A Writer's Life for Me (a glance at my approach)

Yesterday I spent basically eight hours trying to meet my word goal for the day, and coming up with literally nothing. By the time Jeremy got home at about five I had written a grand total of, nothing. It was very upsetting. Than I remembered that I had started a story about a young monster hunter and her dad, and she's supposed to meet this other monster hunter and is skeptical because blah blah blah, and I had written two chapters and then put it to rest because my writing style is to write when I have the idea regardless of how well formed it is or is not, and when the words stop that's when I stop. I don't force myself to write because then I never like what I say. I also never outline.

A lot of my stories are about 800 words and then they just don't go on anymore. The story just stops. I stopped one in the middle of a sentence. I'm really excited to get back into that one, but first I have to figure out what's up with the dog. There's one about a mother and daughter and they're perfectly similar and dissimilar at the same time, but there's something going on with the mother and I can't figure out what it is, or why they're estranged yet they live in the same house and see each other every day and interact like friends.

This is what I mean. I never force it. I barely even take the time to really think about it. It's like a movie starts playing in my head, and I see the words so I write them down because I know they'll be important, but then the movie stops. I want to know what happens, but I don't skip ahead to the end of a movie or a book. I keep watching or reading and eventually the story unfolds and everything makes sense.

Back to the point. Last night I started copying the monster hunter story from my notebook, (I write every story longhand initially until one day I start typing it up and sometimes I'll go back to the notebook but more often I end up just adding new ideas to the digital version.) and by the time I had finished typing up what I already had and what I had added when inspiration struck me, I had ended up well over my goal for yesterday. Unfortunately because I had three days where I wrote maybe 100 words total, my expected completion date is now in early December. Which isn't so bad.

Yes I would love to have started and finished an entire novel in one month, but that isn't entirely realistic when you consider that I've never started and finished an entire novel in my whole writing career. (I guess not career, because I've never been paid for any of my work, or published except for that one really crappy poem I wrote when I was 11.) I thought I had once but then when I read it again it actually ended on a cliff-hanger and I had started a sequel (at 14, how precocious) but never finished it. It was meant to be a two-part story about angels and god and folklore and shit. I still have every intention of returning to it. I'm just waiting for the words to show up.

So the new goal is to try my very best, which is actually quite impressive, to finish this collection by November and spend December editing. But I will not beat myself up and agonize over it if I do not meet that goal. If it takes me until early December as currently indicated, then it does. I refuse to rush the words. And in the future, when I'm signing a contract with a publishing house, I'll make sure to include in the language that even though we may have a publication date set, it is very subject to change. They'll be cool with it cause people will love my work. The important people though. People like me who read and write because if we don't we'll go mad with our insatiable curiosity to discover new worlds and people and actions, or mad with all these words bouncing around in our heads, pinging off the sides and crashing into one another and making our bodies rattle with the vibrations of it all and generally causing a ruckus.

Here's a snippet from one of the stories, Warrior, about a race of men created only to engage in impossible battles on behalf of the human race. When the battle is won, they're put to sleep until they're needed again. They're handled by an organization called The Argus Initiative, which is constantly at odds with the enemy (duh), calling itself The Hermes Division (again, duh).

...

Possibly.

Maybe.

We'll see.

The first question you ask is how long have you been dead. The pause that follows as your teammates try to find the most suitable response leaves you feeling troubled. You touch your neck, your fingers groping for something; a chain perhaps, a scarf? But no, nothing. Your mind has gone blank briefly in your quest because they’ve answered your question after a suitable, dramatic, whispered discussion. You remember suddenly what you were searching for on your neck and why you can barely recall the faces, let alone names, of your colleagues as your fingertips find the scar; the one that you wear around your throat like a choker. The one that healed quite well actually, considering… The dark haired one, with darker skin and bright eyes that you’ve seen on another face, has answered you. Her voice is husky, like a purr, very low and dulcet, ladylike and with an unrecognizable accent. You have been dead for more than two centuries. Something happens and things go black. Story of your life.

Being Less Than Awesome

Had a freak out yesterday. At precisely 8:00 last night, I checked the time on my phone and felt my heart drop. I hadn't written a single word. The goal is to write, according to the graph on the website, 1,667 words a day to total 50,000 words by the end of the month. Thursday and Friday combined I wrote over 6,000, which you would think would mean I was on a super awesome streak. But no. All day yesterday at work, buying groceries, driving home, making dinner, I couldn't think of a single damn thing to write. There are 13 different stories in my so-called 'novel' and I couldn't think one effing word to put in any of them. I am angered.

This is my profile on the site, I don't know if it'll actually take you to it if you don't have an account, but if it does, then keep checking back in to see how I progress. (You'll only see the word count.) If you see the numbers haven't changed in a day or so, then I have obviously given up any hope of ever being a successful author and it would be helpful if you sent me a message, or text, or whatever and said 'hey Storm, don't be such a failure. you're making the rest of us humans look bad to any possible alien invaders.' (It's a thing.)

Today's goal is going to be small. Today's goal is 100 words. I've exceeded my goal for the first two days, and since yesterday was such a disgrace (I am very disappointed in myself.) I'm going to tone it down a bit, and try for mediocrity instead of excellence. It's a sad thing when you have to tone down your awesomness, but when the awesomeness isn't coming then you must accept your temporary less-than-awesomness.

Such is my life.

In much brighter news, my last day of work is the 17th. I'll be moving on to other things. Not the library yet, but the library is taking forever. I'll wait that long, and gladly, but in the meantime I'm going to start doing things to better my life. Step one is leaving a part-time job. Step two to be determined.

I made cinnamon coffee bread this morning. That's the end of that story.

I Spent Two Hours Trying to Remember How to Say 'day' in Spanish.

(Then I looked at the calendar, where it is plainly written.)
I know yesterday was the last day of October, and therefore the last day of Bold Moves October, but I made my super-big-awesome-bold move today. One that, like that other one I mentioned vaguely, I also cannot discuss in great detail yet. It's a step, in a long line of steps. But things are progressing. I'm excited and terrified. The best things to be if you're going to be two strong things at the same time.

Today however marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, as I've seen it bandied about on the internet.) I believe last year I found a variation of this, and it was blog writing, where you write a blog every day. That is tiresome. I also don't have a novel planned. But I have that collection of short stories and I'm starting with that. Often times I find myself thinking of a concept for a novel and I start writing this grand piece, never an outline of course because god forbid I be a little bit organized. Then I hit a wall and I wait years before I go back to it. I have this one concept that I've been working on for over a decade now. I'm twenty four. Let that sink in for a moment. Imagine how awesome those first drafts must be. Just imagine. I don't have to. I've seen them. They pain me. But I can't throw them out because their are parts of each draft that I'm so hopeful about. I keep them aside in a cabinet, in the hopes that a story is in some magical way like wine and that the longer I let it ferment the better, and stronger it will become. Unless it becomes some retard-strong thing like a Frankenstein monster and tries to kill me. God I can only hope to write something so moving that it annihilates my private life forever.

Since the novel thing isn't a main goal for me right now, I'm just going to keep on trucking with the collection and see what happens. Maybe one of them turns into a full-length novel. Maybe I just finish the set and have a collection of short stories to shop around and get rejected a million times before someone is finally like, 'I'll take a chance on this.'

Bit of advice I found myself jotting down the other day: Write the story first. Then worry about whether people will read it. They will. There's always an audience. It may not be as big as I want but that isn't why I write. It's important to remember that.

Write the story first.

So that's what I'm trying to do.

Options for the first line of a new story, with the working title 'Dead Poet'.

• You will always be hungry.
• The blood welled up to a tiny little bead on her fingertip where she had pricked it.
• Outside the window soft flurries of snow are settling on castle ruins that nobody could bear to have torn down, or maybe they just couldn't be bothered.
• Everything I know about being a ghost, I learned from Beetlejuice and Pac-Man.

Tuesday!

I just woke up from a nap on the loveseat in my library. It was awesome. I opened my bleary eyes after a natural hour and immediately my gaze upon my rows of books. I wish I could properly convey how happy books make me, so that you would better understand the joyful, relaxed feeling that washed over me. It's also been one of the few times I've taken a nap and it hasn't somehow lasted four hours. Every time I try to rest for a bit after work, I drift off with the intent of it only being for half an hour at most. Then I wake up, feel warm and snuggly but also a little chilled, and burrow further into my blanket and pillow. Being cold always makes me sleepy, which I've recently discovered is a response not many people have. Maybe it's my body trying to accept death. Oh god, maybe it's my body trying to accept death! My body is trying to kill me!

Today at work it was brought to my attention that my supervisors received a reference form to fill out for me from the library, which yes I've still been interviewing for. I was going to mention something to these supervisors, specifically the store manager (who I actually thought was the only person I had to tell directly, but I suppose not?) when I had something more concrete from the library. As it is, a position will more likely be open in January, or sometime shortly after the new year. (This one seems more definite than before.) But since it won't be until January I didn't feel compelled to talk to people at work yet. Then Sunday evening I got a text from one of the other references I used telling me she had gotten a reference form so I decided I would ask at work if they gotten one yet. Before I did, a coworker mentioned to me that one of the supervisors had asked him if he knew anything about me getting a job somewhere else. He did not. Which was true because I hadn't gotten a job somewhere else. This is how I learned that they had received the reference form, and not because a supervisor had asked me. I'm a little irritated about this.

Fair, I should have mentioned to them that a letter would be coming. In my defense I went in to the library Wednesday and since the position wouldn't be open until January I didn't see the need to say anything yet, because again I was waiting for something more definite from the library. Additionally, I was under the impression that I only had to give two weeks notice, not two months (more or less) so even the position would be available this time next month, I would still have no obligation to say anything yet. What I'm irritated about is the way they received this new information and how they responded to it. Instead of directly asking me, calling me when the letter arrived saying 'hey Storm, this letter came is there anything you want to discuss?' to which I could have said, 'oh yes, I've been looking for a new job and it won't be available until after the holidays' they discussed it amongst themselves first. Then discussed it with other employees second. And only discussed it with me third, when I brought it to their attention.

If you are going to enquire about an individuals continued employment, then speak directly to the individual in question. Do not question her coworkers in some kind of lazy, half-assed interrogation so that you can, I assume, have some kind of ammunition against her when she does come to you with her two weeks notice. This feels like it was handled very poorly, and very unprofessionally. If I had known in any way that this is how this news was going to be received, I would not have used the reference. I would have found someone else who would have handled the situation better. Someone who, instead of making me feel like I was some kind of criminal for wanting to better myself and my financial situation, would have cheered on my success and encouraged my endeavours, regardless of whether I did not tell them two months in advance that I may possibly have a new job. I will learn from this experience and in the future, I will not make the same mistake.

A few days ago I shared a short post showing off my terrific new haircut and color. I'm crazy about it. Absolutely crazy about it. The color I'm not overly concerned with but it is autumn and it needed to be darker. Honey blonde wouldn't have been bad, but sometimes when I go for a change, I just go big. Really that's the only way to go. So I went from sun-bleach blonde (though it was from a bottle, and not actually bleached, just very light blonde) and almost two feet long (no joke) to medium (read mousy) brown and approximately ten inches from root to tip. You guys, it feels amazing. Every morning I wake up and it looks awful cause there's no way to sleep to keep it from getting out of control, and I look in the mirror before my shower and I think 'good lord, what did you do?' and then I remember, 'oh yeah, I hacked off my hair and died it the color of mud.'

I love it so much. It's still long enough that I can curl it, I can flip it, I can just throw some leave in conditioner in it and let it do it's thing. It's naturally wavy, how terrific is that? None of this super straight, or spirally curly crap. Just a happy medium. You could never see it when it was longer because it's insanely thick and the weight of it just pulled out the wave out. You could see at the ends though, where it kind of curled, that it was trying. Oh god was it trying. But it just couldn't do it. So I helped it out a little. I seriously love it so much. I keep wanting to take pictures of it, cause I'm so proud of how it looks. It's still a little dry, because I've destroyed it recently with constant coloring and not enough conditioning, but it's soft and fluffy and still has the waves. If I let it air dry, I get little spiral curls at the base of my neck. They're super cute. I'm sincerely in love with my hair.

Since my hair was over ten inches, I'm going to donate it. Except I wanted to do it as a selfless act and there's no real way to do that because people keep asking me if I donated it. I want to say no, but then I like when people think I'm a good person, so I say yes. Of course. Also, Locks of Love gives you the option of being recognized for your good deed of giving a little boy or girl a sweet head of hair, and they make it seem like you would be considered a bad person for not wanting to be recognized. So when I get paid tomorrow I'm going to mail my hair to Locks of Love, and have them recognize my charitable acts. Sometimes things you do to feel good about yourself have to be done publicly. (That's not true, but I do like being recognized positively because I'm selfish and needy. Who isn't sometimes?)

Bold Moves continued (short post)

I had this done recently. I wanted a change. So I made a change.

Also, the appointment went extremely well. On the other hand, I have to go to another appointment. Sometimes I worry they're just stringing me along but then I remember how fantastic life will be if everything continues to go well with this. So I shut the hell up and wait patiently.

Off For the Weekend

Got a call yesterday about an appointment that I've trying to schedule for the past three or four months, approximately. They have an opening Wednesday and since I've been waiting as long as I have I went ahead and made the appointment, which was stupid on my part because I hadn't gotten my schedule yet. Yesterday was Thursday, by the way, in case you weren't there for it. So with three days left in the work week I still didn't know when I might be free the very next week. This is how it works though. The schedule generally gets sent out on Thursdays, so by mid afternoon that day I usually know if I'm able to make plans for Saturday night cause I'll know if I'm off on Sunday or not. Or when I can make plans at all for the following week. But since I hadn't received my schedule yet, and since I had been off the past three Wednesdays (or more), I went ahead and set the appointment for Wednesday morning at 9:15.

Guess what showed up in my inbox at precisely 2:01 in the morning?

Next weeks work schedule.

Guess who works Wednesday morning?

Storm does.

So now I have to call and see how the long everything will take, so I can see if I can go to lunch an hour early (I work 5-2), and hope that I can make it downtown and back and that everything goes well within an hour. It has to be less than hour actually, cause I have to be back at work before the hour is up.

Of course I would attempt to make plans to better my life and the universe would shit on them. Because the universe secretly, and sometimes not at all secretly, hates all of us and will do everything it possibly can to destroy us. The universe is a mean bitch and it is not to be trusted.

Today's bold move will come with photos, but later in the day. (I'm very excited about it.) Now I have to pretend I'm packing clothes for a trip. By pretend I mean make a sincere effort, but end up just throwing whatever I think doesn't make me look like a chubby girl in a suitcase. We're going to my brother's today after Jeremy gets out of work and his wife is super thin and always has good skin and it makes me angry/sad to stand next to her. To be fair, she works out and eats well, so she's earned it. Meanwhile I eat whatever's in reach, or easiest to make, and maybe intentionally exercise about twice a week. Which explains my chubbiness and my bad skin. Who has acne at twenty-four? It's sad really.

You know that feeling when you look in the mirror and see all of your flaws and then you go out in public and you think that everyone else can see them too and is disgusted by them? That's me. Two-four-seven. Every time I come in contact with another person, I am always acutely aware of how I look. Frizzy hair, pudgey midsection, stupid little acne spots all up on my forehead, dark circles under my eyes and not from lack of sleep just the awesomness of having sinus problems, my bangs doing that stupid thing where they're kind of wavy/curly but still trying to straighten themselves out so it just looks like I slept on that section of hair alone even though I washed my hair that morning. So many little flaws that up close look like a lot of little flaws but far away... look like one big flaw. Being near pretty, fit girls always makes me hate myself a little bit more. Being near pretty, fit, and smart girls always makes me want to punch god in the throat. That fucker has got a lot of nerve. It isn't enough that they're pretty? They have to be smart too? Come on man, give some of us a break. You're leaving me with nothing but my sense of humor. Do you know how many people actually get my humor? Cause I do and that number is not high. Not high at all.

Now I don't think I'm absolutely hideous to behold or anything, I'm not like the Elephant Man where people would shrink away in horror, but sometimes I do get so down on myself that if people ever did I wouldn't hold it against them. I'd be like, yeah that makes sense. But this is why pretty girls should only be pretty. I'm very intelligent, I had to be cause I'm not exactly a beauty but that's okay because again, I'm very intelligent and since my humor doesn't really get through to people, I don't have much else to impress and astound the masses. So I need the hot chicks to tone down their intelligence. They're making it impossible for me to be seen and heard.

This is all coming from a week full of smacks in the face from reality. I had that moment where you look at a group of people and realize they've just been talking about you but you don't know if it was positive or negative and then you immediately look away and they start laughing and it's really hard not to think they're laughing at you. I seem to have gained weight but my scale doesn't show it, my clothes just make me look like a sausage. The best smack in the face though, and by the way this is the most sure-fire way to totally annihilate a girls confidence if you're in the market for that, was yesterday at work when the other short, blonde girl was referred to as the hot one. It wasn't a side by side comparison or anything, because I would've lost anyway, but I was nearby and someone was looking for the other girl (the hot one) and someone else said, she's the tiny hot blonde. To be fair though, I suppose I could be the chubby hot blonde but nobody says it because they'd still be calling me chubby. Sometimes I really hate all of existence.

Except Jeremy.

"Whenever I would say, 'kill all humans' I'd always think, 'except one.'" That's a little Futurama for you. Enjoy that.

My Morning So Far

In an attempt to keep out the autumn chill while still not turning our furnace on, I went around this morning and locked up all the windows, so as little air as possible can get in, without having to bring down the storm windows. Cause that is an annoying process. All of the windows are absolutely shitty in our apartment. There is no rope and pulley system in a single one of them, so opening and closing is a feat of physical strength.

In some cases, the library and kitchen, it is a display of clever cunning and agility. Most of them you can just push the top up and it doesn't completely drag the bottom up with it. Except for the ones in the bedroom and the library. Those ones you have to push up and down with the same amount of pressure at the exact same time. I do this by myself and I am always impressed with my own upper body strength, cause there isn't really a lot there.

The kitchen window is really fun cause I can only open and close it if there are no dishes in the sink. Which is to say, I have to stand in the kitchen sink in order to open or close the window. If a sudden chill comes in after a few warm days, I can often be found just toughing it out. I'll leave a sweater on the chair by the kitchen door in case I need to go in there for anything. As it's a kitchen, I often have to go in there for things.

The window in our bedroom that we actually open, (there are two, but one has never had a screen in it, ever) is one of the ones where you have to two do actions at once. So after I locked up all the other windows, minus the kitchen because I haven't done the dishes yet, I went into the bedroom. Since the library windows were fairly easy I should have known the streak wouldn't last. And I'll be damned if it didn't. Cause while I was pushing the top portion up, and holding the bottom portion down, a fun and exciting thing happened. (And not, on the way to the forum.)

What you are looking at, in case you haven't somehow already managed to piece it together, is the splintered remnants of my bedroom window. So when I was busy trying to keep the cold out, I must have gotten distracted, hulked out, and broke the fuck out of my window. AND, it was still cracked open near the top. So not only had I cracked the window, I hadn't even managed to close it. I had to tape it up, and that awesome patch job can be seen below, as well as IN MY GODDAMN BEDROOM.

Please note the super classy piece of cardboard, because I wasn't able to cobble the other shards of glass back into a discernible piece of window that could be taped together. We don't even drink Labatt. That box is from the time we bought two six packs of beer and the cashier at the state store was like, 'that handle looks like it's about to break off, here's a box for your booze, ya crazy drunks.' With a super judgey tone.

So now I get to call my landlord and be like, hey! Stop owning a shitty apartment! I get that our rent is fairly cheap, but for god's sake man, this is absurd. I always feel like I call him with problems all the time, but on the other hand, if he wouldn't do shitty quick fixes, we wouldn't have this problem.