Month: October 2018

Emotions, Life, Writing

Just a Little Blip

1972italy

It was nice while it lasted. My Mom was nice enough to give me her laptop when I started this endeavor two months ago. As of last night it is toast. So I will be doing not only my blogging but NaNoWriMo on my phone. My Murphionic field strikes again!

I am very frustrated by this. I had everything moving along and I had worked out most of the kinks in my routine. I’d set up all my sites, passwords etc. Take two steps forward and all that. I’m trying not to be angry. I’m trying not to let it spill over into the rest of my day.

I’m grateful I can do all this on my phone. And my space bar works when I push it. Every time. So maybe this was a blessing in disguise. I don’t really believe that but I’m trying. Damn. I have to do my book reviews on the phone as well. But it can be done. I can do this.

Happy Halloween to everyone! 🎃

Emotions, family, Life, Writing

Where Do We Go From Here

1972italy

I feel like I’m behind.  I’m trying to sleep in later since Sunday is our time change here.  As a result I caught little Stella doing number two on the floor as I am walking to the door to let them out.  Seems she couldn’t wait two seconds for me to open the door.

I got a lot done last night.  Vacuumed, dishes swapped out, two loads of laundry (and I put them away), swept the floor, washed the sink and counters and cleaned up the tables in the living room.  Oh and did the toilet in the master bathroom.  A lot yet not.  It did not take very long as I spaced things out over the evening.

I’m trying to do the right thing.  I’m trying to keep it all together so I don’t feel guilty doing my writing.  No, no one would say anything or do anything.  But I would feel guilty.  I am home and have time to do things besides write.  It’s not fair if I don’t do that for him,  For us.

I’m sitting here hoping the coffee kicks in soon (or the spacebar starts working when I push it the first time… I’m not picky at this point).  I’m also looking at my stack of writing  books.  I have quite a bit but I pulled the ones I wanted to reference and try to read near by where I write.  I also have a bag near so I can trundle a few of them to a different spot if I want to.  I also have a short stack of fiction I am reading, mostly at night to go to sleep.

I look around and I have everything I need to do what I love.  So why don’t the words come?  Why such anxiety?  I know I can write.  I know am pretty good at it when I’m on my A game.  So why?  Failure?  Possibly.  I have all the tools so now it’s down to me.  I’ve passed on many of my dreams and I’m down to this one.  If I lose this I lose all.  So hold on like grim death.

I hope by doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those who don’t know) I can teach myself to work thru the anxiety and write anyway.  I have been doing this to an extent with my blog (and thank you for not booing me off the stage).  But if I’m going to get serious about doing a big project I need to be able to do this.  If I can make a difference there then I can try it in other aspects of my life.  I can start to move forward and climb out of the pit I managed to dig for myself.  Even later in my life I can start again.  Just like the bloom that is opening on my vine late in the season.

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Emotions, family, Life, Writing

November Is a Comin’

1972italy

I have decided to go for it.  I’m going to do NaNoWriMo this year.  GULP!  I’ve only done it once before and I never made it to the end.  Soooooo I have made up my mind to do it this year.  It’s been eight years.  I pulled out a bunch of books yesterday and started going through.  I’ve also got my stuff going on the site.  I didn’t realize they still had me in the database after all these years!  I’ve also gone and jotted down some notes for the big start on Thursday.

Saturday is Chris’s birthday.  Then there is the trip to see his family for five days.  Those I think are the only days that might be a bit harry for me in regards to getting my daily goal.  So, thinking monkey that I am, I made the choice to set my daily goal at 2,000 words that way I have a cushion if I need it.  And if I don’t then I have that much more done.  I am going to make the effort on those days even with the cushion.

I know a lot of people think this is dumb.  And then there are those that say, “Well you did a novel in a month!  Why aren’t you published?”  Right now this is to prove to myself that I can do it.  Purely selfish means.

But I also need to keep up with the rest of my life.  I need to keep doing this, going to my Writing.com site, query articles, take care of the family and the house.  That is another challenge I want to meet.  That I CAN do all of this.  Maybe not every day but I can function.  I won’t freeze up and freak out.  I need to prove this to myself.

The sun has come out bright and bold as I write this.  I’ll take that as a good sign!img_0021

Emotions, Life, Writing

Sleepless in Michigan

1972italy

The dogs are curled up and snoozing.  Truthfully I wish I was too.  Not been getting much sleep of late.  Not sure why.  I’m one of those that is a light sleeper (incase the dogs need to go out or something happens) and if I do wake it is hard for me to get back to sleep.  The ole monkey mind kicks in and starts to chatter away.  Some times I can give him a drugged banana in the form of a prayer or numbers to focus on.  But  more and more that doesn’t seem to work.  If I am alone and Chris hasn’t come to bed yet I can sometimes turn on the light and read til I fall back asleep.  I need to find something I can do in my head on those nights where I’m either too exhausted to get up but too awake to fall back asleep.  I’ve tried counting sheep.  Maybe counting pirates?  One of Stephen King’s characters fell asleep counting cigarette brands.  I believe it was “Lunch at the Gotham Café.”

Audio books are nice until you fall asleep without turning it off and hours later have not idea where you fell asleep at in the storyline.  I have one of my Audible books that I did that to and I still haven’t gone back to try to find where I fell asleep at.  It’s like an 18 hour book and I have no idea how many hours I’m into it.  I could try my portable CD player.  I have some music CDs that are waves or flute music or the like.   I’d better get the batteries charging when I’m done with this then.

I wish I didn’t waste my time awake at night.  You know I could work on a new story idea or work out a plot problem.  Nope.  My mind decides to waste the time and energy on what I did wrong or did not do at all.  In short any and all of my mistakes.  And I make up these scenarios that will come to pass and all the bad things that will happen because of it.  I have a great imagination when it comes to my failures.  But when I need to come up with a story idea I got nuthin’.

I think that is why I seem to limit my writing.  I put myself too much in my character shoes.  What would I do in that situation?  Not what would the character do.  I notice my scope diminishing as to what the character would do.  I don’t step aside.  Which is pretty funny since I take the time to draw up backgrounds for them.  I need to get out of my own head, both for my own sake and that of my writing.

With NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) just around the corner (Thursday to be exact) I need to be gathering my forces.  Since I normally could not do this because of work I told myself this year I was going to try.  I’m reading about all the prep work everyone seems to be doing.  The last time I tried this I made it a few weeks before work hours just wiped me out too much.  This time the only bump will be when we are out of town on Thanksgiving.  I plan to bring the laptop so I can do this so I should be able to work on a novel too right?  And I do have a backup plan if I can’t bring the laptop.  Before I got it I was able to do my blog entries on my phone and I do have a writing app on my phone sooooo I need to make sure to bring all my charging equipment.  For that matter I need to see if there is a NaNoWriMo app for my phone.  And put the site on here under my favorites.

Before I lose my forward momentum I’d better do it.  If you are doing NaNoWriMo let me know and good luck to all of us!

Emotions

Balancing Acts

1972italy

Yesterday didn’t necessarily improve but it didn’t get much worse.  I am grateful for that.  I am also grateful for the good things that happened.  Essie came home ok from the vet’s.  I was able to pick up my book I ordered (thank you self for thinking ahead and prepaying for the book when you ordered it).  The kids were good all day.  Despite telling myself I wasn’t going to start reading the book I picked up until I finished one I was reading already, I started.  I had to.  This was the one Joe Hill book I wanted that night when I met him but they didn’t have.  So I did.  And I’m glad I did because it is as good as I hoped it would be.

I am making it  a point to try to see the good with the bad on bad days.  To not let the bad ruin it all for me.  Yesterday was the first day I made a conscious effort to do that.  I’m not sure if that is a testament to how determined I was or how bad the day was going.  Probably both.  Oh and I did manage to find my missing password and was able to log in on my Writing.com site.

I am also looking to the future but not too far ahead.  If I do that anxiety kicks in and I am trying to keep that to a minimum.  If I think about something that stresses me I try to focus on good that may happen instead (like  I will have a bunch of fun stories to share after I get back from Thanksgiving and the kids will be fine with no issues).  And then I quickly look away from the topic.  It may seem dumb to do that but I know if I look too long at a situation that stresses me, even after finding the good, I will start to pick everything apart and undo the good I am trying to accomplish.

Today seems brighter even with the lack of sun.  I guess that right there is my secret key.  Balance the good and the bad.  For every bad thing that happens (or could happen) I try to find a good thing to counter it.

I hope there is atleast one bright spot for you today.  Hopefully it is your whole day.img_5376

Dogs, family

Not One of My Better Days

1972italy

This has not been a very good day so we will see how this goes.  We “cleaned” my computer yesterday.  I asked specifically if my passwords would be saved.  We both looked and the passwords were checked to be saved.  NOPE!  I went to try to go to my sites (thank goodness my links got saved) and I had to sign in.  With most of these I have been using them for a few months and I haven’t had to log in because it was done automatically.  I have managed to find everything but my Writing.com password.  I asked for help and they said they found me and would send a link to reset my password.  What I think they are doing is sending it to my email on their site.  Which is useless because I cannot access that email unless I am logged in on the site.  And without a password I cannot log in.

I had to get up and get Essie to the vet for her stitches which meant no food or water for anyone since 8pm last night.  So everyone’s routine was off.  And then I had to carry Essie to the door because she did not want to go.  Everyone else did.  Moose was whining.  I was trying to keep him quiet, get Essie TO the door.  Then Moose and Stella tried to get out and Essie in……

Essie was so scared at the vet they gave her some meds to calm her.  They made her sick.  I had to walk her back because she didn’t want to go anywhere without me.  My morning was awesome.  I was under the impression I would wait a little bit and then take her home.  But now I can’t get her until 3 or 3:30pm.  Momma is NOT happy with that.  I also need to ask them about what to do if something happens while we are gone to see Chris’s family next month.

I played with the remaining three dogs outside when I got home.  That helped them because they are all snoozing while I write this.   And my laptop is even slower than before it was cleaned so I don’t know what is wrong now.  And my phone is acting weird.  I was down to 53% power for no reason.  It had been plugged in over night and was at full charge when I left.  Email seems to be wonky too.

Gaaah!  I suppose I’d better try to find my last password.  I pray it’s here somewhere.  I hope all of you are having better days!

family, Life

Crumbs on the Path

1972italy

Today is shaping up to be interesting.  Whether that will be good or bad remains to be seen and dealt with.  Mother Nature has picked today to throw me a loop so who knows what emotions may or may not surface.  Truth be told a feel relatively normal compared to my past sessions with Mother Nature.  That is definitely throwing me off!

Someone tried to hack my Facebook account so I am temporarily blocked from doing pretty much everything with the exception of posting and looking at stuff.  Sooooo that avenue of distraction and interaction has been limited.  Messenger has gone off the deep end on me too.  I can’t get it to load despite uninstalling and reinstalling on my phone.  I posted to let everyone know (Messenger is how my family keeps in contact over the miles) why I’m not on.  I don’t know how long my account will be in quarantine.  Not necessarily a bad thing.

I normally do my read and reviews on Writing.com after I do this but today I didn’t.  I had another newbie ask me to read another piece she wrote and I wanted to do it before I forgot again.  It was a relevant essay on childhood and the loss of it.  Or never really getting a childhood at all.

Kids are expected to act like adults as soon as they can walk and talk.  We forget that the mistakes we make in childhood teach.  We forget that we need that innocence and ignorance to help shape who we will become and what we will do.  Then there is this seeming explosion of child abuse.  Where is all that coming from?  How may abuse cycles have begun or have sadly continued over the past 10 years alone?  What are we even teaching our kids?  Not math.  Not cursive.  Not that there are times you will lose and times you will win.  Not the desire to work for something, to earn it.

The world scares me anymore.  It is spiraling downward and picking up momentum as it goes.  I don’t think there is much of anything we can do to stop it.  Sure there are Band aides we can put on to try to heal this or that but  really what we are diagnosed with is a terminal cancer with no cure.  Just a lot of chemo and a bit of hope for a few years of remission.

So love to the fullest, laugh to the fullest, live to the fullest.  This is all we’ve got.

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Life, Writing

Write Here, Write Now

1972italy

Why do I write?  I write to express myself.  I write because sometimes it’s the only way to get things out.  Out of my system and out into the world.  I write because  I have to.  It’s the only creative outlet I have.  If I don’t write I feel lost and things back up in my head and heart because they are stuck.

I write because I may not have anyone to talk to about whatever and I can write it out and talk to myself thru the writing.  I write because I am lost.  I write to find myself.  I write because sometimes there is no place else to go.  Or be.  I write to free myself, even if it’s only for a little while.

I write to tell people who I am.  I write to tell me who I am.  I don’t write to hurt others.  I don’t write to hurt myself.  I write when I am trying to figure out what to say.  I write because I am scared.  I write because I am happy.  I write because I need help.  I write because I want to give help.  I write because I have to.  I write because I am.

family, Life

How Fast Can You Go?

1972italy

It’s a dark and gloomy morning. Cold too.  We slept late today, 9am instead of our usual 8am wake up.  Everyone is still sleepy.  I hope the coffee helps.  My eye lids are drooping.  It is a good day to just hunker down with a book and the kids in bed.  My problem is I usually have a stack of books going at a time so I either bring the stack or sit and figure out what I’m in the mood for.  If I’m going outside or it is during the day I will put it all in a bag to haul around.  If it’s at night then I usually pick out two or three books to haul to bed.  And I usually switch between them.

I hate that I do that.  I hate that my mind has gotten trained on crumbs.  I find myself bored after a few pages and need something new.  Part of that is too much Facebook on my part.  Bored?  Need to burn a few minutes on short and sweet to keep your mind occupied?  Pull out ye olde phone and go to Facebook!  I don’t Twitter or Instagram despite lures from friends and family.  I have enough problems with Facebook.  I can’t imagine adding anything else is going to help.  Especially if I am expected to keep it up.

I find I’m reading short story collections more.  And that I have less patience for novels that don’t get it going soon after I start reading.  I don’t like that about myself.  Before I was willing to give a chapter or two to background.  Not anymore.  I also blame this on our fast paced society.  I no longer enjoy the journey.  I want to get where I’m going and then be back.  The inbetween doesn’t interest me anymore.

And that is sad.  Our world has become so instantaneous.  We want everything now (or as close to yesterday as we can get).  We keep going faster and faster but do we really get anything done?  Cure for cancer?  World peace?  Do we even find happiness?  And because everything is so fast everything is being done half assed in order to get it out before the other guy does.  Fame and fortune baby!  That’s where it is!  Don’t help your fellow man or those around you… focus on the BIG picture!

I’m tired of being on this not-so-merry-go-round.  I’d like to try another ride please.  Maybe the Dumbo ride to see how high I can go.  Or a good roller coaster.  Anything but this.

Dogs, family, Movies, Writing

Oh Look! Squirrel!

1972italy

I’m back!  The internet went out all over this area Saturday?  Yes, because today was essentially day three but it came back on while I was journaling this morning.  No contact with family or friends for the most part.  I went out of the house to help a friend yesterday and while I was out I posted that we had no internet so that is why we were not responding to anyone.  I could atleast text on my phone so I could let my family know (we try to Skype on Saturdays since the family is all over the place (this is my Dad’s side of the house)) what was up.  And I could whine to my Mom.

Chris and I watched a bunch of DVDs together and had a goodtime doing it.  He couldn’t really game since not internet so he got to rewatch some old favorites from our movie selection.

I had plans for today but I have had to change them so I can get Essie into the vet for her ear.  She is acting fine but I worry that she needs antibiotics.  Soooo off we go at 3:30pm.

And may I just say right now that I hate this laptop.  It just completely rearranged my text and now when I go to fix it instead of inserting the letters it over writes the ones behind it.  So I have to make sure as I write that all is well because I cannot go back and tweak it later.

I’m sorry this is all over the place today.  Not having my routine for two days has thrown me off my game (which wasn’t that great to begin with).  The sun is out and we just had a random bird throw itself at the front window.  It must’ve seen it’s own reflection because the windows stay covered til Chris gets up so the kids don’t fuss about anything going on out there.

And before I sign off for the day I just want to say thank you to everyone who is following me!  It’s nice to have people who want to read what I write…. no matter how seemingly random.  Have a great day!