Heroes

I've had a lot of heroes so far in my life. Many of them are writers. A few of them are even people I know.

I found my latest hero through doing some research for work. The cool folks in my trainer network recommended a video series by a guy named Tom Pomeranz. The ultra-quick summary of the series is that it's a set of videos that focus on principles of how staff providing services to individuals with DD should interact with their clients. It seems like a simple enough idea, but as with many "simple enough" ideas, there are some complex sub-layers. Pomeranz explains them beautifully.

This past week and a half, I've been getting information about what it'd take to have Pomeranz come out to our agency. Last week, I even talked to him on the phone, which, obviously, was way cool. Today, I talked with the executive director of the agency about getting Pomeranz out here. There are still some logistical and budgetary details to work out, but it's looking like it's going to work out. I'm way excited.

Lost Marbles

I think I'm losing my mind. For the second time, I seem to have lost a chunk of Oracle. There are two chapters, the two most recent chapters, that I know for a fact I wrote and now I can't find. What the heck?

Have I been saving pages in a weird place, or accidentally deleting them? Ugh. It's exceedingly frustrating to have spent the time to write two full chapters and now be unable to locate them. I mean, seriously, how did I manage to do this not once but twice?

The Next New Thing

So, in the past few weeks I've been caught up in a whirlwind. I applied for a job and got called in for an interview, then another interview, then I was offered the job and I accepted it.

My new job is being the Training Coordinator (aka staff trainer) for an organization that works with the developmentally disabled. It's an exciting opportunity and I'm really happy about it. Of course, since the organization is nearly 70 miles away, it's meant some very early mornings for me lately. It's also meant looking for a new place to live and trying to get settled into the new job and remember the names of a lot of new people.

It's a lot of work and a lot to sort out. But, on the whole, it's a very good adventure.

Radio Silence

No posts lately, but for good reason. Something's come up that's made me very busy. I'm holding off on commenting just yet, but I'll post details next week.

Sit Down and Shut Up!

Deb sometimes talks about this guy. He's the worst kind of guy. You know the type. He never has a good thing to say He's always finding the negative. He never builds anything up, but instead is constantly tearing you down.

And you want to know the very, very worst part about this guy? He's not really a guy. He's the voice in your head. He's the Inner Heckler. When you're writing a scene, the Inner Heckler whispers in your ear, saying things like, "That dialogue is awful," or "I can't believe you thought this plot development was a good idea. It's soooo lame," and, "Really? That's the best you can do?"

Most of the time, my Inner Heckler doesn't act up too much while I'm doing a rough draft. Usually, he bides his time, waiting until the rough draft is finished and he can be dismissive about my chances of ever getting it polished up to be good enough. See, my Heckler and I have a system.

For some reason, with this contest, he's breaking the deal. The past week or so, my Inner Heckler has gotten brave and he keeps hollering at me, which has put a big kink in my plan to write the most words. Dang Heckler, I bet Jenny's paying him off. I wouldn't put it past her to try bribing him to act up.

But, the good news is I've put in a call to Security and they're hauling him off, even as we speak. He's been disruptive and now I'm putting him in his place. It's a place with a sturdy lock and that funny-looking stuff they put on the walls of music studios to soundproof them.

Take that, Mr. Heckler.

Words, Photos, at Least I'm Getting Something Done

I've been doing a lot of polymer lately and I'm finally getting around to taking photos and listing new earrings in my Etsy shop. Taking photos of jewelry is tricky and I feel like I'm only now getting the hang of it, thanks to the help of my nifty tripod and a couple of props from the thrift shop.

It's funny how there's little that motivates me quite so well as having something else I should be doing. Turns out, this contest is proving productive for my non-writing To Do list.

Shameless Bribery

Right now I've got a lot on my to do list and, to help me through it, I'm bribing myself. I try not to use bribery too often, 'cause the last thing I want is to become dependent on it to get work done. However, right now I need whatever help I can get. Enter the Twizzlers. Mmm... They're great writing bribery because they're easy to eat without making a mess. These says, I hardly ever have them except when I'm bribing myself, so in my head, Twizzlers have become forever tied to writing.

Do you ever bribe yourself when you need to get motivated? What do you bribe yourself with?

Ancient Hairs, How Exciting!

I just stumbled on this nifty science article that talks about DNA testing on a sample of hair that's thousands of years old. Ok, I know it brands me as a nerd to be all excited enough about this article to pass it on, but, well, I've never claimed not to be a nerd, have I?

Mostly, I thought I'd pass it on to you folks because it offers fun imaginative possibilities. We're learning more and more about those who came before us, and an article like this practically begs for a story behind the man. If you close your eyes and imagine what this man's life might have been, what comes to mind?

Juggling

It's officially that time in the semester. It's the time when my roster says the class has 20 students and eight are actually present. The time when writing projects become longer and more complex, therefore meaning more time to grade each. The time when we go through writing projects more quickly since students have had some practice earlier in the semester.

It's also the time I have various alternate projects that are in the works, with some very near to deadlines.

I feel not quite like I've got a lot of balls in the air, but rather like I've got a ball, a bowling pin, a crystal wine glass, an egg, a bean bag, an apple, a butterknife, and a scarf. Up and down, around and around, watch how they fly through the air.

CWC tonight. It feels good to know I did my critique last week. There's one thing I don't have in the air right now. And, since I'm getting critiqued I didn't have to make copies this go 'round. This was a light CWC month for me, thank goodness.

Suspension of Disbelief

On Deb's recommendation, I checked out the first few episodes of Glee Club. It's fun, and musical, and often snarky. Hard to lose. Out of curiosity, I hit IMDB and looked up a couple of the actors. Unsurprisingly, all the actors portraying high schoolers are older than the majority of my college students. A bigger surprise - a large number of them are older than me. The captain of the football team is about ten years too old for the part. Hilarious.

There Goes Another Wednesday

Today was my day to fly back to the wonderful state of Colorado from Florida, and with all that entailed and a distinct lack of internet access, I partly didn't have time for, and partly didn't remember, an entry for WPW. However, now that I've returned home, we'll be back to the regularly scheduled programming next week.

Going South

I'm on the road right now, so I only just remembered that it was Wednesday, and I haven't even had time to hunt down a good WPW prompt. I'd almost feel like a slacker, except for the fact that I've been busy doing things like driving half way across the continent to move my brother from Colorado to Florida. We're in Mobile, Alabama tonight and we'll be in my brother's new home tomorrow morning. For my part, I'll just be glad to see the last of the moving truck. Thanks to the long drive, I'm going to skip my usual WPW fare tonight and, instead, jot down a bit of description. If you're unhappy about this, blame my brother ;)

Between losing the mountains, gaining humidity, and the change of dialect spoken by the people we meet, I hardly need any reminders that we're far from home. The change has been gradual. Bit by bit the roads flattened out as we hit the plains, and the air grew heavier and heavier with extra water. Today stepping outside feels the same as stepping out of a long hot shower in my closed bathroom at home. Except, it feels hotter.

Sunshine and humidity wrap themselves around me and remind me of a summer a few years ago when I lived here. Now, driving through this country again, seeing road-killed armadillos again, brings back the memory of driving the highways in the middle of the night as fireflies splashed against the windshield. Everything, even the air hugs me as I breathe it. The drive is black on green, asphalt butted up against lush, crowded trees.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a dirt road come off the highway. A mailbox. The dirt road isn't a road after all, but a driveway that leads back into the trees which push so close together that they hide what's behind them. Back home, the land is dirt and scrub and openness. Here, the trees make secrets of houses. My imagination starts to run. Those trees, so thick and dense. Anything could be behind them.

Dark Clouds Above

I'm sitting at a picnic table on the riverwalk right now, listening to thunder, watching lightning, and half-hoping it will rain while half-hoping it won't so I can sit outside and watch more lightning.

Some people see the storm come in and run for cover, while other people see the storm come in and run outside. Seems to me that writers and artists tend to be that second kind.

Another flash. Another rumble. A few half-hearted drops of rain. The wind is flickering the leaves of a nearby tree, and the breeze carries with it the scent of wet stone.

Restless

I'm on summer vacation. This is the first summer vacation I've had off of both school and work in a very long time - since I was eleven or so, I think. I've always had busy summers since then, and I've been planning to take this one all the way off as a present to myself for getting my thesis done. (It's still not all the way done, as it's under review, but I'm close.

Here I am, about two weeks in, and I'm restless. *Sigh* So much for relaxing. I need something to do. Fortunately, I guessed this might be the way it went and planned out some projects ahead of time. Now my issue is that being home all day is distracting. It looks like I may have to spend some time on campus during my vacation because the change of scenery will help me focus. Funny, isn't it?

Taylor Mali

The other day Amanda pulled me over to the computer in our office and said, "Watch this." This turned out to be Taylor Mali. He's a funny guy who is a teacher and a poet. He's got a couple of fun videos on youtube, but I'm going to share with you one in particular. It's called The The Impotence of Proofreading.

Enjoy.

A New Symbol

Symbols are important. We all have our talismans, and there's a reason we have them. Heroes are nothing but symbols. That's why they say you shouldn't meet your heroes in person, because suddenly they're a real, flawed, human.

In the past few days, I've been watching more reality TV than I've watched probably in the whole of the past six months (I'm really not a reality TV fan). I started with Hell's Kitchen and now I'm also working on Kitchen Nightmares. The common denominator: Gordon Ramsay.

The first thing that struck me about him is that he's a bit psychotic, then I watched more and other things came out. Mainly, that guy is incredibly smart and demands excellence. Anything short of perfect just isn't good enough for him. It's a tough standard, but the part that makes me like him is however much he expects from others, he expects just as much or more from himself. He is absolutely NOT the "do as I say, not as I do" type. He's more, "What do you mean five o'clock is early? I've been here since four and I've already done inventory on the whole kitchen, prepped today's food, and killed a Russian spy." The man's a machine.

My new interest in Ramsay is well-timed. This semester is a tough one for me between working on my thesis, drafting the Cass book, and teaching three classes. I've been feeling a little overwhelmed about it all. Then I watch Ramsay and think he'd probably roll his eyes at me, tell me to stop whining, and say he's going to write two theses and found a university just to show me how it's done.

This morning I set a picture of him as my new desktop so the first thing I see when I hop on my computer is Ramsay at a kitchen doorway looking out at me with an expression on his face that says, "Is that the best you've got?"

A Stephen King Story

The upside of writing lots of pages at a time is feeling like a rock star. The down side is feeling repetitive. It feels like I've typed "he said/she said" a gazillion times by now, even with making an effort not to tag all the dialogue the same.

Oddly enough, though, I was reassured about it a few nights ago by none other than a dream. In the dream I came across three second-hand books by Stephen King. I have no idea what the titles were, but the fact that they were by King was crystal clear. Now, the previous owner had put sticky tabs in the books that were coordinated with each other. When I looked at a tab in one book, then a tab in another, I realized the person had marked identical sentences. In short, they had marked where King repeated himself.

Yes, I know it's just a dream, but when I woke up I felt better about the voice in my head saying I was being redundant. After all, there are only so many ways to tag a line of dialogue and even the most brilliant writers can't always say the same thing in different ways. Now I'm reminding myself I just have to use the words that get the job done and not worry about it. My readers aren't going to notice, and if they do, that's what revision is for.

Resolution Vid.

Here's a bit of New Year's spirit for you, courtesy of Lolcats.

Editor Ali?

A few days ago I noticed that one of the craft blogs I read a lot is in need of a new editor. Today, I saw the notice was still up and decided that maybe I should be that new editor. It's one of the more intimidating writing things I've done, trumping even submitting work to magazines, because they don't just have to like me for one story, they have to like me ad infinitum.

If I get the job, it'll be a great experience for my writing because I'll have a regular writing commitment - 5 posts a week, no excuses.

I don't know how long it will be before I get a response. Not too long, I hope. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Hey Look, It's Sunday Again

The last bit of fall semester is always a bit chaotic. This go 'round, things just seem to be picking up speed as I near the end of it. Everything's kind of going "whoosh" right now. Two weeks of class left, and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger and brighter.

First, though, Thanksgiving break. Three class periods to go, then a whole week off. People keep asking, what I'm going to do. Beats me, but there will be much goofing off, that I do know.

But now, it's Sunday. Again. Which makes tomorrow Monday. Next Monday though, guys, is going to be lovely.