deadline food

Posted on September 25, 2012 by is there any more pie?

Source: http://www.creativewritersdesk.com

Writers can get really weird cravings while under Deadline Stress.

I know writers who live on cigarettes and Diet Coke for days until they type “The End”.  Others paint their fingernails and eat the polish off.
M&M’s are a popular stimulant/comfort food.
As are Oreo cookies.
I used to be a frozen Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie-holic.
M&M’s, a great honkin’ bowl of them, sat on my desk next to the dirty coffee cups.

Once I ate soda crackers and drank coffee for weeks and ended up in the hospital (with a very unhappy esophagus).

I learned it is not a good thing to write four or five or six books a year without eating properly, but it took a long time to get that through my head, especially during deadline times.

But I’ve changed.  A little. Maybe a lot.

This week I’ve stocked up on plain Greek yogurt, frozen fruit, eggs, red & orange & green bell peppers, white bean chili and…

The potato chips are just for an emergency.

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end of the season

Posted on September 24, 2012 by is there any more pie?

See you next  year, kayak.  It was great getting to know you and spend a little time together.

Goodbye, campfire pit. We had some hot nights together. Sparks were flying!

Goodbye, warm and sunny dock. Whenever I look at my toes I will think of you.

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what makes my desk look pretty today

Posted on September 23, 2012 by is there any more pie?

Thank you, Retired Mountain Man.

These gorgeous flowers make me want to go out and buy fabric in all shades of pink and white and rose and then make a quilt with stitching in the shapes of flower petals just like these.

It’s a good thing I live twenty miles away from a store that might sell something like this.

Let’s talk about deadlines, now that I’m thinking about flowers and fabric and quilting.  Being a writer is a very weird profession.  Unless you are totally and completely in control of every hour of your life, if you are a writer you are going to experience–at least once–the nauseating, stressful, guilty, exhausting feeling of missing a deadline.

I try to be in control.  I set my alarm for five a.m.  I set weekly, daily and even hourly goals.  But you know I folded myself into a seaplane and flew over mountains to eat huckleberry pancakes last week.

I didn’t say, “Oh, thanks for inviting me to soar over Chimney Rock and land on a pristine, isolated lake, but I have to stay home and write.”

Nope, I didn’t say that.  Who in their right mind would?

So today I have spent six hours trying to figure out a particularly nasty little knot of conflict and motivation and character background.  I cannot move forward until it’s clear in my head.  I have filled many sheets of paper and I have kept the Keurig spitting out coffee since five-thirty.  I’ll spend another six or eight hours in order to write the number of pages I need to write today, in order to meet my new deadline, October 1st.

And I will admire my flowers.

Dahlias from Cougar Creek.

(to see some spectacular flower photos, go to Retired Mountain Lady)

Posted in lake, writing | 5 Comments

he flies for pie

Posted on September 22, 2012 by is there any more pie?

One of our neighbors flies a sea plane.  He parks it at his dock next door and we really get a kick out of watching him fly in and out of the bay. He also loves peach pie more than any other kind of pie.  You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Over the last four summers he has given seaplane rides to us and our assorted guests from Rhode Island, Texas and Nebraska.

2009: Will and I posing with the neighbor’s plane.

It’s a thrill seeing the lake from the air, it really is.  I would bake a peach pie to say thank you.  Because I love to bake peach pies, remember?

This summer we had very little company and I have been writing, writing, writing (except for that wild week in bluegrass camp!) and felt badly because my neighbor (Chris) had no pie.  So I surprised him with one last Saturday and he happened to have a seaplane pilot friend (Gary) visiting and–imagine this–they both love pie!

And because neither Banjo Man or I had ever been to Hill’s Resort and/or Priest Lake, we were invited to fly there with them Thursday morning.

Get this: We flew in seaplanes at sunrise over the Selkirks to go out to breakfast!

Landing at Hill’s Resort, Priest Lake

Huckleberry “mini”: pancake, eggs and sausage or bacon. Best sausage ever!

(to be continued, because I haven’t finished writing my chapter for the day…)

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another way to see the sunrise

Posted on September 20, 2012 by is there any more pie?


Where-oh-where is Banjo Man?***  Take a wild guess!

(details tomorrow)

***Banjo Man is in this plane!  He is behind the pilot and flying over the Selkirks.

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whatever floats your boat

Posted on September 18, 2012 by is there any more pie?

Hurray!!! The book will be finished next week!!!

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the return of banjo man

Posted on September 16, 2012 by is there any more pie?

Yes, he’s back!

The lake house will ring with banjo music this week.  I will have to teach him some of the songs I learned from Bluegrass camp.

On the way home from the airport he filled me in on our favorite summer tv shows:  Hell’s Kitchen and Master Chef.  Actually these are Banjo Man’s favorite tv shows, but I watch with him sometimes.  It’s hard to imagine working in a kitchen with so many cranky, egotistical people, but I like Gordon Ramsay and his creative cussing.

Anyway, without having had a television for three months, it’s always exciting to hear what’s going on in the world of reality tv.

I will confess that I miss college football Saturdays.  I do stream fox sports radio and the Lincoln, Nebraska radio station to hear the games.  I check ESPN online for sports chat and the latest scores.

So, welcome back, Banjo Man!  I saved some peaches for you.

Posted in lake | 2 Comments

winding down

Posted on September 15, 2012 by is there any more pie?

Summer is over.  It ended quickly here. I couldn’t decide which September sunset photo to share with you, so I have posted them both.  You decide which one you like the best.

Meanwhile, I’m in my office.  Writing, writing, writing.  When I get the urge to move around, I sort through clothes and pack up boxes while I berate myself for not writing faster.

This is not my favorite time of year.  I don’t want to leave the lake, so I tend to sulk.  How did the summer go by that fast?  How do I say goodbye to my friends, to the music, to the mountains?????

Every year it’s harder to drive away.

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use it or lose it

Posted on September 14, 2012 by is there any more pie?

what i did with the cannisters i bought at the yard sale:

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lure of a garage sale

Posted on September 13, 2012 by is there any more pie?

My French Friend Janou and her French Sister decided to purge their possessions and have a sale.

I took a break from Deadline Mania and drove to town early Friday morning to (a) go to the sale, (b) do laundry, (c) pick up prescriptions and (d) visit the Peach Man one last time.  I also needed more paper and printer ink, something you don’t want to run out of when your manuscript is late.

I brought home an ice bucket, a cannister set and a big slice of Janou’s homemade peach cake (which I ate for lunch).   I resisted buying a baby gate, a vintage box and a huge aluminum cooking pan.

I hope they made a small fortune anyway.

Posted in friends, lake | 1 Comment