Cappuccino Is My Best Friend

This is an image that keeps me sane and holy in this world - the cappuccino I had this morning.  Sadly, it wasn't a Starbucks *tear*, but it was quite tasty. Despite the gas valve on my car not clicking off while I was getting it, therefore flooding the ground with $15 of unused gas - a small part of me still believes it was worth it.

Now, after being up since 4:30, devouring a cappuccino and a Mt. Dew, I can feel the caffeine high dripping slowly out of my system, leaving my arms limp and sleepy.  Yes, my arms get sleepy, they didn't get enough rest last night and are very sensitive to moonlight. (similar to werewolves, but not as hairy)

This Writing Conference is long...really really long.  I have precisely 8 minutes before the 3rd Workshop and all I really want to do is find my hotel room and curl up in my bed.  Do I want to fix all 98 problems from the two pages of my story, that we critiqued around 7 am this morning?  Not in the least.  Do I ever want to look at my story again? I'm having my doubts.  Did the five minute inspirational Powerpoint they showed at 11 am help inspire me to become Legendary - yes, but I'll think about that tomorrow :P Damn, I may need another soda to keep me alive for the next two hours...two hours...TWO HOURS...how will I ever survive? :P

J/K - I'm lovin' it! *wink* :P

There's Something About Maud...

When I was nine years old my mother bought me the Anne of Green Gables bookset. She was excited over the idea that I read it, although she had never read it herself.  I suspect she thought it would be nice to get me involved with the classics.  I picked up the first book and read a few pages...dull...boring.  I put it down.
Over the next few months I remember picking up the book and starring at the girl with freckles and long red braids and thinking how utterly happy she looked - cheesy even. Not my kind of book.  Too many words.  When I was five I had furiously fought against reading and although it was four years later, a book of an entire 307 pages seemed like an eternity. I shook my head, I would likely never come to understand why the red-headed girl was so happy.

Sometime later I picked up the book and started reading.  Before I knew it I was half-way through the book, laughing over the most common of bonds - school, friendships, crushes.  This was my world, but in a most softer calmer tone.  It was wholesome and told of days when women wore aprons and girls had braids in their hair and had to wear hats to "keep their complexion", something I surmised must have been their skin-color.  The world of Anne opened up wide for me, embracing me in the arms of a childhood that no longer existed.  I was homeschooled in fear of government propaganda and potential kidnapping.  My family was paranoid the end of the world was coming, but somehow in this lovely world the people had no fears like that.  They worried over things like their hens not laying or their harvest not being gathered.  They were afraid the heathen would die unchristian and had things like collection boxes and foreign missions to Africa.

I came to love Anne in the way she wanted to be loved, for her childhood naivety and her simple love of beauty.  Some have told me Anne of Green Gables was a romance, I laugh at that.  Anne is a true painting of an entire world that doesn't exist.  The books were never solely about Anne...no...no...no, they were about Marilla and her lack of forgiveness, they were about Matthew and his love of solitude, they were about Rachel Lynde and her never-forgotten gossip-lust.  They were about a million other characters, men and women, and their simple natures, their loves and losts, their hates and quarrels, and about a world without TV and Ipods, but also without murder, rape, mutilations and all the other fears that plague us daily.

Over the years, I did become obsessed with Maud.  To this day, those who aren't kindred spirits have still laughed when I tell them my favorite author is Maud, but they are not part of "the race that knows Joseph".  They don't know what Miss Cornelia did after Marshall Elliott cut his hair, or have dreamed of what the long hair of haunting Leslie Moore looked like.  They have never laughed over the funny thought of Gog and Magog flanking the dearest of fireplaces, nor have they thought of Little Nan Blythe crying over the thought that her mother isn't her mother.

Then, they never cried when Matthew died or refused to give up hope when Little Jem went missing.  They never heard the Piper's call or imagine Walter following it.  They never dreamed of the small frog the Japanese Prince gave to Emily or what would have happened if Emily and Teddy had never picked stars together.

Maud's books are romantic, poetic, tragic, dramatic, sweet, sarcastic, but most of all I think of them as real. Her characters lived and breathed somewhere and she understood the human spirit more than any other writer.  I don't believe in love at first sight, but Peter Penhallow and Donna Dark certainly did.   I haven't lived in a lighthouse but I feel as though I've looked out across the sea waiting for Lost Margaret like Captain Jim. I remember Marigold, terrified of great-grandmother, but obediently using her name - Edith.

  Her stories aren't all love stories.  Nothing brings me the aching yearning to just wander the shores and forests of nature like reading a Maud book. Maud isn't a romance - she's a love story - love of life and happiness and LIVING.  What more would Valancy, who understood better than any of us, tell us about life?  "Live every day to the fullest and wait for that bend in the road." That was what Maud wrote about. If I could design heaven it would be the inside of a Maud book.

Chocolate

Aw...yes...the joys of chocolate.

Chocolate and I first became friends when I was a teenager.  As a small child we were mildly acquainted, but the relationship didn't really take off until Aunt Flo came to visit on her regular schedule.  Up until that time Chocolate was just an ordinary treat - I actually had a preference for pink colored ice cream with yellow and blue dots.  The lust for chocolate grew as my taste became more developed.

Lindor balls were my first love affair.  Their hard but creamy outside could easily be smoothed into a delicious liquid of ultimate perfection, cherished for a solid five minutes. After sucking on one the world seemed a better, sweeter, brighter place filled with endless possibilities and hopeful awakenings.  Lindor Balls are one of the greatest chocolate creations - simply perfection.

From there the ripe impression of chocolate became an addiction that was nearly impossible to deny.  On normal days it was just a background voice, calling to me subtly, but as Aunt Flo arrived, a ravenous hunger seemed to come with her, and both of us would frantically search the halls of the local supermarket, unearthing quarters within the confines of the couch just to feed the craving beast.

Since then chocolate refreshments seem almost a requirement, but more forms are now permitted.  Ranging from the cheap and icky (snickers bar) to the more refined and elegant (ferrer rochers) chocolate in most of its forms can be consumed for the survival of all womankind out there. This relationship has been considered sacred since the dawn of time (or at least the 20th Century).  Guilt is a necessary part of this relationship, we all know that without it Chocolate wouldn't taste so good. 

Brushing Your Teeth

The weirdest thing happened to me today.  I went to go pick up my toothbrush and as I did, I consciously looked at all the toothbrushes in our toothbrush holder and realized I didn't distinctly remember which was mine.  The one I grabbed I hoped was mine, I recognized it, but I wasn't certain.  I felt as though the toothbrush gods were trying to leave a veil over my mind and the memories my brush and I shared together were gone forever.  Then I remembered that was definitely my toothbrush.

Apples...

Today, I'm going to be blogging about Apples.  Apples are not one of my favorite fruits.  They are probably not even one of my top five favorite fruits, but they look simply lovely in this picture.  I think apples, especially large ones are far too large for one sitting.  I find that I usually have to cut them in pieces and share them with my daughter (or guinea pigs, who simply love them). I do enjoy them with peanut butter (something that was introduced to me, not by my peanut butter loving father, but from one of my best friends when I was in my twenties (I was truly awed by the goodness thereof).  I do like them cut up and put in pancakes occasionally, and I also like them with cinnamon. Generally though, I much prefer peaches.

The Wrath of Psychological English Contemplations

Happily skipping through the joy of writing the second book in my trilogy (the first of which I have not published, but have sent out to my writing club for analysis) I came across some intense blogs.  I'll note that they were highly useful (mainly because the keepers of said blogs are now followers, so my natural insanity is not intended to reflect badly upon them or their attempts at assisting us with writing concepts) to the general populace, I'm sure, but to me a psychotically-obsessed-occasionally-diluted-insomniatic-writer I found that I started second guessing everything.  Here, take a seat, I will tell you the story, in my own font :P

 I like to stay on top of blogs that I find particularly informative, especially when it comes to writing techniques. Often, I find myself nodding my head in agreement over some little used concept and frantically taking notes on how to improve it in my own writing.  A lot of the time it's about word count, or choosing genre or improving query letters, all things that made sense to me after only a short review.  Then I came across the dreaded SHOW VS. TELL *insert terrified shriek here*

I read a blog that led me to one, then two and then a third link all explaining this mystifying concept of show vs. tell.  It was truly horrifying because, although I like to view myself as a well-adjusted-mildly-educated-objectively-contemplative-adult-woman, I realized that I had no idea whatsoever what the stupid Show vs. Tell was. BLAH. Show - so, you show things are happening?  Tell - so you tell about those things happening?  But if your writing, isn't all of your telling also showing and all of your showing also telling, because technically you are telling the reader everything, and in that they are being shown what is happening and therefore you are using show and tell simultaneously?  How in heavens name am I ever to separate the two? *hands over kleenex and tylenol, proceeds to pull out hair in frustration, as shown in picture below*

 

If it hasn't occurred to you, I am a handicapped over-thinker. As the dust cleared I realized I needed some simple examples, which I found on a corresponding website, which I also posted an appreciative comment on (thank you mysterious blog person! You are awesome in your simplicity). From there unfortunately, the damage was done.  I was haunted late at night over the affects of this small passage, pointed out by some dude in Colorado: 

Then, in a totally unexpected move, the black wings spread wide and it circled into the air…

VS

The tiny insect-crawl of the second hand was the last thing she saw before the lights went out.

Brilliant isn't it?  Yes, the second sentence literally took my breath away I was awed by it so.  That sentence alone kept me up at nights, biting my nails furiously as I stared at my untouched computer.  I knew I was not that brilliant, and my story was severely filled with TELLING and not SHOWING.  It horrified me, the poor pathetic multi-re-written and sadly-abused manuscript now had failed at one of the greatest things I could possibly have given it...the life was literally sucked out of the whole endeavor, leaving only a throbbing pain in my heart, a reminder of what could have been but never would be, because I had overlooked the intense importance of Show vs. Tell.  

O, black devil of English Writing Techniques, why is it you haunted me when my ignorant bliss was so joyful without your cold dark hand on my heart? *sniffles*

Like the complete lack of Edward in New Moon, my life too became empty, hour after hour I sat, avoiding even the smallest stares from my small black laptop.  My work was over before it even began and I was doooomed...DOOOOMED...I say!...to failure. 

I could not bear to look at it, nay even touch it for the atrocity I had committed.  I was forced to actually do housework and check my mailbox yet again because of all the free time I had on my hands.  

And then...the fear faded and I risked a glimpse a peek at my sadly beloved.  The words I stared at, glancing over my computerized manuscript...weeping over the time I had denied it over the past few days.  My eyes fell upon a sentence...and then another...and another...all of which were actually showing instead of just telling. My breathing slowed and I steadied.  Excitement replaced the fear and intense agony I had been enveloped only moments before.

I WAS SHOWING NOT TELLING!!!!

Again, I could pick up my black laptop and together it and I shall finish my book!!!! *JOY and BLISS all around*

And, thus I come to an end of my story.  My manuscript is far from perfect, and I'm certain years from now I will laugh at my own naive' writing, but today I am proud of it!  What more could an aspiring writer ask for?!

 

Confusion in the Ranks

Yeah, I know that's not the right cliche, but as many people have told me I'm terrible with cliches, seriously.  My brother still makes fun of me because instead of "recipe for disaster" I said "conglomeration for destruction" I know, I suck.  If you do know what this cliche is supposed to be, please comment, it's going to bother me for a while :P Unfortunately I can't wiki what I don't know :(.  On to the reason for this post.

This morning, while having an extremely weird dream (which involved Michael Landon from Little House on the Prairie, hugging me and saying "I've missed you so much Gorda May (ugh! Worst name in the WORLD, sorry all you Gorda Mays) and then being licked by some celebrity (really weird I know) I was woken up by the sound of my front bell ringing.  I had taken an allergy pill last night so for once my slumber was quite deep, and the lack of a six year old added to the pleasantness of it. Thus, when I emerged out of bed, dragging my half sleeping body towards the front door with memories of Michael Landon still fresh in my mind, I'm certain I terrified the poor boys who were waiting there. Boy scouts...DAMN the boy scouts.


Those poor kids.  They looked terrified, and sad thing I knew them. I see them every week in church, but I was so groggy I had no idea what their names were.  I stared at them in a stupor of fog and mumbled something about "just waking up".  Yeah, they scurried away.  They probably will tell their moms that I was still asleep at 9 am.  Curse the Boy Scouts of America...let me sleep damn you!

After that I couldn't sleep. 10:00 rolls around and I get a call from Sandra.  She tells me her daughter won't be at soccer today.  Like I care.  Oh wait, I think I registered my daughter for soccer too, too bad she's with her dad this weekend. So I call Sandra and she's like "oh, I called you because it says you are the coach." I laugh.  Seriously.  I kept laughing.  I played a game of soccer - once, for PE - in 5th grade, when I was eleven. That is the extend of my soccer abilities.  In fact that was the only year I played any sports.  I'm more of a TV/reading person. Oh well, coaching could be nice.

So, I rush down to the field which is in a town about 20 minutes away. The entire way there I'm psyching myself into accepting this chance at being a coach for an actual sport.  I nearly had a Braveheart speech ready by the time I got there. I walk on the field wearing sun glasses and hoping no one notices I didn't shower yet today.
  I try to look as cool as possible, I had been listening to rock and roll in the car and I was pumped.  I saunter onto the field, my intimidating reach of 4'11'' obviously will gain some sort of respect.  I'll round those little kiddies up and we'll have a go at kicking balls into hoops or whatever the hell soccer players do. Of course, the parents are all sitting in lawn chairs starring at their kids running around, kicking a ball.  A few junior high students are helping them out.  I ask for the chick in charge, (diane) but no one has seen her.  No one knows where anyone is.  No one has any idea what is going on, they are just watching their kids, hoping that's the coach.  I stand back and stare, completely deflated and at a loss as to what to do.  I don't even have a kid I can shove out onto the field and pretend I know what the hell I'm doing. 
I feel like I still haven't woken up fully and am looking around for Michael Landon to call me Gorda May again. 

Oh well.  I turn around and leave.  I'll talk to the soccer lady later. Maybe she'll explain why my name was on her website as a coach but no one told me first.  I don't care anymore.  I just want to go home and sleep :P