Actually, I didn't dream about going to Blogland again (my dream was much weirder, involving my ex-husband's lost mobile phone, a lawyer, and a pool full of dogs), but I did visit a few blogs tonight, and I did not feel the least bit tempted to join back in the fray. Usually, when I visit Blogland, I check out several blogs before getting bored and exiting ~ tonight I got bored after two. It's not them; it's me. I find the idea of writing to prompts much too tedious to contemplate, and there's no other reason to be there, since the days of posting true "web logs" have long passed. I do engage in community prompts on Bluesky, but they're quickie posts about songs or movies. No one expects a Wikipedia dump there or original short stories.
I gave up writing my murder mystery, at least for now. Work is more tiring, especially with the longer commute at night, and I don't have the energy to be creative, except for the occasional poem. I will publish a new poetry collection next year, but my progress is at "a glacial pace" (nod to Miranda Price in The Devil Wears Prada). I can handle the slow lane for poems, but I can't write a novel that way because I lose my train of thought. Is it chain or train? I can never remember.
Anyway, I've been watching the Democratic National Convention every night this week, which gives me yet another convenient excuse not to exercise after work. What will my excuse be next week? No worries, I will come up with something. I really have to exercise though, even just a little, like a half hour a day, because I do not want to go on cholesterol meds. I feel like my diet has been much healthier lately, but I could be deluding myself since I nom up gummy bear snacks pretty regularly at work. I've been eating only fruit for dinner several times per week however as a way to reduce my overall fat and salt intake (I want to lower my BP as well as my cholesterol).
Welp, it's a process, a journey, blah blah blah. I am definitely doing better than when I was baking and/or stopping for fast food, so I will congratulate myself on that instead of beating myself up for being a sofa spud. I've also been working on crafts, as the arthritis in my hands permits, which is relaxing and good for my mental health as well as giving me a way to connect with others socially. The new book club is going great, even better than the original Meetup group, as we're more inclined to chat between meetings and plan other events with the relaxed WhatsApp structure. I definitely have enough to do with all that plus regular family and friend events, so I don't have to FOMO about the things I've given up.
My title is obviously a play on the first line of Rebecca, which is a great book and an even better movie (not often the case) with the wonderful Lily James. I love her. Today I finished a mystery that kept my attention throughout: The Wife You Know by Chad Zunker. I gave it four stars even though it's silly that a software developer guy is able to elude trained assassins even for a couple days. Whatever. The writing was strong enough that I was able to suspend my disbelief for the duration of the story, and that alone is worth an extra star beyond the "gentlemanly" three I generally give to books I don't hate. If I truly hate a book, I won't finish or rate it, unless I have to for a discussion, which is why I don't have many one-stars out there.
Like anyone cares, right? I guess I should go to bed; my cat is annoyed I'm up late writing at my little desk, but I had to move off the sofa because my laptop needed to charge. It doesn't last very long lately when I unplug it... I guess we're all getting old.
Re: writing to prompts.
ReplyDeleteI get why they're there. I get why one might want to make use of them. But the state of my mind for the past decade or so has been to feel rebellious against being told what to do and, to my weird mind, a prompt is something that tells me what to do.
"sheep" Make up a song or find lyrics for songs that relate to sheep or write about a sheep.
I WON'T! NO SHEEP! Baah!
Anyway, that's probably why I suck when it comes to playing with AI. I tried an AI tool to generate a song based on the prompt. My daughter tried it for her new-ish kitten and she told the AI thing to make a song about a kitten named Gene hat wears pants. Her kitten doesn't actually look like he's wearing pants but ... anyway. I wanted a song to encourage the people I work with to close off their work items (sort of like a trouble ticket, an item that tells them what to work on and how it should look when it's finished). The song sucked.
I don't like prompts.
My problem was my OCD ~ if I did one prompt, I felt compelled to do them all or it was a FAIL. I ended up with a bunch of shitty poetry and stupid flash fiction that embarrassed me to have up.
ReplyDeleteI don't need to exercise more, just exercise better. I have been evolving my eating habits after my primary care told me he'd like me to go on a weight loss drug, not the current things like Wegovy or whatever, but a combo pill of an appetite suppressant and an anti-depressant. NO THANKS, I said. I'll do it myself. So, since May, I've made a lot of changes. The weight is very slow to come off, but it's coming off. So, here we both are, trying to stay away from taking meds. :-) Getting older is just so much fun. - Nat
ReplyDeleteNat, definitely. Cholesterol is my "big thing" now, so I am paying a lot more attention to fats. I've also cut way down on sugar (sobs). Cheers to us!
ReplyDelete