All Aboard!

Enjoy the Cheer Up Picture <3

Disappointment. The problem everyone struggles with. Disappointment is, well, disappointing. It's depressing when you were really looking forward to something, and then you realize that no matter what you do, it's probably not going to happen. I can say I'm planning on being an astronaut. I can go through all the training and get all the qualifications, spend years hoping and wishing and waiting and planning, but when it's all said and done, most likely I'm not gonna be spending any time outside of planet Earth. In sarcasm, for those of you who don't speak it, disappointment is called "a healthy dose of reality." In my book it feels more like a splash of cold water in the face on a freezing January morning. That chilly feeling you just can't shake. It hurts to be disappointed, especially when it happens because of someone else. When you were really counting on Becky to drive you down to B&N for that new book you've been waiting all year for! And then she calls an hour later because she over slept. Or when your mom absolutely promised you'd go to the midnight premier that movie you've been wanting to see, and then she gets stuck in bed with a cold. You can't do anything about these things. You can't prevent or change them. They happen. Life happens. But when someone else is involved we tend to blame the other person. Wrong! It's not their fault. They have lives too and the world does not revolve around you, no matter how many times you forget that you aren't the sun. The important thing is learning how to pick up and move on. This happens to be something I struggle with. Yes, it's easy to be hurt and to heap blame on people. It's easy to wallow in self-pity because things didn't go your way. It's hard to be mature and grown up and say "Hey, I didn't really need to go to the beach this weekend. It'll be there next week." So my challenge, to myself and to anyone else who's reading this, is to remember that when you're disappointed by someone, it's not always their fault. And even if it is, blaming them only hurts you. So be the mature one. Pick up. And move on. Life happens. We can't sit waiting for it to happen our way. If we did, we'd be waiting a very long time! So stop waiting, hop up on life's train, and take off!

Catch ya later!

New Wrapping! Is Christmas coming early?

Have you ever had the feeling something is missed? Like there is a piece to the puzzle of life you just can't find. When you're sitting at work or flipping through channels or cooking dinner and you just stop and think to yourself "I need... something... But what?" It seems I've been having those moments more often then not these days when I sit down to write. I have the idea running through my head, I know what I want to say, but after writing - and rewriting - the same three pages over and over... All that's left to do at the end of the day is sit back and admit that it needs...something. But what? I truly wish I could figure out what that something was. Passion? Emotion? Some other "shun"? Perhaps my characters are too boring, I found myself wondering today. Too flat. Perhaps if you write for too long without seeking new inspiration, your writing becomes as familiarly repetitive as a singer who writers too many songs all at once. It all starts to sound the same. This week I've trashed three stories. Three. I never thought in a million years that would happen! It's been hard to part with them, and yet...I keep finding these stories in other stories. "Nothing new under the sun" is a rather depressing concept when you're trying to think of something new and interesting for people to want to read. But then... and I'm just thinking out loud here... maybe people don't want to read something new. Maybe they just want new wrapping on it. Gail Carson Levine has made her career retelling popular and well known fairy tales and elaborating on the ones that tell us too little to begin with. She had some of her own, but Ella Enchanted is really just Cinderella with an amazingly brilliant and clever array of twists and turns and flip-flops. And there are plenty of other examples. Some of them not so well disguised. Beastly is obviously Beauty and the Beast. And with or without a name, who hasn't heard the human/vampire love story a million and three times? So maybe, as a writer, I shouldn't be so focused on trying to write what is new and exciting. But more focused on my story and telling it the way I want it to be told. Perhaps it is better to explore the characters more. To get to know and understand them the way I should before trying to force them into situations impossible for them to climb out of. This is my challenge to myself for the rest of this week. To focus on the story the way it ought to be told. I'll do my best to keep you posted.

So Until Next Time!

And check out these amazing women!

Alex Flinn and Gail Carson Levine. 

They deserve much Praise!!

Sunny Days and Busses

Some days, you wake up, and it's like the sun smiled at you. Everything is going your way. Life couldn't be better! Other days, you wake up, and that's about the only good thing that happens. Day to day stress piles up like a shaken soda can and explodes in your face while laughing at your sticky fizz-filled pain. You can either feel like the world's on your side, or feel like life just hit you with a bus. It's a total toss up that'd keep you awake at night if you allowed yourself to worry about which coin fate's flipping for you this time. Today I got hit by life's bus. Yay me. I felt like the world was against me, which sucks since I was kinda hopin' the world might like me just a little? But today was a wake up call for me too. Today that bus knocked a little sense into me. Or maybe the road did when I fell... Either way, something knocked something into me! Or maybe something got knocked out... Or maybe I was just knocked out...!

But I digress.

Today I was hit with the realization -No, not the bus. There was no bus. It was a poorly planned out metaphor for realization and has absolutely nothing to do with an actual bus! Forget the bus!! - that life isn't about getting from day to day like it's some kind of chore. It's about living in each day, making the most of every moment we have. Yes, we should have goals and plans for the future. It's good to have things to work towards. But that shouldn't be our only focus. If all we're thinking about is the future we miss the present, and time isn't something you can get back.

Sometimes, life throws things at you that feel pretty impossible. Sometimes we can feel pretty low. Not getting the job, not acing the test, not being liked back by the guy (or girl) you've been crushing on for forever. Buses can really knock you down and make you feel like you've hit the assault-y rock bottom. Remember this. No matter how many times you get knocked down, you can always get back up!!

 So. Live in the moment. Get back up. Avoid the bus. Okay, guys!! Good talk!!

 See you peeps next time! Bye-bye!

No More Terrible Tuesdays!

Oh my Gosh! Already April... I can't believe it. Easter is just around the corner and with everybody buzzing about our church choir program, concentrating on writing has been a little harder. On the plus side, though... WE GOT INTERNET BACK!!!! I am sooooooo glad it is back. You can not EVEN imagine! Having to do all my research on a cell phone screen is hard on the eyes. Can anyone say Major Headache! I am glad to have it back, though. It's been good to be able to actually work again without having to go down to my dad's office after hours to steal Cable. Haha!

Though to me it seems I haven't done much of anything new, in reality there is a lot I have done. I've just been unable to write about it. So here it is. A catch up on everything I've done in the last couple months.

First, I started a new story. inspiration hit me one evening after everyone else had gone to bed and I was up half the night writing it all down on paper. (Well, actually typing it on Word Processor. I write WAY to slow to keep up with my brain!) The story follows a young women who, after a near death experience as a little girl, is able to see the shadows of lost souls who died the same way she would have had they not saved her for a special purpose. The souls want free, but she can't do it alone. She tried to tell her parents, her teachers, her friends, and anyone else who would listen. Because of this openness about her gift her family thought her mentally unstable and placed her in an institution for examination, diagnosis, and hopefully, rehabilitation. The young woman will not rest, though. Or rather, the shadows will not let her rest. She begins to tell her stories to the other patients in the mental hospital, and one by one, each join her cause. Even at the risk of being caught by the nurses and staff that watch over them nearly every second.

Well, it seemed like an interesting story to me. As excited as I am to write it, I hope others will be as equally excited to read it. It's my first horror mystery novel so I'm really hoping it turns out well!

In other news, I've been working steadily on my co-written projects, but the Conflict story is starting to suffer from a lack of inspiration. I fear that in waiting so long to start writing it again I lost focus of what the story was about. The excitement and the thrill of one's first year of college turning into an adventure he'd never expected... I've lost the inspiration to be thrilling and excited for this story... I need to find it again somehow!!!

Tuesday used to be the best day in the world! But this Tuesday is turning out to be just like any other regular day. Nothing special. So I'm to fix that. First, I'm going to be trying to write something really great for tomorrow, Wednesday, which is anti-procrastination day! So...Go Me! Haha. But in a more public way, I think today I will spend the rest of the day speaking in a British accent!! We'll see how many people I can fool, huh?

Starting......NOW!

-in a British accent- Well, I know I've done more than all that, but there's the gist of the big stuff. And I'll be better about writing every day now I promise! Don't tell me it's easy because it's not! There are so many distractions, like my novels and music and the telly! I've just discovered the BBC show Merlin and am positively Hooked!!

Sooo....we'll see about those updates.

Until next time then. Cheerio!

Rainy Mondays.

Okay, okay! Hands up! You got me... I took the weekend off. I know, I know. That's a bad thing to do. Writing once a day. All that. But I was tired and it was Saturday! Haha. Anyway, I'm back now so that counts for something right?

This morning I woke up to my Monday song. "Monday, oh Monday, I really can't describe... Monday, Oh Monday, how you make me feel inside. If I ever have a good one, I know it'd be a first. If there's one thing I know, as far as days go, Monday, you're the worst!" Haha I love that song. well, my Monday hasn't been too bad. It's been raining all day though. Doing errands in the rain is interesting, but not too bad.

I got flipped off today by another driver for the first time! It was great. I know that sounds horrible, but I just love road rage people. They act so ridiculous I have to laugh. What happened was completely her fault too, so it made it all the better. She was even more mad though that I couldn't stop laughing... Sorry, lady! Haha. 

Oh! And this afternoon I got asked to be someone's bridesmaid! I've never been asked to be someone's bridesmaid before, so of course I've never been one before. I'm excited and nervous at the same time, but it's a good feeling! The bride is super nice and really fun and we get to go SHOPPING for a dress on Friday! Can't WAIT!

As far as writing goes, which is what I'm really supposed to be telling you about, I haven't done much today. Wrote a couple paragraphs for Who Likes Who that I sent to Kiki just....now. Haha. Other than that today has been pretty low on the writing scale. I've been doing a lot of cleaning and errand running. The writing job kind of fell behind. But don't worry. Monday is always a hard day to get back into the swing of things after taking off the weekend. I'll be back on the ball by Tuesday. I promise!

So then, we shall see each other again soon. Farewell, my lovely readers. Farewell!

Depressing Depression

Becca's real name is Kiki! At least, that's what I started calling her a few years back and then everyone else copied me. Isn't is strange, how sometimes a nickname will just...stick? Anyway...just throwing that out there.

Today I'm supposed to talk to you about Fabulous Franny, but my mood is nothing short of gray. I tried, but can think of nothing funny to give to you today. Sorry to disappoint. 

Yesterday I didn't write anything. I couldn't. The mood I've been dropped in since then is a mixture of guilt and failure. It's frustrating to be caught in that. My sister even took notice of the "emo corner" I'd stuck myself in. She asked what was wrong, but I just couldn't tell her. Several hours later she saw me again. 

"Still depressed?" she asked. I had to let out a dramatic sigh (because it makes me feel better) as I responded.  

"I hate being depressed! It makes me depressed!!!" I hadn't realize what I'd said until after she broke out into laughter. Admittedly, I smiled too. I guess you could say that was the start of my getting better. But waking up this morning, everything that made me depressed yesterday came rushing back and now I feel horrible again. How do you feel better when you've admitted your guilt and been forgiven? What else is left to do? Maybe I did something else wrong...

I hope today I can figure out how to take my focus off this depressing situation and put it back on writing... 

Wish me Luck! -waves-

Cracking the Habit, at least a little.

Once you do something for a while it begins to become routine. A habit, if you will. Every morning my mom stumbles into the kitchen in search of the coffee pot. Every afternoon my brother comes home for school and heads straight for the tv. These are big habits that over time are formed. They pile up to create our daily routine. Trying to change that routine can be tough sometimes - breaking a habit is always hard - but it can be very worth it.

Every morning, I get up at eight, whether my alarm clock has told me to or not. First thing I do? Grab the computer. Check email, instant messages, face book, the blog. It's a whole routine, one website after another. Recently my house lost internet. It's been over three weeks, now, that I haven't been able to go for my computer first thing to check email and face book. But on the other hand, it's given me extra time every morning to focus on what I should be doing! Writing.

Yesterday, I was going through my notebooks. See, like I said before, I'm a really messy person in general (except my work spaces) so as part of a new year's resolution I started a step by step program that creates habits to help a person keep their home clean and organized without stressing. It's been interesting so far. The first thing that is recommended of beginners to the program is to get a notebook, to keep track of your progress and whatnot. So anyway, to do this, I was looking through my notebooks, trying to find once that was at least semi empty. Believe it or not, I have about a hundred notebooks of all sizes and colors, and not a single one of them was less than half filled. It was very frustrating…

Well, while looking through all of that mess, I stumbled (literally) over a notebook that I'd forgotten I still had. It happened to be one I used in college and it held some very detailed outlines of the original plot of Conflict. Everything I could imagine was in that notebook, from shorthand timelines to specific quotes and entire paragraphs of things that were supposed to happen! It was quite the find. I can't begin to describe how helpful it was to have that. And to think, if I'd never been without internet I'd never have been looking through those notebooks in the first place. I would have been on FaceBook!

Not to say that having internet is bad. In fact, I'm thanking the heavens and lucky stars and all that is good since we should be getting our brand new internet up and running this week. Sometimes, though, it's really good to break out of your routine and do something else, at least once. =) If nothing else, you may trip over something you thought you'd lost. Wouldn't that just make your day?

So, until we meet again. Ta-ta!

Late Resolutions.

A good friend of mine once told me, some of the truest things we write come when we sit down, turn our brains off, and let the words flow. She also happens to be one of my favorite authors so I take her advice very seriously! Haha. She gave me this one little nugget of wisdom just recently, when I was stuck in a serious case of writer's block (evident by the obvious lack of blog updates). She's an amazing writer and one of my greatest mentors as well as one of my best muses. She always knows just what to say and when to say it! It's great to have a friend like that and I love her to death!!!

Another thing she shared with me that I hold myself to even to this day: She told me the worst thing a writer can do is stop writing. Even in the worst slump, when everything feels horrible and every word you write sounds bad, you can't stop. She challenged me to work on my book a little every day. Even when all I can manage is one poorly written sentence, write it. Don't give up. Don't quit, not even for a day. Because once you stop, it is so hard to start back up again. So many good ideas get thrown in the bin because the writer gave up. So never stop writing. Never stop writing!

My mom, this week, read a one page intro to a story I never planned to continue. I thought it was horrible, a piece of junk I'd written out of boredom. She was so impressed by it that everyday since she's been asking me for more pages! It was while trying to write more pages for her that I realized the truth in my friend's words. "You think too much," she always tells me. And I finally realized I do. I think way too much about what I'm trying to write. A little thought is good, of course, but there is a point where anything can be over thought. That's exactly what I do. Over think. Everything. From friendships to compliments at work to movies and the meaning of life!!! And now even this...

The revelation is both enlightening and discouraging. I'm hoping to focus on the former rather than the latter. I also hope I can focus more on writing and less on thinking about what I should write. Let's call this...a late New Year's resolution. Haha.

Until next time!

Unexpected Inspiration

Disney movies inspire me. Don't ask me why. Usually they have nothing to do with my actual story. But put on Beauty and the Beast or Mulan and I'm glued to the computer with my fingers to the keys! I discovered today that Disney music does the same thing. I played a CD of Classic Disney music today while I was doing laundry, and two songs in I was opening my computer with three new ideas to write out for my book. It was a great feeling, being totally inspired to work on something that has been giving me trouble for over a year now!

I just love that feeling. Wish it would happen more often. Then maybe I'd actually get something done! Well, today, other than the three ideas I got jotted down and outlined in the book, I also would like to share the potential book cover. A friend of mine so kindly drew it for me about a year ago when I started the project and I just love it!

I know the style is a bit, well, animated. Haha. But I love it because it includes all of the most important characters, keeps the two main characters front and center, and also manages to capture the individual personalities of each character. And the artist hadn't even read the whole book! Only pieces of it. So I was thoroughly impressed. Whether or not I'll use this cover when it comes time to publish the book, I don't know. But so far, it's my first choice.

Another thing I'd like to share with you all. This week I will be working on Character Profiles. I've found that when writing a book, it is easier to understand each character (as the author) and gauge how they would react in different situations if you've taken the time to dive a little into their personal lives. So I'll be working on those and will share them with you as they are completed. But for tonight, it's back to rewriting the outline and the first few chapters. So, Ride like the wind, Bullseye!

See you all tomorrow! =)

Not Pregnant?

No, Frank. I'm not pregnant. There is no possible way I could be pregnant. Thanks for asking. =_=

It really gets to me when people assume something of you without bothering to ask about the truth. Saturday I discovered at my (soon to be former) workplace a coworker has been spreading the rumor that I am with child. Where did he get this? 1) I had stomach flu a while back which he decided was a cover-up for morning sickness. 2) I'm a generally chubby person who happened to have put on a couple pounds in the last few months and he associated that with swelling for the fetus he assumed was inside me.

Now, if he'd simply come and asked me if I was pregnant it wouldn't have bothered me as much. After all, he doesn't know me outside work or whether or not pregnancy is a possibility in my life. (It's not.) He could have come and mentioned something to break the ice, insinuate what he meant. (Which he did, later on.) If he had just asked, I could have told him that no, I was not nor could I soon become a new mother. But instead of just asking, he went and told the whole building! Talk about frustrating and humiliating to have to dispel that rumor. Suffice to say I didn't get much else done yesterday. Worked two different "real life" jobs then came home and cleaned. Then totally collapsed! I was out before my head hit the pillow.

Fortunately, I did get a lot of mental planning done for my lovely little Conflict, and rest assured will be working plenty on it in the next coming week. Hopefully without the distractions of more moronic rumors.

Have any of you ever had a rumor spread about you? Not fun, huh? Tell me about it! =)

Chaos Theory

I like my work space to be nice and neat. If you ask my mother (who's seen the current state of my desk and the general clutter of my bedroom) she'll tell you differently. But it's a fact. Even my "clutter" is rather organized, in its own way. I like things to be organized and cleaned. Not always put away or white glove sparkling, but clean. Working in a mess completely stresses me out! So it's safe to say that the messy, unkept state of my stories does well to stress me out more often than not. I don't like chaos (unless we're talking about Loki from the Thor movie. In which case I say "Send him my way! Hubba hubba!") and this mountain I've begun to tackle is nothing short of chaotic.

For example, at one point several months ago I took all of my notebooks and filed them into boxes. Stories from before three years ago went in one pile. Stories from the last three years went in another. They were put up in the top of my closet and all but forgotten about. This morning, in an effort to start on this immense project, I dusted off the old boxes and started pulling out the most recent notebooks and files. To my horror, the notebooks I thought had been exclusively for one story or another ended up holding ideas for thirty or so other projects, some from as far back as middle school! In one notebook alone I had loose papers full names and character profiles that I couldn't put to story ideas stuck between pages of writing that fit somewhere in the middle of a castle fairytale and a pirate horror. On pages further in I found sketches of costumes for a super hero and the layout of a house which had become the setting of a story I'd just recently started. This conglomeration of bits and pieces ended up belonging to a total of nine different stories. And all in just one fifty page college rule notebook! Notebook after folder after binder after notebook, each only got worse. I finally had to give myself a break. There was no way I was going to be able to go through all of it quickly.

As luck would have it, though. I did find one story in it's complete set. Ideas and sketches and all. This is the story I'll be working on to start with. It's one of the most recent projects I've put upon myself, entitled "Conflict." Though it's been forced through the processes of being completely rewritten three times now, I think it's still got a lot of potential. (And everyone says "third time's the charm" right?) Based on the story of my first year in college, the book follows Jackson, a sardonic young man with a haunted past, and Ginger, his quirky but spirited best friend, as they journey through their own first year in university. Together the pair wade through the uncharted waters of a budding romance, struggle with self growth and discovery, and deal with the pain of losing a first love. All the while waging the never ending battle against homework and picky English professors. It's a cute love story with a lot of witty humor and sarcastic charm, curtsy of my own best friend and constant inspiration, my mother. It's a story that she and several others have urged me to finish quickly, so this is the book that I will start on first.

Just for a quick overview, though I do have to completely start over (again) there is a lot of the story already written that I can still use. So it's safe to say once I've gone through and edited out everything I don't want or can't use, I'll be left with about three solid chapters. After that, it'll be an uphill battle trying to roll this sucker along, but I'm convinced that between the long talks with my mother for dialog inspiration and the fun of actually writing something that makes me laugh too the whole thing will turn out okay, if not (hopefully) better. Haha.

And so today, as I'm now off to continue my search for usable material in my Conflict, I leave you with this. Though in life sometimes things might seem a little crazy and hard to handle, if you step back and give yourself a little breathing room, when you come back to it with fresh eyes odds are you'll be able to see the silver lining a little more easily. I know I did.

Arrivederci!

Small Beginnings

When I started out seriously writing, back in the sixth grade, I was satisfied to work a little on one story at a time, writing until the inspiration drained and then moving onto the next big idea. A meager existence! In the years since then I've dedicated myself to never give up on a story, even if the inspiration has seemed to have been drained. Never give up on a good idea.

Problem is, now I find myself facing a mountain of stories! Ideas with a beginning but no end, an end but no middle, or a middle but no beginning. I've tried to tackle the mountain as a whole, and all that has proven to accomplish is getting myself buried in an avalanche of notebooks and journals and loose-leaf pages of scribbles and doodles. Digging one's self out of such an avalanche is not a pleasant experience, my friend. Not in the least.

So now you know my predicament, I propose a solution. I currently stand at the open mouth of twenty stories, each ready to devour me with their unique character perspectives and individual personalities. With this blog I will tackle each story individually, documenting the progress and the failures and the general stand-stills that each author faces. It will be a long journey, but well worth the efforts at it's end. I do hope you'll join me on this trek, and I look forward to rediscovering my passion for the written word with each and every one of you.

Onward, Ho!