The Concert Last Sunday

Daily writing prompt

What was the last live performance you saw?

Last Sunday, I watched the Nodaway County Chorale perform their annual Spring concert. Community choirs are an interesting concept, because there are people who love to sing who aren’t professionals. They don’t need to be — they enjoy singing, and that’s enough. They have enough talent to sing in tune and pick up the right rhythm, and they have enough fortitude to practice regularly.

My husband has been in the choir for over 15 years. He devotes Monday nights from September through April for this. They do two concerts a year — one at Christmas and one in the Spring. I admire his commitment and that of the 50-odd people who make up the chorus.

I am not in the Chorale. I lost my ability to sing several years ago — my voice has gotten weak and I can’t always hit the right notes. My type of singing tends toward folk music — if I played guitar I probably would still be writing and singing folk songs regardless of whether I could sing. Plus I like having my Monday nights free.

So I got to see my husband’s concert. It was good — they always are, no matter how much Richard fusses about it before the concert.

One Day Till Summer Break!

I have one exam (literally one exam — I have one student taking it) to give and grade, and then I am done with the semester! The school year has gone so fast, probably because I dealt with it one day, one task at a time. Very much in the present.

This summer, I will be bored unless I start writing. I have already laid out fall classes (including making them accessible) and putting my calendar in place. Other than revising syllabi to be ADA compliant, I have fall semester in the bag. I have 9 interns to visit over the summer, a lot of them local. Therefore, a lot of free time. I estimate a lot of writing and coffee. Hopefully a couple weekends for retreat time.

Here’s to a relaxing summer!

Mayor for a Day

Daily writing prompt

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

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There are a lot of jobs I would like to try for one day. The one I’m thinking of, however, is mayor of a small town. I think I could handle that job for about a day. I couldn’t do much damage in one day, I figure, even if I’m bad at it. I know there would be a lot of administrative decisions I would need to make, many routine. It would not be an exciting time. I’d still like to do it, just to say I did.

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There are other jobs I would like to do for a day. Cat rescue. Journalist. Disaster case manager. Extra in a movie.

There are a lot of jobs I wouldn’t like to do because I don’t have the physical prowess or the mental know-how. I don’t want to be a stunt double, or a doctor, or a professional makeup artist. (I would like to try professional moulage artist if there’s on-job training, but making someone look beautiful is too hard.) Nor would I want to be a fashion designer, an actor, or an engineer.

Professional author? I would love that, because it would mean that I’ve been picked up by a publisher. I could do that for more than one day!

A Day of Plotting

My husband and I got to Haven Coffeehouse at a little after 8 this morning; my task for the day was to develop my outline for the latest book a bit more.

Two cups of coffee later, I’m a bit closer. I think it’s going to take place in the Spring, four years after Avatar of the Maker. The point-of-view characters are going to be Tisha, the influencer; her husband Rod, the corporate promotions person; and Gideon, the engineer at Barn Swallows’ Dance.

Things I need to remember: The children just born in Avatar are now four years old; Bergeron the cat is about the same age. (Bergeron the cat is an important plot point as he is going to be the representative of the non-standard reality of the place). Tom is still the general manager; Leah is now a vet tech and well on her way to be a vet.

Tisha and Rod are 27 and 33 respectively. Their age difference is going to be important when it comes to how they get along; Rod tends to be a little condescending to Tisha, and this is going to become a point of conflict.

Other important people (besides those named in the above paragraphs) are Jeanne and Josh, as keepers of the Garden; Amarel, as the most obvious (to them) ‘difference’, and Luke, as the lawyer.

And of course, Barn Swallows’ Dance is one of the characters. It’s ’nonstandard reality’ is going to be the invisible elephant in the room — “What elephant? I don’t see an elephant.”

This needs to be plumped out a bit more, but I can see the bones. Sort of.

A Textbook Answer

Daily writing prompt

What gives you direction in life?

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This is probably going to be a boring answer, because it is literally a textbook answer — in fact, it’s in one of the textbooks I teach from.

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Goals give me direction in life. They give us all direction in life — that’s what they’re there for. Without goals, our life is without focus.

It could be said that our values give us direction in life, but they do so by spawning our goals. We take our values and ask, “How do I manifest this value?” and we get goals. “If trying new things is a value I have, how do I achieve it? I go to this new restaurant featuring Thai-Italian fusion.”

Goals can be general or specific. Specific goals have singular ways of fulfilling them, such as that goal to go to the Thai-Italian fusion place. General goals give way to a myriad of specific goals one can use to fulfill them. It is more flexible to have general goals because one can fulfill them in many different ways.

I like to have Big Audacious Goals. These, in my life, usually represent big accomplishments (big to me anyhow) that I hadn’t imagined being able to do. Losing 85 pounds has been my latest one; others include writing my first novel, walking 20 miles a day for three days (can’t do that now!) and teaching Disaster Psych. I may have to start that Big Audacious Goal of walking again — maybe walking to Grey’s and back again for salad bar? It’s 8 miles round trip.

What is your favorite current goal?

Do or Do Not …

Daily writing prompt

Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?

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“Do or do not — there is no ‘try'”. This, if you don’t recognize, is a quote from Yoda, the wizened green guy from the Star Wars movies. I live by this quote, because I believe that if one gets the option to ‘try’, they will give themselves an excuse not to achieve.

In real life, I do not always succeed. Nobody does, but I don’t look at my efforts as ‘trying’. I have done my best, with no excuses.

I don’t ‘try’ new things — I do new things. Sometimes I do them very badly, but I give them my best.

I see Yoda’s quote as an impetus not to do things half-assed.

Christmas (My Favorite Holiday)

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

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My favorite holiday is Christmas, which goes from the day after Thanksgiving through January 1st. (The Episcopal Church says most of that is Advent, which Christmas lasting from Christmas Eve through January 6th, but I am using the secular definition of the season.)

Christmas lasts a whole season, with an aesthetic for everyone. My favorite is Victorian Christmas, with its velvet ribbons and candles. But there’s also Peanuts Christmas, Redneck Christmas, Mid Century Modern Christmas (think bubble lights and aluminum Christmas trees with rotating light wheels), Country Christmas, North Woods Christmas (moose) and many others. There’s an aesthetic for everyone, whether you want bright red and green, burgundy and gold, silver and blue, or muted red and green.

Christmas is full of nostalgia. I’m not a universal fan of nostalgia, knowing that a certain amount of it promotes regressive policies and repression. But the Christmas nostalgia seems harmless, as we all think about our childhoods when we weren’t so skeptical. For those of us who had bad Christmases, we can retreat into the Christmas we always wanted to have and make our own holiday. From there comes nostalgia.

Christmas lends itself well to romances. I write a Christmas romance every year at Christmas time. It’s part of my season. The one year I didn’t write one, I missed it terribly.

My Christmas is very secular, I realize, but these are the things I like about Christmas.

The Shaky Plot

I finally have the latest book laid out. Mostly. I hope. It looks a little slow and a little shaky right now, and I think it needs some thinking about. But here’s the latest on it.

The book is a comic look at influencers, especially tradwives and their idealized views of homemaking. Rod Lewis, PR worker at a health food conglomerate and his wife, Tisha, an influencer sponsored by the same company, discover Barn Swallows’ Dance, an ecocollective nestled among Illinois farmland. They think it would be an excellent space to film some guest spots. The residents think this would be good PR for the collective’s farm operations, as long as the cameras don’t capture the preternatural residents, the esoteric gifts among humans, or the flying cats.

Rod and Tisha bring in their film crews, the size of which alarm the residents. Tisha and Rod, on the other hand, are alarmed by how messy the farm chores really are. A flying cat is captured on film, dismissed as an optical illusion. The Lewises fall in love with the collective and try to move in there.

Meanwhile, the conglomerate sees the footage Rod and Tisha have filmed, and they charge Rod to approach them with a business proposition: to buy Barn Swallows’ Dance and make them a subsidiary of the conglomerate. This doesn’t go so well with the collective, being seen as a sellout. However, it is not completely without proponents, because the collective is at a financial difficulty that may put them in the red soon.

Barn Swallows’ Dance opts out of the buy-out, which makes the conglomerate turn to threats of regulatory harassment and lawsuits. Meanwhile, Rod and Trish are facing some blowback from the collective, which is trying to drive them out. The collective’s strategy: show them all the things they’ve been hiding from the duo. Make them think they’re crazy.

Tisha and Rod confront the collective to find out the truth about the strange things they have been seeing. They see why Barn Swallows’ Dance does not want to become a corporate extension and ask for membership there, and calling off the conglomerate.

I feel like there are holes in here and that this is a shaky plot. I’m hoping that writing this helps me to see the holes and to fill them.

My Most Disastrous Camping Trip

Daily writing prompt

Have you ever been camping?

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Years and years ago, I went camping at Illinois Yearly (Friends) Meeting in McNabb, IL. At Illinois Yearly Meeting House were primitive dorms and an even more primitive camping spot across the road. My friend Joan and I chose the campground, knowing we would have to walk across the road in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. We were okay with that. We put up the tent when there was just enough sunlight to light our way, and then we settled in for the night.

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I thought I had found the comfortable spot in the tent, only to realize that the air mattress settled on top of a tree root and was not quite as comfortable as I had hoped. Joan was likewise settled on top of a tree root, and there were no comfortable spots in the tent. That was okay; I still had the great outdoors to hang out in.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to rain. How cozy! I felt a bit less cozy and a bit more exposed when I heard lightning, but we were pretty protected under a tree. Had I been thinking better, I would not have felt cozier under a tree, but I was somewhat sleep deprived and not thinking clearly.

When we woke up the next morning, I realized my air mattress was floating. The whole tent had taken on about an inch or two of water. So had our sleeping bags, our spare clothes, and the rest of the contents of our tent. We had to take everything and hang it in the tree to dry. Luckily I had some clothes that had stayed dry so I had something to wear that day. Everything else was in the tree to dry.

We spent the next two nights in the dorm, having ended our grand camping experiment.

A Morning Person

Daily writing prompt

When do you feel most productive?

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I feel most productive in the mornings, starting at about 7 AM and going until 2 PM. After breakfast and coffee, because I get up at 5 AM to capture this productive time.

I get a lot done in the morning. At work, I get lectures written and assignments graded in the morning when I get here at 7:30 AM. Today I’m getting my blog written because I didn’t write it the day before. That’s how productive I am in the morning — I almost get ahead of myself.

I’m not as productive in the afternoon, but often work to keep from getting bored. By 4:30 PM, though, I’m ready for a rest. Dinner, then vegetative time. Then bed by 8. I have a boring night life, but it works for me because it keeps me productive in the morning.

Off to go work now.