Month: October 2018

#UpbeatAuthors: A Movie About Perseverance

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One of my favorite movies of all time is Galaxy Quest. I loved the original Star Trek series, so a movie spoofing the show is a sheer delight.

Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and the incomparable Alan Rickman head an amazing cast. In a nutshell, the movie is about an TV program that has been off the air for a while, but which has a huge, obsessed fanbase. Tim Allen plays Jason Nesmith, who played Commander Taggart on the TV show, a Captain Kirk knock-off. The problem is the TV show is bouncing around in outer space (along with every other TV show) and one alien culture believes they are “historical documents.” And so the fun begins.

The script is filled with delightfully quotable quips.

Nothing is sacred: the actors, the scripts, the fans who attend conventions.

Why am I writing about a 19-year-old movie? Because the motto of the character played by Tim Allen’s character is “Never give up! Never surrender!”

It’s all about perseverance.

My Portable Office

I freely admit I stole this idea from a friend, who had an “office in a box” she kept in a recipe card file. Brilliant idea, I thought.

At the time I put mine together, I was carrying my WIP (Work in Progress) around in a three-ring binder, so I opted to use a pencil bag made for a binder.

Pen, pencil, highlighter, and index cards.

The outside mesh zipper pocket contains paperclips, binder clips, an eraser, a Sharpie, staples, rubber bands, sticky notes, and a lighter. Yes, a lighter. An author never knows when she needs to light a scented candle.

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The big zipper pocket contains tape, a stapler, scissors, another Sharpie, note pads, larger index cards, a protractor, and a compass. I think I also used to carry an extra floppy disc, but times have changed.

This is all very compact and has come in extremely handy on many occasions. I carry it in my CNYRW go bag and in my retreat go bag.

#UpbeatAuthors: Knowing When to Quit

Perseverance is a good thing. But sometimes it’s better to know when to quit.

I used to drink coffee. But every year on a religious fast day, I went through caffeine withdrawal. About ten years ago, I realized if my body was going through withdrawal, then I was addicted. I’d quit smoking a few years earlier. If I could quit one addiction, I could quit another. So I did.

Other things not worth hanging in there for:

  • bad/abusive relationships
  • a hated, dreaded job
  • an eating plan that leaves you hungry
  • a beer chugging contest
  • a TV show that makes you uneasy
  • a bad movie in a theater
  • the same first three chapters of a writer’s WIP that keep getting entered in contests–and nothing more is ever written on the story.

 

 

 

Dishwashing Mantra

I could swear I blogged about this topic before, but I can’t find it, so I’m going to blog about it now.

I was raised in a home with no dishwashing machine. My mother had two dishwashers: me and my younger sister. (Why did my younger brother not have to wash dishes or set the table? My sister and I had to mow the lawn…)

The way we were taught to wash the dishes was: glasses and silverware first. “Glasses” included tea mugs.  The theory was that those items went into our mouths, so it was best to wash them first, while the water was still clean and hot, in the hopes of sanitizing them.

Next came everything else except the “tin dishes”, which is what my parents called the pots and pans. Except for the frying pans (usually cast iron), tin dishes were washed last.

To this day, that is how I hand wash dishes.

 

#UpbeatAuthors: Outlasting Your Enemies

There have been times in my life when perseverance involved keeping my head down, doing what I needed to do,  and reminding myself I could outlast my enemies.  Enemies are legion: bad bosses; nasty co-workers; crushing debt; non-life-threatening illness; rent increases; traffic jams; raising teenagers.

I just remind myself that this, too, shall pass. Then I hang in there.