I actually wrote my answer to today’s writing prompt for the last day of the November Nablopomo on BlogHer, “What did you learn from doing Nablopomo?” as yesterday’s blog post. I am always so ahead of the game. It was called, “Posting 30 Times This Month – Nearly There, Nearly Insane.” I did forget to mention one thing in yesterday’s post – that in the absolutely brutal past month, my daughter also was in a fender bender in my car. But things are starting to shape up today. I figured out a plan of attack for all the things that have to be done in the next few days (Action Lists!) in order to assure a smooth “next month” that starts tomorrow. Yikes! And the other driver’s insurance company is going to pick up our repairs. And I crossed off several items on my “find the paperwork” and “schedule stuff” lists. Feels good to be moving forward and getting a few things done!
Somehow, during the course of the day, today, I decided to do Nablopomo again in December. I’m such a freaking masochist! But I’m going to have my I’m Done Nesting blog be the participating blog in December. The theme for the month is “Gift” and you can read about the theme or find out how to participate on BlogHer, hint: you can sign up through the 5th.
Okay, now I will respond to today’s prompt. What did I learn from doing Nablopomo this month? Well, first I was really hoping to win one of the prizes, but I guess that is a no go. * Sad Face* I learned that having something to focus on, such as a blog post done at the end of the day, actually can reduce stress. Next month I plan to learn that posting everyday can be fun and need not mean writing a research article every day. My brilliant and beautiful daughter will graduate from college this month, and my wonderful and witty step-daughter and her family (hubby and twin one year old daughters) will be here for much of the month, friends from a nearby state will pop in for a few days… and, well, basically there should be plenty of opportunity for photo-blogging, cute baby story posting, and for recipe evaluation. With any luck at all it will not be as difficult to post every day on a personal blog as on my business blog that has a professional nature and for which I have more stringent standards.
Posting 30 Times This Month – Nearly There, Nearly Insane
When I began writing a blog post every day as a part of Nablopomo, National Blog Posting Month, to join the celebration of Nablopomo officially becoming a part of BlogHer I knew it would be tough, but I had no idea how much extra stress I would be under. Why do we women always think we can do more than is humanly possible?
I will have accomplished something spectacular by following through with 30 posts in 30 days. I have also worked on a lot of other events, projects, and “things,” and it isn’t over yet. I have about two weeks of sheer insanity left and then the simple hectic rush of the Holidays will begin, and “No, this extra craziness I’m talking about isn’t part of the Holiday hustle and bustle.”
A Partial Menu of Stuff on My Plate
- My husband is on sabbatical and spending lots of time at home working on grants and other writing projects – mainly smack dab in the middle of our family space: with the laptop on the couch or at the kitchen table – now that he is back from his travels to several East Coast Universities during the first half of the the semester.
- I’ve been working on rearranging some of our financial concerns including a home refinance that rolls in a second mortgage that we had to take out when I moved across the country to take care of my mother as she was dying at the same time my daughter was graduating from High School and starting college. (Things do happen in clumps don’t they?) The appraisal required a tidy enough house to see the floors and walls that had been hidden by boxes of my daughter’s accumulated stuff from college that needs “going through” before we can pitch or sell the contents.
- My daughter moved back in with us this fall during her last semester of college. The car she had been using decided to die, so we also shared a car this semester. She also has a female 110 lb. Dogue de Bordeaux living here with her as well as our Neo Mastiff, a 160 lb. male, and our 60 lb. hyperactive rescue mixed breed. Yes, there is dog drool everywhere in our house, including the ceilings and high enough on walls that it takes a step ladder to get to them to wipe them down. (Two mastiffs ago I repainted the entire interior of our house with semi-gloss paint. We also have two cats. (Do I even need to say that the dogs and cats do not get along?) There is also my daughter’s aquatic turtle with his very large aquarium. Our male dog is intact. Her female dog was in heat all November.
- My daughter will graduate from university in mid-year ceremonies mid-December. We are trying to arrange all the graduation basics, plus a wonderful reception afterwards. Relatives are coming from the East Coast. My daughter is also applying to graduate schools with January deadlines on all paperwork, retaking her GREs, and getting ready to move to Minneapolis in early January.
- Did I mention we helping her buy a car this week?
- Oh, and I don’t think I mentioned that the east coasters who will be arriving are my step-daughter, her one-year-old twin daughters, and her husband who lost a leg in a boating accident this past summer? No shit sherlock, it has been an absolutely incredible year.
- This fall I’m also supposed to be finishing up my memoir that deals with a lot of the medical child abuse I experienced as a child and how I have continued to heal to a remarkable degree throughout my life. (No stress there! – Yes, I’m seeing my therapist while remembering and writing.)
- I’ve been neglecting my friends, and amassing huge vats of guilt that I’m lugging around like Scrooge’s night visitor, one who lost her home in foreclosure and is now Occupying Tucson and my childhood best friend whose husband just had bypass surgery, a stroke, and a very bad reaction to morphine?
- Step-daughter’s birthday is two days before Christmas, daughter’s birthday is just after the New Year.
- My dear husband and daughter told me tonight, as I melted into a simpering mass of babbling mush on the floor, that they want to have a garage sale the weekend between finals and graduation.
Blogging every day may have kept me sane this month. Now I just have to make sure that all the posts that I wrote and posted here or on my other blogs or on BlogHer show up here on this site as blog posts too and are labelled Nablopomo. And there are some that I posted here that I wanted to cross post on my other sites, but somehow I didn’t get them cross-posted.
Thank Heavens that next year is coming soon. I can’t wait!
I Love My Writing Technology!
Day 4… of Nablopomo, and I’m going to use the prompt for today about writing instruments and what I like to use. This seems to be a personal post so I’m putting it here in my more personal blog. I’m writing every day this month, as per National Blog Posting Month guidelines, in order to increase my output, improve my technique, and just generally become a better blogger. So the prompt is:
When you are writing, do you prefer to use a pen or a computer?
I wrote a tiny bit about this a few days ago on another of my blogs, coincidentally and mentioned that I prefer to use a .07 lead mechanical pencil when using a pencil, and that I prefer an ultra fine point archival ink when I chose to use a pen. When I want to write with a keyboard I also have to choose between my desktop computer, my laptop, my iPad 2, and my smart phone.
So how do I choose between the tools I have available to me when I want to put words to the page? Well, the first consideration I evaluate in my choice of writing utensil is the type of writing I want to do. Am I writing a grocery list, letter, journal entry, blog post, short or long manuscript, or a poem? This will influence the type of tool I choose to use. Intensely personal recollections, musings and such are likely to be written by hand with a pencil or high quality pen.
Lead pencils and a Rapidograph®-like pen were the tools of the trade I was instructed to use when making field notes / behavioral observations as an undergrad and in graduate school. I also always used a high rag or cotton content paper on which to take notes. This practice has stayed with me over the years to a great extent, although I love all sorts of paper, notebooks, notepads, and loose leaf papers so what I write on is not always bond paper. I try to use only ink that will not bleed, is permanent, and pencils as they also have these characteristics.
I usually write on a keyboard of some sort. I purchased my first electric typewriter when I was 16 in 1973. I loved to see my work in typed print – especially my poetry – and the “translation” of thought into words seemed to flow more smoothly and rapidly when I used the direct brain to fingertip neural/physical actions involved in typing. Writing script by hand takes much, much longer for me and seems more likely to capture stream of conscience musings. Using a keyboard seems to create a copy with more precise language usage that is closer to penultimate or final copy.
Another factor is where the writing will be done. At home, sitting, reclining, while watching T.V., in my office, at my desk, on a plane or train, in an automobile, at a coffee shop, at a conference, at a press conference all place different limiting and enabling constraints on which technology I use.
I nearly at all times have a small notebook and my phone with me when I carry a shoulder bag. Theoretically, I could use either one of these for note taking, but I like to write notes by hand. Phone key pads, even on the iPhone, are just too small. I do not like to send text messages for this reason. I guess I have old, fat fingers.
I like to write neatly if I am writing by hand and using a mechanical pencil allows me to write in a fairly uniform manner because the lead is always the same diameter and this size of mechanical pencil creates a thin line that for some reason helps me write in a neat small script. Archival quality ink pens, either felt tip or roller ball, with an ultra fine nib also seem to promote better handwriting for me than a ball point. I seem to produce larger and more sloppy script when I write with a ballpoint pen or wooden pencil.
I do my best blogging on a laptop when sitting in a comfy chair or even in bed with the TV on at night. I tend to use my iPad for social media communication, for texting and posting short social media entries. My desktop computer with the large screen in my office is used for graphics, web design layout, and for some reason which I have not figured out entirely, for manuscript or book length projects.
I love paper, pens, notebooks, and in fact all writing tools and technologies, but more than these things, and far beyond the simple preference expressed in answer to the question, “Pen or computer?” are my love of writing and words, my graphophilia and logophilia. And almost as intense as these loves is my fascination with the different limiting and enabling constraints placed on the creative process by the use of digital and analog tools and methods.