Gah, what a weird thing.

So, I'm in my car on my way out of work, talking to Ben on my cell (wearing my ear snigget). I pull out of the parking lot and up to the red light. I notice in the lane-going-straight there's a car pulled up beyond the stop-line. That's a little odd, but since the light rail goes through this intersection, the civil engineers left plenty of extra room, so it's not actually dangerous. Then I notice that the dome light is on in the car. Hmm, not usually safe while driving. So, I pull up in the lane-turning-right (because I'm turning right), whose stop-line is lined up with where the car is stopped, even tho the car is beyond its own line, and I peer in the window. Just quickly, just long enough to notice there's a woman driver, and she's leaning over something. I assume she's digging in her purse. And then I look forward again, and the light turns green. Still talking to Ben, I start going. And suddenly she honks, for no apparent reason, and I'm just like... wha...? And I keep turning, because she can't have been honking at me, I wasn't anywhere near her... and from the lane-going-straight, she turns right, following me. I wonder if she's honking because she didn't realize that I was in the right turning lane, and that there *is* a right turning lane, and she really meant to be going right and was mad that I was rude? I dunno.

But she pulls up next to me on my right (I had turned into the left lane, because I was going to go left onto the on-ramp onto 280), and starts yelling at me through her open window as we're driving. I'm thinking WTF? (I probably even said WTF to Ben.) I can't hear or understand most of what she's saying, except that she's calling me a bitch, and something about me looking at her. Seriously?

So, now that she's next to me, I notice that she's a black woman, seeming really big and definitely loud. And that's all I notice, before facing forward again, figuring that ignoring her is the best option. As I pull up to the red light at the next intersection, I think about how to get out of this situation. How bad would it be to drive through the red light? Bad, don't do that. How likely is she to get out and attack me? Well, I'm sure I can step on the gas faster than she can get out of her car and break my window. So I just stop at the light, facing forward, trying to stay out of it.

She's still yelling, I can't hear everything she says through the window, but really pissed, and "bitch" a few more times. And she says, "Oh yeah, now you can't look at me", so I look at her. And I give her the nicest smile I can muster, and I shout "Have a nice day" through my still-closed window. Niceness doesn't seem to faze her.

And then she shouts at me to pull over--I'm still not clear if she meant to fight me or what--and I say no. I really don't want to react, I'm trying to think how to respond without escalating the problem, how to not get involved. I'm thinking ... dude, you're big and scary, and I'm this skinny little white girl. I know who's gonna win this fight, and it's not me. And seriously, pulling over? What?

She keeps shouting, I dunno what, probably calling me bitch again, because* when light turns green I give her the finger as I start moving. I pull onto the freeway, and she doesn't follow.

At about that time, Ben chimes in again. He says he could hear some of her shouts through the window, and says something like, "Well, don't get any on you". I'm pretty shaken, adrenaline pumping and that fear-feeling tingling through my back.

It took about half the drive for that feeling to subside.

And I'm thinking, is there really an expectation of privacy in one's car in the middle of a public road? I mean... you've got these 360* windows at the same height as everyone else's 360* windows. I was just idly glancing in, apparently peering a little more interestedly than I intended, because I was mostly paying attention to what Ben was saying, not what my eyes were looking at. And really--pull over? What on Earth for?

Gah. Most people think I'm nice.

---

* Causality here because I must've been reacting to something she said if I finally decided to flip her off, and not any time before then. I remember I didn't just feel safer because I was driving--though that was true, too--but I was reacting to something specific. I just don't remember what.

[Mirrored from intelligentlizard.com.]

The first post worked, but I didn't quite like the plugin, so I switched plugins. But I didn't like that one's footer, so I've changed the footer. Do I like this one better?

(I've also noticed that my website seems to either think it's still in daylight savings time, or it thinks I live in the Mountain timezone, so all of my posts are dated an hour in the future. And off by a few minutes. Go fig.)

EtA: Trying again with yet another plugin. I want moods & locations!

EtA: Last try... with a better mirrored line...

[Mirrored from intelligentlizard.com.]

The first post worked, but I didn’t quite like the plugin, so I switched plugins.  But I didn’t like that one’s footer, so I’ve changed the footer.  Do I like this one better?

(I’ve also noticed that my website seems to either think it’s still in daylight savings time, or it thinks I live in the Mountain timezone, so all of my posts are dated an hour in the future.  And off by a few minutes.  Go fig.)

[Mirrored from intelligentlizard.com.]

Woo, I just finished TGS last night!  Stayed up until 1:30 finishing it, and then for a bit longer thinking about it, absorbing it, and trying to calm down so I could go to sleep.  (And being quiet so I didn’t wake up Ben.  Gah.)

Aaaahhh, so much happens!  Burn me, I had no idea so much could happen in one volume.  As I read the last third last night, I kept stopping and swearing, either because wonderful things were happening or because horrible things were happening.  Sometimes I swore in English (damn it! piss it! holy shit!), and sometimes in Randlandese (Light! burn me! blood and bloody ashes!).  :p

I really don’t want to say much more, because it’s *way* too easy to get into spoiler-zone.  (Oh, and just wait until you read about x!)

I do want to comment about the writing style, since this one has a lot written by RJ and a lot written by BS^.  BS took what RJ had written and added to it, based on RJ’s notes and with the help of Harriet RJ’s widow and editor, and RJ’s two assistants.  (Who knew he had assistants?)  Right from the start I noticed the difference.  The prose felt flat to me, different words chosen than RJ would have used.  The characters spend a lot more time in their heads analyzing what’s going on, remembering what happened in previous books–or even previous scenes–and how they feel about it.  RJ never spent much time having characters think back over things.  Because of this, ideas that would’ve taken just a sentence or two as a thought instead took paragraphs, and were much more blatantly spelled out for the reader.  It got old.

On the other hand, the BS parts and the RJ parts flow seamlessly together.  It didn’t feel stilted or jolting or jarring.  Like I said, every so often I would think, “That character wouldn’t think that.  He’s not that self-aware.”  But the story flows, they’re the same characters, and we’re clearly moving towards the Last Battle.  Oh boy, are we ever.

Now I have to wait a whole year for the next one?  *cries*

—

Incidentally, I’m trying a new thing: posting to my website and having it cross-post to LJ.  We’ll see how it does…

—

* Usually I try to summarize the books I post about here… either for my future self, or for my (few) readers who may not know anything about this book.  But, well, I will assume everyone here knows that it’s the 12th book of the Wheel of Time, and that RJ died a couple of years ago leaving lots of notes and dictations about what was left to happen in the series, and his widow and Tor picked Brandon Sanderson to finish.  There was only supposed to be one more book.  But BS^ discovered that it was going to be a 750,000 word book.  Normal books are 100,000 words.  BFFs^^ may be 250,000 words.  750,000… they wouldn’t even be able to bind it.  So, they split it into thirds.  You could say that TGS is the first volume of the last book, A Memory of Light.

^ What unfortunate initials!

^^ Big Fat Fantasies

[Mirrored from intelligentlizard.com.]

For a long time, I’ve had a website, http://www.intelligentlizard.com.  For almost as long, I’ve been planning on finishing it and making it look pretty.  Finally I’ve given up on making my own, and I’m just using WordPress.  You could see that version at http://wp.intelligentlizard.com.  (Much nicer looking, huh?) But I’ve always liked posting to LJ, and I have friends there.

So I’m trying a new thing: composing on my website in wordpress, and having it cross-post to LJ.  It should be just like posting in LJ directly, only not.

(Also: I need to figure out how to fill in “music” and “mood” and “location”.  Those don’t exist in my WordPress yet.)

So, this is my experimental post.  Will it work?  Won’t it?  Once it’s working, I’ll post about TGS.

Mirrored from intelligentlizard.com.

I just created a folder called "server_logs_of_updating"*. And I keep reading it like "Magical Wand of Destruction" or "Silver Potion of Protection". "Server Logs of Updating". Obviously they're big (wooden) logs, which are servants, for the purpose of updating. (What would "updating" mean in a fantasy/D&D world?)

:p



---

* I don't believe in spaces in filenames. Or capital letters, if I can avoid them.

Today I noticed that I've been living in California for over a third of my life. o_O


Do I still count as a New Yorker?



(And I think o_O may be my new favorite smiley. I wish my eyes really did that.)

National Novel Writing Month is next month. Next month starts next weekend. I'm thinking about how to honor it, because I don't want to follow NaNo's rules this year.

I've done NaNo three years running now. The first year, I won, but the story was crap. The second year, I didn't win (I tried going to NY for Thanksgiving *and* writing 50k words in one month... those don't go together), and the story didn't come anywhere near what I wanted it to be. Last year, I got exactly halfway before stopping. The story was good, but I didn't want to kill myself for a month.

This year I'm not planning on writing 50,000 words of a novel. The first year I did it to prove I could. The next two years, I did it to give myself a kick in the pants. But I discovered that I get easily burned out when I try writing 1700 words every day. It's just too much for me to do during real life. To keep up that pace, I had to put a lot of things on hold: friends, chores, boyfriend, sleep. But my goal is to have a regular writing practice, one that I can maintain while still having a life, so I can keep it up year-round.

I still want to take advantage of the NaNoWriMo spirit to give myself a kick in the butt, so I'm thinking of a different set of rules for myself:

Quantity: BIC* for at least 7 hours every week. That's an hour a day, but flexible enough that if I work late I can make it up later in the week. This is a minimum.

"Novel", Quality: I'm not specifying what I should be writing. Existing story, blog post, rambly stuff in my notebook, the words "I can't think of anything to write" over and over and over for an hour. Whatever. I've noticed that when I tell myself I'm going to write Story X every day, Story X becomes a Responsibility, and stops being interesting and exciting. If I keep doing this to myself, I'm never going to learn consistency. So: BIC, nothing else required. Words would be a nice bonus**.

Reportage: I still want to make use of the NaNo word count meter, because it's convenient and I want to. But hours don't translate into word counts. Instead, I'm thinking I may just add up all of the words I write in my 7+ hours per week, and use that for my word count. It may or may not reach 50k, and I won't feel bad if it doesn't. Word count doesn't really translate into measurable output, since without editing it doesn't matter how many words you've written, they're probably not salable.


I'll start November 1, and on December 1 I'll step back and see how well it worked.




----
* For those of you unfamiliar with this acronym: Butt In Chair.

** There's actually a little more detail required here. I have my writing group every week, in which I write for 40 minutes total, but I spend three hours there. I think that counts as one hour toward my weekly goal. While I'm BIC^, there's me and the blank page (physical or on the computer). No surfing, no reading, etc. But then, does editing count? Other forms of brainstorming definitely count, tho probably not toward word count.

^ Is BIC a state of being? "While I'm Butt in Chair" sounds weird. But "Butt in Chair is a state of being" does sound reasonable.

...wish you were here!

You wouldn't want to drive here, but you probably wouldn't mind being here. This weekend it's the Pumpkin Festival in Half Moon Bay. All of the nurseries, farms, horse ranches, etc. had truckloads of pumpkins brought in--they wouldn't be grown here, now would they?--and this weekend people come from all around the Bay Area to buy pumpkins, take pony rides, walk in the pumpkin parade*, and I don't know what else. One nursery has big inflated bounce-houses (isn't that what they're called?), another place built a teepee. There's probably a hay maze somewhere.

This is the weekend when locals** hide at home, making sure to buy groceries during the week so they don't have to get into their cars for any reason. Driving home last night, I passed a sign on hwy 92 warning about the hours-long traffic expected this weekend. The trip over 92 usually takes me 15 minutes.

Since the typhoon last Tuesday, we've had beautiful weather out here. It was downright balmy on Thursday. Today we had to close the front door because too much hot air was coming in. Finally we get summer weather!

Ben and I went for a walk today. It was lovely and warm. It's too cold for shorts most of the summer, because of the fog, but come October it's shorts. We went the long way through El Granada stopping at our friend Chris', then on to the harbor for coffee and a cannoli*** at the Caffe Mezza Luna. We came home past the beach and a small wedding. (We figured there must've been a discount on the spot because of this weekend... traffic would've sucked getting there.)

When we got home I discovered the next scene for a story I started at my writing group this week, so I went to write it. As I was transcribing, I discovered several things that came before it, and I'm not sure I ever got around to writing the line I thought of for that scene. Go figure.

And we made squash soup and garbanzo bean curry over rice. Mmmm, I'm lucky.


---

* I wish I were making this up. Ben and I chatted with a guy today who said the whole thing was almost ok until the parade started. And then it was madness and chaos, and he fled to the coffee shop four miles north in El Granada.

** AKA Ben and me. :)

*** The cannoli was yummy, but had candied fruit in it, which was a bit much for me. I'm not a fan of candied fruit. I also just discovered that the singular of cannoli is cannolo.

Cast in Silence by Michelle Sagara (msagara) is the fifth in her Chronicles of Elantra fantasy series, all of which start with the words "Cast in". The first is Cast in Shadow, and you would definitely want to start there. I've enjoyed them from the start. They're about a young woman, Kaylin, who was a poor, nearly-homeless kid growing up in the underbelly of the city Elantra, until she was taken under the wing (so-to-speak) of the Hawks, the police force of the city. The story starts when she's been working as a Hawk for several years, but her miserable childhood turns out to be deeply intertwined with current events.

Each book is a story unto itself, although they build on each other. In other words, you reach the end of each book with an ending, unlike many fantasy series I've run into. And each story is different from every other story, exploring new aspects of the city, learning about different races who live within the city, and dealing with new Bad Guys--although they are all connected, so it's not just that bad things only happen to Kaylin!--and they're all centered around Kaylin and her friends (and enemies).

This particular book started out with Kaylin whining about various and sundry things, which was a little tedious. But within a couple of chapters, the story got on its way and Kaylin was too busy to whine (or at least, for her whining to seem unreasonable). We thought we had learned about the fiefs (where she grew up) before, and we thought we knew almost everything about her childhood until she joined the Hawks, although there had been references to 6 months when she was doing Something Else in between. In this book, we get to learn what happened in those 6 months, as they come back to haunt her, and we learn more about the fiefs and their significant placement within the city.

The only complaints I have are: 1) I want a map of the city, because it's clearly complex and the geography is relevant to the plot, and 2) There were several conversations throughout the story that I had to reread to figure out who was saying what. On one hand, it's not unreasonable for the author to make you work for the story (use that brain! reading is better for you than tv!), but on the other hand when the conversation looks like the following, it's hard to tell who's saying what:

"Blah blah blah," person one said.

"Blah blah blah," said person two with a shrug.

"Blah blah blah."

"Blah blah blah," person one said.

When you see the fourth thing is spoken by person one... does that mean the third thing was an extra thing spoken by the second person? The traditional way of showing two paragraphs spoken by one person is:

"Blah blah blah," person one said.

Person two shrugged as he said, "Blah blah blah.

"Blah blah blah."

"Blah blah blah," person one said.

It's *more* clear, although at least one of those confused me, too. :-/ Maybe it was just me, though.

Overall it is a good book which I enjoyed a lot, and I'm looking forward to Cast in Chaos, which is supposed to come out next year.




P.S. Are there other things I've read since I last posted? *ponders* Yes, I read The Spirit Ring by Lois McMaster Bujold, which I will have to post about later, and several short stories. I probably won't write about the short stories, tho there was one, The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles by Kij Johnson on the tor.com website, which I really enjoyed and recommend that you read.

That's it! I'm out of the shoebox! I'm officially living with Ben*.

I'm still not sure it feels like "my home" yet. Some of my stuff is out, and around. Lots of it is still in boxes. We're still mostly using his stuff--his vacuum cleaner, his sheets (I don't have any king-sized sheets), his dishes & utensils. His furniture. :-/ But I have my own closet which is wholly mine**, and we bought new dressers for my clothing. And there are tons of my boxes taking up space all over the house. :) And my chopsticks in the drawer. I'm working on sneaking a couple of my glasses into the cupboard... he has matching ones, which is just bizarre, but means he's more likely to notice the additions. :p

And any month now, I'll have my office full of my stuff. With my desk(s), my chair(s)***, and all of my books†. I'm totally excited about that††. :)


---

* As of, oh, a week ago. Yeah, I'm slow. See a later footnote for why I haven't posted yet.

** It's a walk in closet, which means it's big (relatively. by my standards. which include not having had a closet, of any sort, in three years.) and dark. In the interest of making it mine (and more usable) I put a lamp in it! It's a clippy lamp, which is clipped onto the shelf above the curtain rod, and points up toward the ceiling. It plugs into an extension cord, which goes out the side of the (sliding) door which usually stays shut, around the corner, behind Ben's dresser, and into a wall socket (duh). And now, I can SEE inside my own closet. So the fact that I also managed to unpack the second rows of boxes (vertically and horizontally, of course) on the floor of the closet means that now it is totally usable. Woo!

*** Neither of which exists yet.

† Those exist. Boy, do they exist.^

^ I took a photo of all the boxes of books that aren't in the basement, so I could post it here for you. And then I plugged in my camera to upload the photos, and discovered that I haven't uploaded photos since April. And then I got distracted categorizing and albumizing all of those photos. And then I got distracted with something else, and forgot to finish or even put up the one photo of all the boxes to post here. That was 4 days ago. Like I said, slow. So, you'll just have to imagine them all. In your imagination. You do have one, right?

†† And I still need to get my old landlord & landlady to acknowledge that they should give me my security deposit back, and then to actually give it back. Or at least give me an itemized receipt for why they're not giving it back, and then I can argue with it. "Reasonable wear and tear", etc. *sigh*

This same gentleman, to whom I addressed my previous post, has gone above and beyond the call of duty today. Apparently he was working (on a Sunday--kudos to him for not having a life!) and got stuck first thing this morning. (Why couldn't he have figured this out last week when he was harassing us?) So what did he do? Did he send an email? Yes. Did he try leaving a message at work where I would get it first thing Monday morning? No! What else did he do? He called my cellphone at 3:30* this morning. Yes, this morning! In the middle of the night. Did he call my phone at work, not realizing it would forward to my personal phone? No! He actually called my cell phone and left a message at three-thirty in the fucking morning. I shit you not.

Fortunately, I had the sound turned off, or else I would've been awoken. At three-thirty. In the fucking morning.

For future reference, it's never ok to call me about work before 8:30. And really, it's only ok to call me before I get to work, or on a weekend, about work if there are customers at stake. This case? Not so much.

I'm just stupefied.



---
* For the record, and not at all in his defense, it was 6:30 his time.

Dear Mr. S——,

I would like to thank you for your email this morning. It was nice to have a reminder, first thing in the morning, of the help you have asked me to provide. I would also like to thank you for your follow-up email, just an hour later. I'll admit, having just gotten in, your second email arrived just moments after I read the first, so I hadn't yet forgotten it. Thank you for calling me just minutes later, to make sure that I was fully aware of your pressing need for these files tomorrow, without which... you might have to wait until the next day!

I'm sure you'll be reassured to hear that I worked tirelessly all day to make sure that you would have an accurate configuration guide at your earliest convenience tomorrow. The fact that we're going into controlled release next week wasn't motivation enough, but your pressing need was inspirational.

Without you attempting to install this product just once, after so many of us have done so many times already, we wouldn't be able to release this to customers. Once you've installed the product, we'll know that even a monkey could install it. And if you can't—at least we'll be reassured of the superiority of humanity after all. Either way, this is an invaluable favor you are doing for us.

To ensure that you have only the best experience, I ask that you direct all of your questions and concerns to my boss, who will give your feedback all of the attention it deserves.

Sincerely,

I just had this thought. I don't know if it's important, or if it's going anywhere, and I doubt it's original.

Everyone knows what it means to be human.

As writers, we're all trying to write 3d characters, right? As artists, we're trying to represent humanity or human experience, whether literally or figuratively. We find realistic characters more compelling than unrealistic characters. We're not always good at creating that impact, but it's not because we don't know what it means to be human or what the human experience is really like. As readers and experiencers* of art, we can tell when art is expressing humanity.


We're human, so of course we know what it means to be human! By definition, whatever it is that we are, that is humanity.


We just can't always transcribe it or express it meaningfully. It's the expression that takes practice, not the knowledge.



---

* It is too a word! Regardless of what Firefox claims.

Alright, so I don't usually like to post or talk about actual writing progress, because then it'll inadvertently de-motivate me for future writing progress. But this is less about progress than it is about process, so I want to make an exception.

Last night I spent a bit of time working on my second chapter*, which stalled last year**!! Yay me!

I started out just writing about life and nonsense. And then I was wondering about some particular thing in my world, and whether xyz, and then ... I was in the world again. I haven't spent much time there in a while. And suddenly I was looking at an event through the eyes of characters I hadn't checked in with before, and I discovered new things. The things I discovered happen completely off-stage, between bit characters. But they have a direct effect on what can or should happen in this chapter. It was really exciting.

The coolest part was that I was in the world deeply enough, and un-self-consciously enough, that I was able to meta-think without tossing myself back into the world of thinking. And I figured out what to call that state: imagining. (This sounds like a duh, but it wasn't.) I've been talking for a while about how I need to *think* less when writing. And people look at me funny, like "what do you mean not thinking when writing?" But thinking means I'm looking at it from Liza's perspective. And honestly, Liza doesn't know a whole lot about what the characters want: she only knows what she wants***. When I write, I need to be aware of what the characters want, what the story wants. That's imagination. Right-brain§ taking over. Linear thinking isn't useful for writing a story that is engaging and surprising§§.

So, now we know: Imagine more, think less. This takes practice.



---

* Yeah, yeah, it's only a second chapter, but ... I'm determined to keep on with this story, even if I do pick up other stories along the way. It's got such possibility that I think it's still worth telling.

** Yeah, last year. Ugh. This has been an unpleasantly not-writing-ful year. Trying to find balance.

*** She wants to be a writer... she wants dark chocolate... she wants her potato plants^ to keep growing... She wants to talk about herself in the third person...

^ I need to post PICTURES! I'm so impressed with my potato plants. :)

§ I think it's the right brain... I always get them backwards. I mean the creative/artistic/non-linear part of the brain, which believes that there is no distinction between itself and the rest of the world. Speaking of which, you should hear Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher, talk about her experience having a stroke, which turned off the left (or linear) side of her brain. http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html. She also wrote a book, but I haven't read it.

§§ And I think my story ideas feel more exciting to me when I'm in creative-brain instead of linear-brain, which means I'm more likely to want to read them. (And therefore write them.)

Apparently I've been remiss. I haven't been posting... and I haven't been writing much, either. :(

Sometime, if I ever get a plot out of him, I'll tell you about Silent Sargasso and his Foggy Mute Horse (or Mute Foggy Horse... but not his Mute Horse Foggy), and how his whole family may or may not have been killed by a samurai on a white horse, leading him to travel the Main Streets of the world, only allowed to step foot on streets named "Main" and being whisked from the end of one Main Street to the beginning of another.

Or I might tell you about the world where gravity is different in different places--which is why fairies can fly and giants are so big and strong. (Duh.)



Meanwhile, I've been reading ( Anne of Green Gables and its sequels. )

The next one for me to read is Anne's House of Dreams, which is where she actually gets married. I'm looking forward to it.


---
* I also remember that in the movie she has a romantic thing going on with some other guy, who isn't Gilbert Blythe, therefore^ she doesn't end up with Gilbert at the end. And yet, Montgomery kept pushing her that way, so I was puzzled. Anne does go out with someone else (tho not the guy from the movie...), so I just got more and more confused. *sigh*

^ Yes, I know this isn't a valid proof. As I discovered.

** I also discovered that the word "handle", meaning someone's name or nickname, has been in use for a lot longer than computers & usernames have existed! In Anne of the Island, one of the girls refers to someone else having a "handle", clearly in the sense of a name. I was shocked.

*** Ok, I have to admit it's been a long time since I saw the movie, and I may have never read the book...

By the way, the final decision was: Lord Goring, who has the best (and funniest) lines in An Ideal Husband, by Oscar Wilde.

And so far I'm loving the new kindle-toy. It's compact, and I don't have to think about what I might want to read. (Except for if what I might want to read is in book-form instead of kindle-form, of course.) Fortunately or unfortunately, I now have > 30 books on it. At least 75% of those are from Project Gutenberg, and therefore were free.

Packing today. Been listening to tons of I Should Be Writing, which reminds me that I should be writing. Go figure. :) One of Mur Lafferty's interviewees was talking about sneaking up on writing... I forget if it was China Miéville, or Scott Sigler. :-/ But, just 500 words a day isn't that much... and in 6 months that would be a novel. (Assuming that all 500 words were put into that novel for the whole 6 months.) (And it might be crap, but at least it would be a whole draft.) I've had this thought before. And it always escapes me. Why? I dunno. I'm so envious of the writers who Write for a living. And at the same time, if I can't manage to write 500 words on my days off... why do I think I could write the thousands of words a day necessary daily if I were doing it full time? Why do I think I could stick to it enough? I always have ideas for how it will be in the future. And some of it is totally true. It will be easier to write when I have a space for writing. An office, with a nice table, lovely green walls, built-in bookshelves filled with my books, a wonderful view of the flowering garden, and an ergonomic chair adjusted just for me. Not to mention art that I've chosen, and a cushy chair to escape to when I don't want to be at a desk. (Yes, all of these except for the cushy chair are expected to exist within the next month or two.)

But, I won't go into that space unless I make it a daily habit. Every evening after work, I'll need to go into that room and sit at the desk--either paper or computer--and write. Either this rambly-type stuff, which might turn into something creative, or straight into the creative story stuff. I might set a timer for 30 minutes, during which time I have to keep my pen/fingers moving, and after which I may leave. I might set the timer for 30 minutes of internet, and then 30 minutes of writing. Or... see, any time I start setting up rules for myself, I know I'm about to fail. The rules always sound like such a great idea, because they'll keep me to a consistent schedule! But the one thing I know about myself is that I hate consistency. I even hate being consistent about being inconsistent, so I'll fall into some new pattern for a week or a month or 6 months. And just when I think I've figured out the pattern... I'll stop, and do something different. I don't control it.

On the first page of the first notebook I ever filled with my writing (as opposed to starting and ignoring later) I gave myself permission to write anything I wanted in that book. To-do lists, observations, googly-eyed stuff about the boys I was attracted to. Whatever. And so I filled the notebook. Some of it was story-material. A lot of it wasn't. Most of it wasn't "worthy" of being read by anyone else... but it wasn't meant to be. I gave myself permission to be unworthy. It was great. I managed to consistently write in my notebooks for years. (Until I started dating Ben, and then my ability to write in notebooks consistently got a bit wobbly. I'm still not sure why...)

Now I feel like I need that next step. In addition to giving myself permission to write whatever, I need to give myself permission to write whenever and however... as long as it's writing. It doesn't need to be 500 words. It doesn't need to be 30 minutes. It doesn't need to be a blog entry, or the next bit of my novel, or the next bit of some short story. I want it to be any or all of those things, but it can be anything. So long as it's writing. I give myself permission to write even when I'm exhausted and braindead and don't want to. I give myself permission to write crap, and I give myself permission to attempt to write something that I think might not be crap, even at the risk of it turning out to be crap after all.

I need to accept the idea that I may only ever write unprintable crap not worth the paper it's written on. Only then will I be able to write anything better. (Even then it won't be a guarantee, or else the exercise wouldn't work.) What if I'm not meant to be an Author? What if I'm always going to be slogging through my day job, and it will never get better? Is life still worth living? I think the answer is yes. Despite complaining a lot about my life, I am really satisfied with where I am. I am moving in with an amazing man, I work with wonderfully intelligent, nice, and funny people, and I am one of the most interesting people I know. If I left it at this, yes, I think I could accept it.

One of the people Mur Lafferty interviewed on ISBW quoted someone else who said that we have just as many hours in the day as Einstein and Edison and Curie. They made time for their amazing discoveries and innovations, and so can we. Well, that's a good point. I do wish I didn't get so tired out by the end of the day. :-/ I wish I knew better how to motivate myself.

(Incidentally: this is about a thousand words, and it only took me about 25 minutes--30 with editing.)

Or at least, writing a post. :)

See this? This is me not packing. I'm tired. I'm a little hungry, and don't have much food handy to eat (or clean dishes handy to eat on...). I have several more boxes packed, mostly clothing today. I also have a laundry basket FULL of clothing that I'm going to give or throw away (depending on worn-ness and state of underwear-ness, of course), and now all of my drawers are empty! My dryer is not empty, but that's mostly the clothing I'll want to keep out through the move.

I watched Lethal Weapon, The Director's Cut today. I just bought all four LW movies on two discs at Target, and I put it on today figuring it would run in the background and provide noise while I packed. I've seen all of the LW movies before, but not the director's cut, and I really don't remember it being that dark. :-/ I'm a little puzzled. It was still really good, but not as funny as I remembered. I liked it because it was funny. I don't really go for the action-for-action's-sake thing. Still, I enjoyed it, and ended up being sucked in a bit more than I expected--so less packing happened. Or maybe I got sucked in because I didn't want to pack. :)

I also walked to Starbucks---as I wrote that I just noticed that my non-empty cup had fallen over! But fortunately it was opening-side-up, so it didn't spill. Whew! Spilling on the carpet just before I move out would be lame!---with the idea that it would wake me up a bit, get me energized to get back to packing. It did, but then I ended up lying on the bed listening to I Should Be Writing, which is a fabulous podcast (also a blog) about--yes, you guessed it--writing, while playing Bejeweled on Facebook. Oops. Through her interview with China Miéville, where a lot of the point was just write, what was I doing? I was packing and playing Bejeweled. I've never read any of China Miéville's books, but after hearing that interview I want to go out and get his latest book. He sounded so smart and cool, and his process sounds so much like the way mine is when it's working... *love*

And finally, I've thought of a name for my kindle: Reginald. What do you think?

Being a writer and all, sometimes I need names. And I like the affectation of naming my things. I haven't named my car*, but I try for interesting names for all of my hard drives, ipods, etc**.

So, I seem to have just purchased a kindle***, and it's going to need a name. (Firewood?)

There are some fabulous Old French/Frankish names, like Childebert or Clotaire, but I can't remember my favorites today. It's really very sad. So instead I turned to my favorite list of Puritan names. I think the best ones are If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned§ and Humiliation.



So, what should I name the kindle? I'm open to suggestions...






* Robin McKinley (robinmckinleys ) named her car Wolfgang. It took me a while to figure out that she wasn't talking about a person.
** I'm sorry to say, my iphone is named "Joe". I was really falling down on the job that day.

*** My mom talked me into it. It should arrive Tuesday.

§ My mom's response: "yup, a little wordy tho". :)