I’m at the 30,000 word mark and I’ve discovered that writing stories makes you a little mental.

On a good day of writing, my 2000 word minimum comes easy as though the words were being dictated by the people in the story and I was just the recording secretary.

I love these days.

The bad days definitely feel like me doing the work. Each word comes as though I were pulling it out of thick mud, or excavating it out of a diamond with nothing but a sharp stick and willpower.

Over the last few days I have abandoned all sense of pride and started arguing with the characters:

Me: C’mon…I can’t write this by myself! I don’t even know what happens!

Them: Why should we do all the work? You showed up late today and completely neglected us last Friday.

Me: But, the kid upstairs used the sprinkler to water my bedroom though the open window. I can’t be held responsible for that little devil spawn’s actions!

Them: Whatever lady – but hey, good luck and stuff.

So, I’ve spent the last few days feeling like I watched most of the finale of the most awesome show that ever was, only to miss the last 15 minutes because the cable cut out.

And worse, my characters are all wandering around with superior smirks on their faces because they know how it ended.

Jerks.

Normally I’d be typing this at home in mine and Joe’s apartment – which is a lot like a meat-locker with comfortable furniture – but, even our basement apartment is not cool enough to work in right now.

So, I got myself organized and came to the library for 9:45 a.m. figuring it probably didn’t open until 10 a.m. When I arrived, already hot and a little uncomfortable in the early morning heat, I saw a huge crowd of people standing before the glass doors looking anxious.

My first impression was that I was in a George Romero film, but this time looking at things from the zombie’s point of view.

A bunch of slightly sun-sticky shamblers, hands clutching plastic protected books with bar codes on the front chanting “Books….air conditioning…”

I was surprised at the assortment of people desperate to get into the library so early. A strange looking man with a little suitcase on wheels, a young man who looked like a smaller version of David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust days, and any number of students with heavy looking backpacks.

The glass doors slid open and we all went inside, some people rushing to favoured reading tables and others directly to the toilets.

I hunted around for a table where I could plug my laptop in and do some work, and found a great table on the first floor. Window view, shaded by the overhang on the building and wonderfully quiet. Then I discovered a huge mess of what looked like rebar with a plug at the end that lead directly to some dead outlets.

Damn. Bye bye window seat.

I headed to the information desk and after waiting for the woman there to stop her personal conversation with a fellow employee she looked at me. I asked her where I could find working outlets in the library and her helpful answer was:

“There are seven floors in this building, one of them is bound to have something.”

The look on her face clearly said, “What do I look like – an information desk?”

I took the escalator to the next floor and asked a woman at the desk there – she was much, much nicer and pointed me to the desk I’m using now. The only bad part is that it is directly over the kid section and there are no less than three crying children making their displeasure known.

So, I have some pretty serious doubts about getting any work done, but the people watching is nearly as interesting.

Two desks behind me is an older gentleman reading a newspaper, the desk to my left (across a small opening surrounded by glass and metal railings) is a rather serious looking young man staring intently at his laptop. I wonder if he is writing a similar blog post about the “weird red-head who keeps looking at me.”

I kind of hope so actually.

To my right are tall metal shelving units filled with books about writers. From here I can read the spines of a few: A Writer’s Ireland, The Idiot’s Guide to English Literature, Eliot, Joyce & Company.

And, to make things even more interesting there is a man setting up across from me with his HUGE Mac notebook. I mean, the screen must be 19 inches at least. He also just taken off his shoes – bare feet on the public library carpet. Ew.

Oh well, there is some comfort in knowing that I could get a medical book and look up the symptoms for athletes foot without too much effort.

I wasn’t sure what that something would turn out to be, but I’m getting a clearer picture now. I know writing is a major component and my stick people drawings too.

So, fine – I have the freedom to pursue writing and drawing now. Lots of freedom and my husband’s blessing and a good support group – all good things for venturing out of the cube farm.

Last night I set out goals, I made a very doable “to do” list and yet by 10:30 a.m., I found myself mired in MSN conversations about video games, RPGs, personal relationship crises (not mine), random chit chat and idle web-surfing while reading replies.

This is not the work I committed to.

I would never have frittered away the morning on MSN conversations at my contract job. I would have chatted a little, but politely cut it off to get some real work done. Not that I don’t love chatting with my friends, I do. I want to hear about their day, their thoughts, their troubles – all of it. But, never really in-depth talks at work unless it was really dire.

I had rules when I was in the office.

Conversations fell into two categories: Fun/Unimportant and Serious. You can’t decide between whole wheat and white bread for lunch? That’s Unimportant and unless I was waiting around for my project to compile, I never paid much attention to that sort of chatter. You just found out your girlfriend sent all your belongings to your mother’s because she no longer wants to live with you? That’s Serious and I made some time to talk and make plans to continue discussions right after work.

Emphasis on the “after work”. I did my job first, and only rarely – and for really, really Serious things – did the work day take a back seat.

Now that I’m working from home on something a lot less 9 to 5ish, there seems to be an impression that what I’m doing now is really nothing more than a frivolous hobby.

That impression is my fault.

People talk to me and I feel rude if I don’t really listen and respond accordingly. I think I do this in part because a) I was raised to be polite and b) I don’t take what I’m doing seriously either.

I mean come on, I write blog posts and draw stick people. Yeah, that’ll put me on the map. I keep looking at what I want to do and thinking: “This isn’t a grown-up job. I need to do something meaningful.”

For instance, I showed my portfolio of stick people drawings to a few other folks and when I heard the term “artist” come up – I laughed and blushed. Artist!? Pshaw. Waterhouse is an artist. Klimt is an artist. The woman drawing the Mona Lisa on the sidewalk with chalk is an artist.

Me? I’m a doodler.

As for being a writer…I’m a good technical writer. You want a help file that will give you step by step instructions without making it complicated? I’m your girl. These blog posts – well everyone and their brother has a blog. That can’t be serious work.

Except that it is – or at least, it can be if I take it seriously. And if it isn’t serious work, it’s the groundwork for the writing that will be.

So now that I’ve admitted the problem is me, I need to fix it. Maybe I am an artist! Maybe my little stick people are going places. I’ve been a technical writer so why can’t I just say that I’m a writer and leave off the technical part? Besides – no one ever knew what I was talking about when I said “technical writer” anyway and I never thought of it as my lifetime career.

My first step towards fixing this mess is setting my status to “busy” on MSN. If I am going to commit to this, I have to actually commit to it instead of farting around waiting for the Big Idea to fall out of the sky. That isn’t going to happen – I will have to work at this.

Sorry friends, there will be a lot less MSN chit chat in the future so I can focus on the work I keep saying I need to do.

Maybe now I can get on with this new work!

I finished a long contract about two months ago and have written nothing since. I wrote almost nothing while I was contracting too.

Here’s the issue: I have a tendency to be consumed by my work. I go to work, I give pretty much all I’ve got and then I go home and I continue to think about work. I fret over everything – even (and maybe especially) the things I have absolutely no control over. I talk about the project and its issues ad nauseam, I spend time puzzling over possible solutions,  I often sleep poorly because I keep waking myself either thinking of work or dreaming about it.

In short, over the course of my last contract, I became my job and drove my husband up the wall.

Enter the multi-talented Nicole Sheldrake and the Vancouver Innovation Camp.

Innovation Camp, to quote the website, is the place where you will learn to “challenge assumptions, connect ideas, embrace failure and see problems as opportunities for creative solutions in order to take your entrepreneurial venture to the next step. Our workshops are hands-on learning opportunities which engage learners through real life situations and challenges – no lectures.”

No lectures? Doing something creative instead of just talking about doing something creative? Count me in.

I needed a creative kick in the pants anyway.

Innovation Camp delivers exactly what it promises; I learned some really valuable lessons:

1. I am an anal retentive planner who is not always very comfortable with half-baked, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants plans. Yesterday, for the final activity, I had no choice but to go along with this approach (and I had great teammates who basically said “You go freak out over there and we’ll come get you when we’re off and flying. Everything will be fine.”) And you know, it was fine. I joined in, still feeling a little iffy about half-formed plans and then just improvised on the fly with everyone else. Everything worked out great and it was a lot more fun than following a pre-made plan to the letter.
2. Promoting ideas and building on them – especially the ideas that aren’t yours – is a great way to generate even better ideas with a team. Being told “No.” or being the one to say it to every idea ever stifles future ideas, makes people angry and unmotivated and will completely kill a project. Worse, the project won’t die, but it will be weak and boring.
3. Allowing team members to use their strengths and strengthen their weak points is the best way to build a great team. I’m a lousy negotiator – I’m too abrupt, and I have no qualms about walking away from what I feel is a poor deal and that burns bridges. After watching some of my teammates negotiate successfully, I learned a few things and tried again. I was only negotiating a trade of peanut M&Ms for some cheddar Sunchips, but you have to start somewhere right? Besides, those Sunchips were delicious.
4. Gut instincts count for a lot. If you are really certain that the final product will be unclear to the intended audience, say so before it’s presented. Presenting something confusing to people and knowing they have no idea what you’re on about is not a good feeling.
5. A ball of wool has A LOT of potential (trust me on this, it just does) and if a ball of wool can generate discussion, make people happy, add value to someones life (even if only for a few minutes) and be the catalyst for awesome ideas – imagine what you can do!
6. We need more freedom – we are not our job titles or our paycheques. So I don’t make $80,000 a year or own a car or my very own tiny condo…who cares? As one of my teammates said “You can cry in a BMW, or smile on a bike.” (I know, I know, the choices are not quite that black and white, but to have those things – I’d have to make myself unhappy. I don’t want any of that stuff that badly).

In addition to learning useful things, I met some great people that I will definitely have future contact with. Will we band together and start our own business? Maybe. Will we stay in touch and support each others endeavors?  We will if I have anything to say about it.

Innovation Camp was exactly what I needed – without it, this post would not exist. I would still be sitting in front of the blank screen thinking “I have to look for proper work. I must bring home a big, fat paycheque from somewhere. I must swallow my hatred of the 9-5 world and be an adult.”

I would still be paralyzed by a sense of duty to something I really don’t like – and what use is that really? My workaholic tendencies add no value to my life or the lives of the people I care about.

So thank you Nicole, and fellow teammates – you’ve made a big difference and given me the courage I needed to start moving forward instead of just talking about it.

My friend Amanda on the other hand is some sort of genius copywriter or grammar guru – her MSN messages are nearly 100% error free and entirely readable.

So, Amanda and I were chatting online one day when she noticed a typo – I had written “It was very entertainting.”

Her immediate response was that a typo that good needed a definition. I have provided one with an illustration:

Now that’s entertaintment!

(And thanks to Amanda and her eye for amusing, erroneous detail!)

I suppose I could write about the lovely snow outside and the not so lovely way it got into my shoes when I took the compost out. Or I could write about the dish water I spilled all over the kitchen floor this morning. Or how about the telemarketer a few minutes ago who asked me “Don’t you want to save money?” as though I were lighting cigarettes with hundred dollar bills over here.

Blah.

I never said I was a creative genius. So, here they are; the search terms that have led people here since my first post (and my comments in parentheses):

• cthulhu whore (wtf?)
• using Valtrex instead of condoms (not a good idea btw)
• stick people
• facebook ettiquette, ex-girlfriends (so much I could say, so little time)
• erotic stories
• peeing -dog toilet “stick figure” (and again…wtf?)
• french stripper names
• darth vader’s penis (“Hey baby, wanna see my light sabre?” – oh come on, YOU were thinking it too!)
• “his dirty bare feet”
• wie spritzt der same aus dem penis (Google translate says it means: “such as injecting the same from the penis.”)
• addicted to pens (Whoever you are, me too! And I love you!)
• sneaky blueberries
• can you still get an STD after a vasectomy (Yes. Wrap it up you moron.)
• barbarian screaming

These are just the ones I found amusing. Anyone else want to share some of the more amusing (or horrifying) search terms that have brought them traffic?

www.rambleicious.ca is not up and running. It was suggested that I preserve my 4/10 Google page rank by doing everything the long way around.

It’ll be a few weeks before I have the new site up.

I also had a pretty nasty hard drive crash last week – so there was no Sticky Note Friday last week.

Apparently, dropping your extremely heavy copy of the OED on your laptop keyboard is bad. It dents the hard drive and renders it useless. So, uh, don’t do it.

That’s my catch up post for today – real posts are in the works!

It will still be a WordPress weblog, but it will have a new design, different colours and much, much better writing (because a full WordPress installation gives you a +100 to your intelligence and creativity).

I will also post step by step instructions on how I did it in case any brave souls decide to follow me into the land of domain ownership.

See you in the new place!

I’ve been talking to all the weird things that live in my head to see if there might be such a man up there, but I’m not having any luck at all – any old guys living up there are quite content. They are likely eating Cheez-Whiz right out of the jar and wiping their fingers on some crappy old La-Z-Boy recliner when they think I’m not looking. Possibly, they are also cheating at checkers and making clacking noises with their teeth.

I want to be able to write a story on demand, but when I demand that my brain get started, we have conversations like this:

Me: So, brain, I need a short story about a crotchety old guy and his take on love.

Brain: Oh. Hmmm.

Me: Can you do it?

Brain: Possibly. What about a story about an evil toaster and the brave little crumpet that could?

I stare at my brain disapprovingly (which is easier than you think if you roll your eyes up far enough).

Brain: OK, OK…how about a story where a guy falls into a puddle of cream cheese and ends up in a land of fresh rosemary and rocksalt bagels from Seigel’s Bagels?

Me: Oh come on! What sort of story idea is that?

Brain: I dunno. Maybe you should FEED ME LUNCH ALREADY. Jerk.

Obviously, my brain and I have issues. So the story requested may not be the story that gets written because my brain is about as cooperative as a sulky two year old.

Anyone got any storytelling magic they’d like to share with me?