Notes to self

[mrissa]

1. The tea rule: when markgritter is out of town, you must remember to make your own afternoon tea. This is a good rule.

2. The miso rule: in months when you would by default wear socks, you must have something warm with at least one and preferably two meals a day. This, too, is a good rule.

3. The salad rule: no more than one meal a day can be solely composed of cold raw vegetables, or you will wake up in the middle of the night cold and hungry. (Clarification: adding cold nuts to the cold raw vegetables is only enough for ONE meal a day. NOT TWO.) This is a very, very good rule. See how much better tonight is for these rules than yesterday was without them? Yah. Good. Remember that.

4. You can doubt yourself when you're away from the computer. Doubt yourself in the shower, doubt yourself propped up next to the stove, doubt yourself riding in the car, whatever you need to do. Not required but permitted from time to time. But at the computer you write.

5. It turns out that being funny in a book does not make it easier, as a writer, to deal with the incredibly emotionally difficult plot points you have written into it, YOU BLITHERING MORON. But it turns out not to be physically possible just yet to go back in time and shake yourself by the shoulders for plotting it that way before you knew how this year would be. And it will be better this way. It really will. But--gee, huh, why might you be avoiding writing that chapter, self? What an incomprehensible behavior! Wholly inexplicable by any means except LOGIC AND DEDUCTIVE REASONING.

Sheesh, some monkeys.

Comments

[chinders.livejournal.com]

I would like to suggest a rule:

Addendum rule 6: Do not call yourself names.

But yeah, I know this one. I frequently have to remind myself that doing good things for myself is good and neglecting myself is bad. It seems simple, but apparently not so...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, all right.

But still, this is one of those times when the elephant in the living room was hopping around on a pogo stick playing all the instruments for being a one-man elephant band. And there's me going, "Hmm, something smells slightly of peanuts, can't understand why...."

I would be clearer on what's going on in point five, but I don't want to spoil the ending of this book for, y'know, everyone who reads my lj and might care.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Does that chapter have to be written this year?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

1. There is nothing magical about Dec. 31, 2009, that will make everything that has been going on with me this year disappear in a shower of glitter and fairydust.

2. If you're doing it right, events in a book inform the whole book. So skipping the reveal on one plot point until a later date does not actually change the way the whole book has to shape around it.

[chinders.livejournal.com]

I totally feel you. A couple of months ago I was working myself into oblivion and just putting up with it because, y'know, I *could*, and then when it finally stopped I was- wonder of wonders- tired and crying all the time! I wonder why?

Also, definitely, no book spoilers. :) Good luck writing tough stuff.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Periodically I will say, "I don't know why I'm so tired!" And then stop. Because once I actually put it in words, it turns out I have some inkling after all.

[chinders.livejournal.com]

Yup. Funny how that goes.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

I'm the inverse of 4. I ONLY doubt myself at the computer for the most part. Of course that's also where I spend most of my time. But in the car, garden, bed, store, I generally don't doubt myself. Just when I'm sitting here looking at rectangular glowing thing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, they are notes to self, not universal rules; one imagines other people can do perfectly well without tea, or else don't have any expectation that markgritter will make it.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

I was coming in to say this. I am pretty bullish on my own stock everywhere else BUT when sitting at the computer. I am tempted to try the Mrissa Variant but I worry that I would get more accomplished at the computer at the expense of moving around as if carrying a 300 pound weight on my shoulders the rest of the day. Still ... hmm.

I am as much a fan of cold raw vegetables as anyone, but nonetheless I heartily endorse rule 3. Our compromise around here is to put hot or recently-hot meat in the cold raw vegetables (poached shredded or sliced chicken breast for example). Then we can legitimately claim large salads satisfy the hot-meal requirement. This is mostly in summer as we attempt to use up CSA-share vegetables. In the winter, however, bibim bap comes into its own. Cold vegetables can be a meal over hot rice.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If I'm in that state where nothing sounds good but a salad, putting hot or recently-hot meat on it qualifies as ruining the salad rather than making it fit the rule. So at that point I might as well figure out whether I can barbecue myself a chicken breast or something that will work that way.

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

#4 is full of wisdom, and something I needed to hear myself. Thank you.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

it turns out not to be physically possible just yet to go back in time and shake yourself by the shoulders for plotting it that way

What, still not? Damn...

These are good rules, all of them (with the contingent no. 6, as noted above). We think you should stick to them, we do.