A day for me Monday, August 8, 2011

I didn’t plan out my Monday, so I’m amazed that the day was as fun and relaxing as it was. For one, I wrote 1398 words tonight (Okay. Thank you) and finally tracked down my mother. I also spent way too much money on a Coach bag, had a very pleasant lunch at California Pizza Kitchen (leaving what I think was a 30% tip) and spent a large part of the day playing Green Day Rock Band, which I plan to continue doing once I’ve finished this post.

It’s been a reasonably happy day despite all that’s going on in the world. Loss, credit downgrades, riots, plunging stocks, famines…I think I’ve come out all right in the end.

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Netflix…I had a rough day, too Tuesday, July 12, 2011

There’s a lot of hullabaloo going on about Netflix right now. I adore the service and have for several years. I also upped my service to 5 discs at a time so I’ve been paying 34.99 a month for the last 18 mos, down one disc from when they changed 6 discs from 35-something to 39-something.

As I’ve been paying this rate for Netflix, which is still more than $40 a month less than what I’d be paying for cable, when said service decided to up their prices again, I barely felt the pinch; only the people who had been paying next to nothing while getting an amazing amount of something, got hit hard.

This is really Round 2 of this rant; Round 1 is at my Dorienne’s Log. I’m about done ranting against the rant against Netflix, but I thought it necessary to say it again. This isn’t like taxes where the funds can easily trickle to the masses when a small percentage of people pay the least amount of them. This is a large group of people paying 7.99 for streaming service and then just 9.00 to have out 3 discs at a time. Anyone who claimed they did not see this coming was either ignorant of business economics or just plain…no, they were ignorant of business economics.

With all this said, I wrote a total of 530 words tonight (when are we gonna read it again?), not counting the extra words that helped shape the series of “instant messages” between Damen and Brit that start the beginning of Chapter 19.

I’ve decided that I’m going to fancy myself a Mark Twain type of author and capture the language of the pubescent set at the turn of the 21st century. Ages from now, in the same light that critics sit in awe of how well Twain captured the linguistics of 19th century Missourah, Damen will be enamoured for it’s detailed descriptions of how teenagers spoke to one another at this point in time.

…at least this is what I’ll be repeating to myself when these parts of the novel get slammed by some agent or editor some months or years from now.

Sleep cycle Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Well, after two days of sleeping until almost one in the afternoon, I’ve gone and messed up my sleep schedule again. To be honest with myself, the cycle has been a bit messed since Friday when I accidentally read through the whole and happened to look up and see dawn creeping towards my bedroom window.

I hate the feeling that I’ve been up the entire night; I just feel like I’ve been robbed of something. I think I’ll just have to take it this week since I’m in no mood to try and go the full day without any sleep again.

I played Rock Band for the first time in two weeks today…and I loved every minute of it. I realized that Lego Rock Band was perhaps a poor choice as I dislike playing it and only play it because I know that there are achievement points lying in wait for me with it. The important thing, however, was that I played because I had a moment while I was cooking dinner and I didn’t even bother to keep compulsively checking the achievements page to see where I was; I played the game because it was fun to play, though I hate the majority of the music on this version.

I wrote 306 words today (on the east side of the lake) and finally came to a close on this church scene which has led to some interesting character development for Damen as he wonders just how Brit sees him. I also realize that my character Desirae Adams is in need of a name change as her name no longer fits with my naming scheme since the letter D carries it’s own importance.

Before I forget, I think it’s worth noting that I got “served” with my first copyright infringement today over my Calvin and Hobbes website, Midnight Calvin. The thing had been up and running for the past three or four years, if not longer, and now Universal Syndicate has decided shut down the little site. Oh well…I’ve not updated it in eighteen months even for the past two or three years, the only updates I’ve had were to include a new “strip of the day” though I only updated that once a year. I guess, I’m just irritated by the idea of it. I hope that if I get published, I won’t be party to this kind of thing. I say now, that I wouldn’t care that if people “pirated” my things as long as credit was given where due because it could only encourage them to buy more of me. I suppose that’s not how the rest of the world sees things. Pity.

Something else I’ll add, though it does not concern me directly: The trial of Casey Anthony has had me intrigued since I first kept seeing her face in tabloid headlines and heard her name whispered amongst my co-workers. The case seemed like such a sure thing and, while I’ll never have direct information about what did or did not happen, I can’t help feeling the same anger many other people felt about OJ Simpson. That helpless realization that there is not justice in this world is simply so unfortunate. I’ve ranted enough on Facebook and Twitter about this, but I needed to cement my thoughts here as well.

I didn’t do much else today, though I had plenty of options, but I liked doing some piano scales for a bit and will continue to read tonight as well. I’m reading Sense and Sensibility currently and while I’d love to get up to the point where I’m reading a book a week, if I’ve learned anything from this latest mental cleansing that I’ve gone through to give me clarity on life, there’s no rush.

Celebration? Sunday, May 1, 2011

I showed my new car to my family today after church and got to revel in the glow of congratulations for people who were truly happy for me and happy to celebrate with me. For that, I’m happy to celebrate.

Barry O (Pres Obama) confirmed – a good hour after I’d learned it on Twitter – announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed. For that, I’m happy, but a bit awkward to celebrate. He said a lot of I’s and My’s in his speech which ticked me off a bit considering that he was playing golf as of this morning, not lying in wait for the perfect shot at bin Laden’s head, albeit he did have to cut short to 8 holes instead of his usual 18.

As an American, I’m elated that WE got bin Laden. As a Christian, I’m sorrowful for the man’s soul and that he had to die, so it’s difficult for me to truly get wrapped in the celebration of his death. It feels like an eye for an eye and I can arrogantly state that while he spent the last ten years of his life trying to scratch a living off rocks, I was living like the little black American princess I am. So much for the Fatwa against American citizens…That said, I’m going to pray tonight for him, for what’s left of his family and for what tomorrow could bring.

I wrote 297 words (It was just…stuff) tonight – many during Barry O’s speech – and I even though I’d like to celebrate today as a day where I’d gone to church, driven my car, chatted with my Grandma and even wrote a little, all that celebrating is just a little bittersweet.

Sunset Theme Monday, February 7, 2011

…by Brendon Small from the Home Movies Bonus CD.

I don’t have much to say about today since I really didn’t do anything today. I wanted to spend some time creating and playing The Sims 2, but in all my family creating, one lot ended up screwing over the entire landscape of the neighborhood and spent hours trying to move other lots pixel by pixel to correct it.

I did manage to successfully stop playing sims with the specific intention to write, which makes me feel good about myself, even though I didn’t pick up the dry cleaning or do laundry or dishes when I had all day to do something.

I wrote 1312 words today (all the Neanderthals we deal with every day) and I’m coming to a part I’ve written and re-written and re-re-written some dozen times already. It takes a while to get out what I’m saying, but I can imagine it so clearly that I can’t help but continue writing. The difficult part – for all of Damen for that matter – is to keep the reader guessing about my ultimate message, given that I don’t really have one outside of all people pre-judge.

This chapter talks a lot about guns and etc., but I worry that the message may be that only crazies like Corey would ever really use a gun and that’s not what I mean to say at all. Though I don’t own one myself, if anyone else desires to have a million of them, that’s his choice. As long as I’m not attacking him in his home, I’ve not really got anything to worry about overall.

Anyway…it won’t be like that. I hope.

Finding my voice Friday, January 14, 2011

I wrote 707 words this evening, not counting the edits I made to what I completed yesterday. I got into some more of Corey’s character and, for a brief moment, I found myself really liking him. Corey’s very smart, not as smart as Damen or possibly Brit, but he is very smart. He just has some severe issues with identity because of his home life, much like Damen.

The more I write Corey, the easier it is to compare he and Damen and the more I want the idea of their similarity to drive the rest of the book. I want folks wondering throughout the novel if Damen thinks the way Corey thinks. At the same time, however, I don’t want to give off the idea that all of Corey’s supposed conservatism is evil and wrong. I hinted on something really deep tonight when Corey spoke about atheism vs. agnosticism, something I didn’t think was in me to do. Not really sure where all that came from Never mind, I know…

I would have tried to write to some more after midnight, but “Sense and Sensibility” just arrived from Netflix and I watched the whole thing…for the eighth time.

I just can’t get over that movie; I love it so much and I cry at the end every, single time. It is so engaging because as subtle as Elinor is, you can truly feel every moment of heartbreak and frustration she feels. Anyway, enough about the Dashwoods…

I feel amazingly better today than I have all week and I think I owe my perks to a little exercise and some singing.

Exercise is obvious since it gets the endorphins flowing which is like taking a hit of some awesome drug. I’ve been taking the stairs five flights down once or twice a day to use the ladies room on the first floor, mostly for sanitary reasons since the one on the fifth floor is downright disgusting, and the little bit of movement gets my heart pumping just enough to perk me up and keeping me feeling strong and alert.

I only noticed the singing part, however, yesterday evening when I was already in a reasonably good mood. I used to sing in the car to and from work everyday and I never used to fall into the pits of despair I’ve seen these past few weeks back then. Lately, if I even have on any music, I just listen and still let all my thoughts eat at me on the drive home instead of letting more worries melt for twenty minutes there and back (again).

Tonight, I sort of forced myself to sing on the ride home and felt better for it. I was not as exhausted this evening as I normally am after a long day of meetings and projects and questions, questions, questions!

Anyhoo…I’m on a bit of a roll now, so perhaps, I’ll just keep writing way into the morning. I’m on a nice little Jesus kick in my writing fervor and that kick always gives me an extra burst. 😀

Chapter Nine Thursday, January 13, 2011

…not bankruptcy.

I knew this chapter was going to be a doozy since I saw that it was a rather large file, without even going into the gritty edits, but after reading through what I had for Nine and Ten, I actually feel a lot better about what’s coming.

Normally, I read what’s ready to edit in a new chapter and I want to quit before I even get started. Today, however, I’m pleasantly surprised.

I managed to finish Chapter Eight, after midnight, writing until it became difficult to see. I completed 1717 words to finish Chapter Eight and then came home tonight and wrote! I ended up writing another 936 words for a total of 2653 in one day. 🙂

I love the end of Chapter Eight. I do this whole blur between Damen reading The Catcher in the Rye and being a part of what he reads. It’s not often I look at something I wrote and say, “Crap! That was awesome!” but the end of Chapter Eight fits that in spades. Hours later, I think I’m still just surprised that it works so well…I only hope others will be able to understand what I wrote. This could very well be a step into written insanity, but awesome written insanity.

I’m about to finish Damen’s musings about Corey, Brian and Zach in Chapter Nine and I just finished adding Corey’s rant about the 2008 candidates. Huckabee was the hardest to add. I thought Obama would be the most difficult since I had to make sure Corey noted that he was a poor choice, but not immediately because of race, but my own voice came out in Corey and the Obama rant went without pausing my fingers. Poking fun at Huckabee, however, proved far more difficult. I settled with “Huck-a-what!” but it was between that and “Huck-a-bee better to sit down” and thought the former made a little more sense.

I had a great day today! I finished a chapter, made it work on time, did some laundry and came home and wrote just like an aspiring writer should.

Now, if I can just make it through Friday…

iStruggle Saturday, December 11, 2010

iStruggle. Really, iDo.

Chapter Seven was in need of work. Deep work. So much work that I’m not sure I really got anything accomplished today.

I could say that I wrote/edited 4411 words today, but considering I still have to actually write the prose and the dialogue, I don’t think I’ve written anything at all.

What I did do was struggle to pull together some incomplete, incoherent thoughts, into a long coherent one. I also managed to flesh out Munnerly into a more “living” character. I decided some time after I finished Chapter Three that I needed to cut nearly half of it and focus on only one or two of Damen’s teacher’s. I originally thought I use the chemistry teacher, but he seems rather boring and, unless I made him like my high school chemistry teacher, there was nothing to help tie me to the character. Munnerly, however, has the added bonus of being English considering I’m on this British TV and Film kick and since I plan on a lot of Damen and Brit’s little conversations to take place during their studies for math. In fact, now that I think of it, I’m not sure why I never considered Munnerly earlier since, close to 90% of the conversations and events I’ve planned surround their math class and I even made Anessa into a math major and an accountant just to be able to add her to the random events properly.

Anyway, most of the fun of creating a character that is the antithesis of myself is the research. I spent close to two hours researching the British school system and trying to gain some understanding of what she would already know and how she would have come to be a Briton teaching Americans math. Apart from seeing that I thought the “Tories” were onto something with bringing back the selective grammar schools (seriously, the comprehensive school thing sounds like a pipe dream and I wish we had “select” schools in the States to make people actually value education), I realized that I will have to make a severe change to the Potter story I was planning.

Like any good American, I desire to make the story my own and bring it “home” in the process. A part of this was to make Hermione turn 11 the September after the kids started at Hogwarts, but after reading about the Brits’ school system, it doesn’t seem practical for that to happen since it is very clear that kids start school the first 1 September after they turn five and the same appears to be the same about Hogwarts. The more I read about English schools, the more I saw how closely Ms. Rowling’s imaginary school mirrored the “real” “public” schools in England and Wales (quotes around public because public here and public there are two completely different things). It’s not really that big a thing, but it disappoints me that I can’t make the change and keep the story making some sense. Enough about Potter…

After reading through lists of Brit slang and dozens of Wiki-clicks, I finally thought I had a handle on Munnerly and changed her a little in my mind. When she was just a fringe character, she could afford to be plain and weird, but I imagine that the more Damen sees of her, the prettier she’ll seem to him, perhaps going into his having a jones for older women. Even with Munnerly made a little clearer, the chapter was is a disaster. I don’t know what the heck I was trying to do originally, but it just wasn’t working and was perhaps the worst lead-in to meeting Corey that could ever be possible. Even now, it’s still poo, but I’ll have to live with it until I go back and write the prose.

I guess I’m just surprised and a little disappointed since I was still flying high after last night’s chapter completion. To see so much work needed on an important chapter…it’s just a little daunting.

I think I hit on some important topics to some come later: the love of Chopin, the bits about his father and always being homeschooled and more Brit frustrations and I like the idea of now ending the chapter with meeting Corey. I think I’ll still need to go back and make Munnerly the source of his silence cessation (say that five times fast!), but I like the chapter much more now, than I did when I took a look this morning.

Tomorrow/Today will consist of bringing everything home and actually writing the chapter, so perhaps I really will have 4K words written by the end of the night. I must say, however, this chapter has created more of a struggle and more time spent with my head in my hands staring at white space on the screen and praying for inspiration, than anything else so far. I don’t usually struggle like this, so it’s completely new territory.

I’m not sure I like this part of the journey.