Balls in the air

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Catherine Austen

Did you notice the new blog name? I got an email from a total stranger asking if I was still alive and I figured it was time to get back to blogging and Facebook and all that putting-myself-out-there stuff.

So here I came. And imagine my surprise when I saw that I’d given myself a deadline to rename this blog. What on earth was I thinking when I wrote that?

The new name came to me in a less-than-brilliant flash. Is it a wise blog name for a writer who hopes to keep her clients and editors happy, not to mention maybe attact an agent? No. But what the hell. It suits me. My next Friday Fable will most definitely be about procrastination.

I have the fable already written, actually, but I’m holding back till the “F” day. I discovered a clever time management tip: get the jump on one of the week’s smaller tasks early in order to feel on top of things. So I wrote my Friday Fable on Wednesday. That way, come Friday, I’ll have saved enough time to catch up on the stuff I was supposed to do this morning. Clever, huh?

If I have been mismanaging my time of late, I blame my dishwasher. I used to have a daily to-do list on my coffee cup, at left. But I must have washed it on the wrong setting – or perhaps it just got to know me well – because it came out like so, at right, and things haven’t been the same for me since. (My drumming is really coming along, though.)

So what have I been doing while avoiding my blog-naming deadline? I have been a bit of a gadabout in my fair province, and I want to share a view of the clever construction in Quebec City:

The right side of the Parliament Building in this photo is actually a drop sheet behind which they’re fixing things up. So much nicer than scaffolding.

I have also been escaping the heat and drought at my cabin, which has a lovely view and no drop sheets:

And I have been holed up inside (without an air conditioner!) writing. In fact, I finished a couple of books. Although I work electronically almost exclusively these days, I still print out a book when it is fully completely done and wow, that feels good.

Okay, maybe it doesn’t feel so great with the four-page picture book, at left.

But with the 400-page novel, at right, it feels great looking at that pile. I will go plant a tree in its honour. (But not till the drought is over.) This is a book I have worked and reworked for years and now I can say that it is DONE. (Until I sell it, after which I’ll have to rewrite, but I’m not thinking about that yet.)

So I have managed to keep a couple of balls in the air. And now that one has come down, I hope to get this blog going again. For a while, anyway. With the new title, I don’t feel a whole lot of pressure.

I can always throw in the odd Procrastination Day post, alongside my What’s New Wednesdays and Friday Fables. That would be a day to, say, share my progress in jigsaw puzzling and making rag rugs. Yes, I actually started a rag rug this summer. It seemed like a great idea at the time because I had a deadline pending on some assignment or other. But now the writing is done and I have the makings of a braided rug about four inches in diameter. Oh well. Life is like that. Or mine is, anyway.

Deadline? What deadline?

Category: What's New, writingTags: creative process, novels, procrastination

2 Comments on “Balls in the air”

deshipley
July 25, 2012

The new blog title was the first thing I noticed. Got the notification of a new post in my inbox, quirked my brows and pondered, “Who the world is this from??” I was most reassured to see ’twas you. X)

Reply
- Catherine Austen
  July 25, 2012
  
  Thanks! It must have read like an ad for a super-strong energy drink. “Meet those looming deadlines with ease with just one bottle…” But no, it’s me, alive well and and running behind, as usual.
  
  Reply