The Accountable Monday, February 14, 2022

I feel rather old saying that the Superb Owl halftime show was “lit”, but I’ve not got a better word to describe it at the moment. That people are seeming a bit incredulous over Snoop Dogg…well, being himself, might just be my favorite part of all.

I’m on a decent writing streak for the first time in probably years. I went to Discord in search of a writing accountability partner and it turned into a whole new bot with dozens of partners all encouraging each other to write. I was about to fail in writing daily today given that I slept poorly last night and ended up sleeping across the bulk of the day today, but the new bot and a push from a couple others got me to get another 352 words on the page for Nostrum.

It’s hard to find others to hold you accountable for what is essentially a hobby. As there’s nothing particularly on the line whether you succeed or fail, it’s rather easy to just let things slide and end up with lots of initial ambition that just falls off as the doldrums of life wear on the soul. That’s the benefit of little online communities, though. You get to know people over time and even those who you just casually interact with can give you the push needed to keep on keeping on.

I’ve still got so long to go on these multi-faceted journeys, but having even a bot poke you with a reminder to do what you like to do can work wonders on the mind and the mental state of the aspiring writer. Cheers to accountability!

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Thankful Tuesday, October 16, 2012

I’m so very thankful for today!

I’ve been in such a slump for so many weeks it got difficult to sort out the good days from the bad, but today, I am uplifted for the first time in a long while.

I got a promotion at first-job, but that’s not what actually pulled me from the slump. This started yesterday as I finally took to heart the saying “If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.” and made a change. I cleaned the house and resolved to be patient because whatever God had cooking for was only going to materialize on His time and never mine.

I was already feeling good about what I’d just come through when I got the call offering my promotion, so that was just the proverbial icing on the cake. I even got some writing done today!

I’m just so thankful that God breaks me down to build me back up even stronger, since that’s always been His way. It’s not until the sky looks darkest that the light starts to shine. Even though all my friends and family have been saying how they’ve prayed for this promotion for me, I remind myself that the promotion in itself is not really what makes today so special. Today was special because I was happy with my lot in life; happy to be patient, happy to recognize that limits aren’t necessarily bad and happy to know that I struggle for God’s greater glory in the end.

Today, I’m very, very thankful.

Responsibilities Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Today I was asked to take on some incredibly responsibility for my family. I’m scared, not of disappointing my family or even possibly facing issues with the law because of said responsibilities, but the idea that I could fail in this adult journey of mine.

It takes a lot of organization and poise to take on what I’m about to do and, while I know I’m more than capable of getting this started, seeing this to the finish line will be the real task. Lord, help me…

I managed to carve out a little time today to write, morning, afternoon and at night. I wrote 444 words (let things like that happen); not the best literature the world has had to offer, but a few steps closer to getting this done.

I can see the end of this novel and if I can just push through the next 28 days and keep my focus, I may even have this finished and ready to send by April. 🙂

Tonight’s quest, however, will be devoted to finding the best option for working on this novel on an iPad.

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.

305 Monday, August 22, 2011

Considering all the free time I had today, it’s a little disappointing that I barely had 300 words in me for the entire day, especially when I consider that I’m striving hard to pump myself into 500 or more words each day for the month of September; hopefully I’ll be able to bump it to a full one thousand a day.

I feel myself coming round to a specific curve on my emotional cycle where I’m not really sure what I should be doing and have difficulty setting proper tasks for myself. Normally the cycle will be a normal flow of inspiration and purpose, then a sharp drop in motivation where I feel blank and incapable of thought, then comes a low point where I’m ready to start writing morose poetry to describe my mind, then a huge spike in creativity and drive where I can write for ten hours straight without realizing it, and after that spike, I come back down to a blank stage before coming round to the normal flow of inspiration again. I’m definitely back to that blank stage, but the problem with this cycle is that I’ve no idea how long any particular stage lasts or what spurs one to move into the next. I suppose for now, it’s well enough that I’m able to identify the cycle in hopes that my future self will have some inkling for what I do the things I do.

I wrote just 305 words tonight (he had collected from the Internet), but even though I wrote very little, I managed to neaten my kitchen and plan to make it the third room in the house, after my living room and bedroom, to which I delved an entire weekend into cleaning and forced myself to retain it’s relative cleanliness, so that’s got to count for something.

Brick Saturday, August 13, 2011

by Ben Folds Five ~ Whatever and Ever Amen

I’m listening to this song via Google Music which in less than ten minutes managed to turn around my entire day. Prior to experiencing the free set of songs offered by the new Google app, I was going to say that I’d had a pretty crappy day, but now I’ve heard music through a new method and now I’m mildly happy from just the sight of something so new and fun.

I wrote 401 words tonight (for the prayer before the meal) and may have written more tonight except…well, Google Music, really is quite fun.

A morning routine Thursday, August 11, 2011

I’m having a difficult time (in general) determining lately whether I’m “telling” my story or showing so much that it feels like tell.

Usually, when I find myself writing “He did X” several times on a page, I’ve fallen into a series of tells instead of showing the reader what’s happening at this point in the story. That said, I’m not quite sure how else I’d say what I’m saying and so it’s coming off as either overly detailed or just plain bland. That’s the infuriating part, though; I can’t tell which!

It seems like a rather simple concept and I’m sure that if I read a bit about it, I’d discover my answer, but I fear “the tell” like a block and I worry that after reading anything about what defines a “tell” versus a “show,” I’ll get “tell” in the back of my mind and end up telling the reader all about Damen and Co. instead of allowing the story to happen on the page.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things, if this is one of my greatest worries in the world, I’ve got loads about which to be thankful, but still…it’s worries me.

Overnight, I’ve decided to go back to writing as a part of my morning routine.

In the past few weeks, I’ve stopped playing Rock Band for three to four hours every night and, aside from gaining a bit of weight from not wearing myself out with all the songs, I’ve found simply things stressing me far more often than they had when I was coming home and forgetting the day by playing through my songs.

Nothing technically stops me from playing every night now, but I have an obligation to myself to finish this draft in the next few months, which means that when I come home at night, I know I’ll either sit down to write for the night or play Rock Band, I’m rarely able to do both before it’s time to go to bed. The happy medium, then, is to write in the mornings, presumably after I do my morning workout. This will, hopefully, allow me time to do both of the things I love and reduce stress at the same time.

I just hate falling asleep in front of the television having done neither by the end of the day. Many days I’ll find that I’m not in the mood to write, but because I’ve sat and stared at the words on my laptop for so long, I’ve wasted too much time to de-stress from the day with my game and end up just having something to eat and then falling sleep in front of the TV to either Netflix or my “Dorienne TV” concoction. If I expect something to change, I can’t keep doing the same thing while hoping for new results.

I wrote 413 words this morning (and I want them now. Right now) and, though, I’m suffering a bit from allergies and I’m still a little down from how the past two days have gone, I think I’m at least on the right path.

332 Sunday, August 7, 2011

I made it to church today. As I’ve seen in the past few weeks I’ve attended service, once again, more troubles have fallen on the faithful.

We lost a dear member of our church last night and, while a part of me is nearly all cried out from all the losses I’ve seen at my church home, I’m terribly sadden to hear that he passed.

Few people loved God like he did. He sang the liveliest songs in church though he couldn’t really sing and he did everything in his power to keep his church looking presentable at all times. What I remember most about him was a conversation we’d had back when I was still teaching Sunday school. At Teacher’s Meeting, we were discussing the first chapter of Genesis and whether or not the seven days was truly 168 Earth hours or whether it was a metaphor for the millions of years it took for the earth and its inhabitants to form.

I was growing a little irritated when no one seemed willing to at least meet me halfway on the concept when Brother Mike said in a very clear, purposeful voice that the specifics of whether or not it was truly seven days was not really the point of the text. The point, he advised, was that we as Christians understood that all things came through God first. If I understood that, then all the little things about the “how” weren’t all that important. Years later, that has always stuck with me.

I wrote 332 words tonight (beside him as she watched him draw). That’s about it.

A review of a “little down” Saturday, August 6, 2011

On my way home from first-job this evening, I considered the timeline I’d like to manage for the rest of Damen: have a draft complete by end of September, spend three months slashing it down to 120K words, spend four months making two new edits before sending it to agents in April 2012. As I came to the end, however, I started to feel a little down because I’ve set goals like this before, but have never seen them come to fruition. This “little down” chased me into the house and as I got set to write this evening, I took a glance at my e-mail as a last bit of procrastination.

Waiting for me was a “New Review at SVUfiction.com for Flight, a novel” e-mail and I smiled as I read the title of the e-mail aloud. I smiled even wider as I read the small review of Flight and the “little down” had been kicked in the rear by the time I’d read through a page of all the past reviews of Flight.

As I’ve said before, I now think of Flight as probably one of the worst things I’ll ever write in terms of quality, but the story is still rather fun and, judging by the fact that I can still manage to pick up a review every so often about it, is still an entertaining read.

I ended up writing 314 words tonight (he could not help smiling at the envelope.) and what really brought me out of what could have been a rather sad, depressing evening was the thought of what I really intend to do with Damen. At the end of the day, I just want to tell a story. All I want is for someone to spend some time with these characters that float inside my head for a bit and enjoy themselves while they do it. Despite all the goals I’ve got lined that may very well get broken, if I remember this, I’ll be just fine.

Tomorrow’s another day Thursday, August 4, 2011

Today started out bad. I went to bed really late, like four in the morning and I have to be up at eight, late and since I went to bed so late, I was far too tired and was in far to much pain to get up and workout, so I let myself sleep another hour. I didn’t get much from that extra hour, though and while I made it to first-job on time, I did not get a chance to really plan my day the way I’d wanted and the day just passed me by so quickly that I hardly had time to think. The entire day was just completely out of sorts and by five o’clock, I knew that if I didn’t get out of the building and see some water, I was going to snap.

I took a drive through my hometown and went to see a little bit of water; nothing utterly significant, but just something wavy and pretty to stare at while listening to some nice music. I calmed as soon as I got there and despite having to battle with an enormous bug that flew into my car on the way back to first-job, the rest of the evening went much better…that is until I started to write.

While I tried to use the last little bit I’d saved from yesterday to stave off a block, it came anyway and I found myself just writing and writing and writing until something made sense. Fortunately, this time around, nearly all of it was usable and I eventually pulled myself out of the block, but it took an additional two hours and two thousand words to get there.

I wrote 349 words (day of class before their Christmas break.) of Damen’s draft and should be block-less for at least through the weekend…hopefully. I’ve still got enough time to get in my nightly routine before going to sleep at my normal time and get up tomorrow to start the day right, so as I’ve titled the post: tomorrow’s another day and here’s a little something to keep me calm throughout it.

Another day, another list Tuesday, August 2, 2011

While I awoke very close to my designated time, I didn’t get as much done today as I did yesterday. Today, however, I at least spent the majority of the day playing Rock Band which kept me reasonably active throughout the day.

As I consider these three pounds I’ve gained in the past month, I realize that it’s partially because I’d stopped playing Rock Band for all hours into the day and night. Instead of being on my feet and playing songs that, when they get engrossing, can burn some real calories, I would fall asleep on my sofa, completely still and immobile. Granted, playing Rock Band is not what I’d consider the most strenuous of exercises, but between the singing and the strumming, I often get hot enough to work up a light sweat, thus my knowledge that I’m burning at least few calories while I play.

The remedy here isn’t to play Rock Band all day and night to keep my weight static, but it’s very interesting to me to see what taking away that one activity did to my body. For someone who’s as ridiculously inactive as I, even some daily Rock Band can be enough to keep the pounds from packing on endlessly. With all this said, I can only imagine what will happen towards the end of this month if I can keep up trying to wake early every day and get in a real workout. I don’t suspect I’ll be runway thin by the 1st of September, but still…it’s fun to think it.

I wrote 449 words tonight (in a conversation with Jessie Clarke and two of her friends) and I still feel good overall. I’m planning to go back to church on Sunday and now have the tools at my disposal to make that actually happen. I got the first half of my list completed and feel ready to go back to working 50+ hour weeks at first-job to ensure I’m not so crazy busy by the month’s end.

Another day and I’m still well.

A good day Monday, August 1, 2011

Today, I got up, worked out, wrote a little, did my banking, called to get that rattling out of my air conditioner and spoke to both grandmothers. All this before 2pm! Of course, I did spend the rest of the day curled up on my sofa watching the last season of Frasier, but…baby steps…

I feel good. Despite my ear still being a bit clogged, I feel good. I haven’t had an opportunity to say that in a long while. I wrote 371 words tonight (not even why I wanted to talk to you) and I still feel good.

Today was a good day. 🙂

I need to do more Sunday, July 31, 2011

Another month has come and gone and once again, I found myself simply giving up on what I needed to do. There was simply too much of it, I was simply too tired and I simply could not conceive of trying to do more…so I didn’t.

Each month after a massive fail like this one, I tell myself that I refuse to let last month go the way this month did and I vow that I’ll do better, but I don’t and I end up in the same cycle I was previously because I just managed to get away with doing the barest sense of the minimum. The urge to do the same was ever present this evening. All I really wanted to do is say, “Well, tomorrow begins another month,” I’m not gonna!

I’m making some changes in my life because I must do more with my life.

A while ago (probably about two years ago) I made this list of things I’d like to do on a daily basis that would make me the ideal representation of myself and was a step-by-step guide to my day which included everything from flossing to specific time set aside to play The Sims. I hung my guide in my bedroom and while I would scan it bemusedly from time to time, I never really edited it or adhered to it.

Tonight, I remade the list for an ideal Dorienne and I’m not sure whether it is because of the bounce I feel after failing as hard and as fast I did today or because it’s beginning of a new month and I’m feeling inspired, but this time around, I really do intend to stick to my list.

I’ve not made a promise like this to myself in while and probably not since my Livejournal days, but if I’ve learned anything about myself this year is that I really can create a goal and stick to it. I decided this year that I’d write a post every day, and have. I decided to write some of my novel every day, and have. I decided to write a minimum amount of words in said novel and, again, I have. I’ve set several goals this year and made good on them, so as I see it in this blog, this goal shouldn’t be any different.

I don’t expect that I’ll wake the 1st of August and become an entirely new person; I just want to do more with my life. I want to be on time for things and get jobs accomplished when expected of me. I want to be the reliable adult I’m expected to be at this stage of my life.

I wrote 354 words tonight (I don’t like being touched,” Damen said.) and I’ve decided to up my daily word count to a whopping 300 words going forward. Tomorrow I’m scheduled to write some more just after laundry and piano, but before playing any game (Rock Band included). Perhaps I’ll stick to the list verbatim and perhaps I won’t. I just want to do something more…

Relief Saturday, July 30, 2011

I’m starting to feel a bit better and I owe a lot of that to Aleve which is brought me out of a lot of pain since I was just a schoolgirl. 🙂

I haven’t much to say this morning, but I’m happy for once that I’ve slept without any dreams. Perhaps, it’s timing my meals in relation to when I decide it’s time for sleep, but I’m thanking God daily that they’ve stopped for now. Today may hold a whole new handful of troubles, however, so I won’t get up my hopes just yet.

I wrote 489 words this morning (She’s just gonna leave it like that?”) and I find myself with this sudden of rush of adrenaline when it comes to Damen. I thought after watching HP7 that I’d have to physically tear myself away from Nostrum, but all my thoughts have surrounded Damen lately. I think I may have been right the other day when I said I needed “closure” on my Harry Potter experience. Not that I won’t give Nostrum my full attention one day, but that it could slip so easily from the forefront of my mind…I guess I really am an adult now.

Self-sufficient Friday, July 29, 2011

I think one of the main reasons I hate going to the doctor is that I dislike the fact that there was something happening to me that I could not predict, could not understand and could not remedy on my own. As far as I’m concerned, the person who knows how best to handle anything going on with me is me, so each time I go to the doctor and wait to be told something about myself, I’m more than a little irritated.

I’m further irritated when they tell me something I already know, but what irritates me most of all when it comes to doctor’s visits is when I calm down and research whatever is wrong with me and understand my “condition” on my own. I can take needing to go to a doctor so that she can give me the prescription I need to treat whatever it is, but it’s leaving the office without some answers and then finding those answers on my own that leaves me feeling as if I’ve been cheated.

I knew today that I had an ear infection going into the doctor’s office, but I couldn’t understand why I’ve received another one in so many weeks. As I couldn’t get in to see my normal doctor, I saw the other at the site and was given what I consider a “this happens so often, I’m not going to bother trying to speculate” answer and was sent on my way with a prescription. In too much pain to ask further questions, I left the office only to spend some time researching swimmer’s ear and various infections on my own. I know now why this is happening and what I can do to prevent it going forward, but damn I’m irritated that I couldn’t have had my stuff together earlier to reduce some of the overall aggravation of my day.

I think some of this irritation with doctors is that I just can’t trust them. At one point, I was on my way towards medical school and was taking all the coursework required and making all the connections on the entrance board at OSU needed to ensure my success. I’ve long since deviated from that path, but the fact that someone like me could have become one of these doctors, diagnosing people, prescribing medications and even performing surgeries makes me a little nauseated. Not to say that medicine is something that anyone can do, but I know that if I could do it, then how many other equally half-way scattered minds like mine got their diplomas as well?

I suppose overall, I like being completely self-sufficient in all things and needing someone to do anything for me is an annoyance I really couldn’t take today.

Once the Aleve kicked in, I wrote 303 words (and the carnage would ensue) tonight and may even write a little more if the pain stays low for a bit longer.

I’ve been in quite a bit of pain recently, hence the reason for the specific tag, but because I’m “self-sufficient,” I’d rather suffer with the pain until I completely understand the answer I’ll receive prior to getting it from someone else than concede that there’s something that I don’t know about myself. These are demons with whom I’ll have to eventually make peace, but for now…I’m self-sufficient.