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M. Darusha Wehm

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hack

Procrastination Pumpkin

October 18, 2012

photo credit: Darwin Bell via photopin

A couple of weeks ago I had a writing breakthrough and it’s all because of a magic pumpkin. This is its story.

(By “magic”, I mean merely special by dint of being used in service of solving a non-pumpkin problem. It wasn’t really magic. Magic isn’t real.)

I had been working on cobbling together the first real draft of a novel I’ve been fighting with on and off for about five years. I’ve descibed it before as wrestling with a kraken – as soon as I got a grip on one part of it, another would rear up out of the vast depths to smack me upside the head. It was, needless to say, a procrastinator’s dream.

I’d been diligently hacking away at the tentacles for a few weeks; forcing myself to face the beast each day, even if it were only for a few minutes. I was getting somewhere, but not fast. The end was not in sight.

Then one day, on a completely unrelated mission, I bought a big pumpkin. I like pumpkin a lot, particularly in baking, and here in New Zealand they don’t sell pureed pumpkin in a can like they do in North America. They sell actual pumpkins. So, hankering for pumpkin spice goodness (and having promised my friend a pumpkin birthday cake), I had to chop and cook and puree this bad boy.

Now, I like to cook and baking is okay, but I hate food prep. Chopping vegetables is boring, annoying work and trying to get into a pumpkin isn’t torture but it sure does suck. But here I was. This pumpkin wasn’t going to chop itself into pieces. Whatcha gonna do?

So there I was, staring at this pumpkin, and it’s just sitting there like a gourd. I did not want to chop up this pumpkin. In fact, I wanted specifically to not chop up this pumpkin. No problem. I’m a good procrastinator. So I just openend up that file with the kraken in it, which looked a hell of a lot better compared to this pumpkin. And a hour later that kraken was nothing more than calamari fixins.

By then I was so high on achievement that dealing with the pumpkin seemed like no big deal, either. And the cake that it turned into was awesome.

So take that pumpkin-krakens.

photo by astrobri

Filed Under: News Tagged With: hack, procrastination, writing

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The Qubit Zirconium

Hugely imaginative, powerfully written and imbued with an innate sense of fun and enjoyment that makes everything sparkle with energy…

— The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer

Alien detectives stumble across a mystery that could tear apart their patchwork planet, the Crucible, in this riotous science fantasy novel from the smash hit game, KeyForge

Wibble & Pplimz, the Crucible’s most unusual private investigators, must set off from their office in Hub City to clear the name of a former client. Along the way, their investigation broadens from a simple accusation of theft to include a missing person, a potential murder, and a highly unusual gem.

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Free Stories

Fame

"Pupusas?" The woman's nasal voice reached Randall at the back of the bus before he saw her pushing her way down the aisle. He could smell the warm, raw meat smell of his own sweaty body, and his … Read More... about Fame

The Foreigner

I slip into the fake-leather seat, and look at my watch. I have about an hour before the shareholders' meeting, but I have to stop by the day care first, so I want to make this snappy. I've found that … Read More... about The Foreigner

Fire. Escape. – Sample

This is a novelette that explores a different aspect of the world of the Andersson Dexter novels. You can get the complete ebook for free when you sign up to my mailing list. It all started with the … Read More... about Fire. Escape. – Sample

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