Bethanie's Brain

My alarm clock is set for 5:30 am on January 2, 2008. It did not go off this morning. Nevertheless, I woke up promptly at 5:25. And I'm still up. And I see no hope for going back to sleep until bedtime tonight. It is too early to make coffee, since the sound of the espresso machine will wake everybody up. It is too early to go last-minute Christmas shopping, since none of the stores I need to go to will open until 7:00. It is still dark out. Not fair, I say, not fair at all.

Why is it that some abandoned project suddenly looks all sweet and interesting just when the going gets tough on some other project? Why is that, huh?

I am a rabid perfectionist. I either do something well or I don't do it at all. Sometimes, this a good thing. For example, the medical editing part of my job requires unflagging, single-minded, obsessive attention to detail. Being a rabid perfectionist and doing things well or not at all is practically a pre-requisite for the job. However, this quest for perfection can also get WAY out of hand and make me crazy about things that just aren't that important. For example: Yesterday afternoon. In the midst of submitting a paper to a journal, I discovered that we would have to suggest reviewers - that is, give the names and contact information of people we think are knowledgable enough to judge the science of our paper. After I got over being annoyed that the stupid journal didn't put anything about that in their Instructions to Authors (where it bloody well should have been), I dutifully emailed the Boss Lady to ask who she wanted to suggest. And as usual, I told her just to ...

I wrote 17 words yesterday. Seventeen . Pathetic. I got distracted playing with yWriter - free and fabulous software for organizing your novel. Yes, FREE! And, really, I think I like it better than the stuff I paid for... Unfortunately, 'playing' does not produce words. Hence, the ungodly early hour of this post. Must make words, if I want to move my little ladybug along. Go, ladybug, go! OK, this isn't producing novel words either. I'm off.

New category: Things I Wish Someone Would Invent Not me, 'cuz I haven't got time to invent, patent, etc anything , but I've created this lovely label under which I shall post my ideas for anyone who DOES have the time. Feel free to steal the idea and run with it. Idea No. 1 - Shopping Cart Cupholders It would be great if shopping carts just CAME with cupholders, but I'll bet that's expensive and would totally screw up how the carts nest into each other in the cart corrals. So the next best thing would be some sort of attachment that I could purchase (or rent) that would hook on to an existing shopping cart. Why? Because I haven't got enough arms to juggle the cell phone, the baby's snacks, the baby's drink, my coffee, my purse, the baby's toys, and/or Ms. Five's various items all at the same time without losing my mind and my patience - not to mention somehow getting fruit roll-ups, lunchables and string cheese into the damn cart before every...

Look! Up there! At the top of the posts! It's a ticker! Cute, eh? I'm finding is that it's not just the having a goal and a deadline that's keeps me hitting the keyboard, but it's also a lot about the moving of little widget thingys. Hey, whatever keeps you motivated, right?

Well, this was an interesting NaNo. I finished later in November than ever. I finished with fewer words than ever. If this trend continues, I won't finish next year at all... But, this year , I finished. And, as usual, I learned a whole lot. 1) Deciding to sit down and write is like deciding to have a baby . No really. As in: there's always a reason not to. With babies, it's: "I have to finish my degree first" or "We have to buy a house first" or "Let's get a dog first". With writing it's: "I'm too tired" or "I should really clean the kitchen first" or "Hey! Let's go scrub bathroom grout!". There's always, always an excuse not to do it. 2) "When" doesn't matter, but "where" does . My vastly prefered writing time is in the early-early before anybody else wakes up. It's quiet. I can focus. There are no distractions, but there is lots of coffee. It's a good...