Study, Study, Study...

Hi guys! Checking in once again. How is everyone? I would like everyone to know that I have been pounding away at the keyboard writing my arse off. But sadly, it hasn't been on my book. I have been required to write an article every week for my English Comp. class in addition to an essay each month. I am currently working on my last one. It's a literary analysis essay and I have never read more short stories in my life than I am now. I also have a 15 page dissertation due in less than a month for my psychology class and the the topic is serial killers. Ooooo, I'm looking forward to this one.

Although this hasn't been preferred writing material, I have learned a lot in the past few months. Not saying my writing is any better, but my mind is. There is something to be said for ignorance though. When I don't know the rules, I tend to be more carefree and uninhibited. Once I know the rules, I get somewhat paralyzed and tend to over analyze everything, question everything and think for everyone else. And the worst thing of all is, once you know something, you can't not know. But I am writing, writing, writing.

My semester ends in the middle of December and I will have an entire month off before the next semester begins, so hopefully I will be more available here. I miss this terribly. I stop by your blogs and read what's going on and it's great to see that mostly everyone is still up and running.

Reading is something I have been doing a lot of lately too. I am reading a few books that I had missed in high school. I was busy doing other things so I'm playing catch up now. I have never read To Kill A Mockingbird so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I know it may disappoint and shock a few of you (okay, most of you) to know that I have never read this fine piece of literature, but I'm doing it now, so please stop throwing tomatoes at me. Next on the list is George Orwell's 1984.

If anyone has short story suggestions for me to do my literary essay on, I would love to hear from you. If not, I'd love to hear from you anyway.

In my free time, I am going to the courthouse to sit in on murder cases going on in the neighborhood.  It's not only good to do since I will be a lawyer's right hand woman in the near future, but it has given me some great character ideas and story lines that I promise to share with you eventually. By the way, just in case you guys didn't know, justice is so unjust sometimes and logic is not logical. Go figure.

~Live Happy

I think my brain is melting

Happy Tuesday to all my wonderful friends. It is Tuesday right? Well, I think I jinxed myself by talking about my neighbors because since I posted that it's been cold and rainy here. No opportunities to even sit outside in my lush-ness. I have been pent up inside my house for a few days now and not very happy about it.

I do my best to keep my spirits up but the weather really affects me. I just read a blog that had an interesting way to keep her juices flowing and I seriously think I'm going to try it. She listens to music and keeps glow sticks around the house. If you have to ask what the glow sticks are for, let's just skip it.

I have also been reading another blog lately and she breaks writing down into such simple steps that it actually makes it enjoyable to try these new ideas.  The newbies should check it out or maybe those of you that are looking for something new.

I have started to kind of revise my WIP only because I became stuck. Stuck for too long. I felt that I was far enough through to go back to the beginning to do some editing and revising. Besides, what did I have to lose? It has helped to get me excited again and I've changed things up just a bit. I swear it feels like this thing is never going to be finished.But I will persevere no matter.

Yesterday was a blow off. I had nothing. I mean n-o-t-h-i-n-g! So I decided to paint. I had to force myself through the resistance. I am so glad I did though because I love what I did to the box yesterday. And as a result I got a well spring of ideas. Unfortunately not for writing but enough to finish this piece.

I'm finding this is usually what happens to me. I get excited and things are flowing and I am able to write and write and write. Then...I run out ink or something. And then I check my e-mails obsessively to see if anyone has sent me anything new, or I check to see if anyone critiqued my chapter, or to see if I have any new followers and when I find nothing, I get a tad bummed. My head can take me to strange and daunting places sometimes. I'm just sayin'.

I am also reading piles upon piles of books. I'm reading to read, but I'm also reading to learn about structure. This was suggested to me by a fellow blogger and probably my best internet friend (Terry), so I have been making notes in my books and highlighting like crazy. Oh well, I guess it can't be fun all the time...

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