Great year for 2012, Take Two! Tuesday, January 31, 2012

So, when speaking to my grandmother yesterday, we both noted that January was an incredibly long month for us. There just seemed to be so many things going on with the start of the year and Uncle Buddy’s passing that there was no way that this could only be the end of January.

Trying to put a positive spin on this, I’ve got a whole new month to get those goals I’d set for myself in motion. With a few prayers on the wind, I may even get the novel close to finished to next.

Speaking of prayers, I’ve decided to start teaching Sunday School again. Right now, I’m just getting back into just getting there on time for the lessons before I’ll start actually teaching, but I think the best way for me to get back into this is to have myself pushed right into the deep end, which is what my mother did last week when she volunteered my services to help. I’m thankful though, because without that shove off the diving board, I’d have never got around to planning to get to Sunday School on time again.

I got a little bit of writing in today, 399 words (You’re never like this) and I’m glad to get them. February is another month, so Cheers! to another chance to get it right.

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Another scare Thursday, January 26, 2012

As technologically savvy as I think I am, from time to time, it frightens me. In one day, Micro$oft corrupted my novel’s file and it looks like my Google account may have been accessed from outside my country. Passwords have been changed and the novel is safe (more or less), but it astounds me how much I’ve come to depend on something that may throw me under the bus at any minute.

My whole life is connected to my Google account and one disaster there is almost as bad as having a wallet stolen. My novel has been nearly my whole life for the past few years and, while the majority of the work is backed up in pieces across multiple hard drives and my website, the most recent works could have been long gone.

I guess I don’t have too much of a point tonight, but needless to say, I’m not going to get a lot of writing done tonight. While I tell myself, if something written were lost, it was probably for the best, but I find a lot of comfort in re-reading old things and seeing how I came from Point A to B, hence the reason for this blog. I don’t like losing things, especially when I’ve done so much to safeguard them and even with files kept on a shared hard drive kept on Dropbox and backed up to my website, things can still go wrong.

Almost… Wednesday, January 25, 2012

So tonight, I’d aimed on writing about how I only had a few minor parts left of the novel, but after a quick review of all the notes that were left, I saw that I’m only close to almost, almost done, which comes out to be a little more than a quarter of the novel left to go. Something like 3/8. Considering where I was a year ago, I’m astounded that I’ve come this far.

I see no reason why I can’t make my goal of April 1st (I’m finally brave enough to put that in writing), but again and again and again, if I don’t make it, I’ll be all right.

I’m getting into a rhythm again and I’m finding that it helps if I do two things: 1) Just force myself to write a couple of paragraphs and 2) Just find a place a start writing from wherever I am. I wrote 1515 words tonight (he had finished Angel’s lasagna), but I wrote another 1383 in something that exists between notes and full prose for the next part I intend to write. All that’s left for me to do is just add the proper punctuation and tidy it up before I can call it real writing and I’m good to go.

What’s even better is that I’m less exhausted writing those close to 3000 words than I am when I try to complete that same word count on any other day since the latter part doesn’t feel like “work-writing,” but more like play…the way writing had been for me up until I was about 25.

Another revelation came to me this evening on my way home from first-job and it was that fan-fiction and stories such as Reruns are going to be the “play-writing” that all of my writing once comprised.

As I move closer and closer to making my second-job my only job, the more I realize that writing is, indeed, work and I’ve always been rather excellent at procrastinating at work. If I keep my procrastination focused on the same craft, however, maybe it won’t be as bad as it was when I was in college…learning whole programming languages just to avoid having to study for Biochemistry…

Learning to listen Thursday, January 19, 2012

God has been speaking to me a lot in these past few weeks. At some point in time, I’ve got to learn to stop running and just listen.

The new year started off with quite the bang for me and in just a couple weeks, things started to get muddied again. This week, I’m not sure if I’ve finally mastered the art of sitting still and listening to God, but I think I’ve come very close to it.

Sunday told me that I can’t keep doing what I’m doing and expect to get different results. I can’t just eat whatever I want and expect the weight to come off magically after a shower one day, so I’ve started to work out every day again; I should have been doing this since the start of the year, but that’s why it’s time to stop and listen.

Today (Wednesday) taught me that I need to have patience. I keep pushing and pushing because I want things with first-job on my time and so I keep forgetting that my path will only occur on His time. My time is not my own. I should already know this, but again, that’s why I’m to stop and listen more often that I’ve been.

It’s time to get back into my writing routine and attempt to write every day like I did last year, but unlike last year, I’ve got no stress to keep this up every single day of the year. If I have the inspiration to write a lot, I will and if I don’t…tomorrow is another day.

Tonight, I wrote 1049 words (something about him “getting sick again.”) and it’s never felt so good to write those very words again.

My fright, my change Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Today has gone a little better than yesterday. Talking with family and good friends always helps in times like these.

I read briefly about the supposed five stages of grief and I think I suffered all of them in a single day, but I think, if anything, it goes to show I’ve really made a change in my life at the start of this year.

My eye twitch has returned in full swing with this recent stress, but whenever I feel the tug at my eye, I know it’s time to take a break from what I’m doing and remember that “everything is gonna be all right.” Uncle Buddy is gone and I’ll not see him again in this life, but I have the happy memories to keep me company until we meet up again. Life is indeed short and mine grows shorter with each passing day, but at least today, I can say that I’ve honestly done something that may help someone a bit younger than myself take those first steps into a real career; in short, I’ve just helped someone. These are concepts that eleven days ago, I’d have agonized over for days and days without coming up with an answer.

No matter the situation, there is always a positive and that’s what I’ve tried to keep at the forefront of my mind through each event during this last week, which brings me to another reason my eye has been twitching so much today.

I’m a digital hoarder, of sorts, in that I keep nearly every document, e-mail, picture, whatever on some hard drive or CD/DVD/circa-95 floppy disk, etc. that I can find “just in case” I could possibly need it. When it comes to my writing, the same applies. For example, just a few weeks earlier, I’d found some old 3.5in floppies in my house and found some old stories that I’d written when I was eleven years old.

All my writing projects and all the material for my websites are housed on a single eight-year old external hard drive. Needless to say, this small device houses my many hopes and dreams as well as records of what I can honestly call accomplishments over the last decade. Nearly everything article I’d created on my site and nearly every story, fan-fiction, true fiction, non-fiction, lives on the same hard drive. Today, that hard drive stopped working.

While my heart quite literally skipped a beat this morning, I remained calm and reminded myself that anything worth anything was backed up somewhere, Damen especially. I’ve littered three PCs, two iPhones and half the Internet with one copy or another of my current novel, so even if I’d lost all of the work on the drive, Damen would still be safe (it’s also on Dropbox) and, if God, decided it was time for me to get rid of all that, then it’s for my best. A few weeks ago, I’d lost some work I’d done on Reruns and nearly panicked about it until I realized that what I’d written wasn’t very good and, since I remember the gist of what I wanted to say, I know I can write better when the time comes to really write that story.

My mind wandered back to my hard drive several times throughout the day, but I kept saying to myself that it really would be all right, and even if it was all somehow gone, data recovery services just aren’t that expensive. As I’d already known before I’d left the house this morning with the drive still malfunctioning, everything turned out to be all right; just a little glitch to give me a day of mild terror.

I am, of course, in the process of backing up the entire drive in two places, however, just in case another failure lurks down the road, but it’s today’s preparations that gives me the peace of mind for tomorrow. Just like I can prepare and be right with my God should I meet my own end sooner than I’d expect, I can prepare for everything else too.

A part of life Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Every few months, God reminds me that my time on this specific creation of His is not permanent.

I lost my great uncle today and while a good deal of the grief has passed, I’m still in a state of shock. This is one of the first times where I was in charge of relaying information and also was unable to escape into my writing like I do so often in times of strife.

My mother keeps telling me that this is all a part of life. All I can really think of is where is my miracle? Why doesn’t my family get to experience those miracles I read about where someone wakes after a stroke and then lives to be 100? Why don’t these things ever happen to my family?

I doubt I’ll ever get an answer to these questions, but I can’t help asking them.

I didn’t get a lot of writing done today, considering, but I’m still desperately seeking that escape that only a long session spent in a world of my own creation can allow.

A Funny Story Sunday, January 8, 2012

I’ve not done a lot of writing in Damen this week, but I have been making dozens of notes for Reruns and also Lydia ( 😉 I just love that this story finally has its voice). The most fascinating part of all is that I’m not at all worried or stressed by where I’ve been putting my creative endeavours, which lets me know that my true resolution for the new year is starting to take effect.

I thought long and hard about how I could “Do better,” but no voice of inspiration came to that gave clear directions on how this could be accomplished, so instead, I likened “Do better” with doing better with God, i.e., let Him have true control. I know it’s only been a week into this new year, but I already feel better for doing better.

This week, I’ve not let the little things bother me and just reminded myself that God is in control, so there’s no need to worry. Troubles with first-job (and there have been some extreme troubles in just this week) can’t possibly bother me because I know God will take care of me. Slight distractions with my writing can’t bother me either because as long as I’m writing something that will help proclaim the name of God, I can’t possibly go wrong.

This new lot on life came to me, not in that sudden burst of inspiration I was expecting, but through a close look at my December 2011. In times when I’m stressed to my breaking point, my body lets me know that things are going wrong by an eye-twitch. I’d only experienced this about two years ago when I was, again, stressed to nearly my limit. My mother says that she develops the same sort of thing which is why it is so important to eliminate it’s source quickly before health problems begin. In these eight days with my resolution in place, however, the twitch has all but ceased. True, it reappeared briefly today when I thought my choir director was going to have me sing a solo without practicing first (I almost passed out in the choir stand just thinking about it), but when that passed, the moment took the twitch with it.

My track record of continuing things and completing projects over these last 27 years of life has not been so good, but I’ve got something different this time around and in place of the life-altering stress, I’ve got inner peace and the bold confidence that comes from knowing, as the old hymn goes, “I’ve got a feeling, everything is gonna be all right…”

Now, for the funny story:
I’ve got some new people to my team at first-job and one of them asked me this Thursday for the number for our call-off line. As I normally tease my folks to bring them into the fold, I was relentless as normal, but gave the number in case he needed it, as he assured me that he wouldn’t be calling off any time soon. Yesterday, after first-job, I went to GameStop to sell back a game (and get all of $0.83 for it) and while I was there, I looked up and saw this same employee. I waved when I saw him, but he looked kind of awkward at me and when I went to say hello, he nearly bolted from the store.

I didn’t think much of it until after I was leaving with Skyrim in hand (which means my time for writing will dramatically decrease unless I’m diligent this month), but then I remembered that he was supposed to be at first-job that day…and he had called in sick, yet looked perfectly healthy at GameStop. 🙂 I laughed about his quick dash from the store all the way back to my car.

I’m still getting used to the idea that I’m really someone’s boss and that I’ve got a group of people who see me as My Boss Dorienne instead of just Dorienne. But, this was just really funny to me.

Before I forget… Sunday, January 1, 2012

I’m going to do a lot 2012. I’ve said this probably every year, inserting a new date with each passing 12-month cycle, but I hate to break tradition, so I’m going to say it once more.

Last year saw a lot of burnout for me and a lot of that I’d like to avoid this year. Instead of listing all that I’d like to accomplish here only to look back and frown on what didn’t get accomplished, I’m going to make just one goal: Do better.

Sure, I’ve got a list made in other places and even a reminder for June 1, 2012 in case I lose my way, but all of those roll into the one. I can do much better than I have been doing, so my only true goal for 2012 is to do better than I did in 2011. 🙂