It's been a rough week. The reason there was no post last week was because I was in the ER. Again. This time with a massive infection in my lower leg. It got so bad they actually admitted me Monday. I got to spend a wonderful two days in the hospital (ugh...more hospital bills) and the rest of the week off from work. I go back to work tomorrow. I anticipate another Talk with my manager about my attendance issues but really, when the doctor says stay home and I've got FMLA to cover my job and vacation days to cover the time, I'm staying home.
I'm trying something a little different with the writing. I'm actually outlining a novel. I know, I know. I'm a pantser. What am I doing outlining something? I'm trying to pin down the story so it doesn't go all over the place. I mean it already does go all over the place but I need it to not go all over the place quite so wildly. So I'm trying to shoe horn the story into a workable whole by outlining it.
Well, that's it for this week. Back to work tomorrow so not as much time to focus on writing but at least I'll have a paycheck. Here's some music videos for you to enjoy.
One of these days I'll actually remember I'm supposed to post weekly and then I'll actually have well thought out blog posts. For now, you're stuck with my rambly posts as I try to figure out what I want to say.
I'm trying to figure out where I want to take my blog. I know my blog is supposed to be part of my platform for when I get around to publishing something. Whether I self-pub or go the traditional route is still up for discussion. I may try the traditional route and then go self-pub if I can't get anywhere with the traditional. Or I might self-pub and try to go the traditional route for later books. I don't know. I haven't decided. I don't have anything I'd consider ready for publication anyway so I'm trying not to worry about it too much at this point.
But what is my blog going to look like? Right now I'm not sure I'd want to publish me, given how random my blog posts are. And how depressed I got for a while and published to my blog. I don't know. I don't want to delete my blog and I also don't want to start over with a new blog. So I guess I'll just leave it as it is and hope for the best. At least I know that I've got a few loyal readers who don't seem to care that I'm rambly most of the time and depressed once in a while.
At the very least you're all polite enough not to tell me you mind, which I do appreciate.
Life in general this past week has been life in general. I actually ended up sick most of last week so I didn't work too much. I've got to keep from missing any more time for a while so my attendance doesn't get me fired.
On the plus side, being home sick let me get some writing done. I got almost 20 pages done on the current WIP. I also found out I can transfer my stories to my kindle so I can read over them and decide what I want to do with them. I can even leave myself notes on passages if I want. So I'll be putting ONLY A NAME and CRACKED WORLD onto my kindle so I can read over them while I'm at work and make notes on weak parts. I'm also working on getting SHADOW WAR written. I've been calling it BLOOD WAR, but that's the second book in the duology...assuming I write both books. I may end up only doing one book for these characters. I don't know yet. It all depends on how well the first book turns out.
I'm doing a lot of reading still. I'm slowly working my way through the books on my kindle. I expect to get through them by my birthday, at which time I'm hoping to acquire more Amazon gift cards so I can buy even more books for my kindle. I'm going to make that request from my family and friends if they want to get me anything. My birthday isn't until May, but a girl's got to think about these things, y'know?
Speaking of birthdays, I have to figure out what I'm going to do for Himself's birthday. His birthday is in March and I know what he wants but I don't know if I'm going to be able to get it for him. He wants a Nook. He also wants the pieces to put his computer together. He might be out of a job by then, so I'm wanting him to find a permanent day job that will keep helping us pay bills. I don't know what's going to happen so we'll have to wait and see.
That's enough rambling from me tonight. Here's some music videos for you. (I need to broaden my music knowledge...I'm running out of ideas for music videos.)
Well, it's Sunday again. And since one of my personal goals is to keep up on my blog this year it's time for another post.
I know. You're all very excited, aren't you? *grin*
I had my usual week. I worked. I read. I wrote. I played Sims 3. Oh wait. I wasn't supposed to admit to that last one. Uhhhh...just pretend I didn't say it, okay? *shoves her Sims 3 disks under the blanket*
Okay, okay. We all know (or if you didn't you do now) that I have a Sims 3 addiction. Finances being what they are I haven't been able to indulge in feeding my addiction by buying all of the new Sims 3 titles. I'm woefully behind. I only have World Adventures and Ambitions. But Ambitions is my favorite expansion out of the two and I love playing it.
I enjoy building lives and screwing with them. I love the fact that with a few keystrokes I can make my Sims wealthy. (Boy wouldn't it be nice to do that in real life? Or click a few buttons and have your dream house built for cheap?) I just love messing with my Sims' lives and making them live out my dreams.
In a way, playing Sims 3 is also like writing. I create characters, give them lives, and then do my best to disrupt those lives. I tend to do it on a grander scale in my writing than in Sims 3, and of course I have more opportunities to cause problems for my characters in my stories. But it's still the same thing: build the world and then do my best to disrupt it.
I've also been reading a lot since I got my Kindle for Christmas. My new favorite story is READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline. Himself brought home the book on CD, a copy of which he'd borrowed from a co-worker. It took us a week to get through it because of a lack of time to sit and listen to the bloody thing (it's 2 CDs, and runs about 16 hours or so). I was hooked.
Now I'm not much of a 'book on tape/CD' person because I'm not great at listening and retaining stuff. I prefer to read. So I used up what was left of my gift card and bought the book for my Kindle. Warning if you do buy it for your Kindle...it's $12 on Amazon. Really expensive. But to me it was worth it. I absolutely love this book. I've actually reread the thing three or four times now.
Here's the best synopsis for the story, better than what I could write. It's got a lot of '80's pop culture references, and given that I was a kid during the 80's I recognized some of it. Mostly what I remember is when it went into reruns for a while. The story does bog down in a few places, but there are some really intense spots that make up for it.
I've got the rest of the books I bought with my gift card to get through too, though I keep getting sucked in to one or two titles and want to read them multiple times before I move on. I expect to get through the rest of my new books soon...if I can stop reading READY PLAYER ONE, that is.
Writing...writing...writing...oh yeah! That thing I do when I'm not doing anything else. Actually, I've been doing a lot of writing. I've started on another one of my projects. I'm writing a lot of the back story right now, though I'll probably edit most of it out. The important thing is to actually get it written first before I worry about what will and will not make the cut.
So here are some random music videos for you. Everyone have a great week!
Well, it's the first day of the first month of 2012. Whoop-dee-do.
Normally I do a year in review post on the 31st, but really, me talking about how my year sucked is such a downer I decided to avoid it this year. I will admit getting two of my books written made me smile. And learning to crochet finally after all these years was certainly a high point. Getting to know some of you on Twitter was awesome too. But I had a lot more shit happen that wasn't good than was good. At least 2011 was better than 2010.
So with luck my life will continue to follow that trend and 2012 will be better than 2011.
My goals for this year are simple: keep writing and lose weight. I'm not going to say I'm going to finish another book in 2012 or I'm going to drop 20 lbs by the end of 2012. The truth of the matter is I don't know what the year is going to bring. So as long as I keep writing and lose weight, no matter how many words get written or how many pounds I shed, it'll be all good to me. I kind of want to start querying ONLY A NAME but I don't think it's going to be ready for that. Maybe I'll save the querying on that for 2013.
To everyone who follows me, and to those who happen to wander over here to see what I write, I wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year. May whatever your goals are for this year be fulfilled and may many good things come your way.
