Cleaning Break Is Over

Last week it was the weeds on the outside: whacking, pulling and sweating. I was trying to save my plants from the weeds stranglehold. This last Memorial Day, I started a nightmare. All to be cooler.

I decided to rearrange my house so that my bedroom is in the coolest part of the house. I had done a week with my mattress on the living room floor. Then decided I needed to move my room and make the living room back to the showroom it was meant to be. It went a lot smoother in my head. I am still amazed at how much garbage I've accumulated which I must sort through; so I've got weeks ahead before I am really done.

Cleaning break is over so I'll leave you with a poem:

Weeding Things Out

A lot of other writers might tell you to write everything down then weed out what doesn't add to your story later.

I disagree.

If writing is like gardening, the weeds could take over. I have planted some pineapple tops some time ago. It's near the canal so I just let it grow. Yesterday I noticed that weed that climbs up wall was covering it. I grabbed the weed whacker and with a whirr, whirr, whirr, I was trimming away. Then I snagged a pineapple top and had to stop. I worked slowly to release it from the whacker and replanted it. After that ideal, I delineated the edge and worked the whacker at the edge then weeded by hand.

If writing is like gardening then editing is like weeding. Considering I still have more hand weeding to go to redeem my plantings, do you still want to let everything grow (write everything down) then weed later (that's a lot of editing)?

I'll leave you with a poem while you ponder that thought:

BTW, Poetry Reading at Cinema Paradiso on Saturday, May 23, 2015.

Procrastination

Procrastination and me have a thing...
so much to do and deadline is coming soon!

I used to be so prompt but now I'll do it tomorrow and when tomorrow comes then it's next week. You should see my lawn...as long as you're not with code enforcement.

To get going (and stop farting around with what to write on this blog), here's a poem about Congestion (you'd think I would have a poem about procrastination, no because I procrastinated on writing about it and all you get is the two lines above):

Mother's Day

Last year, I took some Wilton courses and my mom was so overjoyed with the cake hat I made her except she doesn't like fondant.

Therefore for mother's day this year, I was determined to make another cake hat but with her favorite icing - Royal icing.

Then it came to me that building a cake hat is much like writing a story. It takes planning then actually executing the plan. Part of the planning is gathering all the ingredients when making a cake. Much like the ingredients, there could be details to research. Another part of the planning is checking the oven. Is there one? Is it working? What is its capacity?
Similarly when writing, is there computer or pencil and paper?
Then the fun begins. Saturday - I baked 2-6" cakes for top of hat and 1-12" cake for flap of hat. Then I decided to use light layer of Royal icing on cakes after soaking layers with rum.

Monday - I made wired leaves and buds I also made more Royal Icing and gave the tiers another layer of icing.

Tuesday - I stopped at Michaels and bought a larger cake board base and gum paste. I smoothed out icing as best as possible. Royal Icing can be a royal pain at times. Then I placed bamboo in bottom layer to support tier. I couldn't figure how to do ribbon with Royal so I made ribbon with fondant and added to base of both layers.

Ah, ribbon on the edge of the hat!

Then I made bow and left to dry.

Final task of the evening was to develop the buds to roses.

Wednesday, I used some of that Isomalt technique that I learnt at SoFlo for the top of the hat

Friday, I wrapped and assembled the flowers and leaves. Then Saturday, I put it all together. I had visualized one of those fancy derby hats. What do you think? How close to a hat is it? Also, when you write do you start with one concept and when you add all the parts, the outcome is surprising?

I should know better

 I should know better...
Than to leave the fan on and go to sleep. It's more than a couple days later and I still haven't gotten rid off the phlegm.
So it's time to write and I go sit in front of the TV. Yup. That's right. I turn on the TV and let the screen hypnotize me. Zilch. Zero. No word count last night.

I should know better and no sense in beating myself up. I will have to do better. Until next week when I have a sample of my WIP (work in progress) to share, here's a poem: