Account Me Out

There are some things in my life, that I wish would come easy to me, but they are incredibly hard. Keeping my desk clean can be a nightmare, especially when I'm working at it. I have to force it upon me to remedy little piles of chaos all the time. Clearing up the desk is equivalent to keeping my mind clean which is the basic requirement for any other kind of activity. It has to be done.

One of the other sad little things I toil away on is book keeping for the family business. There are piles upon piles of papers, I never find what I'm looking for, and as I'm looking I forget what I was looking for - finding other stuff instead - subsequently I have to start the frantic search again and again, and a vicious cycle of failure unfolds. I don't have a system, I refuse a system, I'd rather get angry for not having a system, than invest the time to make me a system.

Pretty paaapers, where aaare youuu?

I knew that, I knew back when I started, that this would not be a joyride. I swore to high heaven that no matter how difficult it would be, and how much I would despise it, I would get better at keeping the books. I did that once before. In school I used to be horrible at math, underdeveloped, I was even kept back a year because of it, up until university and the day I consciously decided to make statistics my specialty. I became good at it because I was fed up sucking at it.

This accounting matter would be no different, I told myself. I would be ambitious to become better, be the apprentice, and eventually the wizard of book keeping. Unfortunately not a bit of it has happened. I'm still as reluctant and nauseated as I was in the beginning, inept at picking up new things, if picking up things at all.

There are all kinds of problems to be dealt with in the new year, social security statements, tax filings, and a whole new chance to be neat and tidy.

I tried being tender to those ring binders, I tried giving pet names to the documents, but they bore no kindness in return. I told myself that it shouldn't make a difference, that usually, I like all things paper, written things, stories and such. Unfortunately it worked just as little as calling them honeybun. They have no soul.

And it is not the things written on them, it's the paper itself that is the problem, bone-dry and dusty, like a haggard old lady with grey hair and a bun, mirth-repellent, stapled, lecturing me to get my act together. Be more serious it tells me. Surrender to being more responsible. And it's true. I do, however, feel that shredding them should also do the trick.

Six Sentence Sunday: Coming Home

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Hello there Sunday Sixers, and Sixer-fans, and welcome to another round of our wonderful Sunday tradition. Admittedly, I have been absent quite a lot, half the time editing, the other half of the time slacking off, but...OK, no BUT, there is no excuse for editing during the holidays, I know. :) I'm looking forward to seeing what you have all been up to lately, and I'll be reading your excerpts momentarily. Oh, and I'd be a very happy bee if you left me a little comment with your thoughts and insight before you go. Have a good one. :)  
Today, there will be no excerpt from The Days Adrift, instead, I'll give you the first six sentences of Anoethau, fruit of my NaNoWriMo participation this year. Let's get to it then, shall we.



Artie turned the key with one hand, the plastic bag with groceries was dangling from the wrist of his other arm. He gave the thick wooden door a little push. Home.  
He loved the smell of the old house, and every time the door closed behind him he felt like he entered a different world, another century, the world his grandparents had lived in. 
The house had been in his family for generations, but much to his surprise his grandmother had left it to him, the ex-convict, the murderer, not his sister, the one who had been the epitome of virtue all her life.
After living in the house for over a year, it still made him grin thinking about it, visualizing his sister's face the moment she found out that she and her annoying idiot husband were left with nothing.

Newtown

I am thinking about what words can do, in a crisis. Can they offer at least some kind of comfort? I don't know. We have had school shootings before, but not like this one, not in this magnitude. Is there a way to explain what has happened to anyone; a parent who has lost a child, or a child who has lost a teacher? We will hear reasons, explanations and justifications over the next few days and weeks. Why the twenty-year-old son of a teacher would do such a thing, what a parent, the surrounding environment, even a whole country failed to do to prevent this tragedy from happening. Why someone missed a red flag. Don't listen too closely. We have no answers. Take comfort in the fact that this is the exception, the rare event, rather than the rule. Get used to the fact that it is the nature of life to break your heart through the kindness of its sickening ephemerality. Not just now but each and every day. You say that is no comfort. I agree. There is just no way to handle this.

Editing Excerpt

Just a little update as I commence the editing process. Good bye, vomit draft, may we never meet again (at least for this story). I just went over to the NaNoWriMo site and realized it was still the same excerpt of my story posted as there was a month ago...yikes! This will be the new one. For you. Because I like you.

"Cabby slowly moved forward, towards the grime-stained urinal. Another small step. Then another. He snarled. The little bell at his collar rang in that high-pitched frequency Artie had heard once before. He drew the sword. The shadows crept closer but Cabby stood his ground. He anchored his paws firmly into the floor. Like a warrior, Artie realized, and mirrored the stance on his own two feet as best he could. The shadows closed in a ring upon them, and the light of day withered away. Only Cabby, it seemed, shed a warm radiance from within. It was subtle at first, but it grew bigger and brighter, until it illuminated even the darkest corner of the restroom. Once the tiles on the walls were ablaze with light, Artie had to cover his eyes. The little dog was unmoving, ingrained like a statue, yet he shone like a beacon of hope against the nascent darkness."

Thank You - Come Again

Look at this mess. An unwashed, wild-haired filthy beast of a woman. And it smells funny, too.

 

Well that was yesterday. Now, I'm back to my more spiffy self (as seen in the picture). Both funny and not so funny things happen in life, not only when you're trying to write a story in only a month but all the time. It sounds like back-alley psychology, doesn't it. I reached the 50k goal in NaNoWriMo yesterday, but the plan is to also finish the story before Nov 30th ends. And then one of the not so funny things happened on Monday, the kind of thing that made me temporarily forget all about my plans. My hubby had this horrible biliary colic, and it came right in between Artie Kendrick's attempt to flee from his parole violation and me, writing about it. He's the main character in my fantasy story. But since hubby is the main character in my life story, he always trumps Artie.

The whole incident made me obsess about other things for a while, but I'm not grateful for that kind of distraction. Doc said he should be fine. We're still waiting for the results of the blood test to hopefully eliminate a more serious underlying cause.

No, I'm fine now, really. Gained two pounds due to eating nothing but crap. I have stopped looking in the mirror with the lights on. My desk shows a striking resemblance to John Nash's wall, plastered with teeny tiny notes written in pencil. The annoying thing is that other work starts to pile up, and I have been staring at it for two weeks now, hoping for an extension; or wishing for it to magically disappear.

But hey, I'm fine. My throat feels like someone skillfully acupunctured it in several places at once. My back hurts. My cheeks have started to feel numb against the chair. Other than that I have no legitimate excuse to stop now and be a winner by word count only. Three more days.

NaNoWriMo: Trash and Tragedies

So, I realized something today. Once I have written down something and locked it as far as the story goes, it is hard, not to say close to impossible for me to "un-think" it. I don't like to drop ideas, partly because I'm lazy but also because I tend to consider myself grandiose enough to deem everything I come up with a treasure.

Today I had to tie in some loose ends, and frankly, some of the ideas just didn't make sense anymore. So, while it is hard to say goodbye to "story trash" it's better to drop it than to keep something that would screw with the basic idea for purely nostalgic or ego reasons. I realize now, that this story is far from what I wanted or expected it to be when I started writing it. It is simultaneously the only thing and the worst thing I will have finished thus far. Yes, this realization was quite painful.

I naively underestimated how much there was to learn when I started writing for an audience bigger than myself and the potted plants in my room. But I'm not waving the flag of defeat, quite the opposite. Now I feel like I can really get started. This was the thing holding me back towards actually becoming a (real) writer.

Nah No Write More

After having written chunks for NaNoWriMo, what could be better than - right - blogging about it as a distraction? The thing is, since my fingers are already in training, there is no reason why I shouldn't  write more, and get them in really good muscle shape for tomorrow. I figured that it's the same as cultivating horny skin on your fingers when playing the guitar.


Thus far, the writing-a-novel-in-a-month experience has been positive. I am not as behind as I thought I would be after having a late start. This is a completely new story I am working on. I had several ideas for what I wanted to write, one was a semi-biographic 1990s inspired homage to grunge music (a crossing between Almost Famous, My So-Called Life, and snippets from my own life), and I might still write that some day, but for now, I need a more plot-driven story with some room to freestyle in between pivotal points, worthy of at least 50000 words.


So, surprise, surprise, I'm writing a fantasy story, and it will be titled Anoethau.

The hero is a bit older this time, male and an ex-convict... after all the "girl action" on The Days Adrift I'd say this is more than welcome. And it feels good to write about manly things for a change.

The difficult thing is that with the goal of having a certain amount of words in the end, I can't edit as I go along, which is something I usually do. This challenge is about finishing something, and doing the editing afterwards. You wouldn't believe how hard that is...I am a neat freak, and I need cleaned up sentences, not the verbal excrements of a first draft. I have to force myself to not look back all the time, which is a challenge all in itself.

We'll see how it goes.

Six Sentence Sunday: Hell-bent On Giving Up

Hey there lovely Sunday Sixers, here we are again! Whew, the weeks fly by quickly, and as I'm mentally preparing for Nanowrimo I feel like I have to do some preliminary work for my Sunday Six excerpts. So this week, it's another double-six snippet from The Days Adrift, part #10. Feel free to comment, critique and share your thoughts! :)
->This is what happened last week.


"Don't throw it all out," I say, a tad insulted, "we may still need some of those things." Like an excavator, Tams grabs the lot of empty bottles and all of our shoes - the good shoes. 
A single sneaker falls off of her arms. "Stop it!" but she seems to be in some sort of frenzy. "We need shoes, you twerp." 
She pauses and stares at me, that scary glare in her eyes, the one telling me that she's hell-bent on giving up.
"Guys!" 
As she leans over the rail, I yank her arm from behind, hard. She stumbles, loses her balance and falls back with a thump. 
"Guys!!!" Brita yells, her voice is cutting capers. She gestures dramatically. Tams lies on top of my legs, amidst scattered shoes and bottles. Brita's incessant screech has become a hoarsely squeal; it pierces right through my ears.
What in the world is she pointing at?

Six Sentence Sunday: Grave Goods

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Huzzah Sunday Sixers! Today it's back to the usual length and format of the Six Sentence Sunday snippets. And this week also, I'll crack open Chapter 4 of The Days Adrift, my story about three girl-fugitives at sea, running from the turmoil of war and the crime they committed. This is what happened ->last time. Let's move on forward to part #9. Feel free to share your thoughts, any thoughts! :)


4.

"You're doing a great job, girl," Tams says, leaning over the keel to rinse one of the empty water bottles. 
"Do you think we will make it?" It does sound incredibly small and stupid, now that I say it out loud. Tams looks at me bleakly, in calm defeat. No, of course not.  
She grabs the bloodstained hammer from under the plastic cover, dumps it in the water and watches as it sinks into the abyss; already cleaning up for the ship burial, aren't we?

Sunshine Blogger Award 2012

Thank you, M.L. Falconer for honoring me with the Sunshine Award.
Ahem, I want to thank everyone who was in this movie with me..oh..wait..wrong ceremony.
I am very glad to have met Mel during the weekly Six Sentence Sunday blog fest. He is a wonderful human being with a myriad of talents and interests, such as being a world-class hiker as well as an audiophile with his own audio book production. Mel is a truly passionate writer who fully commits to his works, which is something I really admire. Aww, I'm happy just to think that I live in times like these. Without the internet, Mel and I would never have met, especially not while hiking. I never hike, much less across the Atlantic!

The Sunshine Blogger Award is a great opportunity to get to know fellow writers and bloggers without actually having to peek through their bedroom windows with a pair of binoculars. So, shoo, people!

 The rules for the award ceremony are fairly simple:

• Thank the person who gave you the award
• Answer 8 questions
• Pass the award on to 8 sunshine-worthy bloggers

I think I'll be going the Lucky Seven route again regarding the tagging. It means that this post serves as an automatic tagging mechanism to anyone who wants to participate. These challenges should be fun and done on a voluntary basis. Peeps, consider yourselves tagged, if you like.

My favorite Christmas/Holiday movie? That's easy, it's Three Wishes For Cinderella! I have watched this fairy-tale once a year at Christmas ever since I was a little girl. I liked it so much that I remember one year, when my dad hogged the TV all day because of Winter Olympics, I ran over to my neighbor, a kindly old lady, who let me watch it in her living room and even made me some hot chocolate. Ahh, the times without VCR and only one TV in every household...
Would I still do the same thing today? Probably!
It's a magical movie, with snowy woods and a Cinderella who doesn't just fall into the prince's arms, but climbs trees, shoots crossbows and has to be chased quite a bit.

My favorite Flower? I really like to look at Calla lilies, I think they are very elegant, almost unreal looking, and I love how the colors of the blossom and the stem blend into one another. I would never go out and buy flowers to put in vase though, and I don't care much for a flowery present either. It's nice to know that right at this moment, somewhere in Africa, the lilies are at full bloom - and bring joy to someone who just passes them by. At least that's what I like to think..

My favorite non-alcoholic beverage? That changes quite a lot. At the moment I like rooibos soft drinks, especially during and after workout sessions. A few months ago, I used to religiously drink apple spritzer. Before that it was coke and fizzy. Juice. And loooong before that...well, mother's milk, what else. ;)

My passion? Apart from all the writerly things that is? Playing video games! I have an Xbox, a PS3, a Wii, and a high-end PC not to miss any good titles coming out for those platforms. I simply love role playing games, and even talking about game mechanics and reviewing games is so much fun. I have been playing RPGs and MMORPGs for over 10 years. I love to stroll through luscious woods, climb up to the top of mountains - and fight and ogre or two on my way down. The ideas I come up with while roaming the Skyrim landscape... it's like being on vacation!

Skyrim nights

Dodo the dog and me, in TERA

My favorite time of year? ..is now, September and October. I love the warm days and cool nights of the Indian Summer. Everything about this time of year is great. I was born in September, so it must be true, tee-hee. But other than that, there are colorful leaves and there is bright wheat, kites flying, gingerbread and hazelnuts. Not to forget about pumpkins and delicious pumpkin soup.

My favorite time of day? Early mornings, the time of day when it's still quiet, but the day's rumblings are about to begin..also for me, it is the most productive time of day.

My favorite physical activity? Yikes! Well, if nothing else I like doing cardio, but only the short cardio workouts. Hubby calls it the hot chick silly dance. Well, what can I say, Turbofire is high intensity interval training, with at least 20 to 30 minutes every day...other than that...yikes!

My favorite vacation? The spontaneous one. Catching a train to god-knows-where. Deciding on the spur of the moment where and in which town to get off. Don't book a room in advance. Don't buy a map. Get your tiny bag with no more than two days worth of clothes, point in a random direction and go, just go.