Protagonist or Antagonist?

I was reading a forum post on the NaNoWriMo forums about villainous motives and considered my current characters and their motives.

Note, I say 'characters', not 'villains' or 'antagonists' because for my upcoming story, the antagonist is a faceless apparition of evil. I think I liked the title they gave Ganon in Ocarina of Time: "Evil Incarnation of Darkness", too much. If the monster at the end of the tunnel is just evil, has no body, no emotions, but is a concept unto itself, it makes it easier to work with.

My characters on the other hand are half villainous themselves. They have fatal flaws that color their perception of the world. Not in a ridiculous fashion but they have anger issues, are controlling, are filled with self-doubt. They're working for money, for fame, for something they cannot tell the other characters about, because doing so would admit something about themselves they find embarrassing.

In the same way I create my villains. They have families and assets they want to protect. They want to live out their lives peacefully, even if no one else will let them. In certain situations they may be aligned with the values the heroes. People can't simply be evil for the sake of being evil. That's why so many people like the concept of fantasy races, they can be truly evil unlike a human, until you remember they have to love and reproduce like any other living creature.

My villain this year is my hero, depending on what side you're on. The eldritch abomination will attempt to foster friendship between him and people who disagree with his goal, the same people who are purposed entirely with preventing his goal from coming to fruition, but mortals have free will, something the abomination doesn't understand. The characters can make their own choice to help or hinder.

-X

Having a Life

I haven't been posting as much as I once did. Moaning about how much everything sucks hasn't been as  much of an issue as it used to be, so being here isn't as important. I like to think that now I have a life, as I suggested in my last GOALS post back nearly a year ago.

Since I make those goals, I got a job. Not one that pays enough or uses my abilities enough, but a job nonetheless. I need another job or a better job. This is fact and cannot wait another day to happen. I need it now. I don't think I've made it clear my situation on this blog, but I am very, very poor. I don't want to talk about that, which is another reason I don't post here as often as I would like. Some things, like reviewing books and movies, requires me to see or read them first, and I can't go out to do that as soon as something comes out. I think I may be the only geek left that hasn't seen The Avengers yet. I waiting to see it for free.

I haven't lost weight. I lost some when I first started work, but I regained it when my hours were cut during the off-season. I am stupidly fat, possibly the fattest I have ever been. I refuse to continue to be fat.

I want to keep writing but more importantly I want to make what I have written better so that I might be able to make a profit off of it. My way of looking at hobbies is something I would be happy spending the rest of my life doing. That's why I majored in theatre instead of business. I could write for the rest of my life and I would be happy.

So here we are:

• Get a life
• Get another (better) job
• Become fit
• Exercise
• Lose weight
• Write
• edit an already written work
• write a low budget screenplay

Outlining fail

I had this great idea. I was going to outline for my next random work that will never see the light of day (probably) I would do one of the classics. I would write short notes on Post-Its and stick them on my wall in order of when they go. Multiple columns, one for each character (or in one case, a group of characters). It would help me organize and plan this story beyond the prologue (I know what the prologue is).

So I put up enough for the prologue and then looked back to my laptop for ten minutes. A post it flutters down.

There are only ten post its on my wall and they are already falling off. Either my post its are defective or my wall is. Can you imagine if I actually continue this through the entire story? Chaos and pandemonium of pink (color of my post its) across my floor. More pandemonium than usual.

They continue to fall as I write this. What am I doing wrong? No one ever reported that you need a special wall to use post its. The one sitting on my laptop screen seems to be doing okay, why not my wall.

Sadly, this is how it often happens with me and new and improved ways to do simple tasks. It just doesn't work for me. Maybe I'll try large sheets of paper and markers next.

-X

Xander and the Case of the Awful NaNoWriMo Plot

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that I finished NaNoWriMo 2011. The bad news is that it sucks. Really really really bad.

I know, everyone says this but this is the first time I haven't wanted to finish the story. I didn't have a plot I really liked so I threw five of them together to make a single plot line. Five plots that I didn't like. You know how they say two wrongs don't make a right? Five terrible plots don't make a passable novel.

There has not been a year, even my first year where I ran out of plot where I had as much trouble writing it. Part of me is under the opinion that I my mindset was wrong. It's hard to explain, but until the last week I wasn't writing how I usually do. Part of this is because I've been the Municipal Liaison this year and that takes more work  that you would think. Not just before and after a write in but during. You suddenly have to spend the entire write in as the 'Go To' person for all questions and answers. It's good that I consider any writing done at write ins to be extra words that I don't need otherwise I would never have gotten done. I didn't write at my first two write ins (Midnight Blast Off and Late Night at IHOP w/ Chris Baty).

I fell behind in week two, but I didn't think anything of it. Everyone hates week two. It's part of the pep talks and I can't read week two pep talks cause it's old to me now. I've done week two, I can handle week two.

But this year it wasn't week two. I was still behind and I realized that I hated my novel and for the first time I thought about quitting it. It was just too much trouble to finish. The only reason I did was that as a Forum Moderator I have to be on the website year round and I can't go on there and see my lack of winner status for another ten months. It just can't happen.

But as Chris Baty just sent us another email pointing out that even though his novel didn't work out how he planned it, he learned from the experience. Just like I learned that five terrible plots don't make a passable novel.
-X

Long overdue GOALS post

So apparently I never recreated my GOALS post for 2011. I can see why, I've been busy living in a new state on the other side of the country that is beautiful and warm all year round and because I've been trying to steer this blog away from me just bitching. 'Cause no one wants to read that.

The previous post I made was Dec 31, 2009 for the year 2010 and here is what I wrote

But this is a traditional time to make GOALS so here it goes.
-Reach my goal weight of 175 lbs. I should be able to do this by the end of March at the earliest, by the end of the year at the latest.
-Get a job in theatre. Obvious. Perhaps I'll be less picky.
-Participate in Script Frenzy [2010]. 100 script pages in the 30 days of April. Like NaNo but with more dialogue.
-Get a home. Directly attached to the job part. Hopeful, very hopeful.

 I should also add this other one I picked up as I  passed the year.

I need to get a life.

 So that is five things on the list.

I haven't lost much weight, but at the moment I am living in my car and eating only two meals a day. If this doesn't cause me to lose weight nothing will.

I currently have a very low paying job in theatre. It's something but at this point I just want work so that I can stop worrying about money.

I did participate and win Script Frenzy in 2010. I also became an ML (local event coordinator) for 2011. I completed Nano 2010 as well. Doing this I discovered that I like writing a lot. I got terrible grades in English when I was in school which discouraged me from telling stories and I am extremely thankful to Nanowrimo for helping me get over years of pessimistic teachers. Overall I have discovered that I enjoy screenwriting better than noveling. I'm probably just more familiar with the format with my college education in theatre.

As posted above, I'm living in my car right now with all my worldly possessions. I would really like a place that I can get comfortable and stay for awhile. Sadly, you need money for that. I'm definitely working hard towards this goal.

For other GOALS I am creating, I want to write another screenplay so that I might be able to get representation. One that doesn't have a metric shit ton of required special effects, because I won't get a shit ton of effects for my first sold script.

• Get a life
• Get a job
• Get a home
• Become physically fit
• Exercise
• Lose weight
• Write more
• Write a novel in November
• Write a low budget screenplay

That makes a very pretty list doesn't it?
-X

Building ideas

Some people would say that it's a crazy idea to brainstorm ideas on the Internets where anyone can steal your idea. As I'm going to describe this idea I think you're going to realize why I'm not that worried.

I didn't feel like working on any of my works in progress yesterday so I did a bit of free writing. I was basically doing torture porn (god, why am I putting that word in a post?) because I'm doing light board operation for a torture themed play.

So it starts out as a bunch of gang members being tortured to death by a rival gang. There is death, blood, sacrifice. Then the cops show up and stop it before they are done. It ends with a kind of happy ending with two of the five gang members getting out with only bullet wounds and several psychological wounds.

Suddenly I have an idea for a story. These remaining men decide that their going to form a gang that kills the most violent of gang offenders. They train with high powered sniper rifles and eventually quell gang violence. They still want more though so they start going after other violent offenders. First murderers, then manslaughter, then assaults, until they start killing people for having loud arguments and talking in the theatre.

Now how to use it? Have a story about a cop trying to apprehend them? Or I could have the story told from the point of view of one of the members, ending with him getting caught and killing someone in prison. I could also have it as a side story to something else. Maybe a guy gets accused of murdering someone but is being framed and the White Falcons (that's the name of the gang) decide that they need to go after him for evading justice. Or maybe it's a contract killer that is being tailed by the Falcons. Or maybe they just show up at the end, shoot the villain and leave - and never explain it.

But that would be mean wouldn't it? But that is what is going around in my head today. Amazing stuff isn't it?
-X

Stuff, stuff, and more stuff

Huh, what happened to the last month? That was officially the first month I did not post a single blog for. Scary, though I'm not sure it's scary because I didn't post or because it's been nearly two, no three years? Of course I haven't written very much this year so far. I just checked and realized that I'll be posting a  200% increase today versus the rest of the year also known as January.

So what am I doing?

I am still unemployed. I am staying with a friend for a while. I'm planning on writing two scripts this month before I write my Screnzy script in April. Oh, by the way I'm a Municipal Liaison for Screnzy now. Basically I'm a local volunteer that tries to make the madness of Screnzy a little less so for the rest of the participants.

I've been doing 750words.com which is probably the time I would be writing for this blog. I am sick of it because the timing that is kind of interesting for the purpose of discovering how fast you write begins to get annoying as you get into the seventy day streak. Yesterday I used Ispum Lorem so that I could use the time to work on my scripts. A big difficulty with the site that some of us have noticed is that there is another step to writing call revision and editing. I might not be writing something new but I don't need to be if I am still working on a writing project. Because of that I'm probably going to quit the site before the end of the month, once I have reached one hundred days and have the phoenix badge. Cause phoenixes are cool.

Well that is about all that has been happening to me recently. Hopefully I will post again soon.

Here comes a New Year with 750 words

Today is New Years Eve! Yay!
The only good thing about the last year is that I moved to Los Angeles, California. Everything else sucked. I now have a couple of friends, if odd friends, but then again, what good are friends if they aren't odd. I'm currently living somewhere free of charge and fighting a winning battle against roaches. Christmas sucked a bit because I was alone, but I dealt with it by reading A Christmas Carol and watching A Muppet Christmas Carol. Yes, I am geeky when it comes to Christmas literature.

Yesterday, I finished the revision of my 2010 Screnzy and I will be allowing people to read it as soon as I can print it out. I'd feel bad about using my friend's printer because it'll be about five hundred fifty pages for all the people I want to read it. That's a little over a ream of paper. Not to even start on how much it is of ink (eek).

Since, I have that done I now get to reread my National Novel Writing Month Novel from this past November. The most difficult part will be not doing anything to it during the first read through. I know I need to add more description because I hate description. I still love my story (which I was saying about my script at this point too, not anymore) and I have many ideas on how to expand on it. My story is something of a prelude/origin story any I don't know how well it shows off my characters or the world. Most people have been looking at my synopsis on the Nano website and gasping at how long and detailed my concept is and you don't really get any of that in the novel I've written.

I started drawing again and I shall continue to draw into the new year. I am planning on pulling my art box out of storage and messing around with it. Technically, I should be going around and looking for a job and a permanent place to live, but what fun it that? What I would really like to do is play with jewelry making some more. I have some left overs from my class but a couple of important tools that make metalworking easy, like a blow torch. I like the blow torch.

God I want to weld. And I hate welding. It really sucks after the first couple of minutes. I probably just want to do theatre. What would be really nice is to go get a job doing the stuff I know and then I get to feel all superior on my first couple of days at least. Yeah, that would be good. I think I might have too many plans for this coming year.  I want to write 750 words everyday, I want to complete a script and a novel. That doesn't count participating and completing Script Frenzy 2011 and National Novel Writing Month 2011. Maybe even become a Municipal Liaison this year. I'm not committed to that last one, I am just toying with the idea.

Be the leader of something would be fun too. I like organizing people and making them do stuff. I find it too exciting. Particularly when events go well, which in my history they don't (not entirely my fault... actually so far it hasn't been my fault).

Lot of movies are coming out this year too and I need to get a job so that I can afford to see them. The ones produced by Disney I can go see for free, but that is a small number of them out of the year.

If you're wondering why this is possible the longest blog post I have ever written it's because I am writing this for the 750words.com website which gives you points for writing a lot without stopping. I can't even stop to think about what I am writing. I've written on the site most days this month, but this is the first time I have tried to write a blog post on it. A seven hundred and fifty word blog post. They honestly don't care if you put the same word down seven hundred and fifty times.

Yes, I have to write out 'seven hundred and fifty' each time. It adds more words and makes it so I don't have to add more content. I'm kind of getting tired and my back is hurting from the position I am sitting in right now. Hey look I made it to 750. Joy to me and you.

Happy New Year!
-X

This is required

I have to post simply to say that I once again completed National Novel Writing Month. Also to say that I once again plan on editing the novel in a month, just like I claimed last year. Hopefully this year I will not reread it and declare it the worst thing since Twilight.

Now instead of saying how I need to prepare for Nanowrimo I'll  be saying how I need to prepare for Script Frenzy in April. I'm thinking about doing the sequel to my previous work, but it is still four months away, anything can happen between now and then.

I got to see my family for Thanksgiving. My brothers brought me a ticket to Michigan, which begs the question, why go to Michigan in November when you're in Los Angeles? No one on the plane could answer the question.

On the topic of airplanes I really need to start flying during daylight hours. Flying at night is so boring. Everyone on the plane is usually asleep or if they aren't you still can't see out the windows. I like looking out the windows no matter what, even if all I can see is the top of clouds, and I can't sleep in a moving veicle. I've sort of done it a couple of times, but it not real sleep. Its closer to dozing.

I'll end with saying that LAX is not nearly as bad an airport that everyone was telling me. There were no lines or delays outside of my airline and it was the day before Thanksgiving.

Now we get too look forward to Thanksgiving and figuring out what you get a nine month old.
-X

I'm a wordcount rockstar

I have the highest wordcount of the people that attend the write-ins that I go to. Which makes me inordinately proud. I suck at writing more then ten words in a row (if you can't tell from this blog). Not only that, but I have stayed on top for an entire week (not to mention it was the dreaded Week 2) with little trouble and I'm still on track for my Overachieving goal.

My story still interests me, though my 'outline' is used up now and the rest of it will be made entirely by the seat of my pants. I am well beyond the halfway point and aiming for the finish line.

This is really a fasinating experience the second time around. So many people on the forums I want to smack because they overreact to things like the website crashing or their plot changing. I never even thought of questioning these people last year, but this year they just seem like whiners.

Well, not much else on my mind,
-X

It begins...

Nanowrimo started today. I attended a midnight write in and didn't write very much. Got to get my grove back, which is starting to happen as I continued to write throughout the day and I made my goal easily - even with distractions.

I even got some responses from my craigslist ad that didn't sound like axe murderers. Super extra special feeling now. My brother and sister-in-law are trying to transport me to Michigan for Thanksgiving and I'm meeting lots of cool people through Nano Write-ins.

I'm feeling good. I'm writing a blog post soon after the previous post (!) and I think a third of all my tweets on twitter have happened in the last twenty-four hours.

Things are good and getting better,
-X

Tips for NaNoWriMo

I participated in National Novel Writing Month 2009 and won. As with all winners I have to give my advice on how to win.

Leave the story open ended. 

When you start, don't block your story down to a day, or a week. If you do, suddenly your characters will decide that they all want to go to mexico for a week, or decide to take a nap and miss an important event. Or you will find yourself nearing the end with 30,000 words left. I did this last year and had to add extra characters just to have something else happen in the twenty four hour period. That was after spending hours panicking about what to write to waste words.

That part you think will be really cool? It won't be.
By the time you get to that part the story will have altered it to the point that it won't work out the way you thought it would. Luckily, the part right afterward, which you thought would suck, will end up being pretty awesome.

Write out your problems
Start by writing out your problem and possible solutions to it, even the weird ones that would never work, mostly just to get them out of your system. You may come up with something you never expected, or you combine the odd ones with a more realistic one. (This is actually how I was taught to design sets)

Take a nap

If you can't figure something out, try coming up with a solution while falling asleep. I find doing this gets you to think outside the box. Even when you think you are consciously thinking out of the box you probably aren't, being sleepy you forget the earlier events in your story which allows to to rewrite them (not literally). You also tend to lose those logical boundaries that we work with while awake. Think of it as writing while dreaming.

Break the rules and reread the beginning

Everyone at the Office of Letters and Light says not to read any part of your story until one month after NaNoWriMo is over. The reasoning is that you will read it and decide it sucks and stop writing, or you will try to rewrite it and waste time that could be used adding more words. But you could suddenly remember about a character you had in the beginning that could be used in the current scene or maybe you added an extra character in chapter ten and you realize she could make an appearance in chapter two. Couple lines of added foreshadowing lessen the total amount you need to write.

Keep track of how much you "need" to write each day

This threw me last year. Nanowrimo.org has the progress report tool that will tell you how much you are suppose to write, but it was broken for the first two weeks of November 2009. If this happens again calculate it as ((50,000-WordsWritten)/(31-DayofNovember)). Do this on a regular basis to remind you that just because you had a really good day and wrote twice as much doesn't mean you get to take a break and not write for a day, it means you get to write maybe one hundred fewer words for teh rest of the month. Your goal should be to write at least thirty words beyond what you "have" to write, this way you "have" to write one less word the next day.

Break up your writing
Write in the morning, write in the evening, write during lunch. You might not get much written in the morning, but it will be three sentences that you won't have to write during lunch. It also helps keep the story in your mind during the day. And 500 words during three sessions is a lot easier to think about than 1666.67 words a day

The possibilities are endless

What should I post about today?

I could post about how the new forum notifications at Nanowrimo suck and they took away the autosubscribe feature, but I won't because I'll get over it.

I could post about how I don't have a job or an apartment,  but I don't really have anyone to blame for that other than myself.

I could post about how my new laptop barely runs Mass Effect (which I got myself for my birthday) and that the new Sims 3 patch makes it impossible to use custom content, but I suspected that would happen when I bought it.

What I will post about is Scribophile.com. I was suggested the site by someone at Nano because I mentioned that I have too much time on my hands. It's a critiquing site, post your work, people read it and give feedback. This sounds pretty awesome and it would mean that people would actually read what I write. 

Now the site has a feature built in to make sure that people are actually critiquing. If you want to post, you need "karma" points. To get karma you need to read and rate/critique other works. Rating gets you .02 karma, critiquing gets you more based on the length of the work, the length of your critique, and how recent the work was published.

First month I didn't really do any of this. I tried to write something to have something published on it but that didn't turn out very well (never finished the work, mostly because it changed from a short story to a novel) then I thought I could just start sticking my Nano on as I write it. Almost unedited, but it would be something and if I note that it is for Nano and that plot advice is most important (even during Nano I'm good about my grammar). The problem shows up that I only have the 2 karma points you get for joining and I you can't even post with that.

So the last couple of days I've been looking for stuff to read and critique but everything is something like "Feminine Hygiene Issues - Chapter 28" in which case I'd have to read the previous twenty-seven chapters first and it doesn't sound very interesting. Everything I do find interesting is either past the preferred critiquing time or for some past the any critiquing time. So all I've done is rate a couple short works and I now have 2.2 karma... and I need five to post anything and I have to pay ten dollars to post more than two pieces a month.

Maybe over use is a bad idea. At least until I get a job. When I won't have time to write.

You know what? I'm tried of this. Going to go write something instead.
-X

Bad week was bad.

How bad can a week get?

Last week I had an interview, or I thought I did. It was a pre-interview. All I discovered is that they don't pay enough to live in Los Angeles. Before my interview I was looking at apartments. Some of the people there gave me odd looks for wearing a suit - there goes that place.

I looked at another the day after and it was not as advertised. I understand the concept of a studio apartment, but how can you live without at least a stove? Every day or so I look at rooms for rent, but they usually cost the same for an entire apartment. They must be amazing rooms.

So no work and no home... still. How is this any worse than every other week?

I also finally broke my laptop. $800 dollars later I have a new laptop, but it was a lot of stress that I didn't need right now. Also my computer can now actually play games. That's bad.

After that I kind of decided the week was just fucked. Didn't even try for the rest of it. What I did do was work on my screenplay from Script Frenzy. I even I bought a book to help me. Do I get extra points for distractions?
-X

May

During April and November I don't think of NaNoWriMo or Script Frenzy as taking up a lot of time, but in both cases there were significant decreases in my blogging. I do this mostly when I'm bored and don't have to sleep for work. Luckily, I still am without a job. Fingers still crossed, sometime this week. Affirmations for me.

Anyway, my nephew was born two days early so we flew out to see him. He's doing what newborns do. Sleep, eat, poop. Something I noticed was that he got cuter after a couple of days, as he was able to grow into his skin. the first pictures he looked like kind of squashy. Three days old, he looked like a baby. A really big one, 8lb 15oz, or as the nurse told my sister-in-law, "you can say he was nine pounds,".

We drove. It sucked. We drove because it's insanely expensive to fly last minute and we would need a car when we got there. At least we wouldn't in an Escalade (or was it a Expedition?) this time. It was a gigantic vehicle that my father rented "just in case we needed to transport people". We didn't.

So, we drove and I had to sit in the back seat of a Tacoma for eight hours. My brother got to be there too because he wimped out on driving himself. We get annoyed with my parents on these trips because at some point they are frozen by a decision. 'Where are we going to eat?', 'What are we going to do for the next couple of hours?'. The eating one always pisses me off because they then get mad at me for stating that we should go to place 'A' or 'B'. We only went to 'the Diner' once this time after I pointed out that we ate there five times the last trip. Meanwhile my mother started to come up with a dozen different interesting restaurants yet she would have happy eating at the 'Diner' multiple times again. She fell in love with the place last year when they were open at midnight, but I think I get sick off of their food (which is why I don't name them).

Where was I going with this anyway? Oh right. I discovered that my abs don't like being squashed. My knees in the Tacoma are about my belly button if I sit straight. Instead I have to tilt out both of my legs, for HOURS. It's like getting into an uncomfortable position for a couple of minutes, for like a picture or something and having to maintain it forever. Whenever we stopped, getting out didn't just feel good, it felt like my legs were getting blood again. They only seat in that car is my father's and he doesn't understand the pain the rest of us go through.

Now I wrote this on Tuesday and completely forgot about it to post so let's hit it now.
-X

How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food

Now for a happy post

My last several posts were a bit sad. I need to do something happier.

I won Script Frenzy. I'm at 103 pages. Okay 102, the extra is my title page and I need to get an ending. Technically, I don't need that to end the month, but it's a little cooler to say that I finished a script, not that I wrote one hundred pages of a one hundred ten page script.

The job that I applied for nearly a month and a half ago informed all applicants that we would hear from them by the first week of May instead of the third week of April. So instead of my hopes being dashed, I'm being strung along for a couple more weeks. I'm really apathetic about it right now, I don't know if that will change as the deadline gets closer. This job is the last opportunity I will have to get into theatre for at least a year, unless I do really well in the retail sector.

My expenses are at the teetering edge of dangerous, I have enough money for my next month of credit card payments, in which I'm paying one hundred dollars for twelve months during promotional APR, but after that I'll have about enough for one last month and I'll have to do some kind of work in that time. Even if I get the job I really will need to move out there immediately and try to get some expenses taken care of with some type of job. The six hundred left on my one credit card isn't much of a problem, the greater problems are my car which takes sixty dollars to fill up, if I'm lucky, not to mention repairs which it occasionally needs, being an almost twenty year old car. My computer is funky. It's not dead, but it's a computer and they rarely warn you when they are planning on heading out. I would love to get on top of that and order a new one (desktop for easy repairs) and keep a functioning laptop as a spare. So yeah, some money would be nice. We won't even get into the discretionary spending I would like to be doing.

All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself for not spending that much money that last couple of months. I wasn't perfect, I bought some clothes and books with my own money (silly me). The clothes are silly because they don't fit me. I want them for when they do. It will be am instant reward. Or it's crap to be stuck in my closet forever.

Okay now for randomness.
-X

Levi's Slim Straight 514 Jeans 34x32
Chocolate Bar Variety Pack - 30 ct
Dell Alienware Aurora Desktop
The Complete Book of Scriptwriting

I feel better

I feel much better.

The first day is always the worst and I always forget that I have to take Allegra, not Zyrtec.

So I have applications in and nearly have a heart attack every time I check my email, because I expect to see a response. Otherwise though I have been very bad. I've been playing games and writing and, finally, my mother is starting to get her 'tude again.

I looked over local jobs again, because if I don't get what I want I will have to go to retail temporarily, but there wasn't much. At this point I just want out of my parents house more than anything. I know I've bitched about living here before, but I'm going to add some things. One day back in either December, when I was working at a toy store and had to get up early, or January, when I was having some doctors appointments, I woke up and went downstairs and started to make myself something to eat before I left.

I pace, including when I'm trying to make food, and it gets worst the hungrier I am, but there are two things that prevent me from pacing. People cause me to pace less, and having somewhere to go makes me stop completely. If I'm not busy, I can draw out a meal for an hour and a half. If there is someone in the kitchen and I have to be somewhere, I'm done preparing and eating in ten minutes. My mother doesn't like people disrupting her routine in the morning, and apparently I was a disruption - because I needed to walk pass her to get the mayonnaise out of the refrigerator.

This just proved to me that I shouldn't get up before she leaves, because she be bitching about me being in the way, whether or not I am. Can I be blamed for not feeling welcome around here.

Oh, I think I'll also mention that I am not the stupidest person in the world. My brother actually dared to say something about our parent's smoking. They occasionally say things like "don't ever start", but they are without remorse about any effect their smoke has on other people and I thought that we all knew that they were very sensitive about the subject. Hell, they actually talked about it afterward, they never do that.

Well, I meant to publish this last night so... oh well.
-X

I shouldn't be wasting time right now

I really shouldn't be wasting time right now.

I just paid a bill. I don't have many of those, but it did make me look at my finances. I really haven't been thinking about any of this crap for a while. Just kind of living the dream, writing a novel, reading, watching movies.

But this week the weather has been all nice, like winter is over or something. That means that all the fucking crap I had to do last year I'll have to do again. Yeah, I'm talking about yard work. I'm not a fan, particularly when people don't ask me nicely. So I have to get out of this house this summer.

I remembered something on my loan deferment about March. For some reason the six month deferment ends in March. I'm going to call them and make sure what date I have to list on it to extend it. Anyway it says that I have to make at least six attempts to find full-time employment (that's important, unemployment deferment for student loans is based on lack of full-time employment. My mother pointed out that she doesn't work full-time by their definition.) and that I can count only four, and one of them could be construed as a college application, not employment.

So off to my job boards I go.

Now this is sad, I looked at a job that requires twenty hours a week and will only pay $150 plus housing and I'm going to apply for it. I'm getting pretty desperate. I know, you are thinking "about time" aren't you? Need I point out that you cannot live on that much a week? I think they feed me some, but I worked at a place that paid some people that much and did not feed them.

So I already am committed to three more applications to send out, and wait there is more! I need to finish my novel by the end of the month and prepare for Script Frenzy. I haven't even written today yet, which is why I shouldn't be writing this.

If I do find some time, or just want to procrastinate, I'll write a review of Shutter Island. If I don't, just go see it.
-X

Writing and Exercises

I haven't been posting in week or so because I've suddenly been back logged. It's really weird how it happens, but it seems like time just escapes from your grasp.

I suddenly realized that the first deadline for applications was coming up on Monday and I needed to get the recommendation letters for it and once I had confirmation of them I needed to send in the application itself. That was fun.

As I mentioned before I started to do the two hundred sit ups again and I'm keeping up by giving myself two days of rest instead of one for the first week. Tonight more exercising. I also started playing with free weights. I used one of my physical therapy exercises as an excuse to buy a 5 lb free weight and I started using it to rebuild my arm muscles. I do the same exercises with my left arm as a sort of constant, and my right arm is just really bad and I hope to have improvement when I do it today.

I hope that it is because of that that I haven't reached my goal of 200 lb by the end of February. I started to make some progress, then fell back. I was overeating again too. I do consider maintaining weight a positive note during this. How bad would I be if I wasn't paying attention? Anyway, I have notice a shift in my fat, the muscle aches are lessening, and my pants are fitting better.

Lastly my writing has been going great. I'm still behind, but I have a plan to catch up and have been having great story ideas. Reading Percy Jackson and the Dresden Files most likely helped.

Just a short update because I haven't been around.
-X

How time flies and how ice melts

I've not really been doing anything the last week or so. Snow is deary, even when melting. At least I can leave my house if I have the urge, which has been more often then not recently. I actually was woken up by the cigarette smoke that billowed into my bedroom. I had to go out to restock my turkey supplies and when I returned it was like a punch in the face.

It didn't help that I also have a headache do to the current cold front, not eating until 1:00 pm, secondhand smoke and drinking less caffeine. I'm only guessing on the caffeine thing because I've been nauseous too. In other words today has not been a great day on the health side. Except for the not eating too much, I actually did okay on that, but exercise was out of the question. Body is willing, head is not.

I did last week bake some white bread. One recipe makes two loaves and I ate one almost all by myself. At the same time I started a sourdough bread, For those of you not in the know, sourdough gets to sit on your kitchen counter for a week while it spoils gets sour. Last time I did it I waited the minimum time and it barely had any taste to it. It's actually really hard to find a sourdough that tastes right. I had one last summer that was gotten from a New York bakery which was actually too sour, at least how we were using it as a dinner bread. It may have worked as sandwich bread since the sour would have been evened out by the meat and condiments.

I have caught up a little bit on my writing. I added a couple new characters and I feel like they will all meet up at some point, I'm just not sure how. Part of the inspirational for one of the new characters was seeing the movie Wolfman, not that I really liked the movie enough to even write an entire post about it, but I had the idea to have a werewolf character. That added into me actually buying the Pathfinder RPG rulebook and seeing that they have proper werewolves in it. By proper I mean that the people turn into wolves, not giant wolfs, not half-man wolves, not anthropomorphic wolves, just normal - if on the larger end of the possible size - wolves. So the character doesn't turn into a monster every full moon, he turns into a wild animal. More interesting, but doesn't make for a good movie.

I'm pausing in my writing today as I try to figure out how I'm going to treat the character. Currently everyone in the town knows he's a werewolf, so I'm toying with the idea that they are pretending to be his friend so that they can kill him on the full moon. I'll say that werewolf hide makes for excellent armor and that the bones cure disease or something. I'm just remembering that I bought an encyclopedia on mythology that I really should pull out right now, if I can remember where I put it. Sometimes writing out your ideas can be very helpful.

Well I meant to hit post about two hours ago.
-X