(on a small note, I've been thinking about passive-aggressively playing this song after some bad sex. I love you, Norah)
Wanna know something funny? I just spent an hour so hunting down this article published on Buzzfeed. It was a list of authors/writers who use social media a lot (would still love a link). One writer in particular I immediately connected with: she hadn't written her book yet, but was still tweetin' and blogging about her efforts. I was trying to find her website to see if it was "okay" for me to put (what I consider) rather banal things on my blog.
Doesn't that sound awfully silly?
It does to me. An hour of my time wasted to look for validation. I'm always trying to do that. So many of us are always trying to do that, and while it's not such a bad thing, I realize that I could have just started writing and saved myself the trouble.
I'm always trying to validate this blog. I'm always trying to validate my reasons for writing what I write on here, or find valid things to be written on here. I tell myself I'm "looking for inspiration" but I'm just wasting time. And I'm so tired at the end of the search.
I'm going through something right now. I just am. That's hard to admit, but that's my life at this instant. I just got out a bad, bad relationship. An abusive one. Everyday, I experience these horrible flashbacks of what he did, or said, and I just sit and stare and get so angry. Or so sad. I feel trapped. How do I stop feeling this awful hurt? I try to talk it out, I try to engage those moments, but it's still like plunging back into a dark, dark hole. I hate being in that place. I don't know if it's natural or not; it just hurts like hell.
I suppose it might be having some effect on my writing, but it's just having a plain effect on everything. I see his face, remember the way he smelled, or the feeling of his mouth on mine--I get so sick. I wanna cry. I feel this bad ache in my chest and I just wish it would stop.
I guess I just needed to say that.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
HEY HEY HEY
I feel fantastic...hey...hey...hey....
No, I really don't, but ohmygod isn't this video CREEPY AS HELL
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Mouth Piece
Hey all or mostly no one,
Anytime I've been away too long I start to feel really bad that I'm neglecting this space. I feel bad on a few levels, but most prevalently on a writerly level because a blog is supposed to be a writer's way of "reaching out digitally" and "using social media to market oneself" yadda, yadda. And I suppose that I could do a lot of shameless plugging on lots of other sites that I lurk about at times, but I will admit that the scared, awkward little teenager in me is afraid of the attention, and selfishly wants to keep this space for herself. Go figure--(you know...'cause it's on the internet and stuff -_-)
Quick anecdote: when I was a scared, awkward teen in high school, I kept a journal that I was so sure was going to be some kind of road map to my life if I died. Never mind that I had a fascination with death while I was a teen (and not in an emo-y goth-y romantic way, so draw your own conclusions there) but I felt that in detailing my most intimate and whiny thoughts I was creating a kind of scrapbook that people would read when I was gone. They would read it and go "gee, she sure was something, wasn't she? A real visionary, a real literary artiste! Why oh why she did have to die so young!" and then you know...I would be mourned and revered and maybe get my journal published because, yeah.
Major teenage arrogance there, I know, but cut me some slack. I was painfully lonely, painfully awkward, and, you know, writing was my anti-drug. Plus, when you're a teen you're convinced that the world gives a shit about you in this big epic way, and it's not until you're older and have been REALLY shat upon, do you finally realize in solemn and grim contemplation that, no, the world really DOESN'T give a shit about you and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Anyway. I'm feeling like there's a really grim and solemn cow plop of shit sitting on my face, and it's only fair to say that I had some hand in slapping it there. Here we go again: another semester almost over, another year gone by, a little older, and I'm still looking at not going back to school again.
My mom said, like after my freshmen year: "Is this going to be an issue every year of college?" and I was like--no, 'cause I'm going to look for anything I need to supplant my tuition costs and stop worrying mom, 'cause I'm like going to be famous writer like JK Rowling and make tons of money have theme parts that serve fictional beverages from story, so nahhhhh!" And yep. Shit on my face. She was completely right. My mother was completely right and just saying that makes me want to die inside.
I guess I should have known better, but I'm stubborn in my own quiet way and I just plain don't want to leave the lovely city. I love it there, love everything about it's gritty mechanical noisiness and rude, fast-paced love em' or leave em' lifestyle and I want to embrace it like a coating of deep fried chocolate and become one with the shit in the sewers and the grubby dollars in the hands of hobos. I don't want to leave. I don't want to go back home. I don't want to be a failure. I want to fight...but I guess I'm getting a little tired of fighting.
One thing about getting older (and if you're wondering--I'm really NOT that older. Seriously) but I'm not a kid anymore either. I'm a grown up, can drink legally and all that, and I'm just beginning to get a bit wiser too, albeit in a rather painful regretful way. I don't want to leave my home away from home, but maybe I will this time. Maybe I won't make it. Maybe I need to be gone...right?
I don't know. I'm just not liking this shitty cowpatty pancake on my face. It doesn't smell so good.
Anytime I've been away too long I start to feel really bad that I'm neglecting this space. I feel bad on a few levels, but most prevalently on a writerly level because a blog is supposed to be a writer's way of "reaching out digitally" and "using social media to market oneself" yadda, yadda. And I suppose that I could do a lot of shameless plugging on lots of other sites that I lurk about at times, but I will admit that the scared, awkward little teenager in me is afraid of the attention, and selfishly wants to keep this space for herself. Go figure--(you know...'cause it's on the internet and stuff -_-)
Quick anecdote: when I was a scared, awkward teen in high school, I kept a journal that I was so sure was going to be some kind of road map to my life if I died. Never mind that I had a fascination with death while I was a teen (and not in an emo-y goth-y romantic way, so draw your own conclusions there) but I felt that in detailing my most intimate and whiny thoughts I was creating a kind of scrapbook that people would read when I was gone. They would read it and go "gee, she sure was something, wasn't she? A real visionary, a real literary artiste! Why oh why she did have to die so young!" and then you know...I would be mourned and revered and maybe get my journal published because, yeah.
Major teenage arrogance there, I know, but cut me some slack. I was painfully lonely, painfully awkward, and, you know, writing was my anti-drug. Plus, when you're a teen you're convinced that the world gives a shit about you in this big epic way, and it's not until you're older and have been REALLY shat upon, do you finally realize in solemn and grim contemplation that, no, the world really DOESN'T give a shit about you and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Anyway. I'm feeling like there's a really grim and solemn cow plop of shit sitting on my face, and it's only fair to say that I had some hand in slapping it there. Here we go again: another semester almost over, another year gone by, a little older, and I'm still looking at not going back to school again.
My mom said, like after my freshmen year: "Is this going to be an issue every year of college?" and I was like--no, 'cause I'm going to look for anything I need to supplant my tuition costs and stop worrying mom, 'cause I'm like going to be famous writer like JK Rowling and make tons of money have theme parts that serve fictional beverages from story, so nahhhhh!" And yep. Shit on my face. She was completely right. My mother was completely right and just saying that makes me want to die inside.
I guess I should have known better, but I'm stubborn in my own quiet way and I just plain don't want to leave the lovely city. I love it there, love everything about it's gritty mechanical noisiness and rude, fast-paced love em' or leave em' lifestyle and I want to embrace it like a coating of deep fried chocolate and become one with the shit in the sewers and the grubby dollars in the hands of hobos. I don't want to leave. I don't want to go back home. I don't want to be a failure. I want to fight...but I guess I'm getting a little tired of fighting.
One thing about getting older (and if you're wondering--I'm really NOT that older. Seriously) but I'm not a kid anymore either. I'm a grown up, can drink legally and all that, and I'm just beginning to get a bit wiser too, albeit in a rather painful regretful way. I don't want to leave my home away from home, but maybe I will this time. Maybe I won't make it. Maybe I need to be gone...right?
I don't know. I'm just not liking this shitty cowpatty pancake on my face. It doesn't smell so good.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
I Think I've Got it...
It happened. I think.
It happened. It's scary to think about, but there's no earth shattering apocalypse or orgasm or even boatload of money coated in coke and wrapped in bacon covered in cheese...
It just happened.
Yes, I'm talking about writing again, but writing is my life right now. It might feed my family one day (*tries not to laugh hysterically*) but writing means---well, it means a lot to me so:
I realized something and it's pretty amazing:
I've been trying too hard.
I was aided most by this article and then maybe some of this one too. It's been a slow burn over the past few days--pssh--past few years but by George I think I've got it.
Here's what I tell people about my writing life: I'm currently working on three novels. "Whoa," they say, eyes wide. "That's intense." Hell, yeah, it's intense and I'd probably be done with two and working on the last if I were Stephen King. I'm not Stephen King though, BTW. I'm a struggling undergrad in a writing program who isn't even really "working" on three novels. Not wholly.
I've been wrapped up in three concepts for three stories that I was head over hills with turning into three novels. One I call my "steampunk sorta-maybe disel-punk-esque" story is about a twelve year old boy named Cole determined to cross the country to track down his missing brother when his father dies.
The second is my "sci-fi" story that has a bunch of characters and absolutely no plot. A few situations, some endings, but no plot.
The third is my "fantasy epic in part 3" about a young woman who falls down a well all Alice in Wonderland like and lands into a world that smacks her right into a tense political conflict between warring countries.
I think these ideas are pretty awesome and I've been hanging onto at least two for the better part of six years. They are all the babies I care to have right now and my dream is to have them turned into full length novels that I will one day feel in my hands and marvel at their sheer reality.
That's not going to happen now. Not ever, but not now.
Charles Finch sums it up in his article under boldly named "Patience" and "Focus". Alien concepts to me only a week or so ago. A WEEK. But like I said, I think I've got it now.
See, I have neither. Patience. Focus. I'm fresh out, sorry.
And it's weird cause, like, I think back to a simpler time. Back when I would stay up all night clacking away on a dingy keyboard that was connected to an old computer that was a 1998 Dell or something. Anyway, then I was totally focused, or at least a lot more focused than I am now. I would sit and write and write happily 'cause I was just so excited to sink my teeth into my story and see where it took me. I never realized that momentum was motivated by a need to just get it all on a blank Word doc and keep going.
Somewhere I lost that. Every word had to count, every sentence had to be perfectly edited. I had to write that epic the FIRST time around 'cause Lordy knew there was to be no second go.
My point is, I've been trying too hard to be this writer that is thrown into our faces 24/7. The JK's, the GRRM's, the Kings, the Collins, the Roths. These supposed "overnight" sensations that found literary success in what seems like no time at all.
But that's not how it happens. We know that JK was rejected a lot before the lucky publisher picked her up. As GRRM worked on The Song of Ice and Fire trilogy he met the challenge of a 1,800 page book that I'm sure wasn't written in a month. Roth details her writing struggles in her blog.
So Rome wasn't built in a day and I was trying to build three Romes. It was more out of a sense that the ideal writer was to be bustling away at a dozen different projects and simultaneously churning out finished projects than arrogance, but maybe it was arrogance too. I thought it could be done. I thought I was doing my work justice.
Six years later all I've got is a smattering of written info for each and not one chapter in sight.
I'm humbled now if you couldn't tell. I'm not Batman, and aside from being pleasantly surprised at the fact, I realize I can relax and be a normal human who works on one thing. I can write those hot sexy new ideas in a notebook and know I'll come back later. I can attempt a disciplined writing schedule that won't be easy (the attempts will probably fail more often that not) but I can try. I can take some pressure off; I can breathe, I can relax. At least a little.
Most importantly...I can enjoy writing again.
Maybe.
It happened. It's scary to think about, but there's no earth shattering apocalypse or orgasm or even boatload of money coated in coke and wrapped in bacon covered in cheese...
It just happened.
Yes, I'm talking about writing again, but writing is my life right now. It might feed my family one day (*tries not to laugh hysterically*) but writing means---well, it means a lot to me so:
I realized something and it's pretty amazing:
I've been trying too hard.
I was aided most by this article and then maybe some of this one too. It's been a slow burn over the past few days--pssh--past few years but by George I think I've got it.
Here's what I tell people about my writing life: I'm currently working on three novels. "Whoa," they say, eyes wide. "That's intense." Hell, yeah, it's intense and I'd probably be done with two and working on the last if I were Stephen King. I'm not Stephen King though, BTW. I'm a struggling undergrad in a writing program who isn't even really "working" on three novels. Not wholly.
I've been wrapped up in three concepts for three stories that I was head over hills with turning into three novels. One I call my "steampunk sorta-maybe disel-punk-esque" story is about a twelve year old boy named Cole determined to cross the country to track down his missing brother when his father dies.
The second is my "sci-fi" story that has a bunch of characters and absolutely no plot. A few situations, some endings, but no plot.
The third is my "fantasy epic in part 3" about a young woman who falls down a well all Alice in Wonderland like and lands into a world that smacks her right into a tense political conflict between warring countries.
I think these ideas are pretty awesome and I've been hanging onto at least two for the better part of six years. They are all the babies I care to have right now and my dream is to have them turned into full length novels that I will one day feel in my hands and marvel at their sheer reality.
That's not going to happen now. Not ever, but not now.
Charles Finch sums it up in his article under boldly named "Patience" and "Focus". Alien concepts to me only a week or so ago. A WEEK. But like I said, I think I've got it now.
See, I have neither. Patience. Focus. I'm fresh out, sorry.
And it's weird cause, like, I think back to a simpler time. Back when I would stay up all night clacking away on a dingy keyboard that was connected to an old computer that was a 1998 Dell or something. Anyway, then I was totally focused, or at least a lot more focused than I am now. I would sit and write and write happily 'cause I was just so excited to sink my teeth into my story and see where it took me. I never realized that momentum was motivated by a need to just get it all on a blank Word doc and keep going.
Somewhere I lost that. Every word had to count, every sentence had to be perfectly edited. I had to write that epic the FIRST time around 'cause Lordy knew there was to be no second go.
My point is, I've been trying too hard to be this writer that is thrown into our faces 24/7. The JK's, the GRRM's, the Kings, the Collins, the Roths. These supposed "overnight" sensations that found literary success in what seems like no time at all.
But that's not how it happens. We know that JK was rejected a lot before the lucky publisher picked her up. As GRRM worked on The Song of Ice and Fire trilogy he met the challenge of a 1,800 page book that I'm sure wasn't written in a month. Roth details her writing struggles in her blog.
So Rome wasn't built in a day and I was trying to build three Romes. It was more out of a sense that the ideal writer was to be bustling away at a dozen different projects and simultaneously churning out finished projects than arrogance, but maybe it was arrogance too. I thought it could be done. I thought I was doing my work justice.
Six years later all I've got is a smattering of written info for each and not one chapter in sight.
I'm humbled now if you couldn't tell. I'm not Batman, and aside from being pleasantly surprised at the fact, I realize I can relax and be a normal human who works on one thing. I can write those hot sexy new ideas in a notebook and know I'll come back later. I can attempt a disciplined writing schedule that won't be easy (the attempts will probably fail more often that not) but I can try. I can take some pressure off; I can breathe, I can relax. At least a little.
Most importantly...I can enjoy writing again.
Maybe.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Why Do I Even Bother?
Well, I've longed stopped trying to come up with the answer but--
This blog I follow--the author says it's her way of "thinking aloud". Now that's an idea. I've never seen it that way before...
But isn't that what everyone does nowadays with social media and whatnot? Think aloud? And it's annoying because some people don't have particularly interesting stuff they're thinking about to begin with and, so, if some dweeb teen is thinking about devouring a pack of cookies, and then takes a snapshot of said cookies, and then a snapshot later of having eaten that pack of cookies---see how banal and pointless it all is? Who cares, right? You follow that shit, you've probably at least got some blog or Twitter or whatever page you're following for the guilty pleasure of having a peek into someone's warped imagination and...you don't care, but you're doing it anyway. It all just seems so pointless.
I guess that's how I feel about blogging. It feels pointless to me. ME blogging stuff about...whatever--ME--I guess, my thinking aloud--that feels pointless. I wish I had the energy to be clever and thought-provoking, or at the very least the ignorance to not know any better but...
I've already said that I hate to complain on here. It comes across as a pathetic livejournal or something and I already have one of those and I've never used it thank you very much. I just have to try harder. Except that trying to do anything just feels pointless right now.
Sigh.
Fuck my life.
This blog I follow--the author says it's her way of "thinking aloud". Now that's an idea. I've never seen it that way before...
But isn't that what everyone does nowadays with social media and whatnot? Think aloud? And it's annoying because some people don't have particularly interesting stuff they're thinking about to begin with and, so, if some dweeb teen is thinking about devouring a pack of cookies, and then takes a snapshot of said cookies, and then a snapshot later of having eaten that pack of cookies---see how banal and pointless it all is? Who cares, right? You follow that shit, you've probably at least got some blog or Twitter or whatever page you're following for the guilty pleasure of having a peek into someone's warped imagination and...you don't care, but you're doing it anyway. It all just seems so pointless.
I guess that's how I feel about blogging. It feels pointless to me. ME blogging stuff about...whatever--ME--I guess, my thinking aloud--that feels pointless. I wish I had the energy to be clever and thought-provoking, or at the very least the ignorance to not know any better but...
I've already said that I hate to complain on here. It comes across as a pathetic livejournal or something and I already have one of those and I've never used it thank you very much. I just have to try harder. Except that trying to do anything just feels pointless right now.
Sigh.
Fuck my life.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Shits Nasty, ya'll
Soooo...
Instead of doing any actual work on my three novels/stories/bullshit in progress I've just been writing short naughty erotic stories about my characters.
FUCK MY LIFE
Instead of doing any actual work on my three novels/stories/bullshit in progress I've just been writing short naughty erotic stories about my characters.
FUCK MY LIFE
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Excuses, excuses...
40 Excuses I use NOT to write:
1. I'm too tired/hungry/sleepy/sluggish
2. I don't have a proper journal...
3. Or pen...
4. I need to spend more time looking for a job--
5. OR reading.
6. I haven't read diversely enough.
7. I read too much "genre" fiction so my ideas and stories are poor and unworthy anyway.
8. I need to spend more time worldbuilding or fleshing out a plot, characters, etc.
9. I don't HAVE a feasible plot OR conflict to BEGIN with, so what's the point?
10. My handwriting is too sloppy.
11. Writing is worthless--I should be focusing on getting a REAL degree so I can have a REAL job!
12. Unless I hit it big like JK or GRRM I'm just wasting my time.
13. I'd rathermake love to spend time with my Netflix account.
14. Breaking Bad
15. Breaking Bad ON NETFLIX
16. THE FIRST FOUR SEASONS OF BREAKING BAD ON NETFLIX
17. Whatevers on TV at the moment.
18. I get so full when I eat that it saps away any energy I could use toward writing. So there's that.
19. I'm reading a book that I've either a) never read or b) finally trying to get the time to read.
20. The webcomics I'm following at the moment (eg. The Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, Teahouse, Starfighter, Sfeer Theory, Oglaf...)
23. Drawing doodles of flying penises in my journal.
24. Netflix (it's ALWAYS Netflix!)
25. Talking to my family
26. Email.
27. Food.
28. Reading articles ABOUT writing instead of just, you know, WRITING.
29. Acquiring beautiful leather bound journals...and spending more time flipping through the blank pages and WISHING I had the fervor to go to town on them with ink.
30. Delicious Emily games
31. Having to babysit my niece.
32. My older brother delightfully putting a harpoon into any plans I've set aside to get some writing down with his last-minute grocery shopping journeys which requires me to make the trek to his house and watch his precocious little girl.
33. Needing the right font to head my chapter titles with.
34. Buzzfeed.
35. Pooping.
36. Sleeping
37. Oiling and/or messing around with my hair
38. Listening to my Ipod
39. Poking at my face
And:
40. Spending the last hour writing this damn thing.
THIS IS MY LIFE.
1. I'm too tired/hungry/sleepy/sluggish
2. I don't have a proper journal...
3. Or pen...
4. I need to spend more time looking for a job--
5. OR reading.
6. I haven't read diversely enough.
7. I read too much "genre" fiction so my ideas and stories are poor and unworthy anyway.
8. I need to spend more time worldbuilding or fleshing out a plot, characters, etc.
9. I don't HAVE a feasible plot OR conflict to BEGIN with, so what's the point?
10. My handwriting is too sloppy.
11. Writing is worthless--I should be focusing on getting a REAL degree so I can have a REAL job!
12. Unless I hit it big like JK or GRRM I'm just wasting my time.
13. I'd rather
14. Breaking Bad
15. Breaking Bad ON NETFLIX
16. THE FIRST FOUR SEASONS OF BREAKING BAD ON NETFLIX
17. Whatevers on TV at the moment.
18. I get so full when I eat that it saps away any energy I could use toward writing. So there's that.
19. I'm reading a book that I've either a) never read or b) finally trying to get the time to read.
20. The webcomics I'm following at the moment (eg. The Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, Teahouse, Starfighter, Sfeer Theory, Oglaf...)
23. Drawing doodles of flying penises in my journal.
24. Netflix (it's ALWAYS Netflix!)
25. Talking to my family
26. Email.
27. Food.
28. Reading articles ABOUT writing instead of just, you know, WRITING.
29. Acquiring beautiful leather bound journals...and spending more time flipping through the blank pages and WISHING I had the fervor to go to town on them with ink.
30. Delicious Emily games
31. Having to babysit my niece.
32. My older brother delightfully putting a harpoon into any plans I've set aside to get some writing down with his last-minute grocery shopping journeys which requires me to make the trek to his house and watch his precocious little girl.
33. Needing the right font to head my chapter titles with.
34. Buzzfeed.
35. Pooping.
36. Sleeping
37. Oiling and/or messing around with my hair
38. Listening to my Ipod
39. Poking at my face
And:
40. Spending the last hour writing this damn thing.
THIS IS MY LIFE.
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