Monday, September 29, 2008

Razzle Dazzle.

Status: Antsy, happy, tired, frustrated, determined. (Yeah, I've felt all FIVE of those emotions so far this morning, in case you wanted to know.)

My mom called me this weekend and wanted to know if everything was OK. I said "sure, why do you ask?" She said "well, you didn't blog on Friday so I thought there might be a problem."

Heh heh. I thought that was amusing. I guess I didn't blog on Friday, did I? Ooops.

So I've discovered that a natural reaction to a longer-than-my-arm to-do list is to want to chuck it into the nearest wastebasket and thumb my nose at it. That's me this morning. I have the "I HAVE TO DO" list and the "I'D LIKE TO DO" list. Both are daunting. Perhaps because it's Monday, and I spent a lot of the weekend running around (except Sunday, I rested)--but I just don't feel like doing any of it.

Dangerous waters. Usually when I don't "feel" like doing something, that's when I most need to just get my rear-end going and DO IT. Don't need to take Psych 101 to know that fact.

Did a lot of writing in my head this weekend. I'm trying to decide if two of my characters "get real" about their feelings for each other in this book, or the next one. And once again, I need to continue my research of Mexico. Veracruz, specifically. Anyone going to Mexico any time soon? Can I stash myself in your suitcase?

I'm doing a Nora Roberts. I'm living vicariously through Google. It's the only way to fly, when you're tied down with four young children and a husband who works all the time and a household to run. Not much time for "research trips." So, Google it is. Actually, I'm very impressed with the amount of information there is out there. Someone usually has posted photos of the exact location I'm looking for on Flickr, or someone blogs about their experience in the town I need to know about--it's all out there, somewhere, someone has done it and put it on the Web. Good thing for me!

Time to do the cleaners/grocery store/cleaning thing. I wanted to get my Fall decorations out today but I'm thinking it's going to be tomorrow. That's definitely a "LIKE TO DO" list point.

Oh, and about the blog title--I couldn't think of anything better. "Razzle Dazzle" seemed like a good "hook." Gotcha!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope you get some of it done, Lara. Usually, when my lists get too long, it means I've thrown in EVERYTHING and some things can just be let go.

Don't make yourself crazy over it.

Michelle Miles said...

What would we do without the internet? Probably get a lot more writing done, eh? hahaha

Don't kill yourself today!

Anonymous said...

Make sure you keep a bibliography of your google sources in case you need to double check anything during revisions. I learned that one the hard way.

Also, I keep track of the people who post the photographs I find in the research so I can thank them in the acknowledgements. For TRACKING MEDUSA, I realized I didn't have photos of the kilms on Lindisfarne -- found some online, contacted the photographer about why I needed them, the person shared a whole bunch of trip photos that weren't posted -- you better believe I'm going to mention that person in the acknowledgements! Saved my bacon!