Thankfully Crazy?

Mood: Thankful (what? It's like the whole point of the holiday, no?)
On TV: Hell's Kitchen (It is Wednesday and nothing like seeing some chef butt kicked to start the holiday off right!) 

Tonight I have made two pumpkin pies, two chocolate pies and one banana pie. I also have bags filled with all the fixings necessary to feed a standing army of approximately 5,000 hungry soldiers - or my family. Tomorrow I will take said fixings to my mother's house where I will spend hours with my sisters preparing an awesome feast that the hungry masses will annihilate in a mere 20 minutes. What can I say? It's tradition!

You know what else is tradition? Black Friday shopping! But seriously? What is up with the whole "go to the store at 3:00 am" crap? People, we have got to stop the insanity! Most of us will spend all day tomorrow with family and friends, eating ourselves into a carb induced coma, and then we're expected to drag our tired, pie filled selves out of bed in the middle of the night to schlep through the freezing cold of a November night to save $10 on something that we probably don't even want to begin with? I. don't. think. so! There really isn't anything I want badly enough to stand in line for in the middle of the night.*

However, it's tradition so Scott and I will drag ourselves out of bed somewhere around the crack of 10:00 am on Friday (and that's a bit too early for our liking on a day off). We'll curse the crowds, we'll find some good deals on Christmas gifts, we'll see Santa** and we'll do it all with the benefit of a full night's sleep because that's what sane people do. And really? If hubs and I are the measure of sanity in any given situation then people really need to reevaluate their life choices.

*Okay, there was the Harry Potter book thing but that was different.

** Don't judge me - how else is Santa going to know that I want a Nook Color for Christmas?

Five Essentials for the Slightly Neurotic, Sometimes Obsessive, But Almost Always Interesting Writer

Mood: Is it Friday yet (that about sums it up this week)

On Tv: Nothing (I swear, occasionally I do turn it off!)

I recently reconnected with a high school classmate through Facebook and she asked me what she would need to be a writer - how she would go about starting the process. My first thought was: "why is she asking me?" Obviously, with one (truly awful) completed manuscript and several unfinished (but probably equally awful) manuscripts to my name, I'm hardly an expert on the subject.

But, in the name of old PTHS spirit I gave her question some thought. Of course, there were the obvious things: proper tools (pens, pencils, computer, etc.), connecting with a community of supportive writers (like the #amwriting and #amwritingparty crew over on Twitter) and a good story idea with an excellent hook (duh).

Then, I thought deeper. What is it, aside from the obvious, that I really need as a writer?

Rhonda's Five Essentials for the Slightly Neurotic, Sometimes Obsessive, But Almost Always Interesting Writer

1. You will need a vice. I don't care what it is but it needs to be bad for you (although, ideally it won't kill you) and it needs to be something easily accessible.

For many writers this takes the form of a beverage of some sort. Coffee, wine (although the raging alcoholic writer is so 1920s so be careful here) and Diet Coke are some favorites but anything will do really, except water. Water is not a vice - it is a vile liquid that nutritionists and doctors insist we drink for our health (and to keep living, blah, blah, blah).

For other writers, like me, this takes the form of food. Now, I'm not talking about bean sprouts and celery sticks here. I'm talking real writing stress food full of everything that Dr. Oz tells you not to eat. Chocolate, ice cream, cupcakes, etc. are all winners in this category.

2. You will need distractions. Trust me. There will be times when you sit down at the computer and the blank page and flashing cursor are mercilessly mocking you. Are you just going to sit there and take that? No. You have better things to do than just stare at that flashing little bastard!
I personally recommend Facebook (hello? Cyber stalking your friends and family, playing endless rounds of mindless games all without leaving the comfort of your computer - what could be better?) , Twitter (for when Facebook is too boring) and a blog (even though I'm possibly the world's most inconsistent blogger). I've also been told that dogs and cats serve this need quite nicely as well - I cannot attest to this personally as our apartment managers are big meanies and won't let us have any pets! (and yes I'm pouting!)

3.) You will need a supportive spouse or significant other who will understand that sometimes the world you're living in isn't, well, exactly real. Therefore, they should be able to jump easily between discussing  grocery shopping and the best dagger to kill an evil werewolf without missing a step and should be at ease spending dinner discussing the adventures of your main character (brownie points if they refrain from reminding you that your main character isn't a real person - because your main character totally doesn't know that he/she isn't real and you don't want to hurt his/her feelings).

4.) You will need an understanding employer. Ideally writing would be done around the writer's "real" life but this doesn't always happen. Sometimes you'll find yourself madly writing at 3:00 am because you're on a roll (which leads to the occasional 'falling asleep at your desk' incident the next day) and sometimes you'll be so blocked that the words won't come - until 2:00 pm on some random Thursday afternoon (when you'll use up your entire supply of post-it notes trying to capture the brilliance that is just pouring from your artiste type brain).

5.) You will need become comfortable with the fact that some of the things you're going to do as a writer? Are going to make you look downright weird. You may find yourself balancing a dagger in your hand, feeling the weight of it, trying to memorize the texture and feel of the metal and then asking your husband if he thinks it's both big enough to kill someone and small enough to be concealed (don't be surprised when the old lady at the booth next to you suddenly turns and runs in the opposite direction). Or, you may find yourself staring unashamedly at a handsome young man in the food court because he looks exactly like you envision your main character to look (and you will even toy with the idea of asking to take his picture - hopefully someone will stop you before the poor kid calls mall security).

*Ahem* Not that these things have happened to me personally *looks around innocently*.

Luckily, society has long accepted the stereotype of the eccentric artist so just have someone follow you around giving everyone in your path a sympathetic look and a whispered "she's a writer" as an explanation for your obvious insanity.
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There it is. The top things that I think every aspiring writer should know about what they need to survive this crazy endeavour we call writing.

So, what is on your absolutely essential list?

The Thing About Being a Writer...

Mood: Frustrated (Really? My laptop is about to become a missle like object in an effort to diffuse the angst of writer's block. And for those of you who say it doesn't exist? I hope that my purple, sparkly laptop slams upside your head. I think the thud would be very satisfying.)

What I'm Watching: Lying to be Perfect (One of the few times I've given into the lure of a Lifetime Movie. This time it was because the description sounded suspiciously like a book I recently read. Turns out that I was totally right...it is based on the book I read. Go me!)

...is that you have to be just a little unbalanced to do it. Really, we spend all day (and sometimes most of the night) talking to people and about people who don't exist outside the confines of our own minds (although, I wouldn't want to mention that to my main character Rory, she doesn't know she's not exactly, well, a real person...she's a bit sensitive about it in fact). Let's face it, if we didn't do that sitting at a computer screen under the guise of "being creative", we'd be sitting in a nice padded cell under the guise of being completely off our rockers.

After spending all afternoon trying to figure out why, exactly, my main character continues to thwart my writing process, I have come to the conclusion that spending the day arguing with a fictional character in my mind might qualify me for the short line to the prozac express. Thankfully I'm okay with the idea of being slightly off my nut. After all, as a writer, I'm in very good company: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemmingway and Sylvia Plath just to name a few. All very talented, very successful and very mentally unbalanced writers. Now I'm not endorsing putting ones head in an oven ala Sylvia Plath or using a shotgun to pierce one's ears ala Ernest Hemmingway, I'm simply saying that there is a long line of connection between creative genius and slight bent towards the insane. Which means that my insanity isn't an affliction it's a manifestation of my creative genius!!



So, embrace your inner writer and your inner writer's inner crazy person. Run with it and let it unleash the power of your creative genius! But, if you find yourself thinking of the oven as a place to keep your head? Well, they make medication for that now. You might want to get some.

Adventures in Cleaning (or why better vision is highly overrated)

Mood: Tired (hate mornings, must kill mornings! ) but Happy (It's Friday!!!)

What I'm Watching: Celebrity Crises and Mental Disorders (Suddenly I feel a LOT more normal in my own insanity!)

After much anticipation and waiting, I finally got my new glasses. Yay. They're super cute, I can finally see without strain or headaches, and the damn things have to go back!! Why? Because now I can see all the dust, dirt and grime in my home that I'd previously been blissfully unaware of because I couldn't see it. Now that I can see it, I feel compelled to do something about it.

I came home yesterday afternoon and noticed that, despite regular mopping, our bathroom floor was NASTY. So, I decided that I would get on my hands and knees and scrub the floor. It's a small bathroom so I didn't figure it would take me that long. As usual, I was wrong. So very wrong.

I started scrubbing (immediately realizing that my knees are NOT as young as they used to be) and while I was scrubbing the floor I realized that the base of the toilet was also pretty grimy so I scrubbed that as well. While scrubbing the base of the toilet, I realized that the baseboards and lower cabinet doors were also pretty icky, so I started scrubbing those as well.

By the time I was done I'd managed to scrub every inch of the bathroom (including 15 minutes spent trying to scrub away what was ultimately a part of the pattern in the tile on the bathroom floor...I'd never been able to see it before so I thought it was dirt), I was exhausted, frustrated and headed to the kitchen because I was ready for a cold drink.

Reaching into the cupboard for a glass, I noticed that my kitchen cabinet doors could use a good scrubbing as well. *Sigh* Obviously the glasses need to go.