Eileen Bell

I’m trying to figure out Twitter.  This is a land I haven’t spent much time in, and it is proving to be difficult.  New languages to learn, new people to meet, and if there is an organizational principle behind it all, I have yet to find it.

Plus — and this is a big plus — I can spend A TON of time there.  A ton. I watch with fascination as message after message pops up, as all the people I’m following let me know exactly what they are doing at that moment.

There have been some surprising finds for me, I must admit.  I’m now quite hooked on a blog called Go Into the Story — It’s written by Scott Meyers about screenwriting, and it’s addictive.  There are others,  but this is the one at the top of my brain right now (because I was on his blog mere moments ago, and am now reading the screenplay “Dune.”  Because he offered it.  Go figure.)

Facebook — same, same.  I’ve been on Facebook for a while now, and I still feel like I don’t get it. It’s a decent vehicle for getting the word out about upcoming events, and when I’m writing — as I’m supposed to be doing now — I use it to update m word count.  Keeps me on track, because there are other people out there seeing it, and I don’t want the embarrassing questions like “So what happened to you on Saturday?” (or whatever day I didn’t write, but hung around, washing clothes and vacuuming dust bunnies, and maybe even going out and sitting in the sun, that sort of thing)  But past that, I can’t understand why anyone gives a darn what I’m doing with my day. (And why, in reality, they’d even care about my word count.)

And then there’s this blog.  I sometimes forget to come here and put words down.  I should remember.  This is my connection to the outside world, after all.  My connection to an unbelievably big world.  Millions of people, all looking for — something.  Could be what I’m talking about.  You never know.

Perhaps this is what’s freezing me.  The thought that there are millions of people out there, and any one of them could happen on this blog — or one of my Facebook entries — or 140 characters I dashed off on Twitter.  That would be their introduction to me.  Is there anything there can could possibly be compelling enough to make them try to find me again?  Even remember my name?

After all, I’m not offering much.  Sometimes a bit of my pain, or a bit of my joy.  Sometimes something interesting I found on the web — or out in the real world. Sometimes just the word count on my latest novel. Hope it’s enough.

If it’s not — read Dune.  Hey, somebody gave it to me!  The least I can go is pass it on.

This has been a good week, writing wise.  I’ve managed to get over 22,000 words down on the first draft of a new novel, working title “White Noise.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve put in good writing days like this lately and I missed it.  Not that what I was doing wasn’t important, and all that — but I tell you, that white hot writing place where I don’t hear the phone, don’t remember that there is laundry, come up for air wondering why my neck feels stiff before realizing that I’ve been writing, steadily, for three hours without moving, that is the sweet spot, for me.

I CAN write the other way.  Put in a day doing something else, then write 1000 or 1500 or (if time really doesn’t permit) 500 words, then put it away, and come back to it the next time I have a few minutes alone.  But I don’t like it.  Not as much as this.

This type of high velocity writing drains my brain so that at the end of the day, I have nothing left.  My husband talks to me, and I know I’m staring at him like he’s suddenly speaking a foreign language I didn’t even know he knew, but I can’t seem to stop. I just stare, hoping his words will finally start making a little bit of sense in my poor fevered brain.  He’s actually getting a little better about it now.  Just shrugs, and says things like “I’ll try again later,” or “You’re not going to permanently damage yourself, are you?”

No honey.  It’s not permanent.  I promise.  I’ll  just sit over in the corner, drooling and giggling to myself, but only for a little while longer.  And the writing went wonderfully, by the way.

This past couple of years haven’t given me much time to do high velocity writing.  I’ve been caught up in lots of other stuff.  Some of it was wonderful (book launches, and going to conventions etc), some of it involved incredibly high learning curves (that would be all the marketing stuff), and some if was just horrible. (I had my fair share of disasters in my personal life recently.  ‘Nough said about that.)  All of it seemed to come at me at break neck speed, so there was no time to stop, smell the roses, and see how many days in a row I could write 5000 words a day — or more.

But now, I have the time.  I put together a schedule for myself, and I’m sticking to it (believe it or not!). I wrote out an outline.  (Well, mostly wrote out an outline.  I know where 3/4 of this puppy is going, and I THINK I know who done it in the the murder mystery portion of the novel.)  Then I warned my people that play time was over, and that I had to get to work.

Most of them bought it, and they’re actually leaving me alone.  So, every day I sit down, usually by 9 AM, and write until I can’t write anymore.  In the middle somewhere I have lunch and take a walk. (Really.  Me.  A walk. Every day!) At the end, I eat something more, try to answer my husband’s increasingly tentative questions about how it’s going, and then, sometime later, I go to bed.  And that’s all I do.  Every day.

And you want to know something?  This isn’t work!  This is fantastic!  This is first draft pour everything on the page stuff, and I love it here.

If I keep going at this pace, I’ll have the first draft of my novel finished in less than 30 days.

Sigh.  Then comes rewrites.  And that’s a different animal altogether.

But for today, I sing, even as the last of my brains leak out my ears.  Because I get to write!

I was going to hide out this summer.  Get my back yard done (really, this time) and write another novel.  No fooling around about the novel — I’m tired of novellas for the moment, and want to dive into something longer and meatier.  It was going to be a great summer.  Or so I thought.

So far, not so good.  We did get the back yard sort of done — and then the gas boys came in and tore it up for us.  (Universe, cut me some slack, OK?)  My dog died, which was a kick to the head. (And no, they don’t all die in their sleep. Sometimes they die begging for help.) And that novel I was going to write?  It has been put aside until I get my back — back.

I have a screwed up back.  Had an operation to fix a messed up disc years ago — but I still have problems.  If I’m not careful (read if I don’t exercise enough) it will “pop out” which sounds fairly benign, but isn’t.  It’s a horrible feeling — along with the pain is the certainty that this time the top half of my body really will completely disconnect from the bottom half and slide off, held in place only by skin.  Blech.

So, went to my favorite chiropractor, and was met with his patented “look.”  His “I’m not angry, just massively disappointed” look.  “It’s been a while,” he muttered, writing furiously.

“Yeah.  Sorry.  Been kind of busy,” I replied, trying to stay calm.  Sometimes his ministrations hurt.  Actually, they always hurt.

He set to, and the cracking coming from my spine was ferocious.  Snapping and popping from the usual spot (lower back) and then he worked up.  And he frowned.

“Wood.”

“What?” I gasped, trying not to react.  Reacting for me would be leaping up and smacking him a good one for hurting me.  Isn’t that what a normal person would do?  Smack someone who is trying to hurt you?

“Your shoulders are like wood.  Two by fours, to be exact.  And your neck!”  Snap, pop, CRACK.  “Just terrible.”

After the pain stopped, he told me to make another appointment in a few days.  “However, if you need to, come in earlier.”

“Earlier?” He’s never said this to me before.  Holy crap, it really must be bad.

“Yes.”  Then he shook his head and shot me another “I’m disappointed” look.  “Too many hours on the computer.  That’s what’s doing this.”

Ah.  Computer.  As in writing.  Oh, wait.  It was my turn to frown.  This wasn’t funny.

My shoulders no longer feel like ground glass under the blades, and my head finally feels clear.  I’ve started exercising again (as my screaming muscles can attest) but I haven’t gone back to writing in any big way.  It only takes a couple of hours, and I start to knot up again.  So — no big sessions, which I LOVE.  And no novel.  Not so far.

Hope springs eternal — and I still have one more month.  I just have to keep exercising (shut up muscles!) and stretching between writing sessions. And remember to break up the long sessions. (Darn it.  I LOVE those long sessions.) And I need to keep going back to my chiropractor until I am completely healed.

Wish me luck.

To get another big chunk of our patio built this weekend.  Why we decided to do it on the the weekend, I have no idea, but we did.  And that was our biggest problem.

We actually started this project at the beginning of May.  We got some good weather, and ripped into it, getting the walkway to the patio built.  (We decided not to put it next to the house, but a bit away, next to some sasktoon bushes, which will afford us some privacy.)  Then, the silliness started.  Lots of trips all over the place, and then, when all that calmed down, the weather.

The weather has not been cooperating at all.  2 weeks ago we got snow(!) and then rain. And rain, and more rain.  But this weekend it broke.  Husband’s work hit a short lull, and I was finished my (hopefully) last rewrite.  Weekend free.  Let’s get to work!

Saturday we hurt ourselves digging and leveling and hauling a yard of gravel.  (For anyone who does not know what a yard is — go look it up.  I’m still too exhausted to fully explain how much gravel that was.)  And more leveling.  We need sand — and the rock like substance  that will make the actual patio. (all right, patio blocks.  That’s what we’re using.  But rock like sounds prettier in my head.)

Husband has worked hard and long on the design of the thing, and has been looking for just the right blocks.  And he hadn’t found them before the weekend.  Understand now,  I’m just going along.  I want a flat, fairly protected space to sit and read, preferably with a coffee, early in the morning.  (There is a LOT of work that goes before I get to do that, I’m finding out.)  But the way the weeks worked, we couldn’t find what he was looking for, so we were out on Sunday, to order it.  If we needed to we were willing to haul it home ourselves, in this teeny little trailer we have.  I was hoping we wouldn’t have to.

We didn’t need to.  Husband lost it, and we ended up just going home.  Why did he lose it?  All the weekend warriors were out, making their purchases.  Line ups were long and plentiful. Everywhere.  And he still couldn’t find what he wanted.  Started talking about buying a sports car.  “An erection on wheels” I think he called it.  And getting the hell out of town every weekend, so we wouldn’t have to deal with everyone else on the road.  (Yes, I know there is a huge logic problem in that sentence, but there was no way in the world I was pointing it out to him.  Hey, it was his breakdown.  He could say anything he wanted!)

We actually have a rule for weekend city driving.  Don’t do it after 11 AM, because then the idiots are out.  We knew that. But we did it anyhow.  Like all the rest of the idiots. So we went home, husband almost delirious, and me knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my backyard is going to look like Beirut for at least a month more.

Sigh.

At least we didn’t by the erection on wheels.