Tag Archives: astrid and dante

It's All Writers' Block to Me

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My writing has been suffering for months. I can write a post about my life, or music, or Grey’s Anatomy, but when I sit down to write a story or work on an idea for NaNoWriMo, something happens. Actually, a few somethings happen.

Scenario 1: I sit down and start writing a story, get about a paragraph or maybe a page into it, then stop and never come back.

Scenario 2: I sit down and write about two sentences to a paragraph of a story, leave it for a few days or weeks, then come back and write a few more paragraphs, and then a few days later finish it.

Scenario 3: I come up with a great idea for a story, then lose faith in it before doing any real prewriting.

It’s making me crazy. I used to sit down and write a whole short story or a whole chapter for a novel in one shot. I was looking forward to NaNoWriMo to fix whatever’s wrong with me, but Scenario 3 happened and I’ve got nothin’. Fortunately, the one story I have been able to complete lately turned out pretty good, according to my writers’ group, but this is probably unfortunate because if I could actually write like I normally do, I might have five good stories instead of just one.

I want to write. I just can’t seem to make the magic happen. A couple months ago, I thought it might be that I needed to get out of the house and away from distractions, so I went to the Starbucks café at Barnes and Noble… and just sat staring at my laptop screen for an hour or so before my battery died. I’m still writing Astrid and Dante with Mary, but even then it takes me a good hour before I can even write a sentence in response. I’ve tried music, which usually makes a great muse, but now it only distracts me more. I really had to force myself to write “Loving Guererra,” the story I did finish, and I honestly kind of just hated myself for it the whole time. It wasn’t fun like it normally is.

Hell, if I’m going to be completely honest, the blog posts I write take an hour or two longer than usual, too.

I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know why I’ve got literary constipation, but here we are.

How do you cure your writers’ block? Please tell me! I need your help!

Something is missing, but I don't know what that "something" is

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I want to write, and go to school for journalism, or go to school for writing, or… something. I want to do something like Astrid and Dante… even though all of my other works in progress are being ignored. I just need something.

I hate my job, so I need… something. I just don’t know what that “something” is. I know that I need to leave this job, because it’s stressful and I’m not happy there, but I don’t know what I want to do.

Should I get a part-time job and go back to school full-time?

Should I get a full-time job and go back to school part-time?

What do I even want to go to school for?

Should I try to find another web design job?

Should I try to start my own business?

What should that business be? Web design?

I have so many questions that might answer what that “something” is, but none of them feel quite right.

I feel stuck.

Drunken blogging: The return of Astrid and Dante!

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I have so much I want to tell you, like how this weekend went (we had a big fire up at the lake in honor of Popi), how things with Mike and Project Cohabitation are going (good!), and how pissed I am about the way Muslim-Americans are being treated by (some of) their “fellow” Americans, but mostly right now I want to wiggle this in front of your face. Raise your hand if you remember it! I found it the other day while surfing the internet (and basically doing nothing), and last night sent a message to Mary to see if she still wanted to RP these two. A few people were excited about it and wanted more when I first started the Dante and Astrid blog, and it was really cool to actually have fans, so if you guys are still around, I just posted a new one, as well as some originals from like 2004 or something (not sure of the original date, since the actual AIM logs are on Noni’s old computer; they were posted to my old LJ in 2006).

Anyway.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I used to do a lot of what is called play-by-post roleplaying (RPing for short), which is basically two or more people writing as if they were a character, and when it’s read all together, it’s like reading a short story (or, in Mary’s and my case, a book at this point). Well, one day while cruising some RP adverts on LiveJournal, I came across Mary’s. She was looking for someone to play one of her characters, and had left a link to a Geocities or something with all of the characters. We’ve been playing ever since… and I just realized that it’s been over five years. I’m pretty sure she is my oldest online friend (in the sense that we have been friends via the internet for the longest time out of all of my internet friends).

Anyway. It is possibly creepy that I am this excited about this, but rereading some of our old logs made me really appreciate how much this has made my writing improve, and they’re also pretty freaking good. Plus, you can’t call me creepy, because I am sleepy and slightly drunk, so that’s excuse enough for my potentially overenthusiasm.

ANYWAY. Go read these. I promise they are awesome. You don’t have to start with the Prologue ones, since I don’t have them all up anyway, but you should definitely start with In the Beginning.

ANYWAY. Before I creep Mary out and make her not want to write with me anymore, I’m going to publish this (and probably regret it in the morning afternoon).

GO READ IT!!

PS: My birthday is in less than a week and I’ve only just now decided what I’m doing. Ah, apathy and depression.

PSS: This might sound crazy, but I think I like Jim Bean better than Jack Daniels. Sacrilege! (Not that I’ve had any JD in years, but still.) (Wow, I sound like an alcoholic! Goodnight, now!)

PSSS: I owe a lot of you guys comment replies. And Twitter replies. And emails. Sigh.

Taking a break

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Today I remembered that I get a fifteen minute break at my day job.

This might not sound like a big deal, but it is; I don’t normally take that break. I usually get so into what I’m doing that the day flies by, and the next thing I know it’s 1:00 and time to go home. Even when I was still smoking — yes, I’m still smoke-free! — I’d go outside for a five, maybe ten minute smoke and then I’d come right back in. During the last few months, I haven’t even thought of taking five minutes.

It’s a little scary that I totally forgot about the much coveted fifteen. I would have never forgotten my break back in my retail days. I used to bug my managers just so I could actually have a break.

I may just need a twelve-step workaholism recovery program.

Update: New Astrid and Dante is up!

House sitting

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I’m going to be house sitting — and no, that isn’t a fancy term for a House (the lamest show ever, and YES, I said it, Mom, on the internet, in print!) marathon — for two weeks.

It should be interesting, as I’ve never house sat before, and this particular house has its quirks. There are at least ninety-nine light switchesswitches pretending to be light switches scattered throughout the house, waiting for you to flick them accidentally. These little Easter eggs usually cause power to go out in certain parts of the house, ejection from the house into outer space and, in severe cases, swine flu. The people I’m sitting for also have Comcast, and I am apparently not capable of using the remote; the various buttons on that thing could wipe out our entire planet, if I hit the wrong one.

So it should be interesting. Naturally, I’ll be blogging about it, because I owe you guys and I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of me trying to explain to my aunt and uncle why their house is on the moon instead of at their previous address: “I thought I was turning the kitchen light on!”

Anywho.

My little world has been a little crazy lately. I recently partnered my freelance web design company with my aunt’s web design and print company, and we managed to acquire a pretty big client. I’m not going to go into details, but the move was anything but simple. Luckily our client has been really understanding, and all is well as of tonight. I’m actually really surprised at myself; I guess you really do never know what you can do until you’re facing a deadline that is less than a week away and you can’t find a PHP developer. Needless to say, my basic PHP skills need to be a little more. I’m hoping to finally sit down and read the PHP book I bought over a year ago while I’m trying not to destroy my aunt’s house.

I also recently went to a new dentist. The dental hygienist kicked ass. She took x-rays of my mouth and it turns out I’m going to have to get all four of my wisdom teeth removed. That is not kickass. I knew it was probably coming, but I’m still terrified. The x-rays showed that the incoming teeth are pushing over my other teeth. I have a really, really tiny mouth, and I figured that’s what was happening anyway, but it’s still totally different to see it and hear it from a professional.

I sucked it up though and made an appointment with an oral surgeon for next Monday. My business partner and aunt said that I’ll get lots of drugs and ice cream out of the deal. I’m not too excited about the drugs, but I can definitely dig the ice cream.

I’ve been trying to write more lately, ever since I attended the 2009 NVCC Writers’ Conference a couple of weeks ago. (It may have been more like three weeks ago, but I’m so fried and brainless at this point I’m not too sure. I’m also too lazy to go check.) I recently got back in touch with Mary, my old Astrid and Dante roleplaying partner. We used to write for these two all the time, but gradually fell out of touch. Anyway, we started writing again. You can read all of our archived logs, and we are also currently writing new stuff, over at our new-ish blog. (My friends from LiveJournal might remember me posting logs or writing about these two.) I’m also planning on getting back to my novel while I’m house sitting.

I’m also currently working on a project I’ve been sitting on for a while. If you’re being followed by a freakingbookwrm on Twitter, follow back because that’s me! Freaking Bookworm is my upcoming online book club. I read a lot, and I often mind myself wanting to rant or rave to someone about different parts throughout the book. I don’t have the time to meet up with a regular book club every week or every month, so I thought it would be neat to do an online book club that anyone can participate in at any time. As far as I know, there is nothing like it out there on the net. It’s going to be kickass, so follow freakingbookwrm on Twitter (I hate that I didn’t have enough characters to keep the “o” in “worm”), and take our poll to help choose our first read.

I actually meant to be in bed by now. I’d say there’s always coffee, but my body stopped responding to caffeine a month ago.

Update: I just posted the latest Astrid/Dante, Ouch! (Part II). Go check it out and let us know what you think. (: