Things I Don’t Understand About WordPress

First thing: How can someone like your blog post without visiting your blog post? I’ve noticed this a couple times, where I get an announcement that someone “likes” my post, yet doesn’t show up in the visitor count? Have they even read the post?

Second thing: How do I get more followers that aren’t trying to sell me something? I am growing skeptical as I peruse the blogs of the people who follow me and find information on questionable investment schemes and promotion services. I don’t believe that these people are really reading my blog, but they like it every couple of days so I don’t forget about them. Luckily, not all of my followers are so content-free.

Third thing: Is there a book with hints for how to do all the cool things I don’t know how to do? Or aren’t there any cool things? Or are those things that are only possible if you have the paid version?

My One-Day Spring Break

I’m having trouble waking up this morning, probably because this is my long-awaited Spring Break. Yes, my long-awaited one day of Spring Break.

What am I going to do with it? Edit Reclaiming the Balance. Look longingly at a picture of the beach. Nap, apparently. Drink coffee. Possibly make another couple submissions of short story stuff on Submittable. Take a nice long bath and put on a face mask.

But I will not work.

I will not answer a single student email all weekend.

This is my Spring break, and if I cannot have a spa weekend/writing retreat, I will make it a retreat at home.

Another Camp NaNo

It’s April first, and (jokes aside) today is the beginning of the first session of Camp NaNo. This is the training wheels version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which is an international movement to help people come up with 50k words toward a novel.

In Camp NaNo, the writer sets a goal — hours revising, words, etc . The minimum goal is 10k words or 10 hours, although most people set higher goals than that. Then the writer fulfills that goal. There is accountability in the daily timer where the daily word/time count go.

My goal is to revise Reclaiming the Balance for 30 hours. That’s reasonable at 1 hour a day, although I think I will probably edit more than that most days. The story desperately needs editing, may even be unredeemable, but I’ll never know until I try.

Here’s some bling from Camp:

Daily Warmup

Every morning (well, almost every morning) I sit in front of my computer staring at the WordPress site and its little white button that says “Write”. And I write.

In a way, this blog is the warmup exercise for everything else I do in a day, whether it be writing or work. This blog loosens my fingers up and loosens my mind up. There is a full day ahead of me to make of it what I will.

Sometimes that is merely existing, moving myself toward the door with my computer case for a day of work. Sometimes it’s gleefully playing with my cats. Sometimes it’s a productive day at home writing or at work teaching.

But the blogging in the morning is essential, framing my inspirations for the day.

Today’s tasks are monitoring and answering email from students and prepping for Camp NaNo. I have already answered five at 6:20 AM. (This is rare because my students generally abhor mornings.)

It feels like a good day, although one that would benefit from coffee. (Lots of coffee).

Remaking Myself

I want to remake myself. This is the reason I think I try so hard to get published, because I want to think of myself as an author. It would give me an identity beyond the one I have currently (professor) that I will lose when I retire.

It’s not a good reason to write, but I think it’s a fine reason to try to get published. I think remaking oneself is a noble pursuit, unless one is trying to remake oneself as Harley Quinn (As opposed to Harley Quin, for all you Agatha Christie fans).

I admire people who make themselves and remake themselves, flowing with the changes in the world. On the other hand, I believe that my writing is good and worthy of publishing, but I’m not apparently writing what agents want. Changes to flow with. Do I learn how to promote myself better and self-publish? Do I try to tailor my writing to the market — no. Then it would not by my writing. I will not remake myself by becoming someone else.

Have I already remade myself? I have written five or so books — Kringle in the Night, The Kringle Conspiracy, Apocalypse, Gaia’s Hands, Reclaiming the Balance, Whose Hearts are Mountains, and Prodigies. Ok, that’s seven, not five. I have put them through developmental editors and (most of them) through beta/alpha readers. One of them (The Kringle Conspiracy) has been self-published. Maybe I am already an author. Maybe I have remade myself.

I Don’t Want Any Monsters Inside Me

I’ve been binge-watching Monsters Inside Me, a show that ran on Discovery Channel from 2009-2017. It’s a documentary about parasites. And rare bacterial infections. And freak accidents involving foreign bodies. It’s grossology with a scientific background.

I have an interest in medical stuff, especially in what could go wrong. I think it’s because I’m a little bit of a hypochrondriac — the more I know about medical stuff, the less likely I am to diagnose myself with something. I understand that for most people it’s the opposite, but for me knowledge is power.

Here’s what I’ve learned from Monsters Inside Me:

If you have a parasite, your doctors will think it’s the flu until you’re almost in a coma. Unless the parasite is in your eye — then they’ll think it’s eyestrain.
Wives with Google save husbands’ lives.
“Flesh-eating bacteria” is a very bad thing.
Babies/Infants/Toddlers put things in their mouth to “feel them”. And then they swallow them, causing big trouble.
If you use tap water to clean your contacts, you’ll get acanthamoeba. And then you will get blind.
Your spouse thinks you’re exaggerating your symptoms.
What you have is extremely rare, unless you visited Belize. Or Asia. Or Africa. It’s really common there
.Don’t eat raw crawdads. Apparently guys do that.
“Brain eating amoeba” is a very bad thing.
You can have a parasite (lots of parasites) and not know it. Have a nice day.

Is this depression?

I am fighting a down mood that may or may not be depression. The seasons can set people with bipolar up with either mania or depression, and this article suggests that there is definitely a link between manic or depressed state and weather.

I won’t know if it’s a true bipolar state until I’ve held it for two weeks or more. This came on rapidly on Friday, and it’s hard to tell whether it’s an actual mood swing or just me beating myself up over something. I can be negative on myself sometimes. Or it could be a bad few days, which I’ve had. Or it could be burnout, because a lot of us in education are going through it after COVID.

So I’m resting and being patient with myself. I’m accepting that maybe the inner nagging voice is right and I’m a bad teacher these days, but I still have worth as a person. Maybe that will get me through.

Irked With My Computer

My Surface Book 2 just bricked itself. The replacement I got six months ago is. not. working.

I know it has to do with the base. After all, the keyboard wasn’t working and the power in wasn’t working either. And because the keyboard wasn’t working I couldn’t take the computer off the base. And it ran out of power before I could save my current files to Dropbox, so my querying files are sitting on a dead computer.

I am not happy. I am writing on another laptop, not really mine. I don’t like borrowing laptops for my creative work. I really don’t like an out-of-warranty computer to fail miserably. I have to figure out what to do instead of querying some agents by email (I use Query Tracker to find agents) in my free time today. Luckily I don’t have a lot of free time to occupy.

What’s next: I’m hoping that we decide to: 1) get me the new computer I’m wanting, which I can get cheap; 2) Get this one fixed; 3) Give it to my husband, who doesn’t need all the bells and whistles I need, and it’s newer than his. We may just find a way to get this fixed and stay with our current computers. This may not be fixable (although I’m pretty sure all we need is to get this off its base and switch in a new base — fixing it would cost about $500 for the base and labor. (Is it worth putting $500 in a used computer when the new computer costs $900 on sale?)

So that’s how my day is going. Hoping it goes better.

I need a Spring Break

I have Spring Break next Friday. Yes, that’s it, one day of Spring Break. I understand the reason — the university doesn’t want the students to go out to Palm Beach and bring back COVID. But, ironically, the city has repealed its mask ordinance, and the students are having unmasked parties every weekend.

That week in the middle of the semester was an opportunity for faculty to recharge. Even with vacation spots still risky, we could sit at home and not do work-related items for hours at a time. Not answer student emails for a week. Not attend meetings. Time to write, sleep in, and occasionally do nothing.

There’s no use in complaining about something that was put in place for the right reasons. But the students are burning out, the faculty are burning out, and between COVID and working, I just want a break

My Family’s Curse

I believe that families have curses; however, what I mean by curse is a way of thinking, believing, or acting that hinders coping, relationships, and outlook. For example, a family that keeps trauma bottled up creates a dysfunctional habit that will pass from generation to generation.

My family’s curse is a killing of joy, a pervasive belief that joy is dangerous because good things never happen. For example, suppose there is a child who is looking forward to their birthday. Their grandmother says in a sepulchral voice, “Don’t look forward to anything; you’ll only get disappointed.” The child integrates this world view and passes it to their optimistic children so that children strangle their joy and grow up with the dreary world view.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

I have only partially internalized the curse; I feel elation every time I write queries for a book of mine. And then the family curse wakens in my mother’s voice and version: “My grandmother said you should never look forward to anything, because you’ll only be disappointed.” Her version of the curse invokes a matriarch whom I have never met, but stands as the forgotten fairy at the christening delivering the curse.

The faulty curse wobbles around in me — I feel hope and elation, followed by guilt I should feel this way, and caution in my mother’s voice: “Don’t look forward …” I do not hug the family curse as a reality I should adopt, but it has not died in me either.