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 |  Now my story begins in nineteen-dickety-two... |
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2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me, Threatening the life it belongs to And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud And I know that you'll use them, however you want to -Breathe(2AM), Anna Nalick ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** For Daddy, the real world gets fainter and fainter every day. -Homer Simpson Homer, Please Don't Hammer 'Em ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
If we shadows have offended,/Think but this, and all is mended,/That you have but slumber'd here/While these visions did appear./And this weak and idle theme,/No more yielding but a dream... -William Shakespeare, A Midsummer's Night Dream |
| This whole blog world on WDC thing hasn't been the same for me recently. Not that I intend to stop. As I think I've stated before, if a blog is just a online journal for me to keep, than I'll treat it as such. It's good to have a journal and I stopped keeping a handwritten one. If anything is too personal, I just set the entry to private. Not that I have too many of those. And if no one finds my ramblings interesting, so be it. Anyway... Since before I went to Florida, I don't think I've quite been myself. Or maybe I've returned to myself. Maybe that's not the right term. I just haven't been as gung-ho over my writing like I was before. At first, it was the daunting task of creating a query letter and synopsis that stalled me. I still haven't done them, but now I keep getting the feeling that Chasing could be better, but I have no idea how. I've been seriously considering making Moon the first novel I submit. It does go along with the agent Janet Reid's theory that an author is better off submitting the third novel. Then again Moon isn't nearly as complex as the previous two stories I've written. Now, if I finish Moon, do the revisions needed and I start thinking that it could be better like I do Chasing, than I'm going to think I have some issues and I'm just going to submit it anyway. I don't think that's the case. I think I was pushing Chasing because I want to be published. Maybe Chasing isn't ready yet. *shrug* Another frustrating thing is that I have all these ideas for stories, but obviously it would be too much to work on them all at the same time. Maybe others could do it. Maybe if I didn't have to have a 'traditional' job and had more time I could do it. I think I could be putting too much stress on myself to get my writing done. I keep thinking others are judging me for not making any out-worldly progress, but they're probably not. And if they are, I shouldn't care. As long as I know I'm making progress that's what matters. I've become so bad at questioning my instincts, I'm not even sure what they sound like anymore. But typing this all out, I think it's becoming clearer. |
| I thought this may be of some interest to those out there. However, DO NOT FOLLOW THE LINK IN THE CHART! I didn't even follow it, because I know damn well what it is and many of you may too. For those curious cats out there, you've been warned. http://www.cracked.com/funny-1889-punctuation/ |
| Benn is sick again. I was rather worried about him last night, so I took half the night off. At first, he thought it was the strep came back. The nurse he works with gave him some antibiotics. Then he looked up the H1N1 symptoms. He thought he might have that especially since the cats are sick and I guess felines can catch the H1N1. But he won't go to the doctor and I haven't taken a cat into the vet yet. Benn is feeling better today, so hopefully the trend continues. I'm still marveling at how I'm not getting sick *knock on wood* I did get a cat sneeze right into an eye. I'm not completely satisfied that my eye has remained unscathed. Ever since I came back from lunch, patrons have been annoying the piss out of me. It's not the normal irritations. These are unusual ones. I'm in a rather good mood so it's not like I'm focusing on the annoying behavior. It's just all the crazies and douches decided to come out tonight. It is two weeks before finals, so that may account for some of it. I think that's all I have this evening. |
| I haven't done any writing this Thanksgiving weekend, but I'm beginning to accept that I'm just not going to get anything done Thanksgiving weekend ever. Well, stuff I want to get done anyway. I do have the rest of tonight, but I don't think I'll be doing anything productive... Well, I may attempt knitting again. I haven't tried that in a few weeks. I started to teach myself, and have only mastered putting the yarn on the needle, I have yet to master the first stitch. I think it would be easier to have a person teaching me, but my in-laws are the only people I know that knit and I don't see them often. Anyway, I've been off work since Tuesday night. Wednesday I wanted to finish my editing of Chasing, but that didn't happen. I had to get groceries and do other errands and that just threw me off. Of course Thursday was Thanksgiving. Which was fine. Benn and I pretty much just sat on the love seat while everyone talked around us. I did show Dad my pictures of Florida. He seemed to enjoy that. Didn't seem to agree with me that all the little lizards running around were cute, but that's okay.  Dad decided to purchase our Christmas gifts early, by asking what we want and just taking us to get. Stuff that he wouldn't have to worry about picking out something for us we didn't like. My sister is wanting new furniture. For Benn and I we needed a new couch or a new TV and decided on the TV. So today, I went back to my parents and we got a TV that was on sell at Wal-Mart. Blah. I really don't like Wal-Mart but at least the one in my hometown looks better than the one here. And hey, free TV, can't complain too much. The TV we have now works fine, but won't work with the PS3. And it's still one of the wide tube ones, but has a flat screen. It was when the flat screens were just coming out and some companies just put a flat screen on the tube TVs which don't work out so well. If there's something in the corners of the picture, you can't see it. For instance, the ticker on CNN. My God, that TV is huge. I didn't realize how huge until I got it home. This has also inspired Benn to rearrange the living room so I haven't touched it. I'm not sure we have a place for it, because I really don't think it's going to fit the top of the entertainment center. Yesterday, we just stayed home and totally vegged out. That's good to do from time to time. It's back to work for me tomorrow. I always consider taking off the whole week of Thanksgiving off. Maybe I should have. Oh well, more time off in a few more weeks anyway. |
| I'm hoping this will make me feel better or help me decide what to do with myself. I'm rather pissed. Due to our schedules, Benn and I only get one day off a week together. For the last month, if not longer, he's always doing something on that day. Now one of those days, we both went to the same party, no big deal really. But for the most part, I've hardly been seeing him during our time off. He's been helping Wallie and Lindsey remodel their house for most of the weekends. Tonight, though he went to play in some Live Action Role Playing(LARP) in Indianapolis. Gregg wanted him to come out since we expressed interest in Triumph last summer. Why didn't I go? Well, for starters it runs from 5PM til 10AM Sunday morning. I have to be at work at 9:30AM. Even if we didn't stay for the second part of the game, the first part doesn't end until midnight. Then there's the fact, they're playing the game in the middle of corn field maze when it's freezing outside. Most of our LARPs in college did occur outside, but it was around a college campus with many places to find shelter when needed. I think I maybe getting too old to spend many hours in the freezing cold. Then the thing costs $15. So for both of us it would have been $30. Not to mention the gas and perhaps other expenses such as eating out. Since he hasn't been around, we haven't gone to the grocery store like we normally do and I think all the eating out is tearing up my stomach. God only knows what it's doing to the rest of my body. What makes it worse is that my anxiety is getting slightly worse. I think it's because this was the time of year that it got really bad last year. So now I'm associating all the sights and sounds of this time of year with freaking out. What it does mean is I'm more reluctant to go out by myself. Thus, part of the reason I haven't gone and got groceries on my own. Of course, it's always hard for me to buy things for one person. Anyway, it's left me home by myself tonight. I don't know what to do with myself. I can't seem to concentrate on my story. I don't want to play those stupid little games on Facebook. I don't feel like watching or reading anything. I tried to play Rock Band, but lost interest in that. I took a nap and a part of me just wants to sleep. Then parts of me are warm and cold at the same time and I just can't get comfortable. This whole situation is making me depressed and angry. He knows I'm upset. He just feels he needs to go because Gregg wants him to. He said we could do something later. He told me to call into work tomorrow. But I won't do that on a Sunday. It's hard to get a hold of someone to cover on such a short notice. If it was any other day of the week, it's not a problem. I'm not going to call in so I can gallivant in a cold corn field. I don't think Benn really expected me to. I'm not going to keep requesting Sundays off so that I can stay out late Saturday night. Which is what I did Halloween weekend. I'm just so ticked. I don't know what to do with myself. |
| Seeing how Thanksgiving is next week, it's probably not a big surprise I've been thinking about my family. I often feel a twinge of guilt for not calling them often, but they are just as capable as picking up the phone as I am. I also have nothing interesting to tell them. When I hear other people talking to their parents or hear about their conversations, I'm often surprised about the things they're talking about. Just because I would never talk to my parents about the things they do. In some ways, when I'm around my parents, I go back to being a teenager again. Today, I've been thinking about why I don't have conversations with my parents like most people. Politics and religion I refuse to get into. Even though Dad and I have similar views on politics, I sometimes cringe at the things he says. For instance, last year before the election he said he was voting for Obama he just hoped he wasn't a secret Muslim. *sigh* I read a Peanuts comic strip when I was little where Linus said you never talk about three things, Politics, Religion and The Great Pumpkin. Ever since, I have tried to avoid those topics with most people. Not so much the Great Pumpkin thing though.  I'm afraid with this whole 2012 nonsense, Mom is going to be on encouraging me to go church again. She did stop when my current job doesn't allow me to go to church. Unless I converted to Catholicism, Judaism or Islam. Which I don' t think would help the situation. Yeah, I avoid those topics like the plague. I think another reason I don't talk to my parents about things is because they never really took an interest in anything I did. I've said before that I was involved in theater in high school and Dad hated that I was. He was scared that I was going to try to become an actress, but I never had such a desire. It was a hobby and nothing more. I don't think Dad ever came to a play I was in. Mom did, but she never said much about it. There were no words of encouragement that I recall. One semester, we did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. I was excited because I figured Mom would love it because it was a Bible story. The only thing she said to me after seeing it was, "What does Elvis have to do with it?" *another sigh* Dad wanted me to do sports, especially basketball. He hoped I would be able to get a full ride college scholarship by playing sports. I was so sucky, I didn't even make any teams. Except the 'B' team in 6th grade. I often think that if my sister had been a boy maybe Dad wouldn't have expected me to make up for his mistakes. I have no clue what my mother wanted me to do besides go to church. My grandmother wanted me to be like the girls at church, but if she had known what they were really like, I'm sure she would have changed her mind. As for things like movies, books, and television, we just don't have the same tastes. Dad is still surprised that I watch cartoons. He still thinks cartoons are a kids only thing. I often wonder what he would think if he actually watched adult cartoons. When I was younger, I liked unicorns and Dad held on to that for a long time as it was the only thing he knew I liked. I've kinda outgrown that. I was never a big movie watcher and when they ask me about recent movies, I've never seen them. So I have nothing to discuss. The last time I spent an evening with them, they were watching that Howey Mandel show where he pranks people. Yeah, moments were funny, but it's just not my thing. I never discuss my writing or that I am writing and plan on publishing. I know if I'm lucky enough to get published one day, I will, but until then, I'd rather not talk about it with them. For about as long as I remember, I kept notebooks and journals. One time I was keeping one for an English class when I was a Freshmen in high school. Back then, I wrote a lot of poetry in addition to other journal type entries. My parents found this notebook and read through it. I was so embarrassed. One of the poems was about my frustrations about never having a boyfriend. They didn't mention it, and just said the poetry was good. However, one of my entries was about my uncle and his live-in girlfriend. Being raised as I was at the time, I thought it was morally wrong to live together without being married. I don't remember why I wrote it, but it was what caught my Dad's attention. He suggested that I throw away that entry in case my uncle should find it. To me, that was a horrendous suggestion. I don't see where my uncle would ever come across my journal unless directed to it. After that, I made damn sure that my writing was secreted away. (I still have it, by the way.) It was such a violation, I guess I never felt comfortable talking about my writing with them. In fact, I can't think of anyone I know that I physically see day to day that I would be comfortable sharing my writing with. Thus, part of the reason I joined WDC. I gave my husband a chance, but he's really afraid to read my stuff. I think he's afraid he won't like it. One day, after I was in college, Dad wanted me to come along with him to take my sister back to her college. On the way back, the subject of what I really wanted to do came up and I did say I wanted to write. He said something to effect that it would be nice, but not realistic. So, once again, I saw that as a huge rejection of what I was so I never brought it up again. Maybe I should. Maybe I'm too easily cowed by my Dad. My sister seems to be the only one who can openly disagree with him and not get on his shit list. Then there's the matter that I write fantasy. Something that Dad seemed to encourage when I was younger. But he doesn't like the stuff unless there's child-like bent to it. So, you know, Wizard of Oz fine but something like say, Underworld, not so much. Underworld is a strange example, but I can't think of a good fantasy movie that isn't for kids. I don't know, Hollywood seems to mess up fantasy movie wise. Anyway, Dad still might be okay with it, but Mom would just look at how what I write doesn't promote Christianity or it's supposed values. She did read something I wrote, and wondered why I couldn't write more Christian things. *yet another sigh* It does give me another 'why didn't you' moment from my mother. I was in kindergarten and we were making 'cookbooks'. The teacher asked us to tell her how we thought something was made. Most of the kids picked pizza. But I picked grape jelly. Mom used to make it when I was little. When Mom got the cookbook she said I got the recipe wrong and asked why I didn't choose something like the other kids did. For years, I worried someone would really try to use my recipe and be disappointed. As the years passed, I realized we weren't really making a cookbook. We were just doing something cute, which enraged me all the more. Surely, Mom realized it wasn't a real cookbook. She just wanted me to conform. Maybe not, but that's the message I got. Now my sister, all I have to do is get her talking and she'll do all of it. I know my family loves me. I just don't feel comfortable talking to them. I don't see them very often even though they only live about 30-45 mins. away. If we had kids, I'm sure it would be different to some degree. I could call them and tell them all about what their grandchildren did. I think Mom would make an effort to come see me if there was a grandchild. As the years go by, it's growing more and more unlikely that we're going to have kids. My parents still live in the town I grew up in and they could call and tell me all the news of the area. But there's nothing here they'd want to know about. I get upset when they don't tell me someone died, married, divorced, got pregnant etc. Not that anyone really cared to hear about some of the things that warped me, but it was on my mind so I attempted to get it out. |
| As I've said before, Strawberry Moon was started years ago when I was in high school. Two things have always stayed the same, the heroine and the villain. Now the villain was inspired by a musical director that is active in the local theater around here. He was asked to help out with a musical at the high school. His name was Darrell. I won't go through the warped thought process that angsty teenager me went through to see this guy as dastardly. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice guy and he wrote a very nice letter to editor about the high school drama students when the musical was over. Anyway, he flipped a switch in my mind that gave me a scene that ended up inspiring the story. Although, that scene has been cut from this version. The first name I gave him was Dan then he became Dominick and Dominick he stayed. But whilst writing this story in high school, we let our imaginations run wild and we would get freaked out by coincidences that seemed to occur with what I was writing and what was going on in reality. What was weird is that when I started working here, there's a guy who looks a lot like Darrell. And his name is Darren.  Darren is really nice and one of those people I think I could become friends with if we saw each other more. Tonight, I was working on Moon and I'm currently writing this really creepy scene with Dominick and the heroine and Darren comes down to check out a book. Not only is a small part of me freaking out, but I'm also a little embarrassed and I couldn't quit look him in the eye. Geez, why can't I run into more people that look like and remind me of Irial? I realize only a few people are going to get that comment. |
| Although, my Sunday is not yet over, so perhaps I shouldn't being making such a statement yet. But for work, not bad. I got some work done on my story, and I could continue, but I think I need to take a break. It feels like I've been taking too many breaks lately. I admit, I use Facebook way too much. There's just so many distracting things on there. For me, it's the games you can play on it. I'm not really staying connected to anyone who I'm currently not connected with on a daily basis. Does that make sense? I think so. Although, interesting tidbits creep up form time to time. But I posted two more chapters of Moon today. I'm also in the process of rereading Chasing to see if I feel it's fit for submission. That's not going as fast I'd like. But Thanksgiving Break is coming soon and if I don't finish it by then I'll use one of my days off to do so. Benn purchased Rock Band for me this weekend with a microphone. We just had a microphone at the party we last went to and I thought it'd be fun to just sing. I did that last night and I had a lot of fun. I'm a terrible singer and wouldn't subject anyone to my singing, so doing it at home where only my cats and occasionally my husband can hear me suits me just fine. I find if I sing higher I do better in the game, but I think it sounds horrible and it does stretch my limited range. I find that really odd that singing higher I better hit the notes. It goes by hitting the notes not octaves. I guess I don't know how to make my voice change octaves. Or maybe it can't. Anyway, I'm having fun with it, that's what's important. It's going to become another distraction most likely. I think that's all the sharing I have in me for the moment. |
| After the initial rush of writing down a scene is finished and I go back to edit, I usually have a lot to fill in because I'm a heavy dialogue writer. There are times I have to pause and think about what a character is feeling or thinking and attempt to experience it myself so I can properly show what is going on. Sometimes, I'm just at a loss for various reasons. But tonight as I was doing this I thought about purposely upsetting someone to see how they react for the purpose of just observing them, so I could write about my upset character. Then I thought it was a hilarious idea to do this all time. Just play with people's emotions so I can observe them when I want to. Oh, sure, I could just wait and let it happen naturally or put in a DVD or something, but this way would just be so much more fun. But that would make me a lonely, lonely jerk ass. Funny concept though. Might make a good story. |
| It was after we got the kittens and before I went to Florida when we got rid of the box springs on our bed. It had broken and it wasn't doing us any favors by sleeping on it. So, we trashed the box springs and just put the mattress on the floor. We started to save up to buy a new bed as the mattress was getting kinda shotty anyway. Benn surprised me by buying a new bed while I was at work yesterday. He's now in charge of the finances and I'm really happy with that. Anyway, he bought new sheets and such and it was so blissful to sleep in it last night. Everything was so soft and comfy. It's amazing how comfortable a bed is when you really haven't been sleeping in one for months. He put the new bed in the room we originally had when we moved in. So, I'm kinda hoping maybe he'll have moved everything around by the time I get home. One can dream... So, the new bed has been the forefront of my thoughts today. In other news, no has noticed my new haircut or have failed to mention it. That's always a little disheartening. When I see some has had their hair cut, I usually say something even if I don't care for it. I don't tell them I don't like it, but I at least let them know I noticed. *sigh* I suppose it will be more disheartening if I dye my hair and no one notices. |
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