Plan Ahead

My husband has a lot of sayings he uses as a painter. My children quote them all the time. One he uses a lot is "Plan your work and then work your plan." When painting a room or an entire house, there is an order to things so everything comes out looking good. You also want to work efficiently, painting everything that is one color first before you clean brushes and start another color.

I always like to say I don't set goals. I make plans. Sometimes those plans are written down somewhere though usually they're sitting somewhere in my mind at all times. I know what order I need to do things in to get everything done. For instance, I had to get this blog ready for today, so I wrote it Tuesday night before I went to work on my newest WIP. This had to be done today. The WIP is still in the infancy stages and there's no deadline on it so far. In the efficiency department, I usually outline what I want to include in a post and open windows to all the links I'm going to use before I start typing. For my WIP, I always have a scene outlined in my head or on paper before I open the document. Much more efficient than staring at a blank page wondering what is coming next.

My painter family also has a term called, negative painting. Negative painting occurs when you mess up and have to back track or redo. Serious negative painting occurs when someone spills the paint or steps in the paint tray. Other examples are using the wrong paint, leaning against a wall that is still wet or bumping the roller pad against the ceiling or trim when you're rolling the walls. Negative writing is when you keep redoing a scene or continuously edit the first draft so you never get to the end. I believe in pushing forward through the doubts and crappy first draft. All can be fixed in the second and third drafts.

"Inspiration exists, but it must find you working." Pablo Picasso

Enough painting analogies.  On the TV front, I'm loving the new season of Fargo and Blindspot is keeping me interested as is Limitless. I gave up on Minority Report already and might give up on the Bastard Executioner. Doctor Who was good last week after what I thought was a weak start to the season in the previous episodes. Once Upon a Time has been terrific. That show made Peter Pan the bad guy two seasons ago and this time around it's King Arthur being the nasty. I love the creative spin on fairy tales they do.

I know we all have people we enjoy following on Facebook and Twitter but I'd like to recommend an entertaining writer who makes me laugh every day on Twitter. Brain Rathbone writes epic fantasy and he says so many clever things on Twitter. Check him out if you want to add some humor to your social media.

"Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain." Edward de Bono

Still ten days to get your short story in for the IWSG anthology. Speaking of epic, this venture is going to rock.

Have any sayings to fit the way you approach your work? Have you done any negative writing lately? Any show capturing your interest this season? Who makes you laugh on social media?