I mostly spend my days feeling like...

A useless bit of stuff that does the work that talented, busy people pass on down.

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 22

Day 22
It is... 3:07AM, so I guess it's techinically Day 23 of NaNoWriMo. Whatever. Either way you look at it, "here I sit on a field of victory," though my well-earned comforts are four hours of sleep and a nice lunch tomorrow during the blaze of work I've got to get done. Perhaps all of this will sink in more fully when I wake at 7:30AM, feeling like a pile of poo. This being: despite a full day of work, getting teased about a guy I just met named Adrian for like 3 hours, and feeling dog-tired, I have finished NaNoWriMo, on this 23rd day of November. 50,064 words, baby. Oh YEAAAAAAH.

Total words for the day: 3,049 words
Total word count:... WTF? Why am I doing this? I won! I WON!

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 21

Day 21
It took me forever to get to 3,000 words tonight, what with walking to and from choir practice, watching the West Wing, and eating food so as to not faint from lack of nourishment. So close to the end now... :)


Total words for the day: 2,970 words
Total word count: 47,015 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 20

Day 20
It is impossible to explain how tired I am of this novel. All of the end scenes are stuck, drowning in my brain fluids, and they. Will. Not. Come. Out. Especially not when all I want to do is watch television and do the work piling up on my proverbial desk. Lost, you must wait! As Time Goes By, one day we shall be together again, as we once were. The West Wing: have no fear. I love you all. BLAH. Wrote today as much as I freaking could after watching Death Proof with my sister and taking a four-hour nap. Ah, novel avoidance. I am so good at you!

Total words for the day: 3,567 words
Total word count: 44,019 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 19

Day 19
I spent the whole day with Gran and Dad shopping, then went to church, then came home, ate dinner, and then left to go to Walmart. By the time 11:30pm rolled around, I was dog-tired and only prepared to do one thing: watch SNL. I did not write my words for the day (because I am a silly-billy cottonheaded ninnymuggins who trips at the finish line) and only managed a scant four hundred. BLEH.

Total word count: 40,452 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 18

Day 18
Wrote laaaaaaaaate at night because I spent the day with the daycare kids and then the night playing games with Courtney and Mom, taking a dessert run to Dairy Queen, and watching television. I am bad. But I wrote all my words! :)

-Made it to 40,000 words-

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 17

Day 17
Sleepy, but wrote and wrote all of my word count goal. Yayness.

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 16

Day 16
Tried to write a little before tonight's childcare and a little during, but Kaili was so distracting, with her adorableness, that I stopped trying. We played Trouble and colored and yelled things at Dan to see if he could hear us through his television-watching haze. Then I came home and wrote the heck out of my words. :)

-Made it to 35,000 words-

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 15

Day 15
Wrote a bunch during a Lonely Write-In at school for 3 hours and then more at home. Finished in time to watch an episode of the West Wing. Then I was tired. So I went to sleep.

Total words for the day: 4,317 words
Total word count: 32,600 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 14

Day 14
Goodness, I just can't seem to get out of bed in time for... you know, morning or whatever. I met my personal word goal for the day of 2500 words written and actually was able to write a little more despite a rocking back ache, a sore throat from singing with a cold and asking, time after time, for my adorable choir to hush, and the desire to do anything, anything, anything but write today. I try not to focus on all that is still left to happen in my novel and just live, by God, in the now. Tomorrow I hope to reach the summit of 35,000 words. May not happen, but at least I will definitely see 30,000 words. Still have my fingers crossed for a NaNo-free Thanksgiving. :)

Total words written today: 2,948 words
Total word count: 28,016 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 13

Day 13
Still felt like death on a Triscuit, but I made myself write and reach my goalie-oalie of 25,000 words. Then I promptly bought my halfway reward. As I type this, I am shocked. Halfway finished with a novel... Gloriosky!

Total words for the day: 2,856 words
Total word count: 25,068 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 12

Day 12
TOM messed me the eff up, so I was laying in bed, kind of wishing I wasn't alive all day. Only wrote 200 words and surprised I wrote that many... Ugh.

Total words for the day: 200 words
Total word count: 22212 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 9, 10, & 11

Day 9
Stayed home from helping Mom with childcare and wrote as much as I could. Made it just barely to the my word count goal for the day.

Day 10
Has a sweet writing session in the magically retro lounge at USMH and wrote almost all of my words there. Had another quick session after doing some neglected homework.

Day 11
I'm bad. I was super freaking tired after having a full day of work while still under the thumb of my disgusting cold (and movie night with the kids!) so I didn't write anything. FAIL.

Total Word Count: 22,067 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 8

Day 8
Felt even crappier (if possible) today. But Dan was cool and got me my favorite soda mix (one third Cherry Coke, two thirds Coke Zero) from Sam's Club and it helped fuel me into a writing rage! Wrote the death scene aka Most Unnaturale Murder.

Total words for the day: 2218 words
Total word count: 18,327 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 7

Day 7
Too effing tired, and so, the word count has suffered. Ah. Poor word count. Got up late, nursed by cold, went to choir practice, came home, ate dinner, wrote as much as I could, watched some good ol' West Wing, and now... bed. :)

Total words for the day: 793 words
Total word count: 16,017 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 6

Day 6
WOOOOOO!!!! Wrote over four thousand words in a little over three hours, even though I was sick, and in spite of a tasty lunch at El Ranchero's and an unplanned remnants trip to Joann Fabrics. And now I get my sweet present, the Philadelphia brass ensemble Christmas CD. HAHA! :))))))))

Total words for the day: 4,395 words
Total word count: 15,223 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 5

Day 5
Woke up feeling terrible. I've got a cold (which is funny, 'cause the NaNoWriMo poster I've got says on Day 5, "catch the flu - fall behind"). I only wrote a little today, because I felt so crummy. Hoping to catch up tomorrow and still make it to 15K by Sunday's end!

Total words for the day: 500 words
Total word count: 11,320 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 4

Day 4
Got up early (yay!), had some coffee and did a little bit of writing before Mom left to drive Courtney around, leaving me as sub with the kiddos. I wrote a bunch before Courtney' candle party--which turned out not to be a candle party, 'cause Tammy had to cancel because of personal injury--and then a bunch after. Made it to my word count goal of the day. :)

Total words for the day: 2007 words
Total word count: 10,820 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 3

Day 3
Woke up late again (still EPIC FAIL), and went to a meeting at church which I had hoped I could write during, but listening to all those people talk was super distracting, so I only wrote 200 words then. When I came home, I put the kettle on the stove for peach tea, lit my special super glow-y PartyLite pillar candles, and put in a CD of classical music. An hour and a half later, I reached my word count goal for the day. :)

Total words written for the day: 2,395 words
Total word count: 8,504 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 2

Day 2

Slept in late (FAIL) because I watched a buncha episodes of Lost the night before. Buuuuuttttt, I wrote a LOT today, from 3:00PM to 4:30PM, a little bit at Recovery Kids, and then from 8:30PM to 10:00PM in my room. Great second day, too. :) Plan to get up at 6 in the morning so I can type my words early before all my work at church. Also: Mom made pot roast. Delicious.

Total words for the day: 2,427 words
Total word count: 6,109 words

NaNoWriMo Log, Day 1

Day 1
Did a magnificent writing sprint from 12am-1:30am and wrote entire daily word count, thanks to the wonderful Spotify which holds like every freaking song on the planet. :) If even half of November goes as smoothly as this, I think I can make it!

-Later-
Had a write-in with myself at school and wrote a bunch more. Lots of fun, so I'll have to try it again. What a great first day of NaNoWriMo! :)

Total words for the day: 3,682 words
Total word count: 3,682 words

Rocking the 'WriMo

NaNoWriMo is so close, I can almost taste it. 13 days until I take the full plunge into Proxy, my newest novel in the Ilikarr trio. I actually hope to finish the novel (the scenes outlined in my plot list) by the end of November and then move straight to editing in the new year.

This is sure to be a wild November! :D

Proxy

Synopsis: The faeries have finally struck. After months of quivering silence and mounting fear, an unforgivable act sends the nation of Ilikarr reeling from its impact. King Keiran is proving to be less and less like his shrewd father, unable to seek out a course of action that would counter this audacious move, when his sister, the sharp-tongued Ellyn, offers a plan crafted by the only faerie human in their history. It calls for the purposeful infiltration of the Kingdom, a daring ruse that Ellyn hopes will get them close enough to Queen Athalia to assassinate her before she leads her band to war against the innocent. And there is only one candidate left.

Excerpt:

The executor cleared his throat for the seventh time. Ellyn giggled. With so many people in the hall, it was no wonder he could not get the attention of his audience.

The funeral had been the week before and an utterly bleak affair. Her mother had excused herself shortly after the speeches began, to hide the tears she could no longer repress. Time had seemed to drag on as the men and women who had had the privilege of knowing her father spoke at length of his noble attributes. Lord Elwin praised the king’s shrewdness. Master Quiggs commended his bravery in the face of his illness. By the time her brother had finished outlining her father’s character, nearly everyone was crying, some discreetly, others’ sobbing in flagrance. Thankfully, Councilor Morven told a somewhat irreverent tale of the king’s more unorthodox methods in closed sessions of council which ended the procession with laughter.

Ellyn could see the councilor from where she sat, his wild red hair flashing like a beacon through the gloom of the room. There were others present that she knew, though the majority of people that had been summoned were unknown to her. Her family was there of course. Nara was still beside herself with grief and her mother looked grim, but Wyn sat expectantly, as if eager to hear the reading of the will. Ellyn did not blame her. While she cared little for what her father had left her—what could he have to give that would replace him sitting by her side—Ellyn wanted to understand what the others in the room had to do with the life her father had led.

Her brother and his wife had yet to arrive, but Penna was there, sitting beside her love. Ellyn was glad to see her. The last several months had to have been hard on her friend, what with the public outcry at her release. The people of Redge felt that someone had to pay for all the faeries had done to the women of the village last summer. As Penna had admitted that her own faerie blood had caused her to transform into one of those terrifying creatures, in an open trial before the Council no less, the blame was easily fixed on her.

It had angered Ellyn beyond words to see her people turning into mindless, raging lunatics, so eager to satisfy their own lust for revenge that they would try to tear apart the life of a traumatized young woman, a person she had known her entire life. And so it had fallen to her to act. It was one of the last things Ellyn had discussed with her father, before his sharp mind had finally forsaken him as well. Ellyn sought out the opposing force, the grief-stricken, irrational crew that they were, and sat them down with Penna. When Penna told her story, of how she had lived terrorized by a voice only she could hear, only to be kidnapped and made to live among the faeries against her will, Ellyn watched as the people slowly relinquished their hold on hatred.

Redge had not returned to normal since then. It was still reeling from the loss of its women, for even those who had been freed were mere shadows of the people they had once been. But slowly, the land was healing. Penna seemed to have, in some small measure. The girl was certainly thinner and paler than last June, but still she smiled, her hand tight in Drewan’s. Ellyn beamed at her.

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

I have come to the conclusion that my life is destined to be Ecclesiastes to the fullest. I have ideas that I think are good or at the very least, worth the time it took to come up with them. Others quickly inform me of my foolishness. I don't know how much disappointment I can take from the place I am supposed to go to feel whole and renewed, completely at peace and overflowing with love. It really makes me question if I'm not just better off getting some lackluster office job, copying papers, fetching coffee, pacifying people. That's pretty much what I do now. Out of here, maybe I could put the feeling of magic back. Maybe I could hear God really speak again. Today is a day where I just want to run away from everything, drive until I don't know where I am, until I'm in the middle of a natural nowhere, surrounded by nothing and everything. Alone with God. We tout community endlessly, but maybe I wasn't made for it. Maybe it's just me and God and that's the way it should be.

I know I could do more. I know I have the potential for something better than what I'm able to give by the boundaries put up around me. No one wants to give me a chance. Or at least, no one has considered it. My abilities and desires take a backseat to a seemingly less invested individual because they have seniority and authority over me. I have to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...

Still waiting.

It's been three months since I've done something meaningful at work. I'm wasting God's time and I'm failing him, I know it. At this point in my life, I can't say there is a single thing I've done that justifies my existence, that did anything to bring the glory to God where it belongs. I might as well go back to where I came from, from nothing to nothing, dust to dust.

I guess this is an exercise in control. Eventually, I suppose, I'll just stop caring about children and serving and what I want altogether. I'll become another yesman in a place full to the brim with them. Another lazy, spiritual waste of space. Hopefully, I can reconcile myself to that.

You want me to maintain? Don't worry. I certainly know how to coast by now.

Bastard out of Maryland...

I went to Carolina today. Bad place to spend some time. With each word read, it became clearer how disgusting and wonderful this world is. Hate rushes through me, quick and fiery, and I am ashamed.

If only people could look at each other and know their souls, the condition of their hearts. People could look at a son-of-a-bitch child rapist and know him for who he is. He wouldn't be able to hide from their eyes in the guise of an overworked friend who's just looking for his father's respect. His black heart would be open, laid bare for everyone to see and avoid or beat the shit out of, accordingly. And a worthless mama couldn't let silence cover up the truth, that she's desperate to be loved even if it kills her babies.

And a 20-year-old nothing could be seen for what she is: a frightened, lonely child in need of an understanding smile or a kindred spirit, thirsting for a little justice in an unkind world.

Sorry, but...

Glenn Beck is an ass.

I've never liked what he has had to say. He strikes me as a person with a deepseated disinterest in the life experiences of women and minority groups in this country (and yet loves passing judgment on them), a casual relationship with actual facts, and a hatred for all those who happen to disagree with him and say so. My hope is that he is simply playing crazy for the audience and when the cameras are off, he becomes a sane and rational person capable of speaking in opposition to the people he disagrees with in a tolerant and collected manner. Proof of this remains to be seen.

Even if he were capable of such behavior, his tactics on-screen would remain irresponsible, cruel, and idiotic. His alarmist style of "reporting" is obnoxious and unnecessary, which is why I was glad to see that he will no longer be representing Fox News, a channel which I try, and generally fail, to respect for what it is. As it is, I usually attempt to ignore Glenn Beck, as I am clever enough to know that right-wing extremist political pundits don't speak for the majority of this country, thank the Lord.

Beck's recent take on Planned Parenthood, however, has insulted me on a much deeper level than his childlike tantrums, melodramatic weeping, and for-your-own-good speeches, in which he attempts to decide for all Americans what is "best" for the country, as if we weren't doing so for ourselves in the dark, lonely years before Glenn Beck came along and showed us the light. In his rant against Lawrence O'Donnell, he not only portrays all women seeking out Planned Parenthood for procedures as after abortions, of which Planned Parenthood is responsible for a mere 3 percent, but also suggests that all women who get abortions are callous and flagrant about their use of such services. As if any and every woman continually gets abortions, year after year, without a thought for the consequences. As if the decision to get an abortion were not something deeply personal and potentially heartbreaking for everyone involved, especially the mother of the aborted child. As if women equate birth control with candy and abortions with getting our teeth cleaned: a simple, procedure that should be performed on a regular basis. As if women were not aware of the severity of their actions because our inferior feminine logic disallows such higher masculine thought. As if women were not conscious of the human life at stake.

I never thought I could be so thoroughly disgusted with another human being who, by all accounts, hasn't broken a single law (at least not a criminal law, just a few laws of humanity). It just goes to show you what lengths humanity can go to to prove a cautious optimist wrong.

Huh...

I'm feeling particularly worthless today. Work isn't as fulfilling as it sometimes is, but I rarely feel like I've done anything at all after a week's work, so that isn't saying much. As a wise person once said, "a nutless monkey could do your job" (and that quote still manages to make me laugh even though I'm mad). That's how it is for me. There are people all around me, doing meaningful important work in our office, but I'm the superfluous one, the one that doesn't belong among such intelligent, creative, and thoughtful people. I am a mere grunt in a room of giants.

Thoughts going through my mind:
I'm a glorified babysitter.
My presence here changes nothing.
If I was gone, no one would notice or care.
I'm being paid to do meaningless busywork.
I don't have a real job.
I am unnecessary.
There are better people out there who could do this job and give it meaning.
No one wants to hear my opinions because they have no value.

There's nothing I can do at the moment except keep accepting my own irrelavence in this work environment. It's probably a good thing I don't have a car right now. When I feel like this, I just want to get as far away from home as possible. I'd drive until I felt better. And that sometimes takes days.

Complications

Now that I've endured some real criticism of my story, it really made me step back and take a look at the novel as a whole. And there is a lot of sloppiness, to be sure.

Truthfully, there aren't any gaping plotholes (which I am grateful for) or unrealistic characters or stale writing. A big problem is that it's too wordy. I talk too much, a fact which many can attest to, and so, thus, I write too much. That wouldn't be bad but I'd argue that at least 30% to 40% of what I've written is kind of unnecessary.

So I've obviously gone back to the drawing board, back to the beginning to see what works and what doesn't, but now that I've gotten through the "untouchable" stage with Blood Pledge, the stage in which everything must stay the way it is to preserve how 'finished' it is, pretty much everything is up for cutting. I cut 10 pages from it not too long ago (like 10,000 words, friends) and while I bite my lip at the loss, I don't know if it's worse off. Or better off.

I'm quite confused right now...

Done?

The new year has brought all kinds of things I don't want to deal with already, and it's only the 5th. First, I'm learning to drive (for real this time), a prospect that delights everyone but me. I resent the implication that because I hate driving there is something 'wrong' with me and that something must be 'fixed' so I can be like everyone else. What is wrong about not wanting to drive around in a machine that has the potential to kill other people as the result of single moment of carelessness?

Another thing is that a grammar Nazi (I myself am one, so I say that without disdain) has found my story and is now contenting herself with boiling it down to style, diction, and other similar issues. While I'm glad I have a sense of grammar decent enough to thwart her on that front, it is not enough. Apparently, my style and diction are terrible, at least for the first two chapters of Blood Pledge, which is all she has reviewed so far. I don't want to sound ungrateful at all, because feedback is exactly what I'm looking for on this story, and I appreciate her voice a lot more than the other, generic feedback I sometimes receive ("Great--update soon"<--how is that at all helpful?). It's just harder to take than I thought it would be, especially from someone I don't know.

It kind of makes me want to take the story down. After looking at some of her things and rereading some of the things other authors have written, things my sisters have written, it's becoming clearer to me that I was never meant to be an author. I just don't have that spark of originality that others seem to possess in abundance. I'm still a writer. Nothing can stop my brain from coming up with these ridiculous things to write. I just wasn't meant to be published. Sorry, Pete, I changed my mind. I'm a girl. That happens sometimes.

Besides, the world has enough "faerie" stories on the market. More than enough. It's silly to think they'd have need of another.