A Time For Everything

Let's start with the writing first. A friend of mine shared an opportunity to participate in an anthology. At first I dismissed it out of hand because the deadline for the 1st draft is just over a month out. There's no way I could write 10-15K in that time frame--is there? Well, yes there is. I can actually produce that many words in that time frame if I'm super focused.

But to get super focused and know where this story is going requires some pre-planning and that has been a struggle for me.

Another hurdle is the synopsis requirement. I have never written a synopsis in my life. I probably could if I knew the trajectory of the story because that's all a synopsis is--a quick and dirty road map of the story along with a few extra details.

That circles back to the pre-planning.

Like I said, at first I just told myself I couldn't do it. But as I worked on a proofreading job, ideas started niggling at me. I didn't allow those ideas free reign because I really needed to finish that proofreading job and send it back to the author.

But once I completed my responsibilities...I opened the floodgate. I thought about the characters, as well as about the main requirement of this submission--that one character be dealing with a disability. That was the easy part.

Could I spew out 10K in a month's time?

Can I come up with well-rounded characters and a plausible plot that I could pull off in those 10K to 15K words and the 1 month I've been given?


I really want to do it because it's sparked an excitement in me about writing that's been lacking.

I have until Monday to decide. No pressure.

One of the reasons that writing has taken a back seat and been hard to focus on lately is hockey. (This is the trouble part of the post's title.)

Now that I'm a partial season ticket holder, I pay way more attention to the team. I mean obviously, right? I have these tickets that I pre-paid for, I'm going to the games. Going to that many games means I'm even more invested in the team and their progress through the season, their place in the standings.

Last year by this time, the team had gone on a ten game losing streak and had lost any hope of making it to the playoffs. I was only attending a game here and there. Not much investment on my part. The rest of the season was for individual players to better their stats as much as they could.



This year, though! Partial season tickets! New coach, new system, new hope!! We've been in a playoff position all year, despite a revolving door of injuries to key players.

Now we're staring down the last fifteen games of the season and in a dog fight every day for our place in the standings. There are four teams vying for those two wild card slots I talked about a couple of weeks ago. There are five points separating those four teams. We beat one of those teams last night. A team we hadn't yet beaten this year. It was a huge win on more than one level.

So, yeah, my head is full of hockey hockey Stars hockey and not very full of writing writing writing.

I need to learn to balance, manage, and compartmentalize....

Today and this weekend...working on characters and plot for this anthology. If I can get a good enough head start, I might just throw my hat in. Also, though, this weekend >>> HOCKEY!!

Be loud. Wear green. GO STARS!!

Have a great weekend.