atuinsails

For some reason, I think the slasher dystopia is reviving itself.  I got a little done on it yesterday, real words written stuff.  And I think I might do it again today.  Woot!

I have a trunk that I put ideas that aren't "done" yet.  I'm afraid I'm going to have to whip that out for the latest idea.  This is the third attempted rewrite, and it just is not working.  I've spent about a month just looking at the stack of paper that has all my notes on it with this weird panic.  It's not there, and I don't think it will be there in the forseeable future.

It feel like failure, but I know the best way to learn is by making mistakes.  I just don't know how to correct this one.

I love that quote :D. So some guidelines for 2010.

• I will endeavor to be more flexible with the writing goals I set for myself.  It is important as important to finish a project as it is to edit one.
• I will edit every thing I write, no matter how small or big.
• I will remember that sulking after something goes swirly is not acceptable.  A writing period is a period of writing.
• I will try to get out more, not just more exercise but meet more people and get in more people watching.
• I will try and increase my activity level by at least ten minutes everyday.
• I will try to eat foods that are less processed and more green and leafy.
• I will remember that being human is to have flaws.

Writing goals for 2010:

• Finish rewriting that plot point into the distopian slasher novel.
• Another revision pass on Promise Kept (which I think is almost ready for submission :D).
• Another revision on the gay fantasy story.
• Decide if and what will be done for Script frenzy.
• Another revision of the zombie movie script that really needs a name that isn't a Kerouac rip off
• Work on new post apocalyptic story idea.

I think that does it for the moment.

Happy New Year, everyone.

So, I'm back from Houston, TX. We had a much better than I ever expected visit with my husband's family. My mother in law and sister in law really went out of their way to make us feel at home but on vacation at the same time. There was no rushing around, touristy stuff, which I enjoyed. I pretty much sat on my butt, knitting and watching the Food Network for at least four days. This is my idea of heaven, so you can understand how I say my holiday was full of win.

Other things I found out in Houston include the fondness for Dumpling King and pan fried dumplings of all types. Also, Yarntopia, while a bit on the small side definitely made a place for me there while I was waiting to be picked up. So if you are in the Houston area, I would suggest both establishments.

All in all, vacation was full of win. Thanks, guys.

is usually better than this. I just feel very confined. It has finally kind of stopped raining, and I might be able to go get things done today. It's just I only have like five days left to holiday shop because of travel, and it isn't going to get done. I would have gone off this morning, but that didn't happen because I wasn't actually cognizant at four this morning. I just thought I was.

By the way, the kitchen timer is a dirty, rotten liar and instead of telling me when to go to bed, it crapped out and I played Sims 3 all night. So it's not all bad, just on the naughty list :D.

Tags: shopping, sims 3

Yeah, kind of graphic, but between a wretched cold that still doesn't want to completely leave my sinuses, and a wishy washy main character that insists that she never speaks, it goes swoosh.

I already admitted it on Facebook, but I didn't want to write about it here. It's kind of depressing to get about fifteen percent of the way through Nanowrimo to find out that the idea is bust. I'm going to try and revive it later, I think. Right now, it's going in the trunk.

In other news, my zombie movie script has gone another edit. I just didn't find much that I think needs to be changed. I think, in fact, that it's pretty good. Chris is going to help me tonight by sitting down and talking through the dialogue with me. I'll probably have a much different opinoin after that.

I found a post on another blog about a very cool activist group that teaches abstinence until you find your one (of either sex, they are not homophobes) and then you stay monogamous your whole life.  In essence, the idea is if you find that one person you can have a healthy sexual relationship with and then stay with them (no cheat, no do overs), sexually transmitted diseases will die out because they won't be transmitted.

www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/04/08/why-the-chaste-aids-movement-cant-get-paid/

So I haven't posted in awhile.  Not for much of a reason, just trying to stay on task.  Finished the gay fantasy story revision.  It's coming in at just over 11k words.  Eventually, this will be longer.  On this pass I was just trying to fix the names and getting every thing written from the POV of the main characters.  Next time I'll fix the time line, add in the important bits that will make it a serialized story told from two PsOV, and generally start to clean it up.

Now I'm going back to my distopian future slasher novella that I'm rewriting.  I hope to have most of it done by November 1st, because then I'm starting NaNoWriMo with an idea I came up with earlier in the year for a flash fiction.  That story was more of a character study, so I'm thinking that by expanding it I have a pretty good story going on.

Anyhoo, busy, busy, busy.

Did you know I ddn't know about this until several days after the fact? The sinus infection was seriously kicking my ass, and I couldn't read very well toward the end with all the eye watering. I don't know why my eyes were watering but they were.

Anyway, everyone keep going on about what did he do in the four to six weeks of his Presidency that might have prompted the Committee to award it to him. I took it upon myself to find out. Imagine my surpise that Wikipedia actually has such an entry.  So let's summarize pretty much the month of January and some of Februrary.

• January 20 - Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel puts a hold on the last minute stuff that Bush passed, Obama enacts a pay freeze on Senior White House Staff for those making more than $100,000
• January 21 - Obama reverses the standing policy of Ashcroft's for Freedom of Infomation Act requests so that people can get the information they want. 
• January 22 - President Obama signs an executive order announcing plans to close Gitmo within a year and outlawing torture and other illegal coercive techniques durring interrogations and detentions. 
• January 26 - Obama signs the first of two Presidential Memoranda concerning energy dependence
• February 4 - Obama announces that companies receiving large amounts of federal bailout money through TARP must cap executive pay at $500,000/year.  He also signs the Children's Health Insurance Program and Reauthorization Act of 2009.
   

Of course, this isn't everything.  I skipped quite a bit, but these I think are the important ones.  I think that just these things might have fostered that increase in global diplomacy they were talking about, don't you?

I really enjoy Elizabeth Bear's work.  I've read several of her short stories (fave is Shoggoths in Bloom).  But I never really got a chance to read any of her novels until just now.  Hammered is smoking.  I really enjoyed it, like I enjoyed her short story work.  Of course, it's different, with the longer structure, but I'm thinking that Elizabeth Bear will become my benchmark for scifi/fantasy like King is my benchmark for horror.  Go forth and read her stuff please.

I feel stupid but better.  If I had gone to see the doctor on Saturday, I would never have gotten so bad.  By the time i got to a doctor on Tuesday, I had a sinus infection with a side car of bronchitis, not to mention a band of sore muscles from trying to cough up mucus that just wasn't coming up.  I also skipped two meals and hadn't slept in two days..  They gave me two shots in the ass -- one steriods for the bronchitis and the other a booster of antibiotics --  two presciptions, and an order to take over the counter sinus allergy medication.  One for antibiotics and the other for robotussin with codeine.  BTW, robotussin with codeine is absolutely nasty tasting, but it is the schisse.

Today, it's hard to believe I spent most of Monday night trying to convince myself I needed to wait for the morning to go to the doctor because we couldn't afford to go to the emergency room.  The steriod shot was working before I got back to the car, and now I can kind of move around without having to stop to cough.  I can eat without feeling like I'm going to throw up when I cough.  The fever is gone and I feel 100 percent improved.  I'm still having some coughing and nasal problems, but it's nothing like before.

Next time, I need to remember that if it is symptoms I would rush Freesia or Chris to the doctor for, then I need to go myself.

I have the plague.  Pretty sure, I do.  I'm just waiting for the black pustules in my underarms.  If I survive their subsidence, I will let you know.  I'm going to crawl to my death bed now.

There are days I love to ready King's work, but then there are other days that I read it and despair.  Tonight, I despair.  I've come a long ways, but it's not far enough yet.

The writing isn't going as much as discovering.  I am reviving something from the trunk from several years ago.  And I have to say, I'm a lot better than I used to be.  I mean much better.  I can't wait to sit down tomorrow and get started.  I might just do that now, to be honest.

I'm still blown away by how bad I was just three years ago.  Because it's bad.  I'm a lot better.  I may not be perfect, but it's nice to see that my ability to write is getting better.

Are people just not hearing what I'm hearing, or am I just so stupid as to believe in the person I voted for?  And if that guy that called Obama a liar and I ever meet on the street I'm going to give him a small piece of my diminishing mind.

I just don't get it.  Are we so backward that middle America would rather believe the fear mongers than actually listen to the guy and his party that are making sense?

This month is a "writing month" for me.  I'm supposed to be writing.  I even found something in my trunk that I want to rewrite, but I'm arsing around.  I just need to put in the priner cartridges, but it seems like such a big deal at the moment.  I had planned on doing this huge clean up, but that isn't working out either.  Sometimes I hate my life.

Selling parking passes at a State Park

Teddy Kennedy passed this morning.  He has reached the clearing at the end of the path, where I'm sure his brothers were there to meet him.  He wasn't a saint.  He was a sinner just like the rest of us, but that didn't stop him from embracing the greater good.  Stephen Kind called his brothers the last of the great gunslingers, but I have to say that Teddy Kennedy certainly deserves a place among them.  He has done much good against great odds.

Hile, gunslinger!  May your rest in the clearing bring you peace.

This week has been nothing but fail from beginning to end.  No new writing, except for some stuff on Associated Content and Helium.  I don't really count that stuff because I'm writing it to try and fight the writer's block, oh, and maybe pick up a freelance writing/copy writing job.  When you get down to it, I'm just glad the weekend is here.  The week is over, and now we can start over fresh on Sunday, right?  Please say yes.

... that I'm only just getting over.  I assume it was a fourty-eight hour flu.  I suppose it could be a stomach virus.  All I know is that I have sympathy for the tube of toothpaste that is squeezed in the middle until contents gush from both ends.  Literally.  Then you sleep between eruptions.  For a day.  Even if you are an insomniac.  And everyone tells you you are burning up while you are actually cold.

In all, it was horrible except for the pettings and rubs and sympathy from my lovely hubby, who kept me alive with gatorade and convincing (not very hard) our lovely local Nana to keep the little darling for us.  Freesia was very upset by my throwing up.  But then again, so was I.