(no subject)
I am so ridiculously proud of myself right now.
So, the car mechanic said there was a crack in the radiator (which I knew), and it had to be replaced. (Because it's an old car, they can't just patch it -- something to do with it being plastic or not being plastic, I don't remember.) They checked and repaired the hoses, took the screw out of my tire and repaired that, and charged me... $300. HOLY SHIT, PEOPLE. I love this mechanic. :D AND, they got it back to me by 12:30! Love. Them.
Thursday I came back from Quin's, determined to start back at the gym and whatnot. I got my writing done on Wednesday, but no gym. :( I did go to the gym Thurs, which wasn't easy since it was long past morning. I also got new running shoes! :D I also thought up A New Plan.
See, I write best if I wake up and start writing. I also know that if I don't go to the gym in the morning, I won't go at all. And on days that I train dogs, I'm often starting early so I don't go to the gym. Or I'm at Quin's, and I don't go to the gym.
So, I had this brilliant idea! It's three-parted.
1. I will go to the gym 5 days a week! Or at least aim for that, the real goal being 3 days a week, and I might make it if I plan for 5.
2. On writing days, I will get up, go to the gym, come home and shower, and then nap. THEN I will wake up and write.
3. On writing days, I will take the dogs jogging, and on training days, I will do weight training at the gym.
Today... IT WORKED. This was my schedule for today:
8: get up, gym, shower
9:30: nap
10: get up, write
12: run errands
2: write more
4: clean house
6: hopefully be done.
What I actually did today was this:
7:30: wake up and, uh, talk to Quin on the phone. :D
8:15: take dogs running, shower
9: nap
9:45: get up, write.
11:30: FINISH WRITING BECAUSE I MORE THAN MET MY WORD COUNT.
12: errands! (and some play time!)
2: wash dogs!
3: clean house!
7: finish! (Blog and make phone calls.)
THIS IS SO COOL. Mostly, I'm thrilled that my writing plan seems to be working. Hopefully napping will fix the problem! YAY!
Thursday I had all my clients cancel on me, some of them a few days before, but no one took those slots. So what should have been a $390 day ended up being a $40 day. Ouch. One person rebooked, one person will rebook, and the other I have no idea about. Hrmph.
Quin has asked me a few times why I want to stop training dogs if my writing is successful. I'm good at training dogs, and I obviously enjoy it, so why do I want to quit? I never really had an answer for her, until yesterday morning when I was laying in bed feeling crabby. The reason I was feeling crabby was because of a client, and that's when it hit me: I really do enjoy training dogs. It's interesting, it's creative, I like helping the animals. I really hate training people, and I find it endlessly frustrating to be unable to just beam my ability into my client's heads. The other day one of my clients -- one I really like -- was at a park. His dog was hard-staring another dog. Now, we've talked about hard-staring and how it's a challenge and it's rude and etc AD NAUSEUM, but did he stop his dog? No. And then his dog attacked another dog. I only know all this because a dog walker, who is also a friend of mine, saw it and told me. Did I get a call from my client to say, "Hey, we had this problem, will you remind us...?" or anything of the sort? No.
This is why I want to quit. If I could take dogs, fix them, and then hand them back and tell the owners how to keep it up, I'd be much happier. But I can't.
And then there's the dog I am training without the owner present, because the dog is so dog-aggressive her owners can't handle her. This dog is a totally different form of stress. The aggressiveness I can deal with, no biggie, but this dog -- a German shepherd -- SCREAMS when you make her walk away from a dog. I don't mean when I pop her or anything like that, I mean that yesterday I turned and walked away from the dog she was staring at, she went with me, the leash NEVER went taut, and she screamed anyway. It sounds like I'm beating her. I've had people holler at me, pull over to ask me to stop, and regularly glare at me. Good God.
Training dogs is interesting, but it's not something I want to do forever -- except maybe as a hobby. ("What do you do as a hobby?" "I retrain dogs with behavioral problems." "...") It leaves me with way too much frustration, and not enough payback. (That's partly my problem: I KNOW the dogs that don't make it, and forget the ones that do well.) When I am excited about training, it's usually because it's a dog other people have said can't be fixed -- and I'm gleeful because I did it anyway, that shows them, ha.
On the other hand, thinking about writing gets me leaping out of bed in the morning, so excited to start I don't even want to shower first. *grins* It fills me with an elation that nothing else does. Almost like having a crush -- like there are butterflies in my stomach, thinking about a book or an idea. Man. I love writing. :DDD My next book has finally hit its stride, and I'm SO excited! I wrote 3500 words today, easily! I want to get back to it, but that won't be until tomorrow (if I have time) or Monday. EEEEEP. So fun. :D
And speaking of books, I picked up a new (to me) author. The book is The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks, and I LOVED IT. It's a book about an assassin, set in a fantasy-city world not unlike The Lies of Locke Lamora or a Stephen Brust book. (Grittier than a Brust book, though.) It follows a street urchin who gets himself apprenticed to an assassin, and it's one of these where the plot is just twisty enough to be interesting, and then the end hits and you realize how extremely twisty it actually was! It makes me want to read it again, and I don't do that very often. ;) The first chapter or so is VERY dark, just to warn you. Lots of child abuse and references to rape and things. If you can get past that, aside from the assassin part, it's actually not that dark.
I also picked up the last in a trilogy (I think), God of Clocks by Alan Campbell. You might recall me raving about Scar Night, which was the first in the trilogy. You might not recall me posting about the second, because I wasn't all that impressed with it. It got... weird. Well, weirdER. Clocks was... disappointing. The characters you get attached to in Scar Night are almost nonexistent by the time Clocks hits, and instead you're swamped with so many characters you know nothing about any of them. For me, the characters are the reason to read a story. The plot was interesting, but the last book dealt with time travel. I dislike time travel stories. Plus, the end was like, "Wait, we went 3000 years back in time and changed this one thing, so none of this ever happened! Ha ha ha!" Which just reeks of someone waking up and you discover it's all a dream. There were all these random scenes of him wanting to write alternate universes, I guess, that added nothing to the plot. In fact, there was a lot that added nothing to the plot, that read like he was going to go somewhere with them, didn't, and just forgot to cut those scenes out.
Plus, there were plot holes in his own theories. One second he's saying that changing the past will create an alternate universe, and the next someone goes back in time, kills another person, and somehow... stops the alternate universe where they lived from forming. I mean, really, wouldn't it just create another alternate universe, one where the person died and one where they lived? Yes. It would. He said so. Repeatedly. (Are you confused yet? EXACTLY.) (Actually, he never did explain how the killer even KNEW what had happened in that universe, because it wasn't her universe.)
It's definitely going in the give-away pile. Possibly after I use it as a "What not to do" for the Author's Note on Geeking Out About.... I will, however, take a look at anything else Campbell puts out -- Scar Night was that good. Just, hopefully in a different world. :(
Wow. I think I've finally written myself dry. ;) Now... off to call clients!
J
So, the car mechanic said there was a crack in the radiator (which I knew), and it had to be replaced. (Because it's an old car, they can't just patch it -- something to do with it being plastic or not being plastic, I don't remember.) They checked and repaired the hoses, took the screw out of my tire and repaired that, and charged me... $300. HOLY SHIT, PEOPLE. I love this mechanic. :D AND, they got it back to me by 12:30! Love. Them.
Thursday I came back from Quin's, determined to start back at the gym and whatnot. I got my writing done on Wednesday, but no gym. :( I did go to the gym Thurs, which wasn't easy since it was long past morning. I also got new running shoes! :D I also thought up A New Plan.
See, I write best if I wake up and start writing. I also know that if I don't go to the gym in the morning, I won't go at all. And on days that I train dogs, I'm often starting early so I don't go to the gym. Or I'm at Quin's, and I don't go to the gym.
So, I had this brilliant idea! It's three-parted.
1. I will go to the gym 5 days a week! Or at least aim for that, the real goal being 3 days a week, and I might make it if I plan for 5.
2. On writing days, I will get up, go to the gym, come home and shower, and then nap. THEN I will wake up and write.
3. On writing days, I will take the dogs jogging, and on training days, I will do weight training at the gym.
Today... IT WORKED. This was my schedule for today:
8: get up, gym, shower
9:30: nap
10: get up, write
12: run errands
2: write more
4: clean house
6: hopefully be done.
What I actually did today was this:
7:30: wake up and, uh, talk to Quin on the phone. :D
8:15: take dogs running, shower
9: nap
9:45: get up, write.
11:30: FINISH WRITING BECAUSE I MORE THAN MET MY WORD COUNT.
12: errands! (and some play time!)
2: wash dogs!
3: clean house!
7: finish! (Blog and make phone calls.)
THIS IS SO COOL. Mostly, I'm thrilled that my writing plan seems to be working. Hopefully napping will fix the problem! YAY!
Thursday I had all my clients cancel on me, some of them a few days before, but no one took those slots. So what should have been a $390 day ended up being a $40 day. Ouch. One person rebooked, one person will rebook, and the other I have no idea about. Hrmph.
Quin has asked me a few times why I want to stop training dogs if my writing is successful. I'm good at training dogs, and I obviously enjoy it, so why do I want to quit? I never really had an answer for her, until yesterday morning when I was laying in bed feeling crabby. The reason I was feeling crabby was because of a client, and that's when it hit me: I really do enjoy training dogs. It's interesting, it's creative, I like helping the animals. I really hate training people, and I find it endlessly frustrating to be unable to just beam my ability into my client's heads. The other day one of my clients -- one I really like -- was at a park. His dog was hard-staring another dog. Now, we've talked about hard-staring and how it's a challenge and it's rude and etc AD NAUSEUM, but did he stop his dog? No. And then his dog attacked another dog. I only know all this because a dog walker, who is also a friend of mine, saw it and told me. Did I get a call from my client to say, "Hey, we had this problem, will you remind us...?" or anything of the sort? No.
This is why I want to quit. If I could take dogs, fix them, and then hand them back and tell the owners how to keep it up, I'd be much happier. But I can't.
And then there's the dog I am training without the owner present, because the dog is so dog-aggressive her owners can't handle her. This dog is a totally different form of stress. The aggressiveness I can deal with, no biggie, but this dog -- a German shepherd -- SCREAMS when you make her walk away from a dog. I don't mean when I pop her or anything like that, I mean that yesterday I turned and walked away from the dog she was staring at, she went with me, the leash NEVER went taut, and she screamed anyway. It sounds like I'm beating her. I've had people holler at me, pull over to ask me to stop, and regularly glare at me. Good God.
Training dogs is interesting, but it's not something I want to do forever -- except maybe as a hobby. ("What do you do as a hobby?" "I retrain dogs with behavioral problems." "...") It leaves me with way too much frustration, and not enough payback. (That's partly my problem: I KNOW the dogs that don't make it, and forget the ones that do well.) When I am excited about training, it's usually because it's a dog other people have said can't be fixed -- and I'm gleeful because I did it anyway, that shows them, ha.
On the other hand, thinking about writing gets me leaping out of bed in the morning, so excited to start I don't even want to shower first. *grins* It fills me with an elation that nothing else does. Almost like having a crush -- like there are butterflies in my stomach, thinking about a book or an idea. Man. I love writing. :DDD My next book has finally hit its stride, and I'm SO excited! I wrote 3500 words today, easily! I want to get back to it, but that won't be until tomorrow (if I have time) or Monday. EEEEEP. So fun. :D
And speaking of books, I picked up a new (to me) author. The book is The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks, and I LOVED IT. It's a book about an assassin, set in a fantasy-city world not unlike The Lies of Locke Lamora or a Stephen Brust book. (Grittier than a Brust book, though.) It follows a street urchin who gets himself apprenticed to an assassin, and it's one of these where the plot is just twisty enough to be interesting, and then the end hits and you realize how extremely twisty it actually was! It makes me want to read it again, and I don't do that very often. ;) The first chapter or so is VERY dark, just to warn you. Lots of child abuse and references to rape and things. If you can get past that, aside from the assassin part, it's actually not that dark.
I also picked up the last in a trilogy (I think), God of Clocks by Alan Campbell. You might recall me raving about Scar Night, which was the first in the trilogy. You might not recall me posting about the second, because I wasn't all that impressed with it. It got... weird. Well, weirdER. Clocks was... disappointing. The characters you get attached to in Scar Night are almost nonexistent by the time Clocks hits, and instead you're swamped with so many characters you know nothing about any of them. For me, the characters are the reason to read a story. The plot was interesting, but the last book dealt with time travel. I dislike time travel stories. Plus, the end was like, "Wait, we went 3000 years back in time and changed this one thing, so none of this ever happened! Ha ha ha!" Which just reeks of someone waking up and you discover it's all a dream. There were all these random scenes of him wanting to write alternate universes, I guess, that added nothing to the plot. In fact, there was a lot that added nothing to the plot, that read like he was going to go somewhere with them, didn't, and just forgot to cut those scenes out.
Plus, there were plot holes in his own theories. One second he's saying that changing the past will create an alternate universe, and the next someone goes back in time, kills another person, and somehow... stops the alternate universe where they lived from forming. I mean, really, wouldn't it just create another alternate universe, one where the person died and one where they lived? Yes. It would. He said so. Repeatedly. (Are you confused yet? EXACTLY.) (Actually, he never did explain how the killer even KNEW what had happened in that universe, because it wasn't her universe.)
It's definitely going in the give-away pile. Possibly after I use it as a "What not to do" for the Author's Note on Geeking Out About.... I will, however, take a look at anything else Campbell puts out -- Scar Night was that good. Just, hopefully in a different world. :(
Wow. I think I've finally written myself dry. ;) Now... off to call clients!
J