*Updated Sep 13/23
A diary of September, one day at a time.
September is here, the season of change. The beginning of the season of harvest and not before long celebrations like Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “SAH-win”).
Let’s make this a September to remember!
A bit of lifestyle change, personal growth, out with the old and in with the new. Let’s get a little bit fitter and healthier, of mind and body. Kind of like a ‘dry’ month, but with making healthier choices and cutting the less healthy things. And the most important thing for us writers, embracing a new season of seeking out inspirations of every kind for our writing.
P.s. don’t expect me to update this daily online. I might not even find time to update the master file daily. September is just as busy as any other month.
Day 1 – Friday! The Job That Pays the Bills reigns. It’s month-end accruals time! And I spent half the day trying to sort out a problem account. Go work! Endlessly. Then a bit of work on the writing markets for the Markets newsletter.
Day 2 – The weekend is here and the Job That Does Not Pay reigns. I spent the day – all day – working on the markets and setting up the Markets newsletter. I’m so behind on that. No writing inspirations in real life, but I did gain a few through some dodgy things happening in news articles. People are terrible creatures. The kid (kid no. one) baked chocolate mini cupcakes using the Best Ever Cakelet pan.
Day 3 – Still the weekend. Today’s focus is the dreaded catching-up on the housecleaning there isn’t enough time in the weekdays for. I had the urge to yell, “(Partner’s name), put your shit away, I’m not your mother! (Kid’s name), put your shit away! I am your mother!” I didn’t. There was nobody around to hear me anyway. It does get defeating cleaning up after six bodies, including the evil duo adopted dogs, one of which leaves hair in her wake that makes Pig-Pen look immaculate. I would have had to yell at myself, too, though, to put my own shit away. Also, to remind my wonderful family that there are people in this city who are starving while they waste food – as I toss and clean a sink full of leftovers’ containers sitting too long in the fridge. But, oh look, now I have containers for more leftovers!
Fun fact! My writing desk is BLACK. I wipe the dust and hair off it EVERY DAY and it’s still ALWAYS DUSTY.
Day 3 – of the weekend that is. Labour Day long weekend, baby! But for September to Remember, it’s Day 4. With no cottage or camper or any such, going anywhere isn’t a thing. Also, half the human portion of the household is working. So, it’s working-weekend day three. Seriously, every weekend needs to be three days. Who the hell can get all the catchup chores done in two days? A day off? Right. That’s for kids who don’t get homework and aren’t drowning in extracurricular activities.
The bright side is this is four days I’ve done the treadmill every day. An hour each day on the three-day weekend. Go healthy body! The downside is today’s focus is mainly cleaning. Again. The bright side, again, is I actually managed a bit of time for writing. Not ‘real’ writing. More formatting and note taking and re-familiarizing myself with a couple of WIPs I so want to finish. Hell, it’s taken me four days just to post this blog post that I should be updating daily through September, but might be lucky if I get to updating online weekly.
Today’s writing inspiration: I got a few ideas for a long abandoned WIP that is so far from being done that it’s not even on my WIPs to try to finish radar. Go writing brain!
Day 5 – Here comes the five days grind with the Job That Pays the Bills reigning supreme over my existence – in four day (long weekend!).
Day 6 – What did I do Wednesday? Worked. And got some work done on re-editing/fixing an anthology that was edited by someone else.
Day 7 – What did I do Thursday? Worked. And added to my witch coven. It’s my kid’s fault. We had to go to Rona to look at her car because her muffler broke on the way to work.
Day 8 – What did I do Friday? Worked.
Then the weekend, and another week. The blur of days melding together, the Job That Pays The Bills taking priority, then family, then the Job That Does Not Pay, finally household chores. I did manage to jot down a few quick notes on ideas of scenes for completely random story WIPs.
Author tip: I try to note down any ideas the moment I have them. I have a very long list of these note files in my phone. I may never use them, but otherwise I’d be forgetting perfectly good ideas, epiphanies I had for a reason.
Anyone who has ever experienced the family vacation knows the family vacation experience starts weeks before and ends weeks after the actual vacation.
The kids. Anyone with kids can tell you that you really need to plan a week off kid free to clean the house for anything upcoming of importance. This still applies when they are teens. As fast as you try to clean, the place is unraveled around you into a bedlam of chaos and mess. And, the virtual extra large dogs aka the Big Dumb Hair Bunnies you need to vacuum up endlessly. You are also trying to get all the laundry done, and make futile attempts to pack your own stuff.
It is your last evening to pack, and you are overtired, still sick, and trying to clean, do laundry (again), deal with dramas, back up all your life’s work so you don’t risk losing it if anything happens to your laptop (because you stupidly think will all that spare time while you are up hours before everyone else every morning on vacation you will have time for writing), and attempt to pack your stuff, finally. Only, the evening is gone before you know it, you have accomplished little if anything, the house is still a mess, you are still doing laundry, and EVERYONE HAS GONE TO BED WITHOUT YOU.
You will get there to find that you are missing basic essentials like deodorant, hair brush, and a toothbrush. You will spend an exorbitant amount of money buying two of the three at the little resort store, only to find halfway through the vacation it was packed in your spouse’s suitcase.
The vacation. Day one, everyone wakes up cranky. Everyone is moody, miserable, and fighting. The beds and pillows actually inflict pain; they are so bad. But, once settled in, each person has the time to start living the moment instead of only reacting to a fast paced series of reactionary moments.
We are in a place where the local population is predominantly dark skinned. You notice how kind and friendly all of the people working there are, how some struggle with the language barriers between them and their guests, but they still do their best to help. Your kids, however, whose sole experience with different people in your other raced neighborhood is what they learned in school about the history of black slavery, are feeling weird and at odds over watching all these dark-skinned staff serving the predominantly white guests. They question the appropriateness of it, not understanding it is so only because of the nature of the local population’s demographics.
During one dinner, while you are observing the strange behavior at the next table, your spouse is observing a very different scene behind you. The table next to you, a larger group, are taking turns politely clapping each person as if each is taking a turn quietly sharing some life affirming moment. The moment feels almost cultish to you, and you wonder if this is some sort of retreat for some group. Your spouse reaches across the table, touches your hand to get your attention, and looks you in the eyes.
Of course, the vacation was not all bad. Kids and teens, being who they are, were in a constant flux between getting along and annoying each other. Anyone with teens knows how little you see them when they start hiding in their rooms. And, with work and kids, how little time a couple actually has together. We had eight full days, including travel both ways, of all four of us being together 24/7, getting reacquainted with each other. That was through good and bad, sickness (literally, with us taking turns being up all night vomiting), and health. We still like each other.
The trip home. The plan was to have everything packed and cleaned up the night before and ready to go. Everyone is up, showered, dressed, and last bit packed with lots of time to haul our stuff to the front lobby, get lunch, and hop on the bus to the airport. Easy. No fuss, no muss.
Going through customs is its own experience. Leaving Canada, the fourteen-year-old was randomly selected for the “sniff test”. Yes, apparently they had to make sure a fourteen-year-old girl was not carrying or recently in contact with cocaine. I, being the concerned parent, laughed at her plight. The Canadian customs staff were typically Canadian, indulgent and kind about it.
Literally, with the last of the rest of the plane passengers passing through the door at the end before us into the great terminal beyond, an airport worker hurriedly rushes to the door and closes it in our faces. We, and our fellow back of the plane passengers, are left staring dumbly at him as he motions us to stay and runs off through the secondary set of doors. We look at each other. There are a few nervous chuckles. We are literally in a dry aquarium. A glass-walled prison with no way out except to race back to the plane, whose door is presumably closed by now, and no place to shelter. Is there some sort of airport security event? Should we be afraid? But, this is Canada, so the worst it might be is that someone forgot to say please and thank you.
At last, we are home. Or at least on the last leg of home, driving home with a slight detour that involved going in completely the opposite direction of home for some distance before realizing we are going the wrong way, and made it home.
The gift-wrapping challenge begins. The gift recipients study their gifts carefully, resorting to thoughtfully weighing, sizing up, feeling up, shaking, and even biting, their gifts trying to figure out what they are before unwrapping them. While you seek out boxes whose dimensions and shape will hide the true nature of the gift inside, stuffing the boxes so items can’t rattle, or even adding a strategically placed fake rattler.
And then the gift opening fun begins. The wrapping paper is unceremoniously ripped off, or perhaps that is the ceremony, revealing the box within. And then the joke emerges. What did you get this year? I got the Sony radio/cd player I bought myself this past summer, re-gifted something I already owned. My twelve year old got a Dremel saw, used only once, re-gifted. My partner got a tissue box, the ultimate in re-gift, since the tissue papers it once held have all been used. Of course, the boxes are only camouflage for the real present inside.
The intangible world of the literary mind 