The Hanged Man

Are you familiar with the tarot card The Hanged Man? He's from the Robin Wood Tarot Deck, which is available here.

He means "Life interrupted. Change in your point of view."

This has happened. Not so much the 'change in point of view', but the life interrupted thing? 100%.

That means this won't be about publishing options. You know what those are. We've all of us peered at the various modes, venues, pros, cons, contracts, pitfalls and deathtraps. And wondered if maybe, just maybe, the grass isn't greener in someone else's pasture. I've come to the stunningly obvious conclusion that there is no right answer. Only the right for you answer. And I still don't know what's right for me. That's all I have on the subject because Hanged Man.

Except. It isn't the man that's hanging. Nope. It's my house. Look.

That's our boat. And our home. High and dry on the hard. At Christmas time, a key component on the drive leg (part of the engine) broke and we could no longer put the boat in reverse. Not a problem, unless you want to dock. Ever. Or get out of dock. Think of trying to get your car into or out of your garage without reverse. Now do it on ice that's moving under you. Yeeeeeeeeah. Clearly, this has to be fixed. Got into the process of fixing that itty, bitty broken part only to find the metal of the drive disintegrating. Seriously. BIG chunk of metal was gone like something had taken a bite out of it. Apparently Poseidon takes what sacrifices he wants and in this case, he needed a chunk of cast aluminum for something. We went from $10 part needing repair to having to replace the entire drive leg. That isn't a $10 part. Multiply by 300.

Anywho. The leg was ordered from the UK, ransomed from customs, and delivered. The boat yard gave me a haul out date and time. And here I am. Took three people to get the boat out of dock to make the trip. Docking here in Port Townsend was a bit like playing bumper cars, but I limited it to bumping my boat and the dock, not anyone else's boat - all under the eye of the local Coast Guard station. Sigh.

My brain is all boat right now, because I'm paying by the day for that spot on dry land while I replace that drive leg, and my family is scattered to the four winds because we can't live in our home while it's in the yard. So I'm crazier than usual. Sorry. Still. The trip up did have it's good points. I even had help navigating.

Photo credit to Emily Olesin, friend extraordinaire who was willing to get up at 5AM to help crew the boat several hours north to our haul out.

Also: Happy Friday the 13th!

Resource Sink

For this week that we're talking about resources, I'd like to tell you that at the moment, I don't have any. This is because I haven't written a word in a week. Which is because this is Haul Out Week. Which has just morphed into Haul Out We Don't Know How Long.

The story goes like this: Boats require maintenance. One of the major maintenance items that can be made MOAR major by putting it off is doing the bottom. Once every few years, a boat needs to be brought up out of the water. Any marine growth must be removed and a biocide paint applied to the underwater portions of said boat. This keeps growth to a minimum and protects the integrity of the hull (this in turn keeps the whole affair afloat). Unchecked, the ocean will claim anything you put into it, including fiberglass coated with toxic paint. These haul out jaunts are our attempt to hold back watery entropy.

The original plan was to haul out on Wednesday, which I did, get the bottom work done and splash again on Friday afternoon. Initial assessments were good. The last bottom job held up really well. We had only minor issues to address - little things that were akin to homeowners needing to change the filters in the furnace before winter hits.

But then.

Things took a turn for the unfortunate. While I was kitted up to handle some acid work, one of the guys helping me with the boat discovered a blister on a daggerboard. It was huge. The size of my head, huge. And full of water. This is problematic, you see, because it is exactly where water isn't supposed to be - on the inside of the boat structure. This is like a pipe breaking inside the walls of your house and you not finding it for a few days. We've drilled holes to drain water and dry the interior structure. Heat lamps may also be involved there. Once the whole thing is dry, we'll put new fiberglass down, barrier coat it, and finally bottom paint it. Then the boat can go back in the water and be expected to go on floating for many years to come.

Here's how this relates to this week's topic and to writing in general. Resources are lovely things to have. To harbor. To hoard and then parse out in stingy bits and pieces over the long haul of a novel. But sometimes, the shit hits the fan and resources be damned. You go all out. You don't hold back. You do it because it's necessary, because it's the right thing to do.

But it can't be the right thing if it's the ONLY thing. How can I justify this kind of physical effort to take care of my home? Because the last time I had to do this was three years ago. I've been hoarding those resources since, storing up for this day. Writing is the same - log five slow days for every fast day. Wait. That's running. Eh. Who cares. The point is good. You can't sprint if you don't put in the training time. And the training time is all about learning to manage your resources so you know what you can do and when you can do it. Whether the crap and the fan are involved or not.

The Good, the Bad, and the High School

Full disclosure: If I'm writing -  actually getting story on virtual paper, there is no place, no matter how awful, that's totally bad. It's only when I'm trying and failing to write that I claim someplace is worst. I'm keeping a running list.

1. Onboard a moving boat while a cat is having a full blown panic attack and insists she'll only be okay if you hold her and never let her go. Though, to be honest, that can go much worse. Sometimes the cat gets seasick into the bargain.
2. Onboard a moving boat because getting lost in your own little fictional world and forgetting to look up at the horizon once in a while is a sure fire recipe for getting seasick yourself.
3. Family events of any kind  - they've put up with this writing shit for however many years old you are. When it's Mom's 70th birthday? No one understands the need to just get this awesome idea on paper.
4. In a moving car - again with the motion sickness thing. I'm fortunate that airplanes aren't usually a problem. Or maybe it's that I'm already drugged to the gills in order to fly in the first place.
5. Anyplace with an internet connection - seriously. The best and most progress I made on books ever has been when my internet connection was down. Easy to make fictional tracks when you're not being tempted away to glance at email. Or Twitter. Or Facebook.
6. In the company of my nearest and dearest. I love my family. I promise. But there's something about me wanting to sit down and make word count that turns my normally rational husband and standoffish cats into creatures who adore me and can't possibly live without me. And they must all off them tell me so the second my fingers make contact with my keyboard. Writing email? No one cares. Blog posts? Yawn. Open the WIP? It's like I opened a can of magical husband and cat luring scent - pizza for him, tuna for the felines.
   

This is why I'm going to say what I'm going to say: Public places are generally conducive to my getting a novel written. So long as I *like* the place, I have  my mp3 player, and a little bit of space. The trick is to carve a tiny bit of personal space out of that public place. Make your booth in the café into your own little world. My corner table at the tea shop I jokingly call my office allows me to spread out just enough to have a buffer between me and any potential neighbors. The headphones and soundtracks I've chosen close out the public to an even larger degree.

The place where I wrote that I hated the most? High school. Wasn't a happy kid, I grant you that. It's hard to claim it's the worst place I ever wrote, though, because writing in order to survive high school is what made it necessary for me to write to survive period. And as coping mechanisms go? This is a-okay. I make shit up and occasionally, someone pays me for it. What's not to like?

Smexy Shoe Fail

The number of us who own black, ass-kicking boots is getting a little spooky. Mine are shown to their aged and well-worn advantage by the lovely Hatshepsut. These boots are easily the most current and semi-fashionable shoes I own. They are also very comfy - something I woudn't have expected from a pair of $60 boots from the junior's department of a local store. I will admit to a pair of strappy black sandles very much like the ones Allison posted. I wear them only for formal events because those strappy bits cut the living hell out of my feet.

 Then we come to the sedate, business like pumps. Very comfy shoe. But this nice little pump is an illustration of how hopeless I am as a fashion plate. They're the shoes from my wedding, 18 years ago. That they aren't worn out gives you some notion of the fate of most of my remotely nice shoes. A box. In a closet. For a very long time. It isn't uncommon for me to exclaim, 'Wow, I still own those? Cool!'

The problem isn't that I can't walk in heels. There's a class for that.

My issue is the boat. You see, heels on gel coat means you're going for a swim. Boat people fast learn, too, that dark soled shoes are a very bad thing. You scrub the black marks from your no skid once. Then you pitch every single pair of dark soled shoes you own. Thus, you shall know the boat people by their creped soles, like this little cut leather number, right. Great traction on the boat, leaves no mark, and reasonably cute. But it isn't warm. Thus the other height of boat fashion.

The fur lined, water-proof boot. These are toasty, snuggly warm rubber boots designed to stay on my feet when I'm moving around on deck. Finding a pair of boots that are truly waterproof, that have support, and that don't slop around on your feet is major feat of endurance. The Sneakery in Seattle nailed this, though, when I went in complaining about the need for warm boat boots with actual arch support. These are easily the most expensive shoes I own. They were worth every dime.

For every day wear? Keds. No laces. The ultimate geek/boater/lazy-assed-writer shoe available. What? I want to stick my feet in my shoes and go. Why should I bend over to actually *tie* them? Wear the Keds for a week and the sole bed and canvas conform to your feet. They'll stay on until you yank them off at night. I walk miles in these babies. Yes. I freely admit that being a low maintenance boat babe means I sacrifice a certain something - looking like a responsible adult, maybe?