Where there's a widget, there's a way

Words Written: DFL editing; “Breakfast in Bed” 733
Writing Stats: Nothing of note to report.
Exercise: stretching, yoga

Like many writers/obsessives, I tend to sit too long at the computer. This is, of course, murder on my messed-up back. Even if I watch the clock, I tend to think, “Oh, just five more minutes to answer this e-mail” or whatever, and another half hour goes by, and I haven’t even changed position, much less gotten up and stretched.

I tried using a kitchen timer, but its ticking was too distracting. So finally I went searching for a widget for my Dashboard. (It’s a Mac thing—instead of putting widgets on your desktop and cluttering it up, you put them in your Dashboard, which you can access by keyboard or mouse click, and it comes up superimposed over whatever else is on your screen.) I found a great timer widget (with a lovely chime to tell me it’s time to move), a project widget that allows me to calculate total time on various projects (writing, work, e-mail/web stuff, etc.), and even one that counts down (4 days and 21 hours ‘til my next Styx concert!). Oh, and one that gives you the lyrics of whatever song is playing on iTunes.

My point is, the timer has been amazing for me. Several times I’ve not wanted to write, and I’ve told myself, just 15 minutes. The first time, I wrote over 500 words. That blew me away. I’ve always thought that at speed, I wrote 1000 words/hour. This means if I could keep the momentum, I could double that. Hot damn!

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Today was full of little annoyances. My chiro appt was good, but then I thought something was wrong with the car, and I couldn’t get hold of Ken to determine if it was a “yeah, you should have that checked sometime” problem or a “don’t even try to drive, call a tow truck” problem. I drove home and was then effectively housebound. I finally talked to him and decided to take it in, but then I took the chance of popping out the grocery store for one thing I needed to make tacos tonight, and I realized the noise is the same one that we’ve had for a while—some doohicky related to the air conditioner, which isn’t anything crucial and we’ll get fixed eventually. So that’s all good.

I’m also having a problem with my alternate e-mail account, the person I e-mailed about transferring our Dragon*Con memberships was downright rude to me (and the other person I e-mailed has been really busy and hasn’t written back—so I may end up eating the cost of the memberships, which royally sucks), and BBC America chopped the second season of Hex in half and doesn’t seem to be showing the “third season.”

But I’m okay. I went through the grumpycrankydistraught stage, and now I’m fine. I got some good writing done tonight, finishing up a languishing partial story that I realized would be perfect for an anthology that’s due tomorrow. I’ve printed out what I’ve done so far on DFL so I can refresh my memory of what I’ve done, make notes on what comes next, and see where to insert the new scenes I’ve recently written. Progress is always A Good Thing.

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Currently Reading: Widdershins, Charles de Lint
Lately Listened To: not much
Recently Watched: Hex, CSI: Miami