Today I Feel…Idiotic
First of all, Deadline Dame Rinda has a hilarious post up about the Waiting Writer In Her Natural Habitat. You can also win a coffee mug and coaster, so pop over and share some commenting love. Also, if you’ve contacted me through Myspace or through my website for an ARC of Strange Angels, rest assured that I’ve passed your contact info on to Razorbill.
As for me, well, this morning I feel like an idiot.
This is a common occurrence. I feel like a dolt almost every day of my life. The instant I start feeling smart, the Universe whaps me upside the head with something I never even dreamed of. So I spend most of my time pretty happily considering myself an idiot.
For example, take the kitchen timers. I have timers scattered all over the house. They’re used for the kids’ schoolwork, for mouthwash (don’t ask), for writing, for cooking, for shovelgloving, and just recently (like today) for telling myself to get up every twenty minutes and stretch so that stiffness in my lower back doesn’t turn into full-blown-walking-like-Quasimodo. Left to my own devices I would probably write pretty much all day, only stopping when the need to visit the loo was intense or when I am almost faint and have a headache from hunger.
This is not good for me. Hence, the timers.
No, I am not obsessive-compulsive. I just use times so much that having one or two in every room except the bedrooms is…
Oh, God. Maybe I AM a little obsessive. (At least I am not a goat held on suspicion of armed robbery, though. It’s the little things that should make one grateful.)
I’m just a little forgetful, that’s all. The timers help to hold me to a particular task for a period of time, or remind me, like I said, to get up and stretch. I’ve reached the point in working out and getting fit where I NEED to stretch. The muscles are unhappy; my posture and the way I hold myself are both changing. The shoulder-hunching and slouching has GOT to go. So, getting up and stretching every twenty minutes is necessary.
I just feel like a moron because I can’t remember to get up every twenty minutes without the timer. I can’t keep track of time on a clock–I get INTO what I’m doing, no matter what it is, and the clock begins to fade in importance with each passing moment. I consider it a miracle that I am ready for dinner each day (but this only happens because I start fretting about it around noon). I also feel faintly ashamed of admitting my firm belief that a kitchen timer is one of God’s gifts to writers, for reasons I’ve already stated.
I’m also feeling like a dip today because I’ve gotten two very nice responses–one from short story editors on an anthology, and one from my editor at Razorbill. But I worry and obsess so much over every piece of work–will the editor like it? Oh God. They won’t like it and they’ll take the advance back and then we’ll starrrrrve and the sun will go out and everyone will hate me because it’s all my FAULT…
When I hear people are considering writing for a living my first instinct is to laugh nervously. Because the rejection and the worry are both soul-wracking. The early rejections make a writer almost pathetically grateful for any sign of approval, and most of us don’t need any help when it comes to the seeking-approval thing. (It is only natural and human to want approval, after all. It seems like one of humanity’s biggest needs.) Then fierce performance anxiety kicks in, at least for me.
So both nice responses were a huge relief, and I’m sure both sets of editors think I’m an idiot for worrying so damn much. My emails are full of caveats and “you might not like“s and “tell me where this is broken but tell me one good thing about it first, please God“s.
See? I am a total spaz today, and probably not doing much better in this blog post. I’m going to blame the lingering soreness and mucus from the flu (and THAT was a doozy, I don’t think I’ve ever had so many dehydration headaches in a 72-hour period) and give myself a day off.
The way I’m feeling, it can’t hurt.
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Tags: deadline dames, nattering, not worth chewing through the leather straps, slight pause for station identification
January 28th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I have timers too. all over my ICal on my computer, my cell phone has 3 alarms telling me to wake up, telling me to REALLY wake up and another telling me its time to go. I understand your manic need. Are you going to have a contest for Strange Angels ARCs? The second I read what your book was about it slapped it right on my amazon wish list.
About writing as a career. I will forever be jealous. Every night I do my biochemistry homework and think….I really should have done liberal arts….Despite deadlines, being a writer must be awesome.
January 28th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
(holding up the Sister Creature) You want an example of a highly functional OCD? Trust me, its not You. You are establishing boundaries, not inforcing rituals.
January 28th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
It can’t be any worse than my constant battle to perfectly align everything in my environment. I align lasers for a living and so I have great spatial relationships.
My friends, (twisted individuals) like to slight knock my pictures, speakers, etc off center and time how long it takes me to notice and fix it. My partner says we can throw out the bubble levels in the house because we don’t need them anymore. And everything has to be symmetrical. She swears she will never take me to a museum or an art gallery ever again.
I think she would prefer timers.
January 28th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
The timers are actually a great idea I might steal from you. I hunch over my computer at work (and at home sometimes) and ended up with a bulging disk in my lumbar region of my lower back. So I need to get up and do a back exercise once an hour … but I get so involved in what I’m doing that I forget. And that doesn’t feel very good. So thanks for the idea!
January 28th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
For me, it’s my music. I put on an album because when I realize, blinking, 45 minutes later, that it has ended and there is no music and I can’t move my legs from sitting on them and my dogs are staring at me like “so are you going to move today OR WHAT”, I can get up, pee, do some jumping jacks, and drink some water.
So you are not alone.
Also, I am sort of enamored of that goat story.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:29 am
“I feel like a dolt almost every day of my life.”
My tired eyes read this as, ‘I feel like a dot’.
‘Wait, what, damage over time omg she’s a warlock!’ was my reaction.
Yup. =P
January 29th, 2009 at 7:54 am
I’m the same way with getting into what I’m doing. My coworkers have to yell and wave their hands in front of my monitor sometimes… I just assume they aren’t talking to ME.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I really get thoroughly into anything I am interested in. It leads to people raising their voices, or at work touching my shoulders and watching me rise off the chair and have a heart attack!
All forms of alarms will wake me inevitable or stop my fixation, but when I hear them it’s like “what IS that noise”?
January 29th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I love my timer, I live in an apartment with shared laundry and I time my wash/dry cycles, ewwww, don’t want strangers touching my clothes!
I have a small clock with a nap alarm, sets in 15 minute increments up to 90 minutes, love that clock.
If you take timers on vacation with you and time your fun, that could be a problem!
January 31st, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I don’t have timers, but when it comes to obsessive compulsive behaviour… Oh my.
I need to make the bed. Every morning. And the dishes need to be done before I leave for work. And the lid of the loo has to be closed, though it’s not as if anybody but me would see it, and when I go to bed I make sure there’s nothing left standing around on the coffee table in the living room, not even the TV remote.
I never used to be orderly and clean. I only got that way once I started living on my own. I claim it’s because I’m lazy and doing things little by little is better than having to do an all-out spring cleaning.
Timing yourself when writing makes so much more sense than my little habits. It is good for your health, and it is a good sign of the writer in you to think that you need to interrupt her from time to time because otherwise she’d take over.
And I agree with Gaylin, as long as there are still things you don’t time, you’re pefectly fine!