Spring Cleaning (Or, What's WRONG With Me?)

As those who know me, even a little, know well, I'm not much of a girl for housecleaning. It bores me more than just a little. It's exhausting, painful, and -- since we live in the dustiest city this side of Calcutta -- fruitless. A continuous loop of 'lift, clean, set down, lift, clean, set down'. We also have three dogs and two cats and they're anti the idea of keeping the house neat and tidy.

Oh sure, the house is cleaner than I probably make it sound, for which, 99% of the time, the kudos go to my husband. But not this week.

No, this week, I've been doing the cleaning. And I have only one thing to say: God alone knows why.

Wait. Two things: Please, God, somebody stop me!

For reasons I still can't comprehend but am blaming on Spring (as if we even have Spring here -- it's more like three weeks where it's not really cold and not horrifyingly hot) I got the urge to clean. And not just any clean. No, really clean. Clean clean.

I have a bad back, and so this kind of cleaning is not to be undertaken lightly. Or all at once. Or it's extra quality time with the chiropractor. So, I've been working through, room by room. But not all parts of the rooms. Just the lower parts.

You read that right. From about knee height down, my house is sparkling. Higher than that? Well, it's...about the same as it always is.

I have no idea why I care so much about the floors and the baseboards and the corners and all. I just do. If I were pregnant (which, thankfully, I am not), I'd say I was 'nesting'. If we had company coming, I'd say it was to impress them. But our company left already and she was nice and we didn't have to impress her. Nor, let me stress, was her presence the reason for the cleaning season. She left the guestroom a lot neater than when she arrived. (Someone has to be neat around here. Sure, it was a visitor, but that counts, right?) I haven't killed anyone, so I'm not having a Lizzie Borden or Lady Macbeth complex of any kind (look it up), nor am I trying to get rid of evidence.

No, there's no obvious reason for this -- I can call it nothing else -- cleaning frenzy. It's just there. Telling me that, as soon as the floors of the remaining rooms are done, we're going to work on the walls. And then, perhaps, the ceilings. And then, if I'm not dead -- we'll start straightening things, finding a place for everything and putting everything in its place. So that this will be the best Spring Cleaning EVER in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Or at least the history of me.

Summer cannot get here fast enough.

TGC

600 Days

At the end of January I reached a milestone. I hit 600 Days with Club 100.

What's Club 100, you ask? It's a commitment group, started by a romance writer, where you make a commitment to write 100 words a day for 100 days. If you miss a day, you have to start back the next day on Day 1 -- even if you missed a day on Day 99.

My first few attempts at Club 100 were abject failures. My daughter was in speech & debate in HS and I was a speech mom and every other weekend I was judging for an entire Saturday (up before dawn, in bed well past setting sun) and spent all Sunday recouperating. And I work full time and had other things going on as well. I'd crash and burn, despite all efforts. But I kept on starting back at Day 1 and persevering.

Finally, I realized I needed to give myself blackout and floater days -- blackouts were days I just didn't expect to write (Christmas, as an example), and needed to be planned ahead. Floaters meant I got (in my case) 2 days a week where if I just couldn't write, well then, I didn't and it counted as a floater. Voila! I was in business, and able to actually get past 14 days (my prior record after about 6 attempts) that way.

Because I joined Club 100 with two completed novels, one finished novella, and a variety of short stories, I needed to do more than just write and fortunately the rules are clear -- you set up your goals before you start and can't change them until you hit 100 or crash out and begin again.

I set up my goals for this go-round (and all subsequent ones) to include things that moved my writing career forward. So, for any one day, if I did one of the following, I met my Club 100 goal -- writing 100 words or more in any WIP; editing at least 20 pages of a WIP or one short story; in-depth research (among others, I write historicals); writing one query letter to an agent; one submission of a short story or query sent to an agent; in-depth beta/crit feedback; agent research of more than 30 minutes; or one crafted blog (my blogs support my pen names, so have to be in voice and also be relevant, versus stream-of-consciousness). I found that rarely did I only do one of these per day; some days I did all of them, because doing one put me on a roll for doing more.

For my first time hitting 100 days, I counted my floaters and blackouts. I made it about 114 days, if I recall, and then went on vacation and stopped. Back from vacation, I started again -- this time, not allowing myself to count any day I didn't write in my total (ergo, if I wrote on Sunday/Day 12, floated on Monday, and wrote on Tuesday, Tuesday was Day 13). Somewhere along in this next set of 100 days, the real habit kicked in. For the majority of these past 600 days, while I *could* still take a floater or blackout day, I haven't. It's become a massive point of pride to keep my days going without a break. Yes, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yes, amazingly, even the day I had surgery.

At Day 400 I added in working on my website or business-related activities as legitimate Club 100 marks, as well as speaking engagements, agent consultations, and conference attendance. Why?

Because in this time, I sold my first humor pieces, got an agent, sold my first two-book deal, sold some other shorts, and have a variety of novels being shopped by said agent, and more. And, as far as I'm concerned, I owe it all to Club 100. It helps that there are others there, doing the same thing, logging in their 100+ words a day, hitting their goals, or missing and starting over, again and again. Proves you're not alone and gives you others to run with.

I still mark down what I do in the same little red book I started with. If I don't mark it down daily, I won't do it. After all this time, I still need to have that book sitting on my desk, reminding me that I haven't done anything to forward my writing career today. I doubt that I'll ever stop doing Club 100. My goal now is 700 days, and then 800, and so on. 100 days at a time :-D.

I firmly believe that this is the simplest and best thing anyone can do for their writing career. And I KNOW that if I can do it, you ALL can do it. For writing or whatever else you want to do and do well.

So, you know...why not do it?

http://www.bethpattillo.com/id8.html
To subscribe, send an email to: Club100writers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

TGC

Hannah the Wonder Dog

As many of you know, I have pets. Currently, three attention-starved dogs (at least, according to them) and two imperious cats.

Dogs like walks. Ours in particular. So far, so very good. Exercise is needful, we live in the best city around for outdoor activities during the wintertime (it's almost 11pm here and it's a freezing 65 degrees...don't hate us for our weather, we try not to rub it in more than six or seven times a day), and we have a park a block from our house. So, the walks themselves are not the issue.

No. Hannah the Wonder Dog is the issue.

Hannah, I must stress, is not my dog. She belongs to the family down the block and across the street. The family who doesn't believe in leashes, dog training, or, apparently, common sense. The family who routinely stand there while this scenario plays out, over and over again.

We come towards them, three big dogs in tow. Three dogs walking politely on their leashes, I must add. Their dog, Hannah, using her keen dog senses, spots 'friends'. Hannah, being unrestrained by either leash or word, races across the street to engage our dogs in happy sniffing. While we force our dogs to freeze, she races around us, while her owners call, "Hannah. Come back. Hannah." They don't call it too enthusiastically, either.

Hannah is either very excitable or very afraid of my dogs, or both. Because every time she races over for the sniff-fest, she pees.

Yesterday, she peed on my foot. While her horrible owners stood there and called from across the street, "Sorry!"

I called back, "Her coming over isn't so bad, but I'm not really thrilled about her peeing on me."

They smiled and waved and went inside.

I hate them.

But, no worries. I'll get even. I have three dogs. They do a lot of 'dog business'. And if some mysterious 'dog business' randomly shows up on Hannah's doorstep, well...who can say it wasn't her, taking an excitement dump?

Not me. Why, I have proof the dog can't help it. My shoe's still 'marked'.

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Welcome All Who Managed to Find Me Here

Yes, yes, I know. Yet ANOTHER blog I may or may not update on a semi-regular basis. I know what you're thinking...but why? Was there a reason? At least a rhyme? Something that makes a modicum of sense?

Well...sorta.

See, there's this rumor that where else I blog might be on life support. And I know people who love it over here. And I can have artwork over here. And, you know, new year, new blog! Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket!

So, welcome, new and old, to the New and Improved Log of the Great Corrupter! Promising some kind of humor on some kind of regular basis, whether you need it or not.

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