Guess who's gonna be a punctuation expert!!!

Who would want to be an expert in punctuation you ask? A writer, that’s who. A masochistic, self-hating writer, who never bothers to think things through before making grand proclamations. That’s who.

Trouble is....punctuation is f-ing hard. Seriously. I had to look through pages and pages of information before I found a good reference site that had all the shit I needed. And even then, I was left with questions that I’m, currently, too spent to even write out right now.

So, new handy-dandy punctuation site in hand (on screen?), I set to combing a 3000-word story, looking for punctuation mistakes. It took awhile. There were highs and lows, commas and semi colons, eye twitches and moments of catatonia, but I did it. My head still hurts.

P.S. For the love of god, please do not point out the irony of any possible mistakes I made in this post. My brain is tender at the moment and couldn’t handle it.

P.P.S. Please do not point out any improper uses of the word “irony”. 

When the Doorbell Rings, I Hide in the Bathroom For Five Minutes

The truth of this statement is hilarious to me. I honestly do hide in the bathroom everytime someone rings the buzzer downstairs. When I eventually come out again, I creep timidly back into the livingroom and look around before getting back to what I was doing. Even then though, it’s too late and I’m super paranoid that the doorbell is going to ring again.

I know what you’re wondering and no, I’m not a hermit or an agoraphobe. There are several completely rational explanations that in no way suggest that I am crazy or maladjusted.

     Here is the simplest: My apartment is freaking tiny and my buzzer is super loud. No matter where I am in my place, if the buzzer goes off, I jump.  High. And then I swear. A lot. I admit, I’m a naturally jumpy person. If anyone wants to scare me in any given moment, they probably could. But this is too much.

 I hate this buzzer more than I’ve ever hated anything in my entire life.  I haven’t the foggiest idea why the buzzer needs to be loud enough to hear downstairs in the street (true story) but it is. Maybe extra loud buzzers were on sale due to an overwhelming amount of heart attack complaints so my landlord thought he’d save a buck.

As a result of this buzzer from the lowest depths of hell, I flee to the bathroom (the farthest point in my apartment from the door, which is sadly still only like 15 paces away) so that if the person downstairs rings again,  maybe....maaaaybe I won’t jump again. This never works, but I’m an eternal optimist.

Now, you’re probably wondering why I don’t just answer the door. Well, there’s another good reason for that which again, is totally (maybe semi) rational.

Reason #1- Failure to Communicate

     I live in Spain and my Spanish is still...imperfect. But I’m working on it, and I can get by in most conversations. However, people who come to the door don’t know that I'm spanish-challenged and usually talk really quickly, dropping syllables like it’s hot. Plus, my speaker is awful (really crackly) so that I can never understand WTF they’re saying. Even when it’s something really simple like “I have a package”, I can’t get it so then I’m left asking over and over again who they are and who they’re looking for before they finally get fed up and leave.  This is not a fun situation for me. Probably not for them either but hey, my house.

Reason #2- It’s never for me

It’s almost always a guy selling something, a friend of the guy downstairs (this is particularly infuriating since there are only two apartments) or homeless people asking for money (that happens a lot here). 

So after living here for 3 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that answering the door is for suckers and not foreigners.

3942 Words aaaand...GO!!!!

Alrighty, so today is Day 1 of the 60 K words in 29 days Challenge (catchy, huh?)

I have to admit, I started a little bit early. I was already a couple hundred words into this story when I heard of the challenge and I tried, I promise I did, to stop myself from writing anymore but I just couldn’t. If you have a story on the tip of your tongue, you can’t just ignore it. And to be honest, you wouldn’t want to.

Don’t let your story grow cold!

Fiction is best served piping hot!

Another random heat analogy (the study of anuses...ani??)

Anyway, yesterday I had an awesome day of writing. I got 2000 words in just over 2 hours which is a personal best for me. I was feeling pretty good. I though, I can totally do this. And then today happened.

It went like molasses this morning. I just couldn’t get into it and find my rhythm. I eventually got my 2000 words but it was arduous.  4 ½ hours !!! That’s painful to admit to.

It makes me wonder though if it’s a time of day thing. I’ve been keeping a writing log pretty well since I started writing and I’m starting to think that writing in the morning is just plain garbage for me. I would like to make graphs so that I can see for sure but in the two years I’ve been out of school, I’ve literally forgotten everything I learned about Excel. It’s like my mind rejects anything to do with graphs. I also tried just looking at the raw data I’ve accumulated. But that shit’s boring.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have the attention span of a fish. But then I see a squirrel and I’m happy again :)

Writing Challenges!!!!

Ugh, for being a woman, I’m horrible at multi-tasking. 

I haven’t been posting on my blog lately because I’ve been writing another novella. I tend to have my blinders on when I’m writing something. Great for being a writer....bad for being a blogger.

I also have a couple challenges coming my way that I was trying to prepare myself for. The first being a new NaNoWriMo- like challenge. Not official like NaNoWriMo, I don’t think it’ll have a webpage or anything but still. I only started writing seriously in November so I came too late to the party to be involved in it but I really liked the idea. For those that aren’t familiar, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and the challenge is to write 50K words in November. 

So, I was recently skimming KindleBoards and saw a new challenge for February, write 60K words in 29 days. EEEEEEK!

Okay, if I thought NaNoWriMo was scary...this is crazytown.  Once you break it down though it’s only 2069 words a day. Normally, I write between 1000 and 2000 words a day but mostly only because I’m bloody lazy and love to dick around on the internet for hours. So...if I just cut out a little bit more internet-time-suck then I’ll totally be able to do it.

Right?

Hello???

Anyway, the other challenge I had in mind was Blogging A-Z in which you write a blog everyday of April, except for Sundays. Each day has a letter (starting with A) that you have to base your post on.

Again, I really liked the idea when I first heard it and immediately started planning for it. But now, after not really posting much in the past month because I was so task focused on writing a book, I’m reconsidering. After all, I want to be a writer, not a blogger. I blog because I enjoy it, not because I want to make money off it so I don’t think it’s a good idea to turn it into something I’m forced to do. Also, I really don’t want the blog to turn into “Oh look what stupid post she put up now so that she can get through a challenge she’s only half-assed committed to”.  No one wants to read that blog. 

The Hardest Genre to Write

I think it would have to be comedy. If you’re going to write something funny, first you have find a way to make a situation funny and next to write it in a way that the reader also finds funny.  Or at least gets that it’s suppose to be funny.

It sucks writing something you find hilarious only for the reader to think it’s sad or cruel (at least I imagine it would). I guess that’s the fine line dark comedies walk. 

It’s also really hard to write a punch line. I suppose it’s easy for someone who is naturally hysterical, but that’s not me. I’m funny, yes, well kind of, but I don’t always know why. 

I guess the trick is to write whatever tickles your particular fancy and if other people appreciate it then all the better. But isn't that the way with all writing? Write for yourself and you'll always have an audience and all that.

Ooops...there it goes

Does a story ever just get completely away from you?  Like, you start off writing something that you think is going to be totally, awesomely, A and then, eventually...over a period of paragraphs, it starts to feel a little more B-ish...and before you know it, the damn thing’s become full-blown C?

God I hate that! Take this damn story I’ve been writing for weeks now...It started as a writing prompt “Write a story about an uninvited guest showing up at a party”...awesome! I had some great ideas and I finally went with a funny story about unrequited love. It was going to be good. But then I started listening to a lot of Moist (as stated previously) and that shit’s anything but funny. So, feeling all dark and tortured, the story took on this new, sad...dark and tortured edge that I just wasn’t digging. I’ve since erased all that nonsense and gone back to my comedic roots (the stories comedic roots that is).

The trouble is now I don’t know where the hell to take it. I’m seriously stuck, I don’t know what the hell to do with these characters and even if I did, I don´t know if I’d want to. I’m just a little fed up with this story and I think we need to take a break. Give eachother some breathing room. See other stories.

Does that happen to anyone else? That you spend so much time trying to keep a story on track that any interest you had in it just dissolves?

The Thing With Poetry

I heard once that poetry is great to write and murder to read. I both love and hate this idea. I love it because it’s kinda true and hate it for the same reason.  A lot of poetry is so chock-full of allusions and vague metaphors that a huge amount of research and speculation (or presumption) is required to make heads or tails of it. And that just isn’t my bag.  I’m never going to be someone who sits down and invests a whole wack of time on something that I don’t even know is good or not.  I know, it’s probably my own loss.

     Unfortunately, that’s not all. It would be easy if I could just say, “Nope, sorry, poetry just doesn’t do it for me.” But the fact is, I like a lot of poetry...it does in fact do it for me. Only a particular type though. I hate the flowery stuff. I hate the convoluted stuff.  Just say what you want to say without bringing your cousin’s neighbor’s pet octopus into it and expecting me to understand the reference. Because I don’t.

     That being said, I do like writing poetry. Maybe it’s too simple for some people but that happens to be why I like what I write. So there. Take this for instance.

The names of lovers and losers

litter the walls and stalls

Scribbled in pen and passion

Scratched with pins and sins

Whispered in ink and

hushed in paint

Ever remembered though long erased.

     I quite like it. I know I’m not supposed to say that since it’s mine but it’s true. I usually feel pretty proud once I finish a poem. Unlike when I finish a short story at which point the overwhelming feeling is usually frustration or disappointment or general self-loathing, but that’s another story.

Do you want to know what the underlying message in this poem is?

     Nothing.

     This a poem about people writing shit about each other on bathroom walls. It sucks and no matter how much paint is used to cover it up, the person will never forget it.  I think (and correct me if I’m wrong) that part is pretty clear. Does that make it bad? For that matter, what makes a poem good? Maybe I’ll enjoy it more once I know if it’s good or not.