DEAR SELF, STOP NOT-BLOGGING ALL THE DAMN TIME

Oh hi! So I see I forgot to blog again for a bajillion years. Oopsies. It's just that I feel like I shouldn't be blogging about nothing which is stupid because THAT'S ALL THIS BLOG IS, also sometimes I feel like all I do is complain but I don't want to complain all the time which is a problem because these are the only things I can think to blog about:

1. Job Searching = SOUL CRUSHING, which, no, actually it hasn't been all that bad but I think I'm only saying that because I'm not job searching right now. If I had been job searching in the last five minutes, I probably wouldn't be able to write this because I would have ripped my eyeballs out, is all I'm saying.

2. IT'S SO DAMN HOT. How hot is it? SO DAMN HOT, I JUST SAID THAT PAY ATTENTION.

3. I'm siiiiiiiiiick. The jury is still out on whether I have/had strep throat but the doctor gave me yummy antibiotics anyway and they only cost $5! That's $25 less than what my old birth control used to cost me A MONTH! I don't think there's any correlation there* but that was my first thought.

Um, OK, so that's it. What else have I been doing, you might ask if you're polite. Well. I can tell you that I've watched a lot of TV. We finished Battlestar Galactica, which I enjoyed but didn't Lost-love. Or Doctor-Who-love. Anyway. I was slightly underwhelmed by the finale but that may have had something to do with the fact that I felt like complete and utter ass when we watched it. Also, I have this theory about watching shows all at once on Netflix or DVD or whatever versus watching them live as the show airs. There's something special about having to wait an entire summer to find out what happens to all of your BFFs favorite TV characters that just cannot be recaptured by watching a show on DVD.

I've also been watching a shitload of Friday Night Lights because did you know that show is awesome? Pajiba pretty much fellates this show ON THE REGULAR but I'd never watched it because...I can't remember why now. Maybe because I don't like football? I don't know. I blame Dawson. I'm almost done with the first season and I cannot stop watching it. Like, I will lose hours to this show, which is awesome because there are a lot of hours in the day when you don't have a job, did you know that?

Unfortunately, I haven't had a TON of time to watch it because I've been keeping myself pretty busy with various errands, volunteering, cleaning, and WRITING. That's right, I said WRITING. I'm in this secret society writing group that's KIND OF a big deal. If anyone is still interested, let me know. I think we'll welcome pretty much anyone who isn't a big meanie poophead.

*Although when I told my mom I was going to the doctor because I'd had a sore throat and a fever for a few days, her first words were, "you don't think there's a chance you're pregnant, right?" WHAT.

"Baby step onto the elevator...baby step into the elevator...I'm IN the elevator."

Sometimes I have to trick myself into writing. It makes no sense, really, I love to write. Even when I feel like everything I'm writing is complete shit, I can keep going because it's pretty easy to write complete shit, you know? And, I don't know, maybe my shit will turn into pretty flowers some day. That is the weirdest thing I've ever typed. But you know what I mean...flowers come from shit. Everything comes from shit. Shit shit shit. Just keep shitting.

ANYWAY. Joe and I have been having "writing time" some nights, partly because it's more productive than watching hours of TV after dinner but also because we're both writing stories for THIS. You should, too. It's funsies. And if you get published, then I can say I know you and I'll be, like, Famous Once Removed.

We are learning to work together, and by that, I mean, in the same room at the same time. It's difficult because it means we just cannot talk to each other, or it will soon devolve into a gigglefest about poop and butts and who can say the most inappropriate thing that will make the other almost die from all the laughter. That's fun and all, but it's hard to write when you're lying passed out on the floor.

There's something I've been thinking about for a while, something that I hope at least some of you wonderful writers would be interested in, and that something is INTERNET WRITING GROUP. By that, I mean, hey, let's write stuff and pass it around and critique it and praise it but mostly LET'S JUST WRITE. We can have set topics or write WHATEVER, we can write short stories, sonnets, haikus, dirty limericks, I DON'T CARE, except no, wait, I really don't want to write any sonnets.

In any case, email if you're interested.

I’m cool dad, that’s my thang. I’m hip, I surf the web, I text. LOL: laugh out loud, OMG: oh my god, WTF: why the face?

Day 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

(Right now, Doctor Who is keeping me from writing but I don't think that counts.)

This is easy, really, because the thing I do each day that doesn't contribute to my writing is, well, this. You're looking at it. Kind of, I mean, the internet is this huge, intangible thing, but if I'm completely honest with myself, it's really the thing that keeps me from doing all of the other productive things I could theoretically be doing if I wasn't busy trying to get my unread items in Google Reader down to a reasonable number.

I wouldn't change it for the world, though. It's given me friendships and a husband and countless hours of entertainment. If it weren't for the internet, I would never have tried NaNo and written two (sort of) novels. I would never have seen this. I would never have experienced the Thanksgiving Miracle.

I thought about trying to calculate the number of words I've spewed all over these here internets, but it seemed like a lot of math so...I didn't. But between Long Story Short and Wonder Killer and The Collective, not to mention various other long-forgotten, infrequently-updated projects, I'd put the number close to 89 GAJILLION.

Might my time have been better spent doing something else? Maybe. But this (and this and this) is what I did and what's did is done. And you know what? I wouldn't do a damn thing differently.

So, no, I guess. I can't eliminate it. And I think maybe that's OK.

NaNoWhatNow?

I'm trying to decide whether to do NaNoWriMo again, but I don't know why I'm even questioning it because I have absolutely no reason NOT to do it. I'm not planning a wedding anymore, so that excuse is out, although my version of wedding planning didn't really take up that much of my time. We're talking about taking Max to some obedience classes, but that wouldn't really use up much of my free time either. Honestly, the only thing that might eat into any writing time is TV or my Kindle. Neither is a good excuse so I think what I'm saying is, I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year. And also NaBloPoMo because I think doing that last year is why I finished NaNoWriMo. So. Yeah. Don't let me forget by the time November rolls around.

I'm considering posting it all on A Story a Day, but the thought of doing that terrifies me with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Pool. As in, I'm so terrified of that idea that I will soon be standing in a pool of my own urine. But I'm beginning to realize that I write more consistently if I have an audience, especially if said audience is nicer to me than it should be because I need constant validation, people, CONSTANT VALIDATION.

I've always been this way. I wrote The Evil Summer to send to my friend Erica (Chris, in the actual story) so she could write back and tell me how awesome it was. Erica is the daughter of my dad's BFF Larry. My dad and Larry have known each other since, like, birth and at our wedding reception, they danced to Sonny and Cher's I've Got You, Babe. I think they invented the bromance, I really do. Anyway, Larry and his wife and my parents have been friends since the beginning of time, so my sister and I spent much of our childhood with their kids.

We used to spend weekends at their house in the country, making up games and roller blading around their unfinished basement. There was a wooded area across the field by their house that we called The Swamp. We spent many hours there, trying to catch snakes and frogs, or "fishing" in the two inch deep puddle of stagnant water that made up The Swamp when it rained. And. AND. I cannot believe I'm about to share this, but Erica and I would tape record ourselves singing Wilson Phillips songs, play them back, and congratulate each other on how AWESOME we sounded. The Swamp is where we practiced.

So my point is, maybe I should write a story about The Swamp for NaNo. Actually, that's a lie. I didn't have a point.

don't make fun of me

but I started a new blog. Start here for why.

Don't worry, I'll still be posting (sporadically) on this one and once a week on The Collective. I guess I just needed a new project. Also, I like creating new blogs and then forgetting about them after a month or so. Heh.

NaNo update: day 23

HOLY CRAP, YOU GUYS, I'M ALMOST DONE.

Total Word Goal: 38341
Total Words Written so far: 40491
Words ahead/behind: +2150

Words left to go: 9509

NaNo Day 16

You guys, writing today made me want to jab myself in the eye with a rusty spoon. That is all.

Word goal for the day: 1667
Words written today: 1881
Total goal: 26672
Total written so far: 29405
Words ahead/behind goal: +2733

(PS: I did not write on Saturday, but I did write yesterday. I just forgot to post. Oops.)

NaNo Day 12

This is my brain: Hi, I'm Jennie!
This is my brain on NaNoWriMo: BLLWEIRUSLDKLWUERLKJSLDFKUWLEKRJ2323LJ FSKYW..................



Word goal for the day: 1667
Words written today: 2060
Total goal: 20004
Total written so far: 23845
Words ahead/behind goal: +3841

NaNo Day 11

I have sort of a weird question. Does anyone else get really uncomfortable when they're on the same pee schedule as someone at work? You know, you go to the bathroom for the first time in the morning and someone else is in there, which...who cares, BUT THEN every time you go in the bathroom for the rest of the day, they're in there, too? I hate that. It's awkward. Like, I only have so much bathroom small talk in me and I don't want to waste it all on the same person. Anyway.

I really didn't want to write today, but when I did, I got through it fairly quickly, so that's something. I need to work on not checking my word count every few minutes. Seriously, it's bad. I'll type a sentence, think, "oh, that MUST be like 200 words," (because I'm an idiot) and then when I check I find out it was not 200 words, it was ten words, and then I want to bang my head on my desk and you know what? They don't like it when I do that at work. Apparently, it disturbs my coworkers (for multiple reasons), but the way I look at it, that's not really my problem.

Word goal for the day: 1667
Words written today: 1752
Total goal: 18337
Total written so far: 21785
Words ahead/behind goal: +3448

NaNo Day 9

Do you guys want to hear a sad story? For the last week or so, I've had it in my head that Thanksgiving is next week. And so I've been thinking that next week I would only have to work three days. Possibly only two and a half days! But during a conversation with someone from Payroll a bit ago, my hopes were crushed. CRUSHED! We were talking about a project that needs to be completed before Thanksgiving, a huge, awful project that I am pretending does not exist which it sort doesn't, because I haven't yet gotten anything I need in order to complete it.

Sidebar: Isn't that the worst? You have some huge, looming project at work that already has a reeeeeeally close deadline, but you can't work on it because you're waiting on someone else to do what they need to do before you can do what YOU need to do? Yeah, good times.

Anyway. I said something about how we only have this week and a few days next week to get it done and she looked at me kind of funny and was all, "...um, we're working a full week next week," and then I looked at my calendar and tried to play it off like I was talking about the week after next and that SHE was the dumb one but I don't think it worked. Oops. I blame all the writing, it's killing my brain and then I have no thoughts left for anything else.

Word count!

Word goal for the day: 1667
Words written today: 1963
Total goal: 15003
Total written so far: 18071
Words ahead/behind goal: +3068

NaNo Day 8

Good day, Internets. It's a strange day here in Ohio because, you see, it's November, which usually means chilly temperatures and SOMETIMES even snow but today? Today I have all of the windows open and I'm sitting here in shorts and a t-shirt and it's amazing. It's Ohio, though, which means it could snow tomorrow, but today I'm going to enjoy the 70 degrees.

The procrastination continues, but I managed to finally get around to writing. Not until I'd done all manner of important things, though. Things like grocery shopping, vacuuming, laundry, farming...you know, normal Sunday chores. Here are my numbers:

Word goal for the day: 1667
Words written today: 1770
Total goal: 13336
Total written so far: 16108
Words ahead/behind goal: +2772

The first week is over and it went better than I anticipated. I'm surprised I was able to stick to my goal of writing a set amount of words (and then some) every day. I've heard Week 2 is a lot harder than Week 1, so I'm a little worried.

Last night, Joe and I had planned to grill hamburgers, forgetting that, um, it gets dark at 6 o'clock now. When we realized this, we decided to go out to dinner (yessssss) and then to the movies (yesssssss). We ended up at Bar Louie after hearing about the 45 minute wait at Mongolian BBQ (seriously?) and it was magical because there was no wait AT ALL. Which is odd. After dinner, we went to see Zombieland and OH MYLANTA, it was so good. I am simultaneously terrified of and fascinated by zombies, which means I will see any zombie movie made, but I will be on the verge of peeing my pants the entire time. It's a dangerous game, but well worth it, I think.

NaNo Day 7

Oh, Internets, I did NOT want to write anything today. In fact, I started a post about an hour ago about how I was going to skip writing today because I was ahead of my projected word count and then I thought, "wow, this is how quitting starts," and so I started writing. And crazy story started spilling out and I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but you know what? I can get rid of it later if I need to. It's a comforting thought to have when writing nutso things, that it doesn't have to be permanent.

Anyway. Here are my totals for the day:

Word goal for the day: 1667
Words written today: 1774
Total goal: 11669
Total written so far: 14338
Words ahead/behind goal: +2669

Now if you'll excuse me, since I'm already being all productive, I think I might continue that and go work out and then fold laundry and clean up the kitchen and then, you know, maybe shower before Joe comes over and we make INSTEAD OF BUY a delicious dinner.

WHO AM I?

NaNo Day 6

Today was a pain in my ass because the internet is being a little bitch and not working when I need it to. Except for right now, of course. Anyway. This is all I got, Internets:

Word Goal for the Day: 1667
Total Written for the Day: 1696
Total Goal: 10002
Total So Far: 12564
Words ahead/behind goal: +2565

Happy Friday!

Day 5, all NaNo, all the time

I am tired today, Internet. I'm not sure if it's just the usual Thursday Tired, or if all this writing is catching up with me. I'm going with the Thursday Tired. Thursday is always when the Weekly Lazy kicks in. I start the week with all of these goals. I'm going to work out every day! I'm going to make a good dinner every night! I'm going to clean! I'm going to read so much! And then, by the time I get home from work on Thursday, all I want to do is put on my pajamas and stare mindlessly at the TV until it's time to go to bed.

So, I'm fighting that today but I managed to get my words written. Writing during my lunch break seems to be working really well, because my only distraction (aside from the normal Internet distractions, of course) is work and OBVIOUSLY if it's a choice between working on my lunch hour and WRITING on my lunch hour, I'm not going to be working. Anyway. Word count!

Goal for Today: 1667
Words Written Today: 2038
Total So Far: 10868

I was so, so excited to finally break past 10,000 words. I don't know why, but that was a big hurdle in my head, like, "if I can make it past that, I'll be OK." We'll see how that goes.

PS: I'm sorry if this is getting super boring and repetitive. Hee.

yada yada yada

The first time I tried to do NaNoWriMo, it was in November of 2004. Things were going really well. I was writing every day and I was totally keeping up with my wordcount. Then George W. Bush was re-elected. Then my grandpa died. Then I got bronchitis. Because of that triangle of suck, I pretty much lost my will to live, let alone write. Plus my story? Was about a girl in college and everyone thought she was going NUTSO but really she was just planning for a zombie revolution. Yeah. That blows. So I quit.

The second time I tried to do NaNoWriMo, I don't even remember what year it was, but I'm pretty sure I didn't even write a thousand words. I don't remember what the story was about. Once I got to a certain point of the month, I realized there was no catching up. So I quit.

I tried NaBloPoMo (aka NaBlowMe) a couple of times, and being required to post something every day made me want to quit the internet. So I quit that FOREVER because I didn't even win any prizes when I did it! Suck.

This year, I'm trying NaNoWriMo again. I'm totally cheating, but I'm trying it again. Heather Anne told me to write a book a while ago, and so I started one, and HERE'S THE KICKER -- I haven't quit it yet. I try to write more of it every day and, while I don't write much, the wordcount is getting up there. I'm going to use NaNoWriMo to force myself to finish it. Or at least get close to finishing it. We'll see how that goes. I wanted to keep it a secret, in case I felt like quitting again, but they say you're supposed to tell people so they can ask you how it's going and then make fun of you if you don't finish. So, Internets, I expect you to hold me accountable.

Anyway, my point is, I will probably be posting here less than I already am. Which is close to never, so...I guess what I'm saying is, see you in December. Except that's probably not true. See, before NaNoWriMo officially starts, I'm trying to cut down on distractions. I'm going to have to be strict with myself and not waste as much time on Facebook or watching Charlie Bit Me on Youtube over and over or, you know, blogging. But I'm not very good at being strict with myself so I'd imagine that blogging here will be one way I procrastinate from writing my story. So I guess what I'm REALLY saying is, see you on November 1st.

If you would like to be my writing buddy, you can find me on the NaNoWriMo official site. My username is Jennie. I KNOW, it's so creative!

Baby step to four o'clock. Baby step to four o'clock.

I have had a major burst of productivity lately, a general feeling of needing to Do Things. Last week, Heather Anne told me to write a book and so I started writing a book (yes, again) and wouldn't you know it? Writing did not make my eyes bleed or my fingers turn into tiny snakes or even GIVE ME A HEADACHE. No. It was rather enjoyable. I think I may need to start trading in more TV/Internet surfing time for Writing time. Small price to pay, really. AND ALSO. Weeks and weeks ago I decided that I needed to write a children's book about grieving on account of I can never find enough good grieving books for volunteering. Oh, there are lots and lots of them, but not many that seem to suit my purposes and so I thought, why not just write them myself? So I wrote one. It's sitting in my Google Docs, though, until I figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with it now. But my point is, I am doing things.

Doing things like working out ON THE WEEKEND, which you'd think would be when I would work out the most anyway because of all the free time, but you'd be wrong. Tam commented last week about this blog here, where a bunch of crazy ass women are doing Jillian's Shred DVD for thirty days in September. At first I was all, "No way in hell could I do that because ow, my knees hurt just THINKING about it," but I started doing it again this weekend anyway. I maybe should not have done it two days in a row because I'm having a bit of trouble with simple activities like WALKING or SITTING UP but progress is supposed to be painful or something. I think I heard that somewhere. Next step? Eating better, meaning eating more food I cook myself and less food that others prepare for me, unless it's Kat doing the preparing because you'd have to be crazypants to turn down anything Kat made you.

Over the weekend, I went from Ew, Cooking to I Need to Make Some Manicotti RIGHT NOW and I don't know why. It's not like I looooove manicotti (although, it is delicious), I just wanted to Make Something and manicotti didn't seem too terribly complicated. I even plan on cooking more this week (I KNOW) and then eating the leftovers because I am a responsible grown woman. Or trying to be. I mean, I also spent most of the weekend watching (almost all of) Season One of Veronica Mars but whatever. Baby steps.

PS: You should probably go check out Abigail, Ashley, and Heather Anne's new TV/Movie/Book review blog. Um. Like now. What are you waiting for?

I mock you with my monkey pants*

My greatest dream is not, as you might think, to one day own a penguin. It's not that I will one day save the world from zombie domination. It's not even that one day the government will be all, "marry as many people as you want to," and so I will marry John Krasinski AND Jake Gyllenhaal and we'll all live in a house together, sort of like Three's Company but with fewer hijinks. No. My greatest dream has always been that one day, sometime in the future when I'm a grown-up, I will have a book published. I don't even care if it's a terrible book that only my parents buy. I just want to go to the bookstore and be able to see a book WITH MY NAME ON IT.

It scares me, though, when I think that, "oh holy shit, TODAY is the future . . . I AM (technically) a grown up," and I start hyperventilating because I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME! THERE'S NO TIME! THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME!

Then I stop. Close my eyes. Force myself to breathe. And once the threat of passing out has been neutralized, I tell myself to stop being such a lazy asshole and go freaking write already. I've been making myself write at 300 words a day for the past week or two, and wouldn't you know it? I now have 5000 words. OF A WHOLE STORY. And sure, most of these 5000 words are probably complete shit. But it's a start, shitty as it may be, and I suppose that's all I can do.

PS: In slightly related news, look at the shirt Heidi got for me! I am so set to save the world from zombie domination.

*now I am quoting Buffy the Vampire Slayer . . . wtf?