Buh.

Wow, yeah, it's been a while. To be honest I have absolutely zero intention of writing anything of worth here tonight/this morning, but I'm gonna do my best not to neglect this thing from now on. I was doing good there for a while, and then it got away from me, but I really would like to be able to keep a blog running solidly for a while, a la Neil Gaiman and/or Robin McKinley and/or Wil Wheaton. With Adam leaving for AT in two and a half hours and being gone for two weeks, and my best friend being in Florida for the next week or so, I'll have very little to do besides plays Monster Hunter Freedom Unite with my brother and struggling my way through deAngelis, as always.

Just a quick update on how things are going...

(1) Got through the Asmodeus/Jenna scene, for the most part. Got done Jenna's argument with Michael.

(2) Working on the Asmodeus/mastermind scene, almost done with that, and it's coming along beautifully, with much thanks to my muse for encouraging me along the way. I mean, really; I doubt I'd be getting the damn thing written at all if it weren't for him.

(3) Got hired to write for a local indie comic entitled Omega Force. My boss is very fashion-forward and fabulous, but he's got a good solid concept here and it's something that I can do and can enjoy at the same time. I'll throw updates about that onto this poor, neglected blog as often as I can. Until then...

Bedtime. Gotta be up in two hours to make sure Adam's up in time to get to the armory. I'll give you some more love tomorrow evening, promise.

Back from the Abyss

Yeah, still alive, even if only barely. I'm going to give a quick sort of update on Things In My Life* and then rant a little bit about writing and then maybe by the end of it I'll know how I'm going to fix it**.

As far as life goes, we're all moved into the new house now and my personal computer is set up and has the interwebs on it and everything is more or less where it needs to be***. I should be going to the gym regularly but dude seriously there are people on the internet who are wrong, I can't just walk away.

My two cousins, heretofore referred to as my little brothers (both nearly ten years younger than I), are moving in here in the next couple of weeks, and my sister's twentieth birthday is tomorrow and I still don't know what I'm getting her. At the moment, I don't have any money, since because of Memorial Day my paycheck is coming a day late (although in all fairness, I will take that paycheck a day late since it's for a good cause, seeing as my fiance is in the military and all of my grand-uncles were in World War II, and I've plenty of relations who were in Vietnam).

Adam and I are trying to put together some things for Gen Con, and as yet I don't even know what the deal is with the Con we're running for the freshman at ISU this fall. Hopefully I'll get caught up with that here soon.

Currently reading Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, Just a Geek by the wonderful Wil Wheaton (alliteration not intended) who might just be my new hero, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. All of them are wonderful. (I would like to point out right about here, WITHOUT A FOOTNOTE, that Wil Wheaton is pretty much my hero, and I wish I could high-five him.)

Now, the Rant About Writing.

More or less, deAngelis is driving me up the freaking wall, and here's why: I overwrote. There's too much stuff happening. Between Major Plot Point A and Major Plot Point B^, I should have maybe two Minor Plot Points. Guess what? I have six. SIX FREAKING POINTS.

There are two possible solutions for this, both of which are a little daunting. The first option is to omit the scenes that I can (gulp) live without in this novel. That would be the cleanest, and the least time consuming. However, it would require me to also omit at least one major character, possibly two, one of which would definitely be Alexander Hunt, and the second would be a toss-up between Adrian McKinley and River de Luca, neither of which I can really bear to lose.

The second option is to move what I thought was the Point of No Return^^ and admit that it belongs better melded with the climax. Which means that I have to rearrange a bunch of things. The Point of No Return no longer exists, and it has to be there. And I think that I know how to make this work, but the fact of the matter is that this is going to put me even further behind schedule, and I would like to get Steel done during NaNoWriMo^^^ this year. My goal is to have deAngelis finished, final draft, by the time that school begins (I've pushed back the deadline at least a half-dozen times since NaNoWriMo last year), so that I have a couple months to rest and put together notes for Steel in time to start writing it in November (although to be honest, I've started typing a few paragraphs here and there already, which is bad, I know, I have noveling-ADD).

And clearly I'm going to go with the second option, which I thought of AS I WAS WRITING THIS ENTRY, and I think I can just go ahead and finish the draft I'm working on as it is now and then rearrange it later, but last night I thought I was going to have to just scrap a bunch of stuff and I was Not Happy. Luckily, my muse, Jason, woke me up with a text this morning and got me up early enough that I've had time to enjoy some tea and toast and think about it, and I think I've got it figure out how I'm going to fix it.

Also over at my fictionpress page there is some new, bad poetry if you're interested, should hold you over til the next update.

*~*~*~*~*

* Because let's face it sometimes I don't even care.

** Now since I have nothing to do but write and serve ice cream to unhappy people, I'm starting to realize all the things that I screwed up.

*** Except for plot points, but I haven't started the Writing Rant yet gahhh.

^ I will admit that I am using James V. Smith, Jr.'s book The Writer's Little Helper as a source for this, but what I like about the Little Helper is that it is fairly accurate and actually quite helpful, despite the fact that most "this is how you write a book" books really aren't that helpful; people forget that writing is subjective, and it stems from the imagination, and everyone's imagination works differently, despite the similarities in a successful end result. Smith did a good job of remembering the subjectivity of noveling and presents a few helpful tools geared towards noveling and lots of tools and explanations geared toward grammar and style, which is honestly more of what a person needs anyway.

^^ Again, still referencing Little Helper. You'd be surprised how accurate and helpful the chart on page six is.

^^^ For anyone who hasn't done NaNo, please give it a thought. It's wonderful, and for people who want to get started noveling but need a little extra oomph to get a rough - and I mean rough - draft out, it's the perfect thing. The community encouragement adds something to an experience that is generally fairly solitary (which is why a lot of writers are so freaking depressed). The years that I've participated, I've never regretted it, and I've won two years in a row now, deAngelis being last year and the reference-purposes-only-sort-of-prequel-to-deAngelis, Ten Thousand Hells, being the year before.

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Thank You, Papa John's

For the $165 pizza.

Long story short, I ordered a pizza from Papa John's on THURSDAY. The order came to something like $15, plus tip. No big deal. I had plenty of money in my account. I put it on my debit card, and everything was happy.

I continue to spend money - gas, food, and a tshirt that I saw on www.shirt.woot.com that was pretty friggin' awesome. Still, I have plenty of money in my account.

Sunday night, I made plans to go to lunch at Ichiban Noodles with some friends the next day. I checked my account balance before I left, at 10am, and I had plenty of money to get food. My sushi came out to $16. I paid, because I had at least $20 in my account.

This morning I get a call that my account is overdrawn and I have $90 in fees, and they're going to hit me with another $75 by the end of the day. Luckily, my wonderful stepmother who deserves the praise of angel choirs wrote me a check for $200 for a little favor I did for her the other day as we're getting ready to move, and that put me in the clear.

What, I wondered, could possibly have gotten me THAT overdrawn?

I went online to check my account statement one more time.

The pizza didn't fucking post til LAST NIGHT.

Seriously, Papa John's. WTF.

Now, yes, I know, I should be able to do math. I know. But a DEBIT CARD PURCHASE should have been rung up THE NIGHT or at the very least the day AFTER I made the purchase. Especially for something as paltry as $15 plus tip.

Summer '10 Begins

Happy Mother's Day!

Part of me felt obligated to say that. Not sure why. To be honest my relationship, if you can even call it that, with my own mother amounts to a pile of baboon poopy, and when I think of mothers my mind actually goes to my dad, who did the job of mom AND dad by himself for several years. I think my paternal grandmother even used to send him Mother's Day Cards for a while.

My stepmom is wonderful. Really, she is. And my grandmothers, all three of them, are fantastic, too. But I can't help but feel a little snarky about Mother's Day in general. Why? Take this, for example: I sat down to lunch with my mom, my maternal gma, and my ridiculously awesome Aunt Beth*. My mother, who has not seen me in months, barely spoke a dozen words to me. Instead, she talked for a good half-hour about a cold she was convinced she was getting**, then another half-hour about getting locked inside her church in Marion***. Then she talked for twenty minutes about all these people who go to her church, none of whom any of us know. THEN she talked for FORTY-FIVE FREAKING MINUTES about her stupid TIRES.

Yes. Her fucking tires.

My aunt, trying to get my mom to stop running her mouth (because my mother talks a lot), asked me about my finals and about the chuckle my grandpa and I'd had earlier that day about Jack Kerouac (whom I loathe with all of my being). She and my grandmother and I talked about school, about profs at ISU whom my aunt had known when she'd gone to school there, about movies that I'd seen that they were thinking about seeing, all that sort of thing. Between the three of us, we maintained an entertaining conversation that was balanced between the three of us, and it lasted a good hour, maybe even an hour and a half.

The second I opened my mouth, my mother pulled out a JCPenney catalog and started ignoring me.
THEN she took a fucking phone call.

Granted, the call was from my sister, who's still at school in Steubenville, OH, and she was just calling to say Happy Mother's Day. I'm down with that. What bugged me is that my mother started recounting to her all of the stupid, boring-ass stories she had just been telling to me and my aunt and gma.

I'm not sure there's even a word for the type of woman that my mother is. I mean, come on, the woman is more than forty years old now. Seriously. I don't even talk on the phone if there are people in the same room as me.

I know this is a petty thing to be upset about. The entire thing is just stupid, I know. But on top of all the BS from the last twenty-some-odd years, it's just more fuel to the fire. My aunt apologized a half-dozen times to me on the way home about my mom barely talking to me while I was there, but to be honest, the less my mom talks to me, the less I have to pretend that I'm listening.

I didn't mean for this to be a whole long rant about how shitty my mom is as a mother (and sometimes as a person). But being all bluh about my mom is a lot of what makes me who I am. My general attitude and personality is a bit more masculine than most girls my age - well, honestly, than most girls period, and I think that's because my mother, who biologically and socially should have been the iconic woman in my life due to some child psychology thing, was so abhorrent to me in so many ways that I decided that I was going to ditch a lot of feminine behaviors and mindsets and start modeling myself more on my dad. Which is fine, I love hanging out with the guys and all and having fun, but it's also part of the reason that I am incredibly lonely at school sometimes; I have such a deep-set issue with women because The First Woman In My Life fucked up really hard and it affects me almost every day.

Luckily, my father understands, to some degree. He's actually made reference to it out loud, and trust me, him coming out and saying that he Understands Something About Me is a big deal^.  But essentially, here's what happened: my sister wanted to go hang out with a guy who was not her boyfriend. It was a platonic friend, one who wasn't particularly "interested" in her, so to speak, or vice versa, but my dad told her no because it was "inappropriate^^". Well, Emm got frustrated with him for this and came back at him with, "Well, Kayla hangs out with all guys all the time and she's only dating one of them!"

My father coolly looked back at her and said, "Emm, Kayla is a tomboy. You  might want to be a tomboy, but you aren't. Kayla doesn't get along with girls, and if I didn't let her hang out with the guys, who see her as one of the guys, then she wouldn't have any friends. Now go call Katelyn and go see a chick flick."

My father also understands that I hate chick flicks, for the most part, and has never raised an eyebrow at my love of action movies and superheros. I would never have said this when I was eighteen, or even when I was nineteen^^^, but my dad is Really Super Freaking Cool^^^^.

Well, I really ought to stop ranting about my parents - because I know nobody cares - and go to bed. Tomorrow Adam and I are going to Ichiban with Brian and Abby for lunch to have Super Special Awesome Bento Boxes, and then we are going to go buy fabric to get started on our Super Special Awesome Steampunk Stuff that I'm going to try and make so that we can go to Gen Con all dressed up Super Special Awesome.


___________________

* - Aunt Beth is my mom's sister (I think younger, but I don't remember), and one of the few people on my mother's side of the family that my dad gets along with. When we first moved to Indiana when I was eleven, Beth watched me and my sister's during the day in the summer time because my dad couldn't afford daycare and my Aunt Sha was busy or something. That summer we spent with Beth was AWESOME and in my mind my real mothers are my Aunt Beth and Aunt Sha, in no order other than alphabetical.

** - She never even considered it might be ALLERGIES. I'll come out and say it right now, my mother is a bona fide hypochondriac. I didn't know what a hypochondriac was until I read "The Sign of Four" (at least, I think it was "The Sign of Four"... my insomniac Holmsian know-it-all friend Jason isn't answering my trivia-question-like text because - wait for it - he's actually asleep for the first time in days).

*** - Also, I'll just come out and say this, I really hate Marion. I'm sorry to anyone who lives there, but if you've grown up in Marion you either agree with me or you already hate me anyway because of the subject matter of my novels (let's just pretend they're actually published by now, or you're reading this several years in the future after I've become stupidly famous and you're going through the archives of my entires). But my point is that every time my mom starts running her mouth about Marion I just want to punch her in the freaking throat****

**** - Although, let's be honest here again, I want to punch my mother in the throat no matter what she's talking about, usually.

^ - My senior year of high school my father and I were screaming at each other over the stupidest shit. It got so bad that I automatically threw up every morning from sheer nerves, and couldn't eat a damn thing until as late as ten o'clock at night (later the doctor said that I have acid reflux disease and that stress makes me overproduce stomach acid, which was why I was throwing up all the time. They prescribed me Prevacid for a while (this was before you could get it over-the-counter), and pretty much I couldn't function without it for four months. Now and then I'll get stressed out enough I start vomiting again, but it has to be some pretty big shit. Like, seriously huge.

^^ - Although, as an aside here, my dad also thinks tank tops, napping while sitting on the couch with a boyfriend, and watching The Untouchables on a Sunday are "inappropriate", too.

^^^ - There was a ten-month period or so when I was definitely Not Living With Them anymore, which was a result of Fighting For Years And Never Resolving Anything mixed with Dad And Kayla Are A Little Too Much Alike, with more than a little bit of Kayla Spent The Weekend At Adam's And Dad Found Out.

^^^^ - Dad's coolness factor became cemented when he emailed me a "yo mamma" joke he found on the internet and told me he couldn't think of anyone else he could share it with... except for me.

My Texting Conversation Between Me and My Sister This Morning

Me: AAAAHHH THE VELOCIRAPTORS ARE GONNA GET MEEEEE
Lauren: Umm. What.
Me: RUUNNN THEY'RE GONNA GET YOU TOOOO
Lauren: I'm not sure I know what you're talking about.
Me: THE VELOCIRAPTOOORRRSSSSSuh
Lauren: I think you had too much caffeine this morning. Or someone poisoned you.
Me: AAAAAAHHHHHH

Clearly...

I am not very good at blogging.

To be fair, though, I've had two relatives die within less than six weeks, I've had short stories due for my fic class, and I've been trying to get to the gym more. I don't even have the energy to blog about what's going on in my life, because it's (a) depressing, (b) boring, or (c) both.

I'm finished with chapter nine of deAngelis... sort of. I decided, after finishing revising the ninth chapter, that this book has got to be written in third person. It just has to. Jim Butcher and Kim Harrison do really well with first-person narratives, but I just haven't figured out how to do it, yet. My main characters are always full of spark and life and personality, but the supporting "cast", if you will, of my novels just isn't doing what I need it to do, and that's because I'm spending more time with my main character than I really need to be. So it's back to chapter one and changing everything to third. This should only put me a couple of weeks behind schedule, although I can tell you right now I'm not going to have the thing done by May 1st.

(Also, speaking of Jim Butcher, for those of you who haven't read Changes yet - don't be afraid! I know you may have heard some bad things, and while it is definitely going to rock you in ways you may not want to be rocked, the fact of the matter is that Jim isn't doing the things he did in Changes just to screw with us. He's a wonderful writer, and whatever you think he's screwed up, trust him - he's going to remedy it in one way or another. I mean, seriously, remember the out-of-the-blue romance with Anastasia Luccio that all of us were kind of like huhwaitwhat about? Yeah. He was doing it on purpose and there was a reason behind it, and we found that out after a while. So yeah. Calm the flip down, haters.)

I seem to have gained a few more pounds since my last post (sitting at 170 now), but I'm fully committing to my new workout regime, and while I'm not watching what I eat, I'm definitely more aware of it. My sister turned me on to this site called www.caloriecount.com, which is helping a lot both with being able to visualize what I'm doing and encouraging me to be more active in my daily life. It's only been one week since I started this new regime, but I'm determined to make this the one that counts. Yes!

Now for some wonderful internet finds!

I've been craving sushi for a loooong time now, and especially cupcakes (since I've cut down on sweets in my diet... but not entirely cut them out!), so these wonderful little things just made me all giggly on the inside. I will definitely have to try these over the summer! I've never worked with fondant before, but it shouldn't be that hard... should it?

This guy kind of rocks out loud. For those of us who can't WAIIIIIT for some of the films-based-on-comics to come out, this guy is friggin' awesome. All of these are "fanedit" trailers, with scenes, soundtracks, and music spliced together from different movies to make a "trailer" for an upcoming film. The guy has talent, and while clearly they are not professionally done, it is difficult not to try and watch them all in one sitting.

Also, I really really really want this lady to make my next birthday cake. I mean seriously. Hmm. I seem to be thinking about sweets a lot more today than usual.

And, for the last Cool Internet Thing of the day, I just have to point out that I must have one of these.

Did I mention that Adam made me the best shirt ever? It says "Team Edward", but has the blood sigil or whatever on it that you see all over the place on Fullmetal Alchemist. So clearly I am referring to Edward Elric.

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Noveling! ...without pants.

Well, Spring Break is over and I am cured of my particularly vindictive sinus infection, so now it is back to the daily grind of being an English major and aspiring author. At just-past two in the morning, I did in fact manage to finish writing chapter four of deAngelis, so that's always news of the good sort. My goal is still May 1st, to have the entire thing in its final draft. Still not entirely sure how likely that is, given the way that I've spent the last six weeks struggling through the first four chapters; the last three were spent on the fourth chapter alone.

I intentionally left my computers in my room when I went home for vacation, knowing that the best way for me to get past a rut in a scene or a chapter is to just walk away from it for a while - I've never been one of those people who can just "skip it" and then go back to it later; I always feel as if I'm trying to pretend the entire scene or chapter just didn't happen.

Here's my Spring Break, in a nutshell: working at Dairy Queen for a little over fifteen hours, getting foot rubs from Adam, going to see Shutter Island with Adam (which, long story short, we decided to give 4/5, Leonardo diCaprio has really improved since being king of the dorks), watching cartoon with Alek, and sitting around the new condo crocheting granny squares in psychedelic colors. The only words that I wrote the entire time were in my personal journal, which I'm not sharing here. Also I went to see my mom and that wasn't really that exciting, but all things considered it definitely could have been worse, given that the woman is batshit insane.

At any rate, more work on deAngelis tomorrow after class and gym and hot tub.

Anyone have a good cure for chronic heartburn?

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Having Withstood the Plague...

I now seem to be suffering from some variant of the black lung, meaning that I'm more or less barely surviving these lovely little coughing fits that probably ought to be breaking me in half but for whatever reason aren't. They do, however, sufficiently unsettle everyone around me. Since being out of my room for any extended length of time left me feeling faint and especially unwell, I didn't attend any of my classes on Monday. I fully intended to go today, but apparently my body had other ideas - almost immediately after breakfast I passed out again for four hours and slept through my two classes for the day. One can only hope that I am sufficiently recovered by now.

Apparently the runt of the Guild took off an older vampire's hand at the Requiem event that I was talking about last time (and actually did manage to go to, although staying in bed probably would have been the better idea, physically). I'm not sure if I want to giggle over this or facepalm.

Didn't go to Geekercise today because of aforementioned black lung. Apparently without me to lead them, nobody else went either. Which tells you exactly who the Guild mom is. :-P

I did stumble across some fairly amusing things over the interwebs while I was incarcerated in my room with a fever that eventually spiked to 101.6 (finally, I'm back at my normal 96.5). I'm still trying to convince Adam that under no circumstances will we ever dress our future daughter up like this, but the fact of the matter is that even though I staunchly refuse, I can't help but want to high-five her mom (or her dad, I guess).

Anyone whose had a conversation with me for longer than ever would probably never hear me mention steampunk. Most people don't even really know that I kind of drool over steampunk fasion in a moderate sort of way, and the only indication that I even know what it is happens to be a necklace I got off Etsy (right) that I rarely wear because, let's face it, steampunk doesn't go well with Iron Man t-shirts. However, try not to be too surprised when I say that I would kill for a pair of these. I mean seriously. Here's hoping they're still available over the summer when I actually have a decent amount of cash to throw away on stupid crap things that are awesome.

As for cool things that have nothing to do with steampunk, I have actually discovered a few. There's a stop-motion video that I came across while screwing around on the internet, and it's pretty clever - actually made me smile. Also, cookies. Who couldn't love that? So here's a link to that.

Jason has a new video, which I'm just going to go ahead and embed because he's awesome and I like to show off that I actually know how to use a computer. As I understand it, it's something he did for one of his classes or summat. Reminds me a bit of Robert Osborne, which I guess would make sense. So here's that.

Go ahead and leave a comment or six on it if you feel so inclined; I know that it just absolutely makes the guy's day when someone expresses appreciation for his work. When I have less of a headache I'll go ahead and embed the posh video that he's got as well.

That's all I got for tonight. Midterms tomorrow. Have fun, kiddies.

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Shitty Weekend, Ahoy!

I'll probably end up writing a lot more this weekend, because I have a fever of 100.1, sinus drainage, and a headache. I've already missed the farewell party for Brandon (he's going to Japan in a month and he'll be there for eight whole months...). Tonight is the Vampire: The Requiem event for the Guild. I've been looking forward to it all week, so I hope to God that I'll be well enough by then (5pm) to go. In addition, Adam was supposed to come see me today, but can't because he's sick, too. Man, this weekend sucks.

I started brainstorming a new graphic novel last night but I don't have the energy to tell you about it. Maybe later.

Noveling and Other Such Things

So, yWriter5 is still pretty fantastic. I feel a little scatterbrained because I can't see everything in one place, but honestly it's no different in that sense that what I was doing before; when I'm using Microsoft Word, I keep one "cumulative" file with everything put together, but when I'm working on a specific chapter, I work on it and save it as a separate file. So really the only difference here is the lack of a cumulative file. Also, yWriter pretty much sets it up so that you not only write each chapter separately, but each scene. While this was a little daunting at first, I eventually realized the wisdom of it - each scene needs to be crafted with as much quality and cohesiveness as is possible from the author. Each scene needs to be strong; no wimpy scenes! Now, that's not saying that each one needs to have the same punch as every other one, because that can wear out the author (and definitely the reader), but you can have a low-tension scene that is also strong. Oh, the things that I am learning from my fiction workshop (did I mention that this is the third time I've taken it for credit?).

Neil Gaiman just made multiple posts about his daughter and her friends and their failed attempt to make pancakes without him. This makes me feel better about my lack of "professional" behavior when it comes to my own writing. I really do adore this man, on an odd sort of level. First it was through his novels - because let's face it, he's brilliant. Then I started following his blog, which was obviously an insight into his life; it was something of a synopsis of what was going on in his head on an almost-daily basis. Following him on Twitter has become a little surreal for me - I get these individual, spur-of-the-moment thoughts from his head that don't really get put into his blog. And sometimes, if I'm lucky, he RESPONDS to me when I mention him on my own Twitter feed. It's like we have a very faint, nonexistent relationship. Or something.

Really my dream is to get deAngelis out, become something of a name in the fiction world. And one day he and I will be at some event, some dinner or something, and I'll lean over and be like, "Oh hey, remember the chick who thanked you on Twitter for the pancake posts? That was totally me." And he will be all like, "O HAI." Or something. (Actually my second awesome dream is that maybe his daughter will pick up one of my novels and fall in love with them. I could die happy, then. Oh please oh please oh please.)

Okay, time for fun stuff that I found on the interwebs.

This one I came across through looking up how to get an apartment properly. I'm transferring to IUPUI in the fall and I need a place to live; while it's looking like I might end up living with my buddy's girlfriend (which would be awesome), I do still need to find an actual, you know, apartment. Now, I wasn't looking on Craigslist, because that just seems like a horrible idea to me, but I did stumble across this little gem. It made me laugh out loud for a good minute or so, which is hard for internet things to do.

My fiance kind of squee'd over this house, because he desperately wants to build a house that is more-or-less mostly underground. While I understand that it will save us on energy bills and all, I really do want my study to have lots of windows. Especially since we're going to build in the woods somewhere. If there's any wooded areas left in this country by the time we get our own place.

Also, this was a fantastic WTF moment that had me giggling all day.

Really I only feel like throwing all that at you. I tend to be better about linkage when I post regularly, which clearly has not been happening lately.

Although, before I forget, go check out my friend Jason's youtube page. I'm tellin' you right now, when I get deAngelis on the big screen, he is definitely going to be in the cast. That's pretty much going to be my only stipulation. Jason is studying to be in the film industry and honestly he is a fantastic voice actor. He sends me little snippets through voice messaging on our phones, and so far I have Sherlock Holmes, David Tennant (as the tenth Doctor), Christopher Lee, and Michael the Archangel from my novel.

Also he has sent me a recording of him reading "Sweet Afton", by Robert Burns.

This guy kind of rocks my world. So go give him some love, but don't tell him I sent ya. :-P

Real Quick

Image via Wikipedia

Having a huge fangirl moment over here, because NEIL GAIMAN is going to be in friggin' INDIANAPOLIS at a date when I CAN ACTUALLY MAKE IT HOME.

http://www.imcpl.org/mcfadden/index.php

That's pretty much it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone, whether they're single or dating or whatever, is having a wonderful day. It really doesn't have to be about romance. Adam and I watched Galaxy Quest and played Magic: The Gathering for two hours. He kicked my ass. Other cinematic attempts involved Appaloosa, which just wasn't nearly as good as I was hoping - there's a reason Jeremy Irons isn't on the cover of the DVD, and that's because he's barely in the movie at all! And to be honest, that's the entire reason I wanted to see the damn thing. Also, Renee Zellweger is just difficult to look at - she doesn't really belong, visually, in a western. We watched maybe the first half hour of the film and then gave up. By then it was too late to start another movie, so once again we are putting off watching La Vie en Rose. Eventually we'll get to that one. Eventually.

I found this wonderful organizational word processing program, geared specifically toward novelists. So far I've had lots of fun playing around with it, and I've actually gotten some, you know, work done. It's called yWriter5 and pretty much rocks, although I am still getting used to the controls and the organization. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on macs, so I was unable to share its pure awesomeness with my other writer!geek friend, Katie.

We finally got the computer recovered from its massive grand-mal seizure, which was nice, because my laptop was having periodic aneurysms, also known as the horrible BSOD, every so often and for no apparent reason. So now Sharp Tooth is running Windows 7 and so far I love it. Little Foot is going back into hibernation.

But yes, I'm back up there with my Google Chrome and my Trillian Astra and my iTunes, and as I'm typing this, World of Warcraft is downloading, just in time for my last day (tomorrow) of playtime before my account expires. I'm absolutely broke, but then again, Blizzard Entertainment has given me the month away from writing that I needed, so kudos to them.

I'll leave you with this picture of my favorite actor of all time. He captured my heart when I was seven years old and he was bossing around hyenas. Since then he's just been pretty frakking awesome. I love Adam with all my heart, but Jeremy Irons, I wish you were my valentine. XD

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Windows 7 & A Happy Computer...

Well, I didn't really think that I would be posting much of anything tonight, but I got everything in the computer sorted out, thank goodness. No more messing around with that retarded six-year-old laptop. I thought I was going to kill myself. Soooo tired of the BSOD.

I don't really have a whole lot to talk about right now, but I wanted to point out that I am, in fact, still alive, and that I will probably have more to say tomorrow.

Sick Computers & Stuff Like That

Well, the desktop has a horrible virus. I thought it was just a problem with Google Chrome originally, but it turned out that I do, in fact, have a virus - which somehow managed to get past McAfee (no surprise there) and AVG (which actually kind of stunned me). I'm fairly sure that this is at least mildly related to my penchant for torrenting j-pop, but let's not get into that, huh?

At any rate, I am currently using my six-year-old dinosaur of a laptop, a Dell Latitude D505 that likes to BSOD on me occasionally for absolutely no reason at all (that I know of). Adam is coming over this weekend, though, to wiped the hard drive of the desktop and install Windows 7 on it, so I only have to deal with this for a little while. I do admit though, I absolutely love being able to carry my comp around with me, so definitely when I get the cash for it I absolutely have to get a new laptop.

Currently I'm sitting at The Table, the gathering place for my fellow geeklings and I, and there's a three-way Magic: The Gathering game going on. Usually I would be getting in on that action, but I have some internet presence to be making up for and honestly I already got my ass kicked today, I'm still licking my wounds. My blue-back deck definitely needs some more oomph to it, just not up to par. When I do win with it, it's usually a close call, or me getting EXTREMELY lucky.

Well, I've got a game starting here in an hour or so, so this will be all for now. Don't expect to hear from me again until at least Sunday.

Febrooary

Okay, just kidding, I didn't talk to you yesterday but I'm seriously going to talk to you now!

Really there's only one thing that you can blame my absence on, and that would be World of Warcraft. I know, I know, I really don't have the cash to be spending on it, and it eats my time up and I stay up too late and I'm much less likely to get my work done, but I needed something to do to keep me from working on deAngelis for a while, so I did the only thing I could think of, and that was to shell out $15 to Blizzard Entertainment and reactivate my account for a month.

I made a new toon on a new server so that I could play with everyone from the ISU RPGuild. So far it's going okay. My first toon, when I started playing WoW, was a human warrior, and Lordy could I tank. However, after three and a half years of playing the damn game, I have still only gotten Kefirah (on Stormrage) to level 61. Yes, I am an extremely casual gamer.

Lately I've been paying more attention to Kefari, on Doomhammer.


Not bad for two weeks' work, I think. Especially because I've been actually getting all of my schoolwork done in between screwing around in Azeroth.

More or less that's what's been going on right now, I'll post again sometime soon.

My paid game-time ends Feb 16th, so at the very least you'll hear from me then. :-P

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Buh.

O HAI BLOG.

I'm going to bed now. But I will talk to you tomorrow.

Love!

A List of People Who Bug Me (A Lot)

1. Girls with Facial Piercings.
Okay, I guess I can deal with nose studs. Fine. They look better on some girls than others, but whatever. The ones that really bugs me are the ones in the cheeks, or the area above or below the lips. I'm actually a fan eyebrow piercings and suchlike, but anything else is just overdone. You look dumb.

2. Stupid People in Lines at Fast Food Restaurants.
Seriously, guys. If I am the first in line and you are the fourth, do not crowd the counter as if you think your food is going to come out ahead of mine, especially if I am standing back a respectful distance. And if they give everyone a number and they call that number when your order is ready, be paying attention, retard.

3. People Who Spell Words with Numbers
l337 is fine. I am all about l337. The following is a list of "words" and phrases that are unacceptable.

• Are you ready 4 this weekend?
• See you l8r!
• I want 2 eat chocolate.
• sk8r

Seriously. That's just freaking lazy. It's not even cute. Also, it is hard to read.

4. People Who Like Twilight.
I mean, come on guys. Really?

5. People Who TyPe LiKe ThIs.
It makes me want to kill myself, and it makes you look stupid. That's too much work. Like the exact opposite of People Type #4.

6. People Who Choose 'Need' and then Disenchant.
This really only makes sense to people who play WoW. Let's just say I've been cheated out of some good gear and couple of epics because of a complete douchebag who didn't want to drop a couple extra gold for his mats.

7. People Who Think That The Only People Who Like Pink Floyd are Stoners.
Seriously, I love Pink Floyd. Mainly, The Wall. You do not need to be high to appreciate it, either the album or the movie, and I think being high while watching/listening to it just cheapens it. Roger Waters is a musical genius. So STFU.


More to come, I'm sure.

End of Week One

Well, my first week of the Spring '10 semester is over, and it really wasn't half bad.

There was an RPGuild meeting today, we got a couple of new members, both of whom irritate me to the point where I almost snapped at them, but I'm going to chalk that up to be tired and try to let it slide. I'm trying to be a more tolerant person, despite the stress that has been going on. So far it really isn't working.

I'm finding that taking better care of myself is actually kind of fun. There's a weird satisfaction that I get out of sticking to my regimen that I've created, even if it's just making sure that I follow through on every step I've
mapped out for my morning and evening routines. Having all of my things organized under my bed, and being able to see them, is great; making sure I make my bed in the mornings... I love routine. While spontaneity is great, these are the things that I need to be consistent in.

So, had another night at the gym! I almost didn't go, because it was so late in the day (6:00pm), but I knew that if I started sliding now, I was never going to get back to where I wanted to be, so I finally went.

I spent about 25mins on the cross-trainer and did about 2.25 miles, which really isn't bad for me; that averages out to about 5.5mph, which is something I really never managed in high school (although in my defense, I had a gimp leg my junior year). I went a little easier with my weight-lifting, since I did a bunch of that on Wednesday.

• Deltoids, biceps, lats: 3sets/10reps/15lbs
• Pecs, tricepts, deltoids: 3sets/12reps/10lbs
• Hamstrings, glutes, quads: 4sets/10reps/35lbs

I didn't do abs today because some jackass was sitting on the machine and texting, and I wanted to get to the commons and get a sandwich for supper before they closed. I spent some time chatting with the other people from the Guild while I ate (I ended up getting a quesadilla instead of a sandwich, because of the difference in lines... I hate waiting). Kevin said that he wanted to see if a group of us from the Guild could form a work-out support group, because obviously, since we're RP-ers, we are stupidly out of shape. I welcomed the idea, although I tend to prefer working out on my own so that I can go at my own pace and do what I want to do. We'll see how well it all works out.

I actually managed to find a scale and figured out how much I weigh. It's a little - okay, a lot - more than I thought it was, but that's what I get for not taking care of myself. Currently I weigh in at 166.5lbs. Usually that would depress me, but since I'm working hard at trying to lose weight and not willing to give up, I'm just going to stick to my plan and be positive.

At any rate, there's not a whole lot going on this weekend. Tomorrow morning I'm going to yoga, and my mom might be coming over to bring the pictures that Adam and I had taken a week or so ago. I have a short story to write for Wednesday, and some crochet to catch up on - if I don't finish Alek's scarf soon, I won't get it to him before it gets warm again!

So here's me signing off and saying good night.

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I Really Just Wanted to Share This With You

[23:04] Kayla Rose: although I guess I shouldn't bitch about Disney too much, since they own Marvel and all now
[23:05] Alek: hahahhahaha
[23:05] Alek: i forgot about that
[23:05] Alek: i meant to give you so much shit and i forgot
[23:05] Kayla Rose: lol god you are hysterical
[23:06] Alek: oh man i had joke written in my head and i forgot
[23:06] Alek: "Can't wait to see spiderman dumping mary jane for hannah montana"
[23:06] Kayla Rose: you should have enough room in your head for an arsenal of jokes
[23:06] Kayla Rose: although really you should probably let them ferment for a bit, probably only age would make them worth anything.
[23:06] Kayla Rose: consider your cranium a wine cellar for lame jokes.
[23:07] Kayla Rose: also btw i'm pretty sure spiderman doesn't know who mary jane is anymore, remember?
[23:07] Kayla Rose: One More Day?
[23:07] Alek: whatever
[23:07] Kayla Rose: although yeah actually One More Day was fucking retarded
[23:07] Alek: DISNEY OWN PUNISHER! THINK ABOUT THAT!
[23:08] Kayla Rose: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAi think i might kill myself

Workouts and Ramblings

So it really wasn't an earth-shattering decision for me to start working out or anything. I mean, I've been failing at it on-and-off again for the past couple of years. Over the past six months, two people have been convinced that I was pregnant because of my physical appearance, and Alek discovered (to our dismay) that he can no longer pick me up and swing me about in greeting anymore.


I'm not sure exactly how much I weigh anymore, although I'm willing to bet it's somewhere in the ballpark of 160lbs. People tend not to believe me, mainly because I dress in a way that more or less hides the weight, but the fact of the matter is that I am five-foot-two and I am about twenty, maybe thirty pounds, overweight.


It's not really a New Year's resolution or anything, this has been something that I've been struggling with for some time now. However, since it's a new semester, and I've always had the tools to get rid of this excess weight, I decided that I would go at it while my resolve was still fresh. (Come to think of it, maybe that's why people always come up with these resolutions around New Years?)


So, my goal is to get my weight down to 135lbs. Tomorrow, when I make my trip to the gym, I'll check and see how much I weigh. I really don't want to know - part of me is afraid that it's going to be more than 160lbs, but I know I really can't be that overweight. Can I? Oh well, I'm going to try and stop worry about it, because I'm finally starting to do something. I managed to lose ten pounds in high school just by changing my eating habits, surely by exercising daily and watching what I eat again, I can get back to where I was at - sort of - when I graduated high school.

I also plan on attending the 10am yoga class on Saturdays, to try and get some activity into those days. Every Saturday I will post my weight and how much exercise I got that week. 


Aside from my body-image stuff, I've been continuing to scribble in my writer's notebook, trying to figure out where I'm going with Otaku. I did finally torrent a copy of Welcome to the N.H.K., which is a little weirder than I thought it was going to be, but then again, that goes for most manga/anime things that I encounter, with the exception of Fruits Basket (don't even ask me what I though FLCL was going to be like...). I had a chat with Yuko, who lives in my dorm and is here on a student visa from Japan, and she was explaining to me what the Japanese otaku are like and how they are viewed in Japanese society. It was a very good chat, and just convinced me even more that Yuko is probably the sweetest girl I have ever met in my life who wasn't about to join a convent.


I'm hoping to get my hands on a decent MP3 player that I can take to the gym with me, it's kind of lame having to listen to the radio station that everyone on campus thinks is "awesome", because let's be honest, my playlist consists of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The Offspring, MIKA, Cake, and UVERworld, with a sprinkling of Sting in there, along with some Backstreet Boys, Tonic, and one song by Jet. Obviously this really doesn't pertain to most of the demographic to which I belong. I think my cousin has an MP3 player that she doesn't want anymore, I may ask if it's still up for grabs.


Speaking of The Offspring, I've been listening to their most recent album, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, and it's not nearly as bad as Adam made it out to seem. Yeah, obviously it's not the same as the music they've been making for the last, what, twenty-five years? But Dexter Holland has been wreaking havoc on his vocal chords for a long time and he just can't do anymore what he did on Smash or Americana. To be honest, I think I actually prefer this to their earlier stuff, although of course you gotta do the classics, I would be pissed if I went to a concert and they didn't play "Come Out and Play".


At any rate, time to work some more on the scarf that I'm crocheting for Alek (I swear, at some point I will post pictures!) and watch some cartoons. Did you know that crocheting for an hour will burn 100 calories? For me, at least.

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Switching it Up...

Well, not even a week into the semester, and I've already dropped my only two theater classes and pretty much said "screw you" to the entire theater department. Honestly, studying it in college has completely ruined theater for me - it's not even fun anymore - and I decided to ditch both my directing class and my theater theory class for a "how to teach grammar to kids" class.

I'm still trying to find a copy of Japanamerica, by Roland Kelts, although I have finally gotten my hands on a copy of Welcome to the N.H.K. (the light novel). I'm still trying to collect "research" materials (e.g., books that have the same tone that I'm going for... I'll have to ask my fiction prof if he has any suggestions) and trying to come up with a plotline (I'm not even sure how it's going to end yet at this point, it depends on what my characters end up doing). So far I've had only response on the otaku website that I requested, and I know it would be the worst idea ever to go waltzing into 4chan and ask them if they would please let me interview them. They would absolutely rip me apart.

It's surprising, how difficult it is to find material to help me write this book. I thought there would definitely be a lot for me to work with, and a lot of people willing to help me out right off the bat, but I guess not. My buddy Zac, from Some Sort of Loli Breakfast Machine, has been pointing me to articles and giving me insight into the world, but he's more wota than anything else, and he assures me that although wota and otaku look like the same thing, the details are surprisingly different.

Well, I have my Multicultural American Lit class here in half an hour, so I should probably get ready for that and then take off. Probably I will post again later tonight.

Otaku: A Love Story

Okay, so that part where I said that I was gonna go to bed? I lied.

Instead, I tried to make my speakers work on my computer, which they won't, so instead I started making a Writer's Notebook, a place where I can jot down ideas like character names, novel titles, things I want/need to read, novel ideas, etc.

And I came up with an idea for a new novel. Something to keep me from getting burnt out on deAngelis, which is awesome, because I really just need to step away from it for a while. There are a couple of people who will be pissed that I'm deciding to put it on hiatus, but the fact of the matter is that I care about deAngelis too much to let myself get sick of it. I want to finish it, and get it published, and if I work on it so much I want to puke, that's not going to happen.

So, I'm starting something new, something fun, something that I haven't been stressing out over since I started college.

Instead, I'm going to try my hand at literary fiction. I take a fiction writing workshop class that is all based around short literary fiction, and my prof says that I'm ready to be published. Also, I need something that isn't so depressing and dark. Let's face it, that's what all of my fantasy/sci-fi is.

Image via Wikipedia

This new novel currently has a working title of Otaku: A Love Story, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Mainly I'm just going to be writing a story about two people trying to forge some sort of relationship. One of them, the chick, is relatively mainstream about her fandoms. The other guy, though, is an "otaku". Maybe I'm using the word wrong, but essentially he's a huge anime and manga fanboy. Alek told me the other day that his obsession with certain anime characters probably caused him to spend more time in his room watching anime and reading manga and going to cons than learning how to relate and deal with real-life girls, and that's apparently why he doesn't have a girlfriend. I decided I wanted to write a book about it.

I've already put a couple of posts up on message boards asking anime and manga fans (preferably men, but women are okay, too!) to volunteer to fill out a questionnaire that I'm going to construct, or to (preferably) agree to a Skype interview. We'll see how that goes.

I'm pretty excited about all of this! I can't wait to get started!

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Kayla's First Day of School

GEEZE. Hollywood is fully of borderline crazy people, let me tell you. While I'm sure that goes without saying, let me tell you of the two things that struck me as particularly nuts today.

Image via Wikipedia

1. Breaking Dawn. They already made the third movie, and they're already talking about the forth, which is funny, because the two actors playing the main characters aren't even signed on for that many films. (I can't confirm it, but someone told me that the actors actually didn't want to return even to do New Moon, because they can't stand the characters... but I'm reporting that on hearsay, so don't take me that seriously.) The baffling part about this fourth movie (SPOILER ALERT... like I care) is that, in order to portray Bella and Edward's baby girl, they are using A CGI BABY.

Just let that sit for a moment. Then re-read that sentence. I'm pretty sure that's all that really needs to be said.

(I will make it clear, though, that I absolutely abhor the Twilight series, and that anyone who thinks (1) that Stephenie Meyer is anywhere near a decent writer and/or (2) that the Bella/Edward 'ship is any synonym of "healthy" or "pleasant" or "desirable" is a complete idiot and should have their brain rewired and their reproductive organs removed.)

2. Spiderman 4. Literally, three hours ago I tweet'd about finding out that The Vulture was confirmed to be played by John Malkovich. Then, two hours after that, I found out that the movie had been scrapped, and Sam Raimi had walked away from the entire franchise. WHOA. Literally six days after confirming Malkovich, they CANCELLED THE MOVIE.

Don't get me wrong - I think Sam Raimi was the worst thing to happen to Spiderman. I mean, just look at this scene from Spiderman 3, where they gave him more control than he'd had in the previous two movies. I think everyone would agree with me that, in 3, our beloved Peter Parker just had way too much eyeliner and estrogen. The entire movie was a joke.

Image by Mirka23 via Flickr

They're talking reboots now, which look like they're going to be handled by Marvel - and if that's the case, then it's pretty definite that they're going to do it the right way. Spiderman was actually pretty good, and 2 was decent, even though it definitely fell short of the pure awesome that was its predecessor. But as we saw with The Hulk, Marvel knows how to handle its own shit. Here's hoping that they manage to get their hands on Spidey, and hopefully one day clean up the mess that Fox created with its three X-Men films and the travesty that was Wolverine.

(NOTE: The first X-Men film was pretty good, but the next two were horrendous, and don't even get me started on Wolverine. ALL of them were about Wolverine, really, and I didn't appreciate that... although I adore Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier. Sigh.)

So, yeah, there's your two major Hollywood "WTF?"s for the day.

In other news, today was the first day of classes. I lived. My directing class may make me want to kill myself, but I just have to grit my teeth and get through it, I guess. Part of me wants to drop my theater major entirely and just say the Hell with it, but I know that means I would have wasted a BUNCH of time here, and I want to get something out of it. I am thinking about picking up a creative writing major, though, which would enable me to teach it when I get my license (and a job).

For the rest of the evening, I plan on possibly getting out another chapter or two of deAngelis, making a cup of tea (possibly green, not in the mood for black tonight...), and curling up with my Sherlock Holmes anthology. Ahhh.

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