In the
spirit of positivity, I will try (and sometimes fail) to post something
positive and true on Mondays. Because Monday is the day you need
positivity the most. It's Monday! Aren't you excited? Couldn't you just spit? Life is moving along at a good clip. I suddenly started sprinting ahead in my story after I started handwriting rather than typing it. I think I'm actually three quarters of the way through it! Which is amazing. Typing it up is going to be slow going though, my handwriting suuuuucks. Lets see.... oh, my husband bought me a "Just Because" card and hid it in my purse so when I went to buy lunch at work, I found it. It was the highlight of my day. I started a new Diabeetus med and it dropped my sugar like a stone. I've been more or less normalized for a month AND I lost a few pounds. These are excellent things. I still haven't bought my damned elliptical machine but I imagine if I had one, I'd have lost a lot more weight. This med just KILLS my appetite. I quit drinking soda and as of Wednesday I'll have gone fourteen weeks without soda pop. I am totally planning to cheat before the summer is over. I haven't had a single frozen Coke all summer long and that's just insane on the face of it. It's like a crime. Oh and I started watching Farscape on Netflix much to my husbands consternation. Because I needed more bad television to watch. That's it. It's as much Monday positivity as I can dredge up. How YOU doin' this fine Monday?
Too busy to write a Perfectly Positive Monday post. Actually making progress on my chapter nine. Maybe. Sort of.
So, blah blah blah, positivity, blah blah blah Supernatural, Veronica Mars, new computer, lip gloss. question no one answers. THE END!
See you next Monday!
In the spirit of positivity, I will try (and sometimes fail) to post something positive and true on Mondays. Because Monday is the day you need positivity the most.
It's another glorious Monday. It's not below freezing. It almost seems like Spring is here. Yay!
Writing Life:
I just need to add a few lines to chapter seven and eight. Then I can move on and figure out how to rewrite nine. I've rewritten it a number of times and it feels... I dunno, too soon. It's a great scene but it's in the wrong place. My favorite thing I've written in Chapter nine is this:
She picked up the book next to her feet and played with the edges of the pages. “Tell me about your life, Conor. Got any dirty secrets or illegitimate babies?”
His head snapped up. “Uhm, no.”
“That's boring. Let's try something else. Are you into any of the following?" She began counting off on her fingers. "BDSM, Clown fetishism or toe shrimping?”
Flushing an adorable shade of pink, he took a long time before responding. “I’m not even sure what two of those things are. But I’m going to go ahead and say no to all of them.”
“Good good," she leaned toward him. "Now that I’ve warmed you up with my famous charm, what are doing these days? For a job?”
I think it's my goal to mention as many sexual fetishes/positions I can, in one novel :D
The Rest of Life
Season four of Archer is on Netflix so life is officially decent.
The best thing was getting my Android fixed. For two years I've had problems with my cell phone. I took it into the phone store and they were like, "Bummer, want to look at a new one?" It started acting up again so I went in to look at a new phone and the very nice guy behind the counter was like, "First you need a new battery. Also, it's no wonder you hate Droids now, you have model X. That is the buggiest, worst Android ever made. It needs to be updated but its so buggy you can't update it online." So he took my phone away for a half hour, updated the OS on their computer and gave me a new battery, all for free. Now it's like a completely new phone! Seriously, the look of the desktop is different, the texting is totally different.It's awesome.
That saved us a lot of money. Which is good, because my poor little 2.1Ghz desktop PC is dying. She makes weird wheezing
sounds and quit running Sims2 altogether and Minecraft is running like
an arthritic old lady in a sack race. So we ordered a custom desktop PC last week and it cost quite a bit more than I wanted to spend. But we are getting a BEAST with a lot of ram, a faster processor, 2TB hard drive, graphics card with 4G on board memory. It's sweeeeet. Should be here by the end of the month.
Shit I love:
Archer's Krieger. He's not an actual doctor but he is dangerously unstable and has access to millions of dollars worth of lab equipment. He just wants what any clone of Hitler would want; to tape bum fights for his own sick pleasure, make genetically modified animal versions of himself and test highly suspect drugs on his coworkers.
Finally got around to watching Season 2 of Sherlock and I'm sad I didn't do it sooner. The sheet scene just killed me.
My new skin care routine for my sensitive, combination skin is working! I took all the elements of Clinique's 3 step line (which I'm way too cheap to buy) and researched dupes and/or better products. I settled on Cerave Foaming Facial Cleanser (which has rave reviews from actual Dermatologists online), Simple Soothing Toner (the ingredients list was spare and mostly natural), Garnier Moisture Rescue Gel-Cream (which is wonderful) and Cerave PM Facial Lotion that I use on the dryer parts of my face because its too much in my T-zone.
While I was at it, I bought some Cerave Moisturizing Cream for my alligator legs and it's working wonders. I'm really impressed. I have some kind of Eczema or something on my legs and they always feel painfully dry and look scaly, but right now, they just look like good ol' pasty Michigan legs with no scales at all.
In the spirit of positivity, I will try (and sometimes fail) to post something positive and true on Mondays. Because Monday is the day you need positive thinking the most.
I have insomnia. This post is coming to you at 5:26am, because I haven't slept a wink. So I'm a little cranky.Now on to the mother effin' positivity.
Writing Life...
Last month I reached an absolute impasse with my novel at chapter nine, because I forgot something that I learned from my writerly hero, Jennifer Crusie:
Internal conflict can help describe character arc but it can’t move
story. External conflict moves story. Internal conflict is just a
character staring into space, thinking hard.
From chapter nine on, everything I wrote ended up being for a later point in the book. My characters had chemistry and history but they also had nothing to fight for. Which gives them nothing to lose. Also my hero is too nice.
So I started weaving in a plot point that's been debated in my writing group. My characters were BFFs since childhood. Then at sixteen, Adelia hit it and quit it, for lack of a better phrase. So it's fourteen years later and I think my hero is still a bit angry. Not roaring, alpha male angry. But still holding onto that pain and resentful of her suddenly appearing. My group felt like this wasn't believable or empathetic. Usually I bow to the wisdom of the ladies, but in this case, I'm disagreeing. So rewrote the initial confrontation between the hero and heroine and upped the ante by having him not be Prince Charming. He's conflicted. Which still isn't plot, but it's getting somewhere. So yay! I'm calling it a win.
The Rest of Life...
My coworker bought me a flying pig from the greeting card store that dances to the Cupid Shuffle because I she knows I collect flying pigs.I cradled it like a baby and made everyone watch it dance.
Re-watched season six of Supernatural and discovered that its not as awful as I remembered, provided you fast forward through everything except Soulless Sam being an oversexed sociopath. Which is fun to type and even more fun to watch.
In February, we paid off our credit cards and started saving for the down payment on a house!
It's March now so winter has to be at least half over. I'll take it.
Shit I love
Kelly Clarkson's song, Chivas. It's a love letter to whiskey and a hate letter to an ex-boyfriend. Magical.
Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra Ice Cream
The books that kept me company the past couple weeks.
Whoohoo Monday! Get ready for a shitstorm* of positivity and exclamation points!!!
*I am so classy.
Writing:
·Made some headway on Chapter 10 of my damnable work-in-progress. I'm finally at the point where I'm writing from scratch which is actually an improvement over laboring on the 22nd revision of my first eight chapters.
·My husband earned himself a foot rub because he read the last completed chapter of my novel and told me, "Seriously, this is the best chapter you've written. You're getting so good!" I'm so proud of myself because it really is the sharpest, funniest thing I've written. I have always loved writing but if I'm gonna be honest, four years ago when I started writing seriously, I sucked at it. Now I can honestly say I suck much less. There's at least a fifty percent reduction in suckage. Feel free to add your own suckage reduction/marriage joke here.
·Because I can't wait to get started with my next novel, I spent a lot of some time on Pinterest searching for character inspiration. My next novel is about a female rock star and her face hasn't come to me yet. The first thing I do is focus on coloring and go from there, so I'm still unsure if she'll be a blonde, brunette or redhead? My inclination is to write a redhead because I am obsessed with gingers and secretly dream of being one. But my husband picked out this itty bitty tattooed blonde on Pinterest and said, "That's your character." Hmm.
Other Parts of Life:
·Saw Avenged Sevenfold and Halestorm last Friday and it was so rad! Halestorm was surprisingly good and A7X can truly do no wrong in my eyes. Mostly because my eyes are busy ogling M. Shadows' arms.
·Got to eat at Cops and Doughnuts in Clare, MI which is always the best thing ever. They have this doughnut called the Bacon Squealer and it's a long john with maple icing on top and two strips of bacon. It's the best doughnut I've ever had and it tastes like pancakes! Don't judge me. They make everything with love there and everyone knows that things made with love don't have calories.
·My hubs found a job! This comes after a miserable year of searching, applying and rejections. He started today and said he already loves his coworkers which is usually a good sign. Better to work a job you don't like with people you do, than to work a job you love with people you can't stand. I've done it both ways. I'll take the sucky job with awesome coworkers every time.
·My Mother-in-Law made some seriously delicious Lasagna last night. When I say it's delicious you can bet on it, because (with the exception of Raman and Mac n' Cheese) I hate all forms of pasta. I know, I'm a weirdo.
·My best friend (who lives in Mexico) is staying in Michigan for the summer. Yay!
And now it is time again for...
Stuff That Makes Me Cheerful!
Maple Bacon Squealers from Cops & Doughnuts.
Avenged Sevenfold's new single, Hail to the King.
It's another marvelous Monday and it's time for some damn positivity!
While my new chapter did not magically appear like I'd hoped, I managed some spectacularly fun ways to avoid writing that accidentally resulted in productivity. How'd I do that?
Revised two chapters.
Named my character's bridal shop and made a logo for it because I'm a 12th level dork.*
Finished the photo collage for my novel.
Made individual character collages.
Cleaned up my OneNote notebook on my novel.
In OneNote made individual character bios with the collages.
Sussed out my characters heights, weights, birthdays and astrological signs.
Did some brainstorming with my friend Meika in regard to my novel's title.
Made a mock up of the cover of my novel.
So while not much writing happened other then the revisions, I'm happy to say I have a better handle on the characters and the story.
In things not related to my novel, I finally roped my hubs into sitting down and watching Veronica Mars. He liked it. I am prepping him for the upcoming MOVIE, Squeeeeee! Also, I've never seen season three so we are going to rent it this weekend if they have it at our local video store.
Now onto things that make me smile:
The first time Logan Echolls and Veronica Mars kissed:
Actually anything that has to do with Logan and Veronica,especially fan videos about their relationship set to angsty music:
Actually anything Logan Echolls related (much like Veronica, this girl loves her bad boys):
What you want something not related to my never-ending love of Veronica Mars? You are no fun.
Fiiiiine.
Avenged Sevenfold's new album will be available in August! And they released a single today! Woot!
Mmmm, bad boys
What makes you joyful on this fine Monday?
*If you got the "12th level dork" reference, congrats, you love Veronica Mars and you are indeed a 12th level dork as well.
I feel that if you only know me through this blog, that it looks like I never make progress with my novel and that I'm a big, insecure whiner. But a blog post is like a photograph, you only see that one moment, but there are lots of other moments (some better, some worse) that never get captured.
So in the spirit of positivity, I will TRY (and sometimes fail) to post something positive and true on Mondays. Because Monday is the day you need positive thinking the most.
Three weeks ago, I wrote a new end to my last chapter and wrote two new chapters for my novel! Yay me! It turns out that over the next few weeks I'm going to be doing a lot of new writing. I changed the timeline of my story which means I have a week with my characters that is not written yet (originally they only spend a day and a half together). It's gonna work a lot better and I'm actually excited to start working on it.
When I told my husband that I was worried about what my characters will do for this unwritten week, we ended up brainstorming for half an hour and he came up with some really good ideas. That's one of the many things I adore about him. He's not a writer but he's endlessly supportive of me and the best person to brainstorm with.
So yeah. Positive.
Now, some things that make me feel cheerful and grateful to be alive:
Pictures of dogs:
Grilled Cinnamon Rolls from Sparty's in Lansing, MI:
David Tennant's smile:
What is something that makes you happy on this fine Monday?
