Corner of Bourbon & Division

It's July 31st, so I'm not too late to be posting this announcement here. ai731 is running her August Writing Challenge again this year. I highly recommend it for all my writer friends out there: last year was a blast, and this year promises to be even better, as tons and tons of people have joined!

Here's what she wrote in her introductory post:

Jan's August Writing Challenge
Write something every day in the month of August.

Sounds tough! What do I have to do?

Write. Something. Anything. Any length. Prose or poetry. Every day. For a month. And share it.

Sounds cool! How do I sign up?

Join the august_writing community if you're not already a member
Link to this post in your LJ so that we can get as many people involved as possible
Post either your writing, or a link to your writing to the community every day in August, starting on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006.


Sounds simple! Are there any other rules?

Nope. Well, not really. It has to be creative writing - prose or poetry, of any any length, on any subject. Stuff you would normally be writing anyway counts (so, for those who write serials, that counts) but stuff you write for your job doesn't. But it can be anything. Short fiction, short-short fiction, essays, character studies, stream-of-consciousness, writing exercises (like last year I'm going to try to post a different writing exercise every day for anyone who would like to use it), sections of a larger work you have in progress, etc. Anything at all, so long as it's a self-contained piece of writing that you did that day. It would also be really cool if you could read and comment on a couple of other posts every day.

Last year's was a heck of a lot of fun for everyone who joined in, whether they managed to finish or not. I loved reading everyone else's stuff, and I learned a hell of a lot about my own writing. I'm really looking forward to seeing amazingly creative output again this year.

Technically it's Saturday now. Oh well.

Spent all day with owldaughter in a pretty productive writing jam. I wrote a bit about it in secret_history so I won't go into it here, but let's just say it went very well indeed and industrial quantities of tea were consumed. I also snagged myself some more Amelia Peabody and Jane Austen mysteries. I am a happy camper.

Went to my dance club afterward, where I met up with miseri who was kind enough to lend me a few copies of the Alfred Hitchock Mystery Magazine and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. He left early, and I ended up only staying until about 11:30 or so, since I was hit with a massive anvil of tired.

Skippy (one of the members of my club) and I have finally, we think, mastered this dance that was giving us trouble. It's a fun little dance, with a "windmill" step (basically it's a half-turn shuffle, but instead of keeping your arms either at shoulder or waist level, you raise them over your head in a windmill motion) and some tricky little steps in the middle that it took us forever to figure out. However, tonight we conquered it, and it was fun.

Tomorrow there will be band practice, and then I've agreed to drive miseri to IKEA after to get a wardrobe. He's moving on Sunday, and has nowhere to put his clothes. After IKEA, depending on how much time I have left over, there will be chili, and then I'm off to my club again for a special event.

I wasn't going to go to the special event, actually, given the state of my finances. See, it costs $15 to get in (not counting drinks and whatnot) and, well, I just don't have that kind of money these days. However, my friend C from the club, upon learning that $15 was all that was standing between me and the special event, informed me that he was going to buy a ticket for me and that I had no choice whatsoever in the matter. :)

Have I mentioned that my friends rock? Even the ones you all don't know. If there's one thing I can pride myself on, it's my excellent choice of friends.

Sunday will be spent continuing my cleaning spree. I haven't come close to finishing yet, but I am making headway, slowly but surely. I shall also make chili, if I don't have time tomorrow.


As you may have noticed, I am still connected to the internet. I managed to get Bell Canada the minimal amount of money it would take to not get all my services cut. Go me!

I have decided to get rid of the car when the lease expires in August. I realized I was just being stubborn about it, and when that realization hit I actually felt relieved. The car was, like I said before, a huge damn financial albatross, and while it was useful while I had it, I don't think it's worth the massive amounts of stress it generated for me.

So, as of August 31st, the car goes bye-bye.

More as events unfold. ;)


Good night!

Haven't made a poll in a while, but since this idea (like so many others) has been kicking around in my head for a while, I thought I'd indulge it.

I've mentioned before that I was thinking of writing a column, which I would post at rocking_thing. Maybe weekly, maybe every two weeks, depending on how hard it turns out to be. Nonfiction does sometimes take longer than fiction to write. Sometimes.

My main problem is that my thinking is a little scattered. There are any number of subjects I could write about, but I would like the column to have focus. Then I realised that that's why I have friends: so that I can ask their opinion. It may be that you, dear people on my flist, are thinking along the same lines as I am, or it may be that our ideas are diametrically opposed. Either way, I'd like to know your thoughts: it'll help me at the very least sift through the morass of ideas I have floating around in my head. (Ph34r me as I mix not two, but three whole metaphors!)

Okay folks, have at it! :)


[Poll #727204]

Yes, I wrote all six of the drabbles that were requested of me, and they are now up at secret_history.

fearsclave, you may see a familiar face if you read the one elanya requested (she wanted Technocracy, so I of course was happy to oblige her). Just sayin'.


I also posted an extra installment of Conflation, which will go up every two weeks on Thursdays, because I have decreed it so. Hah!


In other words, I spent most of today writing when I should have been screening leases for discrepancies. But hey, I still got my work done and I wrote fiction. Also, I practiced the drums, and at rehearsal we beat the instrumental of "J'Veux pas vieillir" into bloody submission, and lo, all was right with the world once more.

Insomnia sucks.

Bouncing randomly off walls all day and into the night. Overslept this morning, although I only got about three hours' sleep. Maybe less. Broken sleep. Yay.

It's three o'clock in the morning. Do you know where your sleep patterns are?

Can't blame it on the coffee. Had that this morning. Three cups. Three cups of coffee. Three hours of sleep. Balance. Or lack thereof. Whee! Definitely not the coffee. Can't possibly last that long in one's system, can it? Last cup was at ten o'clock. Seventeen hours ago. Definitely not the coffee.

Hey, stream-of-consciousness posting! Whee! Should that be hyphenated? Don't know. I ought to know. Don't recall. Not important right now. It's my LJ and I'll hyphenate random words if I want to.

Been watching Dead Like Me. Note to self: watching shows about death and the afterlife (or lack thereof) when dealing with insomnia is baaaaad. Too much thinking involved. Funny that. Thinking about stuff just because you watch a tv show. Most people don't. Think, that is. Thinking about stuff/things/whatever/insert generic word here/yay just because they watched a random program on television.

Not that I've been watching it on television, mind. It's on at stupidass o'clock on Sundays, along with Slings & Arrows which comes right afterward, which means I'm never near a tv with cable in order to watch it. But I found it at my local Videotron place where I can rent three old DVDs (and by old I mean not all that old but not a new release) for somewhere along the lines of five dollars, and who am I to say no to something like twelve straight hours of television for five bucks? Beats cable any day.

No commercials, for one thing. Commercials are fucking stupid. People who come up with commercials think viewers are idiots, and treat them accordingly. Makes me want to scream at the television. Do enough screaming at the television during the programs, for different reasons. So, no shouting during commercials. I turn off the sound.

I ought to go to bed. I mean, try to sleep, that is. Technically I'm already in bed. Laptops are teh awesome. Thing is, I'm halfway tempted to just say "Fuck it" and stay awake the remaining three or so hours before I have to get up again to go to work. Three and a half? Maybe four. I can usually get away with sleeping until seven, even if it means I have to run like a running thing.

If I go to sleep now (all very theoretical at this point), I'll very likely oversleep. Same as yesterday. Sleeping patterns fucked all to hell. I have to stop watching that show: it's making my language foul. Gotta watch it, or I'll start swearing at work, and where will that get me? Don't want to oversleep: I have to wash my hair in the morning, and I can't do that if I'm asleep. Hair stays disgusting if I oversleep.

On the other hand, band practice in the evening. The question is, if I'm sleep-deprived, what happens? Either I'll be a zombie, or I'll be a spastic mess. Either way, badness.

Forgot to buy applesauce for my lunches at work. Not the end of the world, but still annoying. Lots of other stuff to talk about, too. Work stuff, cat stuff, band stuff, even television and movie stuff. Not tonight, though. Another time. Maybe never, knowing me. Flakey!Phnee is the name of the game right now. At least when it comes to my own affairs. Been trying to stay on top of my phone messages, but that's not really happening. Not on top of my emails, either. I've read them all, am behind on answering them. Bad, bad Phnee.

Work on the other hand is going swimmingly. L should totally develop tendonitis more often. I kicked the ass of the filing and took names. I now officially have no filing left until someone dumps more on my desk tomorrow, which I'm sure will happen. I've put out more fires and dealt with new and emergency situations, and I still have three days left all on my own. In short, I rock like a rocking thing. Or file like a filing thing. Can one file like a rocking thing? Why the hell not? I am The Rocking Thing, and since I file, I assume anyone could file like me and thus file like a rockin thing.

Should definitely be going to bed. Sleep, bed, whatever. Something involving not being awake.


The girl who plays Kaylee had a guest role on Dead Like Me playing a punk girl in a music store. It felt almost wrong to hear her say "Fuck." I was amused, randomly.


Started writing that story that's been rattling around in my head today, finally. Been meaning to get to it since November. Finding it hard to get the voice of the narrator just right. He sounds too old: he's supposed to be eleven and he sounds like he's, well, my age. Not good. It'll come. I figured out his name, though, after all this time, and his brother's. He had no name for the longest time until I finally figured out that his parents were Steinbeck fans. And suddenly this huge facet of character motivation fell into place. I love it when that happens.

Lots of writing projects to work on. Beyond the Pale is coming along nicely. I have to rewrite Into Temptation, which I really don't want to do, having put in all that effort in November, but it needs to be done. *sigh*

Fuck it. Bed. Sleep. Lack of sleep. Whatever. Tossing and turning in the dark at least gets points for effort, right? Right. Going now. Ta!

Seriously, if you haven't been reading Baker's 12, what the hell is wrong with you?

Go catch up now. We're only days away from the new installments.

Or possibly another substance? Who knows? All I know is that I just typoed "substance" five times while trying to write it just now.

Anyway, I got home after band practice intending to write part of my serial. I sat down in my room at around 4pm, knowing that I had an hour and a half before I had to leave again for our band potluck, which was tonight.

Then I woke up and it was a quarter to six. Oops. Guess I was tired.

I was also going to write two LJ posts today. One about writing, and one about line dancing.

The band potluck went until about midnight, and then I drove folks home, and then it was 1:30am.

Needless to say, I am now tired. It's 2am, and although I'm sorely tempted to stay awake and write my serial, I know I'll regret it in the morning. However, come hell or high water, there will be two instalments written today, Sunday the fifth of February. I am NOT going to concede defeat less than a week into my own personal writing challenge, dammit.

"Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? Hey, nice pavement!"

I also have posts to write about band. In fact, I have posts to write about every single creative endeavour I'm up to these days. There's a lot that I want to say, but I haven't found the time or the extra energy to do so. I shall try to remedy this today (it feels like tomorrow, but in theory it's already Sunday), but the serial comes first, and I have other commitments to honour as well.

I need more hours in the day. Actually, I need a patron who will pay me to sit around most of the time and do lots of creative stuff. Spending forty-odd hours a week either at work or in transit to and from work really cuts into the time I could be spending doing something I actually enjoy doing.

Okay, I'm off to bed now.

I don't recall giving permission for it to be February in less than 48 hours. Seriously. Who authorized this?

In theory, I was planning on writing a new instalment of Beyond the Pale every day in February. That's 28 instalments, since it's not a leap year.

In practice, I looked at my calendar and just about passed out. I have something scheduled every. single. day. in February, and it's not writing.

Those of you who are about to kick my ass for not keeping my Sundays free, cease and desist now: I have one free Sunday this month. Two of the three that are taken up are being taken up by my new dispatcher course. I figure this is worth the time I have set aside for me on Sundays. :)

So, what does this mean? It means that I shall do my utmost to live up to my original committment. It also means that, if I don't manage to write 28 instalments of my serial in that time, I won't beat myself up about it. I will write every day, and hopefully it'll come out to 28 instalments. If not, I'll take what I can get.

Beyond the Pale is back once more! Part 34 can be found at secret_history, as usual.

Thank you for your attention. You may now return to your regularly-scheduled programming.

Those of you who haven't given up in disgust yet will be pleased to know that there are two new chapters waiting for you up at secret_history.

I'm not putting the direct link to the entries here because it's late and I'm tired and so I'm going to be lazy about this.


Happy Trails!