(Insert Large Sigh of Relief Here)

To quote Napoleon Dynamite...."yessss!"

The holiday's are over, the new year is here, and we all survived. Thank God.

I love my family, I love the Christmas break time that allows to all get together, something rare indeed, and I love the relaxed, vacation-like atmosphere that surrounds it. But I am so ready to get back on schedule here! My house is a wreck (one I have no desire to do anything about at this juncture in time), my kids need some structure back in their lives, and I need to write!!

I really enjoyed watching the family dynamics of the holidays, and I had a lot of thoughts drifting around for story lines. The relationships between people have always fascinated me, both in reality and literature, and I've been a people-watcher for as long as I can remember. I'm not sure whether it's due to my years of "practice", or an inborn ability, but I seem to be very....empathetic? I can meet people and get a reading on them very quickly, a very definite sense of who they truly are on a very deep level.

That sounds kind of like a narrator in a terribly bad late night/early morning movie talking about the lead who is actually an idiot (& a terrible actor to boot). Don't get me wrong now! I am a twenty-five year old woman with a very stubborn, opinionated outlook. I am naive, optimistic, idealistic, and much surer of my own worldliness than I have any right to be. All of those things cloud my judgments occasionally, or even frequently ;), however I stick to what I said.

8 times out of 10, my gut tells me no lies. My perceptions (which I just mistyped as "perfections", which is making me giggle now) are usually accurate, if not dead-on. I'm especially reminded of a person I knew was a shady, slimy, no good character over ten years ago. There was nothing obvious about it, and the group of people who have known my longest in my life were all adamant that I was just being a silly teenager when I mentioned my thoughts. Which they had every right to think....Slimy had them all fooled. But my gut told me, and I listened.

Now, ten years later, people are shaking their heads, muttering "What a creep" under their breath (and sometimes not so quietly), about the same Slimy. I'm not surprised. No one can fake it forever.

So anyways, I love to watch the interactions of people, and their reactions, their expressions, and take the things I glean and spin them together into little blurbs, a few sentences in a story. A few of these I've written down, others I let drift away again, but all of them great for keeping the creative process of the mind from getting as fat and lazy as the rest of me over the season of eating rich foods non-stop (which I love).
(See picture at left.)


I'm going to try really, really hard over the next few days to concentrate on turning my house back into something resembling a vague attempt at cleaning, and keep thinking about the blurbs, and then I get back to the nitty-gritty.

It's nice to have work you look forward to; maybe that's how you know you've found the right job. =)

Inspiration-Point Blank

Inspiration is a strange thing, coming from any and everything.

I had the strangest...I can only call it a zing...of inspiration today for Story 2 while I was watching Grosse Pointe Blank, the 90's movie with John Cusack, and Minnie Driver. If and when this book is published, (fingers crossed!), no one would be able to pick out the place that came from it, because it wasn't like a direct thing. Just a look, a general feeling at a certain place, an idea that popped up like a little brain-bubble.

So I just thought I'd share that randomness that is my thought process, and also let you know that things are going well, I'm starting to sink back into the writing zone-(*has anyone seen the Crankyankers character in the "Phone Zone" skit? yeah, that's what I'm hearing right now.*)-and the tingles are starting up again.

I've gotta say I'm glad, I was worried after a few days of complete blank-brain, but I'm thinking now that was just the holiday induced food coma stifling any thought that didn't involve cramming more leftover stuffing into my mouth. ;)John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank

Writer's Infidelities and Rivers

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, also known as gluttonous family day. I love eating all that food, and then eating all the left overs I said were for the next day. Right now, my house smells like Dutch Apple Pie (thank you Sara Lee), and it is DELICIOUS!!! A far cry from the smell that preceded it, cooking collards. (I'm in the south, we eat collards, deal with it.) If you know that smell, you feel my pain, and if not, well...that apple pie still smells amazing!

It actually is kind of a homey smell to me, not because my mom used to bake or anything when I was little, but just in general. Maybe it's not just the smell that makes it homey, but also the fact that the oven is warm, so it's like a cinnamon scented fire kind of. Just smells like a house should when it's cold outside-to me at least.

But something is keeping me from lounging on the couch waiting to see Rob on Leno in fifteen minutes...I feel like I'm cheating.

Not because I'll shortly be drooling over how ridiculously, adorably British and perfectly flawed Robert is. Because I now have more than one story. Strangely enough, it's kind of reminding me how I had to adjust to two kids.

You have to share the time out as equally as possible, but sometimes that doesn't work. Sometimes, the baby needs more attention, and the older one is slightly ignored. In return, occasionally you have to go out of your way with the eldest to make up for it, and in turn end up ignoring the younger. (*big sigh*)

Apparently I am unable to do anything at all without mentioning my children. It's a disease called "parenthood" and I apologize for that.

So back to the point. Writer's infidelity. Hmmm...okay. So I have this new story, and it's great. It's a great plot, no question. I know that a great writer would have huge sucess with it. I am not a great writer. I'm so new I still have that new car (writer?) smell. And while I can see it flowing like a movie from scene to scene, I can feel it, every emotion, everything, I'm scared. Because it's so perfect in my head, once I start writing it, I worry I'll screw it all up and then hate it and it will be ruined because of me. So that's one thing.

The other thing: Story 1. I, as usual, jump right into the deep end without knowing how to do more than doggy paddle. The story I have in my head for that is a lot of work. I mean, sit down, spend hours researching things, thinking long and hard over other things....just some pretty exhausting stuff. It has the potential to be a really good story, although as different from the other as night and day, but it's going to take some work.

You all remember how I feel about work, right? (see old post below if you've forgotten)

So I have a story that I need to have a pile of research on before I do too much more, and another story that I feel like I could write in one marathon 13 hour sitting, if that was possible. But it's not, and I don't think that writing a little bit in the hour here and 30 minutes there that I have free will do it justice.

Let me take a moment to explain the "rhythm and flow" of how I write. Imagine a river, nothing too big or small. The top of it is glassy and smooth, barely a ripple to show it's moving. But as you get further and further down into the water, the current gets faster and faster, until you get to the riverbed under all that water, covered with pretty stones.

So when I start to write, the beginning is the top stage. I'm just floating along, like a water lily, on top of the river. The longer I write, the deeper I get, and that current picks me up and starts to swirl me around, and the writing just flows out beautifully. That continues like a crescendo until I hit the river bed. Generally, the river bed is what happens to my mind after a long time in the current, a whole ton of caffeine, and the early hours of the day after midnight mix together. I get so much, there are so many thoughts and things firing off and exploding in my brain that there is know way for me to focus on just one intently enough to write on it, much less get all of my ideas down. That's generally when it's time for bed.

So, since I usually get only an hour, two tops, I don't have a lot of time to get down deep in that river. And I feel like if I try to write Story 2 from the top of the river, just floating, it's going to screw it up. And on the other hand, I have like, enough research for a thesis to get this really awesome story down. Ugh.

Things are great though, don't get me wrong. Not one by two stories! Tis the season! Hahaha...or maybe hohoho?

Bad jokes, sorry. I must race to my couch so I can commence drooling over Mr. Pattinson ASAP.

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.