Micro Fiction Monday: Twenty Degrees and Sunny

Twenty degrees. Sunny. Clear blue skies. A breeze that neither slaps you in the face with sticky humidity, nor pricks your skin with goosebumps. It is the absolute perfection of a day.

And I’m stuck in this hellhole.

In this building, air conditioning is nonexistent. I mean, that’s not entirely accurate—the dining room has air conditioning. The dining room, in fact, is quite pleasant. It’s the kitchen that makes you feel like you’re trapped in the depths of the devil’s lair, at his mercy for eight hours on end.

If someone offers you a job as a line cook, turn it down. You’re better off with the waitstaff, with all the screaming babies and picky eaters it comes with.

I’ve worked here for five years now, which is just long enough to realize how much the job sucks, but also long enough to form bonds with the people who are actually tough enough to last this long in a kitchen job. (Kitchen jobs, I’ve learned, are not for the faint of heart.) It’s long enough to adapt to the closing routine like second nature--learning to flip all the switches and wash all the dishes within five minutes of closing time, dragging the last bag of garbage with me on my way out the door.

Now, the sun has already gone down, and the air cooled from its perfect daytime temperature. I pull a sweater over my head and fling the garbage into the dumpster out back. Before I reach my car, I look up.

The moon is shining, and the stars are out. The cool air is a welcome change from the humidity of my day, and the sky remains as clear as it had been during the day.

I sigh. It’s the absolute perfection of an evening.

Micro Fiction Monday: Saturday Mornings

Saturday mornings can be divided into one of two categories: either they are the Holy Grail of the weekend, or they are the spawns of Satan’s children. There is no in between.

The morning falls under the latter when I’m pulled from sleep by shrill beeping, with fewer hours spent in dreamland than I would have liked. When the commute nearly puts me to sleep, and the day feels like it should be over before it’s hardly even begun.

The former appears in the peak of summer, when the sun begins to shine through the trees, but the coolness of night still lingers in the air. When the dew clings to the grass and sticks to my feet, and returning to bed is the last thing on my mind. Without the fog of fatigue clouding my brain, the colours around me are more vibrant, shocking, beautiful.  The cold is welcome, not resented.

Put simply, Saturday mornings are infinitely more enjoyable when you have nowhere to be, nothing to do, and at least eight hours of sleep under your pillow.

My 3 Productivity Tips (BEDS #3)

I'm not an expert at productivity. In fact, I still really suck at it most of the time. But in my quest to become a functioning member of society, I've discovered a few things that help me out along the way.

(Disclaimer: like most of the life lessons I share, this is best used by people pursuing creative endeavors, like myself. But that doesn't mean you law students and medical students can't benefit from them, too!)

TIP #1: Get your ass out of bed, already.

I'm not a morning person. I've never been a morning person. But if I wake up fairly early, eat breakfast and shower right off the bat, it makes a big difference. If I were to sleep until noon every day, and spend half of my day in pyjamas...well, I won't feel like being productive. The day quickly turns from "I'm-gonna-write-20-blog-posts-and-a-novel" into "I'm-gonna-watch-all-ten-seasons-of-Friends-in-one-sitting". I think we can all agree that the former is much better than the latter, yes?

TIP #2: Alternate.

Yes, we have our creative-worky things to do. But we also all have our fair share of real-life-worky things to do--things like going to the bank, cleaning, calling people about stuff, etc etc. I've tried putting the creative-worky things first, and the real-life-worky things first, but I get the most done with the best sense of balance if I alternate between the two. (That way I can be sure that I'm not neglecting one complete half of my life. This happens more often than you'd think.)

TIP #3: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T WRITE OFF THE REST OF YOUR DAY!

Do you know how many times I've looked at the clock, noticed that it's already 2 pm, and just shrugged it off and continued on with my Sims game? Do you realize how much I could have gotten done if I had said, "Huh, I should start being productive" instead of, "Eh I've wasted this much time, no sense in turning it around now"??

If you haven't gotten anything done and it's 2 pm, START WORKING. If you haven't gotten anything done and it's 5 pm, START WORKING. I don't care if it's 10 pm and you're going to bed in an hour--one hour or even just ten minutes of productivity is ten more minutes of progress that you didn't have yesterday.

DON'T BE LIKE ME. PLEASE, GOD, DON'T BE LIKE ME! I am a terrible role model.

BONUS TIP: Make time for you!

You don't have to be productive 24/7. For one, it's impossible. For two, it's exhausting.

Pick a day and schedule some time for you. Is there a new show on Netflix you want to check out? Watch it all in one sitting! Need to catch up on your reading for the year? Pick up that book and finish it today! Do it without fear or guilt of not having been productive--because that's the point. I like to call it a "Procrastination Day". It's like excusing yourself from working.

I mean, come on, what's better than doing nothing and not feeling guilty for it?


I hope these tips will help you make the most of your time! What are your BEST productivity tips? Share them down below!

Until later,

- Justyne

Cramming (NaNo Prep, Week 3)

When I say that I'm cramming, I normally mean that I've put off studying for a test too long and am cramming all of the information needed into my head in a measly 24 hours. (Which is, well, the situation for just about every single test I've ever taken ever.) This time, though, I'm talking about NaNoWriMo, during which the word has an entirely different meaning. (Okay, more like same meaning, but sliiiightly different concept.)

Your goal? 50,000 words in 30 days. Not an easy task--I only made it to about 14k my first year. (Granted, I wrote more than that the final day of my second year to win, but I digress.) I mean, your life is crammed enough as it is--school, work, chores, relationships, and that pesky thing called sleep that we apparently need--so finding time to squeeze in 50,000 words is definitely a challenge. But that's part of the fun, right?

When it comes down to it, finding enough time to write your novel isn't nearly as hard as it seems. It helps when you realize that all 50,000 words don't have to be written in one day. (Shocker, I know.) If you keep on pace throughout the month, you only have to write approximately 1,667 words a day. I know, I know, it still seems like a lot...so break it up a little more.

This is where the cramming comes in. Whenever you find yourself with free time--be it a minute, or five, or sixty--use that time to write. Before your class or shift at work starts, during breaks, on the bus, just before you go to bed, whenever. If you have enough time to browse through your news feed on Facebook, you have enough time to write. You have to cram writing wherever you can, in whatever tiny little increments of time that you have. At the time, it may not seem like you're accomplishing much--100 words here, 200 there--but trust me, they add up. By the end of the day, you could even find yourself with more words than the daily goal calls for.

If your schedule is already stretched pretty thin and you still find yourself struggling to reach the word count, try getting rid of some things. Make a list of the tiny little things you can give up for the month--Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, whatever--and try your very very hardest to stay away from them for the month. (I won't even try and fool you by saying that you'll never turn to them--procrastination runs abound during November, and odds are that you'll end up browsing through your various social media feeds at some point. But just try your best, that's all I'm asking.) If there's anything at all that you can leave until December--including recording your favourite television shows and binge watching them in celebration after you've typed your 50,000th word--leave it. It can wait. (Unless it's a bill payment, those can't wait. Please don't make those wait.)

Similarly, getting as much done as possible while it's still October is just as useful. Book any hair or dentist or doctor's appointments, catch up on your e-mails, get as much studying or homework done as you physically can before November 1st rears its ugly head. I would also suggest using the few days leading up to NaNoWriMo to sit back and relax. (Or play Sims furiously for hours, as you all know I will be doing.) Get those various books and video games and movies out of your system, so you won't be as likely to turn to them when you're suppose to be writing.

And last, but not least, remember that life happens. If, for whatever reason, you can't make your daily, or even the monthly goal, don't beat yourself up over it. If November is a busy month for you and you don't feel you have time to write a novel, alter the goal a little bit. Make it lower--or even higher, if you're an ambitious little jerk and think you can do better. The point of NaNoWriMo is to write your story, however much of it you can. Even if you only write 100 words, that's still 100 more words than you started off with.

We have two weeks left, guys. Get ready.

Until later,

- Justyne