My Angry Ginger and the Interdimensional Wombats, Or, Pushed

So, as expected, it’s been a time of ups and downs lately.  The surviving triplet is still in NICU and is on the countdown to coming home.  (Yay!) But I’m still dealing with, and will be dealing with the fact that the other babies were lost.  While optimism is the name of the game, it’s unrealistic not to expect bad days. And bad days (or weeks or months) means no motivation.

Ideally, I’d like to edit my demon novel before the babe comes home from the hospital, because (gasp!) I doubt I’ll suddenly develop more time after she arrives.  But nothing is lighting the fire under me. So what did I do?

I called in my backup.  I sat down with my writer’s group and my resident Angry Ginger (we’ll call her “Honey”) and said, “I need you to do this for me.”  I told Honey that I’d send her two edited chapters by 9 PM every night.  She didn’t need to read them but she needed to verify that I had finished them.  If I missed my deadline, she was to call and yell at me.  And she did! She used my full name, and soon I was sending three or four chapters a night.  Honey can be very forceful. 😉

My writer’s group, the Interdimensional Wombats, are also following up on my demon novel progress.  I have to present the clean pages at our meetings.  But more than that, I threw down a jumbled list of deadlines and they quickly broke it into bite-sized pieces.  “This is due first, so have it by next week.  On Tuesday we’ll record this in the studio.  Follow up on this by the time we see you next,” etc.  Because honestly?  At this point my mind is consumed with the everyday things. Thank you cards, getting my son off to his month of summer classes, planning with my husband so at least one of us gets to NICU every day, etc.  Grocery shopping takes all of my mental prowess, so I have very little left over to organize other things.  Writing is a joy (editing, not so much) but I can do it once I get started. I just need somebody to push me off the diving board.  So thanks, my friends!

How do you work when you’re down, scattered, or just plain don’t want to?

 

 

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“Be Mysterious: Writers in Masks” Features Mason Ian

Mason Ian is the Prime Instigator of a secret gathering of interdimensional wombats known as, The Illiterati. He also likes long walks on the beach. As if all this wasn’t cool enough, Mason Ian is the yodeler and banjoist in the super-boy-girl-boy band Atlas Takes Aim. While not saving the world one dinosaur at a time he writes books and occasionally short stories. Some of which more than just his mom thinks are good. (Actually, his mom thinks he should have stayed in school… but that is a different story altogether) Mason Ian is currently doing the query slog and producing albums and trying to go on tour.

You can visit him on the interweb here: www.AtlasTakesAim.com

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