The Elusive Bird

It was many years ago that I first stumbled across a quotation, and instantly fell in love with it. "Hope begins in the dark. The stubborn hope that if you just show up and do the right thing, the dawn will come." It was attributed to Anne Lamott, but I had no idea who that was. About a year later, after I'd scribbled that quote on everything under the sun, after I'd recited it a thousand times to friends who felt helpless, and reminded myself of it, I was wandering through the library and a name jumped out at my from a shelf. Anne Lamott, staring at me from the spine of a book called Blue Shoe. Wonderful, wonderful book. My library didn't have anything else that she'd written, so  for a while, she fell off my radar. Another year and a half passed and I found the writers forum. What...

Read More

Losing Something Unexplainable.

Three days ago, I sat at home all day and didn't do a thing. I honestly have no idea how I managed to waste an entire day. I didn't write, didn't read, didn't even watch a movie. I didn't clean or cook. I just simply sat and did nothing. Then, two days ago, I cleaned the kitchen. I did the normal things - dishes, counters, floors, and then I did some of the things that I don't do often enough - I reorganized the cabinets, I washed the oven, the microwave. I also picked up the living room.Yesterday, I spent most of the day out of the house, but before I left in the morning I cleaned and washed my dresser, and alphabetized out DVD collection. Today, I finished picking up the living room, and sorted through a pile of CDs and DVDs I had. None of them were in cases. Some were actual CDs/DVDs and...

Read More

"Fucking idiots" or watching out for dual meanings.

Oops, I probably should have warned you, this post contains profanity, that is used purely for profanities sake, rather than for any deep literary purpose. Well.... sort of. If it didn't have SOME purpose I wouldn't be posting it but.... now I'm just babbling. Last night a friend of mine tweeted (I'm still no good with twitter, btw. Irrelevant, but if you want to help, that'd be great!) something about "when boys are fucking idiots." My first thought in response was "I wonder who [the object of her affection] is having sex with." It took me a good minute and a half to realize that wasn't at all what she meant, and even then, I had to text her to be sure. What she had intended it to mean was "when boys are really dumb." I learned two things, from that little tweet. 1) I'm apparently the...

Read More

Finding the time to write (I'm looking for tips)

I sometimes wonder whether I'm repeating myself.... I have this vague sense of having written this post at one point in the past. Have I? I have no idea. Writing comes in a cycle for me. I get ideas, LOTS of them, and I don't have time to put them all on paper. I jot down some notes here and there, and that's it. I'm overrun. Then, I stop having ideas, and all I want to do is write. I can write for hours and hours and hours and days at a time, with no breaks for anything but food and the bathroom. Then, I get into a dry spell, which I know for sure I've written about on this blog before. For once, I'm writing about this when I'm not in the middle of a dry spell. I'm in the "write-write-write-write-write" period of my cycle. (No, no, not that period, not that cycle) But I've hit an unusual...

Read More

On a short Story

Remember me talking AGES ago about a little story called Mr. Buttons? Well I finally finished writing it. I edited it down to fit into NPR's Three Minute Fiction contest. I went to submit it. Re-read the submissions guidlines and came across these horrible words. entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on January 23, 2011.I looked at the date and time on my computer. "January 24, 2011. 2:02 a.m." I wanted to cry, or die, or throw something. TWO HOURS! I MISSED THE CONTEST BY TWO HOURS! Well, if you want to be REALLY specific, two hours and three minutes. I'm taking a film class this semester, a production class. One of our assignments is to make a short, 3-5 minute film. Three minute story can be translated into a three minute film, right? I'm going to make it so. Mr. Buttons...

Read More

Fairy Tales

Lately I've been going back to the hundred-times abandoned Fairy Pumpkin Adventures story. Clever title, no? I think I need a new one. Yes, the story is about fairies and pumpkins and adventures, but that's a crummy title. I was 7 or 8, maybe 9 the first time I started writing this. It's a childrens story. It's a GOOD story, even now. I think, finally, I will finish writing it. Finish editing it. Submit it somewhere. I'm not sure yet where I'll submit it, because I'm not sure yet exectly what it is. The story, the characters, I know all of that. But the writing itself, what I would classify it as? What it's target age-range is? Well CRAP! I DON'T HAVE A CLUE! The story is light. A fairy tale more Disney than Grimm in style. It's main character is an 8 year old girl. Are 8 year olds still...

Read More

NaNoWriMo 2010: Week Four

Today marks the end of Week Four of NaNoWriMo, and I am starting to really feel proud of myself, in a peaceful way that I hadn't felt throughout the rest of this. Up until this point I was excited (which I still am!) and it made my pride probably unbearable for everyone else. Now I'm sort of just calmly reminding myself that I've got this in the bag (which I have!) and that this novel is going to be great (I hope.) Believe it or not, until this week I hadn't actually started the most important part of my plot. Up until about Wednesday, everything was just build up. I can already see that a lot of what I wrote is going to end up being cut. Sarah had been slowly decending into insanity a bit already, but the things that push her really over the edge only started recently. Friday night, actually,...

Read More