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Bare and uncensored personal expression. Beware!!! |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** "This is pretty much what journals are all about, at least to me. I knew as I wrote them that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me." --- Colleen Wainwright "Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it." --- David Sedaris "Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment." --- Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey "In giving of myself onto these pages every day I allow myself to write regardless of the depth and meaning. I share myself with others without fear of recrimination for these are my thoughts, my feelings and my very being, and there are non who's opinion of me matters more than my own." --- Rebecca Laffar-Smith   The Writer's Round-About |
| Ok, I'm really starting to find doing the DWC and my blog separately a little strange. Because in my DWC entry I'm pretty much just rambling like I do in my blog and often having just rambled to a strict word count on a topic I'm inspired to get into a full on rant about it and so could continue the topic over here. Today my entry was about a concept I have for my NaNo novel. But in a way I feel like I've written an entry about that and would just be repeating myself to continue it here. Or the other extreme if I continue here I won't have more to continue the topic in my DWC book. The DWC book was intended to discuss my NaNo plotting so I feel kind of obliged to keep the topic over there. Which leaves me wondering what to write here of course. Not a lot going on with me today. Kaylie started back at school and it was lovely to fall back into routine again. I still didn't sleep well last night but having to get up at a reasonable hour kind of pumped up my energy for the day. I felt a little drained in the early afternoon and retreated to bed with a book after picking her up from school. By dinner time I was feeling refreshed although I hadn't napped. I did manage to get through to the airconditioner company and they've approved my service request. Vincent, the guy who installed it will probably call me sometime over the next week. My mother keeps suggesting that maybe they originally tinkered with it so he'd have a reason to come back. Talk about an egotistical concept. I mean sure he was flirting with me the day he installed it but I'm hardly worth doing something like that. lol Still, he was pretty cute. I won't begrudge having him in my home again if he's the one who does the repair. *chuckles* But mostly having the airconditioner fixed is the biggest priority. I wanted to use it in the last couple of days and couldn't. Feeling tight finances and not having a functional airconditioner to make me feel like I made a good investment is NOT a good combination. When it works I'll feel better about having spent my rainy day funds to get it installed now instead of waiting till I'd saved up extra savings. I found myself hungry a lot today and I'm craving chocolate, again. I don't know what causes chocolate cravings. Maybe it's a lack of sex. *chuckles wickedly* Or maybe more related to the fact that at the moment I'm NOTICING the lack of it because there is someone I can picture myself with that I can't have. Of course he doesn't need to know about my daydreams but it does make me wonder if my craving for chocolate is related to the desire for things I can't have. Isn't it strange how the things that are forbidden or at least, not at hand, hold more appeal then what is right in front of you? I have a number of guys who are very interested and I'm totally not interested. They play a hard game and it's very good for my ego but I've made it clear that I'm not holding out hopes for their company to become a reality. They're fun to chat with but that's as far as I'd take it. Then the one guy I would take it further with won't go beyond friendship. I can understand the motivation for that though. We've been friends for years and he's been with me through a lot of the stuff that happens in life. I saw the beginning and end of my marriage, the birth of both my children, the ups and downs and chaos of the adult years of my life. The craziest thing is we've chatted most days for months, we've had months where we barely chatted at all, we've grown to know each other well, we've talked on the phone a time or two, but we've never met. *sighs* Love is a very strange emotion. There really is no control. Other emotions you can temper, control, rein in. Anger, sadness, joy, etc. they can all be controlled by willpower but love, that's something that just is, or isn't. I wonder sometimes if what I feel is just a confusion because he's so good a friend and happens to be male. I'd love him as a brother no matter what, but I compare the other men I meet to him and no one seems to compare at all. I truely adore him, he's my best friend, and he's smart because we would risk a great deal if we did take it any further than that. *blushes* Ok, enough rambling about my love life, or lack thereof. *chuckles* See the problem with having talked out my NaNo in DWC? It makes me resort to reality in here instead of writing. That's not a good thing. I'm tempted to wipe this blog. Obliterate it. But hell, who really cares about my tiny little corner of the world. I was talking earlier about celebrities. I've got this really abnoxious friend who has this kind of nasty humor that brings you down. In fact I don't know why I befriend him. I suppose it's because I'm too darn nice to tell him where to go and he's one of those guys whose infatuated with me so it's like that point boosts my ego and the other side of him deflates it which basically keeps me even. Anyway, he was being sarcastic about how I'll be a celeb one day and it's like yeah, whatever. But now it's got me thinking. I mean if I were to get famous for my writing I'd be one of those reclusive hermit famous writers. Intriguing because I don't do the whole out in the public very often etc. Then I got thinking about how uttely mortifying it might be if when I'm famous some brilliant journalist (perhaps someone reading this right this minute who becomes a journalist) stumbles across my blog and decides to gobble it up as content for the slag mags about me. Gosh there is a lot of drivel in here that would be a gold mind for those things if I was anyone worth talking about. lol I comfort myself with the fact that I'm a nobody. *grins* I can say what I want about my sex life or lack thereof and it doesn't matter. I could go adopt a baby from a third world country, or get caught drink driving, and no one would care. But if I were say Madonna, or Mel Gibson doing those things it makes the front page. *sighs* I guess this sort of stuff is one very good reason to have a fear of success. Imagine having to live your life with the pressure that EVERYTHING about you is news. *grimaces* Ok, talk about taking off on tangents. It's late. I better get to sleep. *waves* Have a great day all.  |
| *chuckles* I've always wanted to do that. lol But truly, sorry for stealing the lime light since I don't have much to say today. I'm tired and I'm grumpy because I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. At the moment I have to wait up but hopefully not for too much longer. My mother is stopping by shortly to pick up some paper work for Krching. My printer has been running hot all day and my ink cartridges are feeling the strain. I wanted to order more but can't afford to at the moment without putting myself on the line again and I've been tight for a few weeks now. I still haven't managed to get the air conditioner fixed either. The company called me early in the morning. One problem with them being an Eastern States business, they call at 6AM which is their start of business and I usually don't answer the phone until after 8AM. Especially since I've been having trouble sleeping and so at that hour I'm dead to the world. Every time I call back I get nothing. With Kaylie going back to school tomorrow I might set the alarm early and if they don't call I'll call them at that hour. My finances at the moment have me a little concerned. I over streched by getting the airconditioner install after the bathroom renovations. I should have waited a few more months till I had the savings to spare rather than dipping into my comfort level. Now I'm sitting on the line and feeling the strain. I've spent over a year with my finances in control and freedom to move that now while I'm still ahead and on top of things the lack of flexability feels scarier then when I was married and we were constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul. Isn't it strange that having learnt how to manage my finances, knowing I'm on the line rather than having my buffer I feel less secure then when I lived like this day in and day out for years? It's made me aware that I need to pick up some more paid work at the moment. I've done a lot of volunteer work but not a lot of paid. With Christmas swiftly approaching it's important to get back to my comfort zone. Still, thankfully I have investments that make me less concerned about my situation. The house for example has gone up in value again so if I needed to I could up the equity in that. That would be a very last resort however because each time I raise that I get more in debt and the repayments and term of the loan creep up. I still have those shares and Krching to fall back on however and there is good money in both of those so I'm doing ok. Wow, talk about rambling on and on. lol Thankfully while I've felt pretty stressed I feel better having considered the situation. My bank balance might be showing a scary figure when I think of how lont that money has to last me but I only need to look a little closer to realise that I've got money in places other than my bank and I'm doing ok. Thankfully I also have a supportive family so if I did need some fast cash it's always there. Thinking of money however makes me wonder what excess I have around the house I could get rid of to make some cash. You know there is always something you could sell that you don't need. Usually I just give my stuff to charity because I'm too lazy to try and sell it but I have a few things that could turn a profit. And old TV and VCR that have been sitting there for months because I haven't had the chance to load them into a car and take them down the road to the local Salvation Army store. Bags of toys that I've weeded out of my kids toyboxes since they were overflowing that was ready for GSI as well. A whole heap more clothes then I really need. And there I go rambling again when I should be thinking about getting myself off to bed now that I finally can. Kaylie is back to school tomorrow and I'm back to work. The Tools of Poetry workshop gets in on a new assignment after a weeks break and I'll take some time tomorrow to write up next weeks article. Then I can stay a week ahead. In fact Tuesdays are dedicated to PPP so hopefully I'll get a lot done that is group related tomorrow. Meanwhile, G'night. |
| I was writing my DWC entry today and started talking about the fact that I was still getting nothing in the way of NaNo inspiration. Somehow the entry lead towards a few home truths that made me realise that a lot of the time I'm very immature and don't take my adult life very seriously. I've grown up a great deal in the past year and a half since my marriage fell apart but I began reflecting on how much growing up I still haven't done. I call myself a writer and yet I rarely take my career as seriously as I should. I struggle to find the self-discipline a professional writer must maintain. I cut myself far too much slack in a lot of areas in my life and rarely strive to be all I know I could be. To tell the truth I cut myself short and in doing so I suppose I'm losing a lot of opportunities in life. I'm also failing to live up to what my life is capable of and that's a truly sad thing. I have a limited time to bring myself from hobbiest to professional and I really have to start taking myself and my dreams more seriously. By limited time I mean that for the moment I have the opportunity, thanks to the way the Australian Government works, to stay home full time living on a single parent pension and raising my son. In two years he'll start school and that pension will be cut at least in part. You see they expect a parent to go out and get a job when they don't have to stay home to raise a young child. Most single mothers would have jobs and their kids in daycare in my position but I've been happy living on the minimum income the pension provides and the suppliments my writing offers. But when Josh starts school I need my writing to be paying a full time income rather than supplimental, or I have to get a 'real' job. One of those horrid 9 to 5 things that I know would kill my spirit and drag me into a hole I'll spend the rest of my life trying to climb out of. Right now I have the opportunity to make my life's dream a reality. To go pro, take myself and my talent seriously, and make a full time career out of my writing. I've been letting myself down and giving into my whims and moods. I've decided as of today that just isn't good enough. I'm moving myself to the next level. I'm giving myself strict business hours in which I will focus completely on writing in all aspects be it research, editing, and the actual writing. No longer can I allow myself to pike out when "it's too hard". I can't decided to just cut out for the day and not show up for myself. I have to consider this a REAL job and know that I won't get anywhere without being here, clocking on in the morning, clocking off in the afternoon. I can set myself hours that are shorter than the regular 9 to 5 and I have to be flexible to some degree but I'm tired of treating my career as a game. From now on I'm going to seriously hunt for copy editing work. I'm going to submit for publication and write for publication and I'm going to focus on the novels I've wanted to write. Novels. Yes I'll continue with PPP but I'm going to keep to strict time limits with that and remind myself that while I love writing poetry my dream isn't to be a poet, it's to be a novelist. That means stepping up to the screen and getting the plots on the page instead of hiding out in the rhyme and meter. I'm also going to take this new approach into my home as well. Too often I let it slide. I've not respected my home as I should and now I really do love and appreciate my environment when I don't care for it I damage my spirit, my joy, my love. My home deserves more respect than that. My family deserves more respect. I deserve more respect. Today is a realisation, a reaching of clarity. From this moment forward I've grown. No longer will I resort to childish avoidance techniques. It's time to front up to myself and get my life together. It's the only way I can create a secure future for myself, and my family, and also be able to reach for the stars, for my goals, for my dreams. The rest of my life begins right NOW. |
| Earlier tonight I wanted only to have a hot bath and then get to bed. The kids were still awake, just finishing dinner and I was wiped out from a little too much sun and a long day out. Then I realised I hadn't written my DWC or Blog and groaned. Sometimes keeping this vow to myself is harder than others. Now, after having had that hot bath I'm still ready for bed but I've managed to bring myself back to the screen. I've got a few things to write in my blog and I've already done justice to my 425 word requirement for DWC with a 430 worry about NaNo. Basically, my concern is that I'll have no story to write. I've had ideas in my mind but at the moment nothing is jumping out demanding to be written. After going shopping today I got home and settled into Microsoft Word inspired by my country. It had been a beautiful day and I'd enjoyed the sunshine, the land, and mingling with her people. So I wrote a justifyable essay for The BlogVille News which I hope Scarlett enjoys and approves of. It is still open to editing before publication in the newsletter of course but I hope when the news is released you'll all enjoy reading it. I've also added 21 photographs in an album to share more of the wonders of this fabulous state. I think it all turned out really well. Last night as I was winding down I was sharing pager messages with my best friend Matt. When I was delving my poetry archives a few days ago I discovered a poem I'd dedicated to my husband (now ex-husband) and shared it with him, cringing at the horrors of terrible poetry. He sulked a little about not having had a poem written for him. A day or so later I was typing up some of the long hand work I'd written in my notepads over the past month or so and found one that I had written about him. It'd completely forgotten doing so at the time. It was one of those poems written in that half asleep state late at night when I can't sleep and have to toss the words on paper. Anyway, I shared that poem with him and he wondered if it was a pitty poem based on salving his bruised ego. I replied along the lines of having included rabbits, potty messages, ninja's and trids if I wrote a poem today to sooth his ego. We both had a chuckle about that and it probably only makes any sense between us with our history. Last night as I was saying goodnight I told him to have a great day and he told me he would only if I promised to write him a poem to sooth his ego. So I did. *grins* And I stayed up last night to write it. It's certainly not a masterful work but apprently he took delight in it when I shared it with him. I can't post it here however, in fact hopefully it never reaches the eyes of anyone but him. lol It's embarressing. It was also more challenging to write then I'd expected. But fun all the same and I'm glad he enjoyed it. Now it's late in the night and I really would like to get myself to bed with a sappy movie. Gladiator is on TV atm but while it's a good movie it's too heavy and action oriented for my mood at the moment. I want to turn my brain off and Gladiator charges it instead. Tomorrow I enjoy lunch with my extended family. Celebrating my mother and sisters birthdays from earlier in the month. Another day when I plan only for that, and anything else accomplished is a bonus. But for now, to bed, and sleep. |
| It's been one of those days that were busy but didn't really feel like much had been done. I started off waking at some bird-chirping hour because the kids decided to hang out playing on my bed when they woke up with the sun. After two full weeks of school holidays I'd become unfriendly with the early morning sun, preferring to greet the late morning one instead. Alas, two little ones had different ideas. But I spent the day out and about, visiting my mother and my sister who was also visiting my mother. We had a lovely morning together, then I talked some more with my mother after my sister left. Took the kids to the park on the way home and got their dinner together after that. I did manage to get some copyediting done on a power point presentation. It's the first PP presentation I've worked on and it was interesting seeing the additional features of power point and learning to work, change, edit, and remove them. Things like animated text features and graphics etc. Some of the things involved I didn't even realise that power point did. I've really enjoyed the challenge. Of course there is still more to do. I'm trying to bring the file size down dramatically but am having trouble working out where the biggest memory drain is in the file. Something is eating up megabytes and I've only managed to save 1 of 7 MB's so far. I'd like to save another 3 at least to make the file more manageable. But I can't risk cutting out any important information. I was successful at cleaning up the presentation, cutting some excess, fixing the general spelling, grammar and standardizing some of the language across the entire work. This is the kind of work I enjoy doing. These days it's things like this that pays my bills. I'm a writer who makes my way with copy editing. *chuckles* I really do keep meaning to get these darn books written. But as my best friend Matt said today, "You procrastinate so cutely!" *grins* Yep, that's me, the cute procrastinator. And as I replied, "Yep, but stuff just happens to get done, eventually. It amazes me every time." Speaking of stuff that has to get done I need to write a short article about Western Australia for the Blogville News. Scarlett is waiting for it. Hopefully I can get that done over the weekend because I don't want to put her time restraints. I've already made her wait longer than I'd planned because of my strange mood swings. But I have to stop procrastinating. I'll find the time at some point tomorrow. After going shopping. Probably around dinner time before blogging. Hopefully. Meanwhile it's already late and I need to get myself wound down for bed. Perhaps tomorrow I'll get more done. But I expect it will be another busy day where I do a lot but don't complete a lot from my to do list. |
| My moods have been very strange this week as you probably already noticed. I'm up a day then down a day and up a day and down a day. That's completely rocking my cycle and I'm not sure exactly why. I do know that I've not been keeping to my strict bedtime, and I've not been keeping to healthy and regular meals. The trouble is, is it because of the mood swings, or are the mood swings because of the lack of routine, or perhaps it's a vicious cycle, perhaps I didn't go to bed when I should have one night because of a mood swing and since then my emotions have been bouncing back and fourth exaserbating the issue. Either way yesterday I was incredibly low. Lower then the lows I'd been having until recently. But today I'm feeling better. I still slept in this morning. I'd stayed up till 2AM again reading last night so I did get a full 8 hours. Then today I didn't settle in to write anything, instead I arranged to visit with my mother and get the shopping done and spending time away from the computer brought my energy up. When I got home I managed to write week seven's article for the Tools of Poetry workshop. So I feel like that is out of the way. I also notice that the house is in a shambles. This is another case of viscious circle. Because my lows make me not want to do anything, and the house gets into a mess and then because the house is such a mess I get depressed. I'm determined to pull everything back into order however. Today I started by picking up a few things, making a good dent in my daughters room, and doing a few loads of laundry. Of course having had a high day tomorrow chances are I'll be on a low tomorrow. Fingers crossed having plans to go out and about again tomorrow will help pull me out of it if I am low. Hopefully, it'll all sort itself out as I pull my routine back into order. Thankfully my daughter goes back to school on Tuesday which will be a big step towards restoring the order in the household. Still, there is a lot on my To Do list to get done so I'm going to be busy trying to keep my mood up so that I can accomplish it all with no more lows like the couple I've had recently. I can't afford to let my BiPolar take over like that. It's much more important to keep myself as stable as possible. |
| My head hurts so I'm going to head to bed. If I feel better in the morning I'll fill this blog out. G'night all. |
| This year I’m planning to enter the National Novel Writing Month challenge. I learnt of NaNoWriMo in December 2004 when it had, of course, just finished. But I remembered the incredible challenge in October the following year and signed up. It was a tough month with turgid emotions, the ups and downs of my cycles sending me crazy along with the anxiety of having so much responsibility. But my life was buzzing at that point and it was very exciting to be producing so prolifically. In the March before I’d managed to complete the first draft of my novel, The Dating Game in approximately six weeks although the first draft was fewer words it was a solid chunk of writing I was very proud of. I thought NaNoWriMo was an opportunity to produce similar results. It was tough and I didn’t manage to complete the recommended daily word count. Thankfully there were many occasions I wrote over the recommended limit and so had caches to fall back on. In the last week I crammed perhaps 20,000 words on top of the 30,000 I already had and managed to complete the challenge. Of course, I’m terrified to look at the results as I’m very certain they are dismal. Perhaps someday soon I should read it cover to cover and see if there is anything worth salvaging from the debrie. I do recall that the first chapter was inspiring. I loved writing it. Perhaps if nothing else is redeemable that chapter could be put to use somewhere, sometime in the future. This year I’m waving between subjects to focus upon. Last year I’d started it as Child of the Storm and the idea delved away completely from what instigated the topic. This year the dream that created the title of last years still visits me and I’ve considered trying again. There are other options however, such as something I started plotting late last month that is a drama of a woman who’s suppressed by culture and upbringing but yearns for more. It would be a story of her growth and the trials and tribulations in her life where she eventually breaks free of the restraints of her upbringing and achieves her dreams. Those two plots are primary in my mind at the moment but I also wonder if I should focus on another romance. Romance is a genre I’d like to earn my bread in. I’d like to produce perhaps one romance novel a year and in between those focus on high fantasy. There is a romance publisher I adore that I’m sure would eventually take me up and they pay reasonably that one romance a year would probably give me a stable income to venture into other genres with a safety net of sorts. That’s assuming I can write one a year. Meanwhile, November 1st is not very far away and between now and then I really should decide what to write about. Perhaps none of the above will be the final outcome. I know last year I went off on a completely unexpected tangent. I blame the lack of plotting for that and feel like it was a mistake to go in so unprepared. This year I’d like to have more preparation. Of course, there are so many other things I’m working on that need to get done first and foremost. I need to write more lists. Sometimes I wonder how I manage to accomplish anything at all. I mean even this for example was supposed to be my Daily Writing Challenge entry. However I’ve rambled on and on so it’s way too many words. So I’ve tossed it in as a blog entry instead and will scrap and just write a basic NaNo entry for DWC. Meanwhile, hope you enjoyed my ramble.  |
| Yep, I'm moody, stroppy, sappy, basically every emotion that anyone could be I've experienced at some point today. It's been very strange. I don't understand it at all. But I can't be bothered writing. So I'm not going to. Goodbye, goodnight, and here's hoping I feel better in the morning. |
| Today I worked on some new poetry and started looking through my archives. I’ve got poetry from up to about 8 years ago archived and it’s interesting reading over some of my older works. There are a few rare nuggets amongst them but mostly I see how much my writing has developed over the years. I reflect on the poems and remember where I was in life when I wrote them. Some I’m very familiar with, like old friends. Others I barely remember. I have found that I have multiple copies of some poems from when I’d stored them in more than one place. Others have multiple versions of one poem. Most of them aren’t dated directly. Now I’m sorting the archives into folders, referring to file creation dates and adding those to the file. The dates aren’t always accurate however as I have long handed some poems before typing them up, or created files from other files in the past. I think I should keep true dates on each of my works when I write them from now on. The dates are an important part of what makes them interesting. With dates I can reflect on what was going on in my life at that time. There are perhaps a number of poems in there worthy of publication. There are others that might not be great yet but which I could edit and improve. There are also great deals of these poems that are simply horrible. Even today I write some bad poems. Thankfully there are less of those then there used to be. It’s wonderful to look back and see how I’m improving. I'm cheating a little here today. The above 275 words were actually written for DWC - The Daily Writing Challenge. It's day 8 and that means 275 words required. But it's a topic I'd like to continue on with in my blog so I figured I'd copy that much and then continue to ramble on to my hearts content. I've really enjoyed wandering around in my archives. I've barely scratched the surface of all the poems I have in there but I've looked back at various years and it's interesting to see the growth of my ability over time. Some of the poems are real nuggets. I was reading one of my Christmas collection earlier and remembering that I wasn't satisfied with it when I wrote it. But looking back reading it now and it had a wow factor I'd never noticed. Then I read the others of the collection thinking I should get this collection published but the rest of them were terrible. lol Still, I do hope to someday have a collection of Christmas poems bound together as something special for the holidays. I've also got my Nature's Sonnets collection in the works which I grow quite frequently thanks to the fact that I really love writing sonnets and nature is one of my favorite subjects. I love to crystalize a moment or object in nature and pull a sharp visual around that concept. It's like creating water on the page or causing a flower to bloom and capturing a rainbow for eternity. When I have a reasonable number of lovely sonnets I'll get them published. Most of the sonnets will have made an appearance in my port at one time or another but they never stay there. In fact there is at least one in my port at the moment that will make it into the collection. So check out my Sonnets folder for a sneak peak of what might be in the book. I've noticed that I've also experimented with more forms then I'd thought. I've been sorting my poetry into those forms or non-forms and I was surprised by some of the forms I've practiced. I don't remember practicing some of them and I keep thinking I should write more and practice more and more forms. Overall I've had a delightful wander through my poetry of the past. It's wonderful to see how my ability has grown and how on average I produce better quality poems more frequently. That's not to say I don't write some terrible poetry still. But it's good to see that even the terrible poetry isn't as terrible as my terrible poetry of the past. lol Now, Anyea, if you made it this far *here is some chocolate as a reward* And I promise I'll get into stories, someday. *grins* For some reason poetry is just easier. But that's probably because I have had so much more practice at it. Looking over my writing archives and there are only a handful of stories in there. I should write more stories, but it always seems so very painful.  I need more practice. Meanwhile, I'll never give up my poetry. |
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