I’m late, I’m late

… for WordPress Wednesday. Clearly I need to update my calendar and pop my blogging spots back in there so that I can chase them around the page as other meetings pop up!

I have managed to put “writing sprint” times in there for about a fortnight, so there’s that. The “Writing Sprint” idea comes from Academic Writing Coach Cathy Mazak. Basically, you block out an hour or two (or in my case, 1.5) each workday for a fortnight, just to focus on one writing project. I popped this in to my diary at the start of last week, because I felt I had hit a COVID-wall and my motivation was lacking and my writing wheels spinning. My original plan was to use it to get somewhere with our Vampire Diaries project. Which I did, in fact, start (well, I rounded up my notes into one spot–they were previously in numerous folders on internal and external hard drives, and a rogue thumb drive). But then a week ago I received a list of further suggested revisions from the Revise and Resubmit I was so happy to get off my desk earlier. So I changed gear, which is probably not really what the Writing Sprint is about. I was pretty cranky that I only had a week to do the extra revisions, but then I got some advice from another academic, got over myself and did it in three days.

So for the last two, I’ve been back to focussing on Tyler Lockwood.

For this book project, I originally wrote a chapter about masculinity and the adolescent/lycanthropic transformation of high school jock Tyler Lockwood in The Vampire Diaries television series. (In the books, he was called Tyler Smallwood, but apparently that would have been *ahem* unpalatable for contemporary YA TV!). Thing is, it’s been a record-breaking number of years since that piece was accepted, so now it needs some pretty major revisions prior to publication. Back then, The Originals sequel, in which Tyler featured, wasn’t even an idea! I’m currently reviewing scenes from a decade ago to remind myself of the finer details of his origins storyline, but the bulk of the update will come in tracking how his character developed after the original time of writing (hint: significantly).

When I’m working on any piece, I use a wallpaper of the cast or character as a means of silently nagging myself. The image above is what is currently on my homescreens. Believe me when I say that after a while you just want to finish the writing project in order to be able to change the screen to something less guilt-inducing.

On the home project front, things are going much slower, but deliberately so. With just the main bedroom left to paint and only a couple of days of the school tern left, we’ve agreed that I’ll leave my husband alone to limp through to the end of the week with his room undisturbed. Then I’ll attack and finish it in the school holidays, when he’s rebooting. Depending on how my work juggle goes and if I can sneak in a day or two of leave myself, we might even be able to get in some gardening time after that.

In the meantime, I’m trying to “redo” some of the chaotic areas of my home. After six months of nothing being in quite the right place, I’m ready to do a major Spring clean, I think.

If it seems as though I’ve been renovating forever, then prepare yourselves for these “on this day” memories from NINE years ago. Nine!

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Basically, we’d agreed that the whole new kitchen thing would happen–you guessed it–in the September holidays. Tony was taking the kids to QLD to see his parents (those were the days!) and I was going to supervise the project. To save money, I was going to do my own demolition and I thought I’d get a head start on it the last few days of term.

So he came home late one night and the pantry, rangehood, and cupboard doors were gone. Our fridge was already outside on the verandah where it had lived since we move in, in March of 2007–because it didn’t fit in our tiny kitchen.

The next day, the kids (then in Primary school) wanted to do more. I unhooked the oven and we wrestled it outside to sit on the front lawn, awaiting the rubbish removal folks. Then they asked wasn’t the wall coming down, too?

None of this cutting whole sheets out for us, oh no. Armed with a domestic hammer, we started taking it out, each piece about the size of a twenty cent piece.

Tony came home from work and found Rob delightedly swinging a hammer at the wall. He looked at me, stunned. “I thought you were getting a bloke in to do that?” he asked.

Ten-year-old-Rob turned to him with a big grin and announced with perfect comic timing: “I AM the bloke!”

Tony helped me get the washing machine outside before they headed North. And then various hijinks ensued with some tradies not turning up when they were supposed to, and others saying they couldn’t proceed until the missing ones did their bit, and me sitting here by myself in a shell, surviving on BBQed food and takeaway, with all my loungeroom furniture on the back patio and no water in the centre of the house. My dear mate Jody called and heard the distress in my voice over the phone, and said, “I can be there in two hours.” She drove down from Sydney, helped me wrestle the washing machine back into the house so I could at least do laundry, and camped here with me.

By the time Tony and the kids got home, it was all done and I had all the furniture back in place. I don’t think I’d be physically capable of the latter feat now. The muscle aches and back pain alone have meant it’s taken me this long just to paint, with no demo. Recovering after each room takes longer than recovering from minor surgery would have when I was younger!

So, I am very much looking forward to finishing this all up, and then not doing any more work inside the house this year. We’ve still got some longer term plans and there’s plenty to do in the yard, but for now: the end is in sight.

And a good thing, too, because I’ve got writing to do!