Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Writing Meditations

Eating the Elephant One Bite at a Time

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Photo by Zoë Reeve on Unsplash

I never have enough time, and I am coming to terms with that. When I was much younger (yes, at 60 I still consider myself young), I would ask myself, “Five years from now, are you going to wish you had/hadn’t done this?”

The answer would guide my decision. It is that question which made me decide more than ten years ago to redraft three books I had stuffed in a digital closet and publish them.

But, did I mention I’m 60 now?

The question has far more permutations than it used to. Time is a commodity I am realizing is more limited than it once was. I can’t say I have 50 years ahead of me. OK, I might, but I’d probably be pushing that senility bubble a bit hard, and it would be pushing back.

Now, every second counts. But there is this elephant on my plate. Though I have reduced its size by cutting out the time suckers it used to include for padding, it’s still bigger than my plate, bigger than the table the plate sits on, and occasionally bigger than the room housing the table.

I still have to eat it one bite at a time.

That’s what I do.

Sometimes the elephant gets bigger instead of smaller, but I can only chew so fast and spoon in only so big a bite.

Still time is waving hands at me. It’s a limited commodity. I’m chewing as fast as I can.

I cut out Twitter, Goodreads and settled on Facebook and this website for my time. I started a newsletter.

Click the Signup! button on the menu bar to join it.

The rest is reserved for three major parts of the elephant.

  • Writing (that’s the head of the elephant)
  • Marketing (way down by the tail)
  • Teaching-related stuff (my day job — the body)
  • Extra: Health (somewhere down at the feet, maybe underfoot)

Until I retire, the majority of my effort goes to my day job, which, unfortunately, grabs a huge slice each day of my off time. Grading is a bear, quickly followed by planning, training, parent contacts and email.

Photo by Becca on Unsplash

It’s very hard to eat a bear when you are still working on an elephant. All that hair gets caught in the throat.

Don’t ask me about dessert. All I’ll say is my husband is a sweetheart; our daughter, sheer perfection; and my Labrador, loyal and true.

My point.

I have to have a point to this?

I’m eating one bite at a time. That’s what I tell myself, and it helps. My only issue is the cook keeps bringing in new elephants as soon as I finish one. But one bite at a time still works.

I love the lesson in Man of La Mancha: perspective

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Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash

More than a year ago, I attended a production of Man of La Mancha. I’ve seen it in the movie version and have read the book, but this was my first time at a stage production of the work.

It still reverberates in me, after so many months. Besides the fine acting and a great story and a noticeable number of tears (my husband is such a softy), I was overwhelmed with such an appreciation for the positives in my life and the importance of giving them more attention than those moments when life is less than perfect.

The Spanish Inquisition is far more than just a bad day or even a rough year, but we all have difficult times when for some reason we get caught in a focus on the negative.

Don Quixote saw beauty in everything. And one can certainly argue that he might not have been carting around all of his brain cells or was perhaps in denial about what was really happening in his social circle, but one cannot refuse to acknowledge that what he saw was very much worth having be real.

We all need to seek the beauty even among the worst of times.

My daughter told me about something she saw just yesterday on her Facebook feed. I’m extensively paraphrasing (and probably getting a few details wrong. I didn’t see the actual feed).

Someday one will look back on the COVID-19 shut-in requirement. A parent was listing what they will remember about being stuck at home: bored children, limited food selection, the worry about if there would be enough toilet paper or perhaps if toilet paper makes a good soup.

The child listed what stood out to him: playing endless hours of hide and seek with that parent. Or it could have been playing living room baseball with dryer wool balls and the broken blind wand. I don’t recall the details.

The point was perspective. You see and you remember what you most looked for. What you anticipated you would get.

If I think I’m going to get nothing but bored, that my internet will fail once every hour, that the dog snoring was like having an unwelcome old man in the house for days on end… I’m going to have all those things.

But what if I am overjoyed that the internet worked at least 45 minutes out of every hour, plenty of time for an episode of my favorite sailing vlog, perhaps even two videos, and that the fifteen minutes without internet made it possible for my husband and I to discuss the whales feeding in the cold Pacific waters yards from the boat.

My dog Cagney gave me the perfect excuse to stand in the backyard and throw a tennis ball and watch her run delightedly after it, ears flapping, rear end slightly drifting to the left.

I’ve had time to think. To consider Don Quixote, my snoring dog, the lovely moments that come with talking to someone who thinks just like I do.

It’s not been easy to work from home. To think of all the ways we can avoid having to go to the store. How using one less square of toilet paper will reap dividends or at least clean those dividends later.

(Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash)

I’m going to keep my perspective oriented toward the positive.

The internet has been running over an hour now. The snoring has become a soft white noise. I had a whole pack of toilet paper in my classroom (the soft stuff for my students’ noses) which is now at home with us. We’re set for a least another two weeks.

Aw, life is grand in the old house tonight.

In search of inspiration

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Some days are more inspiring than others. I find myself sitting at my computer with several tasks to do.

  • write monthly blog post
  • post to Facebook, reply, repost, respond
  • get lost on Twitter, reply, retweet, comment, post
  • write 1,000 to 3,000 words to current book
  • review edit back from the editor
  • redraft book back from beta readers
  • outline: next book in current series, new series, previous series, new idea
  • approve cover layout/changes, final
  • come up with idea for a cover (I once told my cover artist I had no ideas for the cover I was booking with her, and ten minutes later, I emailed her and said, “I have the whole series’ covers figured out.”)
  • create ads
  • write monthly newsletter

It’s a never ending search for inspiration that is worth writing and (please God make it so) worth reading. I look at every action in the course of the day as a possible relevant topic

A dog with slippage is not a happy dog.
  • trim the dogs foot hair (otherwise she is constantly fighting slippage on the wood and linoleum floors)
  • trim dogs toenails
  • sort mail
  • clean kitchen
  • fold clothes
  • be a passenger in the car
  • shower
  • dry hair
  • put on makeup
  • treadmill, free weights, stair steps, walk

I rarely get a zone-out moment to myself. Sometimes my brain demands I cease all efforts to create. So I grade homework, essays, etc. It really doesn’t replenish the creative stores. Actual time to just vegetate does not exist in my world.

Wisteria, right?

What would I do if I could?

  • sit on a porch and listen to the rain fall
  • walk up and down the pathway in our backyard along the carport and admire the wisteria blooming
  • cloud staring (I wouldn’t even look for shapes, just stare.)
  • put on nail polish and take my sweet perfectionist time at it
  • learn how to whistle
  • learn how to play my ocarina
  • learn how to tie all sorts of knots
  • make that t-shirt quilt (my husband then would stop asking what I’m planning for that stack of clothes building up in our daughter’s abandoned bedroom.)
  • sand my face with my micro-abrasion tool
  • dust the entire house
  • try different eye makeup styles (there are tenth graders whose eye-shadow looks ten times better than mine. I’ve been asked if I even wear makeup.)
  • read all the writing-related books I have
  • read more fiction
  • complain (I don’t even have time to complain. Big moment here. I think I just complained. I need more practice. I’m not sure that’s an actual valid complaint.)
  • vacuum the entire house, even the walls and ceiling. (You know when you have a baby, and someone gives you the plaque that says its okay not to clean the dishes, dust, fold clothes, etc., because you have a baby. Authors just plug writing into the baby slot — have a book to write.)

Back to inspiration.

I’m big on questioning. Whatever the “mindless” activity I’m involved in, questioning has always been my go-to “slide into what to write next” approach. I just keep asking questions until the character or narrator or my “planning” brain starts answering.

You’ve caught yourself doing it, I’m sure.

A question comes to mind because someone said something, others answered, and you didn’t get your chance. So you self-question. “When did you graduate high school? Have you ever broken a bone? Where did you meet your spouse/special someone? If you could be any age, what would it be?

And there you are telling your story even if nobody is listening. The only difference for me is I’m listening and at some point, I say, “Hold that thought,” and sit down at the computer and write.

Just me and the humans

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It’s been a rough two weeks without Lacey.

Just me and the humans.

I’ve been watching the house and yard the best I can, but it’s not as fun as it used to be.

I was caught under the house again. Lacey used to cover for me, and I’d be back out before they noticed. But not anymore.

I haven’t slept much. I have to run sentry through the whole house at night now. Lacey always took the kitchen, dining room and back hall.

Don’t even get me started with the day duty.

I check constantly to see if they’re pulling into the driveway yet. I don’t want them thinking I’m sleeping on the job. And they need to know someone’s still around to love them. I used to sleep right up until the door creaked and make a big deal out of getting up for them.

I have to cuddle with the humans a lot. They say her name frequently and tell me how great I am. They’re not handling losing Lacey well.

And the grooming! I think I got brushed twice this week.

I haven’t figured out how she got lost yet.

We’ve one less bed in the house. They took it out when Lacey got real quiet sleeping there.

But we still have Lacey’s favorite bed. I sleep in it a lot. It smells like her. It’s not as comfortable as my princess pea bed (two beds atop each other. Another story for another time. It’s my favorite, but not right now).

I used to nap on Lacey’s bed, but only just to rile her and only for a minute or two. Soon as I got off, she got on. Made me grin. I don’t grin much any more.

We have a ramp down the back stairs now. It went in for Lacey because she was having trouble going up and down the stairs her last week. They want me to use it, but I’ve been getting these treats, and I think they’ve helped my hips a lot. I don’t need that dumb ramp. I use it when they ask me though since they went to all that trouble, and Lacey didn’t use it for very long.

I miss Lacey. She was goofy. Never watched where she was swinging that thick tail of hers. Worried about everything, I mean everything. The list is miles long, I tell you.

But outside, she made sure everything was safe, and I could just sniff around. I have to watch every corner now.

We had three kittens hanging out in the backyard for a few days. Lacey would have dealt with them in a minute: no visiting kittens. Me, it takes me three days to send them packing. I’m such a softy.

I like weekends the best because the humans stay home, and I can hang out with them. I try to catch up on my sleep.

Sometimes I curl up at the bottom of the stairs at night. It’s not comfortable or close to the heater, but I can hear them upstairs sleeping. That helps. Also, I see both sides of the house from there.

It’s weird not having to bark when they ask Lacey questions. “You want water?” She’d stare intently. “Ready for dinner?” She’d bounce. “Outside?” Prancing feet.

Me. “You want water?” Bark! (damn straight! [I put my nose in the bone-dry bowl just to make sure they get the message.]) “Ready for dinner?” Bark! (No, I’m standing by this empty bowl for my health.) “Outside?” Bark! Bark! (We’re going to burst if you wait even one more second. Open the door!)

I don’t have to wait for anything now. Everything is done just when I need it. Kinda strange, but thoughtful, too.

Just me and the humans. I love ’em. But it was better with Lacey here.

She left, and I’m left behind.

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I hadn’t thought I would write about this, but I have written about my dogs in posts before as metaphors for writing and life in general. So this is about Lacey who left us recently.

She was strong, energetic, cheerful, loving, and we thought she was going to be around for years yet. A perpetual puppy.

She left us last week. It was sudden.

Lacey

Those words don’t cover the loss. Lacey ceased to be in our house. She doesn’t greet me each morning at the bottom of the stares. She doesn’t watch me from her bed look ridiculous going up and down the same two steps for five minutes. (Part of my exercise routine, separate from my walk in the backyard several times a day to keep the two girls out of trouble which she considered a perfectly normal and appropriate activity for me.)

We have a back hall in our old house. A narrow, nine feet of hallway to the back door. We make our girls wait on the rug there a few minutes when their feet are wet before they can come into the main house.

Sometimes we forget they’re waiting. Or they think we do.

Lacey has (sorry had) this crazy rumble in her throat, like she’s gargling, when she wanted to be released from the back hall, when she thought we might have forgotten after the first twenty seconds of her wait. She’d peek around the corner of the doorway and rumble/gargle, gurgle, what have you.

It always made me laugh and was far from getting me to release her because it was such a soft, grumbly sound, too enjoyable to listen to.

She didn’t like to bark. Strange, I know. A dog that is embarrassed to bark. But she didn’t like it. So when she wanted to go outside for, you know, the necessary stuff, she’d sort of dance and hop around in the back hall. My office is just past that hallway. I would hear her prancing and hopping.

She’s a Labrador, seriously. Cagney barks. Lacey would prance.

Of course, I would ask as if it was all a mystery to me, “Whatcha doing there?” She’d jump and prance some more.

So I’d head for the hall, stand there at the end and ask again. “Whatcha doing there?” And she’d do that chest to the floor thing and leap into the air. I’d ask, “Do you want to go out?” And she’d leap even higher.

She’s not here to do that anymore.

I don’t like that.

I miss her.

Lacey wasn’t the most confident dog. She tended to skate on linoleum floors like she was on ice, her toes curled so her nails were the only thing in contact with the smooth floor. Veterinary offices always have linoleum. Have you ever seen a Labrador sprawl, all four legs sliding out from under her, repeatedly, with no sense of why it is happening to her?

Cagney would look at her like she was too embarrassing to acknowledge they lived in the same house and trotted the same backyard.

Lacey had all the gumption she needed to take on a stranger or another big dog, but otherwise, she was always in need of attention. She would fall in love with a perfect stranger if they would just rub her ears. She once looked like she was going to take out the kennel lady. (We had to leave town, and the girls couldn’t join us.) I told the woman to rub her ears. They’d be fine.

I just had to say that I miss Lacey. I can’t hear her grumble/gurgle anymore.

I wish I could.

Along the road: views off the tandem

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I love riding our tandem bicycle, and my favorite reason for stopping for a break is to look around for a picture of nature at its most honest and imaginative.

My husband is very accommodating. “I’ll shout (because it’s hard for him to hear with the helmet on, the breeze rushing past, the hum of the bike tires on the road, and the fact that he sits in front of me leaning forward), “That would make a great picture!”

Even the bike needs a rest now and then.

He’ll stop the bike and hold it upright while I get off, reaching for my phone in my jersey’s back pocket.

Trees and water always draw my attention. I look at them with eyes seeking something other than what another person would call just a tree, a flower, a stone, the curve of a stream.

I look for an inimitable perspective, that sudden shift when, with just the slightest prod, fanciful creatures emerge from the mundane.

Look at this tree. There’s an Ent viewed from the side (Please don’t admit you don’t know what one is. Look it up. Hint: Tolkien) standing there with his mouth open, his eyes, rather far back, bulging in surprise. What does he see across the road that startles him so?

A very surprised Ent.

How about this snake in the water? I know they grow big around here, but that’s a serpent of mighty proportions. Yes, yes, I know it could be the edge of a stone ledge under water, but do you see that snake slithering down the stream?!

Snake in the river.

I ride our bike for the joy of spending time with my husband, for the guarantee of returning home with my legs finding it a challenge even to swing over the saddle and step from the bike, and for the jolt it gives my imagination.

My husband plays this game with me: “You rode well today.”

“How far.”

“Not too, far.”

“How far?”

“Less than yesterday (which had me complaining yesterday).”

“And how much less than yesterday.”

“A couple miles.”

My legs starting to remember how to walk, I say, “Oh, well, that explains why I was able to get off the bike without my glutes giving way to a spasm.”

We’ve been unable to ride together for about a month due to the need to replace important components on our tandem. I should say, I’ve been off the bike. He’s been training for track racing on his track bike. I’m the one needing to get my muscles back in shape.

It’s amazing how just four weeks make a world of difference. I have been doing exercises to stay strong, but you really need to be on a bike to keep the muscle memory. So 32 miles the first day out was rather taxing. And 29.6 a day later was pushing my back-pedaled limit.

I don’t really mind. The loggy feel of my legs is a pleasure. Almost. It is the views and the companionship and the opportunity to just daydream that makes that feeling welcome. It reminds me all day of the images I saw. They stew in my mind, generating stories. What will I see tomorrow? Can my legs take that extra two miles?

What’s the activity that feeds your muse or satisfies your mind’s eye?