I didn’t write about it earlier this week because I’ve been too busy running about from ministry to ministry like a poor lost soul who can’t find her cubicle, but I had a lovely weekend.
Really nice Saturday helping
Gorgeous Sunday expedition to Stratford and K-W with
We made it without incident from Oakville to the Avon Theatre in Stratford, where we ate some nosh and gazed critically at 150 quilts, making notes about favorites. Then we made it with only a minor glitch, but no actual lost time, to Len’s Mill in K-W for a fabricstravaganza that was all too brief. 30 minutes is in no way long enough to rifle through 12 million bolts of fabric. It just isn’t. Then we got thoroughly lost on the way back to Oakville from Len’s Mill.
MSN maps screwed us over with talk of some fictional highway “86”, which frankly does not exist, and we ended up in paroxysms of fear, pulling into a remote Coffee Time patronised by potential serial killers and bear hunters, whom we proceeded to ask for directions. They led us even further astray, and so we stopped near a house where many men in black suits and sunglasses were sneaking about. Sure, it MIGHT have been a wedding party. OR IT MIGHT NOT. We’ll never know, because a nice man with some important teeth missing told us new and completely different directions to the highway.
We became lost once more, circling endlessly through the same warehouse district that led us off the beaten path in the first place, quietly singing the Twilight Zone theme song to ourselves. Finally, as dark was falling, there was a reprieve, as we discovered a gas station selling petrol at 75 cents a litre. This did nothing to lessen the Rod Serling vibes of the place (when was the last time you saw fuel selling for under 80 cents a litre?) but Mum was so happy she almost wet her pants, and with a full tank, we drove with confidence until we finally found the highway home.
So, that was the weekend. Here are the woefully unproductive contents of last night:
1) Read about inuksuit.
2) Ate delicious chinese food.
3) Watched zombie episode of X-Play with Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb.
4) Pinned quilt top to batting and backing.
5) Cut and ironed fabric for my ongoing ‘backwards orange peel’ quilt.
6) Watched JVL play some ‘Star Wars Battlefront II’.
7) Had laptop on and open to word processor for over 6 hours, without typing a single word.
I’ve pulled a
So, I hereby start my novel. Ahem.
Let the first sentence be: “Just push, damn you! Take a running start at it.”
Let my novel also include this phrase: “Fuck diabetes; I think I’ve done damage to myself at the chromosomal level from eating all that candy.”
There. Twenty-eight words. It’s a beginning.
…probably doesn’t help much after the fact, but there *used* to be a Highway 86 out Waterloo way. In recent years, it’s been changed to Highway 85 (clearly, as my partners in corporate whoredom would say, a `value added’ change), though – looks like the good folks at mapquest haven’t yet gotten that memo.
C
Damn it! I knew I should have brought my Ontario map along with me that bought for me when he realised that I have no concept of geography or direction. It might have had the update. We probably would have gotten lost anyway, so I guess I shouldn’t sweat it.
Thanks for letting me know about the change – I might have gone on forever wondering where the hell “86” had gotten to (I remembered it from when I used to drive up to visit you in first year university, which only confused me more when I discovered it was “missing”).
Hope the new home is treating you kids well. Give me a call when you’re settled and Justin and I will come over with some housewarming apple pie and a bottle of housewarming wine.
Fucking Hallowe’en. I’ve eaten the equivalent of about 50 life-sized chocolate bars, only I did it in little mini-sized spurts. Fuck. My ass now casts a shadow.
It does SO extist!
um
or else my sense of reality is in for it….
I’m concerned that you’ve actually done the math to figure out the break point for when you can actually give up the goal of NaNoWriMo — it sounds to me like you’ve made that your goal instead.
Whether you consciously meant to or not, you’ve set your eye on how to fail, not how to succeed. It’s like staring at the ditch while driving down the road — there’s only one place your car’s going to end up, no matter how straight you think you’re holding the wheel.
On the chance that it is actually writer’s block (although, to technically have writer’s block you really should have, y’know, written something first), I offer the following solution, to be found at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/aboveaveragejoe/2004/01/21/
Key to writing: put two words together in a way that makes you want to read a third. Repeat until finished.
Make me proud.
Dude, *I* am concerned. I’m pissed off at myself, actually. I have chosen to ignore the clear first rule of writing, “write what you know”, and picked a cast of characters and a setting and a lifestyle so foreign to my own that it would be more familiar for me to just write plain-ol’ sci-fi. Thus, I end up researching when I should be writing, and the Internet, like some siren of yore, calls me out to sea and I drown in her.
And now I’m carrying the burden of not just trying to finish this fucker for my own peace of mind, and for the glory of NaNoWriMoers everywhere, but to make you proud as well? Fuck me. I fucking hate deadlines. Pressure is for cooking, not for writing.
Despite my grumpy rant, thank you for the advice and support during this trying time.
I reserve the write to be unabashedly cranky on this subject for the next month, particularly the week when I am menstruating. Which would be now, actually.
Being pre-menstrual probably accounts for the fact that you got the wrong write, right?
ah ha ha ha ha!
I may have the wrong word, but you have the wrong WEEK, sistah! Snap!
“…the week when I am menstruating. Which would be now…”
It’s THIS WEEK that I’m bleeding.
BLOOD IS HAPPENING NOW.
YES? WHO IS IT? OH, HELLO, BLOOD!
Sistah yourself – you know I just cannot resist poking fun at my toally well-educated daughter when she makes a faux pas… Na, Na Na, Na, Na, Na, Naaaah! Love you and that crazy Prince of Snails.