Today in Mommy-Land
*Phew.* So we survived (and thoroughly enjoyed) Andy’s two week vacation and survived getting at least a little back into the flow of Residency life this past week (though he’s been on elective, which is practically like vacation, compared to Wards), though tomorrow kicks off Month 3 of Wards, so we’ll be back in the dark ages of doom and despair, at least until mid-October, anyway.
The Little Man did relatively well today, save for the fact that he took a crazy early nap (~10AM), and only slept for about 35 minutes. This, for those unaware of toddler’s patterns of behavior, created two problems: 1) He’d already technically napped, and he’s usually a one-nap-a-day kind of kid, so did this scanty nap count for the day? and 2) It was really, really short (he ranges usually between 1.5 hours and 2.5 hours for a nap, usually leaning towards the thin side), which meant by 12pm, he was getting crazy manic, likely from exhaustion. Making it all day from 10:40AM to his bedtime at 8:45PM is a huuuuuuge stretch for him. That, and his micro nap barely gave me time to eat breakfast and get a tiny bit of drafting in, which was certainly a bit frustrating since I really only get to relax and do my own thing at nap-time and post-bedtime.
It also means the rest of the day is spent analyzing whether or not he needs another nap, since two naps is unusual, but a 35 minute nap just ain’t gonna do it for him for 10 hours. It also involves a lot of “Let’s just see if you want to nap now” which kind of breaks up the whole day, but gets old really fast when most times the answer is a very clear NO. But he did just go down around 3:15 (late late late laaaate–ugh…I need to wake him up, actually) for another nap, and given how he’s sleeping now, he’d probably conk out for another hour if I let him…which I can’t. UGH. That’ll make for a fun evening.
I did feel rather snazzy, though, when I came up with an activity based off the idea of putting finger paint in a plastic ziplock bag to play with (rather than = huge mess): only, since I didn’t have any finger paint, I used ketchup and yellow mustard, and a smidgeon of canola oil. It was so awesome! Of course, like most toddler activities, it entertained him for approximately 10 minutes, and then he was done with it. I, on the other hand, found it quite entertaining. Still, it was an attempt, and I’m proud of myself for that.
Today in Writer-Land
The Chekhov Plan (6 Mo.) has been somewhat permanently set aside for the time being. The sporadic nature of the Little Man’s sleep habits and my own inability to write ACTUAL short stories under 10k makes it nearly impossible to perform a Chekhov week as it’s intended. I tried for a while to just “let it flow”–letting one story bleed into the next week, and so on and so forth, not abiding by the week-long mandate of time, but in the end, that just means I flounder around a lot longer, which defeats the purpose of the Chekhov Plan (which is to produce a lot of new rough drafts quickly and clear out the crusty old ideas that have been festering in my head for too long). Disappointing to realize one’s limitations, but at the same time, a bit liberating. Moving forward, at least for the forseeable future, I’m striving to have fun. Pursue the projects that sound exciting, realizing that time is very limited and that I’m constrained against chunks of time to catch up on projects that are running too long.
Didn’t get a huge amount done today. I’m still trying to get back up to speed post-vacation (I let myself take the full two weeks guilt-free from writing, since Andy’s around so little these days, but admittedly by 9/13, I was going a bit batty.). Currently, I’m ankle-deep in a brand new summary draft (You can read more about what the heck a “summary draft” is here.), which is both exciting and a bit frustrating. Exciting, because it feel so illicitly wrong to write a novel this way, and yet I enjoy it so much. Frustrating, because as I work through the play-by-play of the movie in my head of this story, I’m realizing how many fundamental plot problems and holes it has that when you’re just *thinking* about writing something you don’t seem to notice…hmmm… But anyway, it’s moving forward.
Played around a bit with a short story I’d like to wrap up at some point, but I’m feeling a bit lost on it, which feels…just. fabulous. I’d love to have a few more rough short stories done by the end of the year, but I have no idea when that’ll happen, and more and more is looking like “they’ll happen when they happen” and no sooner. In the meantime: the summary draft of what I’m playfully calling “Katie Kasahara and the Skin-Stealing Datamorphs”–because I’m crazy like that. But I’m quite enjoying it, even as I run into wall after wall after wall and think, “Oh crap…I’ve never actually worked out the logic on X event occurring here…” *Sigh.* But one day after another, it’ll get done! The plan beyond that is minimal, but absolutely centers on taking the “Lunar Lots” novella and turning it into an edited, purified, final draft. I’m scared crapless about that because I’ve never edited a project that long before (I believe it’s 34k+), and I really have no idea what kind of problems are going to arise as I begin digging in. But the world-building has been a blast, and I’m looking forward to it with about as much excitement as fear, so that’s something, isn’t it?
Now to go wake the Lad before he sleeps away his bedtime…
Maggie Slater 