Writing inspiration: random thoughts

Gwinne's post on writing had me thinking about the process (and also made me buy the Air & Light & Time & Space book), so here are some random thoughts:

• It's still June! You still have a lot of summer left--really! That's it for the inspiration part of this post.
• Doing all the home improvement stuff was a little like having a baby: your brain refuses to do much else for a time since the process is all-consuming. I'm slowing coming out of this and was able to send a long-promised revision today 
• I don't know why this is, but if I promised to write something and don't want to write it, I have a really, really hard time even looking at it. This last instance took me about 2 months to write a couple thousand words that I could have knocked off in a week or two if I wanted to do it--but I didn't. It was in the middle of the house disruption, but still: there's a lesson here about promising things you're not enthusiastic about doing. 
• All those authors who talk about "write first--walk later" must live in a much cooler climate than Northern Clime, where if you don't get out first thing in the morning, the temperature is in the 90s before you know it. Also, who can sit still first thing in the morning? 
• This month is an experiment in writing without access to books--well, access to most of my books, anyway, since they're still in boxes except for two bookcases full.  How far can you go and how much can you write without a lot of books, using just online articles & books & information and what you already know? Time will tell. 

For Bardiac, who asked to see the floor results (will disappear)

Bardiac had asked to see the results of the hardwood flooring installation, so here goes! I'll take this pic down in a day or two. The flooring is red oak, with a clear finish.

*Poof*--all gone!

June: home upgrades but work downgrades

For the past month I (we) have been doing some much-needed house refreshing--hardwood floors in place of 20-year-old carpet, some new carpet--which involves packing & carrying more books and furniture than I even thought I had. This has gone on for weeks, and it involved lots of trips to Goodwill & other charities to donate furniture & books that I should be able to take out of the library if needed, Marie Kondo-style.

It also confirmed my medieval (?) view of the world. I read or heard one time that in medieval times the peasantry observed mass from behind a lattice screen (medievalists, this may not be true, but hear me out) because they had only a primitive set of beliefs in which simple transgressions brought immediate punishment or because (more likely) the nobility didn't want to rub elbows with them. My behind-the-lattice primitive set of beliefs was borne out in this process of home refreshing because for everything I dared to order that might be considered hubristic (new carpet, hardwood in place of worn and stained carpet) something else in the house of equal value broke and had to be replaced or repaired (furnace, water damage). My wanting a decent-looking house was discovered by the Powers Above, and absolution came only in the form of having to literally pay the price for things that broke. Random events joined by post hoc reasoning or sound retribution for the sin of house pride? You decide.  

Hours spent in moving, cleaning, and talking to repair people has played havoc with my writing, of course, so more about that anon.