Minimalism

Minimalism?

It’s all Zoe’s fault. The other day, I read this blog entry from Zoe Winters (an author of paranormal romance books) So You Think You Know Minimalist Decor? and I had to follow up on it. What the hell is “minimalism”? So I googled it up and found a bunch of blogs. The Minimalists, Becoming Minimalist, and mnmlist, among others. Color me intrigued.

Our house, if you’ve ever been in it, is not a hoarder house. You can walk through it, as long as you can avoid the toys that are inevitably strewn about the room. However, we’re still bogged down with stuff. Our garage has no room in it for anything. My office has more distractions than I can count, and my kids’ rooms have more toys than a typical toy store.

I would love to use the nuclear option on my house. Empty it of crap, and only put back what we really use. It’s not entirely realistic, though. I think Wendy (my wife) is willing to get rid of some stuff, but I don’t think she’s ready to get rid of things that she uses only rarely. I’m not entirely certain I’m ready to do that, either. So we decided that we would just take it a little bit at a time. The kids pick one toy a night that they want to donate. We’re going to work one bit of the house at a time each day, and eventually, we should reach our goal.

We started, yesterday, with a drawer in the kitchen that has been a source of annoyance since we’ve lived in this house. It’s really nice to be able to shut it without having to squish stuff down. I also put some of the more than 100 model railroad cars I collected up on eBay. I’ve wanted to build a model railroad in this house for years, but I never got around to it, and I may never get around to it, so to eBay they go. One other thing I did today was cleared out about four shelves full of books, which will be going to Half Price Books tomorrow.
Pile of Books

I don’t think we’ll ever be minimalists in the true sense of the word. I like my book, movie, and game collections. My wife has things she likes. So we’ve decided to eliminate all the other crap first and see where that leads us.

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney, Writing

10 Day Novel: Day 6 & 7

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In the past couple days, I’ve managed about 1300 words total. Not exactly the kind of progress I’d hoped for.

First, I must explain that I took the weekend off. It became readily apparent when I sat down to try to work Saturday that my mind wasn’t in it. I had spent eight or more hours each day that week writing or trying to write. I was tired, and I wanted to watch football and interact with my family.

Second, I’ve really struggled with the middle of this thing. I had basically 80% of the novel plotted out: the first 40% and the last 40%. There’s about 20% in the middle that’s really got me stuck. Part of it is that I’m trying to write a different kind of story than I might normally write. The 20% in the middle really focuses on the different bits.

So what does this mean for getting the novel done in ten days? It means it’s not going to happen. The first 40% took four days. The last 40%, I suspect will take four days. The 20% in the middle will probably eat an extra week unless I find my way quickly. The project won’t drag on forever, but if things go well over the next three writing days, I might be able to finish in 14 days of writing instead of ten. That’s not so bad.

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney, Writing

10 Day Novel: Day 5

Disaster! Well, sort of. I only managed 1342 words today, mostly due to not knowing what comes next. Two days of that in a row really hurt me. I knew it was going to be tough, so I kept putting off starting until it was seriously late in the day.

But, I did finish Chapter 8, and I spent a good amount of time thinking about the next two chapters, so I now think I have a decent handle on what the next two chapters will be. My worry is that these might actually need to be split into more chapters, which will damage the chances of finishing the book in ten days.

I will do what the story needs, above all else. If I fail to finish within my ten day time frame because the story requires additional chapters and scenes, so be it. It’s not like I’ll be that upset if it takes fourteen days instead of ten.

Right now, I have eleven chapters left. I have five days to do them in. If the story doesn’t grow, I still have a good chance of finishing on time.

One thing I’ve learned. It is stupendously difficult to keep writing at a constant pace when you can hear your family in the other room and they’re doing something interesting. At 9 and 5, my kids are always doing something interesting. I want to join them, and they want me to join them.

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney, Writing

10 Day Novel: Day 4

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Self-fulfilling prophecy? Or just a realistic expectation?

Today, the writing was like drawing water from a stone. The word count number isn’t horrid at 4224, but I didn’t manage to finish Chapter 8. It’s about half done, I think.

So what was the problem? Easy. I had no idea what the meat of these chapters would be. In my outline, each of the other chapters had a few sentences describing what would happen. For these four chapters (the two for today, and the two for tomorrow), I had two sentences that described all four chapters.

When that happens, my word count goes down as I have to stop every couple hundred words and figure out what happens next. It also means I get restless. I have to walk around and think. Of course, every time I left the room, my son would regale me with details of the game Terraria.

What does this mean for the 10 day deadline?

Hopefully, it won’t mean anything. I wrote a chapter and a half today. If I manage the same tomorrow, and then two a day from then on out, I’ll still finish within 10 days. But my buffer is gone. I hope I will pick up some speed when I get back to the detailed portion of the outline.

The Sacrifice of Mendleson Mooney, Writing

10 Day Novel: Day 3

I had a tough time today getting the words onto paper. I still finished the two chapters for the day and wrote 5132 words, but they weren’t easy.

Part of the trouble was that I didn’t sleep well last night. Another part of the trouble was that I had to adjust my outline a bit to fit the story as it evolves. In the outline, I had two chapters of material spread across three chapters, so I had to figure out how to condense them. It’s much easier when I don’t have to think about overall structure while writing.

I fully expect the next two days to be the hardest of the ten. The reason is that I have four chapters where the outline just says “Travelling: Shit Happens”. If I fail to finish the book in ten days, it will be because of these next four chapters, I’m sure.