The Tyranny of the 24-day Writing Streak

In WordPress, I click on the purple bell at the right corner of my home page to find the announcement:

You’re on a 24-day streak on Words Like Me!

I never intended to blog for 24 days straight. Normally, I don’t have enough ideas for 24 days in a row of content. But after the first four days of steady content, I found I didn’t want to break my writing streak, and so I kept writing. Now I’m looking at my 25th day, and I feel chained to my laptop for the next update.

I am naturally a competitive person, and the person I vie with is myself. Write a novel? (There was a time when I had never written one, and that was only 12 years ago at age 48.) Walk 60 miles in three days? (I’ve done that too, at age 40.) So that writing streak counter in WordPress makes me want to write another day.

The horrible part is that if I decide to not write one day, my streak goes down to zero. That didn’t bother me when I only wrote every other day. A 1-day writing streak broken doesn’t feel like a tragedy. A 100-day streak? Or even a 20-day streak? Much more impactful.

Oh, no! What if I run out of words?

My husband assures me I will never run out of words, as I have never managed to during long car trips. (He’s correct.) But what more do I have to say about writing?

I haven’t let you read any of my writings lately. That’s certainly one thing I could blog about. I haven’t written down a character interrogation lately, either. Or talked about any one of a dozen other things. I want to stay interesting, though, which is a pressure that almost equals the pressure to write another day. Almost.

I’ll write daily as long as I can stay interesting, and I’ll try to write about writing as much as possible, because I think it’s more interesting than hearing about my very uneventful life.

Go-to Comfort Food

Daily writing prompt

What’s your go-to comfort food?

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My go-to comfort food is somewhat unusual for a Midwestern US resident, I’ll admit. Typical comfort foods for my region of the US are things like chicken alfredo, cheeseburgers, and tomato soup with a grilled cheese.

My go-to comfort food is Thai namya, a light curried sauce over thin rice noodles with lots of cilantro. It’s spicy and mellow, warm and soothing, and easy to make, especially if one buys a premade curry paste.

I learned the recipe from my boss at the Thai/Italian cafeteria where I worked as an undergrad/grad student. I was the second cook, which was a rarity as I am very Caucasian. We would eat a family-style lunch most Friday afternoons that we prepared for ourselves. One of the dishes was namya, which we made with leftover flaked fish or ground turkey. This quickly became my favorite food, featuring both curry and comfort.

I had a lot of rough times back then, given that I had untreated bipolar disorder. I needed a lot of comfort. I lived a block from an Asian food store, so all I had to do is keep some sort of fish stocked and I could get the rest of the ingredients at a moment’s notice. I often used tuna, which was a little heavy for the recipe but was easy enough to stock. (An ideal fish would be a white fish like catfish.)

Even now, sometimes I have to have namya, especially on a cold day. I usually make it with ground turkey or catfish as I have been taught. Once I made it with a half-dozen bluegill I caught at the lake, and once (when I was feeling rich) crawfish tails. Just some coconut milk and water, green chili paste, fish sauce, and cilantro and that fish becomes my comfort food.

Cats, Of Course

Daily writing prompt

Dogs or cats?

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I am a cat lover. Don’t get me wrong, I like dogs too. I will pet every dog I get a chance to pet, and yell “Look at the goggie” to my husband across a parking lot. But, as one of my cats (Chloe) is sitting in my lap while I type, it’s obvious that I prefer cats to dogs.

Cats have peculiar personalities. One might even say they’re little weirdos in fur suits. Me-Me tries to ingratiate herself to people in the bathroom. Chloe tries to lick faces. Pumpkin hisses at all the other cats, and Chucky is just breathtakingly brainless (he’s an orange cat; orange cat owners will know what I mean.)

Cats do not have a fanatical devotion to their owners. I do not deserve fanatical devotion, nor do I want it. It’s only smart for a cat to look upon me with a bit of skepticism. It shows discernment. [ppppppppppppppppppppppppp;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; (This is Chloe’s response to reading the above paragraph. Note the lack of fanatical devotion.)

My personality is mercurial, quirky, and at times a bit inscrutable. I’m a lot like a cat that way, so I think I will always get along best with cats.

Submitting to CRAFT’s First Chapter contest

I haven’t used Submittable for quite a long time — three years, according to my list of submissions. Submittable, as I’ve explained it before, links creatives with contests and calls for publication. It’s another of those amazing computer assists that I don’t know how writers did without.

I can’t remember why I quit writing short pieces for publication. I think I tired of rejections, even though I got ten publications from it over a couple years. But, given that I’m all noveled out right now, I think it might be time to risk submitting again.

Toward this end, I got an email from CRAFT, whose first chapter contest I entered a couple of years ago. That’s how I got on their mailing list. I didn’t win, which is how my life didn’t change a couple of years ago. I decided I could get back into publishing short pieces with this contest.

I’m publishing the first 5000 words of Whose Hearts are Mountains, a future novel in the Hidden in Plain Sight series. That story has an interesting background, having been the result of a bout with pyelonephritis (kidney infection) in 1984. It took me almost 30 years to write down, after I had worked on at least a couple other novels. It might be my best novel, yet there are other novels to get through before I publish it. Unless a miracle happens.

I have to allow for the possibility of miracles happening.

Flow Activities

Which activities make you lose track of time?

Those of you who follow me have heard me talk about “flow” before. I’m a flow evangelist, ready to talk about this amazing force in our lives which brings us closer to meaningful happiness.

Why do I mention “flow” with this particular prompt? Because one of the characteristics of flow is losing track of time when engaged in activities that bring flow. If we’re talking about losing track of time, we’re talking about flow activities.

“Flow” is a concept brought to us by the happiness psychologist Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi. It is built into the PERMA model of happiness under “A” for “accomplishment” and “M” for meaning.

What are other characteristics of flow activities? They should engage us with challenge without being too challenging. They should totally absorb us, almost like a meditation. They should provide a sense of accomplishment, even in a small way.

My flow activities are writing and moulage (casualty simulation makeup). I may have others, but these are the two I have discovered. Things that are not challenging enough for flow: Doing dishes. Things that are too challenging for flow: Dancing. Definitely dancing. But one person’s flow is another person’s aggravation.

What are your flow activities?

About Hypocrisy

What bothers you and why?

If I have to pick one thing that bothers me, it’s hypocrisy.

Calling out someone else for failings when one is just as guilty pains me. Often it’s done to detract attention from one’s own faults, and that irks me the most. Other times hypocrisy results from blindness to one’s own faults.

I am a hypocrite. I can’t stand hypocrisy but I’m certain I’m guilty of it. I try to stomp it out, because I can’t stand it in myself. The only way out of hypocrisy I can see is to be unflinchingly honest about one’s faults, to be able to say “I, too, am guilty”. I probably fail at that, too.

I wonder if we are all doomed to occasional hypocrisy, being human, and being less than self-aware as a defense mechanism.

Addicted to the Flow

I sit in my writing chair (the loveseat near the front window) feeling uninspired. This doesn’t sit well with me, because I am addicted to the flow.

I’ve talked about flow before, but it’s worth mentioning again. Flow is a state in which a person is completely involved in what they’re doing. Time slips by and the person experiences mastery of the task, an optimal level of challenge and competency. Flow contributes to well-being through accomplishment and a state of near-meditation.

I get my flow from writing, and that’s what brings me back to writing again and again. If I never published again, I think I would still write because of the feeling of flow. It took me years to accept that experiencing flow was enough of a reason to continue writing.

I’m looking for my state of flow today, and I don’t know if the current project is captivating enough for me to find it. I’ll be looking for a new project soon, maybe the right short story.

Putting Myself Out There

An indie writer needs to market themselves. It’s perhaps my worst failing that I don’t do a great job marketing myself. I have trouble exclaiming to people, “You need to read my writing!” Call it Midwestern Female Syndrome¹, but it’s real.

This blog is part of marketing myself. To be honest, the main purpose of this blog is to talk about writing and my thoughts about it. When you read my blog, I hope you’re thinking “That’s what it’s like to be a writer.” Hopefully, it also makes you want to read what I’m writing.

Just like my newsletter right now — blank.

I post now and again on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram using Loomly, a social media manager. I post mostly silly things (did you know it was National Kitten Day on Tuesday of this week?) but that’s to get my name out there. I also advertise my books there.

I also write a newsletter every three weeks. If you’re familiar with my blog, you’ll be familiar with what my newsletter is like. I talk about life as a writer, my books, and plans in a chatty way. I try for more atmospheric, with pieces of my surrounding life included. Once I wrote about the gift I received of an Emotional Support Pickle, for example. If you would like to be on my newsletter mailing list, please drop me an email here.

These are all suggested ways to promote one’s books, but I can’t help but think I’m not doing these right. I’m not good at self-promotion, as I have said above, and would like to get better. My Midwestern Female Syndrome keeps me from bragging too much. Would anyone like to read a book?

Midwestern Female Syndrome is the internal desire to be perfect combined with the desire to be outwardly unremarkable; to be outstanding but not to stand out.

Every trip is a mini-writing retreat.

I’m at the Hotel Kansas City grabbing some breakfast and writing time before my next intern. I have a rose-lavender latte with me and am waiting for breakfast. The whole place has a private club vibe — as it should, because it used to be a private club. In its heyday, I would never have been allowed in, because private clubs were men’s only. The whole place smells of the fireplace in the restaurant.

We end up staying in these places randomly, because we use Hotwire to book the room for an overnight. Prices are reasonable, doubly so if you’re traveling on a weekday. If you’re booking in downtown KC, you’re more likely to get boutique hotels at our price point than typical mid-price chains. And Marriott and Hyatt are doing much to collect boutique hotels in their portfolio, so interesting gems like this are easier to find.

We splurged for dinner last night (the university does not pay for meals!) at the hotel restaurant, which had a James Beard-nominated executive chef. Imaginative food, small portions, intimate atmosphere. We weren’t that hungry after pork tenderloin and curly fries for lunch.

I have one more intern, but before that, I have an opportunity to write at this lovely table you see pictured. Mini-retreat plus internship visits; just what I needed.

Out of Office

I’m on a trip downstate to visit a couple of interns at their sites, so I don’t think I will have time to write the next couple of days. I will bring my go-kit (iPad, keyboard, mouse, power supply) in case I get some time to write on the trip. I’d have to find something to write, as Google Maps and the interstate system (long story) have foiled my story idea.

Have fun!