Friday, July 25, 2008

Yea, verily

Freaking... hilarious...

Excellent prose. Tongue firmly in cheek. Solid 10 out of 10.

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

"And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times."


DISCLAIMER: I have not yet chosen sides in the drama fest that is Presidential Election 2008, though even if I had, I would still find this article funny no matter what side of the fence I hid behind. It is a truly creative article. Kudos to Gerard Baker for writing it, and more kudos to TimesOnline for posting it on their website.


~Sass~

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Writer's A.D.D.

Yup, it's that time again. Sass is bored and looking for an outlet. Problem is, I have too many outlets right now and my brain has gone on stimulation overload. Lemme 'splain.

I'm ass deep in revisions on my first novel. I'm beginning to see the usefulness of going into a story prepared, even if I don't enjoy making or using outlines. Don't get me wrong, writing by the seat of my pants is really fun, but going through the revisions of such a project can be compared to wading through miles upon miles of thick muck. You know it ends eventually but the journey through it is difficult and exhausting. Then again, it's fun to play around in the muck, so even as I complain about it I secretly enjoy it.

Then I saw a thread on AW a few days ago about NaNoWriMo and how excited everyone is at the thought of another month long word-spooge fest. To which I thought, yes! Yes, I am excited! And then I thought about last year's NaNo project, which was pretty damned cool if I do say so myself, and why don't I try to revise that one too? It's shorter. It's more fun. The protagonist doesn't annoy the shit out of me. Win! Then I think no, no Sassee, you need to finish the second draft of your other novel first.

But it's okay to think about this year's NaNo project, right? There's no harm in planning ahead and daydreaming while I'm revising my other novel. So here I go daydreaming, and why don't I just write a few things down so I don't forget...

Then there's my venture into book 2 of the annoying protagonist, of which I have 15k words (and an awesome new werewuff), and another project wherein I'm trying to find the next object of obsession. Looks like Lily is it. She's been hanging around in my head for a while, arms crossed, hip jutting out defiantly, waiting for me to pick a storyline for her so she can jump to paper and start kicking some ass. I've been perusing Jim Butcher's LiveJournal for some off-the-wall tips on outlines and have started messing around with Lily's outline (because, by God, I want to see what it's like to be organized!).

On top of all of that I feel the need to pick up the pace with this blog. I mean, it takes what, 30 minutes to come up with something to post? Quick. Easy. Keeps me writing everyday. Closely related to this blog but an entire project on its own is my LiveJournal account where I'm trying to post world- and character- building things about book 1 in an effort to keep myself organized and simultaneously help myself with my own revisions. It's an official place for me to keep my notes posted, and I'm really looking forward to posting other werewolf things on there once I make the time for it.

... and then there's books I want to read, a house that needs cleaning, a yard that is slowly frying in the summer sun because we keep forgetting to water it...

Oy. Now that I put that in writing, it's kind of obvious why I tend to burn out a lot at the office. Take all that personal stuff and add it to the general mental exhaustion I get from a tedious job that never ends, and voila! Burnout.

Maybe I'll take the weekend off. Heh.

Quote of the day:

(Ghostbusters)
Ray: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Venkman: Yes it's true. This man has no dick.


~Sass~

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Heroes


My fellow howler Pike recently blogged about the return of Heroes. You know, that freaking awesome show about people with super powers and the like? The Cheerleader, Hiro, Peter Petrelli? The show that costs $50 for all of season 1 (eff you, Best Buy)? Yeah, that Heroes.

Some of you may remember a while back that there was a writer's strike going on for forever and a day. It was a legitimate strike, but the unfortunate consequence was no new material for damn near any shows (unless they were made outside the US). This meant that the addiction known as Heroes stopped producing new episodes, and millions of people around the US were suddenly going through withdrawals.

Now it's back.

They're releasing Webisodes of the new season (that is the new season, isn't it? or is it web only? omg, I'm so confused!). It's little bits of episodes as far as I can tell, segments about 3-4 minutes long, just enough to get you excited again and then take away your stimulant. So far, it goes like this:

Part One: A Nifty Trick
Part Two: The House Guest

*** SPOILERS AHEAD***

In part one we were introduced to three new characters. We have Echo, who, appropriately enough, has a rather nifty ability capable of blowing out people's ear drums. And he's a postal worker. (Who thinks this stuff up? Srsly.) The second character is the Constrictor, a hairless, freaky lookin' bastard that can squeeze you to death. (He kind of looks like Voldemort, actually...) Which may not sound scary, but trust me, I would not want that guy touching me for any reason, especially not to give me such a big bear hug that all my bones break and I suffocate. Eeuww. The third character is a replacement for the Horn-rimmed guy, a new bastard that goes around kidnapping people who have abilities so that they can "teach" said people how to use their powers. Which really means they're in for a nice restricted schedule and possibly some expiraments resulting in death. But that's okay, because he died of a brain hemorrage thanks to our nice Mr. Postal Worker. Or he would have if the Constrictor hadn't shot him in the head to end his misery.

In part two we see that Echo has run home and inadvertently led the Constrictor to his house. Echo's girlfriend, Gina, ends up being a hostage, but thanks to the Constrictor who happens to be covering her ears, Echo is able to use his newfound eardrum blowing abilities to save her from possible death. The beginning of his downfall... he holds the Constrictor's head up and says, "Now for the fun part."

Dun dun dunnnnnnnn.

Perhaps this is why season 3 of Heroes has been named "Villains." Did we just meet our new super villain? Won't know until 07/28 when the next Webisode is released. Frikkin' network and their marketing schemes. I don't want to wait another week to see who knocked on that damn door!

I'll reserve official judgment for when I can see the episode in its entirety, but so far it looks like I'd give it four stars.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Dark Knight


Say it with me everybody: "WIN."

The Joker was just... I mean... omg Heath, why did you have to die?... that performance was beyond spectacular. It wasn't the Joker of old played by Jack Nicholson, not the Joker who's crazy in a sane, sort of sadistic way. No. This was a Joker that was insane in an "I'm batshit crazy and I just enjoy the carnage" kind of way. He had facial tics (remember how his tongue was always darting to the side to feel his razor cuts?), he had a different explanation of the scars for each person and he was sincere about them all, that laugh was creepy and authentic, and... just... I mean... gah! He was nuts. And awesome.

"I'm like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. I just do things."

Win, win, win.

That said, I'm not entirely sure that I'm a fan of Christian Bale as the Batman. He's perfectly fine as Bruce Wayne. I like him in that role. But as Batman... did anyone else think that voice change was a little over the top? I wasn't fond of it in the first movie, either. It's just too fake. Too much of an obvious effort. I understand Batman doesn't want his voice recognized but come on.

Harvey Dent? Good God. Another excellent performance, and nice job with the Two-Face graphics. The only inconsistancy I could spot was the fact that his left eye always looked moist (if a little bloodshot, heh) despite no longer having an eyelid. I also didn't expect the Scarecrow to make a cameo.

Anyway, good plot, excellent characters, and I got to see it all on a big IMAX screen. Neener!

All the way around good movie, and I am so buying this one on DVD.


~Sass~

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

On Moods and Revising

Or How Not to Go Completely Insane

My ever so patient crit buddy Carla was kind enough to link me a blog post about the effect of revisions on a writer. I couldn't have put it better myself!

Writing a novel, a love story

And linked within that one, Bad writing days.

Also somewhat related, I had an urge to listen to something nastalgic today. Some album from the '90s I used to listen to all the time. So I thought about it, and thought about it, and... oh! Jagged Little Pill. I listened to that almost every day for almost a year when I was in high school (shut up, I know that dates me). So I do a search on the free streaming part of Napster and put on my headphones.

Dear God.

I already knew that certain albums and songs had a tendency to affect my mood. Listening to late '90s Korn and (oddly) the Queen of the Damned soundtrack tends to get me in the mindset to be motivated and energetic. The Cranberries make me feel at peace. (I know. I know that's weird. There is an explanation, I swear.)

But, Jagged Little Pill... I don't know what happened. I couldn't even make it all the way through the first song before my mood plummetted straight into depression mode. It was alarming. Scary, even. I turned it off and a few minutes later I was fine. I wasn't aware that any kind of music could do that to me.

Apparently I tend to associate often played music with certain time periods and moods in my life. The Cranberries make me calm because it reminds me of my younger days and reading things like Lord of the Rings. Happy times. Korn makes me feel like a fighter, and by that I don't mean I feel like punching someone. No, it makes me feel like the world is mine, I can do anything, and to hell with anyone who thinks I can't (I may have been listening to that shortly after my breakup with an ex). The Queen of the Damned soundtrack usually puts me into concentration mode. I pay attention better, I get things done faster, and I'm just overall more efficient. That's because I brought the CD to work with me one day and was completely in the zone at that point. It stuck.

Which means that year in high school listening to Jagged Little Pill must have been a bad one. I've never before had music send me so far down, so fast. I mean, I can listen to sad music and it'll take a while for me to feel melancholy. But this... I don't know what happened. Odd thing is if one of the songs from that album gets stuck in my head it doesn't have the same effect. I have to be listening to it for the mood swing to happen.

Strange, I tell you.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed the same thing. Hmm.

Quote of the day:

(Idiocracy)
Pvt. Joe Bowers: What *are* these electrolytes? Do you even know?
Secretary of State: They're... what they use to make Brawndo!
Pvt. Joe Bowers: But *why* do they use them to make Brawndo?
Secretary of Defense: [raises hand after a pause] Because Brawndo's got electrolytes.


~Sass~

Monday, July 14, 2008

Sass: 1 River: 0

On Saturday my sister, two cousins, husband, and myself drove up the mountain for a little outdoors action. We walked along Piney Lake for a while and took a zillion pictures, all of which I'm sure will be on Facebook within the next few days, and scared my younger cousin by driving along the outside edge of the road. She's scared of heights, apparently. Which she didn't even know until we drove up the mountain. After that we grabbed a quick sandwich and headed for the water. Rafting, here we come!

A lot of other people had the same idea because there were rafts everywhere shortly after we arrived. We pulled off I-70 somewhere to put in (I think we were rafting the Colorado?), and our friend the rafting guide explained the ins and outs of rafting to us poor noobs. We made sure our life jackets and helmets were secure and readied ourselves to tackle what we thought were class 2 and 3 rapids. At the last second we were joined by a tag-along wife who wanted to float down the river with us, since her husband was in a kayak and obviously had no room for her. He agreed to be our safety boat in return.

Mind you, I was nervous. I hadn't been rafting since middle school. There was a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was going to go swimming this trip. Only half joking, I said "yeah, I am so going to fall out."

Yeah. I fell out. Along with five other people in the raft.

We were going along nicely at the beginning. There were two sets of rapids -- I think, I'll get to that in a minute -- and we were cruising right through the first set, laughing and cheering as we were splashed with water. Our friend did his best to guide us through but we hit an unlucky wave. As we discovered much later in the day, the water was at such a high level and running so fast, we were actually going over class 4 rapids, which were way out of our league. Anyway, we were unfortunate enough to run over a small dip in the water (a rock, for those of you in the know) and caught a rollback wave. The raft is capable of surfing anything it comes across, but the problem with that is it's at the mercy of the wave, and the wave was a sharp dip down followed by a major backwards rotation.

Of course, I think we all saw it coming at the last second, and my brain had enough time to think "oh boy" before we hit it. I thought I was going to fall forward when we dipped down and prepared for it. Our friend yelled "high side," but at that point it was too late. Turns out we had so much momentum the raft bucked the other way and sent 6 out of 7 backwards into the water.

Holy shit, the Sass is now body surfing class 4 rapids.

It was then I figured out I am one of those people that remains calm during an emergency. After landing on my older cousin and pushing myself free of him, I immediately went into high gear. Our buddy the rafting guide had told us to keep our feet in front to take the impact of any upcoming rocks, and if we were close to the raft to try and stay close so we could be pulled back in. If we weren't close to the raft we needed to try and make it to shore. If we could hold on to our paddles that was even better, because someone could use it to help pull us in. I couldn't see shit due to the waves, so I fought the current and got my feet out in front of me.

This is the part I'm proud of. I knew, I knew, if I panicked I was going to swallow more water than air, so I fought the urge to gasp any time my mouth was free and waited until after the waves rolled over me to take short breaths. At one point I must have hit another snarl of rocks, because the water spun me around and sucked me under head first. I felt my life jacket scrape rock and I was held under there for a moment, but my feet found a surface and I pushed as hard as I could. I shot out of the water and took another breath of air. After that the water calmed to the point where I could actually see, and I saw that I was still with the raft, though now a little ahead of it where I'd been behind it before.

Someone offered me the handle of their paddle. I thought, holy shit I still have my own paddle, and reached out with it too. Someone took it. They got a hold of the straps of my life jacket and pulled me in. Of course, my pants were down in the back from being pulled by the water, so I mooned everyone and their brother coming out of the water. Did I care? Not so much. I collapsed in the middle of the raft, shaking and gasping and glad I made it out of the water. Moments later my younger cousin was pulled on top of me.

Our buddy the rafting guide was yelling for us to get up and paddle. I didn't feel it, but I guess we went over a rock which I later learned was named "Tombstone." He wanted us to get up and paddle so we wouldn't be dumped again, but luckily we hit that rock at a favorable angle and didn't tip a second time. I kept asking my cousin to get off of my leg, but she thought I was on top of her, not the other way around, which should tell you how disoriented she was.

Anyway, we all got our shaky selves back into sitting positions with the paddles. There was a moment of relief, and then my younger cousin said, "Omigod, where's Stephanie?"

My sister was not in the raft.

I felt oddly calm at that point. Someone mentioned they'd seen her go ashore, and I just looked around to make sure there wasn't another helmet bobbing along somewhere. I didn't think my sister was hurt, I knew/hoped she wasn't, that bad feeling from earlier was gone, but I was worried because I didn't know where she'd gotten out of the water, or if she was even out of the water yet. Did she pass us?

We pulled ashore ASAP and all but me and our buddy the rafting guide ran up along the bike path back the way we came to go look for her. I felt a need to take a break from the water so I climbed out onto a rock, which was a lot harder than it should have been. I was shakier than I realized. Our friend went ahead to check the next set of rapids (which I later learned were called "Maneater," omg!) to see if we'd need to pull the raft past it or not. He came back and said it looked okay, but we both got anxious waiting so he tied the raft and we went up the bike path.

He didn't say so, but he was shaken. His hand wavered any time he offered me water, though he was certainly walking a lot faster than I was. I was still wobbly, and I kind of felt like I wanted to puke. I was also thirsty because I was still breathing kind of hard. But I kept walking... and walking... and walking... and what the hell, how far up did we fall out?... and we eventually saw everyone come around the corner along with my sister. She'd been walking back to where we started because she didn't know where to go. But...

We'd fallen out over a quarter of a mile up the river. A quarter mile. I surfed a quarter of a mile of class 3 and 4 rapids out of the raft. I was damned lucky I hadn't hit any rocks. There were a lot of rocks in that stretch of river.

Anyway, I relaxed when I saw my sister. I guess my younger cousin was in tears when she saw Steph, and my older cousin was probably literally shocked into silence, because Mr. Jokesalot said nothing on the walk back. My sister got back and was like yeah I almost drowned but I'm okay. Smile on her face. Dismissive wave. That's my sis. Hell, she even managed to save her sunglasses. Out of all 6 of us she was the only one to swim to shore, and she did it with style to boot.

So, our buddy the rafting guide managed to stay in the raft, my husband was pulled in first, the tag-along wife came in second (pulled herself in, and we later found out she'd already swam class 6 rapids earlier in the day... crazy woman), my sister made it to shore sometime between the first couple of people back in the raft, they got my older cousin in after the crazy lady, pulled me in, and got my younger cousin last (who had apparently spent some quality time under the raft for half that experience. eek!).

My cousins, my sis, and I walked past the next rapids and got back into the raft after that for some calmer class 1 and 2 stuff. We broke out the beers and had a blast the rest of the way down. It was very pretty. There was even something called a Hippy Dip, which was an area with a natural hot spring that drained right into the river. (Called a hippy dip because it was free.) We stopped there for a leisurely soak, and ten minutes down from that we got out of the water and agreed that was the most fun we'd had all week.

And then we pigged out on pizza later. We kept finding random bruises, teased each other, and agreed we'd have a good story to tell our grandkids. I ended up with a scraped and bruised left butt cheek and hip, a bruise under my right arm from where it had rubbed the corner of my flotation device, and a strange bruise on the right side (the inside) of my left wrist. I figure I got the butt bruise from when I felt my life jacket scrape rock, either that or I got it when I first fell out, because I fell on that side, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I got the wrist bruise. If I was going to bruise there, I figured it would be on the top, bottom, or outside side, not the inside. Awkward angle. Oh well.

Anyway, fun times were had by all, and turns out Sass is capable of remaining calm and clear-headed in emergencies. Go me!

Quote of the day:

(Army of Darkness)
Ash: Clatto Verata N... Necktie... Nickel... It's an "N" word, it's definitely an "N" word!


~Sass~

Friday, July 11, 2008

Frikkin' Hormones


Those wonderful things in your body that regulate emotion and bodily function. Annoying little bastards, aren't they?

There was a scene I wrote in chapter um... something... (I'll look it up here in a second)... where my MC is experiencing a particularly strong surge of them due to her blooming lycanthropy and a recently passed full moon. Her emotions are all over the place, and she is understandably frustrated.

I'd forgotten what that feels like until just now.

As some of you may have guessed, it's about that time, and those of you with boobs may even know the feeling I'm talking about. Due to our company being bought out, relatives visiting, and a few more bills looming than I'd really like to have, my stress levels are already somewhat elevated. Mix that in with a hormone surge and some general fatigue due to bodily function and you can imagine Teh Sass is not having a very fun day.

Hell, I asked for tips for stress management and someone said chocolate. My eyes actually teared up at the thought of eating chocolate. I wanted some that badly (which I didn't realize until she said something, of course).

Even more frustrating is *knowing* that the hormone surges are causing my moodiness. I recognize the problem, but I can't fix the problem. I can lessen its symptoms, but that's about it. I have to wait for it to go away on its own. In the mean time I try not to snap at people and remind myself that it's Friday, and by God, I will be leaving work early today.

(... and of course the reports I work from are delayed this morning, why wouldn't they be? ...)

So anyway, in other news, I haven't had a chance to revise anything this week. Family does that to a person. I figure when they leave I will have to work at a pace of about 1 chapter every 2 days in order to be finished by the end of the month like I'd planned. That might not sound so bad, except I know for a fact there are some scenes that need to be re-written, and I just don't work that quickly. My evenings for the next coupla weeks are starting to look a little booked.

One good thing is that I saw this moodiness coming and went to the bookstore yesterday for a counter-attack. Nothing feels quite so good as having a newly printed book in my hands. So I got three. One's pretty good so far, I'll come back and tell you about it later in a different post.

So. Yeah. Oh! I started a LiveJournal. Want to know what it's called? I bet you can't guess. Well, okay, maybe you can.

A LiveJournal, I Has One

I know, right? But here's the subtext:

"Let's see if I can kill it."

Cheeky. Full of spunk. I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with it, but I like the fact that it has privacy settings for all the posts. If I so chose, I could make it so that they only appear to me, which is a fantastic place to store notes and things. Part of me feels a need to roleplay over there as something other than a ninja bunny (the kickass wolf icon might have helped that thought).

Anyway, I have a need to go raid the free bagels in the hall. Excuse me while I go gorge myself.

Quote of the day:

(Lucky Number Slevin)
Lindsey: I was thinking that if you're still alive when I get back from work tonight... maybe we could go out to dinner or something?


~Sass~

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Author Advocates Legal Defense Fund

Those of you who aren't writers probably haven't heard of this, and a lot of you who are writers probably haven't heard about it either, so here I go posting about it.

There is one Barbara Bauer, a practicing literary agent, who has filed suit against Wikimedia and a number of individuals, including the hosts of my beloved writer's forum hangout on AbsoluteWrite. Here are the cliff notes:

Babs claims her reputation is being ruined and she is losing business due to those in the online community who have spoken out against her practices. (More details on that are sprinkled via hyperlink throughout this post.) She has been listed on things like the Top Twenty Worse Agents list on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's of America site, as well as spawning a specific thread in the Background and Bewares section of AbsoluteWrite with nearly 200 responses. There are even some humorous takes on the situation, such as a mock up of the potential court proceedings involving Miss Snark. Long story short, this case is rippling throughout the writing community.

Basically, it is really expensive to defend against a claim like this, and as such there has been an Author Advocate Defense Fund set up to help the 19 or so people involved pay for their legal fees. After about -- what is it, nine months and running? -- those fees get pretty hefty.

Please donate, and if you can't donate, spread the word!


Some other links of interest:

The Writer Beware blog
The Writer Beware site (a must read for any author!)
AbsoluteWrite's entire sub forum of Bewares and Background Checks


Bloggers that have posted about the Author Advocate Legal Defense Fund:
Lee
Dawno
Rosemerry
Auria (plus a follow up on the case)
Sara
Neil Gaiman
newroticgirl
Jane Smith
James Nicoll
John Scalzi
Jenifer
Charles Stross


~Sass~

Optical Illusion

Someone showed this to me yesterday and I had to share.

Which way does she spin for you?



According to this site, you see her spin a different direction depending on which side of your gray matter is dominant. I see her spin both ways, but she spins clockwise for me by default. Apparently this means I'm a little right brain dominant, or put simply, I'm more creatively focused. People that see her spin counter-clockwise are apparently more logical. Left brain dominant.

So does that mean those of us who can see her go both directions are superior beings able to channel the full potential of our brains? Yes. Yes, it does. (Okay not really but I'd like to think so anyway because it makes me feel speshel. So there.)

Interesting little tidbit for those of you that can see her spin both ways... notice that when she spins clockwise her right foot is in the air, but when she spins counter-clockwise her left foot is in the air.

Pretty frikkin' sweet, eh?

If you're now fascinated with the right vs left brain thing, and this image didn't quite do it for you, you can take a 50 question test to confirm which side is dominant, or continue hitting the "next" button on the SWITCHED site. Some of them are very eye strain inducing!

Or you can just keep staring at the naked woman. Shh, I won't tell!

Quote of the day:

(The Incredibles)
Edna: [to Mr. Incredible] My God, you've gotten fat.


~Sass~

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Outlines

Lots of periodic discussion about outlines amongst the writers. It's always the classic debate - do you outline, and why? Some people don't. Some people do. The answer seems to be as random as the writers themselves.

Do I outline? Not really. But kind of. Lemme 'splain.

I don't do traditional outlines. There are no pieces of paper with bullet points, or horizontal timelines with little explanatory offshoots, or synopsis-like paragraphs explaining where the hell I'm going with my writing. Hell, I tried doing one page character summaries/biographies and besides the name and some general characteristics I didn't even stick to those. (I didn't even use a couple of the characters!) What do I do, then, that could be considered outlining?

Well, I usually know what I want to happen to certain characters. I might not know the when but I generally know the what, and the rest of it comes later. For example, on my current werewolf thing that I'm trying to revise, when I was writing the story I knew a couple of things. Number one, it was a Thursday night when the story started. Number two, the full moon was going to be the following Tuesday. I knew I wanted an attack to happen sometime right around the full moon, but I didn't have the exact time pegged, nor did I know yet who I wanted to be the attacker. I started with that general idea in mind and just let the characters flow onto the page.

As I wrote I got more ideas for the characters. Early on I started thinking a death needed to happen. Did I know who I wanted to die? No. Did I know when? No. So I kept writing. It came to me about halfway through the book, and so I generally wrote the story with that future event in mind, and it didn't happen until the last few chapters. I wrote a bad guy into the story, but I didn't yet know his identity. (He appears as a werewolf through most of the story so I had wiggle room to decide what person he was as a human.) As I continued I got other ideas, like how my character's ex-boyfriend could contribute more to the story, how I could squeeze certain events into the narration, how I could give all of my characters just a little more depth...

And you know, the story turned out okay. It turned out more than okay. It certainly turned out way better than I thought it was going to. And I did it without a traditional outline.

I won't lie, I sometimes had to go back and tweak things as I got new ideas. But you know, I figure that would have happened anyway even with the outline. If I wrote an outline to the point of knowing each step the characters would take as I wrote, I wouldn't follow it. Why then would I want to take so much effort making an outline I already knew I probably wouldn't follow?

So I stick to my "kind of" statement. I plan with a general idea, and write towards that goal, but I don't organize myself into a rut.

Someone mentioned the left vs right brain thing. I don't know that it relates to the writing. Hell, I don't even remember which side of the brain is which. I do know that I'm right hand and right eye dominant, and when I feel the need I'm extremely OCD about being organized (the shirts in my closet are organized by type, tshirt to long sleeve to sweatshirt, etc, and used to be arranged in rainbow order), but at the same time I don't like to over-organize my writing and my house is in a constant state of disaster. Whatever that is, it's contradictory. LoL.



Quote of the day:

(The Whole Nine Yards)
Jimmy: I'm telling you this like a friend because if you screw this up - I would hate to... I would really hate to have to kill you. I would hate it more than mayonnaise. You know how much I hate mayonnaise.


~Sass~

Friday, July 4, 2008

Happy 4th!

It's that time of year again! Hamburgers, hotdogs, illegal fireworks, hot weather, and best of all... paid vacation. Oh yeah.

My husband had his appendix out on Tuesday and he's recovering nicely, but I highly doubt he's going to feel up for taking a walk/drive to someplace where we can see the pretty explosions in the sky. Best we can probably do is see if any fireworks are visible from the backyard, but even then, I don't know that he'd want to sit in a lawn chair for that long. Might aggravate his stitches. Oddly enough, I'm okay with this. I don't feel a horrible urge to see fireworks this year. Would much rather keep working on my novel (I can has finished??).

Or clean the house, which I was supposed to be doing yesterday and didn't. Oops. There's only so long I can procrastinate when my sister and two of my cousins are coming to stay from Tuesday to Sunday. I did get most of the dishes done, though! (Hush you... that counts.)

So I'm making pretty good progress with my revisions. I'm nearly to the halfway point in the novel and it's picking up speed (mostly because the really exciting stuff is happening and I'm more motivated to get it done). I really hope I can get the whole thing done sometime this month. I want to put the damned thing away and work on another project for a while. Got ideas floatin' around that need to be realized on paper! Or in a word processor. Whichever happens to be available.

Alright, time to get up off my butt and go do something. I leave you with this funtastic quote:


The Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Um... I think so, Brain, but what if the chicken won't wear the nylons?


~Sass~