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tiny goals
Mar. 8th, 2019 10:50 amI am trying to focus myself and do some tiny things, concurrently with one another.
I had 84 hexies last time I counted, and since then I've made seven, so that means 91, which doesn't sound right but I've counted it on my fingers three times and that's got to be right and I don't have time to unpick why my brain thinks it can't possibly be. Four, six is ten, one more, seven. I dunno. My brain says no way.
But that means I just need... ok I was fixated on needing 8 more to get to 100, but no way is that right, I need nine. Anyhow. I'm trying to make eight hexagons today, so that I can get to a meaningless milestone (99??) that might not be right anyway because I'm not confident that when I counted 84 I was correct. So whatever. It's just a goal, so the specifics don't matter.
I've made two, so. I probably won't get through the rest because I have other goals too.
The library was closed last night; I had not been attentive, it's not open the same hours every weekday, Thursday is clearly the librarian's night off. Alas. I'll have to squeeze in a trip tonight.
BUT! Even though Dude practiced banjo way more than me this week, and I was sure I'd sound like I hadn't tried at all, I did MUCH better than he did at keeping up with the lesson, and I even managed to creditably play through a song! I was pretty pumped. Sorry for him, though; he'd worked hard and sounded great all week but did not acquit himself well in the lesson. I kept hitting the wrong string with my thumb pick, so I'd be fingering correctly but play the wrong note; Dude hamstrung himself by when he first sat down, tuning the banjo so that one of the strings was the entire-ass wrong note so even when he played right it was nonsense, for a whole song. Anyway-- we've started learning some useful chords for backup and "survival playing", as the teacher terms it-- the stuff you can do to just keep up in a jam so you don't sound dumb, even if you don't know the song one bit and are lost as fuck. Which let's be honest is entirely, entirely what I ever anticipate doing with a banjo if I ever play one in front of anyone but Dude and God and my teacher. So I'm pleased with that.
He also gave me a fifteen-minute guitar lesson, since I've admitted to owning one, so that I could accompany Dude on the practice songs and give myself something to do while he's practicing way more than I do. I'm pleased with that too, I've owned that fucking guitar since 1998 and never knew what to do with it. (I mean, I know a G chord, and a C, and so he taught me D and it was way easier than I remembered?????) So I'm pumped about that, too.
I wrote 3600 words yesterday even though the evening was a bust, so that was inspiring. I think maybe I know what the book's about, 62,000 words in. But that's what a second draft is for. I want to keep going, while I have some momentum. Getting momentum has been the fucking killer in this project; nobody's gasping to read it because it's not a fanwork so I can't tag onto any hype, and I have had such a struggle finding anything besides the setting to care about that I haven't generated my own momentum, and it's just, I keep meandering around, like a stream on the flat, and it would be nice to pick up some speed but on the other hand, it has meant that it hasn't eaten my life, which it might do if it gets going any more.
But.
Farm season is about to start up. I want to go out, I texted to ask if people were around in two weeks, and of course mom said no they're going to maryland but the maryland peeps are coming up next weekend, which would really have been super nice to know. Maybe we can swing it and get there while everyone's in town, and maybe I'll just go back and live in my cave, I dunno!
I downloaded a bunch of free patterns from various sources, and printed them out at work (on hoarded twice-used scrap paper that I fished out of garbage cans, don't look at me like that), and I'm really going to try to learn to follow a sewing pattern.
I figure, if I make a few garments, that'll bust a lot of stash and give me some nice juicy scraps to foundation piece, hexagon, and then crazy/crumb quilt with. The most important thing, MOST important, is to make a big step toward transitioning hoard into Things That Are In Use. Because I have the desire to hoard, I have the desire to make, and I want to be able to consider myself a Sewist, or even a Textile Artist, and if all I do is paw through my hoard and mutter a lot and then leave it piled there, I am not either of those things, have no right to consider myself such, and absolutely have no call to be hoarding yet more shit, if I'm never going to use it. So...
Large and small goals, I guess, really.
I had 84 hexies last time I counted, and since then I've made seven, so that means 91, which doesn't sound right but I've counted it on my fingers three times and that's got to be right and I don't have time to unpick why my brain thinks it can't possibly be. Four, six is ten, one more, seven. I dunno. My brain says no way.
But that means I just need... ok I was fixated on needing 8 more to get to 100, but no way is that right, I need nine. Anyhow. I'm trying to make eight hexagons today, so that I can get to a meaningless milestone (99??) that might not be right anyway because I'm not confident that when I counted 84 I was correct. So whatever. It's just a goal, so the specifics don't matter.
I've made two, so. I probably won't get through the rest because I have other goals too.
The library was closed last night; I had not been attentive, it's not open the same hours every weekday, Thursday is clearly the librarian's night off. Alas. I'll have to squeeze in a trip tonight.
BUT! Even though Dude practiced banjo way more than me this week, and I was sure I'd sound like I hadn't tried at all, I did MUCH better than he did at keeping up with the lesson, and I even managed to creditably play through a song! I was pretty pumped. Sorry for him, though; he'd worked hard and sounded great all week but did not acquit himself well in the lesson. I kept hitting the wrong string with my thumb pick, so I'd be fingering correctly but play the wrong note; Dude hamstrung himself by when he first sat down, tuning the banjo so that one of the strings was the entire-ass wrong note so even when he played right it was nonsense, for a whole song. Anyway-- we've started learning some useful chords for backup and "survival playing", as the teacher terms it-- the stuff you can do to just keep up in a jam so you don't sound dumb, even if you don't know the song one bit and are lost as fuck. Which let's be honest is entirely, entirely what I ever anticipate doing with a banjo if I ever play one in front of anyone but Dude and God and my teacher. So I'm pleased with that.
He also gave me a fifteen-minute guitar lesson, since I've admitted to owning one, so that I could accompany Dude on the practice songs and give myself something to do while he's practicing way more than I do. I'm pleased with that too, I've owned that fucking guitar since 1998 and never knew what to do with it. (I mean, I know a G chord, and a C, and so he taught me D and it was way easier than I remembered?????) So I'm pumped about that, too.
I wrote 3600 words yesterday even though the evening was a bust, so that was inspiring. I think maybe I know what the book's about, 62,000 words in. But that's what a second draft is for. I want to keep going, while I have some momentum. Getting momentum has been the fucking killer in this project; nobody's gasping to read it because it's not a fanwork so I can't tag onto any hype, and I have had such a struggle finding anything besides the setting to care about that I haven't generated my own momentum, and it's just, I keep meandering around, like a stream on the flat, and it would be nice to pick up some speed but on the other hand, it has meant that it hasn't eaten my life, which it might do if it gets going any more.
But.
Farm season is about to start up. I want to go out, I texted to ask if people were around in two weeks, and of course mom said no they're going to maryland but the maryland peeps are coming up next weekend, which would really have been super nice to know. Maybe we can swing it and get there while everyone's in town, and maybe I'll just go back and live in my cave, I dunno!
I downloaded a bunch of free patterns from various sources, and printed them out at work (on hoarded twice-used scrap paper that I fished out of garbage cans, don't look at me like that), and I'm really going to try to learn to follow a sewing pattern.
I figure, if I make a few garments, that'll bust a lot of stash and give me some nice juicy scraps to foundation piece, hexagon, and then crazy/crumb quilt with. The most important thing, MOST important, is to make a big step toward transitioning hoard into Things That Are In Use. Because I have the desire to hoard, I have the desire to make, and I want to be able to consider myself a Sewist, or even a Textile Artist, and if all I do is paw through my hoard and mutter a lot and then leave it piled there, I am not either of those things, have no right to consider myself such, and absolutely have no call to be hoarding yet more shit, if I'm never going to use it. So...
Large and small goals, I guess, really.
