Aaahhhhhhh, Pipe Dreams.....

Merry Christmas from the Elf-liotts!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Need I Say More?

This gave me a giggle when I saw it today! What a perfect picture to go with my moods lately.

LOL!

Stepping Back for a Closer Look

I know I've complained before about the effects that prescription medicines have on my imagination and/or writing.  I guess it's an old refrain, but this time seems to be much worse. I'm terribly afraid of sounding like I'm just whining for sympathy, and tell myself  'buck up, little camper!' But that is turning out to be far more difficult than it sounds.

Instead of doubting my imagination, I'm doubting everything about myself. I look at all the wonderful books on my favorite shelf and know that I'll never live up to what's already up there. I think about the authors that I know personally, who are wonderful people that I wish all the very best things in the world, and wonder why they would want to know me.

They say my body will get used to this in time, but it sure doesn't feel like it at the moment. Right now it feels like I should go hide in a corner. My self confidence has plummeted, and my excruciating shyness is returning in tsunami style waves. Worst of all, I'm not even sure it's the drugs. I'm terrified it might be my dream of being a writer slipping away, or the realization that I will never have the talent that it requires. I desperately wonder if I'm the only one who wades through outside influences like these, ones that I have no control over - ones that I have to have in order to live.

So forgive me while I take a short hiatus. I may get a bug up my nose once in a while and post anyway. Heck, my mood might change dramatically within the hour, and I'll erase this whole post. But I've got to give myself some time off to just be, without trying to be something different than what I already am, if that makes any sense at all. I've got to talk to my doctor about these side effects, and pray that's all they are.

They say to be great one should suffer for one's art. If that's true, I should be legendary...



Maybe there's a book in this somewhere.

Comin' Around Again!

April 23-24, 2010

7th Annual

LDStorymakers

Writers' Conference

Provo, UT

Click HERE for details!

D'oh! You Threw Off My Groove..

All right, I know I can't really get by with blaming anyone else for my giving up on NaNo.  I have to say, though, that despite the fact I won't be winning this year, I do feel quite proud of myself for having written over 20,000 words in a week and a half. If nothing else, that has given me the boost that I needed.

When my husband first went to work as a bus driver, there was no hope of any kind of stability as far as his working hours were concerned. He would find out at 5 pm any given day what he would be working the next day. It could be anything between 3 am and well after midnight, everything in between, and it was never the same thing twice in a row. Several years of senority building later, he finally begin getting halfway decent, regular schedules. So what happened then? They went and made him a trainer. Now he's working with the new greeny drivers, which means, by default, he's back to working extra-board sorts of hours. The only difference, and saving grace, is that as the trainer he gets to decide what sort of chaotic the hours are.

Which, thanks the the downhill effect, means that my life, housekeeping duties, and job as Mom now have no guarantee of any sort of regularity. I literally, have no way to plan a set time to write each day. Makes it really hard when you have to capture a few minutes between Shorty going to sleep and my falling into a welcome coma. Naps are a thing of the past, and putting a movie on doesn't help because I end up watching the movie, too.

*sigh*

What's that song by Louis Armstong? "There must be a way..."

Bad Choice of Words, Honey!

I was lamenting to my husband today that NaNo has gotten away from me over the last couple of days.  Things being as they are, writing has not been as high on my priority list as it was supposed to be when the month started. Sitting on the bed together this morning, I told him:

"I'd need 10,000 words today to catch up."

"What's the most you've ever written in a day?" he asked.

"About 6,000," I answered.

"So you'd have to, like, sit and type all day long to catch up, huh?"

"Yep," I said. "If that's the only thing I did all day, I might have half a chance."

"Well, honey," my darling husband said to me, "It wouldn't be the first time you did nothing all day."

The funeral will be Saturday at 2:00.