Motivation. It’s one of the things I struggle with the most.

Well, actually, not motivation, per se, but more the willpower and the focus to sit down and freaking do the work.

But motivation is related to that, so it’s my topic for today :-p

I’m not alone in struggling with this. I think it’s pretty nearly universal. A lot of people have trouble getting their butt in the chair and their words on the page (figuratively speaking, of course, especially since I don’t write my first drafts at a desk these days). Kern Windwraith had a guest blogger, JoAnne, over at her blog the other day talking about this exact thing. Her point? Just Do It.

It’s fantastic advice, but doesn’t necessarily make it easy to follow.

Over time I’ve slowly begun to understand the things that motivate me. The two biggest ones are Deadlines and Accountability. I’ve totally signed up for workshops and paid good money just to have deadlines I had to meet. I’ve used my critique group meetings the same way. I didn’t win NaNoWriMo until I founded the NaNoLJers group (now run by the awesome Amber Stults) and knew that people were watching how I did and would notice if I slacked off.

Deadlines and Accountability. Those are the tricks for me.

This year, not only did I post a list of goals for the year publicly on this blog where everyone can see them (and see if I don’t meet them), but I also signed up for Write 1 Sub 1.

Write 1 Sub 1 has been fantastic for keeping myself motivated, largely because it combines accountability and deadlines together. The idea is pretty much summed up in the challenge’s name — you write 1 piece and you submit 1 piece. In my case my goal is to write (at least) one story or poem a month and submit (at least) one new story or poem a month. Some super ambitious people are writing and submitting at least one story a week. I’m not that brave or masochistic LOL I think most people doing the challenge write and sub the same story, but I’m not like most people.

When I write a first draft of something (especially poetry) I like to let it rest. A lot of people do, I know, but I like to let it rest a good long time. Like, at least a few weeks. At least. That means I’m never writing and submitting the same piece of work in the same monthly period, but I am writing and submitting, so that’s good.

We’re only four months into this year and already if it hadn’t been for W1S1 I wouldn’t have written anything new for at least two of those months. It’s easy, for me, to get caught up in the novel I’m revising or Niteblade, or whatever and just not write anything new, but W1S1 keeps that from happening, which is a good thing. A very good thing.

It’s not too late to join in if you haven’t already and this sounds like something you might find useful. You can check it out at Write 1 Sub 1 Do you use another similar challenge/website/program/group to stay motivated to write? I’d love to hear about it. Sometimes diversity helps and you never know when I may need a little extra something to help keep me motivated.

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This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter M. Please come back on Monday when I’ll be talking about something near and dear to my heart — Niteblade.

I noticed that several of my domains were down yesterday and contacted my host about it. Long story short, there was some sort of hardware failure on my server and blah blah blah…

The point seems to be that my domains are a little yo-yoish at the moment, and for some reason the images in my blog posts aren’t loading. Fun times.

My plan for right now is to wait and see if the images come back as the server stabilizes (or whatever) and if not I’ll replace them all.

*fingers crossed*

ETA: They aren’t coming back. Every image I uploaded in March is gone and needs to be replaced. Yay! (Um, that was a sarcastic yay. You knew that right?)

I participated in the Month of Letters this year. The idea was that every day in the month of February I would send something out to someone via snail mail. I know, you’re probably looking at the date at the bottom right corner of your screen, scratching your head and re-reading that second sentence. I know the Month of Letters officially ended almost a full month ago and I’m just doing a recap about it now but, the thing is, it’s still not over. Not for me. Not really.

I didn’t know who I was going to write in February so I posted on here, Twitter and the Month of Letters forums and said if you want me to write you, send me your address. And you did. A lot of you did. I wish I’d kept better records so I could say exactly how many of you gave me your address and your blessing to send you a letter, but I didn’t. I don’t actually even know how successful I was at doing the Month of Letters LOL.

I didn’t write everyday. I just couldn’t. However, I did write most days, and I think I made up for the ones I missed by writing two or three letters on some days. More importantly (to me) I wrote every single person who sent me their address. It took a long time, I had more addresses than there were days in February, but last week I mailed off the last letter I owed anyone from February (better late than never, right?).

Writing the letters was awesome. It gave me an excuse to buy schmexy papers and envelopes (always win) and when people wrote back it meant I got to meet new people. I feel like several of those people are going to become true and lasting friends. What’s more, it helped me connect with existing friends on a different and more real level than we previously had.

Writing letters is going to remain a very important part of my life from now on. It really is. Without sounding too flaky, I feel like regularily writing letters has been a transformative expirience for me. Writing to friends is like having a little conversation with them, except in my head and on paper (one of my new friends phrased it that way, I thought it was perfect) and it’s so awesome. In order to have that conversation I have to slow things down, focus on just what I’m doing. It’s not like writing an email where I might stop part way through to check Twitter, or where my attention is divided between four email accounts, the website I’m referencing and the open Word .doc I’m working in. When I write a letter, a real letter, that gets my complete attention. It’s relaxing, meditative.

I’m not doing a very good job of explaining, I don’t think, but it has helped me make real connections, both with other people and myself. I love it, and I have the Month of Letters to thank for it. Yay!

Do you write snail mail letters? Has your expirience been similar to mine?

If you haven’t written a letter in a long time, why not try it? Send me your address even (email, comment, whatever) and I’ll drop you a line to get you started

Yesterday I blogged about my quilt, the one my mother made me when I was teeny tiny. By the time I’d finished that blog entry I had pretty much talked myself out of getting rid of the quilt but if I hadn’t the response I’ve received on my website, Livejournal and privately would have changed my mind.

To everyone who commented or contacted me anywhere, thank you. Really. You’re awesome.

I want you to know that I’ve got a new plan for dealing with the quilt. I’m going to cut the ties out and take the backing and batting out. I’ll applique something (I have a few ideas ) over the big holes in the top and then re-quilt it.

To everyone who asked, yes, I am a quilter too, and I’m not bad (you can see some of my work here). When I said I lacked the skill to fix it, it was because, for some reason I was completely focused on fixing the quilt as a whole. Once I realised I could get rid of the back and batting and simply “patch” (haha) the top it became clear this is a job I could handle.

And who knows, maybe next time it needs fixing my daughter will take care of it adding her own personal touch to it, and then maybe my grandchildren…

Yeah, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but I think the point I wanted to share is that the quilt is safe. Thank you SO MUCH for caring. Truly. I will update this blog with progress as I make it, but there are a few projects ahead of this one on my crafty to-do list so it could be quite some time.

seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew

O_o I got up to answer the phone and when I came back my cat (Absinthe) had typed that. Since it was on topic I decided to leave it. In case you’re viewing this somewhere the formatting is weird, that says sew… more or less.

I find myself writing a lot of bad poetry these days. I’m doing it on purpose though, so that makes it okay, right?

Several times this month I’ve taken the notebook I write poetry in and settled into my favourite writing spot (sprawled across my bed LOL) and, armed with a prompt (or prompts) and a promise to myself not to stop working until I have something written for each prompt, I’ve gone to work. Unfortunately, at least half of the time inspiration is very slow in coming. In order to resist the temptation to grab my ipod and surf Twitter or break my promise to myself and just give up, I’ve started writing bad poems. How bad? Well, I had a prompt to write a poem involving math and/or numbers and what I wrote was:

Sevren

The seventh born
of a seventh born
was the unlucky kitten

What’s more, his paws
had extra toes
so that they looked like mittens

His coat was black
as dark as night,
or sin, or hell, or pitch

And oh how he howled
and hissed and bit
the night we burned the witch.

Would I ever in a million years think of submitting that to a publisher? Um. No. In fact, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to share it on this blog LOL but I wrote it, and it served its purpose. It got words on the page and started my mind working. Right after I finished that poem I started another poem using the same prompt that was far better and once it has had some revisions I will start looking for a home for it. I’m optimistic I’ll place it, and, if it hadn’t been for the first (bad) poem, the good one would likely never have been written.

Do you write bad poetry or do you have another trick you use to help start your creative juices flowing when you’re stuck?

(The pictures are of my kitties. In order they are Eowyn, Absinthe and Indianna)

I’ve signed up to do the Blogging from A to Z challenge in April. This may be further proof that I’m freaking crazy as I’m also planning to do the April Poem-A-Day challenge, but… well, there you go. If you’re interested in checking it out you can click on the picture which is linked to the Blogging from A to Z challenge website. The basic idea is exactly what you’d think it was — 26 blog posts over the course of April, with titles that start with the different letters of the alphabet.

Speaking of challenges, I’m still enjoying the Month of Letters challenge. I’ve stopped posting on the forums there because it was filling up my inbox with all the replies, and apparently it’s easier in my brain to just stop posting updates than it is to find the setting that would make it so I didn’t get the replies. *shrugs* It’s all good, the point for me was to do the letters, not necessarily to check-in everyday and tell people I’d done it A couple times I’ve not written a letter on a specific day, but I’ve made up for it the next day by writing two, so that counts, right? I also received my first piece of Month of Letters snail mail yesterday, a letter from Northern Ireland. That was nice

Speaking of writing, I’m not doing a whole lot right now. Mostly I’m reading. The first step of the ‘How to Revise Your Novel’ course involves reading over the current draft of your novel and identifying what you’ve done wrong and what you’ve done right. It’s taking me a long time to do this. Partly because my first draft is handwritten with great sections marked ‘CUT THIS’ which makes reading a bit of a challenge, and also because I’m having a difficult time forcing myself to only identify problems with the story and leave problems I have with the writing for the time being. It’s killing me. Killing. I’ve failed a couple times already, but I think I’m getting a bit better at it. I have to constantly remind myself that I’ll be able to fix the writing later though.

Anyway, I was supposed to finish that read through on week one. I’m now on week three and I’m still working on it. The good news is, there’s a lot more to like about this story than I remembered, and some of the issues I thought were going to be pretty big, really aren’t. So far. I’m not done yet so there’s still plenty of time for me to become disappointed in myself.

Right, if I post this now I’ll have time to write a letter before I have to start dinner, so I’m off.

If you celebrate Valentine’s Day I hope you’re having a good one, and if you don’t, well, I hope your Tuesday is fantastic.

*insert sheepish look here*

I DID blog this week. Just a couple minutes ago in fact. Unfortunately it turned into a total World of Warcraft rant that just wasn’t appropriate for this blog.

The short version is that I don’t like mean people. The long version is now invisible in this space.

I just wanted to make a record of the fact I did blog this week, so I haven’t failed at my ‘blog every week’ goal for this year…

I may have slipped a little, but I didn’t quite fall.

I am going to participate in A Month of Letters in February. The idea is pretty simple, each mailing day in February you mail something out via snail mail. I think it’s fantastic — who doesn’t love receiving things in the mail?

In my case, I’m going to ready something to be mailed each day and then actually, physically mail them once a week because the walk to the post office is nice enough on a warm day, but if we get a cold snap there’s no way I want to do it everyday. Plus, there’s the time it takes… So yeah. I’ll be mailing something for everyday in the month, but it will all go out in about 4 shipments.

If you want to participate check out the website –> http://lettermo.com/

If you don’t want to participate but you’d like to be one of the people I mail something to, leave me a comment with your mailing address, or if you’d rather, just email it to me (rhonda@jofigure.com). I make no promises about -what- exactly I’ll send you, but it will be something.

I’m looking forward to this

Magazines come and go. I understand that. No, truly, having run Niteblade for five years now, I really DO understand. However, there is a huge difference between a publisher closing up shop, and a publisher closing up shop and not telling anyone.

Once you realise your publication is going to be closing its doors it is time to, at the very least, drop an email to the people whose work you’ve accepted for future issues (not that I’m referring to myself here, no, no, of course not LOL). Really, you ought to make a public announcement of some sort and let everyone who has submitted work to you know as well, so their stuff isn’t hanging about in limbo, but to not even tell the people whose stuff is meant to be in your next issue? *sigh*

For what it’s worth, if Niteblade ever has to close its doors, I promise to do it right, not just vanish into the ether in silence.

Also, somewhat randomly and completely unrelated to the first half of this blog, I put up a writing prompt on NaNoLJers this week that I thought was pretty good. Check it out –> What would make your character go out in the cold?

I found a dead bird today, a magpie. Where I grew up, in rural Alberta, magpies were reviled. They were infamous for stealing dog food and being able to ‘smell a gun from a mile away’. I listened to many conversations about the best way to kill them (usually involving poison and the aforementioned dog food) and how horrible they were. Frankly, I thought it was the people doing the plotting that were horrible, not the birds. I love birds. Even magpies.

I know magpies aren’t angelic, I’ve seen them swarming to pick on a weaker bird, or squirrel, and I’ve heard stories about them ganging up on cats, but I guess that sort of falls under the whole ‘circle of life’ or ‘nature is cruel’ thing. I think they are beautiful. Their black and white feathers, their silhouette when they fly overhead. They are super-smart, and I freaking LOVE how they talk with two voices at the same time. Someday I’ll write a story with that in it, someday.

Not today. Today my story is about one particular magpie that won’t ever speak again, in any number of voices.

I left my house, intent on dealing with some mundane errands. I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself because a had a bit of a headache and the scale this morning said I’d gained 1/2 a pound overnight. I left my yard and started walking down the sidewalk toward the mall, and I saw it. A feathery bundle laying still on the sidewalk. Right in the middle of the sidewalk. It was unmistakably a magpie, even from a distance, it’s coloring and shape told me that much. I couldn’t tell if it was alive or dead, there was a light breeze and it was ruffling its feathers just enough to sustain the possibility of breath. I was frozen in place for a moment, trying to figure out what could have happened — because it was just laying there. There were no scattered feathers, no other birds or animals, no sign of any struggle, just a bird, obviously dead or dying, laying in the middle of the sidewalk.

When I finally walked toward it, I hoped it was dead. If it was suffering I knew I wouldn’t be able to find it within myself to kill it, nor did I have the faintest clue who to call. There was something about it’s posture that told me if it wasn’t dead it soon would be, so I didn’t think even if I -did- call someone they’d be able to help. So I wanted it to be dead. And I felt bad for that, but dead > suffering without hope.

All those thoughts swept through me in the time it took to reach the magpie, all those and several theories about what could have killed it.

Because it was very definitely dead. I realised that before I’d reached it. When I did get to it and look down, it looked beautiful. He had no wounds, no blood, his body wasn’t twisted or unnatural looking. Snow had fallen on him (from the trees above him, I presume) and then melted, leaving tiny droplets of water that sparkled on his feathers. Looking at him, my heart ached, and yet, I had the thought ‘I should photograph him, he looks gorgeous.’ I dismissed that thought as soon as it occured to me, but really, he was that lovely, even in death.

I took off my glove and reached for him, then stopped and put my glove back on. I don’t know why I’d taken it off in the first place, because his feathers looked so soft? Because I wanted to brush the water droplets off him? I don’t know, but a childhood of repeatedly being told ‘Don’t touch that, it’s dirty and it’ll make you sick’ put my glove back on before I picked him up. But I did pick him up. What choice did I have? I couldn’t leave him laying there. Couldn’t make him someone else’s problem, or leave him for a neighbourhood kid or cat to discover.

I brought him home, and then, swallowing back tears the whole time, wandered around my yard, trying to figure out what to do with him. I couldn’t bury him, the ground is frozen and covered with snow, plus I had errands to run before Danica got home from school. I couldn’t just throw him in the garbage because… well, I just couldn’t. I thought about putting him on top of the compost pile, where he could get covered with snow and decompose untouched over the winter (somehow compost doesn’t equate to garbage in my brain), but that wasn’t safe. Not only could the neighbourhood cats potentially get him, so could my dog. I didn’t want to have to deal with that. I thought about putting him in our shed until spring when I could bury him, but I couldn’t get the door open (it was frozen in place).

In the end I left him outside, up off the ground with a crate covering him to keep him safe from scavengers. I’ll leave him there until Jo gets home to help me make a decision. It could be that there’s someone with the city I can call to deal with him, if not, he spend the winter quadruple bagged in my freezer until spring. Or that Jo can get the door to the shed open.

Whatever happens, he touched my day and my heart and I felt compelled to write about him and share my story.

Rest in peace, Magpie.