For the record

I posted my new story this morning...and I haven't had one freak-out.

Okay, most of you already know about the story thing, but the no freak-out? - without a doubt a new one for me.

Just wanted to share.

Oy Vey! Weekend!

I love those weekends that just fly by so quickly the alarm is going off and you can barely open your eyes and you're thinking, it's fucking Monday already?

That's really all I have to say on the matter. I have nothing to say about the debates, which I heard, but did not watch, because I know who I'm voting for and I know why. No debate is going to change my mind. Presidential debates only serve two purposes: 1) to reinforce your decision to vote for one person; and 2) to provide material for why you're not voting for the other. Plus, they're generally boring.

I cannot comment on any television, as I have had little time to view anything except the most recent Eureka, which I am the only person who watches, so whatever.

Oh, but I did, while listening to the debates (okay so my parents wanted to watch it and I was in the office writing and surfing and short of closing the door and turning on the music - which I won't do because I'm not in high school anymore, you know? - I had no choice but to hear it), finish my most recent story. I am very proud of it. It is also the first time in seven years I have started and completed two stories in a row, so Right on, me.

Great Googly-Moogly! Simon Pegg is all over the place right now promoting How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. The Husband has expressed an interest, so we may go see it this weekend, because...Simon Pegg. I have decided I have to see it for the dancing alone. I love the picture in this article because this is how he dresses normally, which is how he probably dressed when he was twenty-five. And as I dress the same way I did when I was twenty-five that means we're soul mates, right? Right? And no, the trailer does not make the movie look funny at all, but I'm not going expecting high cinema.

Oh, and I realized last night - well...found out is more like it - that I am batshit insane and will always, always assume you are angry at me and hate my guts if I don't hear from you on a regular basis. No, it does not matter if you have been terribly busy and haven't been near a computer because you've been searching for rare medicines in the jungle. If you don't answer that email I sent you a week ago, it's because somewhere in our very brief friendship, I did something heinously wrong and you are punishing me for it. There need be no more said about that. Just know I am aware of my own craziness.

I did this fun book meme on my livejournal. Feel free to steal.

Stuff and stuff

HAHAHAHA!:

You may have seen this picture already, but I came across it at YA for Obama, and cannot get it out of my head. As a commenter over there put it: I love how blase she looks. "Ho hum. Another day with my crab-paperweight and bear-sofa. Nothing to do; nothing to do."

Neil Gaiman continues his reign of awesome.
I love the guy because he answers his fan mail, even the poorly typed ones. I love that he shares pictures of his cats. I love the worlds he builds, the characters he creates, the stories he comes up with. I just. Don't. Love. His. Writing. Sorry, folks, but it throws me out of a book of his faster than furry sex. There. I said it.

ETA: The proposed Downey/Law Sherlock Holmes is something to look forward to, I think.

Recent pics of Baby Sofia arrived just this moment! As if she new I needed to share them with you. I hope this makes up for opening with Sarah Palin.

I found my soulmates, but they are taken...

People, I love paper. I love paper. I can write that one sentence over again ad infinitum and you would not have an idea of the depth of my love for paper.

With this depraved love (which involves much fondling in public, as well as some stroking, accompanied by vaguely sexual sounds) comes my obsession with writing journals.

I have a journal for every mood. There is the one I use as a commonplace book. The writing improv journal. The book title jotter. The random bits of life, including some very amusing sketches (amusing due to my inability to draw) of current scenery. The whining about life stuff. The one I paste a poem I love for each entry. The one in which I write about God.

With the exception of the journal I kept throughout my adolescence (when I was so vastly inexperienced as to only keep one), I still have every embarrassing random bit of crap that floated through my mind that can be bound between two covers. Even the shit from my twenties, y'all. When I was single. And inappropriately in love. Reading through them is not something I do often. As the Husband will attest, I am not a nostalgia junkie. I like moving forward. My past is filled with crap I do not ever have to relive. But sometimes, it is interesting to note where I once was and how far I've come.

Through the years, I have probably spent as much on journals as I have on music (though never as much as I have on books). I have tried every kind, from plain $1 kiddie notebooks (touted by writing advocates everywhere as the cheapest way to keep the pen moving - I like any with fairies or dragons on them, go figure!) to moleskines (slightly overrated, but I love my reporter's notebook for jotting down book titles). My current favorite is the Apica Spiral - I love the paper quality, spiral binding makes it easy for my lefty self to get down, relatively inexpensive, easily modded. Oh yes, I mod my journals - stickers, postcards, what have you - mod podge it all together and call it art. Another favorite is the Clairfontaine, especially the square smaller notebooks - the paper quality is exceptional, though it does smear a bit with my new special pen (don't get me started on pens, please).

So imagine my delight to stumble across this site. They review notebooks and journals. As in, seriously! They look not only at paper quality, but binding, flatability (the ability of a notebook to lay flat - v. imp.), cover sturdiness. They understand me in ways even the Husband never can.

Ah, love.

Can I battle my own ego?

After three weeks, countless cups of coffee, and so much Laffy Taffy my teeth were starting to ache, I finished, edited, and uploaded my story on my livejournal page. And that's when the anxious neediness set in.

Five years ago, I was a happy little fanfic writer. I had a small following for a Buffy series I was writing, and was in the middle of writing an epic piece for the dueSouth fandom. Then I just stopped. I'd love to say I stopped because I realized my talents were being wasted, but I would be lying. Number one: I think fanfiction is a healthy and fun way to explore character development. Number two: that just wasn't the case with me. Because when I'm writing it, I'm having a blast. It's after I post it that I become a miserable wreck.

Part of the problem lies in my inability to contribute to fan communities. To me, forums and communities are the internet version of soul incubii. So I am an unknown entity in fannish communities, which automatically relegates my story to the yeah, we'll see pile. Added to that, the current offering is freaking long, which requires a commitment to read in a fandom that seems to appreciate shorter to-the-point pieces.

I said - in what was apparently an eloquent email, but which felt to me like whiny whinybuttness - that I would rather hateful comments than no comments at all, because that would mean at least people were reading it. Later, I told another friend I was debating that point of view and could not decide if I would rather hateful comments or no comments. I mean, would you rather someone hated what you wrote, or think no one bothered to read it at all?

There are many terrible fanfiction writers out there who post stories with impunity and receive feedback (though I suspect the authenticity of said feedback) that would make anyone envious. I don't think I'm a terrible fanfiction writer, but I post with trepidation and nervous stomach-twisting anxiety, and then I get so fucking pissed at myself.

I become convinced that a story, which not twelve hours beforehand I was pretty proud of, is utter crap. I start second-guessing decisions I made concerning character interactions, word choices, plot development, and even subject matter. I begin to believe I'd been deluding myself, passages of which I had been proud were stupid, humor I had enjoyed writing was instead trite and shallow. I'm such a terrible writer, I can't even think of a word other than stupid to describe how stupid my writing is.

So of course I stop writing. Because how could all that negativity be worth it?

But then another story idea pops into my head and I think, oooh fun! And I start writing and I forget the upcoming stomach-churning crap I'm going to put myself through; I forget the wondering if anyone will even bother reading it; I forget everything because I am immersed in something I love, mindless of the world around me except that one of my own creation. And the cycle begins again.

I don't know if it's worth it for something I don't even get a paycheck for, but for some reason, I feel compelled to keep doing it. For right now, I suppose it's enough. Of couse, it helps when your friends pimp your story so graciously on their journal. Don't know if it made people read it, but it did make me smile.

ETA: So I'm a big whiny dork from whiny dorktown. I've had three lovely comments on my story from actual strangers! Yes, people who do not know me let me know they liked my story. No, apparently I cannot battle my own ego.

Monkey Brain Cheerios

It has now occurred to me, after sitting in front of my computer for about six hours straight each day for the past four days, that when I put my mind to something, I do not stop. And I wonder what is the line between being single-minded and obsessive.

It's not that I don't obsess about stuff, people, situations. But in conversation with my livejournal friend Fia, I reconsidered my use of that word. Because Fia loves Adam Baldwin and Zac Levi (title character) from the TV show Chuck so much that she watches every crappy movie they are ever in. Even Big Momma's House 2. And I love a couple of actors to an extreme degree, but nothing, other than the promise of large bags of cash, would get me to watch the VDO version of Big Momma's House 2. I will, however, watch Hot Fuzz so many times I can recreate it scene and line in my head.

And I will, in the face of a hurricane bearing down on my home state, unable to communicate with anyone of my loved ones due to cell phone dysfunction, ignore the news and sit in front of my computer for hours on end, not talking to the guest in our house, not even noticing there's a natural disaster happening, to finish a story.

It has been so long since I've written anything longer than a prose-poem that I had forgotten the intensity of being so in the zone of what I'm writing that I can't even hold a conversation without another one taking place in my head between my characters. I am useless in these situations. I do not eat well, I live off candy and caffeine, the Husband (proud though he is, and happy for me as well) has to put up with my mind constantly being elsewhere. Once I reach that point of no return I am without remorse, ignoring the niceties of everyday life (don't even ask me when my last shower was) in order to finish.

And then, once I do, after the happy dance, the crowing, and once my heartbeat slows to a normal pace, and I lift my head to look around and see if the Husband has moved from the couch, and if the world is still standing, the doubt sets in. And the obsession takes a new turn as now I constantly think about the story, but from a different perspective, a darker, more critical voice takes up residence in my head and I am grumpy, almost inconsolable, so certain what I've written sucks big donkey dick. No more accomplishment, no more crowing.

I only have to examine this a little to understand why I will never be a professional writer.

For the record, my great accomplishment is an epic piece of fanfiction (23,000 words), which, when I manage to gag the mean and nasty Editor who lives in my head, I am actually quite proud of, even if it is fanfiction. Because for that few weeks I was so immersed in my story, I was happy. I felt creative. I loved what I was doing. I suppose if I were a more well-balanced person (though I don't know many writers who are), I would focus on that, that great feeling I experienced while creating my world, constructing dialogue, setting scenarios, pushing through blocks to the finish when I hadn't finished anything in over five years.

I finished my story, y'all.

My family is safe. My city survived and didn't drown.

And I finished my story.