Brain Clutter and Writer's Block

Great news about Daniel! He's off the respirator and is eating JELL-O and chicken soup. Yay! He is still quite sedated, but his prognosis is excellent. The worst part for him now is the changing of the dressings which takes about 90 minutes and is excruciating. He will be in the hospital for many weeks while his healing is monitored and it is determined if/when skin grafts should be done.

The young lady is still in ICU and on a respirator. She has contracted pneumonia which is complicating her chance for recovery.

Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated!

Photo courtesy of morguefile.com.

 Merriam-Webster

Clutter:

Verb:  To fill or cover with scattered or disordered things that impede movement or reduce effectiveness.

Noun:  a : a crowded or confused mass or collection

b : things that clutter a place

We can all relate to the above definition. Who among us doesn’t have something cluttering things up somewhere? But what about brain clutter?

We writers have thousands of ideas floating around in our brains, each one vying for attention. Yep. Brain clutter. The brain is cluttered with writing ideas for stories, essays, etc. So what to do? All that stuff rambling about is as useful as the twist ties and random take-out menus that populate the junk drawer in my kitchen.

It also makes the writing process rather daunting. There are so many thoughts and ideas. How does a writer clarify and extricate them all? It can be paralyzing. It causes a brain freeze, and then we say we have writer’s block. But you know what I think? I don’t think writer’s block really exists.

Here’s the thing. The more I write the more clutter drops from my brain, through my fingers to the keyboard, and onto the computer screen. And when that happens, it isn’t clutter anymore. (Okay, sometimes it is; but that’s what editing is for.)  It somehow organizes into a short story, or a scene in my middle grade novel, or even a list of ideas for nonfiction articles. The point is, once it is no longer in my brain it manages to organize itself on the page.

So the solution to brain clutter and writer's block is . . .writing. That’s it, buttercup. Feel blocked? Brain cluttered? Just write. It doesn’t matter what—a grocery list, a thank-you note to your mother-in-law, a paragraph about why you love Shawn and Gus on Psych.  Write an ode to your postman. Write anything. The idea is to shake up the clutter in your brain until all those words drop out, just like pulling out that kitchen junk drawer and turning it upside down.

Write the clutter. You’ll be surprised how fast it turns into something that isn’t clutter at all.

See you next for Book Blurb Friday!

Lisa

Blowing the Whistle

Since my last post was all about tooting my own horn, it seems fitting that equal time be awarded to blowing the whistle.  On myself.  So in the interest of fairness you will now be treated with how I blew it.

On Wednesday last I spent a couple hours sitting in Starbucks working on a flash fiction story for a contest.  The deadline was Friday and I finished two days early, with one day for final editing.  I clicked "save" several times, shut down my laptop, slurped the remainder of my grande skinny caramel latte (only 3 Weight Watcher points, y'all) and moved on.

Friday rolled around and I went searching for my story.  Nada.  It disappeared into the black hole that is MS Word.  I did a full file and document search, all to no avail.  My brilliant flash fiction was a fizzle in the motherboard.  

"No problem," said I.  "I am a writer. I will write."  And so I did.  

Though not as pleased with the second version of my story I deemed it not complete trash and proceeded with the electronic submission.  Since the submission guidelines were clear regarding only one submission per author--and get it right, Shakespeare, because once you hit "send" there are no revisions allowed--I triple checked my work.  Contact info at the top left of page one? Check.  Word count less than 500? Check.  Double-spaced using Times Roman 12? Check. Check to every blessed thing that was required, a big sigh of relief, and then, SEND. 

As is my MO, I blind copied myself on the submission to be sure it went through.  It did, but when I opened the story attachment what did I see? Enough to make me cry, that's what.  The attachment was wrong.  Where was my contact info? What happened to the double spacing? The file name was correct, and I knew I had the piece submission-ready.  So what happened?

This is where it gets nasty, my friend.  What happened was this:  I am an old bagger who is a technology dweeb.  

See, due to a recent and costly encounter with a computer virus, I now save everything in three places: laptop, external hard drive, and flash drive.  Since I completed the first version of my story while lounging in a Starbucks, it was never backed up on the external or flash drives in my home office.  I decreed, then, that the rewrite be saved in every damn place; and so it was.  Being old and memory-challenged, however, I did not save the final version in every location.  I thought it saved to the C-drive, so that was the file I attached to the submission.  Nope.  Turns out the final draft was ensconced ever-so-safely on the F-drive.  Safe, sound, and destined NOT to be read by a flash fiction judge.  Instead, its evil twin made the electronic journey.

The moral of the story is threefold:  1. Getting old sucks; 2. Computers were created to drive us mad; and 3. Scintillating storytelling is no match for middle-aged brain freeze.

Think of me while I thaw out.

Til next time -

Lisa

Brain Freeze

My youngest daughter had her wisdom teeth removed on Monday, and man, am I ever jealous. All that ice cream! And jello! And ice cream!

Did I mention ice cream?

The cold stuff makes her mouth feel better, so I’ve been serving it up with gusto. What gets me is that she has started complaining about being—can you even believe it?—tired of ice cream. Is that even possible?

I rank ice cream almost as high on my WOO-HOO scale as dark chocolate Peanut M&Ms. My fave flavor is coffee, but I don’t turn my nose up at butter pecan or strawberry (or chocolate, pistachio, or raspberry truffle.) And I definitely do not recall ever speaking aloud the statement, “I am sick of ice cream.” If those words ever leave my mouth you will know my body has been taken over by aliens. Silly, silly, aliens who do not know what is good for them.

Ice cream is a near perfect food. Just think of all that vitamin D and calcium! And if you eat blueberry or strawberry ice cream, that counts as a fruit serving! Calories? Pah! The second you stick a spoon into a scoop of ice cream all the calories escape up, up, up and away through that pesky hole in the ozone. Everyone knows that.

Since my daughter has decreed herself tired of ice cream, I suppose I’ll have to eat the leftovers. Why risk insulting Ben and Jerry? Or Edy? Or Mr. Mayfield? Such an affront would be tragic. No, I’ll take one for the home team and make sure there are no half-eaten boxes of ice cream usurping freezer space.

My motherly sacrifices just continue to multiply, don’t they?

Brrr….brain freeze!
Lisa