Caped Gooseberry – Page 25 – Deborah Makarios

August 10, 2013

Getting to Know You

Do you have Deborah Kerr (or rather, Marni Nixon) stuck in your head now? Excellent. Let us proceed.

I took it into my head recently to look at my list of followers and see whose Readers are receiving my missives. Discounting myself (thank you for that, WordPress) and the Caped Gooseberry (thank you for that, dear) I have forty followers. (Welcome!)

But who are you?

Not surprisingly given my usual subject matter, half are writers (or groups of writers) including:
one who dispenses dating advice (for men);
one aphorist;
one person setting out to offend everyone (a bit like Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged);
one whose poems consist of assorted words (either hasn’t quite got the idea or is making some kind of post-modern point, not sure which);
and one who I suspect is blogging as his book’s character but may in reality be in a lot of trouble with the law. How much is 30kg of cocaine worth, anyway? (Hullo PRISM!)

There are also two who blog about literature and books, and a press which gives rates for (among other things) ghostwriting and lists of agents/publishers you could approach (handy hint: get the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook from the library instead, it’s free).

Then there’s one set of relatives (hi Ma!) and five Pyramid Schemers (all with the same scheme, shows how good it is!) leaving eleven others.

The Others include an opera singer; a movie blogger; one who makes top-ten lists; possibly another pyramid-schemer (a more subtle one); a blog with a grand total of three posts (one of which was a reblog of my first post); and one which is completely blank. (Stage fright?) In short, an eclectic group.

So, now that I have, figuratively speaking, broken the ice, feel free to circulate and chat amongst yourselves. Have a drink, have a nibble, try to avoid being sucked into a pyramid scheme.
I don’t mind if you’re the life and soul of the party or part of the philosophical coterie in the kitchen, I’m glad you came.

I’d love to hear what brings you here, what you’ve enjoyed, and what you’d like to see more of. And if you have a great opportunity for me to make easy money and live the life of my dreams – sorry, but that would interfere with my delicately balanced regime of artistic suffering.

Your happy host,
Sinistra Inksteyne

P.S. I realise I am somewhat behind-hand with the Artist’s Way posts. Great Things are afoot – but I promise I have not forgotten.

July 13, 2013

Riding the Rollercoaster

Life is a rollercoaster: one moment you’re soaring with elation and the next moment you’re hurking up your guts.

Life has been very rollercoastery for me of late – roaring up the incline with sparkly new ideas for my WIP, and then plummeting down in despair as I realise I don’t have the physical or emotional resources to do it justice (or do it at all) while I’m working full time at the DDJ.

At least this week, and when you’re tired and stressed and over-emotional, what other week is there?
At times like this, a sturdy support structure is essential. (Rollercoaster without supports? BAD.) Enter the Caped Gooseberry, my personal live-in hero. (Silhouette has been edited to protect his identity.)

Progress is slow – very slow – and emotional outbreaks of self-doubt, -disdain and -despair still occur. But little by little I keep moving. I am not writing 2,500 words a week. Maybe I will again in time, but right now 500 a week would be heartening. I’m holding my goals lightly.

This is also an important time to read encouraging and revitalising advice. Kristen Lamb is one of my favourites for a boost when I’m depressed about my lack of progress, combining as she does reassurance and a swift kick in the pants.

I’ve also recently re-read this helpful dollop of advice from Chuck Wendig (be warned: self-confessed NSFW), which I found via A Cat of Impossible Colour.

Highlights for me include Stop Running Away (why do I do that??), Stop Worrying, Stop Thinking It Should Be Easier (but why is it so hard?), Stop Deprioritizing Your Wordsmithy (closely related to Stop Running Away) and of course Stop the Moping, Whining, Blaming, Lamenting and Being Afraid.

I don’t know that I agree with Wendig about Stop Dreaming, but at least I am sufficiently in touch with reality (I visit alternate weekends) not to start “Epic 23-book fantasy cycles!”

So if the contents of your peritoneum are the only thing moving upward as the rest of your life shoots down, take courage. You aren’t the only one in the rollercoaster car. Tighten your grip, scream if it helps, and hold on til the track turns upward.

May 1, 2013

The Wasteland

Not by T S Eliot – I refer to the reading deprivation of last week.

I made it about 158 hours without reading anything (apart from my exceptions, as mentioned earlier). The mathematically acute among you (or those of you who have read this post or this one) will realise that this is ten hours short of a full week.

On The Seventh Day I Rested. (There’s good precedent for that, although history is silent on whether or not God was reading at the time.)

You may also have noticed that this post is a few days subsequent to the actual end of the Wasteland – I’ve been making up for lost time, like a camel just back from the Sahara and stopping by the pub for a drink.

So, in the absence of any faintly humming enlightenment, what have I learned?

1) Reading is very, very important to me. Next time I need to go without something for a week, I think I will make it something easier, like talking, or food.
To whip out the ultimate cliche, reading to me is not a hobby, it’s a way of life. I may not eat sleep and breathe reading, but I can do most of those things reading. (Not so good at reading while I sleep – that’s when I do my talking.) I can cook while reading, and walk while reading (although the average standard of driving in New Zealand makes this a hazardous practice).

2) You can do lots of other things when you aren’t reading. Most of these are not perhaps as enjoyable as reading is, but there is a place for productivity. You may have noticed the increase in blog posts, for example.
Also under this heading: finishing off a project I started months ago. Six hours on ANZAC Day resulted in 6,002 words under the OTHER heading in my spreadsheet (minus those parts which were direct quotes – about a thousand words). It wasn’t quite what I had planned for my day, but on the plus side, I’ve already met my writing quota up to the middle of May.

3) I get grumpy when I can’t read. Withdrawal? Maybe. Reading is my mood-balancing mechanism. Commendations to the Caped Gooseberry for bravery and compassion in the face of danger. There may be a medal.

So thank you very much for the insight, Ms Cameron, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.