Before Dorothy and Toto went over the rainbow

My mind was pretty much made up but after the swaying of Missy and Whim, I decided to definitely go with Wicked. And so I'm in the middle. I probably could have finished it in one work shift but I did other stuff too. I'll post a little more about that in a minute.
While reading Wicked there are some interesting points about good and evil and how they are different for everyone because of how each individual perceives things. This was interesting to me because I've been pondering an idea for a short story about whether or not taking money is wrong if you don't actually value money or if money has no value to you.
These two things intertwine a little bit and so I'm curious to see where this goes. Because so far in Wicked, Elaphaba ,the future wicked witch, is actually a good person and Glinda, the future good witch, is not so nice. Not to mention that the lovely wizard that attempts to help Dorothy get home is a bit similar to Hitler. So needless to say I wonder if there will be a turn of events or if it's all going to be about perception. Did each writer have different values that made certain characters good and others bad? Curious to find out.

On another note, I did do other things at work. Some work on my novella, which is what I'm now calling it since it's longer than a short story but potentially shorter than a novel. I know I could just name it but that would be to unconfusing.
And I did some submissions. No, I didn't write my long post. No, this is not that post. But I will say it's about submissions. I also have another post about my novella research and the answer another artist gave me about the first lesson in painting. Not to mention I will have another Wicked post once I'm done.
All to come this week. Stayed tuned!

How to fill the time at work

My plans had been for a longer post on an actual topic, but I have a ton of books to put on half.com. Also I work at the incredibly slow store tomorrow so I'll have plenty of time to write a longer post.
I'll also have time to write and edit other stories. Not to mention I might get some reading done. I finally started on the Tolkien collection. Last week I reread the Hobbit and I must really not have payed attention the first time around because I didn't remember much particularly the ending. Now I feel I should read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I'm not sure I will.
It seems most logical but we've been talking a lot about Wicked the book because Wicked the musical is coming back to town after it sold out in record numbers here last year. Most of the discussion has been about how different the book is. So I might read Wicked next. And thanks to a really crazy story, I do happen to own a copy of Wicked so I can read it any time. The only reason I'm thinking now is a good time is because others want to borrow it when I'm done and because it's not like the Hobbit is part of the LOTR trilogy, so it seems like a good time to take a break.
Is it just me or do I seriously over think which book to read next?

What to do

It's true. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. I wished for one thing and got two. Now I have to make a choice. Both have pros, both have cons and the decision will affect my immediate and my long term plans. I'm pondering a lot right now. Neither has much to do with writing, but I still needed to share.

In writing news, I chatted with an artist friend today, Ray, the artist I formerly referred to as R. I felt the name Ray was a bit more characterful, plus her vibrant outfit choices are like a ray of sun.
Anyway, she gave me extensive notes on what the first lesson in painting would be, which is what I wanted to talk to an artist about. Apparently, color charts are the way to go. I learned a lot about colors. Although, it's a hue, a tint or a shade. See I'm listening. So now I can write my next scene in my short story that is now a novel. I think Ray is going to be very helpful. I'll have to have her read it for accuracy when I'm done. Yay for a degree in Fine Art!

Also, I worked on subs today. Nothing huge, just a few here and there.
Postage has or will go up soon. I'm too lazy to check on the date. Another $.01 increase. At least this time I won't have to buy extra postage because of the forever stamps. I wish I had extra cash so I could stock up.

Clearly!

Ugh. I'm starting to feel like even attempting to have a relationship with someone is just more trouble than it will ever be worth. Although, when it goes bad it makes for great story material.

I didn't really have much to say other than that. I did have a long and boring day at work which left time to edit Going It Alone, work on submissions and on my current story. Before I can carry on with the new story I need to hunt down one of my artist friends and pick their brain.

I also thought of a really interesting story idea about right and wrong and how they are defined by what we value. For instance, is stealing money wrong if it doesn't have a value to you? Something for a character to ponder.

I had to get up super early today to get some stuff done before work so I have still not caught up on my sleep. Early to bed for me tonight.

I'm sleepy, I smell like taco meat and I want to go home.

Okay, I didn't really have anything important to say but I felt I must post because I haven't in a while. Also, the title of this post was seriously my slogan at work today and I felt that it was so awesome that I needed to share it with others.
I stayed up way too late the other night reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. It was a good book, a tear jerker really. I know many debate about whether her writing style is the best but for me I couldn't put the book down because I was so anxious to find out what happened to the characters. And I felt a bit personally connected to them in ways. Anyway, in short, I stayed up way too late. I have yet to recover from all this because I haven't had a chance to properly sleep.
So I'm tired and then in my hurried state I somehow thought Taco Bell sounded good for lunch. I hadn't been drinking, which is about the only time I really crave Taco Bell, so I'm not sure what brought this on. My stomach, my breath, the after taste and the grease I drizzled all over my sweater, all made me regret this lunch decision before I even got to work. That's why I smell like taco meat. And it's pretty cold here today so going without the sweater was not an option.
Plus we're in the middle of our SAS sale, which brings out all the wackos and they are not wackos that can help themselves. Well, they won't help themselves. They need EVERYTHING done for them regardless of how many people you are trying to wait on at once.
All of this is why I wanted to go home. And here I am. I'm getting ready to edit a short story and send it to a contest that's deadline is tomorrow. Then I'm sleeping. I'm not even going to read before bed tonight because I'm so tired, plus I have no book to read.

Just watched: The Mist
Just read: Batman: The Long Halloween
Currently listening to: Refuge-Tom Petty

A Long Day

Yesterday I spent over eleven hours at work. I spent most of that time finishing the Golden Notebook and working on my short story-turned novel.

The Golden Notebook was definitely not what I was expecting. There was a lot of communism and a lot of women sleeping with married men. And there were quite a few characters with similar names as characters in Going It Alone such as Anna, Richard, and Tommy. Odd, I know. Also, there were a few similar things that happened to certain characters.
The book did cover an author and the stories she was writing and how her everyday life inspired those, which is what I wrote about. I definitely think it would be a good reference for a query letter but I almost wonder if it's too good of a reference.

As for the short story-turned novel. I'm not sure it's going to be a full novel but we'll see. Part of me thinks I could shorten it and part of me doesn't want to. Also, this is the first time that I've written a story out of order. I know what most of the scenes will be and every now and then I get inspired for something that will happen much later in the story than where I am currently working so I jump ahead. Yesterday, I actually wrote what should be one of the last few scenes.
Of course, this could end up being a big pain if I decide to change something.

Another day of work tomorrow and then I'm off for two days. Although, it never feels like that.

We have a winner...sort of.

Okay it looks like the results are in and according to Jenni and D.B.Echo it can go either way pairs or pair. So I wasn't wrong and my boss wasn't right, which makes me happy. Not to mention that Missy, Jenni, myself, two fellow employees and a customer all thought that pairs sounded better so in theory I'm more right. Yay me!
Thanks to everyone for their research and opinions!

Which pair(s)? Huh?

I'm awful. It's been almost a week. How did this happen? Anyway, I have been hard at work. I've done submissions of two different stories, I have been editing Going It Alone and I've been writing in my new story. Also, I'm almost done with the Golden Notebook.
Other than that I don't have much to say. Although, we did have a question at work that I thought would make a good blog topic. I already messaged Jenni about it but I'll share it here as well.
Is it "2 or more pairs" or "2 or more pair"? We were trying to come up with a sign for work that advertised if you buy 2 or more pair(s) of shoes you double your coupon. My boss, the English major, said I was wrong but then two other employees and a customer said I was right. I'm curious. I should go forth and look it up. I'll post my findings.

A field trip to other blogs

I was out and about on the Internet yesterday, checking out what fellow writers have to say. I found a few interesting posts through Author's Blogs.

The first was a very interesting post, about a writer's best work and how to know when you've written your best work.
I've never really given much thought to what piece of work is my best work but I hope that I haven't written my all time best work yet. The post really gotten me thinking.

The second had some great links to information for writers. I was happy to follow the links for advice on the importance of others critiquing your work. It had me longing for my defunct writing group and wishing for a new one.

The third blog had a post about what kind of things not to begin a novel with. Both of my novels start with something on the list so I stressed out. Then I read the comments and people talked about how there aren't any rules and everyone's got to do their own thing, which I agree with. That made me feel better, and while I may consider an eventual change, I won't be freaking out and changing the beginnings before going to bed tonight.

Of course, I guess it doesn't matter what my first novel begins with because I doubt I'll ever try to publish it and I kind of knew that when I started writing it. It was my test run, a lesson in novel writing, before I get to my best work.

Today's not as bad as it seems

I must admit, there are a lot of things that happened today that would put me in the not best of moods, but for some reason I'm doing okay. I have a few ideas as to why I'm not so upset. Maybe I'm learning not to sweat the little things, maybe I'm just becoming to use to things going badly, maybe there are actually good things in my life out weighing the bad. Maybe it's a little of all of the above.
All I know is that I had intended to complain about all the reasons I'm annoyed with my boss, fellow employees, the United States Postal Service and the state of Michigan, but after a few minutes of annoyance I've calmed down.
Now my plan is to take it easy. I'm getting into bed with a notebook and a novel. First, I'll write in the notebook and then I'll read the novel until I'm sleepy.
I'd say I'll hope for a better day tomorrow but today was actually pretty good, despite all the bad things. I think that's a win for me, right?

The Post-Birthday Report

I'm officially a year older. I had a pretty good birthday. Once again, my partner in crime and writing, Ms. Jenni, hooked me up. I got a Superman lunch box filled with wicked cool stuff. I got a pen, a journal, editing pencils and a new flash drive! Of course, the best gift was getting to see Jenni! YAY!

Fake out phone calls and hopefully no fake candles

There are a few science fiction and fantasy stories that I have had laying around for awhile. My only problem is that there aren't a lot of magazines that publish this kind of fiction. At least not as many compared to those that publish literary, mainstream and contemporary.
So eventually I happened upon the Writer's of the Future contest. Yes, the same one started by the creator of Scientology.
They look for unpublished science fiction and fantasy writer's. This isn't the first time I had sent a story for their contest. In previous times they have sent an e-mail "we got your entry" and another "thanks but no thanks". Needless to say I was floored when I got home and found a message from them on my machine.
Don't get too excited that's what I did to. No, there weren't any problems with my entry. The lady that entered my entry noticed my address and realized she had grown up right near where I live. She wanted me to call back and tell her all about Lansing.
I knew she had nothing to do with who wins the contest, but it can never hurt to be nice or to "know someone" so I called. Sadly, there wasn't much different about Lansing except we have a minor league baseball team, the Lansing Lugnuts. And they no longer make sense since all of our GM plants are now gone, which was also a highlight. Anyone who has lived here before last year can tell you how weird it looks now that the GM plants are no longer standing.
Anyway, she didn't think I would call and she was super nice. She told me this was the best contest to get a start at and to keep writing. She also said she would root for me to win.

It was pleasant but I still can't help feeling it was a little bit of a bad joke like birthday candles that relight themselves after you blow them out. Maybe that's not the best analogy because the phone call was not meant to be a joke. I only used that comparison because it made a good lead in to the next thing I was going to say.

Tomorrow is another birthday for me. I get a three day weekend. I have lots of stuff to do but it's my birthday so if I don't get it done, it's the one time I can't be mad at myself.

Writing, editing and reading novels while slacking off at work

Yesterday, I worked a 12 hour shift. Since there were few customers I managed to write, read and work on submissions.
I worked more on my short story that I'm pretty sure needs to be a novel now. I've just barely got the story going and I'm already at 10,000 words. Novel for sure. Yikes, how did that happen?
I continue to read the Golden Notebook, and of course someone lent my Magic Study yesterday. I'm going to end up with another giant "to read" pile.
I'm heading off to work tonight at the slightly busier store so I'll probably work on editing Going It Alone.

It's a short post so here's a video from Going It Alone's playlist.




Someday by Nickelback

*Question: My spell check says it should be play list but my music player says playlist, any thoughts?

What was your name again?

A while back I gave a pseudo-description of the style in which I wrote Going It Alone, in hopes that someone would be able to suggest a book written in similar fashion, that I could then reference in my query letter. One of the suggestions was The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.
At the time I was still absorbed in the Sword of Truth series but I figured I'd get around to reading it once I was done.
I kind of forgot about it until I was at the library today looking for Magic Study, the sequel to Poison Study, but that was checked out. Since I'm a little financially challenged at the moment buying the book I wanted was out of the question so waiting on that book was the only option. But what to read in the meantime? How about the Golden Notebook, which is not only reading but research to see if it really was the book I was looking for.
They had it and I started reading it and I was flustered by the first page of the story. Why, you ask? Because the book's main character, who is writing about writing a story, her name is Anna. Guess what the main character's name, in Going It Alone, who is a writer writing about writing a story, is? Anna.
And yes the book does seem to be written in similar fashion, so it would be a good reference in a query. I just don't know if I should use it now. Should I change my character's name?Or reference it without changing the name. After all it was mere coincidence. Of course, they could assume I'm doing a The Hours/Mrs. Dalloway thing where one book is written about the other. That assumption would be wrong since I hadn't even heard of the Golden Notebook until Going It Alone was finished. Hmm... something to think about.
I guess I should finish the book and look for any other similarities before I stress about this.

Just watched: Disturbia

Another long day

I spent eight hours at work yesterday with a total of three customers all day. Needless to say I got a lot of writing done on my story. I also went through my Writer's Market trying to figure some things out.
And to top it all off I started a new book. It's called Poison Study by Maria Snyder. It's published by Luna the fantasy branch of Harlequin. I didn't know that when I started reading it. Not that I have anything against romance novels, they're just not usually what I read. Anyway, I started reading it with optimism. It was recommended to me by a friend with similar reading interest and it has four and a quarter stars on Goodreads.com. So far it's a good book but no romance yet. I can see very slight potential for a romance but I'm nearly half way through. I guess we shall see.
It's also got a sequel as well, Magic Study so if this one is good I'll have something to read next.

The good kind of rejection

I got a rejection letter for one of my short stories, Something Better, in the mail today. I'm usually bummed by rejection but I've gotten used to it. Today was a little more pleasant than usual. It wasn't just a "Dear Author" letter. Of course, it got my hopes up slightly when it's actually addressed to me.
The magazine took the time to write me a letter telling me their thoughts on my story. They thought it was a good idea and that it was a good start but that too much happens too fast. They suggested that it could be flushed out into a novel.
I had never really considered it for this story, but the more I think about it the more seems like I could merge this story with an idea I had for a novel. It might work. It's definitely something to think about.
Regardless, it made my day. I get so many generic rejection letters and I wonder if my work was even given a fair chance or if it was just not that good. Even if the letter I got today was still a "no" the fact that they took the time to tell me why is more than most so that must mean there was something good about it. Maybe it's not a major accomplishment but it's reassuring and some days I need that.
It also motivates me. I push myself to try even harder when I start to realize that maybe I'm not so bad at this.

Another Life

As promised, here is the second post I mentioned writing last week. My birthday is coming soon,which always puts me, and I'm sure lots of people, into thoughts about what I've done and what I'm doing with my life.
It also doesn't help that my current job has this feeling of impending doom, that has put me on a search for employment.

One of the things I've always loved is books. So I've always had this desire to work with books, whether it be writing, editing or selling. I love the library and book stores, so in my recent job search I've been continuously applying to the library as well as bookstores.
Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of luck in those areas. I have a few guesses as to why not. Everything from Michigan's horrible economy killing any and every type of retail and there's also my fear that little, pointless things I've said about the library on this blog, that may not have been necessarily positive, have been found in a search of my name on one of my many attempts to apply for open positions at the library. I guess my love and support for the library, since as long as I can remember, counts for nothing.

Anyway, I've been trying to figure out the best way to fix this situation and the only idea I had was to open my book store, which is just nuts. Or is it?
Obviously, I'm not exactly financially able to do that at this point in my life and I'd probably be nuts to try it in Michigan right now. So how can I start a business with very little money and be able to reach lots of people not just local people?

I started a book store on half.com!

I wanted to wait and post about it until I had over a hundred books listed. I've been out and about searching for good deals on books. And so far business hasn't been bad. Anyway, I'm trying to build until I have a huge inventory. And everything I make is going right back in to buying more books. I'm also considering getting into rare and antique books that can't be listed on half.com. I've found quite a few in my search of books. I'll also be using me eBay/half.com account to sell comic books, magazines and other reading materials that lack ISBNs and can't be sold on half.com
I'm still getting used to pricing. There are lots of things to consider, for instance, whether the shipping allowance will full cover an item, how many other of the same item are listed, the books condition, and a books demand. I'm learning as I go along.

My store is called anotherlifebooks. I'm giving used books another life and reading a book is like living another life.
Here's the link to my online store and I'll be putting it in the sidebar. And if anyone is ever looking for a particular, harder to find book let me know and I'll keep an eye out on my never ending book search. There are a lot of good deals out there but I can't buy them all so if I know someone wants it I won't pass it up.

That's all the exciting news for now. I'll post any store updates as they come along.

Hopelessly devoted to writing

Can't stay and chat. I'm busy writing a very long short story. Here's a preview from the playlist.

I've been reading for months. Now it's time ot write.

Yes, I was suppose to have a post about something to do with my future and what I will do alongside writing, but I've been hard at work on other things so I haven't gotten around to it.

I started what I thought would be another quick short story but it's turning out a lot longer than I expected. I'm thinking it might be over 20,000 words. At what point does it become a novel?
It's a story that has a lot to do with me and a relationship in my life. So it's kind of like therapy and it's helping me to work out my problems. I've put all other writing aside because I feel the need to write it right now.

I've had plenty of time to write now that I finally finished the Sword of Truth series. I'm no longer obsessed with these ridiculously long books. I can't go with things unresolved in my head no matter how bad the books are. So I muddled through the eleven books. The first four were pretty good aside from being way too wordy and repetitive. The fifth and sixth were okay. The seventh and eight were completely pointless. The seventh one didn't even feature any of the main characters until the last 100 pages. The last three too the series back to pretty good. I just felt like the whole series clubbed me over the head with politic speeches and constantly reminding me what happened, not only in previous books, but what happened in the book that I was reading.
Also I felt like there was a lot of detail, almost too much. There were pages describing one room. I try to hold by a rule that I read in Stephen King's On Writing, which says to walk into the room and write the five most important things. Terry Goodkind could have moved his books along a lot faster if he had went by that. In the end I started skimming through quite a bit.
I really did like the characters. If not for them I might seriously have given up, but I had to know what happened to them.

Well, all reading is a writing lesson and I felt like these books were a good lesson.

Blog Plans

As promised, a post about new ideas for my blog.
The idea I had is about searches. I check my sitemeter every now and again to see how people are randomly getting here. Posting the quote by Stewie to Bryan about "How's that novel comin'?" from Family Guy has gotten me a lot of visitors and I ended up putting a link in my sidebar to the post that has the full quote.
Then after I wrote about writing a speech on leadership, I had a few searches for quotes on leadership and speech writing. I also get an occasional search for mix tapes and Batman's wedding guest list as well as my Batman sonnet.
I thought that maybe I should look into posting about interesting searches when I can. I could give information that I have that may be helpful in case anyone else is directed back to my blog for a similar search.
I'll also put links to posts that get a lot of searches. Eventually, I'd like to figure out how to work out the HTML to have a separate link section for searches but so far I don't know how to do that.
To start this off I added a link in the sidebar to my Batman sonnet for anyone who has searched for Batman poetry and Batman rhymes.

*While I was editing the links in the sidebar, it occurred to me that I should finally take down the link to Writer's Post Journal, since it's out of business and no longer works. I'm a little sad now.*

Slacking off just for today.

Yay! It's my day off and I've done nothing productive.
I had two other post that I thought about writing today but decided against it for a few reasons.
One is another new "idea" I have for my blog. This idea has something to do with past posts, searches that lead to my blog and links in the sidebar.
The other post was about my future and what I plan to do along with writing. It includes details about my current job, the search for another job and what I'm doing about the sad situation of both of those.
Is anybody out there confused and/or curious yet?
Well good. Come back this week for each of those post.
In the meantime know that I'm actually attempting to enjoy my day off. I'm in the third to last book in the Sword of Truth series. I'm trying to get that long journey finished and now the end is in sight.
I've also become horribly obsessed with a game called Knighthood, featured on Facebook. If anyone reading this is on Facebook follow the link to my profile on the sidebar, scroll through my profile and find my Knighthood, then join with me as your liege. If anyone reading this is not on Facebook, I must ask why and then demand that you join Facebook, then follow the previously stated directions.
Now off to write to Jenni, who by the way is my vassal in the Knighthood. Don't make Jenni be lonely in my castle!

Just watched: Children of Men
Just watched: Hot Rod
Currently Reading: Chainfire by Terry Goodkind

Welcome to the play list

Okay so I've been thinking about how my blog is kind of boring and I need to update more so I've decided over the next few post I'm going to have a few new ideas. The first being that sometimes I don't get a post written because I actually am working on fiction and it's a choice between one or the other.
I get tired of writing post that go something like "well I'm working on "something" so I don't have time or anything to write about."
Although, I haven't really written anything exactly like that in a while. One, because I figured people were tired of reading of it. Two, because I haven't gotten a ton of work done on other things lately. Three, because it gets a bit discouraging writing about stuff that's going no where fast.
Anyway, so I've often expressed that music is a big part of my life and that it inspires my writing. Also, I have a play list for everything I write.
I find myself entertained by videos when I go to other blogs so I thought maybe when I'm working on something instead of writing on my blog everyday that "I'm working on 'something'" I'll post a video of one of the songs on the play list. This will allow me to post more often since it's fairly simple and will hopefully be somewhat entertaining. It will also give readers a feel for the story without giving too much away.
Yay to that!
So for my first post of this kind, I'll be at work where it's much easier to edit rather than to write. I feel it's not as difficult to stop in the middle when a customer walks in. So I'll be working on Going It Alone. Here's a song on the play list that I listen to while working on it.
Beautiful Disaster performed by Kelly Clarkson.

You should be a science fiction writer

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from.And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi.Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics...Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

I'm pretty sure it's no longer happening

Well, I started it last summer in hopes of getting it published for the holiday. Yes, Christmas Bells is completed. Well, in rough draft form anyway.

Now the question of what to do with it. I mean, eventually I will send it out to get published but in recent months, before sending out stories, I got used to having a writer's group look through my work, telling me what worked, what didn't, pointing out grammar errors, as well as spelling typos and just reassuring me that my work was not, in fact, complete and total crap.

I'm afraid that the writing group may be done with. I can't actually remember the last time we met. I believe October or November, but I would have to check post archives to be sure and it's not really that important. What is important is that we have continued to schedule and then cancel meetings for some reason or another. It's not any one person's fault, we're all busy and I am forgetful. I don't send out reminders or try to set up meetings as often as I can.

Anyway, it's frustrating because dates are suggested and then shot down. I just don't think that we'll ever have another meeting. I don't want to badger them about it anymore either.

So I think we're done for now. Maybe in the summer things will be different. We all seemed to have loads of time then.

For now, I have to figure out another way to have my work looked at. Hmm...

My apologies

Okay, I'm really behind. I haven't posted in over a week. I haven't written anything new. I have gotten much work done on anything. I haven't researched anything. I haven't written a review for RENT. I haven't found a job. I'm a bum.

Last week I got stricken with the flu something fierce. I was knocked out for four days and half functional for another three. All of this happening at the worst time possible. As if there's ever a good time to get sick but it was a really hard time for me and my family. All I wanted to do was get out of bed and help out and do anything to make things better and I couldn't move. My body ached too much. My head felt completely out of it. Sleep was all I could think.

I've bounced back and aside from a slight cough, I feel back to new. Things in my family are still crazy and I doubt they'll get better anytime soon but I can't sit around waiting for things to be perfect again.

I'm off to get stuff done so I'll have something to talk about in my next post.

A little something upbeat

I'm sorry to burden everyone with sad post. It's not good so here's a post about a little something that is good. Literally, there's good in the name. I'm talking about GoodReads.com.
I joined back in October, but I wasn't on it much at first. My co-worker, R the artist, invited me but hasn't been on it since to approve our friendship. So I felt lonely but then I found someone I knew and then someone I knew found me then I started sending out invites.

I think it's a really cool site for serious readers. Anyone can discuss books, review books and rate the books they've read as well as list books they're reading or that they want to read. There have been dozens of times on here I've been trying to figure out what to read or looking for a particular book and I feel like this site is perfect for just those occasions.
Lots of times I find that I want to read a really good book but how to know which one? The only books I ever hear much about are classics and popular, mainstream books. So hopefully GoodReads will be full of suggestions about lesser known books that are great reads.
Who knows maybe one day I'll have my own book on there. Ian at En-Blog has his short story anthology Chopper listed on GoodReads.

Of course, I sent Jenni an invite and she's hooked. I also sent D.B.Echo an invite but he has yet to list any books!
I've added a widget (what an adorable name!) to my sidebar. A few of my highest rated books are listed and clicking on GoodReads goes to my profile where the above mentioned friends can be found.
Now I'm off to read. It gets my mind off of things and I'm also eager to list another book on GoodReads!

Another crappy post for now

It's getting worse and I still don't want to talk about it. Life, that is. I know I'm very fortunate and should not be complaining. It's just that I feel like I'm getting repeatedly smacked in the face and it's hard to be perky and upbeat about that.
I'm tired. I'm broke. There aren't enough hours in the day. And I feel really alone right now.
In the few seconds that I'm not at the hospital, looking for future employment or trudging through the little bit of a job I have left, I have been querying Going It Alone to agents but so far no takers. I'm also constantly making updates to it. And somehow I got inspired to write another novel. I know I am working on a few different novels but this one has really been on my mind and it just seems time to write it. It's not the same characters but it's almost like a sequel to Going It Alone. That may seem crazy since I can't even get anyone to take a look at Going It Alone but writing is my free therapy right now so I'm putting down what pops into my head.

Anyway, hopefully things will settle down soon and I'll have a coherent and interesting post to write. Until then I'll try to keep up with life and remember it could be worse.

I don't want to talk about it

It's been one of those weeks. I'm optimistic that things will get better but I'm not inspired to write anything on my blog. I need a break from everything. So here's another RENT clip for your enjoyment. (And yes these will keep coming until RENT is officially retired on June 1.)

Holy Sonnet Batman!

In recent post I've mentioned a few different things. One was looking back on some of my old post that had substance and weren't just filler material I posted to let people know I was still alive. Actually that I might have mentioned quite a while ago. I don't really recall. Anyway, the other was poetry. When I combine these two things I came up with one thought. Sonnets.

Over two years ago, I sat in the last day of writing class, forced to write a sonnet. At the time this was really annoying because I was on a bad kick about my dislike of poetry after having just been forced to write poetry in many different forms, including prose poems. For the record, I still can only guess the difference between a prose poem and a short short. I really think it has to do with sharing thoughts (prose poem) and telling a story (short short). Of course, this is only a guess and really I feel the whole thing is very debatable. Jenni, if you're out there please feel free to enlighten me.

Sorry for the digression. Now back to our regularly scheduled program, which is my brilliant sonnet and the idea that followed, which wasn't all that brilliant and I have yet to follow through on.

I wrote a sonnet about Batman. To me, it seemed really genius. It wasn't something many people would write a sonnet about. I felt my use of BAM! and POW! were an awesome idea and a great tribute to the old comics and t.v. show.
It was definitely one of my favorite things I ever wrote. I loved it so much I vowed to write 154, or however many Shakespeare sonnets there are, comic book character sonnets. I started with a bang, one a week, even buying a rhyming dictionary but I fell off the wagon after a mere 4 and a half started sonnet.
It was difficult to find cool things about each character or quirky things like onomatopoeias and then make them rhyme and fit. I started to wonder if I should have just left it at the awesomeness of Batman. I still think about it. Maybe one day I'll have inspiration to finish. Until then it's in my incomplete stack.
And for anyone who hasn't read the first of my few sonnets and is mildly curious about it, just click here for the original post.

*Why did I not use the title of this post for the original post. And yes a Robin sonnet with Holy something or other in it would be a quote that would equal the quirkiness of the onomatopoeias.*

**Also why does spell check keep telling me that onomatopoeias is wrong and that it should have an apostrophe after the 's'? Am I missing something in my grammar or is spell check just nuts as usual? **

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

I did have another poetryesque post that is mixed with an old school flashback but I thought I'd hold off for a day and spread some love.

I received a blog award a few days ago and I didn't get around to putting it up. I was hesitant since I don't really feel like I deserve but D.B.Echo went to the trouble of giving it to me so I feel I should, in fact, do what the award says I've done and spread love.

I don't think anyone who reads this blog would not be worthy of the award so I give it to everyone.

My plan was to continue to spread the love and the poetry by putting up a poem filled with love that I had written. Then I looked through what I had, only to find they were all sad and about heartbreak. It's been a rough few years for me in the relationship department, but fortunately, I'm on the path to setting things right. It's a hard path. A poetry, short story and novel inspiring path that I never thought I would have the strength to go down. Well, it may be tough but at least it's giving me something to write about.

And now I'm getting way too personal. So remember spread the love. And not just the romantic love. Be kind to others, go out of your way to do something good for someone and try to have some understanding with everyone.

Anyway, since my blog is kind of plain and I want to spruce it up. I've decided to add more videos and more pictures so for Valentine's Day, here's another RENT moment.