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By Ellie, November 9, 2009 2:48 am

I said I was going to update a second time last week to make up for the one week with no posts. My original intent was posting a short but (hopefully) thoughtful entry on Friday. But guess what happened?

I went shopping and lost my earring.

Working in a casual customer service environment nevertheless requires one to dress nice, and since I’m sorely lacking in a variety of biz-casual outfits, I figured that I should pick out a few shirts. (By the way, feel free to spread biz-casual around and make it a new entry in the American English lexicon. I’d like to invent at least one odd word for the dictionaries of the future. That is, if biz-casual isn’t already in the lexicon.)

I try to limit myself to an hour when finding and trying out clothes. Finding shirts that look good and not at all old ladyish (a common problem on the clearance racks in JC Penney) can take 20 minutes. But once I try on the pieces, I know which ones are going into my closet. But it also depends on how fat my checking account is, of course.

My dad had called earlier to let me know that he and my stepmom were in the area. They’d come up to attend a friend’s retirement party and wanted to see when we could all get together for dinner. I missed that call, but was going to get back with him after getting out of the store. My stepmom called while I was trying on clothes and Kevin answered my phone. (Yes, he does hold my purse. But it’s a Swiss Gear travel pack, so his masculinity remains intact.)

When we left the store, I called both my dad and stepmom, but got no answer from either phone. We decided to hang out in the mall for a bit and give them a chance to call back. We live 30 minutes from the “city,” so it’s not like we can jump in the car and head out at any time. Every trip to and from the city has to count.

I called again and got a hold of my dad. Five minutes of chatting and struggling with restaurant choices later, we decided to wait until the next day to decide. So Kevin and I went to Taco Bell for dinner.

A few minutes after sitting down, I realized that I was missing my earring. One phone call to the women’s department verified my hunch that I’d lost it in the dressing room. Fifteen minutes later, it was back on my ear, and I was on my way to the gas station to fill up my car. About 30 minutes later, I was finally home.

After all that, I didn’t feel like writing, so I decided to save it for Saturday. Which didn’t happen, either. For one, it was National Bookstore Day, which entailed a “buy one, get one half-off” sale, and we also had an American Girl Party with 16 hyperactive girls. After the day was over and I returned the coffee to the local coffee house, I was ready for a nice meal with my dad, stepmom, and husband.

I didn’t feel like writing after the long day, either. Not even a paragraph.

But I’m up for it tomorrow. Might be a short entry, but at least it’s a Monday post.

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By Ellie, November 2, 2009 11:48 pm

Very few writing books talk about music as an aid for writing, but they’ll go on for pages, maybe even an entire chapter, on finding the right place to write. They all say nearly the same thing: your writing place needs just enough lighting so you’re not straining your eyes, maybe you’re facing a blank wall so you’re not distracted by your kids’ photos and sitting upright to maintain proper creative-juice-flowing capabilities, so on and so on.

Then in the next paragraph, they talk about going to place outside your home, like a library or a cafe (could you be any more cliched, writing books?). That’s a post for another time, so let’s get back to the topic of music.

People use music all the time for various reasons: to study, to pass the time in a long car trip, to set the mood in the bedroom. So why not pop in your favorite CD or fire up the MP3 player and find a track that really gets your fingers tapping?

Personally, this is tricky. My moods can differ wildly from one day to the next, which can determine what I want to write and what I need to listen to so I can maintain a steady writing flow. One thing for sure is that I can never listen to anything with words. Those are songs, and songs get me in the mood to either dance or pace. (Pacing is also another topic I’ll get into in the future.)

So I turn to video game soundtracks and movie scores for my background sound. A search on iTunes (or a similar music download site) for classical music from any country usually turns up some decent results. I haven’t been disappointed with my finds. When I want a mystical Celtic atmosphere, I play a track from Ancient Muse by Jennifer Pratt-Walter, and I immediately think of misty hills and damp green moors. Perfect for my monk character who just happens to be lost at the moment. For a calm yet somewhat playful tune that goes along with a character wandering down a cobble stone road in a medieval town, I play Falla Con Misuras or Ach Vlaendere Vrie from Capilla Flamenca’s Oh Flanders Free: Flemish Renaissance Music. (Strangely enough, it’s also the type of music that reminds me of Busch Gardens Europe.)

But I can’t go wrong with game soundtracks. Even after I’ve played the game and heard the music in battles, conversations, and world maps, I can still make it my own. Some of my absolute favorites are Legend of Kyrandia: Book One (LoK is a fine yet tragically underrated DOS fantasy adventure game), Conquests of Camelot, Final Fantasy VII and IX, and… well… almost any DOS game I’ve managed to track down. If a downloadable soundtrack doesn’t exist, I just play the game via DOSBox and record the music.

After choosing the appropriate tracks, I make a playlist in iTunes or call up the folder on Winamp (some albums, like LoK, can’t be played in iTunes), and then sit back and let the music carry me into the story.

Give it a try. Think of a game that resembles your work in progress and find the soundtrack for it. (Trust me, half the time you won’t even think about slaying that level three boss.)

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By Ellie, November 2, 2009 11:40 pm

Yowp. So last week there were no posts. It’s not that I didn’t want to post… I just couldn’t think of anything to write about. But now that I’ve got a list of topics to blog about, I’ll be set for the next few months.

And to make up for last week, I’ll blog twice this week. Fair? All righty.

(This post doesn’t count as one of the two, by the way.)