Cafe Au La Tao

finally decided to stop in on livejournal, at which point I realized just how long it's been since I was here!

which is crazily long, given how much I need to talk about sh!t in my life. must be repressing again.

Time's growing short before nano, and I still haven't finished my outline. I think it's the usual low-self esteem crap, so I'll just have to smack my inner procrastinator with a mallet and get my  butt in gear!

The CDs I put on hold through the library have all arrived; now my nano soundtrack is much closer to completion. Given the vaguely Tarantino feel of my story, I started with Resevoir Dogs, moved on to Pulp Fiction, and (DAM) just realized I should have gotten the Kill Bill soundtracks as well...

Um, okay, no more dodging the outline, time to stop posting here, and start typing there...

...

Right after I finish playing my FB games...
 

plot outline found? check

laptop found & sig banner created? check

time spent in the Spork Room? double check!

It's October, and the time for getting ready for nanowrimo has begun. I've (mostly) decided on a plot, found the outline I put together over a year ago (oh, the joy of cryptic statements I *used* to get), put together a sig banner, and have spent far too much time on the nanowrimo forums.

I still seriously recommend that if you're having worries about your nano, visit the Spork Room thread in the Nano Ate my Soul forum. It's fun, great support, and very addictive. The only downside is the incredibly high volume of posts!

When I open up my browser, my iGoogle page has the XKCD comic on it. I didn't get the joke initially, so I googled 'The Rules' and 'The Game'.

( Read more... )I just don't get it.

And dam it, I just realized I left my nano outline at work...

I've started doing the character creation, which has gotten confusing, since I'll start off writing about one character from Story A and find myself ten minutes later writing about a character from Story B!  Lot of cut & pasting going on...

I've also found the soundtrack for the character I was chewing on. I'd thought it would also be pop punk, like the music for the love interest, but that didn't pan out (though I did develop an appreaciation for Lillix.)  Instead, while I was at work and trying to find the right accuradio station, I found myself listening to latin rock, and two songs in a row, I heard songs I knew in English, which were surreal and almost disorientating to hear in Spanish (that sense of almost, but not quite, understanding.) The emotional response was totally appropriate for my MC!

And that led me to Nelly Furtado, specifically her Folklore, Loose, & Mi Plan albums.

Reading lj posts by writers plus finally reading Flirt by LKH made me take another long look at why I haven't been writing. Being the kind of person I am, I'll now list the realizations I've had.

1. I'm still letting my fears keep me back. Procrastination is a form of protecting myself from risk; I need to get through it. Again.

2. The afterword in Flirt reminded me of the importance of music as inspiration. I'd already been thinking about how one character in my current story (it counts as current even if I haven't done more than half an outline, right?) suited the entire Masterpiece Theater album by Marianas Trench.

3. I realized I had no soundtrack for the main character. Which made me realize that...
 
4.I had no real grasp of the MC's personality. And really, how can you write about someone so nebulous? What's their motivation?

5. I realized that few of my MCs ever have well-developed personalities. Hideous epiphany. Beyond loosely basing them on myself (and asking myself, 'what would I do here?'), they had no individual personality. And while I could reassure myself that if I were writing cheap romances, identical characters between books are okay, I'm not writing cookie-cutter romances. I'm not even writing regular romances. All of which doesn't even address that primary issue of never having created a full character in the first place. Very embarrassing.

6. Which leads me to this; has this failure to create a full & rich MC this been the biggest cause of my failure to finish a novel outside of NaNoWriMo? When the MC has no real focus, then how can the story have one?

So, I surfed around and found some character creation questions, which I will have to gird myself up to answer over the next few days, and hope I come out the other end with a functional, fun & write-able main character!

Oh, and I've started 'auditioning' various albums to see if I can get a feel for this MC, and finally give her a dammed soundtrack!

So, I didn't get the job; they went with someone with tonnes of experience.

I just have to keep telling myself I'm going to get a great, full-time job soon, and really believe it. Sigh. Obviously, it's a little tough to do.

Oh, and an earwig snuck into the newspaper, which I didn't notice till I picked the thing up from the couch to put it in the recycling, when the little b*st*rd made a beeline for the crack between the cushions and disappeared!

Why me?

So I had my oracle cards done, and apparently, they're trying to wake me up, force me to keep passionate and alive.  I have to say, knowing there's an earwig somewhere in the couch and could pinch me at any moment sure has me 'awake.'

I have a job interview coming up on monday, and being the sensible person I am, I consulted the I Ching on how to behave during the interview.  I got hexagram 13, which changes to 37 with the fourth line the changing line.

In my fav interpretation book, The I Ching Workbook by R.L. Wing,  13 is Community, and the changing line reads "Your obsession with the attainment of your personal goals will ultimately cut you off from others. The more you pursue your dream, the farther you drift from your community. In time, your loneliness will bring you to your senses. Good fortune."

What the frick does that mean!??!? My desire to have a decent job, that will pay the rent and keep my kids in food, clothing, & utilities will be my downfall?!?! oh, and then throw in 'good fortune' to make up for that?!

Right. Tossing the fav book, lol.

According to Sam Reifler's I Ching book, the changing line is "you are about let yourself go and fully enter into an unselfish, rewarding society of men. You still retain some feelings of competitiveness and wariness, but it has begun to dawn on you that these feelings are truly absurd."

Much better.

I have an ongoing relationship with earwigs this summer.

This started about  two weeks ago. At night, when I went to go outside and sit for a bit, they were everywhere, perching. Like, tiny little vultures that like to pinch things. In that first week, I got pinched twice, as they decided to climb on me as an ultimate overhang on which to lurk. So during daylight hours a few days later, I got out buckets of soapy water, and washed the whole area down.  This resulted in fewer early lurkers, then by midnight, there were as many, if not more earwigs than before!

And I got pinched again.

I began to wonder about the spiritual significance of earwigs. After all, I reasoned, if they were than insistent about getting my attention, surely there was a reason for it.

Then they at my Mom's marigolds.

Now when I go out and sit outside for a bit, I see maybe two earwigs, and fifty moths (which were probably being eaten by the earwigs before.) It's quiet, and I can relax, knowing that my skin will not be the target of creeping hunters (though mosquitoes still must be endured.)

Personally, I'd rather wave away fluttering moths than have earwigs trying to pinch my butt!

My eldest is ten years old today! Weird to think that I've been a mom for a decade now... (of a living, breathing child). A decade seems like a hell of a long time, and makes me feel more baffled than anything. I finally understand why so many parents say, "Where did all the time go?"  It sure doesn't seem like ten years!

So, Happy Birthday, Baby!



I should add, I also realized a couple of days ago that 2011 will be my 20th grad year reunion. That really makes my brain want to go 'sproing'. People with 20-year grad reunions are *old*, aren't they?