The curse of the white screen.

I am really happy to be finding my groove this week.  This was the first full week of school for both kids and so the first example of what my life will be for the next 9 months or so.  I like the rhythm of it.  There is plenty of time to run errands, take care of the house, write and still get to work without being late.  I am chronically late everywhere I go, I have no concept of the passage of time!

The only issue that I have had is that I would sit down to write and all of the swirling tornadoes of words and stories would disappear and leave me with a blinking cursor on a white screen.  Luckily, I have been putting my non-writing time to good use and reading lots of things on creativity, writing and building a career as an author.  So I took a piece of advice and looked through old files of stuff that I had written a chapter or page of and got lost in one.  I had forgotten that I had written it, loved what I read and then kept going.  It was cathartic because I felt like a loser with my blank screen but discovered that I had written the beginning to a rather kick ass story.  Go me!

One of the things that struck me was that I could feel that I had written this character from a moment of screaming frustration.  I didn't plan her or ask myself questions, I just pictured this apologetically bad ass warrior of a woman and started writing.  You can see the fact that I got caught up in the story and probably growled at anyone that tried to stop me from typing.  All of my best writing is like that.  The thing that I try to be aware of and train myself for is that not every story will come  to me that way.  I am painfully aware of my newbie status and hope to build the discipline and skills as a writer to craft a story even if it doesn't carry me away in a storm of awesomeness.  I don't want to burn out or give this up when it's not fun anymore.  So I have stored up a mental database of things to keep me writing and have become a big fan of BICHOK.  It's a very good starting point.

So I am off to write about a werewolf and his tree sprite.  Or maybe a pink haired warrior woman.  Whatever it is, I'm already Butt In Chair Hands On Keyboard, so it's time to rock a story!

i like to sew. how odd...

I have always had a bit of a creative streak. Things that have good color, balance and composition please me to no end. But I can't draw or paint and have never had the money to pursue photography. So I found my creative outlets in other, sometimes odd, things. As a vet tech, I got immense pleasure in putting an animal into a nicely made up cage. A smooth blanket with a neatly folded 'pillow' blanket and another one waiting nearby to cover them up. Also, I looooove a well bandaged animal. Smooth, regular, non-lumpy gauze, cast padding and vet wrap wrapped in neat, regular intervals gave me a downright naughty tingle. Well stocked and organized drawers made me smile, too. I liked them fully stocked for their visual appeal almost as much as functionality. There was a variety of color and texture that had the ability to make quite an impact on the eye, if done right.
Also, I have expressed myself in other, more conventional, ways. Gardening and cooking are pretty standard outlets for people. Then, I fell in love with pottery. Which is great, but a little like an abusive relationship. See, what most don't know is that throwing on the wheel is hard and your piece may suck. Then trimming the bottom when it is a little dry is hard and you may do it wrong or break your piece. Then you fire it and you might do it wrong and it may explode or you might do nothing wrong, but the kiln gods hate you and it explodes. Now the glaze, applied properly, it's great. Applied wrong it can melt to your kiln shelf or break your piece.
Do you see what I'm saying? I have found the learning process to be long and frustrating. Some of my pieces are great! A couple are even art. Some have sold and many have been given away. But pottery and I have an on-again, off-again relationship. I just can't take the pain for more than a year or so at a time. Currently, I am planning to pick things back up in January. I'll be sure to bring conciliatory flowers, chocolates and baggie of massage oil.
But currently, I sew. That probably takes my coolness factor down a bit, but I can't help it. It started with a book on weird plushies and went from there. I now have a nice machine and fabric all over my office, bits of thread everywhere and a burning need to sew anything that comes into my head. I am even planning on opening an Etsy store soon, because my friends and family will only want so many bags and my nephews won't understand why the plushies have one eye or butt flaps. So far my kids only like the plushies that they requested in detail. Any I have made for my own satisfaction is met with confusion and the question, "Who did you make this for?". Hoping, I think, that it isn't for them.
So maybe my mission in life will be to make sewing cool in the mainstream. I have, to my delight, found that it's already kind of cool in alternative culture. It's the best way to get clothes that reflect your personality. Deconstructing thrift store finds is super cool. I may try that eventually. But first I would have to measure myself and, while I am a confident woman, I don't think that I want to know the actual numbers.
And now, my friends, I leave you with this.