Wordplay and Witticisms: Pigs were put in bags and sold in medieval markets. Unscrupulous sellers would dupe their buyers by replacing the pigs with large cats. A buyer figuring out the ploy inspired this phrase...from the game: Orijinz (answer at the bottom)
My current writing soundtrack: Elevator music...I am babysitting a friend's eight week old baby. He's asleep and I am desperate to keep it that way!
Have you started writing yet? Did you set a time or word count goal, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem? Did you carve out a stretch of time to sit down, ala pantalones flambé, and type furiously?
No time, you say? Think again…
In his book No Plot? No Problem, National Novel Writing Month organizer Chris Baty says “being busy is good for your writing”. Yes, you read correctly – being busy is good for your writing! Here’s why:
Grab an apple and don a Newtonian thinking cap…an object in motion tends to stay in motion. So if you are all ready busy, adding another thing isn’t that big of a deal. You are all ready going at mach 5 - 1,001 to-dos are not that different from 1,002, right?
Yes, I know you would like to slap me right about now, but bear with me...
Baty believes that having to carve writing time out of your myriad of other obligations makes it a “treat”, something exciting and special to do for yourself. Whereas, if you have loads of time to write (at a writer’s retreat for example), suddenly writing is an obligation. Now, don’t get me wrong, writer’s retreats and long stretches of time to work on your novel have their place, but it is not when you are composing your first draft. During first draft craziness, you need to just light your pants and fingers on fire and go like mad, something more easily done when you know you are working on finite writing time, snatching moments here and there.
So, sorry, one excuse decidedly flushed down the toilet…Crazy busy? Running like mad? Going in twelve different directions? Good for you – now get to writing!
Wordplay and Witticisms answer: The cat's out of the bag
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