No Deadline = No Good

Actually, I should qualify that headline: No Imminent Deadline = No Good. At least lately, it seems like I’m the kind of writer that needs an approaching deadline to really finish something. I don’t know why that is, and I don’t always like it, but that’s just how it’s worked out.

Even now, right now, I have an article that needs to be completed so the subject can see a proof, but I’m having a hard time buckling down to finish it. I have a self-imposed deadline, but those are just BS, and my brain does not respect them.

NaNoWriMo was great, because if I wanted to be a “winner” (which I am thank you very much), I had to get the minimum word count in every day. I had to keep on task. Granted, there may have been times that I lagged a little, there were times I wanted to just stop, there were times that I wanted to switch to another project, but the deadline and the goal helped me pull through. Although I really don’t care for the story, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to go back to it.

Case in point, I started a short story the other day, one that I’m excited about and I think could be really funny, but now after about the third day of working on it — a few hundred words a day — my output is starting to wan. I want to work on it during the day, but the pesky day job gets in the way. I wanted to do some work on it at night, but the pesky night job and/or responsibilities at home get in the way.

Another example is the Writers’ Digest Short Story Competition. I entered, but it took a long-ass time for me to finish the story. I knew about the competition months ago. I even started the story months ago, but it wasn’t until I had a couple weeks to deadline that I really buckled down to write it all. And then I was pressing the deadline to reread and get my changes made.

I know it’s a discipline thing, and right now I just don’t seem to have any. This bothers me immensely, but in my mind I’m automatically coming up with excuses as to why I’m not getting work done. I’ve thought about getting up an hour or half hour earlier every day and getting some writing done then, but usually I feel like I’m running on little enough sleep as it is. I don’t know. What do you suggest?

Garage Sale Part Deux

So I know it’s Wednesday and the Great Garage Sale of ‘08 ended Sunday, but what can I say, I’m busy, so lay off. All in all, we made a good haul and I got rid of some of the big items that we don’t have a place for anymore. We totalled about $250ish. There’s still plenty to sell I’m sure, but I didn’t have time to go through and find it all. We’re pondering having another garage sale later this summer. We’ll see how it goes.

We had this old couch that we wanted to get rid of, and even at $5 no one would buy it. Some guy, mid 20’s I’d say, pulled up in an El Camino, backed up onto the curtain of the driveway actually, and went straight to it. He really liked it, and said he had one just like it but a little larger. He wanted it, but said he would come back because he wasn’t sure if he should take it or not. I got the impression he’d get in trouble with a girlfriend. He never did come back, and in the end we ended up putting it on the curb Sunday night (Monday is garbage day). It was still there when I left for work in the morning, but our neighbor said he was pretty sure he saw an El Camino come by and someone take it before the garbage came. Oh well, if it was him, the guy probably spent $5 in gas just to come by twice to get it.

There were some price negotiations, and by Sunday, I just wanted to get rid of the stuff, so I was taking just about anything. Some people were annoying at how low they went, but oh well.
Throughout the weekend, I tried to create a confined area where the garage sale ended by making a U at the end of the stuff, so people wouldn’t go back to the rest of the driveway. This didn’t work, and people still walked past to look at what we had closer to the garage, like we were hiding the really good stuff back there.

On Sunday, I was only open about half the day since traffic was slow and I didn’t feel like being out there any more, but as soon as I started to pack up, then people started coming, so I packed up really slowly. All in all we only ended up doing about $30 worth of business on Sunday, but then the weather was too good that day and it didn’t appear there were any other garage sales going on as there had been the previous two days.

So, all in all, it went well. We made a little more money than I would have anticipated, which is going into the wife wants a new refrigerator fund. Now I just have to get rid of a glass display case, a butcher’s block and a student desk that used to be my wife’s and I think was stolen from the set of Full House. Any takers?

Dealin with them crazies

So as I’ve said here before, I’ve got this part-time job at a library now. It’s a good job, you know, nice people, low stress, nice environment, etc. etc.

It’s all good, but there’s this woman that is there literally every day that is a little...off. The person that trained me said that this woman is mentally out of alignment (to put it nicely) but she doesn’t really bother anyone, and everyone just laughs off what she says. The first day I worked there she was nice and seemed to be in a good mood; last night, not so much. She came up to the counter, and this is how our interaction went:

Me: Hello. How are you today

Crazy Lady (in a frustrated tone of voice): Fine. Is that the end of the questions?

Me: *checks out DVD and hands it back to her* There you go. Have a good night.

Crazy Lady: I wish you wouldn’t tell me what to do.

Me: Awkward silence

Then she proceeded to have a conversation with the other circulation clerk about the clerks recent hair cut, which boiled down to Crazy Lady telling the other clerk she needed to grow her hair out, that it was too short.

Who would have thought a library would be so interesting?

You Don't Want to Know

Go ahead, ask me what I've been doing for the last two hours. Well? Ok, I've been cleaning the fridge and freezer, a task that hasn't been done in only God knows how long. I scrubbed and scraped goop of many colors, consistencies and textures. Part of the goop was a nice red mess from when the dufus who's been putting in our new bathroom left his can of Rockstar Energy Drink in the freezer for too long and it exploded. Gross. Now, I've got to make a lunch for tomorrow, and of course, nothing really sounds appetizing right now.

Monday Monotony Meltdown: The Wombat's Visit

Already I have let a Funtastic Friday Follies pass me by, and I nearly forgot about the Monday Monotony Meltdown, but I have just remembered. Bad Matt, bad. You should be more responsible with your blogging. Anyway, here is is:

The Wombat's Visit

Today of all days the wombat had to come. It waddled into the office, sniffing tentatively and going on and on about how the universe was such a safe place because of its efforts. Already having a hard time concentrating, I tried to just ignore it, but its bulk and the stench of many dead space monkeys that followed it around as a puppy follows a steak made this impossible. A fresh cut was just above his right shoulder and the wound was oozing.

"I go to all this trouble of eliminating the space monkeys from this sector," he said, "and I can't even get a mention in your silly mag. "I tried to explain once again that our mag has no place for wombats, but it was to no avail.

By this time, his stench was bothering everyone in the room, especially after he shook himself to try and dislodge some of the space monkeys' blood. A wad of green monkey hair stuck to my copy stand and I had to get a scraper and use nearly half a bottle of Goo Gone to get it off. I was getting angry, and my boss wanted the creature gone, so with a flick of my wrist I deployed my automatic, levitating, Teflon-coated, gargantuan spatula and scooped him up. With the use of my containment field in a box it was no problem to keep him in place on the floating slab of metal and hustle him outside, where I deposited him at the back of the parking lot. I set the containment field to dissolve in two minutes, giving me plenty of time to get back inside and not worry about him slinking in the open door after me.

I was walking down the final hall to my cube, passing the windows, when a movement caused me to look up and out. The wombat flew past, his chrome-plated ionic jetpack carrying him ever skyward. In his right hand he carried his MB (monkey blaster) 55+. With his left he was flicking me off. I waved the spatula at him, realizing that we'd just play this game again in the weeks to come, just like we've done so many times before.

Garage Sale Weekend

We're having a garage sale this weekend. We got a decent turn out. Made a nice little bundle of cash. Two more days to go. Day 1 included getting sunburn on the back of my neck, an old polish woman trying to get what we were selling for a fraction of what I had it priced at (not that we were selling stuff for that high anyway. I though we were lowballing everything), the same woman wanted to know if she could bring her own stuff to sell at our sale on Sunday, a bunch of people looking at our cabinets for sale and saying hmmmmm and then not buying, and a host of others. Back at it tomorrow I guess.

"God Speed Little Doodle"

I just sent off my story for the 77th Annual Writers' Digest Short Story Competition. It's called "Scratching The Itch" and it's a funny little story, although I feel, and one of the other peope that have read it said I could do funnier. But still, I'm pretty satisfied with the effort and we'll just have to wait and see what's going to happen.

I've been trying to get some other people in the office to do a story too. Of the 5, two submitted stories and the other 3 are opting for the late deadline of June 2. I wish them luck, and anyone who has submitted a story for that matter. However, I rather see my story do better, so everyone just get out of my way.

So to send off my story, in the words of Mr. Ned Flanders, "God speed little doodle."

Wish me luck!