I need to hold another Kids in the Hall marathon.

Craving a giant peanut butter cup like you wouldn’t believe.

Gotta continue writing this comic recap.

The room looks great when it’s vacuumed.

Wonder which unbearable YA novel I should read next?

Wonder which unbearable YA novel I’m going to attempt to write after I’m finished with the doorstop?

Hurry up and finish downloading, Soul Reaver soundtrack.

Chris Chan needs to give in to his twisted needs and post more videos.

Can’t believe I ate liverwurst… and enjoyed it.

Wonder how many comics I can ink tomorrow afternoon?

Gotta draw more tarot cards.

Still astounded that it took me less than half an hour to write that plotline for the next novel.

(Wish I could write the whole thing in that much time.)

Studying all these videos Chris Chan uploaded, it’s almost scary to see how violent he can get.

I’ve got Audacity just sitting on my desktop and I haven’t used it for anything.

For that matter, I’ve never used Anime Studio.

Holy crapezoids, I’ll use them both!

Must storyboard something!

Maybe a Chris Chan short.

Too many books to read; too many I’m sure I won’t enjoy.

I’m so impulsive when I go to the Kindle store.

I could make this whole six-book series into a dresser drawer full of paper beads.

Artistic bent + recycling + acrylic paints = jewelry.

I wonder if anyone’s tried to turn animal dung into jewelry?

Wonder if that peanut butter pie has set yet?

Not that I’d mess with animal dung. Just wondering.

There’s a type of coffee made with beans that have passed through an exotic animal’s digestive tract. It’s expensive as hell.

I could feed my cat coffee beans and get the same result.

Must train husband to clean litter box.

Kevin thinks I’m obsessed with Chris Chan.

Geez, I found some old Crayola metallic coloring pencils! I feel like making art with them.

Never did use those Prismacolor markers all that much.

Think I found a coloring medium for the tarot cards.

Too bad scanned metallic coloring pencils don’t show up.

Think I should draw mini comics of important scenes from my novels. Got a few ideas worth sketching.

Think I’ll update This Is Johnny twice a week, starting this summer.

Maybe I’ll make Johnny fatter, too.

There aren’t a lot of fat webcomic characters who get “top billing.”

No, I can’t make him fatter. He needs to be able to move around if the story is going to move in the direction I want.

I learned a new word: hypocorism. It’s a pet name, or the practice of using a pet name, or baby talk as used by a non-infant.

Why they needed to get so damn technical about something so stupid, I don’t know.

It’s kind of odd, but I almost don’t want to finish the doorstop novel.

I wish older women didn’t use baby talk. It’s just creepy.

What am I going to do with all these ARCs? I’ve got enough paper for beads. Too bad we’ve got a propane fireplace.

Cripes, I’ve got to continue reading Voyager sometime this month.

So tempted to work on another novel while finishing up this one. Must resist. Must finish one before starting the other.

Hey, the peanut butter pie is set now! Nom nom time!

Was that baby talk I used just then?

Hey, maybe I’ll start coloring the webcomic!

And it made my car look so much better.

But getting back on topic… You’d be surprised how two or three days off from writing can warp your entire schedule, as well as your willingness to write. Most writers and authors will tell you to keep regular hours. Treat your writing as a real job, even if you’re not getting paid for it. Swell advice, and I’ve taken it to heart. For nearly a year, I’ve used my mornings for my writing, mostly because my part-time job (soon to be my former job) is an afternoon/evening shift.

On weekdays, at 9am, I’d wake up, curse my job as I rolled my carcass out of bed, fire up the laptop, then do my regular wash up/get breakfast routine. While putting together my vittles, I’d think about previous scenes, how they could be improved; think about future scenes, and if I should follow the outline or my impulse; think about how much I can possibly accomplish that day depending on how tired my eyes felt. Then I’d bring my tray up to the room, settle down with the laptop, and get to work.

It’s been four days since I’ve done any of this, and I’m looking forward to returning to it. But switching from the vacationing mindset to the working one is going to take some… well, work.

So, tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up at 9am and tell myself I can write. Remind myself that I’m leaving my job soon, fire up the laptop, and tell myself I can write as I wash my face and prepare my meal. Excitement will bubble in my blood; I’ll look forward to seeing my characters again and helping them get back home. Tired eyes won’t be an issue. Then I’ll bring my tray up to the room, settle down with the laptop, and get to work.

As much as I’d love to be able to support myself with my writing, it’s going to be a while until I can sell something to a publisher. (Of course, I realize the chances of my getting published, but I’m trying to remain optimistic here. Just humor me.) My current job doesn’t pay much, and despite being part-time, it allows even less time for my little family and myself. I have to ask for time off at least a month in advance, and even then, nothing is guaranteed. My boss will tack on extra hours and days to my schedule, sometimes the day before she needs me to work that extra time. The work is getting to be too much; I’m burned out and I need to move on.

In other words, I’ve also been job hunting. Takes up some considerable time, believe me. Revamping a resume, researching potential employers, conceiving ways to get out of my current job without having my boss go into sabotage mode… Not to mention keeping myself in a positive frame of mind while doing all this. Looking for a job is about as much work as working an actual job.

I’m not talking about rescheduling updates for this blog… well, okay, I am. I’m considering moving my weekly update to Sunday, when I’m usually guaranteed a day off and I have more time to write/create/whatever. It’s also time I started doing more than just write about writing and books, isn’t it? ‘Bout time I started posting concept art, sketches, and comics…

Right! That starts today. After I’ve finished writing this chapter.

Despite all my resistance and reasoning, I couldn’t ignore my doorstop novel. I started editing the first part today. I’m work-whipped. What can I say? Maybe now that I’m working on it again, I’ll soon stop writing random notes for extra scenes, details, and dialogue. I’ve just about filled the shoebox I scrounged up for all these notes; what’s more frightening is that I could possibly fit them all into the second draft. The trick is trying to make this draft no longer than 150K words. insert derisive laughter here

I’ll return to Manuscript #2 soon enough. Maybe I’ll save it for the weekends or late night projects (when the Webcomic hasn’t begged for attention). But something tells me that I have to keep working on Manuscript #1 until it’s ready to be shopped around. And if a project has bugged me for this long, I like to think that it means something.

Sorry for the short post this time, but my brain’s been focused more on the whirlwind of violent air formally known as Earl. It’s like having one of my flatulent long-lost relatives announce that he’s coming by for a day or two. I’m dreading it, preparing for it, and can’t think of anything else besides the potential damage that might result and what to take with us in case of evacuation.

Dammit, one of these days, I will relocate to a hurricane-free zone.

Bwuh. I don’t want to do this…

I don’t care how charming the characters are. If I have to go through hundreds of pages before seeing even a glimmer of genuine action, I’m dropping the book.

Maybe I’ll attempt to read the series from the first book. But that’s not going to happen any time soon.

But onto the book I finished…

Blue Mountain Trouble by Martin Mordecai (ARC)

Began: July 7, 2010
Finished: July 11, 2010

Wow. Part-coming of age, part-mystery, all-punch, this book should belong in everyone’s home library.

There wasn’t a single flat person to be found in the varied cast. Pollyread and Jackson, the eleven-year-old twins, are soulful and wise in their young ways. I loved to watch them interact with each other and other people, learning more about themselves as individuals while finding ways to unravel the overarching mystery of an unwanted guest squatting on their family’s land.

The biggest and most pleasant surprise is the Jamaican patois that gives the story vibrant color and makes it feel alive. You can almost hear all the characters speaking as if they’re right in front of you, arguing, debating, telling stories. It’s so lyrical and absorbing.

I was disappointed when I finished. I wasn’t ready to leave Top Valley and its people. Here’s hoping that Mordecai revisits Pollyread and Jackso with plenty more stories to last a generation.

We had a helluva nor’easter on Wednesday and Thursday. Surprisingly, the power never went out, but I was reluctant to work on the computer for too long. But my laptop did suffer some non-storm-related damage.

See, I have–or had–a habit of placing my iPod earbuds on the laptop keyboard when I’m not using them. At one point, I forgot that I’d put them there and lowered the lid. Naturally, my action was met with some resistance, and my memory kicked in. “Oh, wait. I put my earbuds there.” But my husband decided to try his hand at closing the lid the whole way…

So now I have a cracked screen. My laptop is still usable, but there’s a black splotch at the lower left corner, accentuated by a cracked glass effect. The bottom of the screen is striped gray from the taskbar, which I had to move up just to access my programs, and since I couldn’t see the taskbar, I had to guess where it was so I could stretch it upwards. That was a fun 10 minutes.

I shudder to think how much it’s going to cost to get a replacement screen. I’d do it myself, but I don’t really know what kind of screen I have, and I’m not confident in my hardware skills. I’d probably fry my motherboard.

Then on Wednesday, my husband came home early from work with a little surprise for me:

This is Rain, a stray kitten he found in the warehouse. (As you can guess, her name came from the nasty storm.) She was found with another kitten, who’s on his way to finding a good home. We’re guessing that Rain is 4-5 weeks old; her eyes are still a little cross-eyed, as are all tiny kittens’ eyes. But she’s learned how to use a litter box, eat solid food, and lap up water. Still, caring for a kitten is a lot of work, especially when there are a lot of objects that aren’t exactly kitten-safe. I’ve been cutting up mat board from my graphic design/college days to build a barrier for the bed (anyone with cats knows that if a cat gets under the bed, he or she will stay under there for hours).

And since Kevin is allergic to cats, I’ve been busy cleaning the room. It’ll be an ongoing chore, of course, but there was a lot that I needed to do in order to make a large part of the room walkable, kitten-proof, and Kevin-and-cat-friendly.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past several days. I’ve also been thinking about how to run this site. Updating Mondays and Fridays sounds like a good idea–wait! I’ve been saying that I’ll update, but I never do. Okay, let’s try something else…

I will not update Mondays and Fridays. Mondays will not see posts about the publishing industry, books I’ve read and liked or hated, or random thoughts on authors and books. On Fridays, I will not write about writing or story ideas. I will let this site fall into obscurity yet again. I will fail at running a site! I will not resume regular posting this Friday, with thoughts on the NaNoWriMo and what I plan on doing with my current project!

That oughta do it…

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.