WriteOnCon and Stuff I Learn About Myself

So I've been running around WriteOnCon when I have time - because they are doing a PitchFest and it's super exciting. I'm working on my pitch for WhiteWashed.

And I realized how much I miss being part of the writerly world and posting in here and all I could think of was, "Dude, why did I stop?" and I realized:

Something happened. Something mysterious and I don't know what. BUT.

I didn't think I had anything important to say. It's like someone took a vacuum hose and stuck it down my throat and sucked out all of my confidence and worth as an individual self.

I don't even know. It's so not like me. I've always been fairly confident in who I am and that I have something important to say and share.

But. Something happened and all of that disappeared and I would pull up this blog - you have NO IDEA how many times I pulled up this blog - and I would stare at the empty screen waiting for me to burp words up onto and I would just think: there is nothing I can say. Everything has already been said. People have BETTER things to say than I do.

What is my life?

What if I'm just an object interacting with other objects that have the power to produce within me the feelings of a personality and really this "I" does not refer to anything at all?

But I have an amazing friend and she e-mailed me the other day and reminded me that: I can say things that are worth saying.

So. Will I blog more? I have no idea. My laptop died and won't turn back on. I don't have a job. I have no idea what I'm doing this summer. I'm taking 22 credits part of which is writing a thesis part of which is a heavy book reading independent study... And you know what. I'll tell you more about that later. Because. I can do that.

I can write in here when I want to about THINGS and about BORING THINGS and about EXCITING THINGS and I can have a sense of humor and I can not be depressed all of the time and I can not hold myself up to some weird kind of I don't know what that keeps me from doing anything and this has become one very long sentence of longness.

Now.

I'm going to go make pasta. I might tell you about it later. Because pasta is awesome.

And life is awesome.

And here is a picture of Norway:

Let's go, guys.

The Labels We Hide

I have a lot of crazy characters. And I'm not just saying that. I have a lot of mentally deranged, unstable, people. I have characters with emotional problems. I have characters that could be labeled all kinds of disorders.

Why?

Because one, I think they're interesting. But two, I think we hide our labels. We  hide our instability. We pretend we're okay and we smile and we go to class. I have multiple friends who are depressed and on meds. And they don't tell people. I had a serious emotional/mental problem last semester with anxiety and panic and depression.

But shh! Don't tell.

Our society likes to cover up crazy. Take your pills and shut up and pretend. It makes the world uncomfortable. It makes us feel like we're no in control. It's messy and it hurts and we aren't going to talk about it.

But who doesn't have some sort of problem some time?

Why do we need to hide who we are all of the time? I hate it. It's something that I truly loathe. The hiding. The fearing judgement. The fact that people either ignore that you have a problem or they treat you differently.

Why?

We're just people. We're all just people.

I haven't been blogging much. I blame it on the fact that I don't have time, or I don't have anything to blog about, or blah, blah, blah, excuse, excuse, excuse. The reason why I don't blog much, the reason why I don't read blogs like I used to, has nothing to do with that. The truth is sometimes I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. The truth is sometimes I sit all day and stare out of the window and look at trees. The truth is life is a struggle and it's hard and sometimes your brain explodes and you spiral out of control and you pick up the pieces and have to start setting up new patterns.

And it costs you. Having your brain malfunction and your mood go paddywack crazy costs you. You don't find internships on time. You don't have readership up on your blog. No one knows who you are. No one comments. And you think about how this makes you look, and you wonder what you can do, and there's all of these things that make you feel so alone in the world.

But don't talk about it.

Don't blog about it.

Pretend you're okay, find a way around it, repress it and hide it and hope it goes away.

I'm getting better. I'm making lists. I'm finishing books. I'm writing more regularly. I'm blogging a tiny bit more (not much). I'm getting back into the blog world (so slowly) and I'm preparing for my second to last semester and hoping I can still find an internship and work toward a life after graduation.

So. My characters are going to be crazy. They are going to have mental problems. They are going to be psychotic, and abused, and sick, and sometimes maybe they won't be, but most of the time they will. Because that is what I am. That is what I know. And I'm tired of it being something that is not okay to talk about.

Get over yourself, world. Face your imperfections and accept it and move on with your life.

WhiteWashed, a Pitch Fest, and The Ooze Walk Into A Bar

My brain hurts.

I just finished an entire book run through of editing WhiteWashed. This is what my brain feels like:

Like a LOST plane crash.

I'm pretty sure it will all be ready for the Writeoncon pitchfest.

Right now? This is how I feel about my MS:

It's just so pretty. There are wonderful phrases. It makes me laugh. There's some intense emotional scenes. It has poem/song things. It's so gorgeous.

And I know tomorrow it won't be so beautiful anymore.

Instead I will be thinking: "What is this baby? This isn't mine." But then I'll learn to love it anyway, just like the Hunchback.

And then eventually an agent will get their hands on it.

"Noooooo!!"

And then an editor will get their hands on it.

Only, if I should ever faint, I hope some
creepy man doesn't appear out of nowhere.

But for now:

"It's mine. My own. My Precious."

Now I just have to figure out the pitch part.

Me and Animals and How Life Taunts Me

Me: I don't really like animals.

Life: Really? You really don't like animals?

Me: Meh. Not really.

Life: *laughing evilly* So you don't like this? *sticks a wombat in my face*

Me: AWWWW. It's so cute! I want one!

Life: *bunts the wombat back to Australia* No! Wombats are not domesticated. Wombats can dig through concrete. Wombats could eat your face off and tear you limb from limb. You cannot have a wombat.

Me: Fine. I still don't like animalS. I just like A animal.

Life: Really?

Me: Yes.

Life: *laughs evilly* *pulls a quokka from behind its back* What about this?

Me: AWWWW. It's so cute I want one!

Life: *laughs manically and bunts quokka back to Australia* No! You can't have one! They're not domesticated. They are dying off and being eaten by cats and dogs and those other animals you disregard. You cannot have a quokka!

Me: *sobbing* Why Australia? Why? Why do you have such cute animals? I hate you forever!

Life: *runs off laughing in nefarious glee*

Me: *shakes fist* Oh, life, how I hate thee sometimes.

Two Sentence Post

It's not about what we want to do...

It's about what we decide to do.

Grief

This story bit was written after one of the professors, Dr. Murphy, passed away. He was a good friend of my professor and when I was sitting in class my professor’s grief was tangible. I wrote this scene about a person (I imagine her female because I am female, but it could just as easily be male) who can only feel emotion through other individuals. They are incapable of feeling emotion on their own, and must live vicariously through others.

“You think you know something about grief?” he laughed a dry dusty old tome of a laugh.

“Something, yes. Not personally, but I know something. I know it’s a drop of bittersweet dark chocolate under the tongue that makes you swallow, and swallow, and feel just a little bit like choking. I know it’s salt tears burning your eyes red. A hollow gut spilling out of your skin in waves, and waves. I know it’s the question why. That deep-seated child asking why were they here and now they’re not?”

“That’s not grief,” he said. “That’s poetry.”

“Grief is poetry.”

At first he said nothing and his eyes were nothing and his arms were so still and his body was so rigid he became a little bit of nothing. “That’s not what grief is. Grief is not poetry.”

“Then what is it?” I demanded, a clawed monster of pain awakening in my stomach and ripping, flailing, trying to find a way up my throat, but its legs were stuck in my stomach and so it reached, and reached behind my eyes and scratched away at my retinas.

“You’ll know when it comes,” he said quietly, and left. The monster left with him, and the pain, and the regret, and the relief, and the ever-present haunting that death left behind. I wrapped my arms around myself and waited to feel again.

**Also: Sorry about my recent trend in writing horribly sad posts. I will have something a little more positive in a few days if all goes well.

Car Trouble

She was drinking coffee. Bad idea. But she knew if she didn't she would go find alcohol - and for an alcohol intolerant person that was even worse of an idea. So the coffee worked as a distraction. For a few moments. Then it would all come back and she would reach for another marshmallow. The bag was almost half-empty already. She would eat one - or five - every time it came back. Every time she remembered.

She kept telling herself it wasn't that bad. Nothing had actually happened. She was fine and she was safe. But that refrain kept coming into her head and parading like a demented mechanical chicken. My car was on fire. I could have died.

She had taken a long bath and had bought new clothes (well, they were used, but still, new to her) to put distance between herself and what had happened. Also, to get away from the burnt car smell that clung to her like a needy boyfriend.

The car ride had started out well enough, except for the delay. She had taken a wrong turn and ended up in Pittsburgh. But she had pulled out her map and been able to find her way back to 79 South. It had been about an hour out of the way, but it could have been worse, and she had been able to figure it out all on her own without a GPS. Just an old beat up atlas.

That's when her car started acting funny. She had gone to the nearest gas station, just to be sure. Everything looked fine. All fluids where they needed to be, no leaking, tires good.

I should have called my dad. But she hadn't. It had driven without problem for about an hour. That's when the smoke started. And then the panic. She dialed home. No answer. Her dad. Still no answer. Mom? Yes. She was driving but would call back. She hung up.

It smelled like smoke. Like a lot of smoke. She was just thinking of getting out of the car when someone pulled over in front of her. A small white car. A man jumped out and ran to her, so she rolled down her window.

"Yours car is on fire. You need to get out."

The panic. The waiting. The continual phone calls. Fire fighters pulling stuff out of the back of her car and tossing it aside while they tried to cool the car down. It was too hot. There was so much smoke. This isn't real. This doesn't happen in real life. But it was happening. Later, car dropped off at a shop, waiting for her dad to pick her up, she walked through the dollar store and felt nothing. She was walking. She was standing. Her eyes were open. But no sense data was coming through. There was nothing. Just a floating body of white noise. So she got a hotel room and took a bath and put on her new clothes and called her grandmother.

That's when the shaking started. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if worse things had happened to her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad it she knew she could afford a new car. Or if she wasn't alone in West Virginia.

She took another sip of the coffee she wasn't supposed to be drinking and reached for another marshmallow. She waited for her dad to come and for the shaking to stop.