25 October 2009

And The Award Goes To...

Mood: Worn-Out (been a busy, busy weekend!)

What I'm Watching: Storm Chasers (The hubs is drooling at the idea of being so close to a deadly tornado. Suspect he's completely insane).

Current Word Count: 9,602 (hanging head in slacking writerly shame)

Aside from a certficate I received from the American Heart Association for winning a slogan contest, I've never won anything in my life. Until Now. Natalie, over at The Sound of Rain, has graciously given me the Kreativ Blogger Award. YAY!!! Natalie is a totally awesome blogger who combines a great wealth of writerly type musings with the occasional history lesson and it's a combination I find absolutely irresistable. Really. You should go check her out. I'll wait until you get back. You are coming back, right?
Okay, so on to the rules (there are always rules):
Alright, the rules for this award are....

1. Copy the Kreativ Blogger picture and post it on your page.
2. Thank the person that gave the award to you and link back to their blog.
3. Write 7 things about you that we don't know.
4. Choose 7 other bloggers that you would like to give the award to.
5. Link to the bloggers that you chose.
6. Let your winners know that they have the lovely award!.
The seven things you don't know about me:

1. I've been happily married to the hubs for 7 years now.
2. My eyes change color according to my mood, what I'm wearing and the seasons. Right now? They're green. Yesterday? They were a deep blue. When I'm angry? They turn a stormy grey. It's weird.
3. My driver's license still has my weight from high school listed on it. I figure if the guy at the DMV can look at me w/ a straight face and ask "Is the weight still the same?" I can say "absolutely!"
4. Obviously, pursuant to #3, I'm an absolutely shameless liar or living in a state of complete denial.
5. I don't know my father. He beat feet when I was a year old and I haven't seen him since.
6. I've almost died twice in my life. Once when I was born and once when I was in my late teens.
7. I'm the oldest of 5 children. I have three younger sisters and one younger brother.

So, now that you know those things about me that no one ever wanted to know, here are my fantastic 7!
So, there you have it! I'm off to finish the requirements of my reign as a Kreativ Blogger. Should I be unable to fulfill my reign due to any reason, please be aware you'll have to tear the tiara out of my cold dead hands! What do you mean there's no tiara?

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15 October 2009

The Angst of Being a Writer

Mood: Inspired (Work in Progess is back in progress...YAY!)

What I'm Listening To: Don't Stop Believing (Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world...)

Current Word Count: 9,594 (Don't be too impressed, I just decided the the words that I cut a copule of weeks ago actually work much better than I thought they did so I put them back. Sigh. Have realized I'm the Brett Favre of the writing world.)

People always seem surprised when they find out I'm working on a book. Truthfully, the explanation for their surprise is fairly simple...I don't talk too much about my writing in my real , day to day life. Why? It's not like I've got a side job as a stripper or a drug mule or anything but when someone asks me about my writing I suddenly feel as though the Pastor has busted me coming out of the back room at the local video store.

Having given a lot of thought to my reaction, I've come to the following conclusions:

1.) Talking about my writing would mean that I'd actually have to, you know, write...something. Anything. And? Sometimes (most of the time) I'm a lazy, unmotivated writer.

2.) Like most artists, I secretly fear that I suck at what I do...and no one wants to admit that they've written or are in the process of writing a book which has the suckage factor of, say, "Eyes Wide Shut".

3.) To most people in my world (i.e: My family) saying "I'm writing a book" is on par with saying "I'm going to be a movie star" or "I'm going to be President of the United States". The supportive, follow your dreams crap? We're not so good with that.

However, I'm working on coming out of the writer's closet and declaring myself a sometimes lazy, sometimes unmotivated dreamer who spins sometimes silly stories and who dreams of someday having them completed and published.

And if that doesn't work out? The dream of being a Wal-Mart door greeter lives on!

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12 October 2009

Things That go Bump in the Night

Mood: Frustrated, irritated, annoyed...well, you get the idea (had a very rough day at work)

What I'm Watching: Hoarders (Am suddenly overwhelmed w/ the need to clean any rogue bits of clutter around my own home lest they rise up and mount a hostile take over).

Current Word Count: Am not willing to talk about that right now! (translation: No meaningful writing has been accomplished over the last week or so and am currenly suitably ashamed of the lazy writer within me).

It's mid-October, the weather has started turning colder, the leaves have started falling from the trees and suddenly thoughts of the spooky and macabre begin to fill my head (and my television) as the calendar inches ever closer to Halloween.

Personally, I've always accepted that there are things "out there" that I can't begin to understand but that doesn't mean I'm jumping at my own shadow either. I tend to walk the line, looking for the rational and logical explanation before resorting to paranormal explanations.

When Scott and I moved into our current apartment, we immediately began to notice things weren't quite "right". We heard things going bump in the night. We would go to bed and be lulled to sleep by a symphony of drawers in our kitchen opening and closing, kitchen chairs shuffling around and stuff banging down on our tables. At first, the logical explanation seemed to be that our upstairs neighbors must be very noisy night owls....until we learned that we, in fact, had no upstairs neighbors.

I kept smelling a very nice, light musky floral scent every time I was cooking in the kitchen. The hubs? Couldn't smell anything unusual for months. No matter how strong the scent was to me, he couldn't smell a thing. Until one morning when I'd grown so accustomed to the scent that I no longer noticed it, he finally smelled it. It was early one morning and I'd gotten up to use the restroom...on my way back into bed he finally smelled it. That's right. Our ghost? Was a perv who had followed me into the bathroom.

We've now lived in this apartment for over 7 years and over that time we've experienced everything from disembodied voices, to things moving, hearing people walking around our bedroom in the middle of the night, to actually feeling someone sitting on the edge of our bed. Once? I even saw 'something' sitting on the end of our sofa but it's getting late so that's a story I'll save and share later.

So, what about the rest of you? Ever see or hear something you couldn't explain? Ever experience something that just made your skin crawl (I mean, of course, besides the 'D' list celeb reality tv on VH-1)? Leave a comment and share your stories. It is after, all, nearly Halloween...so pull a chair up around the old campfire, put that flashlight under your chin and scare us all!

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04 October 2009

Is It Art? Or is it Just Crap?

Mood: Hopeful (Think I figured out where my writing "jumped the shark" so have ruthlessly chopped 2 well written but out of place chapters and am ready to try to move things in the right direction).

What I'm Watching: Will You Kill For Me: Manson (Yep. More true crime stuff. Is anyone surprised?)

Current Word Count: 4,521 (I know, I've lost thousands of words in the ruthless chopping that took place this weekend. Looking forward to building the total of "useful" words back up again.)

Over the weekend Scott and I went to see "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs". First, let me assure all of my readers (all 1 of you), this was not my choice. Scott had heard "great" reviews and had been told by some friends (who shall no longer be allowed to recommend so much as a stick of gum) that it was a great movie. Being swayed by peer pressure in the manner of a bad After School Special, Scott decided we just had to go see this movie.

So, we went...and I have this to say: I want my two hours and my $19.00 back (and if I thought I could get payment for pain and suffering, I'd be demanding that as well!). In my opinion, this movie was extremely boring, devoid of any entertainment value and I personally think the CIA should be examining it's potential as a torture device.

Scott? He said it was 'okay'. Not great but he wasn't ready to join me on a drive to California to knock on the doors of the writers and producers and demand that they immediately retire and take jobs as Wal-Mart door greeters.

When I got back from the movie and logged onto Facebook, I saw that one of my dear friends had also been to see the movie that day and she had very good things to say about it. She thought it was "cute" and "entertaining". At first, I began to wonder just when she'd started smoking crack but then I began to ponder the nature of art.

Most of us will acknowledge that art is completely subjective, but we all have definite ideas on what constitutes art and what constitutes, well, crap. In my own hometown we have a set of sculptures in one of our parks. Everyone always raves about how wonderfully innovative these sculptures are. When I look at them, I see an absolutely hideous eyesore. To me, there's nothing appealing, compelling or even redeeming about these pieces of "art".

Does the fact that I don't like them mean that they're not art? That they've got no artistic merit? Probably not. Just like the fact that I didn't like the movie doesn't mean that the people who made it are talentless hacks who should immediately retire from their chosen professions. As a writer I know that there are going to be people who are going to hate my writing...the style, the content, the form and consider it a worthless waste of time just like there are going to be people who will like it, embrace it and acknowledge the artistic effort buried within it.

So, with that in mind, I will try to be a bit more tolerant of the artistic efforts of others...starting tomorrow. Because really? The movie? Sucked so much that it created it's own little black hole in the middle of the theater.

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