Arboreal woes + writing

[ratbones]

I woke up very early this morning, on my day off, to the sound of a chainsaw running right outside my bedroom, where the tree service was taking down my beloved 60-ft-tall pine. The tree dominated the property and absolutely dwarfed my little house. I've been arguing for months that it didn't need to come down, and I knew I hadn't gotten anywhere but I didn't know it was happening today. Now my yard is wrong, my house is wrong, the lighting is wrong everywhere, I'm absolutely livid about the tree and also about nobody listening to me about the tree, and I'm exhausted, both from being woken up three hours before I intended to wake up and from crying buckets. I recognize that I probably look a little crazy for being so attached to a tree, but that just makes me feel worse. :(

At a certain point, I decided that I needed to feed my brain something enjoyable and also completely absorbing if I wanted to stop bursting into tears at the sight of uninterrupted sunlight coming through the window, so I hoisted myself over into words mode. I think I had hit a bit of a procrastination bump on my zombie AU because my outline was outdated and I knew I had to move some things around to fix the pacing for the next couple chapters (aaargh), so I did some aggressive scribbling of plot notes on several sheets of legal pad spread out over my desk, which was a weird turn because I never write anything by hand, but it seemed to be enough of a disruption to get me out of the rut. Chapter 5 just went up, and I have a big chunk of chapter 6 written, along with a pretty precise road map for where I'm going next. Patting myself on the back here for putting a crappy day to good use and doing something that made me feel a bit better. I could've just moped all day. Old Me would have.

By the way, I don't update on weekends because I work weekends. And a few other days per week, but those are more flexible, while the weekend is not. This is part of why I haven't hopped on the Sunday Six bandwagon. The other part is that the idea of picking out a snippet makes me nervous.

I still don't know exactly what I'm doing on Dreamwidth, obviously, but hey an attempt at a post was made that's good right

Comments

[umadoshi]

I'm truly sorry about your tree. ;_; Losing it would be hard enough if it had been necessary, and losing it needlessly is just awful. *sympathies*

but hey an attempt at a post was made that's good right

It is!

[extrapenguin]

I feel you on attachment to trees. They're nice! They block sight and sound! Let them beeeee

As for what DW is for: It is for whatever you wish it to be for.
1. The occasional life and fic update
2. Posting long meta and wanking up a storm in the comments because after a certain point, everyone, including you, is Wrong On The Internet
3. Nonsense polls (if you have a paid account)
4. Commenting on other people's posts
5. Telling everyone just how much you love something
6. Participating in memes
etc.

(As for Sunday Six, there's also WIP Wednesday. And you don't have to share a snippet if you don't want to - I think you could just tell us what the project's current wordcount is.)

[jo_lasalle]

Sudden tree death, with a tree that's been there forever and is really part of the whole place, would make me pretty bummed too. >.<

This is part of why I haven't hopped on the Sunday Six bandwagon. The other part is that the idea of picking out a snippet makes me nervous.

I feel very similar about the snippet thing. I never have anything I feel comfortable putting up for Sunday Six, which is a bit sad because I'd quite like to play, but the idea of pulling snippets out of my longer work is... eeeks! (The one week where I had something I'd have been comfortable teasing with, I forgot. ^^)

[clevermanka]

That's fucking horrible. I'm so sorry you've gotta deal with the emotional fallout from that. Ugh. UGH. I'm glad New You was able to direct the energy into writing.

[forestofglory]

I'm so sorry about your tree. That's just awful.

I do find that writing by hand uses some different parts of my brain that writing on a screen. I used to draft most of my stuff out by hand because the flow was better. Now I only write by hand if I'm really stuck or I want to brainstorm something.

You can use DW for whatever you want. Lately I've mostly been using it for talking about what ever media I've been reading and watching. But I also like reading about people's everyday lives, and I have been enjoying lots fanish chatter about Guardian of course.

[frith_in_thorns]

I get incredibly attached to trees so I would also be horrendously upset, it's not at all silly. **hugs**

[qikiqtarjuaq]

Awww, was your tree legally taken down? Because there's like a whole huge area of tree law with massive compensation if it was cut down illegally...

Also, I feel you on the Sunday Six! I feel too self-conscious of my snippets, so I don't participate, although I do read other people's stuff. And honestly, dreamwidth is whatever you wanna post on it!