Running and waiting at the same time

I am waiting for packages. One package is more shipping supplies. I (probably) won’t run out before the supplies arrive, but I’ll be more comfortable once I’m re-stocked. I’m also waiting for two separate shirt re-orders. One was supposed to arrive last Friday. The other won’t arrive until next week. I’m also waiting for at least three packages from Amazon.com. These contain presents. One of them is actually a re-order of an item that I originally ordered used in November. The item never arrived and so I re-ordered a new copy. At least the Netflix movies arrived today on schedule. All those packages clogging the system just for me. No wonder this is the busiest shipping season of the year. It has been so busy that USPS.com has been down sporadically over the last two days. This affects me because stamps.com has to query USPS for cost calculations. It seems even shipping from home requires some waiting at this time of year.

At the same time that I’m doing all this postal waiting, my mind is running. For some reason my subconscious has decided to dredge up a pile of unfinished story ideas and throw them into my conscious thought. This set my brain bubbling with possibilities for possible combinations. It also required me to google Tam Lin and sent me searching through my writers forum in search of advice on how to plot. Characters and feelings come very easily to me, but I keep writing things that are more vignettes than actual stories. So now I’m seeking to fill my brain with some plotting theory in the hopes that some of it will collide with the story fragments to birth new drafts that may grow up to be finished stories some day. Add to that stew, the fact that Howard was doing some thrilling/emotional plotting this morning which I got to read and then talk over with him. His story makes me want to chew my nails even though I know how it ends. What with all the reading and thinking, my brain is now tired. It is tired, but it can not stop. I’m going to have to find something mind numbing to do. Something that allows my brain to follow the train of someone else’s story rather than working hard at creation.