Playing Catch-up

I am not very good at it. I hate the idea of rushing around to see where everyone is and trying to see if I am up to date on everything. Hell, even when I am caught up, I am usually behind one way or another. I am perpetually out of date. There is so much going on in the literary world that it is mind boggling. Yesterday after reading my blog for the first time in months, I was reading friends' blogs and saw that quite a few friends who weren't published are now published and that is just extremely amazing to me. I am so utterly happy for them. I'd say so, but I'd doubt they'd remember me. It's amazing what gets accomplished in 3 years...and what doesn't.

It's been a while

I started this blog three years ago in May. I knew what I intended it to be--but it became something else. It's been literally over a year since the last time that I wrote in this blog. I've visited it a few times over the course of that year and a half, but I never have been inclined to write anything. I feel that I don't really have much to say right now. All I can say is that I am in the process. In the process of what? In the process of life--living--learning--breathing. It's...sometimes a difficult process, but one that needs to be mastered on one level or the other. Writing Charlie is still a big part of my life--and still unfinished. I think this might be my 'great work' but it's like giving birth: long--hot--painful. I've started research for another novel while I put Charlie on the back burner called Gravedigger. I've done some free writing and I will be glad to post something when I get a chance to. Nothing really profound or interesting to say. Two kids kinda drained mommy today--and they are out of school for the whole week. The baby is now one...seventeen months exactly and Izzy is four and both of them drive me insane. But, they are my anchors and I love them. Eric is still in the picture and we hope to be married before the end of the year--if I don't kill him first. Life is what it is. Maybe one day I'll tell you about it. I miss you guys and much love to all of you!

Chuck Norris

I missed you. I really, really do. I haven't written in this blog since last June. I figure that the only way I was going to get any real writing done was to completely unplug--and I did.

Then I had a baby. A beautiful baby girl that looks so much like her father it's scary.

And then right after that, my computer broke. I'm borrowing one right now, but I hope to be back online full time by the first week of February.

Life has thrown some major curve balls--still moving forward even when I'm not sure my legs are moving. Sometimes I hurt so bad from the act of growing that I feel numb from the waist down--trying to keep moving forward.

I 'ran' into a very old friend of mine very recently. I feel--I don't know...like I'm 23 again and everything is everything. Those old urges and feelings of restlessness seem to be coming back but this time, I won't repress them because I have to be a 'grown-up' now.

Funny thing about these words--this text is that they seem to be only that. You can make them be whatever you want, make them mean anything you want--sort of like an abstract painting. That's what words are to me.

I didn't make any new years resolutions. I really didn't. I hate the idea of being obligated to myself. Whatever happen will happen and all I can hope is that I make the best decision for that moment and pray it doesn't get me hit by a bus.

I don't know what this year is going to bring, but I pretty excited and freaked out by it at the same time.



Oh...yeah, the title is completely random, so don't even bother giving yourself a headache by trying to figure out what it has to do with anything I'm saying, save for this sentence.

In the immortal words of Arnold Swartzenegger(sp?) in Terminator: "I'll be back."

When it works!

25,000 words and counting!
That's all I can say...amazing.

Instinct

In one day I managed to write over 5000 words. Easily. As soon as I sat down at the computer and opened up my WIP I started writing. I'm now at 17334 words. In all my writing in all these years I've never written this far. Maybe...8000 at the most.

And when the flow stops...it just stops. I don't try to force it, I don't try to analyze it and I certainly don't plan it.

I don't work on a schedule.

My schedule is basically: "I feel like writing" and then I come out with thousands of words in about 4 hours. I stop to eat, deal with my daughter, take a piss...whatever and I write.

My biggest mistake in the past was trying to write on a schedule, trying to write outlines and all of those things. But it always ended up killing the thrill. Outlines are the death of my writing. It kills the instinct. And one of the most important tools I believe I writer has is their instinct.

When something says 'stop', I stop. And believe me, no matter how hard I try, nothing worth anything comes out. I'll go four days without writing and in that time span, I sit and read books.

I just finished reading Insomnia by Stephen King which is easily over 600 pages. It doesn't bother me or...take anything away strangely enough.
Before that I read a book called--crap---what was it? It was a medical thriller and now I'm reading something called Self Defense by Jonathan Kellerman. The story is interesting. I am starting to dig his writing style.

Last week I was completely in love with Eugene O'neil. See, I always pick up free books where ever I find them and I happened to run into a few treasures, Mr. O'neil being one of them. It was a collection of three different plays which were really just extraordinary. Why didn't we read him in school I wonder?

And even with all that being said, I managed to write a short story in less than two days and have some artwork to go with it. I actually made the picture first using Photoshop cs4. Halfway decent too.

The anxiety over everything is gone for the most part. I just write. I know what works now and I stick to it. Things that usually work for most folks just don't work for me. I thought I was being unmotivated or just...stupid. Truth was I was following someone else's perception of what my writing should be.

I I finally do see an end.

Sorry

Sorry for the huge space between blog posts. My internet has gone on the fritz and it only works when it wants to. I don't have too much to tell today. The writing has been coming along beautifully. I'm FINALLY into the double digits. Strangely enough I'm not writing EVERYDAY but when I do, I'm usually writing over a couple thousand.

I have too much going on to write EVERYDAY. But, it's consistent when it happens.

So I guess that's it. Not the most informative post right now, but I just wanted to let you all know that I didn't disappear off the face of the planet. I do come back down to earth from time to time.

If You Gave A Whale A Waffle

Doesn't that title sound like something that's already in bookstores?
So I went to my 8 year old niece's Art and Literature night at her school in Pennsylvania and I just got back.

My niece's book title was "If You Gave A Whale a Waffle" and it was extraordinarily good. Like...not even for an 8 year old either. The teacher went all out with actually getting these blank hard cover books and the kids wrote the story and did all the illustrations.

She didn't finish the pictures, but the story was just...amazing. I was really impressed, and not just in that indulgent way adults tend to be with their kids.

She couldn't take it home yet, but when she does, I am going to take pictures of it and her art work. It was just...good.

So you know my mother, my sister and I were all trying to take credit for her mad skillz!