As You May Have Noticed . . .
I've done a bit of redecorating around here. A nice new theme. Evanescence. "Ain't it cool." Fixed a few things that weren't working right with the old theme.
I've got a big, sort of artsy thing, coming up for the site in the next week or so, and I'm concentrating on getting that done, so I'm just letting this area be my whole site.
Just for the moment. I might even put up a link to the work in progress, either tonight or tomorrow, if I have time.
If you follow me on twitter, you'll notice that I've decided to get drunk this weekend. Pshsh. Naw. A six of Killian's (Irish Red) will last me at least a month. As much as I like it, I'm just not a drinker. I might have two a week.
I'm going to start doing some artsy-crafty stuff. (Criminently! Artsy-crafty is a word? Although, criminently, apparently, is not.) I used to knit. I might do some more of that. And if I do, I'll make a video.
Also, I've been trying, for three years now, or more to get a podcast or video blog started. I'm going to work on that, some, also, if I can take enough deep breaths in a row.
Yes, the weather has caused a massive attack of bronchitis. I'm alive, but barely. You know what helps? Black coffee. You know what I hate? Any kind of coffee. But I drink it, because when I walked my kid to the bus this morning there were spots before my eyes. I kid you not.
Doctor says, "Sorry you moved here. You're going to be this way, more often than not." Lovely.
So, I suffer and wait for summer and drink coffee and work on a website and two novels and try to save money to move somewhere better for my health.
Can't think of anything else, right now. I'll take a break and see what I can think up. Be back before school let's out. 'Bye.
Another Sleepless Night And I’ve Just . . .
Been editing my fiction pieces on this site. On "The Harvest" I had two different places where I had changed tenses. (I'm so bad to do that.) Then on "The Last of an Eastern Empire" something strange had happened and the entire text was up twice. (That had been up for more than a year.) There are probably one hundred more things wrong with that piece, but I've never really been interested enough in the story to care. (It was more or less a free writing piece that just doesn't do anything for me. I might take it down one day.)
Also added a new piece that I just finished today. I'm thinking of having it be sort of a prologue to my next novel. (Yeah, NEXT novel, like I'm anywhere close to finishing the FIRST one.) As I was writing that piece I realized that I'm not very good at describing individuals. I'm good at describing places and inanimate objects, but I suck at describing people.*
So, I decided to make them all a little different. The lean man is the "Boss". The muscular man is "The Muscle" (actually the head of the military and the other man's actual brother). Finally, the smaller man is "The Advisor" (and an extraordinarily powerful magic user).
*(I'm great at dialogue. But that's another story.)
What Is This Thing Called Life?
I just wrote a short post about choices, because I've been thinking about major choices that I make every day of my life. I think it's a reasonably good piece, but a little too preachy for this blog. If you'd like to go and read it. It's at my new tumblr page at http://oddstilllife.tumblr.com
Don't judge me too harshly. It's just my opinion. I don't make you live by it.
But I believe it is true that life is made up of choices. Sometimes you make choices that change your life in ways that you never imagined. Sometimes you regret those choices and those changes, but you live with them, even though most every day it feels like Fate has shoved a long, dark skewer through your soul.
Why? Because sometimes that skewer is all that is holding you up.
Yes, and even if you were born into your situation, by the time you turn eighteen you make a conscious decision every second. We usually choose the lesser of two evils, or the thing that will bring us the least pain. Choosing between the rock and the hard place is a terrible ordeal, but there are usually many rocks and many more or less hard places to choose from, one of them is usually, very glaringly, obviously the worst choice by which all other choices pale in comparison.
Sometimes -- oftentimes -- we make the wrong choice. When we do that, the choice is to live with what we've done or turn away and make another, often much harder choice.
So, what is this thing called Life?
A series of choices that we each make every second of every day, or a really great magazine.
Seriously, if you're not reading the Life archives on Google you should be.
(The sound you just heard was me stepping down from the podium and returning you to your regularly scheduled blog.)
I Used To . . .
I used to write every single day. I would get up every morning with a need, a desire to write. . . anything. Even if I wasn't feeling particularly creative, I would leaf through this huge Collegiate Dictionary that my mom had given me and wherever it would open to I could find some word that I could think about and write about for hours on end.
When did that change? Maybe as I got older and my agoraphobia became so overpowering, so imprisoning, that I began to believe that nothing made any difference. So, I would get up and read all day, hundreds of pages a day, without writing even one sentence.
It made no sense for me to write because none of it would ever see the light of day, so why bother. I read books about how to write, about style and language and setting and . . . everything ever written about the written word and how to write it. Some of it I understood and agreed with, but much of it left me cold. I could never make it all fit together enough to make me think "Hey, I can do that. I can make that work in my life, for my life. That is what I want to do."
Maybe it was because I was so alone. I don't really know. Maybe it was because I had always found ways to do things in my own way, in my own time. I never learned to do things the same way someone else did.
I'm trying to write, again. I want to fill my life with words. I want to make this site and this blog be about words: my words, other peoples words, any words, all words. I want to do this, but I have to do it the way I do things, in my own way. I have to do it and not be afraid.
I'm fighting the fear. I'm writing a little more every day. I will do this. I have to do this.
But No, It Is Not 2:00 In The Morning
Yes, dear readership, I've done it once again. I forgot to set the time on my blogging whatever to something other than UTC (whatever that is -- even the spellchecker doesn't know). That done, you see that it is sometime after 10 PM.
Oh, I'll probably be up, working on the site at 2 AM, but I want the credit for the extra hours.
Things I observe from where I sit:
Twitter is awful slow tonight (at least those I follow). Perhaps we're all finding better things to do.
I know I am.
Well, for the next thirty minutes, anyway.
Yahoo (local links) still thinks I live in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I've had two residences since then. Need to change my zip.
It is taking me way too long to finish this post.
Okay. So, I'm finished.
But I'll be right back -- pretty soon.
Yes, I Have Returned
I am indeed back and hopefully better than ever. For one thing, I have resolved never to make incredibly ridiculous promises of daily or weekly, or even monthly posts. I am what I am, a procrastinator, and you and the horse you rode in on will just have to deal with that little fact.
Having written that, let me write this. I am overhauling my entire website and working new and different things into it on a daily basis, starting now. So, though you may come here expecting to see a lengthy blog post about who-knows-what and not find it, you will very possibly find other things to occupy your time.
I will make these things as stimulating and/or entertaining as possible. So, welcome to my "coming back". I hope you enjoy yourself.
I will post again, momentarily.
