Dear lord, this has been way too long

I've actually written this out about ten times before I actually type it out. Sad thing is that I haven't actually written this out by hand - the rest of them are all going to waste. What happened, may you ask?

Unemployment sucks for things to discuss. I did not want to delve into awesome things of the past anymore, nor did I want to talk about what a miserable time I was having at not having a job. But! The very last day of September, I started my current job and things sort of... exploded.

Going from waking up at one in the afternoon and doing absolutely nothing all day to getting up at six am and working forty hours a week is - well, let's just call it 'jarring', to say the very least. Mind you, I rather enjoy my job despite all the pitying looks people give me when I say that.

Yes. I enjoy my job. For the most part, the customers are awesome, the pay doesn't suck, I will get benefits (even if they will take a while), and it's possible that I will get a place to stay if I get promoted. It's no ideal, it is not what I want out of life, and if I stay there for a few years, so what? I'll get my education and I am still planning to go back to Florida to get the certification for editing and publishing. The worst part of the job are those looks, the ones that ask, well, why do you enjoy this? You poor girl, you like this so much. All of those things.

Granted, the job includes old men and delivery guys asking me out on dates or to parties but hey, whatever.

On that note: I am not 'out' at work. That's all I have to say on the subject.

With the social life front, things are fantastic. Not everyone is as thrilled as I am at the turn of events but, hot darn, I have me some friends. I met them through National Novel Writing Month so there's always the chance I may not see them frequently, if at all, after the month is over but I would like to toss my eggs into a basket for a bit. It sounds like a good basket to throw them in.

I'm not really sure if I should use names or pretend names or whatever in this journal. I don't think any of them know about the blog and if they'd appreciate being named in it. It isn't as if I'm about to start flinging mud at anyone but, to be on the safe side, I'm just going to refer to them by things that remind me of them.

There's Synopse, a totally wickedly awesome girl who knits and crochets and doesn't mind me having no clue what it is despite multiple explanations. We get along quite well and tomorrow she is going to (supposed to be) chill out with me for a few hours tomorrow night after the write in. She's quite the awesome cat. There is Herd of Boys, only one of which I can see myself hanging out with on a semi-regular basis. They tend to get very intense while in discussions, to a level I don't even see at most anime conventions. That said, if someone punched me in the throat, they may get a bit upset. There is ML, who is just badass all around and I was going to call 'Handwarmers' but realized I may confuse her with Synopse. ML is perhaps one of the coolest moms I've ever met in my age group, she's funny, super nice, and it takes a LOT to shock her. I dig it. There is Pixie and Pixie 2, two girls who have known each other for years and it shows. They're funny, very cuddly girls. And they drink! I miss drinking. There is Netbook, Science, and Handwrite as well, but I don't see them as often.

I went out to this big town center place on Thursday with Synopse. We wandered around the ice rink, grabbed some food and then chilled out in this French bakery ... place. It had yummy pastries and while we meant to write, we ended up gabbing the entire time. It was fun to just sit around and talk and have fun, get used to the cold and bounce around with it.

Saturday night was the Night of Writing Dangerously - we hit up George Mason U to write for a few hours. Homemade truffles were dispersed, words were written. Synopse and I got into a foot war that ended in a deadlock and at the end of the night, I was running around in jeans, a tank top, arm warmers, and a hat. It was truly awesome.

Tomorrow night is my last write-in here in Virginia and then I fly into Florida on Wednesday to hang out with people, pack up my stuff, and get back up here. My early December paycheck will suck so hard it's ridiculous but I've MISSED those guys. And my pets. And the people there.

I'm horribly excited. The only downside is that it means no more write-ins with the new people. But! I have either their cell numbers or IMs or both so it means our happy butts can keep in touch. Someone suggested during the NWD that we have semi-regular meetups and see what goes down, see if we can keep writing, etc, etc.

Long story/post short? Life is getting better. I'm meeting people, working, paying bills. It means not as much time online as I used to be but - really, that's not a bad thing. People on and offline have been telling me to get a life for years now. I just finally have the opportunity.

I WILL be posting soon, hopefully while in Florida.

Until next time!

Neglect, neglect, neglect.

Poor journal, I've left you high and dry. You'd think since no life or job exists for me, I'd be able to post more. Thing is - with my life the way it is, there's very little for me to post about until after or before the weekends.

Weekends are when my dad is home all day and we actively go out and do things. No matter what I act like, I actually have a lot of fun. Sometimes during the day after we haven't eaten for a while, my blood sugar absolutely plummets and it leaves me either grumpy. If we're driving past a lot of green things, I stare out the window because, hello, Florida doesn't have green like this place has.

Have I posted pictures of this freaking green? ... No?

GREEN!

It's a rare thing, folks. Not so much here but for a Florida girl? Totally.

I was just told that apples are now in season. I think it's time for me to try to go with that interest I've always had with more extensive baking. Poor Daddio may soon be bombarded by a slew of apple-related deliciousness, especially apple pie. No home made crusts, just yet - the last time was an utter disaster and the money needed to purchase those ingredients just aren't in my pocket book.

That leads into Thanksgiving. It's right around the corner! Last year I was unable to make my fragging pumpkin pie I'd been looking forward to. I had forgotten the condensed milk at home with no way to get to the market. Pie crust and home-smashed pumpkin puree gone to waste. If the summers apple pie turns out to be a success, I may attempt to do that this year as well as the pecan pie as my pies are delicious, thanks, and just put together a smaller portion of sweet potato casserole than I usually do.

I think I've lost weight since coming to Virginia. Sounds odd but things are fitting better, shirts drape nicer than before. I haven't been exercising a lot (read: at all) but maybe not living right next to two gas stations and a neighborhood Wal-Mart may have something to do with my milder eating habits. If this is the case, awesome. I don't mind losing weight/inches if it's because I'm not eating like a candy-starved piglet anymore.

I miss karate.

Hells bells, I miss writing and the ability to draw properly. Being stuck inside because I lack any social graces isn't helping. I'm tempted to invade Dad's campus and just wander, go to the bookstore or library, chill in the cafeteria and eat there, try to write. I write well in public.

Okay. Werewolf story will be finished by the 15th, it is decided. So there.

Until next time, readers!

Hello, September!

I've worked myself into a steady and yet erratic daily schedule. I'm not exactly sure how that happened. It usually involves waking up around nine thirty or ten, stumbling out of bed in order to see if any caffeine has been brewed up. After a cup or two, I reach some semblance of normality and collapse in front of my computer.

E-mail is checked. The next few hours are spent slugging caffeine down my gullet, chatting online with various people, and applying for as many jobs as I can possibly muster. Unfortunately, most of the jobs I've encountered in the last twelve hours require cover letters. That takes up half of my day. It's kind of sucky but like Kelly said - it's can be the difference between death and job.

Daddio comes home around two thirty, three in the afternoon. We either chill around the house doing various things and watching such-and-such shows on the television and I continue to chat online and apply for jobs. It makes my brain hurt. Somedays we go out to explore or eat! It wakes us both up.

Bedtime is usually done around two in the morning and the entire thing starts right back over again. I've began to do Rosetta Stone again (feeling like such a newbie because I've forgotten a few things) and every so often attempt to write or draw but I'm just not feeling it. Maybe it's because I don't want to go outside in case I get accosted by the landlords brother again. Yes. Not son but brother, as in around the same age as my grandfather of a landlord. Gross.

I think I'm going to do Rosetta Stone for an hour every other day and put aside a half an hour (at least) towards editing and writing. Or writing. Who knows? I can get involved in a piece to the point where several hours pass and I run out of ink in order to do anything. My werewolf story isn't anywhere close to being finished and it needs to be. After all, the name of werewolves and sociopaths needs to be redeemed - can't have sparkles and guys in ripped short shorts ruining everything for the genre.

It starts tonight. I'll say it starts at three and I will be offline for at least half an hour while I edit. Rosetta Stone will be tomorrow. Editing/writing is more important than learning Japanese. Besides, people are home and I feel awkward practicing languages with others being able to listen. It's weird.

My expectations for employment have started to lower. I didn't want retail or anything because, well, I hate it. With a passion. A few places non-retail are hiring people with my (lack of) experience. When I expressed anger at being unqualified for the positions I wanted and the fact the only way to get it was unpaid internship (where I would be ineligible for unemployment because I was not available all hours of the day), someone pointed out that I was supposed to work full time to pay the bills while also doing an internship.

So, that's what I suppose I'll do. Get a job first and then a part-time internship. Kelly gave me a very useful site, where there are some internships that are only twenty hours or so a week. That's do-able. Even if I get a full time job, that's only sixty hours. I'd still have time to go out and volunteer at the local library as I wanted to when I first came here to Virginia.

Plan of attack is officially in place. I am excited. Even if the job is something I despise, at least I'll have other 'jobs' that I enjoy. It'll be alright.

Now, I go to edit. Until next time!

Editing

I never realized how many times I use the word 'had' and 'was' in my writing until I began to edit my own pieces. I generally avoid doing so and prefer others to do it for me (such as in workshops). The current short story I'm working on needs some major revisions. I'd written it over a year ago and figured I could take on the challenge of discovering just how much I suck.

Sentences have been cut and surprisingly few words added. I tend to assume that more words equal better works and, well. No. Is it odd that I do exactly what I berate others for when I take pen to their writing? I'm finding the same comma errors and superfluous words in my short stories I tend to threaten other writers with death with! Is it being blind to ones own flaws or thinking certain things are perfect in pieces an author takes pride in?

I'm not sure. Maybe I'll never be sure. All I know is that this particular bit of dyke literature will be better once I'm done ripping it to shreds with my red mighty pen and send it off to be looked at by a friend. It'll be this works - fourth? Fifth? run through the proverbial shredder. Hopefully this time I might be able to consider it 'done' or at least as close as it's going to get.

A lofty (and arrogant) goal, yes, but what am I going to do without them? I do love the piece I'm working on and hopefully others don't think it's some pompous lesbian stereotypical angst. Cliche is cliche for a reason and I'm doing my damnedest to steer away from it.

Back to work. Until next time!

Absolutely Nothing Worth Talking About.

But I will anyway. This blog is to document things, right? So they'll be documented, whether they're interesting or not.

Ashley and I will be doing a comic based on my short stories. She wants to do an entire series as I have about four of them in my head. One is already finished (The Little Mermaid), another is being written (Little Red Riding Hood), and Beauty and the Beast is entirely written in my brain. Rumplestiltskin is forming as is an original fairy tale. None of them will be NC17 although they'll involve nudity and, for some, dirty thoughts. Especially Riding Hood. Claude (the wolf) is something of a Sick Bastard.

Ashley's art is lovely; I have the upmost faith in her ability to portray the stories correctly. As i will be overseeing production and the stories, this quality will be assured. The short things were never meant for publication so I have no qualms on them being displayed to the public.

Linking will occur when we have it up and running, of course.

That's pretty much the only thing worth talking about. Everything else in life is mundane, right down the continued use of soy milk instead of Milk milk, Daddio enjoying his job, and being able to-

OH. I've been drawing again! Expect pictures. I like them.

Until next time and hopefully a longer post!

Writing In Capitol Letters

One more time, blog! Another day, another ten million words. Or a thousand, whichever would be best to describe the way things are going. My mind has lately been plagued by Writing.

Capitol letters indeed! Why the capitol letters, one may ask, as it is very much -not- proper grammar. Has Erin lost her mind? Is she going to start spouting off things in incorrect English, more swear words than she already does? Horror! The Apocalypse! All of these horrid things, etc, etc!

It's capitalized as a title of what's going on through my messed up little brain. For years, the act of putting words to paper or screen while somehow forming a coherent and intelligent story has been the main focus of my life. Most of those words came out to utter crap, a story in the barest sense of the phrase with trite and unrealistic characters akin to glittering vampires and blood mixed with chocolate. Sometimes I knew immediately these things should never see the light of day and the characters should be burnt at the stake of Writing in a tribute and sacrifice to whatever gods actually pay attention to the inane blathering of some fifteen year old girl.

I'm twenty-three. My first story was a coloring book I did in the second grade with the help of a boy in class. It exploded from there. According to my parents I always had an overactive imagination and a glare that could tell even the most oblivious person that I wanted them to eff off and decompose somewhere dank and hot.

At thirteen I wrote a sixty page story about Amazon warriors and a guy with a plot I can't even remember. Fifteen came Ten of Light, a story that introduced a few of my favorite characters to date; this includes but is not limited to do Jacquiline Bardot. She was called Jackiline Barduo at that time and tended towards cross-dressing to fit in at her school due to a larger and more masculine stature. She's had the same personality although the back-story, motivation, appearance and overall story have changed drastically (thank god).

That story was also the last story I wrote that I allowed someone I knew face-to-face to read. When fronted with the only critique I remembered of "They swear a lot", I stopped handing off my pages of chicken scratch. Posting online came about, along with the story "Normal" about a gay 'coming of age' tale that (typically, for me) included swearing, violence, and a small curvy woman and large man combo, along with a bad attempt at historical fiction revolving around one of Jesus' sisters.

Normal, Water Age, Priests Tale, 2081 - all of them came from the smallest ideas and every single one of those stupid stories has infested my brain. They have all had altered plot lines, different side characters and underlying tones.

Text-based role-playing unfortunately hindered my writing for several years. It wasn't until National Novel Writing Month '06 that I actually got back into plotting, writing, trying to develop characters that weren't some distorted version of myself (Hello, Ian, Adali, and Jacqui!). Melosa and Atia flew into my brain, my very first lesbian couple I'd ever written. Their story bombed but Hanami and Ha'Neul came into play. I still intend to finish their story at some point.

Creative Writing kicked me into gear. After a horrible CW teacher back in High School, University had been held to high expectations. My teacher was one of the best I've ever come across before and since. She pushed for students to edit and supported my ruthless and cut throat method of editing, with gashes and insults and demanding changes be made lest I hurl high lighters at them for comma errors and boring paragraphs.

Like all good things, Creative Writing I and II came to an end with each semester. For a long time after, I couldn't even pick up a pen. What was the motivation? I couldn't post these things online for critique, not if I wanted them published at some point in time. The former students of my class, the ones who made a competition of who could receive the least amount of bad reviews from me, were busy and didn't have time to get to everyone. I missed it.

What does all this blathering have to do with anything? It has nothing to do with writing, nothing to do with this blog post, at least, i think so. It's the prologue to what's about to go down, the backdrop and back story to my future career.

In just the last few months, the bug has come back. My brain kicked back into gear and began to thrust stories, words back into my consciousness. The itch in my fingers returned, forcing me to take hold of my pen, write without planning except vague ideas of what would happen. Writing on the computer is rough for me. The words fly so quickly from brain to fingers that I don't have a chance to think about what it is I'm actually writing.

Maybe it's the B12 vitamins I started to take with my typical BPD meds in the morning or the idea of I WILL change my life, which things are finally moving in the order of where I want to be. Virginia is not the place I ever imagined moving to, especially not so close to the big cities, but more and more the idea appeals to me: it's beautiful up there.

Plans are coming together. With that, so are my stories. It seems stress is the key factor to getting writers block for me. Who would've guessed. (Why yes, yes that is sarcasm. Thank you so much for noticing) I've even finished a short story! - Although I have no friggin' idea where the first three pages went to. Currently trying to dig those things up.

Karate starts tomorrow. I have a sinking feeling I will be up all tomorrow night writing; adrenaline rushes and working out always makes me utterly filled with inspiration. I'm starting this weighing 151 lbs, having putting 19 since I 'finished' loosing it, and a size 8/10. My goal is 130, to be in shape, to be able to fit into the clinging purple top and the skinny dark blue jeans I bought as my goal outfit.

This entire process will be filled with writing, work, hopefully some school to get that damned AA. Writing is directly affected by my daily ongoing to life. I -will- write at least a thousand words to day, I will, and I'll win this year’s NaNoWriMo again.

I will I will I will!

Writing is once again going to be a major force in my life. With the pen to paper, the fingers to the keys, the imagination to the over drive. I may never be published, never be polished or witty or interesting enough to be out there, but the writing will be done.

Read on, fellow bloggers! Never let your fear of inadequacy get you down! Go and do what it is your passion falls to, be what you want to be! Believe! Write!

Go and be awesome! I say it is so! Write, write, write!

Till next time!

T-Minus Seventy Nine Days

I'm off schedule this week; things have been hectic. It isn't that work is taking up all of my time, all twenty two hours of it, or that my mind is lost in the world of writing and drawing and all of that genius sorts of things. I wish that were the excuse, especially today, but, unfortunately, we just aren't that lucky - I am just not that lucky.

'Avatar' came out on the 18th. If you've spoken to me at all about it, you'll know my opinion well: the movie was a masterpiece. People are complaining a white guy saved them (seriously?) and that there are no gay natives in the film (are you fucking KIDDING me?) but - it is simply gorgeous. The story and character development live up to the CG, it had me on the edge of the seat both times I've seen it and, yes, I am planning to see it again. 3D by myself and then on IMAX 3D with Ashley. At least

It's the reason for my silence.

At the end of the movie, the first time I saw it, I was crying. I was crying because of the emotions I experienced, how well the story linked together, the meaning behind it all, what these people and so many years brought to life... And the knowledge that I will never, ever write anything as brilliant or original as the movie I had just seen on the screen.

It's taken me over three days to realize just why I will never do anything like that. The answer was stupidly simple: I've read my own writing, I know what I can and can't do, and I've always known deep in my heart that my words will never come out as they are in my head.

'Write what you know'. What do I know? I've been in this town since I was conceived, lived on the same block since I was six. I haven't lived. I haven't done anything. If something doesn't change, and soon, while I still have the nerve, I never will.

To anyone who wonders why I'm making this move all of a sudden: this isn't some whim of a girl in her twenties. I'd be smoking pot and fucking anything that struck my fancy if that were the case. This is about sanity. The move is about me being able to find that muse to write and be brilliant.

There's still hope, buried deeper than the knowledge of impending failure. It's hope that I can over come my artistic shortcomings and pull off the novel I've been working on for three years just how I want it to end, written how I imagine it, with characters as rich as those who are in my head.

So here's to sanity, to hope, to the muse that I'm crossing my fingers to. Go see the goddamn movie and pray for me.