems like only yesterday that I was making New Year’s Resolutions for 2014, which I didn’t keep for very long. I didn’t make one single New Year’s Resolution for 2015. To tell you the truth, I’m against the concept of New Year’s Resolutions.

Make a New Year’s Resolution and you set yourself up for failure. Seriously. The pressure to succeed in keeping a resolution grows to enormous proportions. Eventually, the resolution takes on a life of its own, nagging you at every turn, making you feel like pond scum the moment you slip up.

I’ve lost count of how many years in a row that I resolved to lose weight, to exercise regularly, to eat a healthy diet, to drink more water, to get more sleep, to finish the [current] damn book. Can you guess which of those resolutions I kept?

Let’s see. I didn’t eat a healthy diet [Come on, give up pizza, pasta, and chocolate? Me?], therefore I didn’t lose weight. I suppose I drank more water, if numerous cups of tea late at night count. That was also when I was supposed to get more sleep, but any writer knows that if you’re on a roll, you don’t shut down your computer and go night-night—especially if you get your best ideas late at night and the rewriting bug bites you. I did get some exercise, sort of. My fingers did the walking over my MacBook’s keys for several hours a day, and I climbed stairs several times a day since my home office is in my home’s lower level. My jaw got plenty of exercise when I masticated snacks while I wrote.

If I were to cave in to tradition and make resolutions for this new year of 2015, I believe I would resolve to try to be a better person: a better wife, a better mother, a better grandmother, a better sister, a better friend, a better neighbor, a better citizen—and I hope like mad that I’d succeed in my resolve to become a better writer and finish every damn book I start!

Happy 2015, everyone!

PS: You may have noticed that I did not resolve to try to be a better cook. ::cackle, snort:: Hey, give me some credit for knowing when a situation is hopeless. If I ever invite you to dinner at my place…well, don’t bring your appetite.

If you made New Year’s Resolutions, please share them. Don’t worry; I won’t nag you to keep them.

Unfortunately, the knowledge I retain leans heavily toward the offbeat and trivial. For example:

The computers used to send Apollo astronauts to the moon were no more powerful than a cell phone. I wonder if we could send astronauts to Mars with a smart phone?

Contrary to legend that has Albert Einstein not speaking before he was four years old, a family history records him already speaking in full sentences at age two and a half. I think the first words he spoke as a child were e=mc². Or maybe it just sounded like that.

For the movie version of her novel Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell wanted to cast Groucho Marx as Rhett Butler. Yeppers. It’s true. Seriously. I couldn’t believe it either, or that the name she originally gave to Scarlett O’Hara was Pansy. What was she thinking?

Legend says Hershey’s Kisses got their name from the smooch sound or motion of the chocolate being deposited during manufacturing. Even machines love chocolate.

Mano a mano doesn’t mean man to man. The word hombre is Spanish for man. The word mano is Spanish for hand. Mano a mano is Spanish for hand in hand. More chummy than macho, that mental picture,

Bob Keeshan, TV’s Captain Kangaroo, was the original Clarabell the Clown on the iconic Howdy Doody Show. Well, you had to be a kid back then to appreciate that tidbit.

Birds eat half their weight in food every day. So, someone who eats like a bird is not someone you may want as a dinner guest.

Elvis Presley referred to his restroom as The Library. Read into that what you will.

Iconic sex symbol Marilyn Monroe’s weight fluctuated between 118 and 140 pounds. Hmmm. I think I need to find a way to go back in time—to when men appreciated a woman with some meat on her bones.

What’s your favorite bit of trivial knowledge? 

Hmmm…The prospect piqued my curiosity. I took an editing course as a college undergrad, and I edited for an educational book publisher several years ago.

Hmmm…I wouldn’t mind making a few extra dollars while turning old and gray waiting for the publishing world to discover me.

Hmmm…Surely, it can’t hurt to look into becoming an editor—except for one sticky little detail. Becoming an editor means turning on my own kind, becoming every writer’s nemesis, and crossing over to the dark side. What would my writing buds think of me?

My curiosity, and my lust for a paycheck, got the better of my conscience. I went to the publisher’s Facebook page, and I responded to the “editors needed” post indicating my interest.

The publisher’s speedy email reply was two single-spaced pages long. It contained detailed information about the publishing house, the romance sub-genres it publishes, what it requires of its editors, its editorial pay scale, and its three-part application process. If I was still interested, the publisher instructed me to begin the application process by completing and returning an attached editing test. The test contained plot holes, content conflict/errors, POV issues, errors in grammar and punctuation, and then some.

Oh, heck. In that post about needing editors, nobody mentioned anything about having to take a test. Darn. I don’t particularly like tests. I didn’t test well as a student. Taking tests stressed me. I was more of a post-test genius. I remembered all the answers I couldn’t think of only after the instructor collected our test papers.

Oh, well. I suppose I could have decided not to take the editing test, but there was that prospective paycheck to consider. I clicked on the attachment, opened the doc file and read the test manuscript.

Oh, dear. It wasn’t a test. It was a minefield within an obstacle course within a maze. I read through it again to make certain my eyes hadn’t played tricks on me.

Oh, shoot. They hadn’t. [sigh] When I proofread, I find that errors are more visible on a printed page than on a computer monitor. I printed the ten-page test to get a better look at it before I completed the test in a Word document.

Oh, wow. Errors peppered the manuscript, and some were downright devious and not all that easy to detect. I’m convinced that the test’s creator has a mean streak at least a mile wide. I scoured the manuscript for hours. Every time I was sure that I found the very last error, I read through the test again only to discover that I missed yet another.

Oh. My. God. My eyes begged for mercy. My eyes and I developed renewed respect for editors who possess the patience and tireless dedication needed for finding and polishing literary diamonds in the rough. If I pass the editing test, I would be proud to join their ranks.

I sent in the completed test, and I am waiting to hear back. I don’t have a good feeling about passing. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t test well. I must catch and correct more than 75% of the errors in the manuscript to pass the editing test, and I must pass the editing test in order to advance to part two of the application process.

Wish me luck. I think I’m going to need it, because I consider myself fortunate to catch 75% of the errors in my own manuscripts.

Just kidding.

Actually, growing another year older doesn’t bother me one little bit. The alternative to growing another year older is a downer and sure would bother me. Getting to stick around for another year is a priceless gift.

My Baby Sister and I have winter birthdays that are only two weeks apart [five years and two weeks, that is] so we try to celebrate our birthdays together. Last year, I milked the occasions for four birthday dinner celebrations: one for her birthday, one for mine, one joint birthday celebration, and one on Super Bowl Sunday—which happened to fall on my birthday in 2013. I suppose all those birthday celebrations could have been aired in an episode of American Greed.

Yes, happy birthday to me. Aside from all those luscious birthday dinners, I received the gift of spending more time with my loved ones and getting more hugs and kisses from my grandchildren. I received the gift of seeing more of my children’s and my grandchildren’s accomplishments this past year—and seeing more of their comic antics.

I also saw another year’s worth of God’s comic genius, of his quirky sense of humor, of those little jokes he plays from time to time on members of the human race like the Polar Vortex. His best joke of last year: He actually had Miley Cyrus convinced that she is sexy and that people want to see more of her tongue. Ha-Ha! Good one, Lord. I’m still in stitches.

Birthday gifts are great fun. My Baby Sister gave me two dressy T-shirts because she says my T-shirts are not feminine enough. I don’t agree. I have one that says: “If a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman to hear, is he still wrong?” How do you get more feminine than that?

I hope to be around to celebrate more birthdays for a long time to come. I’m not ready to go to Heaven yet–presuming I will go Heaven, that is. At certain times, I’m not sure that my going to Heaven is a given.

One of those times occurs when I’m writing and I must sully my keyboard with some of the naughty words with which my characters insist on expressing themselves. Shameful. They make me want to wash my keyboard and my fingertips with penicillin.

Then there are the times when I experience a twinge (more like a stab) of envy when another writer experiences publishing success of some kind. I always feel petty afterward, I always remove the pins from the little doll afterward, and I always repent and sincerely congratulate the successful author afterward.

If I don’t go to Heaven, if I go in the other direction, I’m certain of the culprit: my writer’s mind. I don’t know if this happens to other writers, but my writer’s mind takes me elsewhere mentally no matter where I happen to be physically. I’m embarrassed to confess that I have been known to lose focus when I’m in church during Sunday mass. My writer’s mind wanders in the direction of my current work in progress. I find myself plotting when I should be praying. I’m hanging my head in shame as I write this, even though I know it is bound to happen again. ::sigh::

Macho Guy will be back from playing golf very soon, so I’m going to cut this short and get gussied up for my birthday dinner—and birthday cake, lots of chocolate birthday cake and ice cream. Mocha Almond Fudge, of course. Mmmmm.

What? I forgot to tell you how old I am? Well, they say the memory is the first to go.