{"id":167,"date":"2015-10-27T18:56:49","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T23:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/?p=167"},"modified":"2015-10-27T18:56:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T23:56:49","slug":"surviving-the-writing-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/surviving-the-writing-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Surviving the writing life"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the week of work I have had, I was worried that the final resting place I would be writing about for Charli Mill’s writing challenge<\/a> this week would be my own. In the span of a week, I have edited one thesis and two academic books totaling just over\u00a01,000 pages. I also had an eye appointment, went blind from dilation for more hours than I care to admit, and found out my prescription has changed by three steps. No wonder I can’t see anything (first time my vision has changed in nearly twenty years).<\/p>\n

But I survived (okay, I still have a few pages to get done, but I had to post something before Charli closed out this week’s challenge)…and just in time for National Novel Writing Month<\/a>. Luckily I have a few days between the two, when I get to see my brother and his family, get to drive south for a lunch with a friend, and get to finish proofreading a book for someone very close to me (who thank goodness doesn’t have a way to get to my neck of the Great Plains or she would throttle me for being so late).<\/p>\n

God, I love this writing life! (shouted with all sincerity)<\/p>\n

Back to the final resting place prompt — so apropos for the end of Halloween, when the nights are getting longer, the trees are growing taller and spookier in the evening shadows, and every noise outside is magnified by a billion thanks to all those leaves crunching underfoot. I could write a bazillion 99-word stories for this prompt (and that’s no exaggeration!), but I thought I would go with something a little more rustic and not too gruesome.<\/p>\n

Lessons from the Dog<\/span><\/p>\n

The dog sat, mimicking Nipper\u2019s iconic RCA pose, albeit for something much more dog-worthy than a phonograph. His tail swished through freshly yellowed leaves.<\/span><\/p>\n

The earth behind the shed was nicely softened. The shed\u2019s faded red walls marked the edge of the withered field and the start of no man\u2019s land. The blade of the shovel struck deep.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three more shovel thrusts and the squirrel was laid to rest between last week\u2019s opossum and the woodchuck family. The dog watched, patient as the hole disappeared.<\/span><\/p>\n

He blinked twice, then raced out into the field. A new toy was waiting.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the week of work I have had, I was worried that the final resting place I would be writing about for Charli Mill’s writing challenge this week would be my own. In the span of a week, I have edited one thesis and two academic books totaling just over\u00a01,000 pages. I also had an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Surviving the writing life #flashfiction","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,13,31,16,35,36,6],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-carrot-ranch","tag-contest","tag-dog","tag-flash-fiction","tag-halloween","tag-trees","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4WVQN-2H","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cjaiferry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}