Tag: random thoughts

Judging a good day

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Crafting, Thoughts

I saw a friend after she’d come out of a meeting. I made the light-hearted comment, ‘Must have been a good meeting, you’ve got a smudge on your face.’ And I meant that in all honesty. From my years of being a painter, and being a bit of a grubby outdoorsy type, I often judge an action’s success based on how messy you come out the other side.

I always painted with intent. Specific strokes, painstaking detail, blending colours together with my fingertips on canvas. I love the act of mixing paints, getting the tone you want. Adding just a drop of some colour you wouldn’t expect, if you weren’t experienced with paint, and getting the exact result you were after. I have never been a wild painter, with splashes and swipes. If a picture has paint dribbling through the background, I made each rivulet cautiously.

Regardless of my care, I always ended up splattered with paint, myself. And I wasn’t the kind of person to wear painting clothes or aprons, either, so there are numerous shirts and pants with the addition of a great green splotch or other (acrylic doesn’t wash off fabric). I would get paint through my hair, on my elbow, a spot on the side of my nose or in my eyebrow. And that meant it was a good day. I had painted. All was well.

Going outside and scrambling around often has similar results. Gotten twigs and leaves through my hair, mud over my pants, a scrap or two on my hands? A good day. If I’m all sticky from climbing trees, how could I not associate the mess with the excitement I experienced? Even now, you’ll probably find pen marks on me (how often I catch myself with the pen, or drop it, and get an errant line across my skin or clothes!), and I will feel certain that means I had a good day.

I tend to think some people would take it all wrong, though. Like I was making fun of them if I declare their mess a positive attribute. But truly, if you’ve been doing something that leaves you grubby, or your hair in a tangle, you’re probably doing it right. I like that. We should go run around the beach and get all sandy, or make pottery and get drenched in clay (two of my other favourite pastimes, no less).

We’ll end up dirty. That means we had a good day.

~A

The right time for writing

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

I’m quickly discovering, regardless of all good intention, mornings are not the best time for creativity inside this brain of mine. I can do endless research, gather information, type out blog post after blog post, noodle around on other people’s blogs and social networks, but to crack open a WIP shuts the productivity down.

Plenty of people say the direct opposite. They write first thing in the morning, before all the “static” of the day gets in their head and muddles up their creativity. Not so, for me. Not for these past many years.

When I first began writing, over a decade ago, it was an all day adventure. I could fire up the computer at dawn and get right into it. But then, when I was really new to all of this, I didn’t have any sort of direction and I seriously had no idea what I was doing. I can admit that. No harm in accepting that it took all these years of practice to be any good at my craft.

As I adapted and learnt more about writing, so too did I learn about plotting and exploring characters. To do that most effectively, I think about them. A lot. A real lot.

This means the morning and throughout the day is usually reserved for contemplating my work and building up to a point where I will let the words come out. Even if I force myself to write creatively in the morning, it doesn’t have the same cohesive flow as what I put down in the afternoon-evening sessions. I need to get warmed up, or as I always say, the ideas need to percolate. If I try and pour them out in the morning, they’re weak and under-done. Later in the day, they’ve been stewing and building flavour and end up that much easier to release onto the page.

So I will adapt and embrace my limitations. My other duties can be tended in the mornings, leaving me free of obligation in the evening, when writing becomes priority number one!

~A

Don’t panic: do something

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

Going in over your head is sometimes the only way forward. The next step is straight into the deep end, and you know it’s unavoidable. Instinct number one is to panic.

I’ve been panicking. Just a little bit. But mostly because I’d forgotten my simplest and best rule for avoiding that sense of losing control of my direction. I require a high amount of self-education any time I’m uncertain of my plans. If I’m lost, I just need to stop and find enough information that I am enabled to have more confidence.

Honestly, my biggest problem of late has been putting all my efforts out of order. I want to get this thing over here done as soon as I can, but I desperately need to do this other task first, and putting it off won’t change any facts. There are plenty of activities which can be done in any order, but certain challenges must be faced one after the other.

I got tired of feeling under-confident and uncertain. Instead of pretending like I can avoid the hard parts until the very end, I sat down with a search engine open and started typing my questions. Simple things I needed to know, the very concerns which triggered my panic. “How do I?” such and such. Figure out the answer as I go.

And yes, research of this nature takes a long time. Many pages of browsing, many refined search terms. Click, read, click, read. Pick up tidbits of information from this person, disregard what that guy has to say, stumble across other fragments of valuable knowledge and store them for later.

I know this is all rather vague. In fact, all my panicking has been vague and across the board – one crisis at a time is more than enough, but I decided to have a couple. You know, for laughs and “funsies”. Or something. But the good news is, I fell back into old habits!: Research. Learn. Find out everything I can to give myself the stability I require. I might not do any of my tasks right, even after all this, but at least I can provide myself the best possible start to tackling my concerns. Information. Education. Knowledge.

Doing something is better than flailing about in a blind, self-defeating panic. I know. I’m there.

~A

Chirpa-chirpa, cheep-cheep

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Networking, Thoughts

Half of you already know I took the Twitter plunge. You’ll be aware because I found you and Followed you. Doesn’t that sound outrageously stalkerish? Yes, yes it does. Stalk me back! I mean, Follow me! Whatever! I don’t understand Twitter!

@Ashlee_Sch

My experience so far has been to feverishly track down as many people as I could think to, which probably means I missed more than half the people I should have discovered. I realised I should also change the accessibility of my contact information here on my blog, because I went through my Favourite Reads list and started clicking madly away at everyone’s Twitter buttons – right on the front page of their blog. So, there I have one valuable lesson from joining Twitter. Be more accessible.

I have Followed a couple of other people who I admire, and Followed back lovely folks who have, somehow, inexplicably, found me. I suspect some of my lovely friends may have directed some of these folks in my direction, which is definitely exciting! I have had numerous inappropriate spambot type Twitter accounts Follow me, and I have rather perversely enjoyed reporting their spam as I block them. It’s the web administrator in me (over a decade of experience) taking a gleeful approach to cleaning up the website.

I think I’ve figured out some other minor things. The page is minimal, so I didn’t really bring assumptions about what I could and couldn’t do on the site, so it’s all kind of a matter of exploration for me. I know how to reply to Tweets, and re-Tweet important messages. Re-Tweeting exciting news makes me pretty happy. I also discovered I can search for myself, to see who else is talking about/to me, and search hashtags if I want to see other people’s opinions on the searched topics.

On the subject of hashtags, if you’re my Facebook Friend, you may have seen an update I made on Sunday:

I used my first real hashtags on Twitter today. That’s not supposed to feel like an accomplishment.

Yes, that’s a pretty good summary of my time on Twitter. Somehow, this simplistic little network site manages to provide me with a false sense of accomplishment when I do something new. The novelty will pass, I promise. Until then, let’s Tweet together! I still don’t understand it, but that’s okay!

~A

Jumpy

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

You’ve submitted some writing to an agent or publisher. Now you wait. When will they respond? How many other pieces are they reading? How long will it take for them to decide your story’s fate, one way or another? At least a month. Breathe. Remember, at least a month.

Having the luxury of emailing submissions is an amazing thing. The savings in cost and resources (and effort)! But you’ll also get an email response. That can come with all kinds of neuroses, particularly in the “obsessive checking of said email” flavour.

If your email provider has a live update feature, you can leave the screen open and just wait. Watching. You will try and do other things, productive things, and that screen will hover in the background. Your eyes will stray toward it, checking for the little number which indicates an unread message.

Since I have a number of email addresses associated with different projects and for business, I have notices of new mail forwarded to a single account, simply so I don’t have to sign into several different emails just to check for messages. In this instance, the service is the opposite of helpful. I get a pretty steady flow of email; newsletters, advertisements from suppliers, letters from friends, orders and invoices, etc. Just imagine what it’s like, pointlessly waiting for one specific email, and having the tab displaying (1), one new message – cue Count von Count laughter, Ah-ha-ha.

So I might be a bit jumpy anytime I’ve just sent off a submission. Chances are, by the time they actually respond, I will be over the obsessive email checking stage. Or worse, I’ll have submitted more writing and be awaiting multiple replies.

Oh, look! Another message. Be calm. It hasn’t been a month.

~A

Button Joy Reflected

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Crafting, Other Writers, Thoughts

Amy Rose Davis has Button Joy! She’s been a crafting manic lately, and found a buttony treasure during a big spring clean, spurring my own recollections of Button Joy. Now, I’m a bit of a button hoarder. Nothing serious. I just have a big jar of buttons. And I can blame it all on one person.

I grew up learning to sew from my paternal grandmother, and maternal great grandmother. They are pretty much the reason why I can sew and crochet, and have done so since the time I could wield a needle or hook. My grandmother was an amazing seamstress, and I think it was her careful eye which led me to be able to draft patterns however I want. I’m not exceptional at it, but if I want to make myself a pair of pants or a new skirt, I don’t need to buy a pattern for it, I will just draw one up and modify it as I go.

My great grandmother was an avid crocheter, though. Not only that, but she kept a jar of buttons; the jar which I inherited upon her death. Some of these buttons are very old, gorgeous wooden things or cast metal. Others are newer, some match, some never will. I’ve used buttons from this jar in my sewing for years; anything from teddy’s clothes, to replacing a popped button from a shirt.

But the truly remarkable thing about my jar of buttons is the smell. This seems a common theme among those with Button Joy. Open it up and stick your nose is, and I swear, it smells exactly like my great grandmother’s house, all these years later. It’s surreal and evocative. It’s the scent of a yarn collection, and her endless cooking, and whatever little things made the house so distinctive. Her moisturiser and make-up. Her perfume.

My jar of buttons sits on my computer desk, tucked into the shelf in front of me. It’s just the convenient place to keep it; accessible, yet out of the way. But it’s also a lovely connection to a woman who meant so much and taught me many wonderful things. I like buttons. Treasures from the past.

~A