My God, The Horror!

This is the most horrible thing that could ever happen. Absolutely disgusting. How dare the buses forget to pick up students? How dare any other news be more headline worthy than this story? Thank god that CNN found it necessary to place it on its most important articles for today. Without them, I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know about this terrifying tragedy. Thank you, CNN, for having the common sense to make this your most important article.



Also, thanks for realizing that this question needed to be the daily pole question the other day. I know there's grimmer things you've asked before. Such as whether or not we think the recession is over, if BP should be punished for the oil leak, or if gay marriage should be allowed. This question though, is vital to society. I'm relieved that we now know what the general population thinks.

Daunting? I think So

I grammatically edited Book 2 and decided to take a break from it for a couple weeks so I could return with a refreshed mind ready to tackle the hard editing. I decided I'd start reading Book 3 and picking out ideas I wanted to keep for the rewritten work.

For Book 2, my Keep Ideas list was a whooping maximum of 5 points I believe. That was because Book 1 had to be completely and utterly redone. I think I only kept names and general plot (The plot I kept was: This bad guy is evil, we gotta kill this bad guy, oops, we messed up, the end). Because so little was kept from Book 1 there wasn't much to include in Book 2.

Book 3 is actually a lot better than the previous two. I'm both excited and intimidated by this. It means I can start using a lot of the ideas I initially used for the book. It also means that I won't be able to create one from scratch like I did with the past two :(

Anyway, the Keep Ideas list is currently at 15 for being 50 pages into Book 3. Comparing that to Book 2's five things, I'm going to go out on a ledge here and say I'm going to have to remember and plan this book a bit better!

Done!

First couple sentences of Book 2 revealed! I finished the book around 1:30 today, only 30 minutes after my preset deadline. But I don't care. The extra time made for a really cool ending :) I'm so happy with this book that I can't even put it into words. I'm still a bit shocked that I'm done with this one. I'll have to make a post describing my favorite parts later when I've had to think over it.

As always, this is the raw, unedited version. I have about half of the grammatical mistakes fixed but gave up by page 200 out of 301 so I could just focus on the story instead. I'll have to go back and fix those later. I also have a paper with a bunch of stuff I want to include in it that I need to fit into the story but yay, I got Book 2 out of the way!!

I can now work on editing (My next greatest love after writing). Then I'll start reading Book 3 and preparing my ideas for it too. This is so exciting! I love getting things done, especially after months of working on it :)

Here's a glimpse at the last two sentences. Good ol' Roan is always there, this time with his new bff. Now I get to go home for the day and spend time with my wonderful family one last time before school starts. I simply couldn't be happier :)

My Life is Grand

Seeing as how I'm a college student and had the responsibilities of a graduated adult thrown on me this past year, I've had to learn to cut back in certain areas of my life. The major one was food. I love cooking amazing dinners and recipes. I grew up in a house full of loud, obnoxious Italians who gathered around a table only to shout that the basket of rolls wasn't full enough. So I love my food and I enjoy creating awesome recipes. Unfortunately, you can't do that as a college student on a budget. My monthly grocery budget went from around 100$ down to 50$ per month. That means no more fun meals! It also meant buying things smarter and getting food items that could last longer. Seeing as how I work upwards of 4-12 hours a day, I was constantly eating out. Now I have to cook a meal before work and bring some in for lunch and dinner so I'm not out buying pizza and Mcdonalds every 3 hours.

This has been an experience, to say the least. I figured out a few things about myself. No matter how I sear, fry, bake, or boil any type of pasta, I will never be able to eat left overs from it. I HATE left over pasta. I also hate cold-cut sandwiches. I used to love them. After eating them at least once a day over the summer, I now hate them.

Despite how much of a pain in the ass it is to bring my lunch every day, I save hundreds of bucks each month on it. That money now goes toward rent, utilities, and school! It's fun getting to pay adult bills on a child's part-time job.

Besides money-related rubbish, here are some other things going on right now.

1) I learned over the summer that left overs can hold up to a week instead of the one day my germaphobia allowed me last year. They aren't tasty but they're still safe to eat.
2) Sleeping in a freezing room is both a blessing and a curse. I have to adjust the temperature throughout the night as my body temperature changes.
3) Setting unrealistic goals proves to allow unrealistic advances. I have one chapter left in my book. Staying up until 2am each night and getting up around 9am in order to meet the deadline before school is actually kind of fun. It's amazing how much I've gotten done.
3) Work sucks! Well, not really but in huge bulk it does. I haven't had a day off in two weeks. My social life is zilch. My energy is nonexistent. Combined with writing, I have no time to consider classes are fourish days away.
4) Babies seem to appear everywhere. My oldest sister had one and by the time that clean and in swaddling clothes, another APPEARED!!! It's like damn magic.
5) In one day, I go home for the last time before school. In ten months, I'll be graduating. In eleven months, I'll be in Florida :)

Varying fails

This little gem came from a girl I'm friends with on Facebook. I just think it's cute how we include something as epically bloody and filthy as 300 with the fun-filled requirement of eating.


This was just a bad move on my part after a long day of feeling sick and exhausted at work. I came home to get on a live chat with a Comcast person. The questionnaire said something like "Short Description". I naturally thought it was asking about me and put that in the box. Well, after sitting around for a couple minutes wondering why I wasn't getting in touch with a specialist and saw the 'Problem'. No wonder why they didn't want to help me.

Scatterfield is my Inspiration

Whenever I have days or evenings off, I get about 2-4 hours of constructive work done around the house. Then I lose motivation and sort of turn in a big blob laying on the bed with nothing to do. When that happens, I find that driving from one end of town and back on Scatterfield revives my soul. I don't know if it's just the long car ride or because I need to get out of the house but I always find inspiration on that road. If I need to write a suspenseful part, I drive when it's stormy. The same with a happy part, sad part, etc. The best mood is when I need to write an angry part because, as those who have lived in Anderson know, Scatterfield is best at evoking angry emotions. As always I drive with my windows down and my music blaring.

The only downfall is that I have to drive by all the restaurants and stores and fight off temptation on the way. Today, I failed and bought a pair of shoes. I guess every good does comes with an evil.

Soooooo Close!

Today I hit 200 pages in Book 2. I started this book in May and have flown through it these last few months. I think it really helped that I was on summer break and only had two school classes and work to distract me from it instead of a full-time class and work schedule. I think I'm probably 50 pages or so from finishing it. I should make a list of things I have to include before I get any further though. Every time I get close to finishing a book I rush to end it and leave out vital events.

I'm really quite satisfied with this book. It was the desert-themed one, which made it very easy to write considering I'm a geography buff. I'm also in love with the desert and all that it represents so I wasn't running from it like I did my first book, which was winter-themed (I...Hate...Winter...). The book deals with a lot of cool issues. Religion is the main one. I kind of worry about how I'll get it published with it being so religious and how overly sensitive people can be about that sort of thing but I guess I'll ask my agent about that.

That's right. I said agent. You know, the kind of professional who will get your name out there and help you contact editors and publishers. Gotta love school connections in the English department :)

The only bad thing about this book was the fact that at the same time I wrote it my sister was in Arizona exploring the canyons and desert lands. I was SOOOOOOOOooooooo jealous! I found several times throughout the book that I couldn't sufficiently describe the landscape because I had never been there. So I decided that I'll just have to travel out there and rewrite certain parts before I publish it. I've also been tossing around the idea of not publishing any of my books until I finish them all instead of publishing one at a time. I like having the ability to go back in an old book and include something I only realized needed to be there for a future book.

Being a writer is fun and a pain in the ass at the same time but it's one thing I'll always love. Some days, I consider whether or not I'll actually get published. Out of all the people out there who are published each year, barely any get big enough to have their name be heard. But then I realize that there are TONS of people who get published and I can be one of them. And, unlike them, I've been working on my books for over 10 years. That's 10 years of studying grammar, playing with the English language, arranging, rearranging, and twisting plots. There's nothing like an excessive, and obsessive, amount of time to perfect something like a book. So I'll be better than those kajillion writers. But not for a while. I still hope to improve my writing skills. And I have a lifetime to do it.

Now, if only I could get at least my family to read my damn books...

There's something upsetting about not feeling like you have a home. Every year in college, I get uprooted and have to move from my mother's 'home' to my school 'home'. Then, on holidays, they force you out of the dorms and you have to move back 'home'. But for someone like me who makes home one place and tires to keep it that one place, this is incredibly difficult. I hate relocating. I hate it even more when you do it so often that your 'home' doesn't truly feel like home should. In my mind, home is somewhere that you not only live at long-term but somewhere where you feel welcome, where you feel as if you fit in. It's a place where your cares can be separated from work or school. It's a place where you love sitting in the family room because it gives you the comfort of family and closeness. It's somewhere you look forward to going every day because it is that wonderful, calming sanctuary.

Even now, with my first rented 'home', it still doesn't feel like home. It feels like a cage. There's one room in my 'home' that feels like me. I find comfort in that place but it's only one room. The rest of the house is barren, cold, unfriendly. Even though I pay the bills and clean the bathroom and kitchen, it still doesn't feel like home should.

For the first half of this summer, my home back in my hometown felt like a home. It was my place of refuge. Now, though, even it feels like a facade. It's not the home it once was. When I need to get away from my rented 'home', not even home feels like a vacation. I need an escape from my escape. I need out of this town. I need out of this monotonous, repetitive life with its dull sights and drab countryside.

I keep telling myself that I just have one year left before I can leave. Less than one year actually. That's really not that long. But I don't think I can make it a year. I don't think I can make it until winter. My life is no longer measured in weekends away with my family, holidays away from school, or family events away from everything. It's measured in how many weeks until next month, how many months until next semester, how many semesters until I can get away from here. That's a sad way to live if you ask me.

I'm breaking the rules. I'm staying at my sister's house and sleeping in my niece's bed. When I went to get in bed, the dog followed me upstairs. Even when I shut the door and left him out, he sat there until he opened the door with his head and walked up to me with those sad boxer eyes. So I'm letting him sleep on the bed with me until I go to sleep. What's life if you can't break a few rules along the way? :)

I'm so gonna get busted when my sis reads this too, haha.