Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Keep on truckin'

              Back in the day, long before Cherry Garcia twinkled in  Ben & Jerry's eyes, there was a band called The Grateful Dead.
The Dead put out an album called American Beauty  that featured a song called Truckin'
      (Perhaps self-prophesying their future linkage with Ben & Jerry's, the Dead would also put out a live album featuring a kid sticking an ice cream cone in his head. But, of course, I digress.) 
         What I really want to talk about is Truckin', which has been recognized by the United States Library of Congress as a National Treasure, and how we keep doing it. Or not.  (And you thought I'd never get around to writing, right? Ah, ye of little faith.)
        These are the opening lyrics:

Truckin' - got my chips cashed in
Keep Truckin - like the doodah man
Together - more or less in line
Just keep Truckin on  

         The point of the foregoing is this: We've all just got to keep on truckin'.
            As you can seen from the date of this blog post and its predecessor,  I've had a little trouble doing that lately. Stuff has got in my way. It has also gotten in Lara & Cole's way, but I try to keep them appeased with a tweak here and a tweak there, at the very least.
            The stuff that has got in my way is not stuff that prevents my butt from being glued to my chair; it is just stuff that makes my mind wander. Distractions. I think those of us who do not face deadlines regularly may be led astray more easily than those of us who do. ("Oh, look, a cloud.") 
            But as Twitter makes clear, even famous authors under contract pressure sometimes have one of those days where they Just.Can't.Write. Others are desolated by rejections, are waiting, waiting, waiting to hear about submissions, or have let so much time go by since they last put pixel to screen that they have to struggle to recapture the feeling, rediscover the zone. 
           So I thought I would start a new page up top, which I'm going to call "Truckin.'"  I'm going to try to chronicle what I've done each day, even if, as today, all I've done is tinker a bit. I hope you will join me in keeping track of how far you've come and what you're doing or planning on doing, and whether or not you've met your goal for the day. You can comment on the Truckin' page whenever you feel like it.
           Dr. Wicked's Write or Die might inspire some of you.
           Come on, play along.
           You don't want to be this guy, do you?
                                    
          

18 comments:

Wendy S Marcus said...

I like the Trukin' idea...to keep on moving, keep on working toward that goal. I've been consummed by Bat Mitzvah details and recovery for the past few days and haven't written. I once read that for every day you go without writing it takes two to get back into it. Today I re-read my revised first two chapters to get my head back into the story. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be ready to get some new words flowing!

Taryn Kincaid said...

Great! I think that's true. The longer I stay away, the easier it gets to stay away. When I'm on a roll, I just want to keep going. Something always intrudes.

I hope you'll vist the "Truckin'" page (click on the link at the top of the blog) and chronicle how you're doing it.

And congrats on the bat mitzvah!

Jennifer Probst said...

Great idea, Teri, I need to do this. I am afraid I am doing much too much blogging, facebooking, reading blogs, answering email and a million other things that suck away my writing time. I am making no progress. I seem to go back and tinker and then stall on starting something new. Need to focus a bit more. Good post.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Please feel free to do it here. DO NOT STOP BLOGGING. Your blog is the greatest. I see it as a collection somewhere down the line.

If you want to chronicle with me, check out the Truckin' page.

I see you've joined Liz in dropping the second R.
GRRRRRRRRRRR

TERRI

Gina Rosavin said...

Well, keep on trucking is a good motto to have. Just every now and then you need to change the route a little. Of course, I'm always easily distracted, that's almost a given with my split Gemini personality, but when the motivation evaporates, it's hard not to pull off the road and just forget the trip. And the motivation didn't just evaporate, it freaking blew up in a nuclear blast!

Maybe when my head is not spinning wildly so much (hopefully in a day or so!) I'll get my ass in gear and start tallying my word counts against goal.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Sorry, all. I didn't realize there was no "comment" box showing under the Truckin' page.

It should be working okay now if anyone wants to mosey over.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Gina -- Ya know how you leave a cutting trail on Twitter? You can do that here, babe.
I'm trying to see "I wrote 3k" or "I deleted 3k" (or, in my case, 250 words) in the Truckin' page comments.

Gina Rosavin said...

Does "I cut 10K words since yesterday" count? Oh, I have to put it on the other page? Damn it, I have too many tabs open, better close a few! :)

Taryn Kincaid said...

Of course it counts! And thanks for putting it on the "Truckin'" page!

Anonymous said...

I saw that TeRRi. LIZ

Janet Lane Walters said...

Terri, Great idea. Now that my computer is back in operation I can start speaking on other people's blogs. Computer died. Hard drive shot. Took my guy two days to get all my files back, but this didn't stop me since I write by pen and paper. I'll figure a way to let you know but since last Thursday I've done about 9000 words.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Wow. Bummer. I've been having some difficulties with electronics today myself. Tried for an hour to fax something from home. Kept getting busy. Went to Staples, busy there too. Then Twitter failed every time I tried to read or reply. Gave up and ran errands and such.

Zoe Winters said...

It's hard for me to write when I work for "the man". Actually more like impossible.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Yep. Have no real excuse currently. Except that having no real excuse tends to make me agitated and distracted!

SEAN/THE LIGHT 47 said...

be yourself, don't loose yourself trying to be someone else, tear into the astral realm if you want to look or be like someone else, don't waste your time wanting, you can create that something for yourself in the astral, don't waste your time with things like that will your within the Three fold Light,

SEAN/THE LIGHT 47 said...

while* in the three fold light,

not will

SEAN/THE LIGHT 47 said...

its an unhealthy cycle to peddle if your caught within the negative re-actions, newtons law, every positive action, will have an equal negative reaction, its like a pendulum of pleasure and pain, which is why earth could be seen as purgatory, but if you go into the astral with a single negative thought you will continue to observe negative energy, you must look to the light, don't observe the fight, the devil (negative form/energy) will always be there to bring down light, don't stop to find where, he is always creeping behind the air,(just out of your observation)

SEAN/THE LIGHT 47 said...

thoughts are energy just the same as any action produces energy, like friction your thoughts create energy within the mind space, newton understood this law of positive energy and negative energies, could look at it like a pendulum or karma, when you have a negative action/energy (any negative form) you will swing back into positive energies, karma is being aware of the pendulum in your real life, (school of hard knocks)- this concept has brought me to the light, my ego put up a 17 year fight, but now eye know, and eye hope this helps all of you,

the pendulum concept is true for all form within this reality/three fold light, thoughts can be negative, the church I grew up in called negative thoughts- the devils work, and positive thoughts- the work of heaven,
heaven and hell is divided by what you choose to create within the astral plane of existence, some people have to be carful,
you do not want to exist in the astral plane of observation if you create any negative form within your mind space,

your dreams if you become "lucid" / realize you are within a dream, while still acting within your dream, and you create negative form this is how you can tell if you are ready for the astral realm or not,
if you only ever have bad nightmares while sleeping you will create this scary form in the astral realm,
this is when you have to be careful, step back look at what you have been forming, if you create utopian society's in your dream you are ready to astral project
best method in getting there is visualizing the mer-la-bah technique/visualizing a star tetrahedron, coming apart in opposite directions, sync in tune with your breathing-
as describe/prescribed within volume 2 of The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life

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