Guests.

This is a complete and total rant. An angry one. I still can't figure out what's wrong with my iPhoto pics, so I guess in a weird way my irritation is the only reason I have an entry tonight.


I am so irritated. Ugh. I can't stand it anymore.

I HATE guests.

More accurately, I hate your guests. I especially hate when they invite themselves to our house on their whim, and you for some reason are not outraged because "that's how we do it in Nigeria".

You know what? I don't give a damn how they do it in Nigeria. I don't know if you've forgotten this, but they do a lot of crap wrong in Nigeria, and all over the place for that matter. I don't care whose culture declares this an acceptable practice. I don't care where these cultures exist. I don't care why they think it's okay to do it. You know what I think? It's rude, it's obnoxious, and it's inconvenient. And please, spare me the patronizing "Oh, they're not guests, we've known them since we were in Nigeria!" bull. I can't stand that crap. Why?

Fiction Update

Purposefully spent a little time away this time. I don't know what's wrong with iPhoto, but the pictures I wanted to put up for the entries I wound up skipping are no longer working. This upsets me greatly. Until I figure out how to fix that problem, I'm going to be largely limited to my Fiction Update posts-- which is really what I'm supposed to be doing anyway, so let's hop to it...


...Making some progress with the fanfic... not so much with the novel. That's pretty typical of me, actually. I've fleshed out the fifth chapter of "Looking Glass", and have been making some headway with actually composing it, as well. I also ironed out some details pertaining to the story's plot and universe. Feeling pretty good about it. So much so, that when I'm done here I'm going to keep working on it.


Hm. Motivation, motivation, motivation. I really need to spend more time with that manuscript. I don't know why some things come with so much more difficulty than others. In the coming weeks, I'm going to make a point to try to figure that out. 


Well, I'm super excited about working on "Looking Glass", so I'm going to take off for now. Peace!

Fiction Update/Babblings

I don't know how I missed posting on Sunday, weird. I wasn't busy or anything. Though, I have had a whole lot of stuff on my mind over the last few weeks. Things more serious than I care to go into detail about.


So the writing. I told myself I'd post about how my writing is going once every week, but I guess the fact that I haven't at all sums up my current progress (or lack thereof) rather appropriately. All my work on my novel and my fanfics has screeched to a halt. No progress, no posts.

I'm not proud of this though, especially since it's now well into January and I told myself I'd get a move on right about now. Now sure, I've promised myself a lot of things that I've wound up failing to fulfill, but right about now, a part of me feels closer than I've ever been before. Closer, like I'm on the tip of a breaking point. I can't continue on the way things are at this point in my life-- sleepless, anxious, brimming with self-doubt, tired of life with so much of it still to go. I feel like I'm going to do it this time, because if I don't make some headway and achieve a goal or two, I'm going to implode.

Admittedly... this isn't the first time I've felt "close". But I do think this is the first time I've felt like I was actually going to do something about it.



Anyway, here's the most completely uninteresting thing I've done this week: Bake brownies. I found a good brownie recipe on vegweb.com a few months ago. They're all chewy and delicious with the perfect crust and everything. Unfortunately, they stuck pretty fiercely to the pan the first time around, so this time, I oiled the mess out of the pan. I also doubled the recipe, because the first time around there simply wasn't enough gooey chocolate goodness for my liking. ;)

Unfortunately, I doubled every ingredient in the recipe except the sugar, since the cocoa I purchased happens to be sweetened. Biiiig mistake. It tastes alright, I suppose, but it's dry and crumbly and not at all chewy as the first time around. The only thing I can think to attribute this problem to is the reduced sugar-- I did everything else the same way I had before. In my most recent experiments with baking I've grown a new respect for the saying that baking is an exact science. 'Tis absolute TRUTH.


Anyway, off to linger on message boards. Peace.

One Glove

As I mentioned earlier, I’m an ardent Michael Jackson fan. There may be some confusion as to what I mean by “ardent”. Allow me to define it for you: I’m a sparkly-glove-wearing, fedora-loving, crotch grabbing, message-board-posting, memorabilia collecting, moonwalking Michael Jackson fiend.

I can’t help but to feel the need to post my feelings on Michael’s recent passing here. He was and is a huge part of my life, and I feel obligated to explain why and how to those who don’t understand his astounding impact. Funny enough, his impact on me is vaguely blog-related, but even if it weren’t, I’d still have written and posted this. I wrote it back in July. It was originally posted initially on my Xanga blog. Although I haven't been there in a couple of years, I felt compelled to place this post there. The reasons are explained after the jump, in the entry.

New Year, New Words

Happy New Year. Sorry about the absence. Lots of issues.

The following is almost everything I’ve written for my novel in the past year.

“What is this?” He asked, sliding a digit down the pristine margin, so afraid to sully the perfection of the printed page that his fingers hovered along the sharp edge and trembled with his restraint.

“My butter and biscuits,” Vaughn whispered with a faint smile. She reached over Bennett’s lap and dared to turn for him.

I seriously don’t know what’s wrong with me.

It’s now January 2010. Last November happened to be National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. While I technically don’t participate in the actual competition (I don’t have an account at the site at all—I don’t like exposing my work to the world in quite that way), in the spirit of the endeavor I’d like to try finishing SJL in about thirty days. I thought about starting at the beginning of last month, but that ship has sailed, and now I’m about two months late. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to wait until next month, no, no such silliness. I’ll start writing now, little by little, and ease my way into the hardcore “I only have thirty days to finish this” mode next month. New year, new start, right?

NaNoWriMo requires a novel of at least 50,000 words. That generally means averaging between 3 and 4 pages a day for the next month. I’m already about pretty much the entire month behind. Honestly, I’m not that concerned about that. I can pound out a good twenty pages in a weekend if I work hard enough.

My Get Things Done schedule:

5:30 am – wake, prepare breakfast/eat, practice guitar if possible…

6:30 am – work out, shower, moisturize hair…

7:30 am – write, write, write!

*Thinks* Man, five-thirty is early.

I would tell you what my novel (codenamed “SJL”) is about, but out of superstition and self-protection, I’m a little reluctant. I generally don’t discuss my serious work in extreme detail, not like I used to. Little details will slip in later on, I’m sure. I want to finish it by the end of the month, but it’s actually not the only unfinished work I’ve got going. Remember, I also write screenplays and fanfiction, right?

“Sincerely” is a fanfic about Michael Jackson. Go ahead and laugh if you want, but writing fiction about real people doesn’t have to be as creepy as it sounds. It’s about an un-famous Michael who happens to be a disenchanted San Francisco newspaper advice columnist who is considering leaving the industry until he receives mysterious letters from a “fan”. Meanwhile, he makes friends with an exuberant young graphic artist, Andrew, who urges Michael to stick with the paper. As they grow closer, the mystery of the secret fan grows more and more complex. It took me about two and half years to write (I was very on-and-off about it for a while), but this fic is roughly 81,000 words long. By NaNoWriMo standards, that’s way over novel length. How frustrating. It’s like as soon as I label something a novel, I can’t write it.

“Looking Glass” is my latest fic about Michael. It involves Michael as a high school art teacher attempting to resurrect an ill-fated relationship with a close friend, Donovan. He does this for the sake of their much-admired mutual friend Brynne… who happens to be marrying Donovan.

I’m writing other things as well, but other than my novel, those are the things that are at the top of my list and floating about in my mind.

I’ve organized schedules, plans, and notes galore, all just like this. They haven’t worked before. There’s no harm in trying. I feel like I’ve changed a lot over the past year or so. I think I’m finally, finally getting there. Maybe this time around I can do it. After all, we’re all creatures of habit, right? I’ve just got to get the right habits going.