Common Courtesy Crusader!

I'm hearing a lot about niche blogging. Pick a topic. Stick with it. Increase your readership. Blah blah blah.

But I gave it some thought and I wondered, what subject could I consistently blog about?

The animals, duh, but that only goes so far.

Writing, of course, but who I am to consider myself enough of an expert to offer others advice? I'm arrogant, but come on. At least publish something before you tout advice. (And by publish something, I mean have something published by a respectable publisher. Not your blog. Not your self-published POS novel. Not some short story published on an online journal with a readership of five. Don't even get me started on some of the idiots who consider themselves published authors. "I got another story accepted by an online publication no one has ever heard of!" It's like expecting people to be awed that you got into community college. Dude - they let everyone in.)

Relationships, because mine is perfect and I think everyone could learn a few lessons from Tim and I? Again with the arrogance.

Fashion? Those who are familiar with how I dress and what my hair looks like are laughing themselves out of their chairs right now.

Money? Ditto the above statement regarding my finances.

So what could I niche blog about?

Then it hit me.

I have an extraordinary amount of pet peeves:

Elevator etiquette.

Whiners.

Bad Drivers.

Here's the niche part. I would say about 90% of my pet peeves deal with a lack of common human courtesy.

Please. Thank you. You're welcome. Let me get the door for you. Is it so effing hard??

So, while I am not overturning the entire theme of this blog (which is whatever the hell I want it to be on any given day) I am instating a regular edition to the blog entitled The Common Courtesy Crusader! It's my way of attempting to make the world a better place.

Today I performed my first official act as The Common Courtesy Crusader. Allow me to tell you about it:

Prime space in my office parking garage is limited. If you do not arrive in the parking garage before 9AM, you are pretty much screwed and forced to park on the roof where your car bakes in the sun all day.

Also in my office parking garage there are several parking spaces next to concrete walls and dividers. (No, I have never scraped one trying to fit into a tight space. Never. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

I completely understand the desire to err on the side of safety so that you do not scrape these concrete structures, as I have never done.

However, erring so far on the side of safety that you take up two parking spots? Every day? Selfish! Rude! Discourteous!

Most mornings I just stew about it, and contemplate keying the offending car, but today I decided to take polite action. I left a note. A nice, polite, courteous note.

Dear Mitsubishi Owner:

Perhaps you are unaware that you take up two parking spaces on a rather regular basis, and that by doing so you lessen the already limited available space in the parking garage? I'm sure you would not do something so inconsiderate purposely. Therefore I am bringing this issue to your attention in the hopes that in the future, you will manage to park in one space, and one space only.

No I didn't sign it, do you think I have a death wish?

We Got A Wii

Yes. Tim and I have joined the masses. We finally purchased a Wii, after 2 weeks of trying to find one.

Here's how most of my conversations went with salespeople over the past 2 weeks:

[Polite and bubbly sales associate]: Thank you for calling Best Buy, this is Polite and Bubbly Sales Associate, how may I help you today?

[Me. Friendly and Equally Polite]: Hi! Do you have any Wii in stock?

[Instantly Grumpy and Irritated Sales Associate]: No.

I had about 12 of those conversations yesterday, and then this happened:

[Polite and bubbly sales associate]: Thank you for calling GameStop, where we buy, sell and trade used games,this is Polite and Bubbly Sales Associate, how may I help you today?

[Me. Friendly and Equally Polite]: Hi! Do you have any Wii in stock?

[Still Polite and Bubbly Sales Associate]: I have one left.

[Me. Shocked and Gasping for air]: Seriously? Can you hold it for me?

[Hesitant and Wary Sales Associate]: For how long?

[Me. Still Shocked and Gasping for air]: I can be there in 15 minutes.

So we have a Wii. And it might just ruin my life. Between 7PM last night and 1AM this morning, Tim and I played about 80 frames of bowling, 9 holes of golf and roughly 502 tennis matches.

Here's what I should accomplish today: (Keep in mind that some of these things should have been accomplished yesterday.)

• Laundry



• Increase word count on WIP



• Post first chapter of WIP on WB



• Work on website



• Yoga



• Make dinner
  

Here's what I will probably accomplish today:

502 more tennis matches and a few boxing rounds.

God Bless America.

Drug Experimentation

It's not what you think.

The drugs I am experimenting with are all legal and over the counter.

And my experimentation was completely accidental.

But it should be interesting to see just how NyQuil and Starbucks react to one another.

I'd be willing to bet that the NyQuil wins, but you just never know.

I would like to share with you something that threw me for a loop tonight, and is currently making me hope that the NyQuil kicks in real fast.

As I was working on the novel tonight, I started to describe something that I knew I had described fairly well in an earlier piece of work. I went searching through my old files (because I keep everything) and successfully found the particular description I was looking for.

Here's the disturbing part:

The description was in the first few paragraphs of an 81 page, 42,000 word piece of work.

Why is this disturbing?

Because it was crap. No, seriously. I'm not even a little kidding. C-R-A-P, crap.

So, right now I am having a small crisis of faith, wondering who the hell I am kidding that I can write, and publish, a novel.

Oh NyQuil, take me away.

Some Cool, Random Stuff

It has been a fairly uneventful Saturday, which I suppose I should be grateful for. However, it does leave me with very little to kick start the creative juices, so I will just share with you a few random things that I think are pretty neat.

I have discovered my perfect background music for writing: The Harry Potter movie soundtracks. So far I have downloaded the music from Sorcerer's Stone, Prisoner of Azkaban, and Goblet of Fire. The soundtracks are all completely instrumental and soothing and a great source of inspiration: The scores vividly evoke the movies, which perfectly call to mind Rowling's stories, and J.K. Rowling is among my top five writing idols. The other four are Neil Gaiman, Nora Roberts, Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes.

I opened an account with Twitter: http://twitter.com/NanciBlock. I plan to use this solely to track the word count of my current works in progress (WIP). Hopefully it will be a great motivator to keep me writing. Feel free to follow me. I'm considering opening an account on Facebook or MySpace, but I really can't get past the idea that these sites are places for teenagers and horny adults. Plus, I'm not sure I want any of those skeletons from my past crawling out of the closet.

A certain literary agent who shall remain nameless (since he did in fact get Google alerted that his name was on my blog, and I don't want to do it again and give him the impression that I am cyber-stalking him) left a comment on yesterday's post. It may seem silly, but I'm a little starstruck. Let me give you a little analogy. Cool literary agent is to wannabe writer as Miley Cyrus is to teen girls across America. (Hmm...I wonder if Miley Cyrus is going to read my blog now.)

In addition, two more people whom I don't know have commented on the blog. I'm loving it. I get so excited every time there's a new post or a new follower! I'm such a loser. But, umm, keep passing me around, OK? It's my goal to become a Blog of Note and entertain the masses. Note: I will take topic suggestions!

I am designing a website to become the companion of the Pickle Tree. It'll be pretty sparse to start, only containing some info about me, the two stories I've had published, and a photo album, etc., but I will welcome all your feedback.

There are no Wii game systems anywhere to be found in South Florida. And the people at Best Buy, GameStop, Circuit City and FYE get really mad when you call and ask. Except for Jonathan at the Parkland GameStop. He was really nice to me. Thanks Jonathan.

Glade flameless candles are very cool.

Be Amazed, Be Astounded, Be Happy For Me

I've been doing an awful lot of writing, and that is why The Pickle Tree has been awfully neglected.

It will be one of my New Year's resolutions to learn how to manage both, but it the meantime...be happy for me.

The bestseller may be on its way. (Of course, you are all in it, so I will be publishing under an alias and you will never know it happened, but I'll know and be rich and that's all that matters.)

Sweet Sanctuary

Last week I wrote a post complaining about my lack of time to write - "Reality continues to get in the way of my life."

I figured something out, and it is actually pretty ironic since my best friend's mother is a retired librarian, and my mother is a retired library clerk: The library is a great place to get stuff done.

My biggest problem, as noted in the original post, is that I am too easily distracted by other things that I find equally important to writing. I would commit to sitting and writing, I would write for 20 minutes or so, and then the distractions would enter my consciousness. Read for a few minutes to clear my head, chat with Tim, play with the cats, see what's happening on The Bridge, call Liz, surf the net.

The library removes all of those distractions in a way that I don't feel guilty about ignoring them.

I find myself a desk, set up my laptop and my iPod (the only interference I allow, because it is soothing) and I WRITE. After the 20 minute mark, when I start to fidget, I have nowhere to go. So I fidget, bit my nails, sigh a few times, look around, become self-conscious that people are looking at me, and go back to writing. The hours between writing bouts has been shortened to minutes. It's pretty cool.

I do have Internet access - if I feel like braving the public pool of computers, and sitting next to someone questionable who is more than likely going to watch whatever I choose to do on the Internet. Therefore, I have disciplined myself to wait until I get home to surf.

Oh, sweet sanctuary of the Southwest County Regional West Boca Raton Public Library (mouthful - and it does not compare to the reverence and calming environment of the BPL, which I miss terribly.) My mother and Susan Martin should be so proud.

September Sundays in South Florida

I love Sundays, and Mondays are a great way to remind me how much I love Sundays.

On Friday afternoon, I called an emergency meeting for 9:00AM this morning. That was genius.

(Background for those of you who need it: I am a project manager for a specialized marketing company. Our latest and greatest product (the one I am in charge of) is scheduled to launch on September 25th. At 4:45PM on Friday, I found out THAT WAS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Hence the panic button, hence the emergency meeting. Yeah, hence!)

I usually get to work between 8:00AM and 8:30AM (Starbucks line length has a great deal to do with this window) but of course, on the day I SCHEDULED A MEETING I have trouble getting there by 9:00AM. The day only got more hectic from there. The company who skimps on salary is willing to "SPARE NO EXPENSE" to meet the deadline of the 25th. I was tempted to tell them that an extra $100k in my pocket could cause the deadline to be met early, but really? (Gee, I hope no one I work with has stumbled across my blog. That would suck.)

So, this afternoon I took sometime to relive my perfect Sunday. Here's what it was like:

Wake up at 9:00AM. Feed yowling cats who act as though I have withheld food for weeks. Straighten up mess hubby has left from night before. (OCD, remember?) Check in with my long-lost friends the Internet, the Writing Bridge and Gmail. Contemplate writing. Go to Starbucks instead. Write roughly 500 words. Wander my apartment looking for something to clean, straighten, or otherwise perfect. Write 500 more words. Do some jumping jacks to release excess energy. Write 500 more words. Attempt to play with cats who now want nothing to do with me since they have been fed. Mock cats for not having opposable thumbs. Wake up Tim. Wait the hour it takes him to rouse and get ready to go to the beach. (He's worse than a woman.) Scrounge for meter change. Pack the cooler. Argue over who gets to use the "good" towel. Drive to the beach. Apply sunscreen, SPF 1.2 million. Get sunburn. (it's the only color I turn). Attempt skimboarding lesson #2. Injure heel. Fall on ass fifty some-odd times. Get laughed at by 15 year-old boy wearing shell necklace. (Seriously, were shell necklaces ever cool?) Mock 15 year-old boy wearing shell necklace. Get yelled at by Tim for mocking a 15 year-old. (He is convinced I am going to get him shot one day. Who hides a gun in swim trunks, I ask.) Pack up beach paraphernalia. Drive home. Take requisite post-beach nap. Cook dinner. Feed yowling cats who act as though I have withheld food for weeks. Check in with my long-lost friends the Internet, the Writing Bridge and Gmail. Contemplate writing. Go to Starbucks instead. (Yes, I drink way too much Starbucks.) Write roughly 500 words. Wander my apartment looking for something to clean, straighten, or otherwise perfect. Play with hedgehog. Play with snake. Play with cats. Play with husband. Go to bed. Get up because I forgot to prepare an agenda for the 9:00AM meeting that I SCHEDULED. Genius.

Crap, Now I Have To Be Interesting...And Productive

Click To View Larger Comic

On Friday I decided to share The Pickle Tree with my family and friends.

I therefore created for myself one of the largest catch 22's I have ever had to deal with. (As a side note, my husband despises the term "catch 22" because what does it mean, really? I thought of him as I started writing this post, and actually interrupted myself to look up the definition of catch 22. Very insightful, as I believe I have been using it wrong for years. Inconceivable.)

Anyway, the catch 22. Hopefully there is now more than one person reading my blog on a regular basis. (Me being the one person. Yes, I count. I read as I write.) Hopefully my family and friends will find the blog at least mildly entertaining and pass it on to other family members and friends of their own. I could have my own little blog following, how cool is that?

I can't really find much of a problem with that except for...the title of this blog. Now I'm probably expected to be interesting on a fairly regular basis, and anyone who knows me is aware that my life is far from interesting on a regular basis. And when it is interesting, I don't want my parents reading about it because it usually involves alcohol, curse words and sex. So there's half of my catch 22.

The other half is that I sent out the blog as a way of letting my family and friends know that "Hey, I've finally decided to stop wallowing in the fact that I don't have a college degree and get back into this writing thing."

This means that I have painted myself into a productive corner. My family and friends now expect me to be writing all the time. Yes, I have already received phone calls asking "So what have you written today?" Which really is fine, and invited, since apparently my motivation levels are linked to my irritation levels. It would explain why I get my best ideas in the car, as I am frequently a victim of road rage.

So welcome, family and friends, thanks for being here. Thanks for the support. I apologize to those of you who would enjoy reading about alcohol, curse words and sex. Call my father and make him promise to never read this blog and you'll get yourself some way more interesting topics.