Saturday, January 16, 2010

When your chest is the tripod...











(bipod?) it's hard to get a good picture.


I keep trying to write a post on here, but much like everything else I start, I find myself getting easily distracted part way through and then just give up. Story of my writing life. My fingers were so not in the mood for typing- the laborious task of tapping key after key without any real thought on my part where they should be moving (amazing the way we can train parts of our bodies to do that) other than thinking the words. (I've never really thought about that before and now I can't get how strange it is out of my head).


I feel like I have so many things going on but nothing worth talking about, even though in my head I could monologue all day. I haven't really written in quite a while, but I'd planned to write quite a bit lately. The move, Christmas, Sophie's birthday, my new story idea, lost cats, my job and the awful people I have to deal with.  I will probably skip things, like Christmas and Sophie's birthday (both went well, she had a ton of fun and seems to be developing obsessive tendencies like being unable to pull wrapping paper off and throw it on the floor. She was either handing it off or putting it in the box we had to bring out for trash) and spend a lot of time on things I didn't even mention, like inspiration and crafting... so after two paragraphs of introduction I'll begin.

Knitting has been dragging along slowly because I lost a bunch of patterns in the mess of moving, and because I have things to knit which people have paid for but I really don't want to be knitting them. Unfortunately, I have to and I have discovered that when I am disinclined to make something, I knit considerably slower and its not as comforting and stress reducing as it normally is.

SIDE NOTE: theoretically, knitting is stress reducing. But I tend to screw up a lot because I don't pay as much attention as I should, which makes me angry and kills the calm I was about to achieve
.

I am halfway done with a pair of really complicated gloves that I didn't ask enough money for and I need to start the next project ASAP because I need it for Marshall to give to his wife. Fortunately, It's a really simple hat which will only take me a few hours. UGH I am going to take a big break from knitting for money and just go where the mood takes me. Although I should probably do some more work on shawn's insanely involved blanket. (yikes)

On the other side of the crafty coin I have everything else I want to do. I have started looking at Cut Out & Keep and Craftster again and it's given me that old crafting bug again. I want to get more into embroidery and sewing, but I feel like I just don't have the energy. I have plans and fabric for curtains for the house and I haven't even started. Although honestly, it's a pretty damn big project and the only place where I (think) I will have enough space is the basement and the table that's down there is all cluttered (excuse... really poor excuse). Honestly, I'm a little scared I'm going to screw up the whole thing and waste a shitton of fabric money. Also, I think i need more tools... like measuring things and cutting things... and a better knowledge of tension on my sewing machine.

OH and curtains lead me to the apartment, which despite some entirely HIDEOUS design elements, like terrible coutry style wall borders in places where wall borders don't even make sense really... and the odd shades of yellow on the kitchen walls that I can't tell if they're from cigarette smoke or the color of the paint, and the wood paneling, OH GODS THE WOOD PANELING!, and the fact that our bedroom has linoleum tiles and nails sticking out of the floor, OH and the painted wallpaper covering horsehair plaster on the walls, and in spite of all of this I LOVE this place. I love the space I have and all of the possibilities and the ideas I have floating in my head about paint and curtains and walls and floors... plus I love the fact that this apartment feels like a house. We share a wall and the front porch with the neighbors, but we only go out there to get mail anyway. I have actually only seen one of my neighbors and I don't even remember what she looks like other than skinny, young and taller than me. I have a shitton of pictures to share but I don't want to show them off until I have their "look what I did with the place!" counterparts, so y'all will just have to wait.

I think the last thing to write about is the short story collection a few friends and I are doing. Shawn came up with the idea and started a writers group on Facebook, and we needed to have a story by 1/1. Unfortunately I was totally stumped for the whole month of December, and with stressing over the move and Christmas and everything I was just lost, then as I fell asleep one night, the rest of the story just came to me (before that I have the name Evelyn and the word Grey) then it seemed like I was getting little pieces just falling from the ether into my brain for me to make my own. I am excited about this idea, but honestly, I don't think it's going to fit into the novelette length that we're all aiming for. I think it's going to end up not only being a full length 'independent reader' book, but I think it might be the first of a series. I need to flesh out Ev's character more, as right now I don't know much about her.

SIDE NOTE: My cat is sitting on the floor next to me and I don't know if she only yawned, but I can smell her breath and it is SO FUCKING GROSS!!!!


I am trying to think of ways to make her more like a person and not a paper doll, and I don't know if that will just come as I write or if I should try to push everything together before I really start writing for real. All I know is that tomorrow I'm going to take a note book and I'm going to work on outlining (because the outline is due at the end of the month) and try to at least get a good idea about the first three (at least) chapters and then basic plot ideas for the rest and then basically see where it takes me. There is so much that needs to happen for this story and I am so excited about all of it. I love young adult books so much. It's somewhat embarrassing but it's probably my favorite genre. The thing that bothers me most about them is that they're too easy to read, and they go by too quickly, but I really can't complain about that.
The thing is there's this great adventure but there is always a real innocence to the characters and there is no sex and it is so comforting to be in that mindset, plus I tend to read things where it's got a fantastical edge to it, and it's nice because honestly, I have enough real world problems. I don't want to read about someone struggling with money and their shitty job and raising a kid in world where you have to be afraid of just about everyone because you don't know what the strangers around you are capable of and you have no idea if the guy in line next to you is going to just go apeshit and try to kill you with a butter knife, you know?
Anyway, I'm going to try to start updating more often because I feel like my brain is quieter when I do this... when I vomit these letters and words out for anyone (or almost anyone) to see.

Plus hopefully with more regular posts they won't be so ridiculously long like this one.

And now I'm off to bed to finish The Mysterious Benedict society then go to PTC tomorrow for knitting group. Man I love saturdays...





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