Buying New Furniture
The Gunner household invested in a new sofa and loveseat this past weekend. It arrives today and I’m really excited. Our old set was ripping (a lot) and I knew it was time to replace it when a good friend’s one-year-old was pulling stuffing out of a pillow and attempting to eat it. (Never fear, we did the finger sweep and he’s fine. Has a bit of an oral fixation that one. Was chewing on my flip flop yesterday. Blech.)
But while I’m excited about our new furniture, I was a little nostalgic about the old furniture. I get like that. I’m that person who cries over sappy movies and commercials, who saves every manner of memento commemorating any number of things. The ticket for my husband’s and my first date (a hockey game). The entrance pass for my son’s first trip to the Philadelphia zoo. My nametag from the NJ RWA conference, my first one. I’m the person the family passes sentimental family items to because they know I’ll keep them safe. I have my grandmother’s engagement ring and my mom’s class ring. I hang on to stuff and I smile and reminisce.
So, of course new furniture would make me think about the past, the good times on the couches now littering our front curb like the trash they’ve become. They were the first sofa/loveseat my husband and I bought together. They adorned the living room in our first place, a little bitty condo we bought six years ago. Friends have crashed on them. Family. My father who’s now passed on.
I’m a sap, I know.
But sometimes it’s good to mix things up, to force ourselves to move forward, even for the sentimentalists among us. It’s good to try something new, to make new memories and forge new paths in our life. Because sometimes the old has become ratty, worn, and well, food for an orally fixated one-year-old.
I think it’s that way with writing too. If we aren’t getting the results we need by doing what we’ve always done, sometimes we’ve got to mix it up. Try something new. Send the stale to the curb.
Whether that’s a writing habit that isn’t working, a manuscript that hasn’t fulfilled our expectations, or finding new or additional critique partners or readers, sometimes we’ve got to stretch out. Maybe try a new genre or theme. Sometimes it’s good to spice up our writing nests a bit.
I by no means suggest throwing out the old comfy stuff. Trust this sentimentalist; I am a firm believer in holding on to the things that work, that we care about. But there’s always room for exploration, for trying something new, to adding new weapons to our arsenal.
What things have you done or are planning to do to spice up your writing life? Have you found any things in your writing that don’t work, that you have changed? Any things you couldn’t live without? Anyone else get sentimental over stuff like me?
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24 comments:
Sorry folks, I thought I posted this last night but apparently word press and I aren't as good friends as I'd originally thought....
Don't you hate when a trusted friend lets you down? Silly wordpress...
There's a big something new I'm going to try for my writing - WRITING. LOL! We've grown apart due to circumstance beyond our control, but come July, it'll be a beautiful reunion. One hopes anyway.
A great example of a change that really paid off is Anna Campbell. I'm certain this woman could write in any genre she wants and nail it everytime. But I've heard her say she wrote Romantic Comedy forever then after 27 years of struggle, she sold with Regency Noir (a genre title born from her work!). Now look at her! RITA nods and turning the industry on its collective ear.
Personally, I hope to read her funny stuff some day too. :)
Marn - that's cracking up about the kiddo with the oral fixation. My daughter is 9 and I still have to tell her to take things out of her mouth. What's up with that? LOL!
Ter, I'm sure once you have the time, you and writing will be good friends again. :)
And I didn't know Anna wrote comedy first. That's so funny (pun intended). But just goes to show that trying to be fresh and new can really pay off. :)
And I know! He's the cutest little thing in the entire world but we're constantly doing the mouth sweep or taking something off him. He was eating dandelions outside the other day, sand.... I'm glad I don't have to change those diapers. LOL!
That reminds me (and this is a total tangent) I had a friend whose son would eat anything and one day she found this really long string of yarn in his diaper only the end of it hadn't made it to the diaper. That was disgusting but hysterical. LOL!
Good grief. LOL! I swear, you can watch them like a hawk and one second is all it takes.... LOL!
I'm guessing it all worked out in the end. (hee hee... I love my puns today.)
LOL!
I know you've changed time periods and gotten a bit darker, do you think you've found your niche or that you might try something else totally different in the future?
(And is that your new couch in the picture? Very nice if it is.)
I don't know. We'll see. :) I like contemporary better, right now. But who knows what the future holds?
And that isn't my couch but that's about the color but a little less contemporary looking. THe DH and I are a little more traditional.
Great blog Marn, and yay for new furniture! I think it's so important to try new things, even as comfortable as I get sometimes with the regular way of doing things.
Right now I'm having a blast playing with time-lines. My current WIP has two story lines, one present day, one a few years ago. And so I'm playing with different ways to present that - to flip back and forth, to use traditional flasbacks, to mix up the flash-backs in different ways. Who knows what will stay or go when I get a final draft, but it's been fun (and energizing) to throw around all the different ways I could handle it.
This is a great blog! :)
I do get attached to some weird shit. I'm always keeping movie ticket stubs. Mainly because a year or so later, I'll be like, "Oh, I did see that movie! Huh." I collect other weird stuff. Not so much pictures, and clearly I can't develop film...
Throw out what's not working...that's good advice. I've been floundering around so much, I sometimes wonder if ANYTHING is working. Discipline. That's something I need to implement more. More than anything else, it's the one thing I know that makes you a success at this game, more than any new plotting method or character chart to help you track eye color...
I know we throw around that whole "ignorance is bliss" thing, but now I wonder if it's less ignorance and more that the more we know, the less faith we have in ourselves to accomplish the daunting task of making a novel. How can we possibly fulfill all these things? All at the same time? I sometimes think the more we know, the less faith we sometimes have...and that's what hurts us most.
So I think I might endeavor to bring back Faith as a writing device. It's old, but it was good...and it did serve a great purpose in getting the job done.
Hellie has my old couch. I will not say how many people have gotten laid on that old thing. Which is why I customed covered it. LOL
But I don't miss it as much as I thought I would.
I'm not very reflective on things. I tend to save things I deem *good* or the *best* of the bunch because I'm a penny pincher. Alright, to tell you how OCD I am about that, I save what I love the most for the last. Like red skittles, my favorite shirt, my patent leather shoes, the best bite of my food.
Yup, I have issues. Now I have to go look at the question again because I started writing this, forgot and now it's almost three hours later. *sigh*
Okay, in regards to the question:
I've found that writing with a laptop is NOT conducive to me writing. I either need an office or I need my desktop back because I'm not writing if there are other things going on.
Writing wise, I think I need to go back to my old school method of just writing what I want and not worrying about what someone said rule wise or whatnot.
I'm not commenting about my couch, the laid factor, or anything else.
I will say I do save the best for last too. *LOL* I eat food of order of least to best. *LOL* Which is dumb because the first five bites of food taste best anyway, so you should eat those first anyway.
Hmmm. Might have to try the "office" setting. I did write more when I wrote at my office than on my laptop. Weird, but unfortunately true.
The only real successful writing setting I've found is out at a restaurant which won't work with kiddo here, mostly because she'd eat me out of house and home, but I can try it all summer. We'll see how that goes.
(On the kiddo front, I bought her new shoes last night and she's now officially in a size UP from mine. I want to cry.)
Hmmmm. Very little nostalgia in me. The DH cries when we trade vehicles in. I do collect stuff from important things, but in the end??? It all ends up recycled and passed on to others.
If I don't do this, I will drown in nostalgic 'crap.'
Now, when it comes ta writin'... I had a loverly writer at RT 'elp me bring out the comedy in me pirate paranormal adventure and it's got me thinkin' a' how I want ta play with all of that a bit more. Try someting new... Not so much that I havn't been writin' it, but I haven't been pushin' it... After using the phrase 'bwah ha ha' in my pitch, and doin' so well...
I'm workin' on stressin' the fun and easin' up on the drama. It be there, but better seen against the humor.
I think I am a little nostalgic about things, but I'm trying not to be. I'd like to get rid of all the crap we've accumulated. If I could throw out the kid's school work I think I'd open up a new room in the house! As with everything else I can go back and blame it on my childhood (that's a wonderful thing!) My mother didn't save anything and I want to save for my kids who will most probably dump it in the trash as soon as my head is turned.
The DH and I are flirting with getting a new van and the old one is a favorite of mine. We've had that thing since 1997 and our kids grew up and out of carseats in it. It's been a great workhorse and I think I'll shed a tear or two when we have to say goodbye!
As for my writing I think I'm in the Hellion and Terri camp. I just need to sit down and write. That would be a nice change. LOL
Hal - I love False Move and I love all the things you're messing with. The story is so fresh and interesting and I think it's going to be fun to see how everything falls into place.
Hellion - I've thought about this a lot lately, the whole knowing too much versus ignorance is bliss mentality. Here's what I've come up with (and of course this is worth what you're paying for it).
This aspect of writing is like dancing. A person can dance naturally. Babies dance without any provocation, sometimes before they even walk. Give a person some music and they can move their body joyfully and gleefully. In the same way, give a person a story to tell and we're all naturally going to embrace it joyfully and gleefully.
Some of us are naturally better at dancing than others, are born with an inherent talent. These kind of writers, with their natural ability or experiences that make it come just easier, well, they are out there and writing seems to come to them with less pain than it does to the rest of us. But the rest of us writers (dancers) who just love to practice our craft and want to improve have to pay attention in class, have to learn all there is about it and put that knowledge into practice, see how those how-tos work out for each individual. We have to use what we learn, see how it fits our voice and how we stretch into our knowledge.
Over time, like any dancer who practices, the knowledge becomes so much a part of us that we no longer have to worry about "remembering" the rules, we just know them. And we know how we use them and how they work best for us.
So, the day will come when we won't have to even think about what we know or don't know. We'll just do, beautifully.
Sin - just ew about the old couch.
PS, mine just arrived and they are perfect, look great in my family room, and have that new furniture smell (I need to vacuum them.)
I think you should go back to the time when things worked for you. I love your voice, I love your style. If that means you have to tap your manuscript out on stone tablets, well, Mattycakes should invest in a quarry.
Hellie, I can't write in an office. I'm too abstract. I write best propped up on pillows somewhere. I used to work in mortgages (yes, during the boom that has created the mortgage crisis about 5-7 years ago. I got out, if you ever wanna hear how insane things were, I'll fill you in.) But mortgage shops were always sooo loud, people on the phone constantly, that I learned how to work and block everything out. Right now, I can write with the TV on, the phone ringing, my two year old crying, etc. Nothing bugs me. Small favors, mortgage industry, small favors.
Awh, Ter! Kiddo is getting soooo big! Mine just jumped up a shoe size too. (Toddler 8 though, so he hasn't passed me yet. But the day is coming, I'm sure. That he'll pass me in shoe size and height. So bittersweet, yes?)
Chance, I think humor would work well in your adventure. It's all what you feel comfortable with. :) Good luck!! :)
And your DH cries over cars? LOL!!
I completely relate, Irish, about keeping stuff for the kiddo. I have some of his bibs, clothes, toys he got or mementos from different excursions. My son has completely opened new levels of sappiness in me. I cry when he does all kinds of new things. The little dear went down the big curly slide at the park the other day, all by himself, and I sobbed like a pathetic fool. Oye.
Again, I don't think I'll cry when I get rid of my van. I hate that thing, it's a huge monstrosity and I swear, I feel like I should be doing cross country loads like some truck driver in it. It beaps when I back up too close to stuff, ok? It's huge. 'Nuff said.
It were hard to think a' embracin' the lighter side a' things. I liked ta think a' meself as darkly drama dame. HA! Well, maybe if me near death situation had been different, I'd be there.
I read a lot of Poe growing up... I gets older and I wants ta have more fun wit' life.
Vans!? We kept our Caravan, but it ain't up ta long hauls. And yup, the DH got all sniffy watchin' the Dakota hauled away and again when the old BMW was driven off. When I turned me old 1964 Dodge Dart Station wagon over to me nephew, long time ago...it were hard, but I was proud it was still gonna be in the family. Tho it's gone on ta the great junkyard in the sky by now.
But I still dream a' that car...
What a timely blog this is! In the last three weeks we've had to replace our old TV and (yikes!) my computer. The TV picture had degenerated to a thin line of light bisecting the screen and the computer was making scary noises. The TV was 12 years old and the computer just under 12 years. We got our money's worth, but I still hate to give up the comfort and familiarity. Since I was forced into Vista, I especially miss the familiarity!
I have to say, though, moving as we have has killed a lot of "save everything" mentality for me. Packing and unpacking will make you wonder, "Do I really need that mouse ear that fell off Jack's hat when we went to Disney World in 1979?"
Oops! I forgot to day, enjoy your new furniture. New memories are just waiting to be made!
Dee - awh, good fun with a new TV and new computer! I hope you're enjoying both. And Vista isn't so horrible. Just takes some getting used to. (I guess....)
Maybe that's what the DH and I need, a good move. LOL!! That'll clean us out.
Man, Jane-o battles Vista every bloody day. Things like formatting documents...and it wants her to do it with every page! If one of you have the secret, let her know!
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