Happy Horoscope

I like to read my horoscope on MSN.com every morning when I get on the computer to check all my mailboxes. I don't live by what they say, and I'm not super into the whole astrology thing, but I do think it's fun to read and relate things to. Plus, when they're good ones, why not use that little extra to make it through the day? I mean, seriously, every little bit helps, so I'll take what I can get.

Recently, starting about a week before I decided that writing a book while raising an autistic 2.5 year old and ridiculously active 1 year old (HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHLOE!) was a great idea, my horoscope has talked about writing. Here's the one I have for today.

Incredible feelings of enthusiasm, optimism,

and sheer joy could fill your heart and mind today, dear Taurus.

Your life is changing in a positive way,and even though it may not be readily apparent, you're sensing it intuitively.

Romance with someone from far away could be in the cards.

If you're a writer, publishing is right around the corner.

The only downside is that occasionally you might feel panic as
if all this will disappear.

Stay focused!

So I'm feeling pretty stoked about my day now, and about life in general. =) I'm hoping that while my husband is playing his usual Sunday afternoon football game with the guys that ol' Rob Pattinson will show up on my porch with his newly shorn hair and profess his undying lust for my brain. Hey, a girl can daydream, right? Haha, okay, so that's a little far-fetched even for an Ali daydream. Still...

It's so true about the panic thing though. I often worry that if I don't write as much as possible, I'll lose it. Then I'll have to tell people I'm a loser instead of a writer. (Slightly sarcastic there, but also a little serious.) I should know better, since I've spent years ignoring my writing ability in favor of what I called "living my life" at the time, and it's still there, patiently waiting for me to utilize it. But that fear never goes away completely I don't think, at least not for me. While I don't think that writing is what defines me,..........wait. Okay, actually, I do kind of think it defines me, to a certain extent any ways. So without that, who am I? I'd just be "that girl Ali, with the really long hair", like that's some kind of amazing skill. "Oooooh, she can grow her hair really fast! Super awesome!"

Ummm....yeah. Not so much, I don't think. I'd much rather be Ali the writer with really long hair, haha!

In a tiny aside-I still feel like such a poser saying, "I'm a writer", which probably will last until I have something published. Anyway, this has been kind of rambling, and I'm not going to fix that, sorry. My cup of coffee is empty, and it's time to refill and start the daily battle of keeping the house decently un-messy. Oh, and to write of course! ;)

Elephants are my fave, for those of you who don't know, and this one is so happy!
Check out that grin! Perfect for my horoscope-induced euphoria today.

No Sooner Said Than Done

Precisely the reason I keep this blog. I'm getting ahead of myself again. So let me clarify.

Yesterday, less than an hour after I'd published the last post, which I'll refer to here as Doom & Gloom, I sat down, and wrote for the next two hours. Sweetness doesn't begin to cover it.

And not only did I write but I got through something I'd been putting off. A beginning. Not quite The Beginning, at least I don't think so right now, but a very important one nonetheless. And I do not like writing beginnings I do not like them Sam-I-Am, I will not eat green eggs and ham! It's so much easier for me to write the parts I love, the parts I see in my head like a movie scene. Of course, those scene's are the highlights of the story, big deal things. And while they're the meat, they need some bread on either end to make a nice fulfilled sandwich.

(Can you tell how much I seriously love food? To quote Woody Allen, I lurve food; I luff it.)

And I wrote one, almost completed it actually, before I had to save my youngest from the world's tightest hug from my oldest. He really loves her, a lot.

Back to it though, the reason I felt like I had the ability to write is because I talked myself into, I inspired myself into it, by writing the last entry. Which is pretty cool to me that I can release pressure into one outlet, freeing up space for another outlet to fill. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone but me, but that's how I say it in my head so I'm not changing it here. I've noticed that if I go back and try to change what I've written into something easier for someone outside of my head to understand, through each draft something of my original intention is lost. Which defeats the purpose to me.

On top of the world again, I guess, for now. Haha, well, not quite that much, but I am feeling pretty good. It gets easier each time I write to get back into my characters heads, and their world, which makes it easier to write, which makes it easier to get back into them, which....see where I'm going with this?

I had "Dance Hour" with my kids this morning, so hopefully they'll be tired enough to take a nap together and I can get some more writing in. God knows it tired me out enough for a nap.

Au revoir for now =)

PS-I'm in the process of editing my playlist slightly, adding some, removing others. Don't everyone run there at once.

It's Like Emeril Says...

I'm totally in the middle of a frenzy of writing right now. FRENZY!! I sat down earlier today while the kids were asleep, miraculously at the same time, to go over some old stuff, get some more details down, and then.....

BAM!!!!!

It just took off, the story, the characters, everything, and I haven't stopped for more than a moment to make sure my kids were still alive and hadn't trashed the house too much. This is so incredible! Once again, the story has changed, but changed isn't really the right word. Where I had story line down before that felt incomplete, and not quite meaty enough, I now have perfection.

Well, not perfection, far from it actually, but there's so much more substance to it, and another thread of conflict that I can't believe I didn't see until today that is going to be awesome.

One of the many perks of writing a scene you want and then going back is the ability to foreshadow. Foreshadowing is one of my favorite literary devices. It's one of the reasons I'll re-read a book tons of times. It's so cool to be able to pick out little details you read before without knowing what was coming. The second time you get so much out of it!

I'm apologizing now for any misspellings and the terrible grammar and blah blah blah, I'm typing at warp speed right now, and I'm flying high on writer's endorphins =)

It's almost dinner time so I need to go wrap up what I've got, jot down some things I don't want to forget, and put it away for a few hours, until the kids are asleep.

Thank God my husband is as understanding as he is when I'm writing, since I pretty much use him for a baby sitter and ignore him the rest of the time. Seriously.

I'll be back soon, hopefully with more good news. Pretty soon I'll be giving a copy of what I've got to some super awesome people I know to see what they think.

(I'm saying that oh-so nonchalantly, as if the very idea doesn't strike fear deep into my heart)

Until then...

Somebody Give the Woman a Shrine Already

It's been a few days since I've written anything...here that is. The reason being, I've been writing a lot on my story! (Yay!)

My characters are really people now in my head, they tell me what they would do in the situations I put them in, I hear songs on the radio and they tell me what they think of them. I know I sound like a crazy person, hearing voices in my head, and fictional character's voices at that. But it's the way it works for me. My characters become real, and tell me their story, and I just have to write it down and not screw it up, haha.

I've decided to take a page out of Stephenie Meyer's book, so to speak. Most of you know that she is the reason I've finally "picked up the pen", and started writing. I often refer to her as my "Inspirational Dream Chasing Guru". I'm not going to go further into that here, because I've already written quite a bit about it on my Twilight blog. If you're interested in reading it, click here.

On her website, Stephenie said that she wrote the scenes she liked the most first, and then went back and strung all the scenes together. Um, can you say GENIUS?! Why have I never thought of that? I've tried to sit through writing the things that have to be there, the boring back stories, the important facts, to get to the good stuff. And 9 times out of 10, I'd get to bored, or lose inspiration, and never even get to the good scene!

Not this time though, not since Stephenie gave me such awesome advice. I'm writing my favorite scene at the moment, and let me tell you....it's good. I sat down and didn't even think about what was supposed to happen next, I just wrote it as fast as I could to keep up with what I was seeing in my head. Of course, having two kids, a husband, and various responsibilities, I didn't get too far into it before I had to stop to make lunch, then stop again to help my mother mutilate a bookshelf, (that was pretty funny actually), and then get groceries.

I was pretty worried that if I stopped writing before I got it all down, I would lose something vital, or I wouldn't be able to start writing the way I was. What if I forgot something? This was my favorite scene, vital to my story, what if I couldn't write it?

Baseless fears it turns out. I picked up right where I left off, reading the last few lines I'd written, and the I was off and running again. Running so fast, in fact, I was just barely keeping from falling flat on my face. A pretty heady feeling, and very exciting.

So things are going pretty good and I hope they continue along this path! Now I have to go write since I've noticed my kids are entertaining each other...which will probably last all of 30 more seconds...

Slacking

So I haven't written today, and I don't think I'm going to. I went out last night, and that's always a double edged sword. On the one hand, I get to hang out with my friends, have a few drinks and dance, which I adore. On the other hand, I got four hours of sleep, and I'm always sooooo tired the next day.

Hangover=No writing...

That's enough to make me think twice about going out. Of course, my sanity is directly dependent on my time away from my kids, so maybe I'll just consider those "days after" as a day off. That sounds about right, normal people don't work seven days a week anyways...pretty funny though, that I'm considering myself as a "normal person" for that purpose alone.

On another note, I'm still excited about writing. I'm already in love with my character, and I hear conversations they have in my head. Things are definitely progressing in a great way so far. Tomorrow I'll start writing again, and I'm looking forward to that! I can't wait to see one scene particularly, between my unwilling hero and my leading lady...and another one between my unwilling hero and wanna-be leading lady...

Hmmmm....

Maybe I will write a little something today. =)

A Little More Beginning

I'm getting a little bit more excited, although still petrified. I've got two totally separate ideas down on paper, with a little detail added in. I think I like the second one better, just because the first feels a little too close to home. A whole "what if?" line of thought....which can be great fodder for inspiration, but seriously....who wants to live in the "what if?" and try to still be happy in their own world. I may come back to that one later, but for now, it just feels...too shallow. What I mean is, it is so deep for me, there's so much to it, that putting it down on paper right now doesn't feel like it could capature the exact essence that it should. Because it's a pretty big deal, to me at least. So for the second idea....

I've actually been tossing it around in my head for a few days, and I keep coming back to it. Something about it seems to work, and so far, I've got enough to go on, to keep filling in details. I'm hoping this is a good sign....this is the first time I've actually sat down and thought about a serious book idea, and tried to put it all out there, so I have no idea of what I'm doing. Haha, that's okay, I'm pretty good at pretending I know what I'm what I'm doing until I really do....or I'm so lost that it doesn't matter anymore, hahaha.

So...my heart is beatingthisfastasecond right now, in the afterglow of my little writing frenzy...or maybe "middleglow" is more appropriate. I might have a few more details in my head to put down now...

Or, I can wait till later since my daughter is determinedly saying mamamamamama in between my legs while I try to type this....(*sigh*)

I love my kids =)