Herding Cats

"It's like herding cats."


Some of my finest work



This is one of those expressions I hear frequently at work, especially from upper management. And it always sets off some beautiful imagery in my head. Frenzied felines, with fur flying, running in all directions.

Interestingly, I find it applies more to my writing than to my life as a cat rescuer. At the shelter, I sweep, mop, scoop litter boxes, photograph the animals for our website, etc. While I do have to get one cats attention at time, for their glamour shots, I never have to get them all heading in the same direction at any one time (thankfully).

But with writing, after a while, I start to feel like a cat herder. I have a plot arc that was going fantastic and suddenly shot off for the mountains. Then there's the quiet, supporting character, happy to sit back and help, until she decided to be the star and pushed her way into the lead. It's not an easy job to keep track of what everyone is doing and where everything is going, and sometimes it's okay to let them run wild for a bit. But in the end, they all need to come together to form a cohesive story.

At least it's better than dancing with them, right?

http://www.monpa.com/dwc/

2011

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a safe and fun celebration of the end of 2010 and the start of 2011. I slept in, emptied a few more boxes (I'm almost done unpacking!), worked on a super pretty Taj Mahal puzzle, and am eagerly anticipating my Thai food delivery (23 minutes to go- I hope they make good time).

And I had a mini-breakthrough with my YA mystery that resolves an ongoing issue and involves a secret eulogy. I'm really proud.

Definitely a good day. Plus, how cool does today's date look: 1/1/11?

The Thai food is here early! Best year ever!

Gridlock'd

Success! I am rejoining the electronic world. After three weeks of agonizing hours-long phone calls with AT&T, they finally fixed my internet. The best part? No, it's not being back on blogger (although, that is pretty sweet). It's the fact that AT&T was wrong. They insisted the entire time that it was my problem- either faulty wiring in the house or a broken modem. Turns out, the signal was never even making it to the house. Knowing that I was right doesn't completely make up for the three weeks of "net-less" life I had to endure (oh the woes), but it does give me a right bit of satisfaction. I wish I could tell you that I had an amazingly productive few weeks, and that I finished one of my projects, but I can't. I didn't come to a screeching halt, but this is definitely a hard time of year to concentrate on anything. All that to say, I'm glad to be back and really excited to get caught up on what's happened while I was "away."

Two interesting stories before I had to bed. I attended my first NHL game today and watched the Atlanta Thrashers cream the NJ Devils, 7-1.
Hockey seems like an interesting sport. From what I could tell, there are three basic rules:
1) if you beat the puck over the blue line, you get in trouble,
2) if you hit the puck really hard across the ice and no one gets it before it hits the wall, you start over, and

3) if you beat someone really hard, you get in trouble, and they guy you beat up gets in trouble too.

I should note that my first word ever was not "Mama" or "ball," but "puck." I think that gave me an advantage.

Also, this is probably true everywhere right now, but what is going on with traffic lately?! I sat for over an hour on Peachtree (ah, the infamous Atlanta Peachtree roads) and only made it about a 1 mile. Sure, maybe I shouldn't have gone near the part of Atlanta where two shopping malls sit catty-corner from each other during the Christmas shopping season, but still. An hour?! One mile?! I did get some plotting done for my still unfinished NaNo. I guess sometimes being gridlocked in real life can help get things moving in other places. Wait, that sounds strange. But you know what I mean.

Oh, third interesting thing: I'm Santa. That's the reason I've been away from my computer. I've had to get all these presents ready. It's not easy, people!



Long story. It was for charity...
I signed up to take the photos and this is what happened.

NaNoWriMo and the Bliss of Delusional Optimism

So, it's official. I'm signed up for NaNoWriMo.

It's my first year, and I'm super pumped. When I thought of my story idea two years ago (you know, the one I am trying to finish), I kind of thought that would be it. I mean, I'd gone 25 years without getting a great idea before. I figured this was my one. I'd try to write it, and if it didn't work out, it didn't work out. I'd go back to my life of number crunching and biostatistics and leave the creating to the "professionals." But then a funny thing happened, I started to think of other ideas.

Really, it was a form of procrastination. Every time I head a stumbling block with my WIP, I'd write a little paragraph of something else. Most of them were junk, but a few weren't terrible. Then I had another great idea: a premise I really liked, a character who needed to live this story, and a mystery to top it all off.

I heard about NaNoWriMo, and decided to sign up. What a great way to put some pressure on to get something started! I've been looking forward to November for weeks now. Then, today, I had a revelation.

I was checking the NaNo site for tips, since I'm an uber noob. That's when I found this:

Bargain with those around you. Suggest to your housemates that if they take care of chores during November, you'll cover the following two months. Make sure you're not signed up for soccer game snack-duty, volunteering in the neighborhood—any helpful or productive task that isn't writing your novel—until November is past.

Reading this made me realize the following things:

▪ There's a huge conference at work that I'll be attending.

▪ I signed up to clean two nights a week at the cat rescue group (no easy task with >300 cats).

▪ I am moving out of the apartment I have lived in for years in the middle of November. And I don't have anywhere to go yet.

Hmm. It'll be tough, but I still think I can do it! I probably should be more realistic about my chances of "winning" this one. But I'm already planning time to write each week. I'm going to hide my TV remote, so I won't get distracted when I should be working. And I've got an idea that I'm excited to work on.

I'll keep you posted. And if you're doing NaNo, we should be writing buddies!