Unfinished Business

Blair and I had breakfast on Sunday with a couple we're good friends with whose schedule mirrors ours in terms of sheer chaos.  The discussion turned to long-term planning and as a group, we all laughed aloud. Long term planning? It's a race to get through each day and get done what absolutely, positively has to be done that day. Who has time for long-term planning?

And yet without it, life stagnates and you  find yourself in a whirling circle, chasing your own tail but never moving forward.  I'll take the time now and again to write out some long-range goals or dreams and the steps to take me there and sometimes I'll follow the plan, but more typical is that the project of the moment rears its head and I turn my attention and energies to that instead. (And there is always a new project or issue rearing its head).

I'm not sure what the answer is. Blair and I are "watching" life at the moment to see if this has just been an unusually full two months or if the pattern of only seeing each other 20 minutes a day is more of a permanent issue that needs addressed.  What do you do if it is a problem? Work less? Turn down work? I have that option but Blair doesn't.  And since I like my work and only take on projects that interest me, I'm not sure turning down work is the answer.

 I have disengaged myself from several groups which I'm hoping will clear time. I've dropped 2 writers groups and Dale Carnegie ends in 4 weeks so that will free up Tuesday nights as well.  Leaving the writers groups not only frees up drive time and meeting time but also the time required to do the prep work to be ready to meet with the group. The trick now is not to take on anything new.

If I ever do clear some free time, here are a few projects I'd like to see completed: 

• Update my website - Need to add new book cover, new book page, new headshot photos, possibly overhaul the entire site and lose the maniac kitty-cat at the typewriter or at least move him back to a humor or pets page.
• Wash windows. We have 42 windows, each 16-paned, so this is no small task. But I love looking out sparkling clean windows and ours are approaching the point where the cats are going to start writing "WASH ME" in the dirt.
  
• Hang pictures.  We managed to have them framed, now need to find a home for them.
• Paint the exercise room. The exercise room has the same duck (yes, duck) border it had when we moved in and I've been ready to make it go away for years. However, that means scraping wallpaper, moving heavy exercise equipment, and a large time investment.
  
• Re-polyurethane the wood floors.  Not something I'm looking forward to. I've avoided it for 11 years and I hate to ruin such a strong record.
• Decorate for Halloween. This includes set building as we are "the" house for trick-or-treaters. We do themes every year and now have a reputation we feel obliged to live up to as being the "cool" house on the block--at least at Halloween. We're thinking of building a bridge and doing the Headless Horseman theme this year.
  
• Pull out winter clothes and pack summer clothes away. Once I get cold enough, I'll do this.
• Play more with the cats.  The guilt increases as I too often ignore them.
• Spend more time with Blair. (Goes without saying)
• Finish final draft work on public speaking book and get to critique group.
• Organize scrapbook. The papers and souvenirs from England/Scotland remain piled in a bag, crying to be sorted out.
• Visit friends. A close friend of mine moved back to Durham from DC almost 4 months ago and I haven't been able to find a weekend yet when I'm free to go see her.

There's a host of other things but I'm feeling slightly nauseas just looking at this list, so we'll leave it alone. Although, I'm a bit encouraged too. This was the first morning in months that I didn't have to be up at 5 AM. I slept in until 6 and it was heavenly. Since the festival was rained out this weekend, I got the house cleaned and we completed a few household tasks we'd been putting off. Had breakfast with friends on Sunday. Went for a 50-minute run yesterday. Am meeting friends for dinner before Dale Carnegie today.

I almost feel like I have an actual life going on again. 

Lovely. 

"I'm A Bitter, Bitter Girl..."

I can't take the credit for the wonderful blog title. That credit goes to my friend and uber-talented jewelry artist Melody Watson with whom I shared a booth this Saturday at the 34th Ashboro Fall Festival in downtown Ashboro (not to be confused with Asheville), NC.

 I'm a writer so I will now call upon all my literary and artistic talents to describe with great feeling and passion our experience of the festival.  Ah yes, I have it. In a word,  the festival... SUCKED.

 Hence, Melody's statement from above. Here's the background. Melody had a friend signed up to be a vendor at this festival but for whatever reason, the friend had to back out and offered her table --free of the $25 registration charge--to Melody. Melody did some research and all accounts from web sites, town dwellers, and even out of out town artists who had worked the festival in prior years indicated this was a HUGE festival. As in, people came in from other parts of the state for it. The merchandise would simply fly off the shelves.

So Melody heaved it into high gear and pulled together some stunning handcrafted, all original necklaces for the event.  She asked if I'd like to share her booth to sell Lessons In Stalking and both of us went to bed rubbing our hands in glee and dreaming of moving mass quantities of merchandise.

And that might have happened, if not for the weather. It dropped 20 degrees to hold at a steady 53 degrees the day of the festival and had a sleeting rain on top of it. We were wet, cold and miserable from the get go. All of which would have been bearable if we had SOLD items. But we were at the far end of the festival (in the "unfortunate, unfashionable neighborhood" of vendors relegated to the ends of the earth as Melody called it) and foot traffic was bleak. Add to that the rain was misting onto my books and warping them and Melody's displays waved in the wind and at one point a necklace fell to the ground and broke.

We arrived at 7 to put out tent up, the festival started at 10, Melody's bitter girl comment came about noon and at two o'clock we looked at each other and said, "We're done." We packed up our tent as the other vendors looked on in a mixed display of emotions--smug, because they outlasted us, and envious, because we were going where there was heat and leaving them out for another 4 hours to freeze.  We could have almost given a rip at that point - "shower, hot tea, jammies" was the refrain going through my mind as I raced for home.

We had the table for Sunday as well but as the weather forecast remained unchanged it was an easy decision not to return. I think I'm done with festivals. I typically don't sell many books there and it's not worth the amount of time it takes up to sell the few I do. I have one indoor festival next month I've agreed to but after that I may retire the card table and signage that is the signature of the festival vendor. 

The day wasn't an entire loss.  Melody is a fun girl and we chatted and caught up with each others lives and she introduced me to a fantastic book of essays by an author whose work I now love but whose name currently escapes me. (Melody--when you read this, please post the authors name in a comment).  We poked the tent and watched rain water pool off in long spurts. Melody, a former nanny, watched mothers parade sadly undressed for the weather children around and fumed and threatened on more than one occasion to call social services. We watched the Right to Life group across from us with the plastic bloody body parts under glass ask people to sign a petition urging Congress to ban human cloning and were amazed not so much that the vast majority of people stopped to sign, but that they did so without asking a question. Is everyone really so up to date on cloning that it's not worth a "tell me what this is all about" question.  Apparently so...

For a more detailed look at the festival, check out Melody's blog entry on it. As for me, I'm finally warm and other than a quick trip to the bank and dry cleaners this morning, have no plans to leave the house until tomorrow afternoon.

Happy Monday to everyone. 

Making Time to Read

I'm not doing much reading these days. That's a problem, as reading is by far my favorite hobby and an intrinsic part of who I am. Yet I can't remember the last time I lost myself in a good book. It's been close to two months, at least. Most of the reading I do now is informational or by assignment. I just read two Dale Carnegie books and while they were good, it's not the same as disappearing into a different world.

When we were traveling this weekend, I found a couple of great books I'd like to read. One was a biography of Marie Antoinette and the other is a book called "The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai."  It's about the leper colony established on the island of Molokai in Hawaii and the people (lepers and non) who were forced there. That book had blurbs from Tracy Kidder and Paul Theoroux, two writers I admire, and I'm kicking myself for not just having bought it in the airport. I balk at paying $30 for a book though--that's why God made libraries and Edward McKay's (2ndhand bookstore).

I've got meetings most of today but should be home around 4. I'm marching myself straight to the library and checking out no less than 4 books and I am going to make finding time to read more of a priority in life.  If I can find time to watch, "My Name is Earl," I can find the time to turn the pages of a book.

Do you go through reading stages? For years, all I read was history and biography. Then I spent 6 months on archeology (having it to do over again, I'd study forensic archeology in school). Then there was the chick lit stage (not a pretty period), then the classics, then sci-fi, then two years of almost solely non-fiction. This past year or two has been a mish-mash of reading--young adult, middle grade, fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks (I like looking at the pretty pictures), and reading the manuscripts and stories of fellow writers.

I just hopped over to Amazon and they have The Colony for $12 so I'm going to buy it. A little reward for...well, I don't know but I'm sure I'll think of something.

Book suggestions, anyone? I love to know what people are reading.  

Awards

Each year the international Cat Writers Association (That's right--there are a lot of us. Be very afraid.) holds a writers conference and awards ceremony. I received notice in the mail yesterday that I'll be receiving "Certificate of Excellence" awards in the 3 categories I applied in: humor, column writing, and gift book.

The Certificate is the first step. Each category is judged by 3-5 judges and a point system is awarded. On a 100-point scale, you must earn 90 points or higher to receive the Certificate. The real award though, is called the Muse Medallion.  Let's say there are 3 certificate winners in a category. Those 3 will then compete against one another for the top award, which is the Medallion. I've won several Certificates of Excellence over the years but still haven't snagged a Medallion. 

I can almost guarantee I won't receive a Medallion for my book. I'm up against Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul and I (rightfully) don't see me beating that book.  Maybe for humor or for my column, which is also a humor column.

The one thing I've noticed with humor writing is that when in the same category against "reporting" or a "tear-jerker," it tends to get overlooked. I've talked about this with many humor writers at various conferences. Many of them complain that it's because people think writing humor is easy or anyone can do it, which is far from true. Humor writing is some of the hardest writing there is to do.

I think human nature comes into play. If you're looking at two columns and one is about rescuing a feral cat from a life of neglect and one is a humor piece about wiping a cat's butt, I think people would feel guilty "ignoring" the hard story in favor of the fun one. It doesn't mean the humor piece any less well-written, but I do understand why it's harder for people to select the humor articles as the winner. 

Anyway, it's still fun seeing who wins what. And the conference is held in conjunction with the Cat Fanciers annual cat show and that is a sight to behold. A coliseum full of felines--I'm in heaven. I'll do a book signing along with several other cat writers from our group. I was excited about the signing last year, thinking, "A cat show! What better place to sell cat books?"

Actually, it's a horrible place to sell cat books. That's because there are aisles and aisles and aisles of people selling nothing but cat crap - books, toys, food, furniture, jewelry, clothing, and on and on and on. It's so overwhelming that everything tends to just blend into one another and not a lot gets sold.

Besides, I've learned that people who own cats aren't the ones who buy my book.  People who have spouses, friends or relatives that own cats tend to be the people who buy my book as a gift for their friends.

Speaking of cats, there is a little feline face staring up at me now, wondering why I'm pounding away on keys instead of petting her. Good question.