Just in Case You Were Wondering…

Yes, I’m still alive. And yes, I’m still working. I’m just on a temporary hiatus UNTIL MY LAPTOP ARRIVES. Yes, this po’ white trash girl got herself a brand new laptop. FINALLY. Only ten years late.

Finally, I will be able to work on my stuff on the couch. At work. And other places. I’ve been a shut-in for nearly a year b/c I have not been able to transport my work. Now, hopefully, I’ll be able to get out and about. It’s pretty exciting.

 

Oh, know what else is exciting? Finished another draft of the WiP. One step closer to Donesville!

How are YOU guys doing?

If I Had a Million Dollars…or Almost a Billion…

Cue the Barenaked Ladies’ song!

So there’s apparently this Mega Million Jackpot Lottery Whatsits happening…a couple of hours ago…I had no idea there was a big ol’ jackpot for the taking until people were talking about it today. I was at work all night, so no, I did NOT get a ticket.

HOWEVER, if I HAD won this big bag of money, let me tell you what I’d do with it.
Let me just say this. I am poor white trash who cannot be taken out of the overgrown lawn. Money probably wouldn’t change ME, just the way I lived. I would still be poor white trash in Beverly Hills or something. Except in Oklahoma, the BH equivalent is probably Nichols Hills. And it is so not Beverly.

But here is what I would do:

Number One on my list, is to, of course, take care of my debt. I have a massive amount of debt that I never learned how to take care of & made really bad mistakes. I would pay for those.

2. I would get myself a new home, and all that it entails. I haven’t lived in an actual house in ten years. I would love some space, a lawn, back porch, dogs, cats.

3. Cars. Two. A 4 door something or other, and some sort of truck.

4.I’d give $$$ to the family I never talk to anymore. Then they’d be happy.

5.Shopping. Spree. I haven’t gotten new clothes in YEARS.

6.I’d buy stock in a company to get more money later on.

7.My friends. I’d settle old debts.

8. I’d give money to what I love. Buy a building & all the necessary stuff for a theatre company.

9.I would give money to the University of Central Oklahoma, my alma mater, to the theatre department. Renovate Mitchell Hall theatre, get more scholarships out, new learning opportunities.

10. Travel. I haven’t been out of Oklahoma in 10 years. I need a vacation.

11.Charity–HIV awareness, bullying, depression, cancer, Sarah McLachlan’s sad ass dogs and cats, hungry kids.

12. I would throw a bunch of money to help fund a presidential campaign. “Lady Gaga for President.” Please don’t think I’m joking when I say this.

13. Time machine. I’d buy/find someone to build me a time machine. And then I’d go back in time to live some more. I won’t step on any butterflies, but maybe a few different decisions. I don’t know that these decisions would change anything–for instance, I get this money to get a time machine & I go back in time and change a few things here and there…what happens if I change something too much and don’t actually end up getting the winning ticket this next time around?

14. I wouldn’t have to worry. I’m always worrying about something.

Yup. If I had a million dollars…I’d be rich.

Writing a Book is HARD–And Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise

If anyone says writing is easy, obviously no one has ever really tried it.
Remember how I started this story on August 1, 2011? And now I thought I could really get it done in thirty days?

[insert laugh track here]

It’s been eight months and I’m still working on this one story, trying to get it right, trying to perfect it. Or at least, get it as right as I can so I don’t look like a total idiot when/if it comes out.

This is a painstaking process that requires a LOT of patience. I’m not a patient sort of gal. I want to get this one taken care of and out in the world so I can get down to the stories that are calling my name, wanting my attention.

GET OFF MY BACK, MONKEY!

THIS IS HARD!!!

It doesn’t help that I’m “trying to do something” here that’s a little out of the norm. It’s kind of like Lady Gaga’s meat dress, or hell, pretty much anything she wears. There’s a concept, an idea, a reasoning…

A method to the madness.

I might be trying to do too much that might just confuse and piss off a bunch of readers. I’m trying to show how a character goes from living in her head with more exposition than normal, to sharing her thoughts with others. I’m also trying to show how another character passes a baton of sorts to another.

AND IT’S HARD!!!

I know that it makes sense to my confused, unfocused brain, but I don’t know how others will receive it, if they will think it’s a hot mess, or something interesting.

I’m not searching for accolades…perhaps a good review or two, and maybe some really awful ones. I’ve gotten some excellent feedback from some beta readers that I’m incorporating into my edits. (THANK YOU, IF YOU ARE ONE OF THESE READERS.) These folks have really helped me along quite a bit, pointing me in better directions.

But guess what? It’s been about a month and a half or so, and I’ve only finished the re-re-re-re-rewrites of Chapter One and the first part of Chapter Two. And I feel like I’m bobbing like a buoy in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by sharks. I know all that I can do is work on it, hone it the best that I can, and when I *feel* that it’s done, send it out into the universe, by way of self publication or an actual factual publisher.

But getting to that point is (say it with me) HARD!!!

This story is my meat dress. I want people to like it, but there will be so many people who won’t. I can’t make everyone happy…I just need to make sure I can do it right.

The One With the Fear

Remember that Friends episode, the one where Chandler convinces Rachel to quit her waitressing job at Central Perk to go for what she really wants?  Wait. Instead of explaining, here’s some of the dialogue from that particular ep. Thanks to http://uncutfriendsepisodes.tripod.com/season3/310uncut.htm for doing all the work for me.

Rachel: (sitting down next to Chandler) I’m training to be better at a job that I hate, my life officially sucks.

Joey: Look Rach, wasn’t this supposed to a temporary thing? I thought you wanted to do fashion stuff?

Rachel: Well, yeah! I’m still pursuing that.

Chandler: How… exactly are you pursuing that? Y’know other than sending out resumes like what, two years ago?

Rachel: Well, I’m also sending out…. good thoughts.

Joey: If you ask me, as long as you got this job, you’ve got nothing pushing you to get another one. You need the fear.

Rachel: The fear?

Chandler: He’s right, if you quit this job, you then have motivation to go after a job you really want.

Rachel: Well then how come you’re still at a job that you hate, I mean why don’t you quit and get ‘the fear’?

(Chandler and Joey both laugh)

Chandler: Because, I’m too afraid.

Rachel: I don’t know, I mean I would give anything to work for a designer, y’know, or a buyer…. Oh, I just don’t want to be 30 and still work here.

********************************************************************

Rachel: (entering) Okay, stop what you’re doing, I need envelope stuffers, I need stamp lickers…..

Ross: Well hey, who did these resumes for ya?

Chandler: Me! On my computer.

Ross: Well you sure used a large font.

Chandler: Eh, yeah, well ah, waitress at a coffee shop and cheer squad co-captain only took up so much room.

Rachel: Hey-hey-hey that’s funny! Your funny Chandler! Your a funny guy! You wanna know what else is really funny?!

Chandler: Something else I might have said?

Rachel: I don’t know, I don’t know, weren’t you the guy that told me to quit my job when I had absolutely nothing else to do. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!!

Ross: Sweetie, calm down, it’s gonna be okay.

Rachel: No, it’s not gonna be okay Ross, tomorrow is my last day, and I don’t have a lead. Okay, y’know what, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna call Gunther and I’m gonna tell him, I’m not quitting.

Chandler: You-you-you don’t wanna give into the fear.

Rachel: You and your stupid fear. I hate your fear. I would like to take you and your fear….

Ok, so you kind of get the idea of where I am right now. I’m not talking about quitting my day job, which I do like, just…

I have the Fear.

Only it’s not EXACTLY like what Rachel was going through. I am attempting to do something I’ve always wanted to do, but I have a job that currently pays the bills. And if this doesn’t work out for some reason, I believe that I have other options.

But as a writer…I am frozen. Frozen with the Fear.

I’m afraid that I’m going to look stupid, putting whatever I create out “there,”  that there will be mistakes and messes, and I’m going to look like just another jerkoff who THINKS they can just slap together something and just throw it out there, and expect it to be great, but it’s just going to be a mess.

I’ve been writing since the age of 6. I started with a Halloween murder mystery in fourth grade, and continued on with bad poetry, diaries, horrible romance novel and other silly stories that will NEVER, EVER see the light of day. I abandoned this creative gift I have to take a journey down the theatrical path, to learn another craft, hone it the best I could, and gather some life experience along the way. Then, when the theatrical path basically abandoned ME, left me stranded, like a casualty of war, in the middle of the desert, I found the one creative oasis that had never abandoned me.

I started writing with a vengeance. It was incredibly therapeutic. There was a time in my life I didn’t think I would make it through, or get over. But I did. The second I typed “The End” on the first(ish) story that I had ever really finished, I felt the weight of this burden release me. I could breathe again. I was HAPPY. Well, happy, for ME.

Once that story was over, there were others racing to get out. I think I currently have 6 projects in various states of limbo, but there’s one, the one I have been working on since August 1, 2011, the one that I’m still stuck on, that’s giving me a hard time.  I’m SO close to the finish line.

It’s been several weeks. I think it’s been nearly a month since I’ve really looked at this project. At first, I thought it was a good thing to take a little time away from the project before going back to finalize it. It also gave me time to send it out to a small knot of folks I trust to give me feedback.

I’m still waiting on a good chunk of this feedback.

While I was waiting, I decided to keep myself busy. I re-watched all 6 seasons of LOST. I finished a baby blanket for a friend, and started a blanket for myself. I had a Better Off Ted marathon. I started reading over another writer’s work in progress to help her out, as she did for me, to feel productive.

Now that I know that it’s past time for me to get back to work, I’m procrastinating. I’m SABOTAGING myself. I keep trying to tell myself that it’s just the fear trying to take hold, and that I need to push through it and get to work.

But there are so many excuses. Oklahoma’s lawmakers trying to take away a women’s right to her own body. I should be involved in that. Silly music fanb ase fighting. I should be teaching them how ridiculous this is. Death of a family member I’ve met once or twice in my life. My insomnia. My current state of health. All are good excuses (except that silly fanbase stuff), but NOT good enough that I need to give up.

And the thing is, I KNOW exactly what I’m doing, and why. I didn’t recognize it until I read a book that HRH Anne Lower had sent me a while back:  The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I am thankful on the daily that I have had this book to guide me on this journey.

In this book, Mr. Pressfield says that being paralyzed by fear is a good thing.

<insert maniacal laughter here>

Ok, what? Really?

Really.

He says that “Fear tells us what we have to do” and that “The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”

So I KNOW that this needs to be done, and that I HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO do it. And then maybe the Fear will take it’s knapsack and hitch a ride down the road to the next victim it’s looking to conquer.

So I’m working on minimizing this mess I’ve gotten myself into. At least, I’m trying. Well, at the very least, I recognize what is happening, and I KNOW what needs to be done. That’s a good jumping off point. Now, I just need to finish clearing the clutter from my work space so that I can concentrate more fully on this project that needs to be completed before that year mark rolls around.

But right now, it’s 2:30 am, and I need to start really winding down so that I can go to sleep, wake up refreshed, ready to start the day, get the day job part over with, and get to the part where I don’t have to be there for 24 hours, and GET TO WORK.

I’m Still Here!

But I’ve been slacking a little. Not gonna lie.
I’ve not been able to sleep correctly or focus. Out of meds again, so focus is very hard to come by these days. (Hey, the corners you cut when the IRS decides it needs more money from you.)

Anyway, I finished the last draft of “Physical Therapy,” as I’m now calling the WiP, and sent it out to some personal betas/editors, and also posted it in its erroneous entirety on Book Country. I’ve gotten a good chunk of feedback from the readers, but I wanted to hold out for some more before I got started again.

But I really need to get started again. I can’t blame EVERYTHING on my fudged up sleep cycles, especially since I work mostly at night anyway.
I can’t blame the other WiP I’ve been working on. I got the 19 chapters I’ve already got transcribed, into a doc on the computer, and I’ve even started the beginnings of cleaning it up, but I really want to get back to work on PT.

HOWEVER, in the meantime, I’m making my head explode by watching LOST. Des is AT THIS MOMENT, trying to call Penny from the freighter on Christmas Eve. This Saturday will be the two week mark of my LOST re-watch, and I’m already a third of the way through season 4.

In addition to my maniacal LOST viewings, I’ve also been cleaning house, trying to get rid of the clutter that’s messing with my Muse. I have clean laundry, I can see the floor in my bedroom, things are going into their places. I’m slacking on that, too, but damn. I have a FT job and three or four other personalities to attend to in a day.

With that, I’ll leave you with this, the only thing that has, thus far, made me cry like a little bitch during this re-watch. My apologies if this is a spoiler to you, but it’s 2012. You should have seen this by now.

Well, hello.

I bet you thought I forgot about you. I didn’t. I’ve been working feverishly for a little bit.

I finished another draft of that story. I changed the title. Added hella info and description and words.
And THEN I immediately sent it off to seven people..and just remembered I need to send it to two other people…anyway, I finished it, sent it off, and now I’m waiting for a good chunk of those people to tell me they even got it. Bless the ones who’ve contacted me who have already read, or are in the process of reading it, and any feedback you provide.

As soon as I did that, I dug out my notes and scenes for something I’m calling “Just Dance” and transcribed 20 “chapters” in the last few days.

So now I have a place to start, and I’m reacquainted with the story I put away a while back. This one should be loads easier. I like the characters already, I know a lot about them, and I connect with them. Now I just have to slog through the mire I created.

I had to type incoherent thoughts, unfinished sentences, just so I could finish a scene, giving enough information for me to mold it and cut it and change it and bedazzle it.

There’s WAY more sex in this story than the other one. Like, WAY more. It’s RIDICULOUS, the amount of sex I already have written. But I think that’s just where I was when I wrote those scenes.

Anyway, I think now would be a good time to do the same background work as I did for my other project. It will help clarify and answer some questions I still have, while I’m waiting for some feedback. Oh, and I posted the 15 chapter story on Book Country as well, so it’s open season on “Physical Therapy,” if anyone is bored.

OH. Get this. Since all but one of my daytime soaps is gone, my whole sleep schedule is SCREWED. I do EVERYTHING in the middle of the night. I am completely miserable with this. I’m kind of used to it already, but I need to do something about that.
But, for now, I’m going to clean my house and post my Sunday tv crushes on Tumblr.

Inspiration Struck…

today after I finished watching the finale of One Life to Live.

Watching the show today, I wasn’t only inspired by the characters, the actors, the words, but the general writing structures and techniques that were employed. I caught some overly predictable and sappy (which I loved), and something not quite predictable and surprising (which I triple loved!)

(OMG, y’all. I don’t think y’all know just how happy that reveal in the last scene made me. THAT is what made me sob like a little bitch.)

I had made sure to ask off of work for this final show, knowing I would be a mess if I went into public today. Instead, I stayed at home, talked about soaps, and finished the next edits for Cracks in the Sidewalk.

Everybody say Heeeyyyyyoooooo!

I’m about two or three weeks behind in my schedule, but I blame Christmas Retail Hell for that. I was just too wiped out to even think about my story.

Now, I’m going to prepare to send it to beta readers and post it on Book Country. Oh, and guess what? So far, it is now 190 pages, 15 chapters, and 50,396 words. I finally met that goal. I added a LOT of stuff.

Oh my LAWD, I hope i am getting closer to a final edit. I’m getting antsy about wanting the writing on this one to be done so that I can work on other projects while sending out letters and whatnot.

I also have to come up with a list of questions to ask my beta readers. Oh. I have to come up with a list of beta readers.

Well, I’ll get right on that. Right about this victory bowl of cereal. Cheers!

PS. I tried a chardonnay this week called Simple Life. It was a fruity, crisp, acidic chard. And it was good. If you’re a wine lover, check it out.

Coming Up For Air

So I’ve spent a lot of time this past month retweeting other people’s thoughts onto my own Twitter timeline. It’s not because I can’t be bothered to think up something original…well, not JUST because…If I RT something, for the most part, it means that someone is doing a better job of expressing my thoughts than I am.

And I’ve been saving myself. Although I haven’t been chatting it up too much in a day on Twitter, I do lurk. Not even going to lie. I see what y’all are talking about. Scary.

I’ve been keeping my quasi-original thoughts to myself so that I have a bank to draw from as I’ve trudged through chapter bloody nine. Otherwise known as Chapter Nine. I had to add quite a bit of new material. An entire chapter. A new experience. And I’m not sure how it fits with the whole shebang, you know?

Except for the new material, things are clipping along. I spent two weeks or so on Chapter One. Then I took a long break, and now I am trudging along. Well, now that a huge chunk of new stuff has been added, the next few pages should be…ok…right?

Oooh. So I saw this tweet on my timeline by someone I don’t follow. She said something about not being a person who wants to write the best book EVER, just getting a really good story out of her head.
I am really just glad I’m not the only one!!!

Also, I did a guest blog for www.kathalstead.com regarding this last week of One Life to Live. I will let you know when it goes live.

Cheers, gang!

Happy New Year! It’s 2012!

So I turned on my iPod and pressed Shuffle at midnight. My theme song for 2012 is apparently “Credit in the Straight World” by Hole.

I will have to think on this.

The second song that played was “Schiesse” by Lsdy Gaga. That’s a song about female empowerment. I think.

The third was also by Gaga–”The Fame.”

Now then it played, “I Know You Rider” by the Grateful Dead. And all of it made sense.

I’m not sure WHAT exactly made sense, but it did. It was like a tarot card reading with music.

Anyway, I’m starting to get excited about some blog-related events that are coming up in my mind. I am also back at work on my WiP, which now has the name “Cracks in the Sidewalk.” I’m about to start reworking Chapter 7!

Happy 2012!

December Guilt–Bah Humbug

…And I’m not just talking about the fact that I haven’t been able to get into the Christmas spirit this year. Really, there’s nothing to get excited about in my world. I work in retail and I have no family to speak of, and I have pretty much given up every other folk in my life, so by the time the day actually gets here, I’m going to be exhausted and want nothing to do with anyone.

But that’s not what I’m talking about.

It’s been several weeks, maybe just two or so, since I’ve worked on my story, “Cracks in the Sidewalk.”

But I’ve been EXHAUSTED. It’s not that I don’t WANT to work on it, I really do, but there are just some days/nights that it takes so much energy to pick up a pen to write a new scene I need, or even just sit here in front of the computer to THINK about writing a new scene I need.

I’ve not been LAZY, I don’t think. But my brain is freaking MUSH. The fact that I WANT to be working on this novel and that I’m jealous of everyone else who IS working makes me feel COMPLETELY GUILTY, even though I’m working my ass off at my day job. It’s just that….when I get home, I just want to eat something, watch tv and freaking veg.

And that makes me feel so guilty. Writing is supposed to eventually be my ticket to…whatever is next. I’m not saying that writing is going to be my ticket out of this hell I’ve put myself in, but it might make it easier to set bigger goals.

I don’t know what I’m saying. Like I said, my brain is mush. Too much worrying, too much sadness, not enough hope or Christmas spirit.

Maybe not enough intoxicating substances to pretend.

Bleh humbug.