Let’s Play Pretend!

I have idea.

(“Run for the hills!” Her followers cried. “She has an idea!”)

Haha.

Anyway, I have an idea. I was talking to a friend of mine, Lena (Lena Lothanas on my follower list) about the writing life. She is in the position right now where she is able to make writing her job, but she’s not published.

Now, while I may be envious of her ability to stay home and write all day, she has some unique issues that I do not. For most of us, writing is a hobby. What we do in between work and our other responsibilities is write. Writing is her work, so now she’s left without a true hobby. Now she has to find other ways to amuse herself when she’s not writing.

And you can’t spend all your free time writing. You’d drive yourself mad. We who have day jobs like to think it would be fun to spend every waking moment writing and editing but eventually your brain would tap out, and you’d have to take a breather.

I for one have a list of hobbies I would like to do when the magical day comes when I can quit the day job and work as a writer full time. But I thought about something yesterday, and it still seems like a good idea.

Why not pretend like you are already a full time, best-selling writer? Obviously you won’t be pulling in a paycheck, nor will you be published, but why not treat your writing like it’s your job?

Not that I don’t already do that via setting goals, and working on my books everyday. I am talking about the mindset. Why not also take up those hobbies you plan to do during your writing career, and exercise, and go to conferences, and whatever else you tell yourself you will get to do as a full time writer?

Now, if part of your full time writer plan is to take a trip to the Bahamas, then you might need to save up some dough for that, but most of those events we hold out on could easily be done now. We just don’t do them because we don’t feel like “real” writers.

Like when you tell yourself you’ll buy a nice desk when you get published. Or a new computer. Or whatever. Make plans for those things now, and you will start to feel like a writer. You don’t know how long it will be until you get published so you might as well buckle in and act like a published author now. That way, when you DO get published, it won’t be so shocking or such a change in routine.

Aside from all the free stuff you get as a published author, and the millions of adoring fans and dollars you’ll make. And your name engraved on a National Monument.

It’s just a thought. What do you think?

Observations from the Day Job

Song playing: Cherry Pie by Warrant

Hello all! Back from the weekend! With exclamation points!

So how was your weekend? Mine was pretty good. I had a lot of clients on Saturday, and ate out at Ted’s beforehand (Mmmmm tasty burgers) so I was well prepared with protein.

Interesting observation from work on Saturday: upbeat, Mexican guitars, like the kind of music you heard in a Mexican restaurant, does not make very good massage music.



Oh how I wish I was kidding. The other two therapists and I came out of our respective massages (I am a licensed Neuromuscular therapist for those of you who don’t know )(“neuromuscular therapist” is a fancy way of saying massage therapist. I find less people think I am in the sex trade when I call my profession by a more technical name than the generic “massage” title )(I AM certified in neuromuscular therapy by the way, so I’m not just trying to make myself sound cooler than I am)(let’s see how many parenthetical asides I can use, shall we?)…so, we came out of our massages, looking at each other and shaking our heads. I was praying there would be a slow song on the CD but my prayers fell upon the deaf ears of the upbeat guitarist who made the CD.

I have no idea who thought “Spanish guitars” would even be close to slow enough for spa music, but they obviously didn’t listen to it beforehand. I felt like I should be serving queso and chips with my massage. One of the therapists (my sister in law, actually) said the only way she’d want to listen to music like that during a massage is if Antonio Banderas was the one giving the massage. We all agreed.

Another epic fail on the massage music front is the CD that sounds like you’re in the middle of a tropical rainforest.

“Hey, that sounds relaxing,” You think to yourself, “Maybe Elizabeth is just being too picky.”

Sure, okay. Let me set the mood:

You’re laying face down, relaxing. The massage therapist comes into the dimly lit room and lays a hot herbal pack on your back as you sink into bliss. She starts to work out the kinks in your calves and feet, and then your neck and shoulders.

The gentle pitter-patted of raindrops falling on what you imagine to be lush green leaves can be heard over the stereo system. You imagine yourself to be in tropical getaway. You feel yourself drifting off, not quite asleep but in a state of relaxation you haven’t felt in years…

Until the screech of the monkeys start.

“Who who who ah ah ah AH AHH”

You feel your therapist pause for a minute (you can’t see it, but she’s looking up at the ceiling, rolling her eyes, and thinking “Really? REALLY? Howler monkeys?”) before she goes on, trying to pretend neither of you were bothered by the howler monkeys.

The monkeys stop, and you start to think you imagined it, or it’s just that one place in the CD. You start to drift back into your happy place until TWO monkeys and what sounds like a baboon start in. From the sounds of their calls, the monkeys sound like they’re arguing. Over bugs, perhaps, or another girl monkey that has caught their fancy.

I think you get my point. We refer to that CD as the Malaria CD. We finally managed to figure out which CD it is, and took the stupid thing out. And hid it, so no one could find it and think “Oh look, a new CD. Relaxing Sounds of the Rainforest? That does sound relaxing! Let’s give this one a whirl.”

Other sounds people insist on putting on relaxation CDs that for the love of all that is holy I wish they wouldn’t:

*crickets cricketing
*frogs doing the “peep peep peep” noise
*sad piano music (not relaxing piano, sad piano music)
*loons…looning or whatever it is they do

Again, I wish I was kidding or even exaggerating a little bit.

I personally like harp music, and I am a sucker for the flute. Native American, bamboo, Celtic, whatever. I think flute music is the most relaxing sound in the world. The violin too, if it’s not “sad” violin music.

Overall I enjoy my day job (but not as much as I would enjoy writing full time for a living, universe, if you’re listening).

But I digress.

I am eating Corn Pops for breakfast. Kellogg’s is going on a “fiber” kick recently, has anyone else noticed this? Corn Pops and Fruit Loops are now advertising they are a good source of fiber. Fiber. As if that is the reason why people are eating Fruit Loops. Not because of the sugar, no. Because of the fiber. Thank goodness I can stop eating my Fiber Flakes now that Fruit Loops have more fiber. They’re colorful too! That’s how you know they’re healthy.

Oh yes, today’s progress report day.

Well, I wish I could say I did a lot of editing yesterday. I had the day off, and I can normally get a bunch of editing done, but yesterday provided some…interesting complications.

My computer is in the same room as my roommate’s computer. This has already tested my dedication to writing when right next to my desk (literally, right next to my desk. Like, my desk ends, and her desk begins) someone is watching TV on the internet, with the volume cranked up because her computer is old, and so the fan turns on every two minutes or so, even when she’s not using it.

But hey, it’s her house, and she should be able to watch TV when she wants to. I am sure it annoys her how frequently I play music ( *cough* all the time). We have a set of headphones, but I don’t like competing sounds. If someone is watching TV, I can’t stand to have music playing in the same room. It’s more distracting than just the TV. My roommate also likes to play those free computer games, you know, the ones where you find all the objects in a room from a list, or drag and drop puzzle pieces, or whatever. These games have the most obnoxious sound effects EVAR and yesterday she had the sound up loud, and was playing these games.

So I retreated to my room with my laptop. I can’t edit very well sitting on my bed and typing (hurts my wrists as well) so I resorted to surfing the Internets and researching my current WIP. It’s my mermaid book, henceforth referred to as The Mermaid Problem, so I am researching Kauai, Hawaii. I also put Criminal Minds in, henceforth known as the Dr. Reid show, because I like noise in the background.


(he's first guy over from right to left, the nerdy looking one who looks like a teacher's assitent)

Thank goodness for the Internet. I wouldn’t nearly have as much information on Kauai as I would if I couldn’t spy on the actual location via Google Maps. Unfortunately, the area that I am looking at setting the book (Near Haena and Hanalei Bay in case anyone is familiar with Kauai) is extremely rural, so not a lot of information about the area.



Which is okay. I have enough information that I feel like I can set my main characters’ houses there and not make a complete idiot of myself (only a partial idiot).

So there, that’s my progress. I took care of a lot of the research I needed for my WIP. I managed to edit in the morning, before the free computer games incident, so I did get some scenes done.

I could just keep rambling about whatever pops into my mind, but I guess I should go work on something before I have to go to work.

How was everyone’s weekend? Anything fun and exciting happen? What are your challenges writing, and how do you deal with it?