NaBloPoMo: You Have Been Warned

I've given some serious consideration to joining in on NaBloPoMo, and by serious consideration, I mean that I read a few lines about it and said to myself, "Hey! That looks like a great idea!"

So I'm going to try and post one a day for the entire month of January. Those of you who have subscribed to my feed have an apology in advance. I hope you can bear with my while I ramble like an idiot more often than usual.

But seriously, all horrible expectations aside, I encourage anyone else out there running a blog to join in on National Blo Posting Month as well. You just might learn something about yourself, and as frightening as that sounds, it just might improve your blogging and writing experience in general.

I'm warning you right now that  you're probably going to see quite a few posts about why it isn't snowing, or how damn hard it is to keep the pen moving once you get it started. More often than not, they'll just be about all the books I've started but never finished because I keep telling myself I've got to work on a novel that I haven't really been working that hard on.

Like, you know, this.

I searched far and wide for that clip just because I identified so much with that skit when I first saw it on Family Guy. I'm sure all of you did, too. I'm sure all of the published writers out there are more than glad that there are so many of us that just can't get our shit together, however.

You're welcome, successful douches. I have eliminated the competition by sitting on my ass.

Bonus Post: I Don't Want To Live On This Planet Anymore

Because people like this guy live on it, too.

You know, we writers are often lauded as intellectuals. Actual writers know that such is far from the truth, as most of us are simple dreamers and lowly scribes. A solid grasp on ways to accurately and efficiently use the English language are not always testimonies to how much a person generally knows about reality.

Hell, there are people out there with Ph.Ds who have no clue what the real world is like. This, friends, is why the human race is doomed.

You all know that I don't support SOPA or PIPA already. I've done a rant on it before, and I intend to do many more before the shitstorm has passed. Because of SOPA and everyone who is backing it, I'm seriously considering following in the footsteps of Cory Doctorow and releasing all of my books under a Creative Commons licence. I normally keep swearing to a minimum so that I'll appear to know more than 100 words, but I absolutely hate how everyone claiming ownership to art has taken all of the passion out of creation. e.e. cummings truly did see a clear picture of society and its future when he claimed in his poem Now Does Our World Descend that "create" had become "contrive".

I wonder if he suspected just how true his statement of how freedom was what made a slave would become in the following century. Everyone wants nothing more than to be worshiped by "the little people" for their amazing talent. I have no more talent than a monkey, and I'm not afraid to admit it to anyone. I'm a firm believer in the creative belief of the artist as a vessel. While most people like to think of themselves as  great geniuses of their time, I know that I just put my pen down on the page and write what comes out. I don't sit in front of a fireplace with patches on my elbows and a pipe hanging out of my mouth muttering, "Yes. Indeed." every time a good idea occurs to me. The best writers are nothing more than idiot savants to something greater and larger than themselves.

Maybe Lord Xenu. No one really knows for sure.

That being said, I don't want to rock back and forth with copies of my stories hissing, "No, they're mine and you can't have them!" to everyone who tries to get close to me. I hate to break it to anyone who has ever worshiped their own work, but that story stopped being yours the moment someone else read it. Without readers, writers are nothing more than glorified bums.

I've mentioned before how much I loved the manga Hanako and the Terror of Allegory just because the protagonists kicked the writer's ass at the end for getting too greedy with her stories, which belonged to the readers.

In light of SOPA, I want to go ahead and tell everyone reading my blog and future stories that my most urgent wish is for you to make them your own. I was appalled to find out that people have actually been sued over fanfiction, because in my opinion it is the sincerest form a flattery a writer can receive. Stop being an money grubbing asshat and be proud that you've created something so great that it lives outside of itself. Can you imagine what our language would have been like today if something like SOPA existed in the fifteenth century and Shakespeare had everyone who used one of his invented phrases put in jail?

Everyone who has ever lived owes me three times the national debt. 

Please take this blog post to heart. I know this sounds cheesy, but I need all of you so much. A writer who wants to hurt his readers for keeping his stories in their hearts and lending his books to their friends is no writer at all. He's just a tiny version of those big record companies who don't give a crap about how many tears you've cried while listening to that one song that the artist only got half of a cent for. I felt sick when I found out that book lending actually does piss off quite a few writers.

Like Whitman, I'm a noiseless, patient spider casting out my web and hoping that it catches on to one of your hearts. Just one. That's all I need. I've listened to readers talking about how much their favorite writers have changed their lives and dreamed of the day when someone, just one person, would give me that same look and tell me how the stories that I've written have helped them to escape.

The Writer's Toolbox: A Review

My rule of thumb is that the crazier and more "wtf?" inducing a plot line sounds in summary, the better and more enticing of a story it will make when it's actually written out. I've recently scribbled out an idea for a fantasy novel in which a prince has a lover that he stashes on an island a few miles off of the coast of his kingdom. He feels emasculated, and is often trying to prove himself strong and manly. In other words, he's a douche. Things begin to grow complicated when an escaped convict washes ashore on the island where the prince's lover is kept a virtual prisoner, and she takes him in hoping that she can easily hide him from the prince.

I think I'm going to say, "screw you" to the lover and have the prince and the escaped convict end up together just for the Hell of it. Also, there's probably a flying horse or something in there somewhere. I could very easily grow this one little possible novella-sized fantasy work into a four party series that is absurdly more complicated and epic than it needs to be.

This story idea, one of many scribbled down in my notebook that may or may not see the light of day, came to me while I was screwing around with The Writer's Toolbox, a fascinatingly stimulating and gloriously fun box full of inspirational writing games that I sorely wish I had already bought ages ago.

The box consists of games designed to spark the imagination of writers young, old, and uncreative---just promise yourself that you won't ever discard any idea, no matter how absurd.

In light of the many other story ideas that have come to me over the years, my crazy-assed love polygon  story actually pales in comparison. The best part about using The Writer's Toolbox is that you can easily look at the first lines, the protagonist wheels, the sixth sense cards, and say to yourself, "How on earth did I get this story idea from all of these random collections of words?"

That, my friend, is how the human mind works. It is the very reason why there is a creative writer inside of us all. The Writer's Toolbox takes advantage of the strange ways in which our minds operate, allowing us to quite literally create a fantastical cyberpunk thriller out of a random suggestion of a first line such as, "Jim liked to eat sandwiches."

My advice to anyone who makes the wonderful decision of using The Writer's Toolbox would be to just go nuts and think about nothing else but having fun. That's why we all decided we wanted to be creative writers for a living anyway, isn't it? Who needs a desk job when we can make a living off of our daydreams?

The only difference between writers and non-writers is simply that non-writers judge or fear their daydreams and leave them inside their heads.

Write on, fellow daydreamers!

God on high, kill me for allowing myself to utter those words...

Merry Freaking Christmas!

I'll admit that there's been a huge lack of Christmas related posts because I've been finding it hard to get in the spirit of things. For me, the Christmas spirit requires cookies and candy, none of which I have been making. I've been getting into the spirit later and later each year, which means that it goes away even later. The past few years, it's been December 30th with me still singing carols and dancing around because I haven't started feeling all tinsel-y until the day before Christmas Eve. I used to go holiday crazy the moment Thanksgiving dinner was over and the dishes were in the dishwasher. I blame the lack of Christmas specials lately that aren't live-action Hallmark specials, but what can you do?

I miss the Grinch so, so much. And Rudolph and that weird little elf who wanted to be a dentist and ruin everyone's cookie-crunching, candy chomping fun.

I hope you all got what you wanted this year! If you got coal, all you have to do is shove it under a crapload of pressure and then throw your brand new diamond in Santa's stupid, judgmental face.

My list so far (I have over four Christmases to go to today x.x) includes some amazing perfume I asked for and a Kindle Fire, which makes me absolutely ecstatic. Once I get near some Wi-Fi when I get home I'll let you guys know just how awesome it is, but so far I'm dumbstruck. You know...because I'm not that hard to please and all.

Seeing as I have no money, Christmas is the only time I really get to have nice things, since other people are buying them and all.

Perhaps things will be looking up once I've finished my novel and am collecting a small pittance from 99 cent book sales that I can use to finance my addiction to television shows and books that I'm much too old to be watching/reading.

Begotten

I'm a horror junkie, and every single movie that I watch seems to desensitize me to the last. That was, of course, until I watched about twenty minutes of Begotten and decided that I could go no further.

I plan on finishing it one day. It's sort of a right of passage for Internet Horror Junkies. The movie is a lot creepier if you know what's going on. Basically, in the beginning the bleeding weirdo you see is God, and he disembowels himself. Mother Earth comes along and impregnates herself with...I guess...what's left of him or something. She gives birth to a full grown man and such. It gets worse from there. Here's the Wikipedia page, which has the full summary.

After watching what I did, I'm convinced that my novel isn't dark enough to be considered a dark fantasy and needs an execution or two. After all, if I truly want the readers to be afraid of the Queen, she has to prove that she's not above killing someone. Up until the point in the story I've reached, it seems she's all talk but is too afraid to act. I did get the idea for her character while listening to Heads Will Roll, after all, so I need to make her live up to her inspiration. I want her to be an absolute terror to her realm.

Amazing what seeing a little bit of horrifying weirdness can do to you, isn't it?

Seeing as I have OCD, I probably shouldn't have watched as much as I did. I read Ibitsu and had some of the worst and scariest nightmares I've ever had involving a woman haunting me who had an over-sized mouth spewing blood and empty bloody eye-sockets. The more something disturbs me, the more likely it is that I won't be able to stop thinking about it until it eventually gets into my dreams.

Anywho, if you're willing to lose sleep for a little while, this is Begotten, quite possibly the most horrifying horror movie ever made. If you can't handle it, you probably shouldn't watch it.

Though you know you totally will.

I Never Was Good With My Hands

I don't have a picture for today's post, so here's a random tree behind my house.

I am trying to learn how to crochet. It's supposed to be relaxing and, well, my Zoloft just isn't working as well as it used to and I can't really get the dosage upped for another month. I feel like I'm even more on edge than before. The other day I almost tripped trying to avoid a square of sidewalk that was too big for me to take exactly two steps inside of it, no more, no less.

Which, of course, brings me to the crocheting--a word that hilariously resembles "crotch-eting" in the present participle. Whoever said that this crap was supposed to be relaxing obviously found a bowl of nails floating in anti-freeze a nutritious and delicious breakfast. Two minutes in and I already feel like stabbing something with my crochet hook. I find writing much, much more relaxing, and half the time all I can do is stare at the page and think, "What in the name of Zeus and Mother Mary is supposed to happen next?"

Surprisingly, the one place that my OCD seems to disappear is when I'm writing my first drafts. Grammar mistakes, spelling errors...all of those things disappear completely as I try to focus entirely on letting the story fall out onto the paper. Of course, the editing process feels the ultimate wrath of my nit-picking tendencies, but while I'm writing the first draft I'm totally free.

I also have to admit that, for reasons unknown to me seeing as it's December, everyone around me seems to be constantly sucking on oranges. Gah. The sound is absolutely maddening. I don't feel like smashing things like before, but I cringe every time.

My word of advice for those whose lives have been completely controlled by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is to note what it is you're doing when you feel yourself completely relaxed and free of that gnawing sensation at the back of your neck. You know the one I'm talking about. For me, there's nothing better than my favorite playlist, a pen, and my spiral-bound notebook to take me away from the fact that I can't stop thinking about the feeling of paper between my teeth, and I don't know why.

You know, I started this blog to journal the process of going from random some schlub who scribbles out weird scenes in her mind to an actual writer who makes something of those crazy-ass scenes. Day by day and post by post it becomes more of an insight into what it's like to be a writer with a personality disorder that unfortunately wasn't diagnosed until I had chased off all potential friends for thirteen years by sanitizing my hands after every handshake.

"It's not you, it's me!" I would tell everyone in hopes that they wouldn't be offended. "If I don't do it, I feel like I'm suffocating."

But you know how hard it is to get people to understand something they don't have. Even those wonderful, beautiful people who try their hardest to be of assistance to you don't really get how it feels, though you're eternally grateful to them for not getting pissed at all of your little ticks.

I would like to end today's post by doing a follow-up on the SOPA bill that I posted about earlier. So far it's been postponed, but the fight is far from over. The best place to learn about the bill is this subreddit on Reddit, a site that I fear will cease to exist if SOPA passes. It's where I've been going to stay caught up.

**I've decided to go with a new layout instead of the older one. Though the last one I had was beautiful, I had no idea how to make Next Blog work with it, and I like the Next Blog feature as a way to support other bloggers.

Punk

You're wicked--
A master of the art of bending reality.
Maniacal--
An absolute and total curse upon humanity.
Look at yourself smile.
You're proud,
and why not?
The darkness engulfing you
is all that you've got.

You don't even understand yourself, punk.


This poem is to be read slightly tongue-in-cheek. It all popped into my head as I was staring at myself in the mirror with an insane grin on my face. Today was a really hard day, and like always, I began laughing hysterically once all the crying was over. I guess at how silly it all seemed in the grand scheme of things, I don't know.

I was inspired by this music video by one of my favorite artists. I warn you, it'll make you question your sanity:

SOPA? So What?

THIS is what, damnit.

So SOPA is probably going to pass today. I've been listening to the hearing, and the entire thing can basically be summed up with one phrase:

"I'M OLD! WHAT'S THE INTERNET?"

I'm also guessing that no one--or almost no one--who is reading this blog post even knows what SOPA is. That almost makes me as sick to my stomach as the things being said in Congress. This thing can and will kill the entire Internet, and ninety percent of the population hasn't even heard of it.

Imagine every single website that even mentions something copyrighted is taken down.

Now imagine that websites can be taken down just because someone claims to own a copyright that they do not even own.

That's pretty much it. Only, well, it's so much more complicated than that--and horrifying. The Internet will be completely void of content provided by users. If you're thinking, "Hey, wait, that's the entire Internet!" then good job, you  understand the dangers.

The Internet was once the one and only place that total free speech still existed. Well, not anymore. What's perhaps the most sickening part of this whole fiasco is that SOPA won't just effect the United States. It's going to effect other countries, too, and just about everyone who uses the Internet.

There are lots of reasons why I'm an indie author, and none of them are that I'm a hipster. I hate hipsters with a burning passion.I don't want my stories to be at the mercy of what someone out there thinks people want to read. If someone wants to read what I write, they can. If they don't, they shouldn't. I don't want to change it to make uninterested people read it. If it's not their cup of tea, it's not their cup of tea. My worst fear is having an editor change my hypothetical zombie novel into an erotic spy thriller before it hits shelves. I want to write what I want to write. If there's editing, I want it to be because I screwed up in the plot consistency or made a grammar error.

Ladies and gentlemen, they are now going to edit and regulate the Internet if this thing isn't stopped.

And let's face it. If what I heard in those hearings is true, they're going to pass SOPA no matter what because they gave the bill a fancy enough name.

Here are more links:

The nightmarish SOPA hearings
How SOPA would affect you
How SOPA Affects Gamers
Stop SOPA, Save the Internet
And one more

Well. I'm going to go listen to Rage Against the Machine and prepare myself for the imminent shutdown of my blog because I mentioned "Rage Against the Machine" and I don't own the band.

Fairyland 1

Fairyland 1, a photo by KennediAmber on Flickr.

This trippy little flower is dead now. Nature is hilariously cruel.

Can We Save Writing and Reading?

If not, then we should at least form our own little underground book bootlegging club once the written word has been banned for good.

You would be surprised by how many people out there think that books should no longer exist--educated people, I might add. I'm not talking about just printed books either, but e-books too. I once had an acquaintance of mine say that books were the lowest form of entertainment next to television. His choices for the top two?

1. Video games
2. The Internet

I must agree with him, because we all know how smart and stimulating people on the Internet are. If there was a sarcasm font I would be using it in bold right now.

It absolutely baffles me to see people all around me claiming to be intellectuals and stating that books are beneath intelligent people.

I hate to break it to you geniuses, but you have the same opinion as Kanye West. That's right. In my mind, you are a clone of the epitome of ignorance and intolerance that is Mr. West, regardless of how many degrees you have.

Any avid reader knows that real life (if there is such a thing) would be nothing without the stories that shape it. Think about it.

How differently would you perceive things--how many events in your life would have been affected---had you never read Harry Potter? Or Animal Farm? What about Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World?

I don't think that Bradbury's world of book censorship will come to pass like we expect it to. Maybe people will just stop reading books because there aren't any pictures that move, and start watching movies that are mostly pretty lights and fireworks with no plots because there is nothing more dangerous than the opportunity to think. If human  beings think, they come to two terrible and frightening realizations: they have the ability to create things and they can't always control what they create. Whether it be a paranoia turned reality or an entire world springing to life in the wake of a moving cursor, we fear what we create because it come from us and yet is not of us. It's bigger and greater.

Writers do not conquer this fear. We merely learn to embrace it and thrive on it.

Image via Wikipedia

I would let Kanye finish, but for the sake of future generations I have decided to drown him out with  Florence and the Machine.

Behind Grandfather's House

Behind Grandfather's House, a photo by KennediAmber on Flickr.

Just as the title suggests, I took this picture behind my grandfather's old house.

I've been dabbling in random picture taking lately, and I've decided to share the results on my blog from time to time.

I would also like to report that my Christmas break is only days away. If I can only get through finals, I just may have enough sweet, delicious free time to finish my novel's first draft in the three weeks I'll have.

Children? Ba-HUMBUG. Regretsy v. Paypal

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret. I hate PayPal just as much as PayPal loves money.

Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, that is a lot. They are nothing but a privately owned scam, and the majority of the Internet knows this. I would probably hand my money to a hobo with a needle currently in his arm and tell him to take it across the country to a vendor than send it through PayPal. To be completely honest with you, there isn't much of a difference between the two scenarios. Both of them involve you never seeing your money again.

A lot of you may not know that I follow Regretsy, because the website is freaking hilarious and they're always doing some sort of charity work that makes my heart as fuzzy as two week old refrigerator fungi. This year, for example, the site owner was to donate thousands of dollars to poor children who weren't going to get a Christmas this year. The money was quickly raised before PayPal froze the account and claimed that charities weren't worthy causes. They ordered the money refunded and kept their "fixed fees". I truly feel for the parents who have already told their children that they will be getting a Christmas after all and now have to break their hearts in telling them otherwise.

Apparently, donating money to a sick cat is a worthy cause, but helping poor people is not. As all of you know I am a poor people myself, and I am therefore how you say.... "outraged."

Within minutes both the Internet and Paypal's Facebook page exploded. Twitter showed them no mercy, as Twitter does not know the meaning of the word. The Consumerist, The Daily Dot, The Wall Street Journal have already at least linked to the story, and this only happened a matter of hours ago. The Internet is a hydra with many heads that only multiply as you sever them.

Even Barbara Streisand had to learn that, you know.

                                                         Image by mau3ry via Flickr

We're very sorry, little Timmy, but you just aren't a cat. 

Orange Juice and eBooks

You are a beautiful little glass of sweet, convenient lies.

In case any other people out there are so sick that they can't leave the house, just let me say that orange juice with some salt and water can really help to replenish all of those electrolytes you lost puking your guts out when you can't get out to buy some sports drink or some other crap.

Even though, you know, there's really no such thing as real orange juice unless you squeeze your own. Some of us are lazy, however, and will do just fine with what we have in the carton. I wish I had enough time and money to live like everyone who goes on natural food rants on the internet about how one teaspoon of Splenda will kill you within five seconds of consumption, but seriously, it takes like eight oranges to squeeze out an entire glass of juice. At that point I'd give up and just eat the orange instead.

In a few moments I'm going to have to muster up the courage to type up an e-mail to my Biology teacher explaining why I had to miss the test today when I've already been absent for nearly five nonconsecutive days of his class and hope that he has mercy on my soul. In the mean time, however, I would like to say with pride that I actually got to try a Kindle Fire.

At Target.

While listening to my family groan because they wanted to move on and I was mesmerized.

It. Is. Awesome. I asked for one for Christmas, but I really doubt that my mom will be able to get hold of one in time, and I desperately need other things instead. Like, you know, a printer and other things that my college should have warned me I would need from the first freaking day of class. Sure, they have one for you to use there, but with all the printing I have to do it costs me out the ass and I never have time to get to the library.

While I should have probably asked everyone for printers and scanners, I could not help but mention the Kindle fire to everyone who asked the dreaded, "What do you want for Christmas?" question that normally causes my  mind to go blank.

 Since I'm used to the black and white screen of the regular old Kindle that I've fallen in love with, I spent nearly ten minutes scrolling through all of the book covers on the display device and marveling at the colors. I know that other eReaders have color, but I would never have considered them before due to the fact that they cost a whole lot and I'm an Amazon fangirl. And, you know, it has a bunch of Apps and stuff, too.

Can't forget about the Apps.

I may or may not be mentally stable, you know.

Eleven bog post prompts I wish people would actually write

I am going to be completely honest with you here. For once, something didn't get in the way of my blogging for two straight days. There was no spotty internet connection, and especially no horrible family emergency.

I had no freaking idea what to write.

Sure, I could ramble on and on about my  novel like most writers do in their blogs, but honestly, I've said enough about it already. Anything else I say would just be mindlessly repeating myself, and I don't want to look like I think I'm awesome. Bloggers who write as if they are humans instead of professors are much more fun to read, anyway.

So I Googled, "blog post prompts."

Lazy? Yes. Uninspired? Most likely. What I learned was that the Internet is seriously lacking some interesting blog post prompts. I know you guys aren't mindless sheeple: you aren't going to read through eight gigantic block-style paragraphs about what I think is wrong with other bloggers or society at large. Leave stuff like that underwater, and just let the tip of the iceberg show. The readers will get it. Human's analyze things by nature.

Anyway, this whole ordeal has prompted me to compile a list of prompts that I would rather read instead of some guy doing the often suggested, "interview with himself":

1. If kindergarders became murderous and took over the world, would you find any moral roadblocks interfering with your ability to kick them in the face and fight for your survival?
2. How many zombies do you seriously think it would take to screw in a lightbulb?
3. You are stranded on a deserted island with Newt Gingrich.
4. Everyone named Bill is joining a secret cult called, "The Society of the Bills." What are they secretly up to? If your name is Bill, do you join? If your name isn't Bill, pretend that you're infiltrated their facility somehow and found out their agenda for the first time.
5. What do you really...and I mean REALLY...think about those loud children in restaurants?
6. Why do you think Carrot Top's face looks that way?
7. A series of hydrogen bombs have detonated and rendered the surface of the Earth uninhabitable. You are in an underground facility with the cast of the Jersey Shore. You are the only ones left alive.
8. You're hiding from a vicious monster that has made its way into your house. You are locked in your room and typing up a blog post asking for help.
9. Do number eight, but pretend that your spacebar won't work.
10. You have just received word that Carl Rove has stolen Christmas.
11. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood...in the vacuum of outer space?

I think I'll run with some of these. I'm getting way too tired of thinking inside the box when it comes to blogging.

Winter is Coming.

Like many bloggers out there, I am doing an entire post dedicated to the encroaching season--as if most of you are too thick to stick your heads outside and say, "Well damn, it's cold out here!"

Yeah. I know you guys know that it's almost snow season. I just thought I would take a little bit of time to talk about why winter is my favorite season of the year, not that sweltering, hoity-toity summer.

First of all, I love snow with a raging passion. There is nothing that induces euphoria in me quite like looking out the window to see the ground covered in white. It makes the nights and the days brighter, in addition to being, you know, freaking beautiful.

I'm a fan of snow, in case you haven't figured it out already.

Of course, there's the Holidays. Santa Claus, presents, candelabras, trees, and all of that good stuff. The last three months of the year are chocked full of holidays and celebration.

As I typed this it started to snow.

....*ahem*....

HELL YES.

The Inexplicable Evolution of a Character

Image by jlseagull via FlickrPeople change. So do characters. I've never been the type of writer to viciously hold onto a character design to the point that I virtually halt the story development for fear that the character will change. A lot of times that can happen without you even knowing you're doing it. In fact, if you've been struggling with writer's block for quite some time now, I'd recommend you ask yourself if  you've noticed your character trying to do things that you'd describe as particularly out of character.

Me, I just write and see what happens. It wasn't that way when I typed up my stories, but once I started handwriting them I noticed that I was a lot less willing to go back and second guess my decisions. I spent roughly four weeks getting all the imagination related crap squared away, and by the end of the first month I had developed a main character that was nothing short of your typical shy and sweet bookworm.

Yeah, I know. Not the most relatable of protagonists. I think that's probably why Muriel changed so much once I actually put her into action. What I see now as I move my pen across the page (and scowl at my consistently poor word choice as usual) is a loud, naive, and not-so-bright girl who probably never acquired the patience to sit down and read a book that didn't have pictures. She may not be as smart and, dare I say it, "perfect" as she was before, but I'll bet she's twice as fun to read about.

And write about. I'd much rather chronicle the adventures of a fun loving simpleton who asked a plant-based character if she eats sunlight than a pompous one who throws out a scientific explanation for everything that happens.

That and I'm barely making a B in Biology 101. Ladies and gentlemen, you will not find me operating on you anytime soon.

I guess the long and short of this blog post (because God help me if I actually make a clear point ever at all) is that you can't really think of your characters as people you can control. Think of them more as people who have a story to tell you so that you can write it down on paper. Or type it up on Word. Whatever floats your boat.

Never Should Have Watched That Episode of South Park

Lately I've been knee deep in trying to churn out a novel in a few months while simultaneously thinking about school and not really caring whether or not I go (or at least remain) crazy. Those right there are the obvious obstacles...school, earning a living, friends, family, that pesky little thing called life...that you hear of most often. What everyone seems to ignore when talking about problems with writing a book is the possibility that you just might get distracted. For some reason everyone likes to pretend that it doesn't happen to them.

I have a bunch of ideas for stories. They're all written down somewhere in a bunch of little notebooks, and I'm always thinking about at least one of them. The problem is that I can't get my Sci-Fi novel--the one that I put off until I'm finished with the one I'm working on right now--out of my head. I sit down with my pen to write about castles and dragons, but all I can think about is aliens. It's maddening.

The strange new alien obsession may or may not be due to my current paper than I'm having to write on Scientology. I can't tell you how many people gave me strange looks when I walked out of my school's library with a copy of Dianetics.  I wanted to shout, "Hey, you've got me all wrong! I'm not a Scientologist; I'm just as whacked out on prescription drugs as you are!"

And once again we come full circle to the Zoloft. And the coffee. And the energy drinks. And the perverted jokes. And the half-assed research attempts that prove my glibness.

Good Lord, I'm a Scientologist's worst nightmare. But then again, I'm a lot of people's worst nightmare.

I took about half of the notes that I need to write the paper last night from Dianetics and a few newspaper and magazine articles. Let me just say that I'm happy that the Church of Scientology probably isn't the least bit interested in me or the $0.32 I have to my name.

Yes. That is what is in my bank account. The words "college student" and "writer" do not mix well at all.

I'm going to call the paper, "The World Only Xenu Knows" and hope to God that someone out there gets the joke.

No one ever gets my jokes, you see.

Hey, if you think that's cheesy, I also thought about calling it "Children of a Lesser Xenu." Bet you're distraught that you almost got away without knowing that one.

Homework Only Exists in an Alternate Reality

I have a 250 page notebook that I'm using to write my novel and right now I'm just about to the dead center. That's like, what, around 125 pages?

Meh. Not too shabby for about a month's work. Once again I find myself struggling with finding the time to write, as well as the fact that, well, I should be using every shred of free and quiet time for schoolwork.

Yeah, it probably didn't take you too long to figure out that I'm not doing that. I just scratched out an outline to e-mail to my teacher (late) in about ten minutes, and now I'm trying to convince myself that I don't have an abstract due in History when I know I probably do.

As long as I keep saying it in my head it's bound to come true, right?

Meh. Maybe I'd better check, even though I know that checking will reveal that I do indeed have homework that I won't have ready to submit by midnight. 

I was diagnosed with OCD a little while back, and today I started taking Zoloft because apparently it will reduce the amount of troubling thoughts and repetitive tasks that I have on a daily basis. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't worried that it will affect my writing. What if all I suddenly want to do is write romance novels about glittering boys and rainbows set in a world where nothing ever goes wrong?

God knows we've got too many of those writers out there who don't want a single bad thing to happen to their characters. I swear, the moment I notice myself taking three pages to describe the dress a female protagonist is wearing and how she has her hair done I'm going to watch every horror film I've ever heard of and wage serious war on my serotonin pump. The last time I described clothes in my writing I said nothing more than, "it was white." I'd like to keep it that way.

It's amazingly hard to write when your slightly defective brain only has a specific set of conditions under which it doesn't go bonkers. Or, you know, when you have to wash your hands every time you rub your nose or close all the windows and doors and cover your vents. 

My Death

Image by doug88888 via Flickr
I was thinking about it yesterday and scribbled out a poem. I typed it right into the blog post and didn't really think about editing, so I can at least promise you that it's probably monstrous. Also, I'm terrible at poetry. Gotta keep that in mind, too.

I am happy,
I am free,
I am in the grip of eternity.
Whether I feel flames, hear harps,
Or see miles and miles of endless dark,
Be comforted. I am glad I have left.

The sun will rise tomorrow,
even if I do not spin with the Earth.
Its rays will warm this valley,
even if I lie far beneath its dirt.
Your heart will beat, though mine has ceased.
Dream of me often. Keep me alive.

Problem Fixed? God, I Hope So

For the entire month of October, I had been using nothing but a nice little background image from The Cutest Blog on the Block, a website that I sometimes feel I love beyond reason. I noticed that I started having problems with my longer posts running behind the comment box the moment I changed back to the standard Picture Window that works best with backgrounds. It was then that I suspected that the problem that caused this to happen was more related to the HTML of the blog's template and such, because I had the problem before I started using an XML template, too.

Actually, my boyfriend was the one who figured that out. But, you know, I was the one who agreed. Yeah.

I think the problem might come from applying the background by sticking it in an "Add HTML" widget if you're getting it from a website like The Cutest Blog on the Block or Pyzam. It might work better if you copy and paste the code they give you into the dialog box on the Edit HTML page under the Design Tab, making sure to erase everything that's in there before you stick the background code in. It's worth a shot, anyway, so I'll probably try it later.

The reason I think that the problem is with the HTML code is that it didn't exist when I was using a pre-made template that I uploaded. I only had trouble with the post running off the page when I pasted some kind of background code into a widget. If you're really struggling with your post length running off the page and behind the comment box, putting an XML template on your Blogger blog just might fix it right up. Not to mention, of course, that browsing templates is incredibly fun. I for one wish that I could change mine every week. That would quickly become annoying. I must refrain.

This website has a bunch of good ones. So does Btemplates, Ray Templates, and Blogger Styles. Just download the XML file, save it in a place you know you won't lose it (because I do that SO DAMN OFTEN), and upload it on the Edit HTML tab. You can arrange your widgets however you please.

I hope my fellow blogging/computer impaired writers can learn from my mistakes. I certainly wish someone else would have made them before me and written a few paragraphs about them ._.

CSS, why you no function?

I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a few days!

You see, Blogger is being a dick lately. Sometimes it refuses to publish posts correctly that are longer than a paragraph , and the comment box ends up floating in the middle of the post. I have no idea why this is happening, and Google doesn't either. This is one of those situations where I ask someone a question, they call me stupid for not just Googling it, and I pull my hair out because I already did.

I've been  having this problem with Blogger since day one. I was hearing for a while that it just happened with posts that I copied and pasted from a word processor, but the post I've  been trying to get out for the past few days was one hundred percent hand typed. I would just switch platforms since this has happened so often, but my domain name is with Blogger. Honestly, I've switched platforms so often it isn't even funny ^^;;

I hope this post is short enough for them.

It's Creepypasta Time.

Scareh.

Halloween arrives in just four days. I've only just now started reading Creepypasta again, and I'm rather disappointed in myself. The month of October is, for me, completely void of sleep most years.

I don't know what it is about a good Creepypasta that is just so damn frightening. Perhaps it is how poorly written most of them tend to be, convincing you every time that a real person--not some college student who wants to be a journalist/philosopher--wrote it about something that actually happened to them (without saying in all caps that it did, of course). The conjured image of the last survivor of some disaster scribbling out a warning and plastering it on the Internet for someone to find is both ridiculous and wonderful.

In fact, that was why smile.jpg didn't scare me at all. I could tell from the constant Thesaurus rape that whoever was writing it was trying to be some bigshot writer. Remember, kids: create images with your words, not just jumbled sentences of ridiculously long synonyms that make you look smarter.

You can find Creepypastas here, of course, but I like to go to the Wiki when I'm in the mood for a good scare; new ones often pop up there. I've pretty much read them all, so I'm always looking for new stories.

But there are a few things that bother me about Creepypastas, including but not limited to:

1. Stories that begin with, "please don't read this", or "I beg you not to continue reading." If the story is really quite long, most of the time I'll think, "Alright, then ^-^" and just hit backspace.
2. The idiot main character who for some reason goes through with the ritual pasta even though he is promised to either be killed or stricken insane.
3. Stories that begin or end with, "This was my first time writing a Creepypasta, guys!" or, "This was written by me, -insert random forum username here-, because I love Creepypasta." It's much more fun when the story could have been written by anybody. I guess that's why horror fiction doesn't bother me. I'm much more unsettled by myths and legends and other 'could be true' stories.
4. Video game Creepypastas. I don't know why, but I rarely find them scary. They're mostly addressed to the game's fanbase, however, so I guess that's why certain people find them horrifying.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, cliches bother me. The writing world is full of them.

Anywho, if you're knew to Creepypasta just as I was at around this time two years ago, I would recommend starting out with Candle Cove. It's the first one I ever read, and since then I was hooked.

I also agree with every single one of the choices on this list.

And here's a Tumblr full of them. I swear, I seem to have an infinite amount of Creepypasta links. This post would probably require some major scrollage if I were to list them all.

Mind Sludge

So apparently, "I'm posting every Monday evening" now means, "I'm writing the final 2-3 paragraphs of Monday's blog post Tuesday morning during the first ten minutes of History."

Do you ever have those days when all you can manage to do is stare sleepily at the page?

Ugh. I was doing so well, and now I can barely make my mind move. It's not writer's block; I know exactly what's coming next in the story. It's more of a mind-sludge that keeps the gears from turning, even though they know what they're supposed to do. This may have something to do with this being the last scene of the first third of my novel. After the end of this chapter, I've only got 2/3 of the way to go...sure, it's more than half, but way more than 3/3. I'm one of those 'chicken out at the very end' people. I've done it with every video game I've ever played. That boss battle means that the game will be over, and writing that last scene just puts me closer to the story being over.

Plus, I feel like this transition between the end of the beginning and the beginning of the middle should have a special scene, a scene that jumps off the page and grabs the readers heart. You know, one of those scenes that no one can talk about the book without mentioning. So far, however, I'm sad to say that this scene is nothing but any other scene. When we expect our story to be something, and it insists on being something else, we always run into problems actually writing the thing. That's yet another lesson I've yet to really learn.

Like most writers at this point in their story, I find that the middle is no more than a vast desert. I know where my characters are supposed to go, but I don't want the novel to fall into the classic rut that fantasy adventures have the opportunity to fall into in which the characters are doing nothing but walking. I'm also worried that this work is going to be too short. Even though it seems I have a lot of things that need to happen, I'm only going to have about 13,000 words in the beginning. If the middle and end also only have 13,000 words, then my novel will probably barely skim past 35,000.

The internet says it's a sin to write books that are shorter than 50,000 unless you're a big-time, famous writer who can get away with it, because no one will pay for a shorter book. I'm actually disappointed that my story looks as if it won't be longer. When I go over the plot line, it seems like it should at least be 60,000 words, and that's being stingy.

I hope I don't have to resort to sticking "that" in wherever it wouldn't be incorrect, like when I need more words in an academic paper. Awkward wording and creative writing do not mix--unless you have an awkward character, that is.

Trimming the fat...before the cow becomes a steak?

Image via WikipediaI know that editing during the first draft is a bad idea, but I've been compelled to do the most major form of editing that I've come across: cutting out entire scenes.

Or rather, ripping them out. I literally tore about five pages out of my notebook when I realized that I was going in a direction that was completely wrong. In fact, I may  need to do away with several scenes. They're all getting repetitive.

At this point I fear I may even need to re-title my novel, "A plot revealed through a bunch of characters sitting around talking about it."

Of course, the problem isn't that extreme, but it might as well be. Any problem is magnified to twice its size in the eyes of the readers, be it an inconsistency or an author who is too frightened to leave the exposition.

As I reminisce about my older novel projects that have been started but never finished, I realize that they all could have possibly been saved had I sat down, looked at all of the scenes I had, and figured out which ones could be combined, especially if they take place in the same setting and are made up mostly of exposition. I just don't know how to get the beginning of the novel all squared away so that I can jump right into the middle. It has always been a problem of mine; the first novel I ever started writing had about 150 pages and at least 20,000 words before I really even got into any of the action at all.

Now that I have recognized this problem, I feel as if I've taken a huge jump forward in remedying it. There are some scenes that just don't belong. Even if they reveal necessary information, that necessary information may not be necessary at that exact moment in the story's timeline. You can always put it in wherever you feel it needs to go in the rewrite. The first draft is, more or less, about getting the very basic story out of you and onto the page so that you can work with it. It's better if you don't even worry about spelling and grammar until you sit down to do that editing.

 Some things are even better left unsaid, like Hemingway said in his famous Iceberg Theory.

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.  ---Hemingway

For example, Hawthorne never writes, "The Reverend Dimmesdale was too scared to admit what he had done."

He makes you know it, and without ever saying a word.

Related articles

• How to Silence Your "Inner Editor" (thewritersrefuge.wordpress.com)

Girls Write, Too

I'll never understand why it's so hard for readers out there to believe that a chick can write a kick-ass story that isn't pumped full of abs and estrogen.

Of course, considering what they've got to go on, I don't really blame them.

Everyone's heard the classic spiel saying that female writers who don't write erotica and romance should use a unisex, or even male, pen name. If they don't, their sales will suffer, because most readers out there will see the female name and immediately judge it to be in contrast with the genre of the book. Just once, I dare some writer of beautiful, passionate erotica to use a pen name like "Paul Schmidt", or "Al Gutman."

Nothing is worse, however, than the pen name that sounds like it came straight out of either the 60s or Lord of the Rings. No one is going to believe that your name is Rain Firestorm. Move on to the next name on your list, unless it's Crystalline Promise.

I won't deny that I've always wanted to publish at least one erotica under the psuedonym, "Jane Doe."

I don't know why. I can't write erotica--it's just that it would be pure awesome, just as awesome as I. M. Hornay. 

Halloween 'Be Approachin'

Image via Wikipedia Today I finally began regularly working on my novel every day, bringing my goal of at least 1,000 words each day back into the forefront. I've been thinking about doing something weird with the story: cutting out an entire character.

Well, not entirely cutting out said character, but rather cutting them out for the majority of the plot of the first book in my series. I had originally planned to have my main character and this other character, who is her foil in every sense of the term, undertaking the journey of the first novel together. Now that I look at the purpose of the story a lot closer, I think it just might be more useful to have her make that journey solo.

Plus, if I did that, I could cut out the scenes where my main character and this character become better acquainted.

Or, you know, I could just shove them together as still 'sort of enemies' and see what happens from there. That adds drama, for sure.

Part of being a writer is struggling with decisions just like this one. You have several different ways that you want the story to go, but  you just can't let go of any of them to use just one of them. It is in situations like this that I propose a compromise of some sort, or a merging of the plots together so the good parts of all of them sort of happen. Usually, when you do that, one of them shines as the strongest and best one to take center stage, anyway. There's just something about seeing all the story directions in action that helps you figure out which one really was the "one."

Now that the first and most rambly part of the post is over, I'd like to bring to your attention this author and his books.

They are for children, and yet they are amazing. Any true horror fan would love his work; trust me, I'm a horror nut, and after reading the first one after dark, I wasn't able to get to sleep until I forced myself there.

Because, you know what? It always seems like my bedroom door does that violent shaking thing where it sounds like someone is trying to get in RIGHT when I've scared myself silly with ghost stories all day.

After the first anthology of scary stories, O. Penn-Coughin's stories only get better and scarier. Not to mention, of course, that if you read it on kindle you can only view one page at a time, making those scary illustrations seem to actually jump out at you at the end of every story. Trust me, they're a lot of fun.

I've only just started with Kissed By a Clown, and so far I wouldn't recommend that those of you out there with elementary school aged children let them get their hands on it.

But you and your older children?

Go nuts. Knock yourselves out. It seriously rocks so far. 

I Always Miss Banned Books Week.

I'm about fourteen days too late to do a post on this, but it's never too late to stand up for freedom of expression through the printed word, right?

I mean, that's the main reason why I decided to at least start out indie. Publishing may be a big business, but I at least want my writing to stay a labor of love, even if I don't make a ton of money from it. I can always hold a desk job, anyway, just in case I can't make living being a lowly scribe. That's why I'm going to college, right?

The ALA has a pretty good list of banned and challenged books, which I seriously should have found earlier due to the fact that it's on the freaking American Library Association's website. You can find pretty much all of them there from what I can tell, so it's a good place to start if you're just now diving into the world of banned books.

It's my personal belief that if a book mentions something that you just don't like, you shouldn't read it and leave it at that. Being in disagreement with something isn't some sort of sign that you're the 'chosen one' appointed to save the rest of the world from being competent enough to decide whether or not they can handle seeing it, too.

It's not like we're going to open up a book and say, "Gaw! This book mentions crack and bestiality so much, and I think it just might bother me, but I have no idea if I should continue reading until someone tells me I shouldn't. Oh well, better keep going."

Not to mention that most banned books are so mild that it's hard to put your finger on just how nervous a person would have to be to think that they would destroy society.

If you're going to try to read most or all of the banned books, which is my personal goal, I would suggest starting with Fahrenheit 451. A friend told me it wasn't really about censorship, but how Ray Bradbury was terrified that television would destroy society.

After reading it, I see his point, but still think it's mostly about censorship.

Ray Bradbury's techno-phobia does grace nearly every single page, though. Can't argue with that.

If I Could Only Master the Art of the All-Nighter

After missing two whole post days, I finally managed to churn this one out on time. This is Thursday's post, and it really isn't much. Then again, I can't really say that anything I do is "much"...it just feels weird.

I have made a somewhat life altering decision: I'm going to put my novel in second place, and my schoolwork in first.

Well, maybe it isn't life altering...but it almost certainly is necessary (and extremely temporary). Right now I have two papers due at around the same time that I haven't even started on and a myriad of tests I'm certain will come as complete surprises to me when I show up for my classes. I sort of know they're there, but let's face it, I have no clue when they'll show up and slap me in the face.

I also might even have one class I've forgotten completely about and haven't even shown up for in a week or two. Yikes. For some reason, my brain has been extra scattered lately. I even managed to spell "immediately" as "ammediatley". This usually happens to tired people, but I'm not the least bit tired. I'm busy, sure, but you can't really count that seeing as I've put nearly everything off.

My novel is now about 35 pieces of notebook paper and about 2/3 of the way through the first part. I've got it split up into three parts, so that's about 22% of the way through if I don't totally suck at math.

Which I do.

I guess the point of this post is that somewhere in all the mess that unfolded in my trying to fit two scenes on the novel a day in between homework and all of the random crap that popped up, I stopped and said to myself, "Hey, remember when this used to be fun?"

So for the next two weeks, which is all that it should take for me to get those two long term projects done, I'm not going to write like it's a job--just a hobby. I'll get back to the rush, which I also love, later.

Make sure you're enjoying what you're doing, or you'll strangle your story to death.

Writers With Misophonia

Image via Wikipedia

A more appropriate title for this blog post  would probably be, "Writers With Misophonia: Are There Any?", because I'm seriously convinced that I'm the only one in the universe.

I  know that only neurologists and those who suffer from it seem to consider Misophonia a real disorder, so I'll probably get nothing but the usual, "Just suck it up and get over it, you psychopath" response from this post, but I'm willing to risk that just because I know how difficult being a writer with Misophonia can be. I'm even beginning to think that it just may be impossible, and that absolutely no one has ever done it. How on Earth am I expected to write when I can't find any time at all that allows me to retreat into a quiet corner with my headphones for at least two hours?

I've said  before that it seems like most professional writers out there apparently have all day to their quiet little selves, as they insist time and time again that you absolutely must write every single day uninterrupted for whatever length of time they deem appropriate (because they are the God of writing, it seems.)

I cannot do this, because everyone in my family and community seems to need to make these noises to live, and my amount of trigger sounds is on the rise. Right now it includes:

• lip smacking
• chewing
• crunching
• whistling
• mumbling
• coughing
• sniffing
• pen clicking
• throat clearing
• sighing
• beeps and other noises at certain frequencies
• so, so many more that I just can't list them all.

I think anything soft, distant, and coming from the face is included in that list. It makes writing damn near impossible without music (which most professional writers also say is a no-no), and it only gets worse as you get older. One of my teachers smacked his lips at the beginning of nearly every sentence, and I ended up having to drop the class. It's an absolute nightmare. I'm even bothered by seeing people moving their lips in such a way that I know causes them to make those noises, even if it's from across the room and I can't hear it. I have to look away from people chewing their gum or licking their lips, or else everything that I'm trying to accomplish at the moment just gets replaced by a blind rage that I can barely control if I don't literally get up and run out of the room to escape. The worst part is that these are simple noises that happen nearly every moment of every day--especially in your average American college setting, where chewing gum is thought to be nearly as important as breathing.

Imagine trying to write in that sort of predicament. So far I think I'm the only one trying to.

On the off chance that I'm not, however, I want to plead with every Misophoniac writer who may be reading this. Please, please, please keep at it. I firmly believe that there are more people out there with Misophonia than the statistic says, because most of us don't even know it exists. If that's the case, at least one or two of them must be or want to be a writer. We have to find a way for those people, because there is nothing more disheartening than thinking that you may not be able to do the thing that you love most of all because of some sort of impairment you can do nothing about.

Right now, music is my only option. I, like only a very few people who have Misophonia, am triggered by my own noises. Earplugs are out of the question. I tried them and couldn't stand the sound of myself breathing.

I know that it's easy to feel very, very lonely if you're have this disorder. Most people don't believe you, or will even make your trigger sounds repeatedly just because they know it gets to you and don't understand how severe and uncontrollable it is. I've been wanting to write a post about this for weeks, but have been scared of backlash from the majority of people who just can't understand. Once I thought of how lonely and frustrated I have felt (and feel) thinking that I'm one of the only people in the world who struggles with this, I knew I had to at least say something for those out there who still haven't figured out what's causing most of their misery. Misophonia may dictate your entire life, but it helps so much to know that you aren't crazy or alone. 

The Most Comfortable Addiction

I have a confession to make: I haven't been doing my homework.

Oh, sure, on the high school level this is a minor blunder...but when you get to college? It's supposed to consume your life, or at least that's what everyone says. The problem is that it isn't consuming mine, and when I sit and compile a list of everything I've been assigned for the week, I quickly see that I've got enough so that it should.

The funny thing about college is that so far all of the assignment are long-term and incredibly easy to forget. They have to be, I suppose, since you don't have every class every day (think God, Krishna, Quetzalcoatl and everybody up there for that one!)

Now, I know I've done posts on how hard it is to find time to write, and believe me, I'm still struggling with that one since most noises wipe my mind as clean as a blank slate. But what is a writer to do when there are other things in her life that she's actually neglecting because of her addiction to her writing?

My first thought was, "Well, I suppose I could skip writing on some days when I have more homework," but my heart began to palpitate the moment that one sailed across my brain. No way. Even if it's just one sentence , I have to do something.

But what happens when I do that, "Just one sentence before I start my homework" thing?

I write five pages, look at the clock, and see that it's midnight.

Then I look down at the page and keep writing.

The most obvious choice is to get the homework out of the way before I start the writing, but every creative writing book and class I've ever attented would shake their collective fingers at me and scream. "The writing should come first!", they've all cried without exception. Isn't this advice for people who are likely to put it off?

Clearly that isn't my problem, here. I've even been lectured in the pages of a book on how I should be putting my writing way before going to the gym, as if I've ever actually set foot inside one. Nice one, Help Book. You know that the gym and I are so distant that I don't even know how to pronounce it.

Seriously, what is up with that? Has anyone else read writing help books and noticed that every single one of them warns that you should write before doing your daily exercises, as if all writers are addicted to bodybuilding or some crap?

Pfft. My writing is the reason why I lack muscle tone, and probably will until this novel gets into the beta reading stage.

So, what are you to do when you're addicted to the craft? The other areas of my life need some love, too, seeing as I'm either graded on them or need to clean them before my mom pitches a fit.

I think I'm going to try out this "Getting the stuff that needs to be done first out of the way" thing, even though against every piece of writing advice I've ever heard. Yes, Mr. Self Help Book Writer, I know that writing is more important than studying for my History Exam, but it seriously needs to get done.

On a related note, my novel now has 8,208 words in it, and I'm about 20% done.

And yes, I've only been working on it for a week and a half.

Now do you see the extent of my problem? Everyone's told me that a normal person doesn't fill that many pages in so few days, because a normal person has a life.

I do have a life. I'm just not living it,  because I'd rather be living the life in my head.

Dealing With Referrer Spam

Image via CrunchBaseAgain, this blog post might insult the intelligence of people out there who know their way around a command prompt. The rest of you who are lost when it comes to technical affairs, please read on. You're among friends.

Many of my readers are starving writers themselves who are also running author blogs. You may have noticed  a plethora of websites that are supposedly linking to your blog. They clearly aren't, and most of them are sites that contain questionable content. That, ladies and gentlemen, is referrer spam. In the eyes of search engines crawling your blog, those websites have links on your site. This boosts their ranking in that search engine, and a good time is had by all.

Well, all but you, of course. From what I can tell, it won't hurt your blog or its reputation at all. It is merely annoying, and makes it incredibly difficult to see who is actually viewing your blog. Not to mention that, if you're anything like me, you're probably feeling a bit used.

Blogger is famous for referrer spam. This is a well known fact, and while it can be annoying, using Google Analytics instead of trusting Blogger Statistics can fix the problem. When I get a new traffic source that I haven't already identified as just plain old referrer spam, however, I usually click on it to see if it is, in fact, real. Most of the time it turns out to be the same old referrer spam as before, but it's still worth a try...sort of. Today I linked clicked a link that looked legitimate to see if it was referrer spam and saw a message that said something along the lines of, "If you create a premium account with us, you might see your links in our private section, which is probably where they were linked from."

Not really. I paraphrased, so those quotations don't really belong, but it just looks better that way, doesn't it?

I couldn't help but feel insulted. I'm not that stupid; I know you're referrer spam, silly.

If you're getting as tired of referrer spam as I was, it would be a good idea to sign up for a free account with Google Analytics. From what I've noticed so far, it doesn't seem to pick up the referrer spam when it shows your traffic sources, giving you the sites that are actually linking to you and not showing the ones that aren't.

 And if you do click on one of these links in  your traffic sources, for the love of all that is holy, don't sign up for anything to get access to some "special area" of their website where they say they actually are linking to your blog. Believe me when I say that they aren't.

I've also heard talk about some sort of "nofollow" tag thing that might work, and am planning on asking my boyfriend just what it is and whether or not I should use it. Apparently a lot of people hate it, but they seem mostly to be  Black Hats. I'll give you guys a followup on that as soon as I can.



***If you're using Google Analytics and have noticed it actually picking up on and showing the referrer spam, let me know that, too! Oh, and don't be stupid like me and click on the links to the spam site. They'll enjoy the traffic.

Freewriting Prompt: Prompt Writing, Sans Prompt

I haven't done a writing prompt on my blog in a really long time, and I thought I would try one out again. I wanted to make use of Freeblogging, which keeps track of time for you, but I couldn't think of a good fiction prompt that I could honestly keep up for any length of time without stopping for a good while. The result was me doing a promptless stream-of-conciseness writing exercise, just like the first one I ever did.  This is by no means a work of fiction, essay, or anything serious at all. Just me rambling and trying to find whatever stories and blog posts might be lying beneath the mess of seemingly meaningless text.


It's a great thing to do, but I wouldn't recommend anyone else making an ass out of themselves by sticking it up somewhere for everyone to see like I did. 

I decided that, for my first writing prompt in a long while, I would do a completely promptless stream of conciousness exercise. That's right. I don't have a single thing that I'm supposed to be writing about. I'm just letting it all come right out of my head as I type, which is something that you should probably be a little bit worried about. No going abck and erasing the embarassing or horrifying stuff. Nope. Not at all. Here it goes.

I'm watching Family Guy right now. They're making fun of the moon landing or something like that. I don't know becuase I'm only half-way paying attention. I think I heared something about surly blondes. Don't really know how that fits in there, but it's there. Kinda silly if you ask me. Guess it would have made sense in context, but I don't have the context because I wasn't paying attention. Just gonna have to let that one slide, I guess.

HA! Stewie just stole Brian's Peanut Butter Jelly Time thing. HA. That was something that Brian did, not Stewie.

I have no idea what to say now. Oh my God. It's like my mind just went totally blank. Usually when this happens while I'm writing my book, I just put on a song that reminds me of the stuff that's happening in my story and think about it until I finally have stuff to put on the page again. I can't really do that now, seeing as I'm just doing freewriting.

My cousin just came to the door. I bet he thinks I'm pretty weird, sitting here writing on the computer and yet talking to him at the same time like I'm not really thinking about what it is that I'm typing. Oh boy. My family thinks I'm pretty damn weird anyway, though, so I guess it's not a big difference.

Geez, let's talk about how awkwardly that was worded for a moment. Gaw. I can't believe I let that sentence at the end of that paragraph right up there leak out of my head. I'm entirely sorry. Good God.

You know, the first stream of onciousness prompt I ever did required me to not puncuate or capitliaze a single thing. I could n'efve evend end the sentence. And now this thing is freezing up, and I can't see where I'm typing. I bet the typos are absolutely endless. I am sorry. So, so, so sorry.

I want a banana.

Well, looky there. I didn't type for quite some time because my computer froze, and it's still letting me continue writing. I wish I would have known that, otherwise I qwould have actually planned somethign to write here. Instead I think I'm just going to sing a song in my head, but not write the lyrics down. That's difficult. Oh wow, is it ever and called it macaroni....DAMNIT!

Well. There you go.