Friday, 11/21/14 12:24 pm

kids opera, cats, games, tree sales, birds

The Wrimoer had a new idea for how to play with word count targets and goals. She had probably thought of this before. The idea was to take a stab at doing 500 words, pause to note the time, and do the little stand-up exercises. One could never guarantee catching oneself at exactly 500 words but it would give one more of a sense that one had completed another block of something, or so she guessed. She would test the idea.

She had started out her morning right, after breakfast, by updating the writing log spreadsheet to include the past two days’ writings. She was making progress in the accumulation of words. At the same time that she was having fun playing this game – for it certainly was a game – she was seeing the ridiculousness of it. She was enjoying it though and it seemed as if it was teaching her things***principles that could be transferred to other activities. She was still mainly thinking in terms of knocking off her word debt or deficit. 

She had seen that morning in updating the spreadsheet that it had gotten her motivated to get going on the writing. She had hastened to clear away her breakfast dishes and maybe go make her bed so she could resume the writing project. Instead she wound up washing the dishes and getting herself all ready for the day. She had done this very fast where she usually dawdled over it. She had been very eager to get to work. The cat, who had gone out in the blustery bright cold day just before her breakfast, she had just seen bounding and racing across the neighbors’ lawn towards the parking lot of her building. She thought perhaps he was running to see the lady who often brought food for the birds and any cats hanging about. He might also be thinking that the Wrimoer was coming out for something and that her could come in for whatever reason. She had run down in the cold to whistle out for him. He came bounding home. Upstairs he ate, then kept miaowing up at her. He had taken to just looking at her and miaowing rather than indicating what he wanted. She used to be able to get him to scratch at the door if he wanted out. Now he just lay at the door miaowing at her. She would crack it open. Where he used to complete this action by pulling the door further open, he now just sat there waiting. The only thing she could think for this change was that when he pawed and clawed at the door during the night when she was sleeping, she would shoo him away. Had he understood that he was not supposed to open the door? She let him back out into the cold bluster.

She was doing the writing. The act of updating the word log had gotten motivated to do the writing. She wanted to think up a list of ideas like this that could get one motivated.

12:47 pm 516 words stand up 3x  23 minutes 516/23 – 22.43wpm

12:51 pm resume

She would probably have to cut the Nano writing short though. The evening before there had been an email from the leader of the civic committee she was part of asking the members for what time slots they could help out in selling Christmas trees right after Thanksgiving. They had been doing this for a few years now. The last year they had only broken even, because the weather had been so bad. They had also never put out a press release about it. There may have been and advertisement. There was a poster. The Wrimoer felt that a press release was most important. She had done it the years before and always just adapted whatever she had written previously. 

No one had asked her to do a press release the previous year. Apparently it had not been considered or just considered too late in the game. Now she was surprised that they had chosen to do the sale this year. Talk at the last meetings had sounded as if they would not be doing it again. The leader however had always really enjoyed doing the sale. She may not have remembered that they had decided not to continue it. Or maybe in her mind they had not decided anything final about it. 

The email was also qualified – ‘if we can get the trees…’ This would mean that sending out a press release could not yet be done. The request for assistants said that the weekend after Thanksgiving only needed one seller in all. Apparently because it was not busy in that time slot. Again the Wrimoer thought that could be because they had not gotten press or any publicity out in time for that weekend. 

The Wrimoer was torn between wanting to pull out her previous press releases, (she had even done that right after she found the message), and knowing that if she stepped in to do this, she would be keeping up the role of doing press releases. Doing press releases that she had already written and was simply recycling was easy. It seemed foolish to have someone else start the process all over again. This press release, if she was going to get involved, was what would put a limit to her Nanowrimo project work that day. She would probably have to give up for the day her strong desire to get through that deficit. She had had hopes of thinking of it segment by segment and maybe, just maybe she would get through it. It still remained to be seen. This was still proving to be an odd experience to be writing about writing and seemingly mostly writing about word accounting. It showed the fascination with games and strategies that one could have.

She always thought she was not one for playing scorekeeping games. This was not as much a scorekeeping as it was a form of watching something grow and having a hand in making it grow. Just like doing a crossword puzzle, a picture puzzle, a needlework project, knitting. They all grew cell by cell, row by row, bit by bit. 

1:16 pm 1050 words. 25 minutes  stand up 3x

1:19 resume

The Wrimoer had again not made any lists of topics she might want to tell about. She had been running through her head various things she had heard on the radio, or read on the social media. Another bit of advice or encouragement from one of the groups or forums for the writing project told of how important it was to keep on trying with one’s writing efforts. This was from someone who was a very dedicated writer. They had written 13 novels. On the 13^th the writer was on the verge of giving up. Every novel submission had been rejected whenever the person had tried. Then one day, when the author was just considering giving up, there came a message from someone, (a publisher or agent), who was desperately trying to find the author. Some message or something had gotten lost for two months. This person had liked the manuscript so much and was trying to get hold of the author to sign the author. This all led to the author’s becoming published and to now being able to work only on writing. The author’s main point after that story was that the author had realized it was simply impossible to stop writing because one just loved telling stories so much. That was the most important thing for the author. It did not matter whether one got published. One just had to write. That was why one wrote, or at least that was why that author wrote.

This had made the Wrimoer think on her own reasons for writing. She was still just dabbling and experimenting with the making up of stories. She did not think for her it was that she liked telling stories, but more that she wanted to capture them, to remember them. Not ‘a story’ so much as whatever it was that had happened of importance, (in this case it was often just a matter or the importance of a day’s or a moment’s ambience), how an experience had been for her, what she had experience, what she had learned from something, revelations she had had. The fiction story telling was still such a new thing for her. She had no real faith in it yet, but was interested and willing to explore it. Writing a novel was way out of her league so far. She knew she should not even be considering it. And she really was not. It was small stories she should be playing with. The only goal in this Nano project was to get words done, and to experience and learn from the offshoots, the side effects, of doing this work.

1:38 pm 1501 words 19 minutes  stand up 3x  (451/19 = 23.7 wpm)

1:42 pm resume

She was getting very hot sitting in her sunny window. The heater was running again. She had long ago taken off her sweater. The laptop was hot on her lap, and this time she had been wearing thick woolen socks. They were too thick for her shoes because of the way they were too bulky in the toes. She’d worn them the day before for going out of the house. They were perfect for using as slipper socks, or at least as writing slipper socks. She preferred walking around barefoot. It gave better traction on the floor, and it felt so good to have immediate changing contact with the floor instead of the unchanging contact of socks. She loved the sensation of gripping the floor, feeling the texture of it on her soles.

The light was already getting that late afternoon look to it. She had been determined that this year she would not let that bother her. She had to keep in mind that the light would start growing again after December 21. She just realized - that was now only a month away. There was pleasure to be had in each aspect of the seasons as they traveled through their cycles. Just the throwing peanuts out to the calling bluejays in the morning made her anticipate the pleasure of giving them peanuts out the window the previous winter. Then it had been crows too. The crows were not around as much this year it seemed. She hoped they might start showing up again. It was always fun to try to sneak a peek at them when they came for peanuts. They would land in the tree opposite the window and eye the peanuts on the roof or fallen to the ground. They would try to fly to the roof to get a peanut but if they saw her watching they would take off without getting the treat. They were so skittish. Not the bluejays. They would practically beg for the peanuts. The latest gang of bluejays had been coming since they were out of the nest this summer. One had been quite a scrawny almost bareheaded bird when it showed up with its siblings. She could not resist putting out a handful of peanuts most days through the summer, but the bird feeding felt like something that mostly took place in the winter. She associated it with winter, and for that it was a very pleasurable memory about winter. It made the idea of winter much better for her. 

A little story on the radio news was about a performance of a little opera company or performance. It could have been an annual event. It was a little opera for children that the composer had written before the war and then in one of the Nazi death*** camps the composer had adapted it for the children to perform. The children had spent quite a bit of time doing this. The Wrimoer could not even remember for whom the children had performed the opera. It had been filmed and later used in a propaganda film. Since it was written and performed in a different language, those who listened to it had no idea of the meaning or the message of it. The composer had meant for it to give hope for the prisoners. Now it was being produced again with children performing. The last survivor of the original cast was involved in its revival. She spoke telling what this had meant to them all back then, and that she felt it was important to keep this alive, even if it had been used in the propaganda machine. 

The Wrimoer had been intrigued with the idea of being able to create something that others could perform. There were so many things that could be made for children that way. Of course children could also do it themselves. These were qualities she wanted in her creations and artistic endeavors. It was one of the reasons she so enjoyed doing drawings that would be coloring pages. All of theses aspects were still percolating for her. She was feeling as if she was getting a better understanding of just what she was after. Sometimes the search for this clarity took a very long time. There was a lot to discover along the way.

She had far overshot the 500 word segment mark. Now she felt she had to just continue to the 2500 mark – if she could think of another thing she had wanted to relate.

If she did not stop, it would be very late for anything else. The previous day she had gotten herself out to the fast food place to have a bite, and to use the wifi. She wanted to check the newspapers that came out on Thursdays to see if her press releases had printed. That she would have to do at the library. She went for the food first, just so that she would not be eating there too late. There she had run into a few people. But not stopped to chat at length with anyone. One couple was the same couple she had seen the last time. 

The burger had been terrible as it usually was. It was a new ‘associate’ who had taken her order. He had let it sit too long because he had not noticed it was ready. He had thrown out her receipt though she had told him she would want it. When she finally asked him to check if that was her order waiting there, he discovered it was, and put it in a takeout bag, instead of preparing it for eating in. When she told him she’d wanted it for eating in, he started taking it out of the bag to lay on the bare tray. When she saw the bare tray without the paper liner, she could see how unwiped it was. She reminded him that the trays were to have paper liners. He was a nice and friendly enough person, but apparently so inept still. As for burgers, she might try going back to the chicken sandwiches. 

2:24 pm 2539 words 43 minutes 24.13 wpm!

… Re: newspapers at the library