Early Morning Tomato

The list of things that I will get up at 5:30 am for is short. It usually only includes stuff like fire, and flood, and not soiling the bed. Apparently, writing is also on that list.

It would be perfectly understandable if you questioned my sanity. I did so myself. The thing is, when I looked at everything I have to do, and the life changes I’m trying to make, there really was no other option. I could give up writing altogether, or I could get my tired old carcass out of bed.

So, thanks in part of millennial YouTubers like Matt D’Avella,  and Thomas Frank, here I am bashing away at the keyboard while my phone quietly plays a loop of white noise called “Storm.” Meanwhile, outside my window it is only 1°C. Morning fog has become the norm here, as the river begins to cool to a more autumnal temperature. All too soon, the dew that covers every needle and blade of grass will be transformed to frost, and before I know it, I’ll be brushing snow and ice from the windshield again. Summer’s lease, indeed, has all to short a date!

Weather report aside, I am a lifetime member of the procrastinator’s club, which is something I desperately want, and need, to change about myself. So, I have decided to try the Pomodoro technique, or as my husband might put it, “stop over-thinking, and just frickin’ do the work!” Basically, you set a timer for twenty-five minutes, during which you work very intensely, and then you take a break for five minutes. If you’re just dying, then you can move onto something else, otherwise you can repeat the twenty-five-minute session as many times as necessary. On the surface, it doesn’t sound like much of a technique, does it? Theoretically, this should teach you to work both more consistently, and for longer periods. Largely, it is a method to get over the biggest hurdle, which is just to start. To assist me with this, I’ve downloaded a free App for my phone called Tide, but there are many others including some intended for children. So far, so good, but it’s really only one day, the whole thing could blow up in my face.

Interruptions are inevitable in life. Nothing has derailed me so much as losing my father. This has manifested in what I can only describe as analysis paralysis. I spend so much time doubting, equivocating, contemplating, planning, and feeling overwhelmed by everything that I have to do, that I actually cannot pick a place to start. Hours go by and all I find myself with my laptop open, a book laying beside that, and I’m scrolling through Facebook without even looking at it.

I am not a fan of the saying “everything happens for a reason,” but if there is reason in this lose, it is to teach me, yet again, what I value. Thankfully, there are things I care about more than numbing out, and writing is still on of them.

As I write this, I am only just realizing that I finished the first draft of Kettlesthrop Manner more than a year ago. I am currently on the third draft of that novel, and until March of this year, was sending out query letters to agents and publishers to try to get the thing into print. When I moved back to Canada, I gave myself a hard deadline of finding an interested publisher by December of this year. I also promised myself that I would participate in Nanowrimo this November, so that I could get a second novel “on the page” before I start school in January. Today is September 9^th, and with each passing day it’s looking more and more like I’m going to have to take the self-publishing route.

Now is probably a good time to admit that I’ve been watching the timer ticking away beside me off and on for the past five minutes. I’ve only glanced at it, but as I know I’m going to get a break soon, my focus has already left the party, and I am finding it hard to think about anything but coffee and the bathroom. My mind may be sharp, and my outlook youthful, but my bladder is still fifty.