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.

Marriage

Today, I'm going to teach my students about marriage. To that end, I'm going to watch a Tyler Perry movie called, "Why Did I Get Married", which I know my students have seen. I want to be able to pull from that.

So, yes, I'm watching a movie at work. On days like today, I like my job.

I will do a writing prompt later on today. Comments about previous writing prompts (especially since you know what I'm trying to accomplish) would be welcome. Constructive criticism as well. I will try not to take it personally :)

I have a little more than half the number of pages I need to have and by the end of the day, if I haven't written, it will be less than half. Anyway, I'm writing and working. I will finish my scripts and you all will be responsible for helping me change dreck into gold.

Because you love me.

Weekend Blogging

I'm rubbish at it.

Writing Prompt:

Write about the fastest ride you ever had, but describe only a few seconds of it...as though it was happening to slow motion."

I could feel my insides shifting and the soft hair of my pigtails moving across my neck. I could feel myself lifted from my seat on the soft cushion of the back seat of the ancient cadillac. I was too young to know to lift my hands as we careened down the steep hill. It was a once a year pleasure, a street my mother had found long ago, like a roller coaster, with hardly any life on it. It was a road, absent of homes, that lead to somewhere, but the where was not important.

We felt a bit like daredevils, my brother and I, as we raged down the road. If I were to remind my mother of this now, she would say it never happened. She's not the reckless kind anymore. As we came to the end of the dip and made our way up, my insides came crashing down, our bodies pushed down into the ugly green felt, our fingers gripping the edge of the seat. There were no true g-forces, but I could feel my face shifting ever so slightly on the upward momentum. My mom did not look back to see our fun. Our squeals of joy spoke for us.

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

Month of Discipline

Ahhh, it's that time of year. I would say again, but I can't remember the last time I was actually disciplined.

So, the game plan. This year, I'm doing ScriptFrenzy, hopefully getting a first episode of an original spec and writing a spec for a current show. So, getting disciplined about my writing.

Start walking for 30 minutes - 1 hour a day. Disciplined about my health.

Stop going out nearly every night. Pick nights and times and stick to them. Disciplined about my time.

Stop drinking as much, which goes back to my health. Not cutting out drinking, just not drinking as much.

Get a little more organized and set up a schedule I can (and will) follow.

I'm hoping the month of "practice" will give me the impetus to follow this discipline for the rest of the year. I will add more socializing, but I kind of want to start from nearly zero and go up from there. I also want to get some of these projects I've had in my mind for a while and put the down on paper, finally. That's my problem. I don't get everything on paper like I want.

Maybe it will work, maybe not, but at least you will get to hear me complain about it. That's right, one of the disciplinary things I'm adding is to write about my day on this blog. I may also post my entries for my writing prompts. I need to write everyday, not just on my scripts for ScriptFrenzy, but also on the other things I want to write. So yeah, writing prompts, and story research, and grant finding, and all the like...

Only a few of you know how badly I want to be able to leave my job and just write. My job isn't bad, it's just no longer satisfying. My job is frustrating and uninspiring. Writing is frustrating, but when you break through and have a finished piece that you're even partially satisfied with, that is something. I want to do work and feel like that. My students adore me and listen to me and talk to me and that is satisfying, but they don't agree with me and that's the hard part, seeing them after I've taught them and having them say they wish they'd listened to me. It's hard and that part is not satisfying. Of course, I've talked to one student who said that they're glad they listened to me. That is satisfying, but it doesn't keep me going and striving for the ends I strive for when I teach.

Anyway, that's another story and one not thankfully told. I have other thoughts that reside outside of this post. I'm just challenging myself by letting you know. At least two people who read this page will keep me accountable (you know who you are) and maybe, just maybe, I can emerge from the month of April with some new habits for becoming a more successful writer.

Trying Not to Revert

Remembering to write is not as easy as you might think, even for someone that's a writer.

I mean, I'll eventually get words onto paper or finish a story at deadline, but remembering to visit this site to put down a few words... yeah, sometimes I forget.

Also, I've been a bit morose of late. Things get you down and it's hard to come back up from that. So you take part in pursuits that have no enduring value to the things you want to do just so that you're not reminded of life's shortcomings. I just have to remember, I'm not the first going through this, nor the last, and others are right there with me right now.

I can see why people become mommy bloggers. Kids do crazy things all the time. I've been fighting the urge to write about the cats - well, at least not write much. We have two cats. One is sweet and just wants to be cuddled. One is into everything and just want to know what "that" is. Oh yeah, "that" is everything. I want to get good video of her playing with her toys. It's the funniest thing that you will never care about.

Even though I have scaled back on some social activities to concentrate on writing, I'm still going out an awful lot. Well, this week, little sister is visiting, so I'll be out. That means I have to finish my articles because she's going to be taking up my non work times. Even though I'm going out a lot, most of the activities I engage in are nerd activities. Trivia on Tuesday and Wednesday nights at different bars. Cocktail Hour at different houses on Thursday nights. This week, a free concert Friday celebrating Anti-Valentine's Day (oh how I love this!), a friend is putting out a free album Wednesday, another friend is playing a small concert at a local bookstore on Tuesday - Not sure what is going on Saturday, but I'm pretty sure friends will try to get me to go out Thursday night to a college bar that I feel too old to even look at and Saturday night to sit in a smoke filled room drinking and listening to somebody's southern rock and screaming over the noise. I hope somebody brings a banjo.

The street I live on is putting on a block party and I think the Honey and his friends are going to play it. I don't think they're going to be the main form of entertainment, but it will be interesting to see him performing in front of a live audience. He's been in bands before. I know he doesn't have anxiety about it - I mean, no more than normal - and he must like the work or he wouldn't have let anyone else hear it. To me, it's fantastic. I already have the melodies of some of the songs in my head. I wish I could remember the words. He hasn't given me a copy, but then again, I haven't asked.

I got into a long conversation with a friend about our connection to Africa. She said she grew up feeling an emptiness that she felt might be filled with knowing her African roots. I said I never felt that calling, as if a part of myself were missing. If, by some miracle of records keeping I were to be able to actually trace my roots to country of origin, I would definitely want to see where I would have grown up should I have survived birth, but I think the complete me is what I am today. Even knowing my bio-dad's family wouldn't offer any form of completion for me. But I remember being on the Zambezi River with the wind flowing through my hair and being very touched by where I was, but also very satisfied with what I'd seen. Not too satisfied, mind you, but enough.

I had my tarot read the other day by a friend who's been dying to do so. The cards think we'll be okay. And who can't trust the cards?

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.

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.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow looms brightly. It is big and full of potential. As the day fades, after working for most of it, when the white screen sits empty before me and the little black line in the left hand corner of the page blinks, I look longingly at tomorrow because I know that is when I will have the energy and the creative energy to do all of these things I feel I have the potential for.

I can feel tired seeping into me. I've watched my shows and now, all I have to do is right. That's all. Just write. But the longer I sit here, the longer it takes my fingers to move over the keys. I glance at the clock and it shows me that night has become the next day. Tomorrow is only a day away.

I wish I would do the things now that I imagine for tomorrow.

Free Falling

This is harder than it used to be, getting my thoughts out. Back then, I didn't have anyone to embarrass but myself. I still remember the url - http://publictrust.blogspot.com. I got the name from a poster on the wall about the constitution at a former place of employment. Back then, I didn't know that you wanted a url that people could remember and go back to.

Those days were a bit more carefree - I had time, a job that didn't require a full 8 hours, no one was paying me to come up with articles on a monthly basis. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but it's harder to get in the creative stuff. Or just to get stuff off of my chest.

I had lunch with a freelance writer a few years ago. She told me that if I started writing for a living that writing creatively would be much harder and that I would even begin to hate the act of sitting down in front of the computer to do something. I'm definitely not at that point, but I do resent the time that my body requires for sleep and for friends and all the other things I want to do. I like those outlets: trivia night, movies, hanging out, staying in. But it all takes time. Just like I have to come to a realization about my weight (despite the magic office mirror in which I look fantastic), I have to come to some sort of realization with my writing.

The Honey is sick of hearing me talk about this. In his mind, if I wanted it, I would do it. And really, in my mind, that's how I feel too. But then I try to imagine a future where I just teach and don't go after writing and my fingers begin to itch, like I've already cut the computers away from their tips and they feel the phantom pains.

So, yes, I want to do this and yes, I will whine, and yes, I need your encouragement (and sometimes ass kicking) and maybe a deadline or two that has nothing to do with the writing I get paid for. While I'm going to apologize to you now for what you may have to put up with in the future, I'll thank you kindly for the encouragement.

Starting Somewhere

Every morning, I wake up wanting the day to go differently. This morning, with the foggy, sunless morning, I just wanted to get back in bed, wake up an hour later, then read my book for an hour or so before getting to the page, electronic and otherwise. I imagine this life as I step into my red All Stars and put on a blue shirt that complements my skin tone and I imagine that I'm excited because I have a job that can support me and my husband as he goes to school. I appreciate my job for that. But I long for something different (better?) and I feel it just beyond my periphery every day. So if I am able to do the things I've set my mind and heart ondoing, even as I let other things get in the way, I feel there is hope that I will find the new pathe I want to be on and still be financially stable.

That the dream, right? Write, work hard, and eventually you will be writing from home. I see the dream, kitten in my lap, laptop humming, coffee cup rings on my desk marking the time, looking forward to my husband coming home to tell me about his day.

Yeah, this is a bit wistful, but we all have to start somewhere, right?

This Post Fueled by Beefeater Gin and Tonic

In the case of perception, I am fully female.

I look in one mirror and I am a fat fuck. I mean, just humongous. I look like I'm a stretched out dwarf or a baseball player on an HDTV when it's not programmed correctly for widescreen.

In other mirrors, I am okay. I have more weight on me than I did 5 years ago, but it's proportionate because I am nearly 6ft tall and my fat distributes in an hourglass fashion. Which mirror is correct?

Sometimes I assume the first mirror is correct because I imagine I jiggle when I walk and The Honey is afraid I'm gonna die if I don't stop eating sugary, cheesy, greasy foods. Sometimes I imagine that the latter is true and that I look cute in my clothes that I love but that I realize are a little tighter than when I bought them.

So, would you trust a person who doesn't even know who they are when they look in the mirror? I find it hard to trust myself based on that information. I am the one that is supposed to be in control of my future. But my decision making of late is crap, not in regular life, but with my writing future. I can't see clearly what I want. It's like trying to determine which image of me is real? The one I see when I'm optimistic or the one I see the other times. The writing dream I see when I'm optimistic or the one I see the other times.

I know what I want. I want to wake up at 10am. I want to work out in the mornings. I want to come home, take a shower, relax with a cup of coffee and then I want to write until 6pm. I want to be able to take breaks and be at home with my cat and be able to greet my husband and start cooking again, start tasting foods in my head and putting them together, for better or for worse. I want to watch television at night and write about them by the morning. Then I want to go to sleep and do it all over again. I want to go to the library whenever I want to. I want to make middle of the day plans, have lunch dates, write at night too.

I don’t know how to get there. Just write is the easy answer, but is it “the” answer? I don’t know. There are a few of you who have started getting on to me about writing (or not writing) and I know you’re right, but but but...

There are things that I am changing. I hope those changes help me have a better outlook on writing. And I’m working to stop being so fat, so that there is only one image in the mirror.

Neighborhood #1

At one end of Curd Street was a yard, encircled with chain link fencing and attached to a small church. In the fenced yard lived two German Shepherds, then the scourge of the dog world. These two worked in concert, like Cerebus, their two heads barking in every direction, their bodies close and quivering with anger.

If I remember correctly, I was fascinated by the dogs. I was all of ten years old, 5ft2in of legs, arms, knees and elbows. We didn't have much in those days. We lived in what could only be described, looking back, as slums. The drive through the neighborhood is almost unrecognizable, except for that feeling in the pit of your stomach that lets you know you have been here before. The fenced in church yard is still there, so are the apartments, red brick that stand to this day, although now they are overrun with vegetation.

I would walk to school, down my little street, turn left past the dogs, feed them a little piece of my breakfast, peanut butter toast, let them sniff my hands before they began to bark like mad, turn right at the end of the street, walk for about 4 blocks, turn left, scramble over hills that later became the base of the west side's Macon Housing Authority. Back then, the giant mounds of dirt that separated us from school were the biggest challenge of our day. The walk home would be the reverse, with some dry bits taken from lunch and furtively stuffed in pockets for the demon dogs I affectionately called King (yes, that was both of their names). They sniff my fingers, their noses wet. One King even ventured to lick my fingers before they both stepped back and started barking furiously. I let them know, by my voice, that they didn't scare me. When I talked about school, they stopped barking and listened. King would sometimes come closer. I talked as I walked around the fence and then headed home.

Our street was hilly and on the top of the hill was a two story blue house. The windows on the house were like a face and the dilapidated look of the house gave it a creepy feel. We always claimed that it was a witches' house. It was the kind of house you felt sure living next too would also brand you a witch and since I was already a vampire, well, I didn't need any more trouble. She hated animals and would complain about the infernal digging of our dog, Pearlie. I'm sure she hated the shepherds. You could hear King barking all the way to Jefferson Davis Road, the other end of the street, and I would stay awake wondering how I could charm the dogs.

We had our own dog who would dig holes into the hill. She would slink, fox like, into one of the many holes she created. She had puppies in one of them once and let me and my brother crawl through them to watch her feeding the puppies. Thank god for the knees and elbows.

It took several weeks before I tamed the dogs. Eventually, they were waiting for me in my walk. They stopped barking after a while and would perk up at the sound of my voice. The lady from the church was amazed. I'm sure she was afraid the dogs would turn on me, but they never did. For the four years the dogs and I lived in the neighborhood, we were friends.

I drove through the neighborhood the other day, my curiosity stronger than my need to hold on to memories that may not even be true. Everything was so different, though the chain link fence was still there. It was all so small. I couldn't imagine living there now. Of course, there are no dogs anymore. It's been more than 20 years. So much has changed, but the memories, faulty though they be, stay the same. I'm sure the dogs are playing to their heart's content out in the country somewhere.

I've Grown So Morbid - Why Don't I Cheer the Hell Up?

I have a lot to work on. But it has come to my attention that I've been a bit morbid.

It doesn't surprise me. Although I am pretty clean for a writer (no true abuse, but there is a hint of the emotional abuse here and there, no drugs, no sex before marriage, no rock and roll), I do have my traumas. Even though I wish those traumas played a better part in my writing, I find that when I write, I gloss over things, but when I think and then spew them on this blog, they come out a bit more morbid that I actually am in real life.

I like to laugh. I like to dance. I like tv shows and talking about them. I like sitting on porches drinking gin and tonics from mason jars and talking about everything from the meaning of life to the latest House episode (which, not surprisingly, has been dealing with the meaning of life) or Thomas the Train. I like hanging out with people and knitting and spinning yarn and even if I don't finish things, the very act of those things relax me. I've been much to morbid of late and I want it to end.

It's up to me, I know. I'm not deluded about that. So I am making the conscious decision to add things back into my busy schedule that I let work and writing push out. Truth be told, I can't write without the reading. I miss the reading. I miss actually finishing novels. I have about 5 books going right now. My goal is to finish one a week. I went to the yarn store Saturday and sat and knit with the older ladies and let their conversations wash over me as my fingers moved of their own merit and I allowed my mind to wander, perhaps for the first time in so many months. I want to add parts of those things back into my life so that I don't just see the cart I'm trying to pull, but I see the carrot that I get to eat when the cart gets to its destination.

I need to structure and organize my life and then stick to it. Because I like having fun, not regretting what I didn't do the day before. I'll try to laugh more, not just in deed, but in words as well.

I've Got It All Figured Out

Really early Sunday morning, I sit at my desk, watching the latest television that I missed last week, hoping I can get through about 14 hours of television before it starts all over again. I don't have time to do everything I want to do.

Writing isn't going to be the hard thing. The hard thing is going to be trying to do everything I need to do in the next few weeks. For about the next three weeks, I will be working more than 40 hours a week because my second program is taking effect. Next week, there is spring break, so no classes, but the week after that, I work 12 hours Monday, 9 hours Tuesday, 10 hours Wednesday with no actual lunch, 11 hours Thursday, 10 hours Friday, 2 hours Saturday = 54 hours = 14 hours off the next week... EXCEPT... I still have to work with the other program the next week and despite having a day off on the calendar, I still have the crazy work schedule for that week.

Why is all of that happening? Because it is time for Script Frenzy. My life wouldn't be interesting if my life went normally, if I had the same time. But it will be interesting to see what my time off will look like when I get over these next few weeks.

I'm just tired. Don't mind my bitching, incoherency, or anything else below the pale.