A Useful Topic

Daily writing prompt

Which topics would you like to be more informed about?

The prompt asks, ‘Which topics would you like to be more informed about?’ I can think of one topic I’ve perused Wikipedia about. I have never studied it in greater detail but would love to learn about it.

The topic is molecular biology. I am fascinated because we came from single-celled organisms way back in the primordial soup days; our cells have organelles that mimic the productive functions of our most basic organs. I keep forgetting the organelles’ names except for the mitochrondia, the powerhouse of the cell. That’s memorable for me because of all the things that could go wrong there and cause genetic diseases.

(See this picture? I don’t know all the parts.)

I would love to know molecular biology at least at a basic level; I don’t know if I’d go as far as the ATP cycle (which I vaguely remember from a nutrition test at the undergraduate level) but just remembering the parts of a cell and knowing how they work. DNA would be a pleasant bonus.

Knowing molecular biology will change nothing in my life. I do not need it for my vocation (associate professor of human services) or my avocation (writing). In fact, I don’t need to know for any reason except for my curiosity. But that’s enough.

Neither a Leader Nor a Follower

Daily writing prompt

Do you see yourself as a leader?

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Do I see myself as a leader? No, I do not. I take on too much as a leader, and I am uncertain of how to take charge in a meeting. I would rather not lead.

Do I see myself as a follower? No, I don’t see myself as a follower either. I get impatient with following, because my mind works fast and I want to find the solution.

I’m neither a leader nor a follower. Although I can function as a leader or a follower, I don’t like those positions. What does that leave? I’m an independent thinker, I’m the person who does the group project themselves, I just want to get things done.

I feel guilty that I’m not a leader. I’ve always been taught that’s where we’re supposed to be in life. I also know that leaders should be followers as well. Just let me do my thing, I’ll get it done, and everything will be okay.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 61st birthday. I made it through 60, which was not as traumatic as I thought it would be. I had moments where I felt like I aged overnight (and apparently, we go through an ‘aging spurt’ at age 60). Most of the time, though, I thought “Oh, yeah. I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m old.”

I plan to spend this birthday quietly. Going to work, checking Facebook for birthday wishes, going out to dinner at a steakhouse. My birthday present is a mug that says “Coffee? What about second coffee?” a la ‘second breakfast’ in Lord of the Rings.

I am hoping for a good day, as I always request from the universe: “… a good day, a productive day, a day where I do what You want me to.”

A Lack of Pattern

I’m trying to analyze which posts of mine are most successful — prompted posts? My own ideas? Short posts? Long post? Personal posts? Posts about writing? I have come to the conclusion that I can’t predict what will get me more viewers.

I’ve always thought prompted posts performed better than non-prompted posts, long posts better than shorter posts, and posts about writing better than personal posts.

Yesterday, a short prompted post about what personality traits I disliked — with no title — performed better than any post I’ve had in the past couple weeks. This is expected because the prompted posts appear to get more circulation. Yet I’ve had other prompted posts only get as many likes as one I’ve written without a prompt.

My best performing post of all time had to do with my wedding anniversary. Other posts (even about birthdays) have gotten little attention.

There seems to be a randomness to what plays well and what does not, which means I’m learning nothing about how to improve my traffic.

Daily writing prompt

What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

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car used salesperson selling old car as brand new truck salesman typical topic ok gesture

This is not a personality trait per se, but a mannerism or behavior which reflects a character trait of — maybe — narcissism/sociopathy. Or a behavior that salespeople use when they’re trying to get a sale. But I think this question is written wrong, because how do we tell personality traits except with behavior?

I don’t trust people who use my name more than twice in conversation. I feel manipulated. How dare they presume to know me so well that they use my name frequently? What motivations do they have with this forced familiarity?

Using my name frequently raises a parade of red flags and leads me to end that conversation very, very quickly.

The Night I Cooked on Ambien

Daily writing prompt

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

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I saw the above prompt on my WordPress page and couldn’t resist telling the story on how I cooked myself a snack while asleep on Ambien. Ambien is a prescription sleep aid notorious for inducing sleepwalking.

I was having trouble sleeping at the time this story happened, and the doctor was trying many sleeping medications to get me a good night’s sleep. He prescribed me Ambien, which many people have had much success with.

The first night I tried it, it worked magnificently. I slept soundly and didn’t wake up in the middle of the night. Night two, however …

My husband was working a night shift, and I was hungry. I went to bed craving something very specific. We had all the ingredients for the recipe: candied pecans. It’s a very simple recipe with butter, pecans, sugar, and cinnamon. It cooks up in a skillet until the pecans toast and the sugar/butter mixture has caramelized. I decided it was too late to cook, and so I went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of burnt pecans and sugar in the kitchen. I wondered about that, until I looked in the garbage and saw a mass of burnt pecans and sugar. I then remembered the dream where I had made myself the pecans I had craved the night before.

Apparently I had gone sleepwalking and made myself a batch of candied pecans, which I had managed to burn on the stove. I looked on the stove and saw the cast iron frying pan, freshly cleaned and seasoned. Not only had I made myself candied pecans in my sleep, but I had cleaned up after myself like a good home economist (which I am).

So that’s the story of my greatest cooking disaster. It wasn’t even that disastrous, except I couldn’t eat the results. It’s a wonder I didn’t set the house on fire. The doctor took me off Ambien the next day.

Working out a Rhythm

At the end of week 2 of classes, I am still trying to get a rhythm to my days so I can write.

Three out of four Monday afternoons I will have meetings. Fifty percent of Tuesday afternoons I will have meetings as well. Unless I start writing in the evenings, and I’m often too tired by then, I will not be writing on those days. That gives me late afternoons Wednesday-Friday most of the time.

I have a Saturday routine that’s working. That’s a start.

I’ll keep you posted. I miss my flow activity!

How I Relax

Daily writing prompt

How do you relax?

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I don’t feel I do a good job of relaxing. I don’t do nothing well, as I’ve said before, so relaxing is something I don’t do well. When I do relax, I often complain because I’m doing, well, nothing.

I should read more, but I rarely feel like tackling a new book when I’m tired and need to relax. So I read the Internet. I read Quora and look at Instagram and speed through Facebook. I used to read Am I the Asshole and the like on Reddit, but those take away my faith in humanity, so I quit reading them.

I don’t watch TV and seldom watch streaming services or DVDs. When I do, I tend to favor stuff I’ve watched before as soothing. Apparently, my mind is so tired of processing new input that, as with reading, I don’t want any new input.

I meditate occasionally, and I think that’s a positive way to relax, except that so much of the time I fall asleep. That’s a hazard for me when I relax, the sleeping.

I’d like to find a better way to relax, one which doesn’t seem like such a waste of time. But then, would it be relaxing?

Role Frustration

I need to get back into the swing of writing now that the semester has settled in.I need to find something more compelling to write than the Kel and Brother Coyote sequel; it’s a lot of fun but it feels like I’m doing it just to fill time. I’m absolutely pantsing the story, ignoring the outline I made for it.

I feel like my professor role has usurped my writer role. I figure this will get better when I’m more acclimated to the current professing duties; it is, after all, only the second week of the semester.

I have weathered this before; I will again. The right book will find me. I will get into the swing of writing. I just have to keep telling myself this.

5000 Views on my Blog? 2000 Blog Posts? How Did I Do That?

Yesterday, WordPress announced to me that my blog has had over 5000 views. That seems like a really big number. Then again, I’m a little over a week away from my 2000th post. I don’t feel like I have written two thousand posts. (Note: I believe this number counts the blog posts I transferred over from Blogger when I first moved here.)

How did I do this? A little at a time, without thinking of the number at the end. I didn’t think “Oh, I only have 256 more posts to write before I hit 1000!” I just wrote daily, and they all added up. I think the same happens when I write a novel. I don’t set out to write 80,000 words. I write the story until I’m done, and then count the words.

I’m sure this is a metaphor for life. Don’t count the steps; just go where you need to and check your progress later. This contradicts everything I know about resource management, however. Numerical goals (like 2000 blog posts or 80,000 words or 10,000 steps) are easy to track, far better than “when it’s done”. The goal has to be set so that one can tell whether they’re on track or not. But they’re tedious.

When there’s a great distance to the goal, the numbers can be daunting. This is where time management advice for procrastinators comes into play: Break the task up into smaller chunks. So the 2000 blog posts can be 20 chunks of 100 posts. That’s more manageable. Or the 80,000 words can be several chapters of 3000 words (which is the length of a chapter in my writing).

So there’s my advice. Don’t let the big numbers scare you — focus on the little numbers. Keep repeating. And then, eventually, they add up to 80,000 or 5000 or 10,000.