Saving Your Sanity (In Five Easy Steps)

It started with Halloween. 

Or rather, thinking about Halloween and a story I’d written years ago and how that story would be the perfect Halloween post on my personal blog. Yep, I’d share that story with the whole wide web world. Except for one teensy problem: I had no idea what the name of the story was. 

Okay, Cathy, I said to myself, no need to make yourself crazy. You can figure this out. So off I went to my website to search through the archives of the blog. Because back in the day, I had a feature called “Tooting My Horn” Tuesday and just a key word or two (in this case, fairy tales) would send me right to the story. So step one, I searched my blog and Eureka! There it was! A story called “Not Exactly Innocent” and I confidently clicked on the link to take me to the story. 

Except the link didn’t work. Okay, no problem. In fact, it confirmed that the story was no longer on the web which was necessary if I were to run the story on my blog. But just to be sure (and thanks to all the fine things I’d said about my story and such, I now knew the name of the webzine), I moved on to step two, and found the webzine. Yay! 

But all my searching on the webzine did not produce the story. It did, however, bring up my name and a poem I’d also written that had appeared in this webzine. And so step three, I had to read this lovely and erudite essay by a fine fellow who said all kinds of smart things about my poem. I had no idea I’d said all that in my simple poem but who am I to argue with a college professor? Except as smart as I now felt, I still did not have my story. 

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why, with title in hand, I didn’t just search amongst my many files? And though I’m loathe to admit it, I will tell you the sad truth. Namely, that the story, along with hundreds of other stories, were on my old laptop, the laptop I called Precious. And back when I switched from Precious (who had seen far better days) to my shiny new laptop, I used a flash drive and downloaded all of the files from Precious. But here I was at step four, kicking myself and pulling out my hair, because I did not know where that precious (pun intended) flash drive was. And I had never quite got round to downloading all my stories on this laptop. 

Is there any worse feeling, dear writers, than to suddenly realize that your story may never be read again because you were such a nincompoop? My sanity was teetering until…was it possible? Would my brilliant idea work? 

I opened up my email—the same email that I have had for lo, these many years—and I clicked on my Sent folder. And step five, I searched for the webzine and the story title and thanks to the wonders of amazing technology, there it was! Way back in 2009, the story! Attached to the email when I’d submitted it! 

And I smiled, friends, as I read that story. It was truly a perfect story for Halloween and since it was no longer on the webzine, I could put it on my blog for a funny, creepy post. Except… 

It really was such a good story, and I thought, Cathy C. Hall, you know what? You could sell that story again. 

So I’ll let you know how that goes. And in the meantime, think long and hard before tossing away an old email. Laptops can fry, links can die, and flash drives can disappear. But an email is (thank goodness!) forever.

~Cathy C. Hall

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4 comments Cathy C. Hall, email, file retrieval

Spring Cleaning, Writer Style

I’m a big believer in spring cleaning.

That is, I believe in the concept. The major scrub-till-you-drop cleaning itself, not so much. Still, I enjoy that starting-fresh-feeling that comes along with even the littlest bit of tossing, organizing, and spiffing up. So I apply my version of spring cleaning to my writing business, and when I’m done, I feel pretty good. And I bet you will, too.

The Tossing

If I don’t do anything else at the end of a long winter (and yes, I live in the South so maybe it’s just two and a half months, but it feels at least three months), I toss all the winter clothes I didn’t wear. The too-short jeans, the shoes that pinch my toes, the chartreuse coat that was a bargain but makes me look sallow. If I didn’t wear it for an entire season (so let’s say five months because yeah, fall can be brisk in the South, y’all), then it’s got to go. I also toss the much-loved clothes that have seen better days because let’s face it. One more spin in the washing machine, and I’ve got nothing but rags.

Gosh, it’s exhilarating to have all that space in closets and drawers! And you can have that kind of space in your inbox, your bookshelves, and your files. If you have an email that you haven’t even opened in four months, delete it. If your bookshelves are sagging with outdated reference books (Welcome to Windows XL anyone?), donate them. And those files crammed with clippings on arts and crafts ideas for your kidders (the last of whom just graduated college)? Shred ‘em.

The Organizing

Come spring, I like to tackle those spots that tend to get jam-packed and messy, like the linen closet or the garage or the junk drawer. In all these years, I don’t quite understand why these spots get so messy. I just know that when I see pollen, my brain says, “HOW did all this stuff get in such disarray in my garage (or linen closet or junk drawer)?”

Okay, I don’t say disarray. You can imagine what I really say. The point is, it’s stuff I need so I get to work organizing. And we writers run into this sort of disarray all the time. Which ultimately ends up costing us lots more of our precious writing time. So take an afternoon, put on some music you love, and organize those notes for your novel/memoir/non-fiction picture book. Attack your desk and don’t give up till you can actually see your desk. And those emails that you have read and are truly important but still languishing in your inbox? Organize files in your inbox—and be specific!—so that those emails can be filed and retrieved easily when you need them.

And let me just say this about the junk drawer: I don’t organize it; I don’t open it unless I want to put junk in it. I suggest you do the same.

The Spiffing Up

Now it’s time for a little spiffing up, like maybe a new coat of paint on a door or washing the dust off the baseboards or planting annuals in the flower bed. I’m sure lots of people actually do that sort of thing. But after the tossing and the organizing, I’m flat wore out. About all I can muster is the spiffing up of my writer stuff.

So I’ll get new ink cartridges for the printer so I can have color pages again. And I’ll replace all my fancy gel fine point pens because I like writing in my journal in purples, greens, and light blue. How you spiff up your writing business is up to you, as long as it makes you smile. Because the spiffing up part of spring cleaning comes last and that’s definitely something to smile about!

~ Cathy C. Hall

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9 comments Cathy C. Hall, email, organization skills, spring cleaning, writers' spring cleaning

The Off-the-Grid Payoff

Staying at my parents’ house, which is now my house, led to quite the writing epiphany.

You see, I’m too cheap to pay for an Internet connection (and lots of other stuff that may not be apropos to this discussion) while I was there. So I was forced to make a few changes.

I checked my email on my phone, once in the morning and once in the evening, because I didn’t want to eat up my data. I kept to necessary business only (like writing, friends, and family). And found out that I have about two minutes of necessary business every day. What the heck?

I skipped all my social media because, as I may have mentioned, I was pinching pennies. And found out that any important news with friends and family and sometimes, even writing, ended up coming to me in a text. Yeah, apparently, I don’t really need social media.

And finally, even with all the cleaning and work I had to do at the house, I still found a couple of hours almost every day to write. A couple of hours! Daily!

Flash forward to back-at-home—with my always-available and magical Internet—and bam! The epiphany smacked me upside the head. Namely, that I waste an awful lot of time on the interwebs. I mean, it truly is awful the hours I can piddle away on cruising around social media, reading funny emails, and looking up stuff just because I can. (How old is Jane Fonda? Where is that Bigfoot museum in Georgia? What are those little green people in Guam called?) And all that writing time I found the month before? Gone with the wind-ernet.

If I’m being honest, I had an inkling that I wasted a lot of time out there on the Internet. Being off the grid for a couple of weeks just proved it in a pretty resounding way. But an epiphany—even one that smacks you upside the head—is only as good as the will to make changes.

So to keep from wasting time in my inbox, I still check my email on my phone, twice a day, to see if there’s any business I need to deal with immediately. Later in the day, I dump all those other emails, zip-zip-zip! Okay, I might read one funny email, but seriously, an exercise that I might’ve spent more than hour on has become a ten-minute routine.

As for social media, and I’m mostly talking about Facebook here, I’ve struggled a wee bit. It appears that I’m incapable of policing myself once I jump into those social waters. I have to have some kind of social life, after all, and as a writer I have an innate and highly developed sense of curiosity.

So, yeah. The best I’ve been able to do is limit the times I check in, which for now, is twice a day. Limiting the time I spend there is my goal; I don’t always achieve it, but hey. It’s a work-in-progress.

Speaking of which, my latest WIP is coming along nicely. I’m finding more and more time to work on writing as I spend less and less time on the Internet. And I challenge you to try going off-the-grid this summer, if only for a week or two. You might be stunned at how much you accomplish when you walk away from wi-fi!

(P.S. Jane’s 79. Seventy-nine! How is that possible? The Bigfoot museum is in Gilmer County and the next time I’m near Blue Ridge, you know I’m going there. And the little elves in Guam are called duende. You do not want to mess with them.)

Cathy C. Hall is a kidlit author and humor writer. She's weaning herself off the Internet but that doesn't mean you won't find her words, popping up here and there. You may even find her hanging out with Bigfoot (which looks a lot like her doxie, Libby).

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12 comments Cathy C. Hall, email, Facebook, internet, off-the-grid, social media