Ain't Afraid of No Zombies

Bought 2 kilos of Rockets, for Hallowe'en: those tart candies, a fave when I was a kid. Do foresee myself savouring them into the New Year. I may take forever to finish writing projects, but I am disciplined about rationing sugary treats.

Reports are true. Zombies already are ranging freely, shambling along sidewalks, failing to navigate around each other, during Saturday shopping at Superstore.

I've barricaded doors, and windows especially: movie zombies always grab the stupid who stand in front of windows, after all.

I've deleted all that wordy yada'yada re the busy workweek just ended. It's really irrelevant, in light of what this night will bring. Perhaps might have to rush out later, rescue trapped friends, round-up survivors, transport our pitifully small number across a nightmarish city someplace safe, properly illuminated, noisy with music, and twenty-eight floors up.

For the moment, I'll play some more with my NaNoWriMo plot.

...At Ease...

Well, I've visited fave folks over at Protag.

There's a lot of enthusiasm building over there re this NaNoWriMo.

I'm finding the enthusiasm's contagious. Contagious in the best sense of the word. No disease. I'm feeling kinda...at ease...over quite probably, actually gonna'be'giving this month-long writing exercise a go. There's the point I keep hearing about participating, doing this NaNo. Do it for the fun of it. I intend to.

NaNoWriMo'a'Go'Go!

Yeahhh, can't think up any good reason why I shouldn't simply...do it. Not Try. Actually stopped myself tapping in try. His words popped in my brain, the master's voice and all his mannerisms, Yoda, pop culture sensei of my generation: Do...or do not...there is no Try.

[Recovering, after embarrassing hacking cough] Might've hurt myself there, strangling my voice like that, and hobbling about, feigning decrepitude, and banging my head against the furniture.

About banging my head against furniture, I just excised the next long bit about banging my head against the day job. Enough to say it's busy, wearing, isn't helping the writing. Also, isn't going away: part of me knows to be grateful. The point, though: no sense in waiting for miracles. I simply have to find a workaround. As always. As they say: There's no time like the present.

So. NaNoWriMo. Write a 50,000-word novel in November. Roughly 1700 words a day. And no works-in-progress, if I recall right. Hang on...is it cheating to start plotting and peopling now, mid-October? Hmmm...it's time to go visit fave folks over at Protag: a pack of them are doing this.

Last year, Tasha advised to leave all editing — even re-reading — until December. Simply get it all down — get it all done — and make sense of it in December. Sounds kinda freeing, eh? That's why I'm just gonna...do it. I can use the play.

SubSurface

Braver than me, he remembered dreams.

Imagined another life.

Dared to seek the edges.

Drew me maps.

Z List

There's a lot to be said for doing these lists, really. Did my Saturday to-do list, first thing this morn: trying again to make a habit of doing it, as I used to, and wiring it into my brain, so I'll simply do it now, scribbling it, along with breakfast.

Also did another kinda list. We all have...issues going or gone wrong in our lives we hate, or don't like, if hate is too harsh a word. Figured why not jot that down. Not some long-winded rant I wouldn't wanna write or read, let alone bore any reader with in a blog. Just a list. Things going left in my life I don't like...hate, actually. Recalling now I never used to flinch from feeling strongly about anything. It was stuff cluttering my view of Saturday morning anyway. Figured by jotting it down, staring at it, in effect, that maybe I'd see something I hadn't seen before: figure out some spectacular solution, maybe...could happen...sure...

Well. No. Not resolved in a simple list. No simple fix blazed clear as morning sun. But I don't feel frustrated about it, not at all now. I don't feel I might punch my fist thru a wall...if I was the melodramatic sort who takes a very hands-on approach to moving architecture. Jotting down all that...stuff seems to have put out the fire of it in my head. It's all only a list now. I'm left feeling, imagining it, even, that I might have done something about it already. And that'll do me fine. For now.

Could call it...Z List, I suppose. Names are good. Naming a thing makes it a knowable thing, eh? Z List, okay. Any other letter raises its importance. I don't want that. It could never be a B, for instance. Today's A, the to-do list, isn't even that big of an A. It's only an organizing tool, really: a thinking exercise intended for pointing me in the direction I want to go. Today's Big A, THE number 1 to-do I did scribble this morn: GO MEET FRIENDS. Well, of course! Because it's
S A T U R D A Y. Pretty hilarious outcome, wouldn't it be, if the exercise goes wrong and turns me from human being to human doing?

Oh yeah...To Do List

Once upon a time, when time was a thing I couldn’t catch if I swung the biggest butterfly net imaginable, I read some how-to…might’ve been How To Get Control of Your Time and Your Life. Yeah, thinking about it, that was the book. By Alan Lakein. Anyway. One useful and kinda obvious gem from it, thinking about that: To Do Lists. And I did find doing To Do Lists useful: for organizing, and prioritizing, right’right, the stuff whizzing about through my head. Wasn’t enough simply to do a To Do list: it’s only a mess of chores to do, until it’s prioritized…Do this first, then this, this, and so on. And maybe forget doing the ‘so on’, because the ‘so on’ is so low on the list.

Suddenly it’s gotten so busy…in this economic downturn, funny, eh?...and I’ve been feeling exhausted, and frustrated I can’t do more. Do more of my stuff. My projects. And I’ve just remembered this little coping device I used, when last I needed it – but forgot about until now.

So. Did my To Do list this morning. Scribbled it on some paper slip. Slipped it in my back pocket. Referred to it. Added to it. Subtracted from it through my day, as I did each, or enough of each. That was another bit of advice, I recall now: even doing some of a thing is better than doing nothing.

That bit of advice, and another…about trying to be flexible about everything. As I’m trying now. The dayjob beckons again. In overtime. Gotta go. I’ll be sure and do my stretching exercises, tho.