Addiction to reading and writing

Here's the thing. I can't seem to stop compartmentalizing my life. I am calling this WIP fiction because it is based on my life and if my memory serves me correctly, it doesn't serve me correctly. Everything I am writing is based on my truth to the best of my ability and perception. Perception is a tricky thing as I'm sure you all know.

I have four separate documents going, they are all the different phases of  my life and then there's Shay.
My life really did go in phases as I look back. Each and every one of them was a life time. I have been to the dark side, the very dark side and I found my way out. And the funny thing about that is, I didn't even know it was bad until I started crawling out of the muck. I lose my breath sometimes when I think about it. For the grace of...

Anyway, I am at the B&N right now posting this. My intention was to pick up Bird by Bird and here I sit with four books in front of me. Now, I have four at home to read, one of which I am a beta for and it is top priority. I will not touch read any other book until TDYDK is finished. I promise.

I am usually pretty good about writing down the books I have found that I want and purchasing only one from the bookstore. I then go home and buy them from Amazon or B&N because I can read the purchased book while I am waiting for the others to ship. This time I can't. I have to have these books.  I own the Stephen King: On Writing Horror, but now I want On Writing.Why? Because I started to read the first few pages and realized how similar our lives were in some areas. And he's one of my favorites. The other one is also by Stephen King, Bag of Bones. I keep hearing about this book and how good it is. There it was sitting on the shelf waiting for me to pick it up and take it home. How could I resist?

I'm not buying the other one, so it's not even worth mentioning.

I have been able to write about 3,000 words so far this week. It wears on me to recollect a lot of my past so I have been fairly easy on myself this week. Even though I can't decide exactly how I am going to present this piece of mine I am writing.

That's it for now. I'll post more later. Maybe.

Love you guys.

~Live Happy

Shay here. I can't believe I finally got on here without her knowing. I see that Gina has quite the struggle listening to me when I'm trying to tell her my story. Hopefully she can get her own ideas out the way and eventually relax into mine.
I thought I would make an appearance here so I don't fade away. I thought Sunday would be a good day to do this since she is NEVER here on Sundays. Hmmph, must be her day off or something. Ah well, who cares, I just wanted to have my own voice since she's got her head momentarily up her ass.

I have found that I am at my most creative and inspired after I have been out in public interacting the human race. As irritated as i can get with that sometimes I find it is when I am most connected. I know that when I am irritated with mostly everyone on earth it is usually because I have something to work out with myself. This knowledge doesn't make me any more tolerant towards people it just allows me to take a closer look at me and work out whatever kinks decided to surface. My point is that when I can get out and talk with someone or help someone that I don't know, I am more inclined to create.

It is different than doing this with people I know. For one, it's comfortable and that in itself can stifle my creative process. And for two, if I don't know someone, I am free of judgment and expectation. I have no association with any guilt, joy or memories with this person so in a sense I am more free.

Doing something with no expectation and just for the sake of doing it does something to my spirit. It makes me want to keep doing it and suddenly a momentum is building.

Fuzzy Memories

For those of you that don't know, I am working on a novel that is loosely based on my personal experience.
As I was finishing up a chapter yesterday, I realized that my memory was a bit fuzzy on some things. Out of curiosity, I had called my mother to get some answers.

For whatever reason I have the ability to think about these times in a comical way. I look back and many things were so absolutely absurd that it's hard not laugh sometimes.

I couldn't quite remember how this particular incident ended. If I were to tell the story, I guess it sounds quite tragic, but it really isn't anything I wasn't used to. By the age of seven I had surrendered to what my life would be like. I knew it wasn't right but I was also aware that I was seven and I had no choice in the matter.

When I called, I warned my mother that the question was a bit odd and out of nowhere. I had explained to her what prompted the question and let her know it was coming from a place of humor. I wanted to brace her for the question. My mother can be a bit over reactive. Bless her heart.

"Do you remember when we lived with so-and-so? What had happened after you hit him over the head with a baseball bat?"

She was silent. I proceeded to tell her what I remembered. It turns out the reason she did it and why I thought she did it were close. Same subject, different findings.

She did throw in that she had complete control while swinging this bat at his head. ??? I just laughed.

It turns out that my mother was not arrested as I had thought and, he lived, which I knew but I just thought I'd let you guys know.  Eventually when I finish the book, you will all be able to read about this adventure and many more that Shay will be taking on vicariously through me.

So far between Monday and now, I have written 10,000 words, with a slight interruption for an emergency with my dog. She's ok now, just some minor surgery for an aging girl.

I was also offered an opportunity to be a beta reader for an upcoming author, Terry Towery. I am enthralled with The Devil You Don't Know, but unfortunately only get pockets of time to read it. It is a great read and I know you will all be looking for his name on bookshelves soon.

Ta~ta for now.

~Live Happy

My Blog Is Carbon Neutral

I am now the proud sponsor of a tree. YAY! It is scheduled to be planted on April 19th. Me and my new tree are going to work together on keeping my carbon footprint as small as possible. My computer puts off the carbon and my tree absorbs it.
Have a tree planted for free to neutralize the carbon from your blog or website.
Just send an e-mail to: CO2-neutral@kaufda.de with your blog link and they will plant a tree for you and list your blog as a participant.


You can read more about this at:
http://www.kaufda.de/umwelt/carbon-neutral/1-tree-1-blog-how-it-works/
Just write a short blog post about the program “My blog is carbon neutral” and include one of the buttons on your site (ideally in the sidebar). Send the link to your blog to CO2-neutral@kaufda.de and we plant a tree for you, neutralizing the carbon dioxide emissions of your blog. The trees will be planted in the spring of 2010 by the Arbor Day Foundation.

Of course I have multiple personalities ~ I'm a writer

Good afternoon my wonderful blogger friends. I just wanted to share my week with you and where I'm at with all of this.

While writing this novel, I have questioned what I am doing a few bazillion times, but I keep forging through. I have gotten so many wonderful suggestions and have tried them all, or, well, most of them. The best advice I have received so far, in hindsight, is just write the damn story. Just write. And every time I get that suggestion, it's exactly what I do. This is how I have gotten as far as I have.

I keep changing my mind about how I want my first novel to be so I have three different stories going all with the same theme. There is one in particular that I keep going back to. So, I decided to put everything I have written in order. I have found that what works for me is to write what comes to my mind that day. Forcing myself to write in order wasn't working, not at this point anyway. Maybe as I get more seasoned that tactic might bode well.

When I write, I write furiously and nothing else exists on this planet. After I finish emptying my brain onto the page, I think about the frame and then title the chapter so that I know what it's about. I had no idea what I was doing, and still don't, but as I have gone through, I can actually see order. It is making more and more sense as I move forward. Like I said before, some of the characters decided that what I was writing wasn't doing them justice, so they did their own thing and I'm grateful they did and that I allowed them to do so.

This process can make me feel as if I should be committed from time to time, but it's definitely worth it and as I go through it, I see more clearly than I did before.

Of course I have moments where I am completely mortified by the realization that after all of this, there is that HUGE possibility that no one will want to read this thing. It's those moments that I begin the endless spiral toward an emotional breakdown. It happened this week. And although it feels as if I got next to nothing done this week, in my defense, I was interrupted by my sadistic side.

For the week, I have an estimate of about 6,000 words into the novel. Not a lot I know, seeing as some days I can jam out 8,000, but it is what it is.

I worked on my box, chest, whatever you want to call it, either way it has "other" connotations, and I'm just not happy with it. The curtains still aren't finished and the ideas aren't coming to me. It's frustrating. So what I'm thinking, is I may put that one aside for a minute and start on another piece.

Part of the problem is that I work so much better under extreme pressure and this whole freedom thing is tripping me up a bit. I have tried to trick my little sadist by giving it a fake deadline, but she's too smart for that. So I will continue to just learn as I go and confront the evil little troglodytes as they pop up.

Well, as much as I would love to ramble on and on I have a smelly dog to bathe. Happy Saturday.

~Live Happy

Visions and Laughter

Have you guys ever been in the middle of a conversation with someone when out of nowhere you have a vision of just whipping an apple at their head? Or while they're talking to you and nibbling on something, just walking over with a dead pan expression and slapping their stupid little treat right out of their hand? Well, I do. This happens to me quite often.

When this happens, I can't help but to burst out laughing and then I'm sure you can picture the look on someone's face while in the midst of their story, I just begin to giggle uncontrollably. I actually have to make myself concentrate at times so that these images don't interrupt what I am doing in the moment. The best is when I'm alone and this happens. Then I laugh even harder when I hear my own laughter and realize I'm by myself laughing my ass off. (Please don't commit me).

Well, both of my children have the same idiosyncrasy. My daughter and I were sitting at McDonald's innocently eating our Big Mac's when a guy walked by our table and my daughter just broke out in hysterics, which made me do the same. When she could catch her breath enough she began to tell me that as the guy was walking by, she said, "Wouldn't it be funny if he just took our Big Mac's and threw them on the floor and kept walking?"  We laughed so hard tears came to our eyes. And my laugh is one that causes my body to jerk uncontrollably, rock back and forth and you can hear it from across the street. Periodically throughout the day this image will flash through our minds and we crack up again.

It could happen at any time, anywhere and out of nowhere, I just laugh. The people who know me, know what's going on and I'm sure it might be quite embarrassing at times for them but it's a curse I (we) have to live with. And they have learned not to ask, "What?" because it takes me a good hour to explain what I just saw due to a lack of oxygen and ongoing bouts of laughter.

I used to enjoy this affliction before I realized that most people don't find it as humorous as I do when I try and explain the picture. "Whipping an apple at someone's head? My gosh, they could be seriously hurt," someone might say to me. Then of course I feel like an evil soul that has come to roam the earth for an eternity of obscene visions and twisted laughter.

Sadly enough, it even happens to me at funerals which I won't go into here. I'm sure you can come up with your own scenarios, which would make you agree with most people in  my life saying that I have a sick sense of humor.

But now, I guess it's not a curse after all, someone has sent me a girl and a boy who can enjoy these little glimpses of hilarity with me. YAY!

~Live Happy

Oh, and so far this week I have cranked out an estimate of 8,000 words. I'm finding that I am going back trying to remember who had green eyes and who had blue or if they are returning the keys or the gun. And every now and then Shay and Jake will carry on their own little conversation that doesn't quite go along with the plan I had for them but I'm going with it.

For now, I'll just write and edit later.

As far as my painting goes, I spent all week trying to find the right red. I also bought myself some pastels. WooHoo! Oh how I love pastels. I tend to draw on my walls every now and then so I figure the non-oil-based pastels would be best for washing off if necessary. Dave thinks the stick figure with big hair walking across our living room wall on a tight rope is kind of dumb, but I like it.

Share

As you guys may know already, the sum of all my parts make me up as a whole. On some days, some parts  function more emphatically than others. Today, thankfully, it seems to be the part of me that really wants the world to work together so that everyone wins. It is possible you know?
What I have realized through this writing journey, is that we need a hook. A hook. Everyone needs to be hooked. Humans are programmed to need a hook. What is the first question when starting anything? How can I hook people? It's how we get people to buy stuff. And then ultimately form some sort of addiction because when when we're initially hooked, it feels good. And then, we continue to look for that initial feeling so we become obsessed. And then comes greed.

What is wrong with providing a service without a hook. What would happen if we just did what our hearts told us to do and gave what we had to offer without coming up with a plan to "hook" people. What if we allowed the people that are supposed to receive what we have to offer just to show up without "hooking" anyone? There have been many times that I have read a book without a hook, simply because I could identify or or because I thought the content was interesting in some way.

What if I titled a book simply because it fit or because I liked the title. Because it represents what I think the book should mean or means to me? Not because I want to "hook" people but because I wnt to share with people?