Midweek #ROW80 Update

So the week has started out pretty well.  I topped 700 words during my writing block the last couple of days.  Moving right along.  Consistency.  I’m building it back.

I spent some time this morning in Evernote.  Susan informed me that you can actually nest tags, which is flipping awesome because otherwise when you have a lot (and I do), they are a great big messy wad of Whaaaa?  Now I’ve got them nice and organized by project, topic, cooking, and the various and sundry OTHER stuff I keep up with in Evernote.  I might even LEARN A FREAKING SYSTEM for tagging.  You all know how much I heart organizational tools.  They make my little type A, OCD heart go aflutter.

I’m feeling really good about my progress and with the current state of where I’m headed.  I feel clearer and less panicked, and much more able to just put one foot in front of the other.  Baby steps, small bites, and all that jazz.  Which, yeah, okay, I talk about a lot, but look, I’m a writer.  We as a species are neurotic.  It’s a mandatory part of the job.  Deal with it.

The other fun I’ve been having this week is playing with my birthday presents from Susan. (Yay for early presents!)  I got a copy of Tarot For Life and Easy Tarotwhich came with a lovely new set of cards (the Gilded Tarot deck).  Tarot is something I find fascinating.  I don’t think we’re opening ourselves to some woo woo spirit thing, but the cards provide a really fascinating way to explore our subconscious.  I picked up Tarot For Writers a couple years ago, and I’ve got a couple of other decks (the Celtic Tarot and Steampunk tarot–it is a struggle not to want to collect them as art–such beautiful detail in the designs!) that I’ve played with from time to time.  I’ve been wanting to try it out more for free plotting.

Sometimes plotting is just hard.  This is a fact.  There are SO MANY OPTIONS.  And if you’re trying to pull something awesome out of the void without any kind of direction, often you come up with crap because you’re trying to force it.  Tarot spreads offer a bit of direction–lots of room for interpretation and layering of meaning to help you figure out everything from characters to plot to world building.  So I’m having fun experimenting with developing some short story plots and characters from scratch this way, just to see what I can do with it.

Other news from the realm of writing, Chuck Wendig had another awesome, no holds barred, no excuses for why you should write the damn book post.  This is a policy I follow myself and so can you.  Screw the excuses.  Do it.

Also worth reading is Zoe Marriott’s zealous (she called it rabid–potato, potatoh) defense of ALL tools and tropes in the writer’s toolkit–including love at first sight.

On the Operation G.I.T. front, I am 2 days into a streak sticking to my calorie budget.  Finally starting to get to the point where my stomach doesn’t feel like it’s devouring itself because I don’t give it All The Things.  By the end of the week my appetite should be properly reset.  I’m getting serious about dropping that holiday 5!

 

4 thoughts on “Midweek #ROW80 Update

  1. Tarot cards? But… but…my preacher just preached a sermon against those. 🙂

    I’m just beginning to use Evernote for work. I haven’t even begun to tap into what all it does.

    Good luck on the writing AND G.I.T.

  2. I haven’t tried Evernote. And tags can be so frustrating in many situations! I always have at least a few tags on every blog post, but I wonder if I included more generic ones like #AmWriting if I’d get more traffic…

  3. I flirt with Evernote, sometimes, but we’ve yet to truly get into one another, somehow….

    I’m happy to hear that you’re writing, Kait, and getting back to your fitness goals.

    I haven’t written with tarot (keep meaning to get a deck, but never have), but I have used a kit called the Bamboo Oracle, borrowed from a friend. It gave me some awesome images to play with, and, now that you’ve nudged my memory, I think I will play with it again, soon. =D

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