jon_chaisson | Recent Entries

Whoops! Almost forgot to update here two weekends in a row! I gave myself a pass last weekend considering we'd spent the entire time in Golden Gate Park for Outside Lands. All told I think we hit about a dozen or so bands and walked about thirteen miles, and then took Monday off to rest and recuperate. It was fun, but it was EXHAUSTING. And, as I'd said last week on my music blog, I think we're calling it done with music festivals for now. We still enjoyed OL, but we felt it's kind of at the point where it's kind of huge now -- not yet Coachella-sized, thankfully, and I don't think our neighborhoods would want that -- and it's just getting too tiring and maybe even irritating.

In other news: I have now made Novel Projects A, B and C public! Per my WtBT post from the other day:

The one I’ve been referring to as Project A is currently entitled Queen Ophelia. It’s a story about a man who, upon his father’s death, finds that his estranged mother is not the human he was told she’d been: she is in fact a part-demon part-fae queen of a world filled with magic and war. He learns that he has not only inherited her magical blood but must help her defeat an unexpected enemy. During his adventures and travels, he learns more about the demon and fae world than he’d ever expected. This one’s theme is all about finding comfort and acceptance in others, and accepting oneself. This one was inspired by a dream I’d had in May, wrote out the entire outline that next morning, and have been writing on the 750 Words site since September. [Surprisingly, this one does not have a playlist. I may need to rectify that.]

Project B, meanwhile, is currently entitled Theadia, and it’s a story that popped into my head during my last days at the Former Day Job. It’s about two young women coders living on a space waystation who become embroiled in a border war, useless upper management and terrible engineering. As I’d said yesterday on my Twitter feed: “the source of conflict isn’t just an antagonistic world threat. It also includes the conflict of active avoidance: the ‘not my job’, the ‘it has to be this way because reasons’ and ‘it’s too expensive to make better’. [The main characters] refuse to fall into that avoidance trap. Winning because they stepped up, not because they’re superpowered or invincible.” It’s super geeky fun and doesn’t take itself entirely seriously, but it’s right up there with IMBW as one of the most enjoyable stories I’ve written. Oh, and this is the one that features the Maine coon cat, Grizelda!

[There is indeed a Project C, and it’s what I’ve been referring to as MU4, aka the fourth book in the Mendaihu Universe. I’m taking my own sweet time with this one because there’s a ton to do. Suffice it to say, the story takes place in Bridgetown seventy years after the trilogy, and focuses on how belief systems change and evolve, for better or for worse, and how different they become the further they get from their creators’ original plans and intentions. And yes, a few Trilogy characters do show up!]

[Huh. Had no idea I could insert different fonts here. Cool!]

Anyway...other than that, things are flowing normally, not much to report. Keeping busy is all.

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Nation of Language, 'A Way Forward'

It is VERY RAINY here in San Francisco, which means that the SFFD is having a field day on their Twitter feed, reminding people to a) not touch downed wires, b) don't drive on flooded roads, and c) keep an eye out for that overgrown tree in the front of your yard that just may fall onto your roof later today. We'd originally planned to go see something at the De Young Museum this morning but all this rain changed our minds (and the tickets were free so no worries), and lo, a tree on Stow Lake (not all that far from said museum) decided to give up the ghost.

So yeah, we're inside, where we're about to watch the latest version of Dune, I'm doing the laundry, and A is prepping food for tonight and later in the week. Thankfully our roof is not leaky, though we have seen a few windborne bits dropping through our bathroom skylights! We're a little nervous about that giant tree across the street -- you know, the one that's causing some of the overhead wires to shake and has been in desperate need of pruning for a good couple of years now -- and just waiting for it to topple over into the street and crush the car that someone so foolishly parked there.

My only real worry post-storm is how the weather will be at the end of next week, which happens to be Outside Lands. It looks as though things will be fine, but here's to hoping it doesn't end up being a Glastonbury washout instead, yeah?

Other than that, not much new to report...I'm currently doing a Read-What-I-Have-So-Far of Novel Projects A and B and it looks like they're in good condition as far as rough first drafts go. Last night I'd found a single sentence in Chapter 2 of Project B that, if I changed just four words, would tie in PERFECTLY with a few Very Important Plot Points later on, and so literally jumped out of bed to do so before I forgot. I don't do that too often!

Okay, off to watch a VERY long but amazing-looking film! :)

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: the rain against the skylights

It's been a week and let's see what we can update with...

--A and I drove up to Corte Madera yesterday so she could get her flu shot (I got mine at Kaiser on Wednesday). Come to find out the Rite Aid we went to just shrugged at the voucher ('whatever, we just bill KP") so it was kind of a nonsense drive, but it ended up being quite enjoyable! The open-air mall has some fancy stores and a really great food court (we had extremely messy wraps for lunch), plus we got to do some minor grocery shopping at the Safeway there. We also maybe spent a ridiculous amount of money on books, not that we need them, heh. But I bought the Beatles Get Back book, which was high up on my shopping list! Woo! And to top it all off, we filled the tank at the super cheap Arco just off the highway that's at least sixty cents cheaper than everywhere else!

--Speaking of Beatles, I've heard the new Let It Be super deluxe box and while it's a bit repetitive, it's kind of interesting. As I'd said to A after I'd streamed it the other day: it's what you'd think it would sound like if you had a really neat idea but did absolutely none of the homework for it and didn't really care about it from the start. It's definitely a half-assed shambles and I maintain they should have taken a year or three off and gotten their personal shit together instead of bulldozing through like always, but it's not a terrible box set. It's definitely got some great moments, and I'm hearing that the Peter Jackson documentary will make it make a lot more sense.

--I think I've finally gotten to the point with Projects A and B where I feel confident with them, where I feel a connection and that I believe they can work. Project B was a little touch and go there for a while but once I got past my concerns (mainly that I've never written in this kind of setting before to such an extent) it all started working out. That, and I feel confident that I'll be able to fix the wonky clunky parts in revision with minimum fuss. What of Project C, though? Good question. Still feeling nervous about it, but not in a hopeless way. It's the wonkiest of the three and I purposely have no mental deadline for it, so I'm letting that one take its own sweet time to ripen.

--I think that stupid back twitch is FINALLY gone! It might still sneak up from time to time as a phantom "hey remember me" if I move the wrong way, but I'm glad it's gone. I'm pretty sure it was the oblique muscle on my right side due to absolutely terrible posture (*ahem* pushes self out of a lurching hunch AGAIN while typing this *ahem*). It's a matter of me making sure I sit and lie down properly.

--Oh! We're going to the opera this coming Friday! It'll be the first one we've gone to since before the pandemic kicked in, so I'm quite happy about that! And the Friday after that is Outside Lands! We're both a bit nervous about that given all the nonsense, but we'll be well masked and prepared. Woo!

Other than that, not much else to report! Hope everyone has a good week!

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Spare Oom

It's Fleet Week here in San Francisco, which means that we've been hearing the Blue Angels flying overhead almost every afternoon since Friday. On the one hand it's kind of fun because we get to watch a free airshow without the nonsense of crowds! The downside is that our neighborhood is part of the flight path so for about two hours in the day we'll get this constant ssswwwwwwHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOARRRRRRRRRRRRSHhhhhhhhh every couple of minutes. We've gotten used to it, however. Today's show was interesting in that four of them flew straight over our house so low and close I swear I could see the rivets. YIKES!

Anyway...what's going on otherwise? The lovely weather! The Bay Area is having its summer stretch with clear(ish) skies and mid-60s temperatures, and we've been enjoying it while it lasts. Soon enough it'll start getting colder and the sky here on the west side of town will soon be smothered in and low clouds. We've been walking when we can, visiting the parks and going for coffee runs, generally enjoying it all.

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Spare Oom

Yeah, don't know what possessed me to actually do ALL THE CLEANING today, on what's probably the warmest day of the year here in SF. (The weather app on my PC says 68F, but it feels more like 78F to me. We took a walk at Crissy Field this morning and topped it off with a bit of shopping and burgers for lunch at Bill's. And then I had the brilliant idea of vacuuming, which meant doing some shredding first so I can pick up any stray shred bits, which meant cleaning up a bit of the back room, which meant tidying up the back closet so I could put a few things away. And do laundry on the interim. Oh, and have I written my blogs for Monday and Tuesday yet? No! Sigh.

ANYWAY. It's 4pm now, the house is clean and the laundry should be about done in a few minutes. Then I can kick back and relax just a little bit before we start doing a bit of cooking for dinner. Whew! *passes out*

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: football in the other room

WHOOF. A and I are back at home, kicking back and watching an old 2nd Doctor serial ("Fury from the Deep", which they recreated via animation) after walking about five miles today. We hoofed it up to one of our favorite local coffee shops on 8th Ave and then visited the botanical garden in GGP. After a lunch at the Republic, we hoofed it back home and now we are TIRED. Not much else planned for this weekend other than more relaxation and a run to the farmer's market tomorrow.

Meanwhile, it's been a VERY productive week in Spare Oom. I did a little math and confirmed that I'd written a bit over 16,000 words over the three novel projects -- in addition to words for four blog posts, five poem fragments, and my daily morning journal. Quite happy about all of that, really! I also uploaded several pictures to Shutterstock -- more on that in a minute -- for another side project I'm working on. This was kind of an experiment to see how much I could put on my daily work docket and still be able to handle it all without feeling overwhelmed. It was also an exercise in learning better ways to fight off distraction. Either way, I'm very happy that it's working so far, and I'm looking forward to keeping this up.

Anyhoo, about the Shutterstock thing: I recently started up a contributor account so I can upload my shots for stock (y'know, maybe make some extra pocket change if need be). I'd done a trial run with nine pictures earlier and four were accepted, but when I did a much bigger run of 37 pictures, ALL of them were rejected. Which at first pissed me off, as some of the reasons for rejection seemed extremely subjective and arbitrary -- sometimes it said the shot was blurry when it wasn't, or that it had light bleed when it didn't, and in one case stating that it was a copy of a picture I'd already uploaded (which it wasn't). I let my stew with that for a while until I finally did a bit of internet research and found that I was definitely not the only contributor to have that issue recently. In fact, some of those people said when they reuploaded the pictures at a later time they were accepted. So yeah, it was a bit of a punch to the confidence at first but I got over it. Onward and upward, yeah?

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: @home
Current Music: old Doctor Who

We are both currently kicking back on the couch relaxing after a full weekend of things. We drove down to Watsonville to Gizdich Ranch for some apple picking (as well as looking for actual sunlight, considering how our side of town has been stuck in overcast gloom as of late) (I, by the way, completely forgot to put on sunscreen but thankfully I did not get TOO burnt.)... Watsonville, as you know Bob, is where most of the Bay Area gets its produce, especially strawberries! It's a flat stretch just south of the Santa Cruz mountain range which means the only way we can get there is to drive the PCH or via South Bay highways, either one taking at least two hours. I'm still feeling the exhaustion from all the driving!

We walked up the street for ridiculously large but yummy breakfast burritos so I don't feel *too* guilty for not doing much exercise. I did manage to get the laundry done as well as give the front sliding doors a good wash (they were embarrassingly dirty), and am currently running a few PC cleaners and scanners, which I've been doing on weekends to ensure Spare Oom PC remains in peak health. A, on the other hand, has been cooking all afternoon and the entire apartment smells absolutely tasty!

Anyhoo...not much else to report other than that we are both tired and are probably not going to do much else today other than watch some British TV or something. Heh.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Current Mood: tired

One thing I've learned this week while following through with my Ramping Things Up plan is that I'm being a hell of a lot less nitpicky about my rough drafts. Which is actually a GOOD thing, because I have a habit of taking far too long trying to bash out the Perfect Manuscript on the first try. Sure, cutting terrible ideas or fixing a sentence here and there is fine, but I'm no longer spending three hours writing 500 words and expecting poetry. This does NOT mean I'm being super lazy and writing nonsensical crap, of course. It just means I'm not hyperfocusing on something that doesn't need hyperfocusing right that moment. The aim is just to get the story out and ready. In essence, I'm finally letting myself be rough with the rough draft.

So what does it look like so far? Per my full outline on Project A, I think I'm about 2/3rds of the way through, which is Not Bad At All. That one's gonna need some TLC in regards to details and continuity, but I'm happy with where I stand with it at the moment. Project B is finally out of the Rewriting Older Scenes haze and is now heading forward with All New Words. Woo! And Project C is already headlong into Chapter 2. It's definitely rough as they come, but I'm liking what I have so far.

Oh, and hey, I'm even getting my daily drawings and poetry done on a consistent basis! Daily Schedule for the win!

Next up: I now own an earlier version of Sound Forge as well as a free version of ProTools, and I have had sounds, beats and riffs in my head for years that I should probably record and see what I can do with them. I'll need to find a bit of time, maybe end of day, to fiddle around with those programs and figure out how to use them.

As for noncreative stuff...? Hmm. I've been terrible in terms of exercise and snacking lately. Time to adjust on those things as well. We've been going for walks when we can, and I've been reminding myself to get off my duff at least once every hour. I really need to get going on slimming down, though. I'm not terribly overweight, but I can definitely do with erasing some of that extra middle area one way or another.

Oh -- and we've had some banking nonsense to contend with...apparently our landlord had an office break-in and our rent check was stolen and cashed. For now we're not having the account changed as I saw no other shiftiness aside from that one thing (which, alongside the fraudster's absolutely terrible attempt at frauding, makes me think it didn't even occur to them to hack our account). Long story short, our bank is in the midst of fixing it, thankfully our landlord has been very kind and patient about it. Eesh!

Other than that...it's been a busy but extremely productive week and I am extremely happy about that. Whoo!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: NFL Sunday

It's the long holiday weekend (and A's birthday on Tuesday so it's especially longer than usual), so we are doing All Sort of Fun Things! We went walking in the Presidio today, we'll be going to the Disney Family Museum tomorrow (they have a really neat exhibition going on regarding their animation work during WWII), Monday we may finally go to Grandview Park in the Sunset -- how long have we lived on this side of town and not gone there..??? -- and Tuesday we go to the De Young Museum AND go see Shang-Chi at Stonestown! :)

Which means I've been sliding some of my normal weekend things here and there throughout the day today. Just finished the laundry, and now working on my Shutterstock Project in which I share some of my most recent pictures on my Dropbox so I can upload to the site both here and on my laptop. I was hoping to get some uploads done today, but I think this is a good start at any rate. I updated all my blogs, and I'll sneak even sneak in my Daily Doodle later on. I've been tempted to get some words done today too, but if I don't get to it I'm okay with that.

Speaking daily words, I've said over at Welcome to Bridgetown that I've Ramped Things Up. I am now working on THREE novel projects, averaging about 800 or so words a day for each (I could easily do more but I'm easing myself into that instead), plus trying to hit other daily goals such as the aforementioned daily drawing -- I'm using last year's Inktober prompts for that -- as well as journal entries, poetry and other things that pop up. And very soon this will also include finding temporary outlets that could make us some pocket change.

So how am I doing this, you ask? Well, funny thing -- apparently when I close down social media browsers and other distractions for a few hours, I get a lot done! Yes, I have in fact implemented a long-game plan or two here! Seriously, as soon as they're cleared away, I get myself geared up to be creative and just run with it as far as I can. Some days I get a lot of words down, other days I don't, but as long as I'm dedicating time and brain space to it, I'm getting it done to my liking. My idea is that if I'm going to finally dive headlong into this writing career full-time, I'm gonna have to commit to it to the level that I know I can work at to achieve as much as I can.

I'm extremely curious to see where this leads me...!

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Spare Oom

Oh THANK GOODNESS my back is no longer hurting. It still gets sore if I lie in bed the wrong way (oddly enough, not on the side which hurts, but the opposite side, and it hurts because my arm rests because where the hell else is it gonna go...the excitement of being An Old...sigh). This does mean that I'll be able to return to my stretches without worrying that I'll twitch the wrong way and be writhing in pain on the floor.

And yeah, it's the end of the month which of course means Hey Let's Try to Start Next Month Off on A Positive Productive Note again. I say this pretty much in light humor, because I always have the best of intentions when the month starts. I don't always make it all the way to the end for one reason or another, but I've finally grown out of feeling guilty about that. At this point I'm just happy that I'm making the effort and that I'm moving in the right direction with the things I'm working on. The less I let myself sink into that particular mire the better, right?

So, *do* I have any plans for next month? I do! Some may end up being Best Laid Plans, but a lot of them are long-term plans and it's high time I set them in motion. The theme here is pretty much What Am I Waiting For?

So. Let's get things started, shall we?

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Halsey, 'If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power'

Pretty sure the lingering back pain I have is due to my continuing bad habits of terrible posture. Finding myself leaning up against my right elbow in this chair and hitching up my shoulder for extended periods of time. Looking at the monitor at a slight angle to the right, slightly pinching the neck muscle. And of course using the mouse by extending exact same arm straight across the desk. All things I can easily fix by a) ensuring that I sit up and don't slouch, b) turn my desk chair to face the monitor directly, and c) stop screwing around with things where I need to constantly click the mouse (or c vers2, wherein I move the mouse and mousepad to a different position where I'm not overextending). Just a matter of remembering.

Speaking of desk things, the downside to having one with a dark surface is that I notice that it attracts dust like no tomorrow. I should probably get out the Swiffer and clean it (and other things in this apartment while I'm at it). As is my usual choice, I try to keep my desk surface as clear as possible because otherwise there would be tons of completely forgotten things hiding under the detritus. (Not food, mind you...a few past college roommates with no sense of order ensured I never got that bad, since they'd do it for me on a consistent schedule.)

And speaking of Spare Oom, we've had the windows closed the last few days due to Far Northern California Being On Fire (nothing in the immediate area, thankfully) and the smoke has been drifting our way as of late. The air purifier we bought last year is working just fine and kept us in breathable air, which of course is a good thing. And today has been quite clear, so I've popped open the windows a crack just to get some outside air in.

Other than that, not much to report...still writing, still exercising and stretching, still keeping busy!

Current Mood: rejuvenated
Current Location: Spare Oom

I am extremely happy to say that my back pain has withered down to just an occasional twitch if I sit the wrong way. Still not sure how the heck I injured it, unless it was stress from carrying heavy things or overextending muscles while stretching or twisting the wrong way. Either way, I suppose it's par for the course at my age. Not entirely happy about that, but what can you do?

On the plus side, I believe I've finally gotten my blood pressure down to a level that my doc would be happy with. Interestingly enough, I think it has had something to do with my lack of personal or emotional stress lately...I think I've finally escaped that high tension I've always felt about life's usual stressors. Come to think of it, I haven't really had many Stupid Stress Dreams lately, either. (I say stupid because most of them involve forgetting a bag on a bus or getting locked out of a building or getting sidetracked by someone else's dumbassery.)

I'm not feeling too stressed out about my writing either, come to think of it. I might still be neck deep in projects that need revision and better word count, but that's no longer worrying me, either. I've finally managed to see WIPs as actual Works In Progress instead of work deadlines. I definitely need to kick my own butt on some of the non-writing writing career work, but that's easy enough.

Still, I do have some other personal things that still need updating/changing/shifting/etc., but the good thing is that the road feels much clearer now for all that. Win!

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Taggart episodes

A and I just came back yesterday from an overnight stay in the Pacific Grove/Monterey area. It's sort of our Having A Safe Travel Vacation During A Pandemic thing, like our visit to Mendocino last month. It was quite enjoyable and relaxing, though the Aquarium was MUCH more crowded than we'd have liked. Many pictures taken, lots of walking done, many sea otters seen (two at the aquarium, a few out in the bay), a roadside farm stand stopped at, and a LOT of driving done. I've posted many pictures over at my IG.

Now for our usual mundane Sunday stuff: laundry, a few errands and whatnot.

Alas, at some point last week I think I may have overexerted a back muscle or two, as it twitches like a mofo when I'm getting out of bed. Weirdly enough it goes away after about fifteen minutes if I stay upright and it's very centralized, so I'm pretty sure it's not a spinal issue or a nerve issue. A bit of stretching and taking some ibuprofen at the end of the day seems to have calmed it down some. I'll just need to be careful about it for a few more days. Ah, the pleasure of getting older...

Not much else going on...just catching up with emails, cleaning house and getting sushi for lunch. Just your usual mundane Sunday!

Current Mood: ouch
Current Location: Spare Oom

I've been feeling a bit frustrated with my writing lately. I mean, really frustrated. It's become obvious that for some reason I'm avoiding writing conflict. [Pretty sure that has to do with IRL stuff too, but that's another post.] Am I overthinking it? Am I worried that I'm writing too many chatty non-action transitional scenes? I don't mind writing these, but they're making my stories boring and I hate it when that happens! Which makes me think that what I need to do is get myself used to writing tense scenes again. I mean, that's what I have the 750 Words site for, don't I?

Geh. I feel like I've been stuck in this position for almost a full year and I'm not sure why I can't get out of it. I need to find an outlet, methinks.

Meanwhile, A is in the kitchen at the moment making pepper jam and gassing up the entire apartment with its potency. *kaff kaff*

Other than that, not much to report...we're going on another mini-vacation at the end of the week to Monterey (just an overnighter), so that should be fun, though I'm hoping it'll be less foggy and overcast than it's been up here in SF!

Current Mood: teary-eyed
Current Location: Spare Oom

As I'd mentioned the other day in my writing blog, I'm at that point again where I'm doing not all that bad word-count-wise but everything I'm writing sounds like absolute crap. This happens right about this time every time I start a new project, and it usually means that I know what I want to write now (and how to write it) but everything thus far hasn't even come close to that point. It's frustrating, yes, but I'm dealing with it. Just powering through.

I started doing a Reread So Far of Project A, and yeah...it definitely needs some major rework. There are a few passages I should just delete for pacing issues, and a few others that need heavy revision (as in "that was a riff I'm deleting so this whole bit needs to be redone"). It is what it is, so I'll just have to hit it when and how I can.

Thankfully on Project B, I've gotten past a major revision bit (which, alas, I think I'll need to fix *again* later on) so next time I bring it up I can actually write NEW words instead of working on the older ones that have been there a while.

As for other writing projects...well, those are still moving hither and thither, but nothing major to report just yet. Still working on that. And not much else to report elsewhere. We've been trying to get our exercise despite the weather gloominess -- our side of town has pretty much been covered by clouds, cool temps and high humidity long enough that we lost count of how many days it's been. We might get a few hours of clear sky every now and again, but just like last year, our summers have been like everyone else's winter: cold and full of cabin fever. We've even gone on a few local road trips just to get out of the gloom! Hopefully this pattern will break soon...

Hope everyone has a lovely week! :)

Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Miss Grit, Impostor EP

Our weekends are usually reserved for outside excitement -- we're usually holed up all day long during the week that we like to get some fresh air and a good long walk in on our days off. Yesterday we took a drive down to Half Moon Bay for the first time in ages -- mainly to get some sun, which we hadn't seen in our own neighborhood in a good few weeks! It was fleeting but it was worth it, as we were able to get our sunshine as well as some tasty brunch at the Main Street Grill, which we love stopping at. We even bought more plants at a small garden pop-up across the street!

And today was our "get our walking out of the way so we can be lazy for the rest of the afternoon" day. I had a book to pick up at Green Apple (the new Becky Chambers), so we headed up to that great coffee spot on 8th and Cabrillo (there's always a line outside the door, but their Whopper Lattes are SOOOO tasty), circled over to Clement for books and brunch (so happy that Richmond Republic is back open!), then headed home.

Which means it's early afternoon and I have little to do except laundry, vacuuming and catching up on my blogs!

But yeah...our summer doldrums are really kicking in because it stays so overcast and foggy on this side of town. We're both really looking forward to more sunny days.

Hope everyone has a lovely week ahead!

Current Mood: lazy
Current Location: Spare Oom

Our extended weekend vacation up in Mendocino was quite enjoyable! And by that, I mean that we hardly did a dang thing except go out to eat here and there, visit a few bookstores (including one with a cat, yay!), have a couple of good long nature walks, and sit around in our ridiculous rented room (which was once a water tower, with a lovely seating area with many windows and an open bedroom area with a weirdly high ceiling), doing little but reading and listening to music.

(Our vacations are usually planned by way of doing all the exciting things early in the day so by afternoon and evening we can just have dinner and relax. It works out quite well.)

It took me a few days to get back to some semblance of order with my daily schedule, as I had some daytime errands to do when we returned, and some local pollen decided to burst forth and get me all stuffed up for a day and a half. By midweek I did manage to get somewhat back on track with my writing, including a stellar day on Thursday. Hopefully I'll be back on track come tomorrow.

Surprisingly, we've been to the movies three times in the last month or so as part of our post-vaccine celebrations. Two music documentaries (The Sparks Brothers and Summer of Soul) and one silly action film (F9: The Fast Saga). Looks like one of the upsides of the theaters being open again is that we can finally see all the movies that have been on TBA status for the past year! Still wearing our masks in public, though, not that it bothers us any.

And today while A remained indoors to deal with her own allergies, I headed to Green Apple to pick up the latest Susan Dennard (Witchshadow), whose books I'm currently rereading, then spent a bit of time and money at the farmers market up the street. We are now awash in fruits and veg! Which is good, because we were running desperately low.

So! Any plans for this coming week? Not really, other than to get back into my daily schedule and maybe kickstart a few more submissions. I'm hoping the weather will comply, as we are really getting tired of the high humidity prodding our heads!

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

Current Mood: rested
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Roosevelt, "Echoes"

A is on vacation this coming week and of course we've already got our events planned out: museums, movies, walks and hikes! (Well, not so much a hike than a mosey around Muir Woods, which we haven't visited in a good few years.) And as always, we plan our events during the early part of the day, so we can spend the late afternoon into evening being lazy. (And so I can still squeeze in some daily writing work.) Then we'll be spending the following holiday weekend away from SF and its fireworky nonsense up north.

We've still been wearing our masks when we're out and about, mostly when we're near other people, but we've been okay with not having them on when the streets are sparse. Thankfully I don't think anyone in our neighborhood cares either way if we wear them, but we're more than happy to dish it out if someone starts anything with us, heh.

Meanwhile, last Monday I had a doctor's appointment, the first one in ages (at least 2-3 years, I think), just as a check up, and for the most part I'm still in good health, other than having typically high blood pressure, which they've given me meds for again. I may go in for blood tests later on because I haven't had that done in I don't know how long, plus a few other personal things to check up on. May as well before this ol' bag of bones decides to fall apart, yeah?

Not much else to report, other than that I've been busy writing and exercising and erranding a lot these last few days, which has kept me focused on the things I want and need to do. Which was my plan!

Oh! Speaking of writing, I was searching through some older files the other day and came across a piece of microfiction I have no memory at all of writing, but DAMN if it isn't submittable material. I think this was written during my final office days at the Former Day Job, when I was sneaking time writing my 750Words entries, and had forced myself to write something, anything, just to relieve the simmering irritation and anger. I'd have to look at the time stamp on it, but it seems to have been an idea out of nowhere that was most likely inspired by a weirdass dream I'd had that morning. Having read it again the other day, I feel like Paul McCartney when he wrote 'Yesterday' -- I'm absolutely convinced someone else wrote this and I just plagiarized them. Point being, though...it reads like nothing else I've written so I'm thinking I should ever so slightly revise it and submit it to a magazine somewhere, see what happens.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Spare Oom

Huh. Who knew that a) putting attainable plans into action and b) finding that sweet-spot level of productivity that c) isn't just me trying too hard and overworking myself and d) keeps me just enough from distraction would actually, y'know, work? Heh.

It's been a surprisingly productive week here in Spare Oom. I got more submission work completed (including a complete query/synopsis package for In My Blue World and a few submission emails), finished off the synopsis for Waystation Project, made a to-do short story list for College Campus Project, continued rereading and synopsis for MU4 Project, and somehow decided that maybe playing out a synopsis for In My Blue World Sequel Project wouldn't be a bad idea either. Oh, and maybe Best Laid Plans for Oh Hey Remember That One Project I Keep Untrunking Well Maybe It Still Needs A Crapton More Work So I'll Put That One Aside So Forget I Said Anything Project has been put aside.

So in short, I put aside the Ooh Shiny Best Laid Plans Project that should maybe stay trunked (and locked, let's be honest) but opened up a Pandora's Box of SO MANY OTHER PROJECTS in its place. And I don't actually mind this, as this is the level I want and need to be at, where I'm most comfortable creatively. (Side note, I still have that other synopsis I wrote a few weeks back of a completely new story based on a dream I'd had, so we'll add that to the list.)

ANYWAY. Other than that, I've also been busy elsewhere as well. I've been doing a bit of drawing in the afternoons and picking up my guitar to play along to a few songs at least once a day. I've been good with my daily stretches. And I've been keeping up with the blogs. Keeping super busy but a GOOD kind of busy!

My schedule may be a bit wonky starting next Sunday, however, as A is on vacation and we'll be traveling for a few days (for the first time in over a year), but I'm sure I'll continue to keep myself busy and up to date. We'll see where this all leads us...!

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Spare Oom

...and as you know, by "Best Laid Plans" I mean "I have a fantastic idea that I'm going to implement immediately *crash* *implode*" plans, especially when I jinx them by talking about them online before I've even put them into action.

ANYWAY! I had a nice talk with a creative friend the other day that had me thinking: The Daily Schedule has been working wonderfully since I implemented it a month or so ago. I don't follow it to the letter, but nor do I completely ignore it unless I have a good reason (such as being on vacation or on an outside errand or New Music Release Friday) (heh). In fact, I've noticed I've been starting a few of the items earlier than scheduled lately because I've wanted to do them right away. For example, writing in my personal journal has been at 9:30 am for ages but I've been hitting it closer to 8:30 am because I just want to get the creative day started. Conversely, I find that if I start my morning writing session at the scheduled 10:30am, it feels too l late and I've wasted enough time already.

Point being, it's been going so well that a) I should update the Daily Schedule, and b) I think I can ramp it up a little more.

This means reimplementing the whiteboard calendar schedule. That for the most part has been kind of quiet on purpose as I had myself get used to focusing mostly on the Daily Assignments (so to speak). In other words, I'd focused one day at a time to get used to the micro part of my productivity, and now that I've got that down, I can return to adding focus to the macro part of it as well.

The whole reason for all this isn't necessarily to Do All the Things, even though it seems that way. The primary reason is to Get Better At It. I've gotten so much better at my writing over the last ten years and I'm quite proud of that, but I still want to get better at the music and the art, especially in certain facets of it where I can use it for Career Purposes. Better short stories so I can submit them to magazines and anthologies. Better photography so I can upload pictures to Shutterstock. Better artwork so I can create a portfolio for storyboarding work. Better music so I can write better songs to share.

What's so different this time out, though? Didn't I go through this multiple times in the past? Well, I think this time out it's because I think I've managed to purge the admittedly toxic mindset ingrained in the past me that I Must Be The Best At It. Somewhere along the line I picked up a bad habit that I had to go further, go bolder and louder in order to be bankable. You can kind of see it in the Bridgetown Trilogy, in which it's such a BIG STORY that keeps expanding and getting bigger as the story goes on. (The released versions have been tamed back considerably from the rough drafts, but you can still see it in places.)

Right now I'm thinking, you know, maybe I don't have to crunch everything I do? All I really need to do is write a good story, a publishable one, I don't have to break my back and brain and pour 1000% into it every single day thinking I have to win a marathon every single time. I can have fun with it too! And more importantly, focusing on the same task for six or seven hours at a stretch is actually quite exhausting, especially a creative task. So working on multiple projects -- the photography, the music, one scene each on multiple works in progress, a for-fun 750Words entry purely for working out ideas or playing out new ones, an occasional poem, and keeping up with submissions and freelance work -- doing all that over the course of eight or so hours isn't so bad. Some of it's fun, some of it's deep-focus, but doing that over the course of one day is something I can do (and have done before).

Also, let's lay this out now: I need to be busy so I'm not fucking around online wasting time. Not that I'm spending my entire day ragetweeting or watching cat videos or whatever, just that I'm still feeling the occasional level of distraction that I can do away with. I don't need to disconnect the internet, nor do I want to; I just need something else to occupy my brain when things slow down, otherwise I get physically and mentally lazy. I'm pretty sure part of that is an undiagnosed-ADD thing, and assigning myself things in this manner is the perfect workaround. It's worked in the past, so I know it'll work now.

So are you going to see more DW posts than just on Sundays? Maybe? Perhaps not right away as I get used to a heavier load, but who knows. You may even see a return of the twice-a-week blog posts over at Welcome to Bridgetown and Walk in Silence!

And now that I've posted all this, I'm waiting for it all to implode on schedule. Heh.

In the meantime, hope everyone has a great week! :)

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Old 'Taggart' episodes

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jon_chaisson

March 2026

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Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Who am I, and what have I done with me?

Recent Entries

Sunday Evening Update

Rainy Sunday

Sunday updatery

WHOOOOSH

Moving Around on a Hot Day

Weekend Update

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All the Things

Early Weekend Update

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Sunday Update

Getting Better All the Time

Weekend Stuff

On the Verge of...Something

At that point again

Weekend getaway

Back to normal...ish

Vacation Time

Best Laid Plans: Update

Weekend Update, In Which I Make More Best Laid Plans