Blah

I did not win ScriptFrenzy, though I am almost finished with my original sitcom and I have a good outline (except for the end) for a Modern Family spec. Things got accomplished, just not all the things I wanted. I try to do too much because I think I can and when I don't, I feel as if I've failed. But if I hadn't had the goal I had, I wouldn't have gotten as much done as I did. Thanks to everyone who wrote or called and encouraged me.

I'm not feeling very good today. As if I'm aging right before my eyes, I'm beset with a series of complaints. The muscles around my sciatic nerve contract at least once weekly in the past few weeks to make me nearly lame, my shoulder hurts so bad sometimes it makes me want to throw up, my lower back gives me problems all the time. My advice: Don't be in car accidents after the age of 30. Well, I'm still alive and for that I'm grateful. This is the accident that happened in December of 08, so don't get too worried.

I have a book idea in mind. Not necessarily a good one, but an idea nonetheless. I never thought about writing a book (this one would be sort of non-fiction, though creative non-fiction - and no, not a memoir). I've always only wanted to either do short stories or write for television. Frankly, the idea of writing long fiction frightens me. I've done it. I won NaNoWriMo one year with a completely horrible 57,000 word piece of crap. I'm proud I completed, but not proud it exists.

Right now, I'm tired. I wish I weren't. This is when I feel old age, when I would rather just sit around than do the things I know I want to do. Maybe when I start my book idea, it will bolster my other efforts because working on the book will also give me stories for my articles and maybe the interesting characters I meet will provide comedic fodder for my other ventures.

I know I complain a lot (as the Honey says, I'm the Queen of Complaining), but I do know that I have a goal and I will achieve it, whether I do it in inches or in miles.

Catch Up

I'm about to head to the A to visit a friend and while talking on the phone with said friend last night, I realize that I had not really met my obligations for writing, obligations I'd promised myself and in turn you guys - since you're the ones that are supposed to be holding me accountable. If I don't do this every day, it won't become the habit I want and need it to become. I've been out of practice of everyday writing. I need to get back in practice... so I practice...

Today's prompt:
"What do you take? You have ten minutes to evacuate your house forever! All family and pets have already escaped. Write about what you'd imagine yourself taking with you with only the limited time you have."

The first stop is the bedroom where I will scoop up my stuffed animals. They are all unique little animals that have a story behind them. Bear, my big stuffed brown teddy bear, has been with me since I was a senior in high school and has traveled with me everywhere (though he didn't make it to Africa because I was afraid I might lose him), Bayer, my little brown stuffed Teddy Bear that I got as a gift from a pen pal, Bunkey, who is a monkey dressed in a bunny suit that my husband bought me for Easter the year I demanded the Easter Basket my parents never gave me. It also included bubbles and chocolates, which has already been blown and eaten, as well as Porkchop, a pink pig that somehow has an expression when I take pictures of it.

The second stop would be my hard drive, which has ever episode from Doctor Who that has been released since 1963. Every episode from 63- now. I couldn't bear to have to try to get them all again.

While I'm in the office, where the hard drive resides, I will also try to find the David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Beatles and John Schneider albums. I will give myself to the count of 15 to put my hands on these. In fact, I'm going to go organize the pile of records so that the pile on the right are the albums I want to keep.

Next, I will stop by my bar area to get the glasses Little Sister bought from me, then run to the living room. In the hallway is a photo of my husband and myself with the date of our wedding. I will pull that picture from the wall. I would grab every elephant from my mantle piece (there happens to be a lot, even though I don't collect them), the small box of photos that are also on the mantle piece, the wedding photos on the coffee table and the art that is hanging on the living room wall, a wedding gift from my husband's best friend to us.

If I had to leave anything off the list, it would be elephants.

The thing that has bothered me for most of my life is that I don't have photos. Our photographic memories were lost in a fire nearly 15 years ago. It is not one of my happiest thoughts. To know that there is no photographic reference to myself before the age of 19 is a bit depressing, although my grandparents have one of me giving Santa the decidedly evil eye and a little pendant picture of me as a child in overalls, flashing nip. I like taking that walk though the life of the people you know, seeing them as they were then, maybe coming to understand a bit about who they were and how that plays into how they are. It's an interesting tale, something that shines a light and obscures at the same time. So pictures are precious to me and would be the main thing worth saving.

Writing Prompt #2
"Who told you that you couldn't, and you really wanted to prove them wrong? Write about it."
I am not a bad student. Some people might actually say I'm a very good student. I don't go that far because learning once came very easy to me. I don't have a photographic memory, but I had a very good reference memory. If I could remember the clues, I could always find the answer. And the writing I had to do in high school... well, let's just say I was good enough that I could write a paper in homeroom for my first period class and get an A.

But math, that was another story.

I wouldn't have disliked math so much if it hadn't made me cry. Math made me cry huge, angry tears of frustration and represented the first C grade I was every presented with. Well, let me take that back. It's not math's fault. It's Algebra 2/Trig's fault. Algebra 2/Trig and my math teacher who hated me.

Now, when a student says a teacher hated them, they usually are instigators who have angered the authority figure in the classroom. I was not that person. I said yessir and yesma'am with a contriteness that would make my mother's traditional heart swell with pride. I turned in my school work, I asked questions, I tried to understand, I worked into the wee hours of the night and I never gave up. Yet at every turn, my teacher would ridicule my inability to understand the numbers because they were so different from the words I'd grown to know and love.

I remember one time in particular when we learned to do three dimensional graphing. I was working out the problem, graphing the solution and I saw that it formed a box. From that point on, I would plot the answer and if it didn't form a box, I would know that one of my equations was incorrect. It was my eureka moment! Filled with the enthusiasm of someone who knows something without any doubt, I walked around the class saying, "It forms a box! It forms a box!" Of course, my classmates did not pick up on this, nor did they understand what the hell I was talking about. So I picked the guy who eventually became our co-valedictorian and showed him what I was talking about. Suddenly, the light was in his eyes. We both went around the class bringing our fellow students into the light and our teacher came up to D and asked him how he'd figured it out. He pointed at me. She turned to look at me with more surprise than should have been in her face and said, "M figured it out? Well would you look at that!" (M is my maiden name). I could feel my face turning red, but I stood my ground. "Well, why don't you explain it to the whole class then," she said. I did. Everyone got it. It made me feel awesome.

Yeah, that was the only time.

At the end of the school year, when she was advising me on my classes for the next year, she recommended I take Statistics. I asked what she recommended for the other students. Pre-Calculus.

Damn. Pre-Calculus. I had to swallow hard on that one because I knew that Algebra 2/Trig had basically kicked my ass, but I wasn't going to be the only AP/Honor student not in Pre-Calculus.

So I told her I was going to take Pre-Calculus. She basically said, "It's your funeral." I passed Algebra 2/Trig with a C. I passed Pre-Calculus with an A and got a B in Calculus my 12th grad year. If any of you have ever taken calculus, you know they rely on letters and words much more than any other math. That, a pretty stellar teacher and someone behind me not believing in me pushed me to achieve more than I ever thought I would.

Sometimes I want to thank her for not liking me so much. I don't give her credit for pushing me in a reverse psychology kind of way. I don't have that kind of faith in her.

Pondering

I visited my grandmother tonight. My father's mother, who is not my grandmother, but is. I wanted to talk to her about searching for my family, but the same thing that stopped me telling my dad that I knew he wasn't my biological dad stopped me from mentioning anything to her.

I just wasn't sure if she wouldn't see it as an insult.

It wouldn't be an insult, of course, but it could easily be misconstrued as such. I know that my grandmother knows that she is not my grandmother, even though she is. I can't spend 34 years with her and her not feel something for me. I wonder if, since I've pulled away from her and my family (my fault, not there's - other than the vague feeling I've always, that I don't belong with them, even before my knowledge was complete), she believes that I've discovered the truth and she has begun the process of anticipating my rejection.

I've always felt a lot different from my family. I wonder if it was noticeable even then. Yes, I get picked on by my white husband that I enjoy more things from Stuff White People Like than he does, what with me not being white and all, but stick that in the ghetto and you get someone not only different from their family, but also from the community they were brought up in. That must come from somewhere. I've never let myself wonder where because what if I didn't find out the answers? What if I asked the questions and never got the answers? The questions (maybe even the answers) would be floating in the nether forever. It's been nearly 10 years since the death of my bio-dad. I've never seen a picture. I've been forced to subtract my mother's features from my face (and I am very like my mother) and try to put a face to the remaining features. What if I get unanswerable questions? What then?

I'm just gonna stop promising you things. You really do hold me accountable when I don't complete them.

Ooops!

Dear Everybody,

I'm not in my right frame of mind today. We got to leave work early today and when I got home, I fell right to sleep. And now i'm about to go out to First Friday. I will owe you two posts tomorrow as well as two writing prompts. Do you forgive me internets?

Love,

ThisGirlTV

Here We Go!

Day one of ScriptFrenzy and I am restless. I haven't written anything, don't even really have an outline, but I do have a goal. I'm not supposed to worry about that at this time of day, but I do. Oh well, getting home will tell the tale. If I write my four pages today, I will indeed be doing something great!

Today I was driving with the windows down. You don't always get to do that in Georgia. Right now, it's the right kind of hot, not the stifling heat that will be upon us in the next 4 weeks. While I can drive with the windows down, I will.

So, every day this month, I will do at least one writing prompt on Little Southern Girl. It will be unedited and maybe not make sense, but it will be done. I'm going to try for mornings, but some days, it will be afternoon. Anyway, if you have anything you'd like me to write about, write it in the comments.

Today's Writing prompt: It's time for you and Writer's Block to part ways. Write a letter breaking up with Writer's Block, starting out with, "Dear Writer's Block, it's not you, it's me ... ."

Dear Writer's Block,

It's not you, it's me. We've met so many times, it seems like we were destined to be together. Do you remember the first time we met, when I was trying to write that romantic short story about two people who thought they hated each other but in the end fell in love? You were right to try to stop me, but wrong for doubting my dreams. I remember you stepping in just when I thought things were going great. With one fell swoop, you took every word that I had in my head from me. You demanded my time, my thoughts, and my attention, as if I didn't have writing I needed to get done. I expected you to be my rock, not my block, and you never had my back. Do you remember when I applied for that screenwriting class in California and I almost didn't make it because you decided to make an appearance and took my focus from what I was doing? I think that's when I knew it was over, even though I didn't want it to be. You're comfortable. Hypnotic. Like staring at a blank white screen, cursor blinking. You knew the end was coming. I saw you less and less. Maybe you went to talk to that guy writing a cookbook - maybe that girl trying to finish her thesis. I know you thought she was cute. But I didn't get jealous and maybe it's better to not get jealous, but when I don't miss you, you know it's time to part ways. So, Writer's Block, I hope you can find someone who will love you like I once did, who won't use you as a crutch, but word of advice: try being a little more supportive of the people you get with. That makes all the difference.

Yours truly,
ThisGirl

Pieces of Me

Some of you know about the complicated relationship I have with my family.

My father, whom I had known my whole life, turned out not to be my biological father. Oh, and I hated him with a cold, emotional hatred for more than 12 years of my life, a hatred I've never been able to resurrect for anyone. Which is a good thing.

I am the alien child in my family. I have never been like them. I have acted as if I were one of them, but I am not. I do like my family, but they don't like the real me, so I have to be another me to them. It's just the way the world works, sometimes. Not that they wouldn't love me, it's just not satisfactory for them.

But then again, that family is not my own. They belong to my non-biological dad. Ahhh, see then, it begins to make sense.

My mother and I are exactly like each other in many ways. We both have a similar sense of humour and anger, although I think I'm a little more explosive than she is. We are both very stubborn. We are both very arrogant. The things that irritate me about her are things that I find irritating in myself.

I don't see my family often, even though I feel like I should see them more. I saw my grandmother (my non-bio dad's mom) the other day and she has lost a lot of weight. We may be going to her funeral soon. But that's morbid.

Yes, I have a complicated relationship with the family I know, but today, something made me consider looking up the family I don't know.

One of the girls in my office learned a couple of years ago that the man she'd been taught to believe was her dad was, in fact, not her dad. She also learned that the man who was her dad had only died a few months before she was told of his existence. Robbed of the ability to get to know him, she set out to know of him through talking to his (and by blood, her) relatives, visiting his grave site, etc. She walked away from that encounter fulfilled. Knowing about her father has helped her answer some of the pesky questions in her life, like why she was so different from the rest of her family.

I'm a big believer in nature vs. nurture, but from all accounts, my bio-dad was not a great guy. Of course, I did spend more than 12 years hating the man who reared me as his own and died never knowing that I knew he wasn't. But what questions do I have about myself that could be answered by knowing a family that has no idea I exist.

Is it an adventure I want to go on? Is it worth examining? I feel like I've filled in the gaps of my difference with being as me-like as possible. I owe my personality to accepting and rejecting things that other people think I should do. Do I have questions? Can they be answered? I don't know.

For years, my uncle was like my father. He asked about my schooling, he kept up with my awards, he watched a particular news because I worked for it at one time, he read all of my writing... Maybe my dad did the same thing, but he never told me, never talked about it. My bio-dad died in 2000, many miles from the city, from the state, in which I live. I want nothing to do with the personality of a man who, from all accounts, was an abusive, drug dealing thug. But I hear that his brother, my uncle, is a stand up guy. Why is it that I can't find the right father? Why is it always someone else who is willing to invest in me like a daughter?

So, I'm asking the questions now. What do you think? Should I try to find out about these people? Should I risk having another set of people that are disappointed because I'm not what they thought I would be after all the work they put into making me that way? Can I deal with another disappointing family? Is it worth it as a person? As a writer? What do y'all think?

Location, Location, Location

I live near the downtown area of my city. That is enough to take away the suckiness that is my hometown.

I spent the majority of my life dreaming about getting away. I lived in the ghetto, or damn near it if you want to get technical, and as you might imagine, that does not instill a sense of wonder and awe. I wanted to go to there, there being anywhere that was not here. Whether it was Victorian England in the crappy (and not so crappy) romance novels I read, or to the stark northern environment that served as the non sci-fi backdrop of Madeleine L'Engle stories, I always wanted to be somewhere else. I read, I watched tv (when I was allowed to watch tv), I talked to old people at my grandfather's nursing home, people who were more than willing to share about times when they had been someplace other than there, all in an attempt to escape.

Finally, it was my time. I got into the plane without so much as a backwards glance to my home state and swept myself and my stuff up the eastern seaboard to my new home of Boston, MA. Pearl Jam's "Rearview Mirror" was my theme song and the line "I gather speed from you fucking with me" echoed in my head. I was there for two years. When I returned home, which fires and other misfortunes generally make you do, I realized I knew more about my adopted city of Boston, and the surrounding area of Cambridge, than I did about the place in which I lived for more than 17 years.

Actually, first I mourned. Six months in my pajamas, teaching our new dog to love the music of Korn, Pantera, and The Doors, roaming my boring neighborhood freely without knowing that my brother ran interference with every thug he played ball with so that I would be "looked after" but not sexually accosted by said gang members on my runs. I stayed up late, slept long, and ate little until one day my mom told me I was going to have to do something, get a job, volunteer, something(!) if I was gonna stay at her new, not burned down house.

So I got out, volunteered at a nearby school, realized I needed money, got a job, wanted to go back to school, met some nice people who introduced me to Downtown.

Now, at this point, the late 90s, the Downtown area was coming off of an all time low. Prostitution had once been so rampant, there was a city law that stated you couldn't walk down Cherry Street in red heels. I love that that's the sign of a prostitute. Anyway, drug deals and only a few businesses made it supposedly scary to be around Downtown at night, which meant no one was, especially once the drug dealers and prostitutes left from lack of business. Most had deserted this once beautiful area, but not all.

The place was a little nothing of a spot with a beautiful bay window, right next to this elegant, old hotel that had been turned into low income housing for old people. Inside, little cafe tables were spread haphazardly around the floor with clear line to the counter at the back of the store. On the inside of the bay window was a stage where you could get up and read your poetry or play music. It was not my first experience with a coffee house, but it is my most enduring coffee house memory. I went there with friends, some I've lost touch with, some who have died, and others who still remember those days. AOL disks as coasters, the best tea I've ever had in Macon, and delicious deserts, not to mention the bad poems and easy laughs we were always so willing to share, come flooding back when I think of J and the CC.

A few years later, I was invited by a comic book artist to share his creative space and write with him. Weeks later, he left town and I stayed in that creative art space as a writer for nearly 5 years. That was when I knew that my heart would belong to downtown. I walked constantly, never needing to fear for my life, although some lost possessions and one person lost their life just by being downtown. But couldn't it happen anywhere? I met people, I've seen establishments come and go. Even when I got married, I dreamed of the moment when my husband was as assured of my ability to take care of myself as I was so we could make the move downtown. For nearly three years, I lived and worked away from downtown, but as soon as I saw the opening, I pounced.

I ran into someone at the grocery story yesterday, an old friend from school. She asked me if I saw myself and my Honey moving any time soon. I told her we were going with the winds of grad school when that time came, but for now, I was content to be here because I lived downtown.

Don't get me wrong. The allure of being other places still haunts me. I dream of Africa weekly. I imagine Asia, going to China and Japan, going back to Paris and Barcelona and the want of those places weakens my knees. I think about our last trip to Boston and how walking around Cambridge made me long to be back in that area again. Also, since we drove from California back to Georgia, both the Honey and I have kind of kept Albuquerque in mind as a "someday, maybe" place. There are definitely other places I would like to be, but the friends I've made, the home I've made, and the connections I've made makes me not mind it if I have to stay right where I am for a long, long time.

Sorry for the Silence

I was working on an article that was due last week. Took a lot out of me. But now I'm better.

I've started knitting again. I decided, however, to teach myself to knit in the continental method. I was doing the English method, with is characterized by throwing the yarn (your hands move in much larger swoops) while the continental methods is characterized by picking up the yarn with your needles. The movements are much more efficient.

I mean, it will be once I figure the damn thing out. It's like learning to knit all over again. I'm not awesome at knitting, I have to watch every knit to make sure I'm doing the right thing, whether it be purling or knitting. I'm following a pattern, so you can see it if I mess up... It's completely ridiculous and completely fun.

I need another rotator thingy for my spinning wheel so I can combine to strands of yarn I've already spun. I made the strands super thin so that I could spin them together. I guess I could wind each one separately and use it as sock yarn, but I wanted to maybe put together a shawl or something for my mom. Maybe I will just make it something lacy and use the thin strands. Actually, I just want to get these strands off of my spindles so that I can work on this other yarn I've been itching to spin. It's got tinsel in it. I was thinking of doing it with some thin pieces and some thick pieces so that it would make an interesting looking scarf. I have enough to do that and I wouldn't have to worry about the strands being so thin.

When I told my mom I was spinning my own yarn, she said I was becoming the Proverbs 31 wife. I loved to cook, I had a garden, I was "making" our own clothes and some people have said I could sell my knitting, and if I'm spinning my own fiber, it would not be cost prohibitive. She doesn't think that any more, about me being a Proverbs 31 wife, even though I still do all that stuff. I think the belief in Jesus Christ as Lord has to be present for me to be that, although, technically, that was written without the concept of Christ being introduced to the readers. Also, I don't have a city gate at which I could sell my stuff.

I have a lot of work to do now that I have a rough idea of where I want my writing to go. I'm hoping I get to sit down with this other freelance writer and learn what my further options are. I also need to find a way to take classes. With The Honey going to a better, but private, college, fundage has been $0 at best, -$ at worst. Keeping up with my other website (the one I have to pay for) and taking classes to help me become a better writer is on the agenda, but is rapidly being pushed down past the top 10, even though it is what I need. I'm being positive though. If this next article is a cover story and I can pitch a couple more, I will be rapidly moving towards increasing my income, growing my writing career, and putting myself in a better position to get the further education I need.

Yay!

But the work must begin in earnest. I did neglect a few things to finish, but I didn't really put aside the unnecessary things of life this past week. I did my fair share of going out and I didn't watch enough tv for my tv blog, although I did a little catching up this weekend. I am not as tired as I usually am at this time of day, but I certainly did not want to get up and go to work today. But I do have a job that I can enjoy and that is a good thing.

Get Back

I've been up since 6:30am. I don't like getting up that early. I have a lot of writing to try to do today before 6pm - maybe even until midnight if it comes down to it, so I will be brief in this format.

I was so ready to go home yesterday and when I got home, I was so glad to be there that I didn't ever want to leave. For those of you who pray and for those of you who ask things of the universe, my one request is that this year I am successful. Ask that for me.

I'm not talking success as in my name is known worldwide - although that would be nice. I'm not even talking big publications in big... publications. I'm talking about able to support myself and my college captured husband solely on writing. We're working on him supporting me in the future. But now, let's work on me for support.

We knew when we took this step, it was going to be hard. We knew there would be times when we wouldn't have any money. But now we are looking at bills we didn't even know existed (poor record keeping. My bad) and having no money once all the monthly stuff is paid. I wish we could get a break. The thing that put us over was switching to a new school. Extra money we weren't expecting to pay... they waited until it was too late to make the switch back to the old school which wouldn't have been as expensive, although it would be a waste of time because nothing else he took would transfer... and we would have lost the "hold" money we had to pay once they accepted him into the school. It feels like a racket.

And as much as I talk about wanting to do something else, I'm so grateful for my job. I could be without a job. I know several people who are. I could have to try to do this all on half of my salary, which is what almost any other job would pay. I'm glad that I am coming up with ideas that may help us in the future, but I wish that those ideas could be paying for us now.

Can you see how much our financial woes are affecting me? So I worry and my hair doesn't grow and my skin gets dry and the area behind my eyes are tired and I find myself slipping into despair (yeah, that bad). And then I remember we've been able to survive with the help of friends and neighbors and occasionally, my mom. At least when my dad was alive, before the end, I could count on an infusion of $80 every couple of weeks because he'd won somebody's lottery. I'd buy an orange soda and sit in the car with him as if these were old times. They were not. Our landlord is awesome too. Not enough can be said about his generosity and kindness to us in our hard times.

Financially, the thing I miss the most is eating out. I need to start writing food reviews again. Maybe I can do them on my own and take them out of taxes next year. I still haven't tried the brunch at a couple of places. I hear there's a Bloody Mary bar (Make your own Bloody Mary's? Heaven. With lots of hot sauce) and they put hollandaise sauce on the omelets.

Oh well, eventually, we will get out of this hole and be the better for it. Maybe we will learn to be frugal people and will become people who learn to save our abundance.

This Morning

It's cold, I waited in the cold for my ride, and when I walked into my office, I had a bunch of work piled in my seat. Fortunately, I've been a better record keeper than I had been before, so it was all good, but still, no little break of relaxation to ease me into work.

My desk is also a mess, play-doh strewn about as if some invisible kids have been living in my office, though it was really an object lesson for my 9th graders that put the 'doh on my desk.

My head has been hurting for the last 3-4 days, my eyes have been hot, like my body is trying to come down with something but also refusing to do so at the same time.

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. It was warm and relaxing, despite the kittys fighting at our feet. My husband finally caught the smallest one and threw her out of the room. The older kitty walked out, tail and head down, although I know she will dig up the carpet in protest. The smaller one also knocked bottles off of my desk to check out what were making the bird sounds outside our window. To her delight, it was birds. When my alarm sounded, I hit the snooze button and snuggled closer for 9 more minutes.

I hate facing the world. I wish I could start it off slowly, a pot of coffee with a tv show before finally opening Google Docs and getting to whatever story I've chosen to work on. Then, maybe around noon head out to somewhere for lunch and a table that will welcome my papers and books as I write or read to my hearts content because eventually, it will net me a profit. Then I would head home to be with The Honey when he comes home from school with amazing stories from philosophy of mind or philosophy of literature or art history or European history or poetry class. Then I would cook dinner because I miss getting my hands into food or getting the beautiful apron Little Sister made for me dirty.

Deciding to do something and actually doing something are two different things. As the sheer magnitude of work involved in a proposed project comes to mind, I realize that though it will be something that could be awesome, it is also something that could be time intensive and I'm not sure if my writing can handle me doing one more thing.

I could really use a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts right now...

The Hills Are Alive

I'm learning how to play guitar.

It is an ugly, ugly thing. My fingers are sore. No. Sore is an understatement.

They hurt like hell. Even as I type. Particularly because I'm typing.

I can play Smoke on the Water in the wrong key and one string at a time, which is an accomplishment. A major accomplishment.

The Honey asked me why I wanted to learn to play guitar... As I watched him go through song after song, doing with several notes what I can barely do with one finger on one fret. It's interesting, learning how to play. I haven't quite figured out what this will mean for me. Will I learn to be better and bust out the guitar when my musician friends start playing around? Will I start my own band? Will I just fiddle with the guitar in home only and around close friends? I don't know. Is this my third life crisis? I started knitting when I was 28. I start guitar now that I'm 34. What will I start 6 years from now?

Is there something about getting old that leads us to reinventing ourselves? I know that I'm not always happy with who I am. I want to change. My hair, the languages I know, my sense of style, my "fount" of knowledge, etc. There is almost an aching need to know more, to move past the old boundaries that existed in my mind. I sang karaoke for the first time, although sing might not quite be the word. I'd like to convince myself that my cold was to blame, but who am I kidding? The thing is, I did it. I embarrassed myself in front of a room full of children and it was liberating. I felt invincible. Now, another goal is before me and I can only respond to the sound of music.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that I actually know what fret means now.

2010

Where the hell did the time go???

I started this website nearly a year and a half ago because I thought that things were going to change. I was going to be a new person and that the horizons that were opening up because of my travels would be the flipped switch I needed.

I was wrong. Well, not very wrong. A lot of interesting things came out in those travels. The year I traveled, I wrote more than I ever had. I completed NaNoWriMo, writing a syrupy romance novel about three sisters, one of which went to Africa to find herself, which will never see the light of day. I discovered how much I love my friends because that's who I went with and I discovered how much I love my husband who would sacrifice just to see me happy.

Every year, I usually complain about getting older, but at the end of 2009, I didn't dwell on the upcoming 34th birthday or scramble to get my New Year Resolutions down. I just blew my nose (I had a terrible cold), but on my flour length brown dress with blue-ish green sparkles (yes, Big Ben, sparkles), threw on some flip flops, put my heels in my hands and walked down to my NYE event. I drank, I danced, I sang, I shouted, I screamed, I took pictures and I had a blast.

I'm not going to live every day like it's my last. I'm looking forward to the future. But I'm also taking it one day at a time, hoping that those around me will look favourably upon me, that my words will expand from this tiny metro to the world around me, that my thoughts will become solidified and tangible, that my heart will grow in love for others (because I stinkin' hate people right now), that I get my priorities in order and that I just shut the fuck up and write.

Of all the things I've become lax on, being lax on my work ethic has hurt me the most. There was a time where I was writing every day, reading every day and being productive. I'm learning so much now that the old work ethic would have resulted in at least two completed short stories in the last year and a half. Life experiences have increased as well and my once fiercely held beliefs are crumpled in a puzzle at my feet, waiting for me to put them together in a way that makes sense to the life I've lived. I've got to get that back, that missing piece that I didn't notice at first, but that grows bigger with each step I take towards making my dream of living as a working writer a reality.

I can't say that this year will be any better. I can't say that I will regain the work ethic or the insight or even grow from the lessons I've learned, but I can say I will try to shut the fuck up and write and take each day one at a time.

National Novel Writer Month Has Begun

... and I am behind. Of course.

Why do I always do this? I know it is my bad habit of procrastination and that feeling I always get at the beginning of November that I can't finish the 50,000 words before the end of the month. I did it last year and I start each year's NaNoWriMo with such heady optimism, I am always afraid, by the end of week one, that I can not hold on to it.

But by the end of the month, I will have my 50,000 words and more. I know I will because I have a husband who's disappointment is as big as my own, except it's on his face. When it's on my face, I can ignore it. Just avoid mirrors. But when it is on his face, when I give him my word count at the end of the day, I see it and I know that I have to do better and stop sabotaging myself.

Still working at the same place. I keep reminding myself of the sacrifices we are both making for a better future. Still, I wish I could spend more time on writing. But I'm going to kill this teaching thing so that there will be no doubt that, despite wanting to leave, I can do a hell of a job doing my job.

Anyway, just a few thoughts to tide me over and so that whoever it is that checks this site once a day will have something to read.