Procrastination Station

I decided last night that today was going to be a writing day. I think we all know that I didn't do it. All day I kept saying, "I gotta get to writing" and I never did. It's now my bedtime and I didn't write a single sentence. I am the queen of procrastination, I have done it all my life, especially on my writing. If there was an essay due in school, I waited until the last possible minute to do it. For some reason I wrote better under pressure. Even my AP English final senior year of high school; it had to be at least 60 pages worth of poems and interpretations and pictures and all this other stuff, and what did I do? I took the first week it was given to us to do my research, then the day before it was due I started working on it. The next morning (it was my luck that I had that class first period) I still wasn't done. Thankfully I was very good friends with the astronomy teacher (I took her class the year before) and I went to her first period class and sat at her desk in the back and spent the next 3 periods finishing the project. Then she wrote me a pass to excuse me from the classes I missed. I handed my project "on time" and then the next class when we had to do our second part of the final (give a 5 minute oral presentation) I winged it. Thank bob for all the improve classes I took at RCA.

Anyway, I'm running off at the mouth, hehe. What I wanted to say was that today I did everything I could come up with except write. I played with my Sims and created new ones, I played my Alice game, Mahjong, played all the games I have on my DS, played with the Wii, read, surfed the net, and I karaoked. Yes, I even freaking karaoked on myspace because I apparently much rather make a fool of myself than write. LOL! I never karaoke on myspace, unless I've been drinking that is, lol, but I wasn't drinking today.

Why is it that we all do almost anything to get out of writing when we love it so much? I wonder.

Dreams

I don't know what happened today, but every time I woke up it was from a really cool, romance novel type dream! Two in particular stuck out to me. I wrote the first one on my dream journal and the second one I didn't because it was about a high school student that falls for her art teacher. It would be fun to write I guess, but it's a lil inappropriate. But the first one, WOWEE!

It's been a while since I wrote in my dream journal. The last entry was back in 07. I remember a time when I had one or two dreams a night and I would write them down in the mornings. I don't know what happened. I know I dream every night, but by the time I wake up the only thing that remains is the feelings behind the dream and nothing more. I hope I don't lose my dreams forever, I love them. They're so random! I even love the scary dreams. :D My dreams are the best thing I come up with, my creativity has no boundaries in that realm and I amaze myself at how detailed they are and how wondrous. I plan to make all of my dream entries into full-fledged stories one day.

No Blogging Tonight!

Oops, sorry. I was watching I Love Money 2 (I know, it's reality crap, but it's mucho entertaining) and I forgot to think about what to blog about tonight. Unfortunately it's my bedtime so I don't have the time to think. So here's some random stuff....

1. I did a lil bit of writing today. YAY. I'm now at 28,228 words on my main WIP. I'm a lil sad cuz I thought it would be more than that. But I'm still writing and I haven't quit, so that's good enough for me!

2. You guys should go over to the Romance Magicians' blog and do the challenge. It was fun! And I want to know what fun stuff people come up with.

3. Aaaand finally, here's one of my fav. YouTube videos. Enjoy.

My Horrible Kinky Ways

Are you afraid? Maybe you should be. :P If you don't know, I'm a very sexual person. I love sex, love to have it and love to talk about it. I've been called a freak, and honestly, I didn't think I was, I thought I was pretty mundane. But too many people too many times have used the word to describe me, so I guess I am a freak. Time to embrace it, I say.

Tonight I'm going to share a little bit of embarrassing info about myself. (This is what happens when I don't know what to blog about). I have an affinity to cat hair. Not just any cat hair, but the fluffy kind, like Selene's. I find myself constantly rubbing my face against my cat, don't worry though I am definitely not into bestiality. But I do love the feel of cat hair, especially Selene's. I don't know if it's because she bathes often or because I always pet her, but her hair is exceptionally smooth and soft. It wasn't like that when I first adopted her 9 months ago.

Selene, like her mother, is a little freak. For some reason she likes to be in bed when I'm trying be intimate with someone. I have pushed her, kicked her off the bed, and she just jumps back. (Thank goodness I have a queen sized bed). Usually, she just lays a few inches away from me, but there are a few random times where the little heathen likes to climb behind my head and lay on top of my forehead. During one of those instances, when I tried to push her off my head, I got as far as pushing her to her usual spot next to me. Things got really hot and intense and I kind of forgot about the heathen. Halfway through, my partner stops and looks at me. I ask him what was wrong and he says, "Do you know you've been petting the cat this whole time? It's kinda weird."

OMG! I had! I had been petting Selene while I was having sex because she was so soft and I love the feel of her! How sick is that!? I know, I'm one twisted child. Does anybody want to make me feel better? You can tell me it's not THAT weird (but only if you mean it, don't lie), or tell me something weird you do. It doesn't have to be sex-related.

End of Ze World

Before I start, I want to say that I don’t know exactly what the segment was about, I only saw about 30 seconds worth. That being said, last night there was something on the news about some lights in the sky, I think in New York. They were saying that no one seemed to know what the lights were and that airplane passengers were a little afraid. They then showed a picture of the sky with two sets of lights next to eachother, each set had 3 separate orange-y lights and they looked to be forming a triangle. I left the room after that, I had enough information to mess around with my roommate ( :D ). I ran to the kitchen where she was and told her, “Ashley, you ready for this? There’s UFOs in our area! It’s freaking Independence Day, call Will Smith! Hell, have him on speed dial, he knows about this shit. Independence Day, Men in Black (1 AND 2), I Robot, I am Legend.”

We had a nice laugh fest. Then we decided to throw off the aliens by calling in Tom Cruise (War of the Worlds) and if there were crop circles involved we could call Mel Gibson. But then we figured he’d either offend them and make things worse and if he didn’t, well he didn’t really do anything in Signs ‘cept piss the aliens by chopping some extraterrestrial’s finger off. So we calling Joaquin Phoenix! Though I don’t know how much good he’ll be to us now that he retired from acting, became a rapper, and is bugging out on the late show.

All this talking about UFOs and aliens had me thinking about life outside of earth. A part of me, the part who likes astronomy and has taken classes, is educated enough to say that there has to be life outside of our planet. It’s an egotistical thing to think that out of billions of billions of billions of solar systems, stars, and planets, that earth is the only place with life. But do I believe in intelligent life being out there? I’m not too sure, you would think we would have found something by now. With so many satellites up there, we would have spotted something. Then there’s the other part of me. The part that believes in love at first sight, and ghosts and vampires, and the Loch Ness monster, and the Chupacabra. Why can’t there be aliens? Because we haven’t seen them? Well how do we know we haven’t? Why can’t they be smarter than us, and more advanced? They can be disguised as humans, or have invisible UFOs. We don’t know.

So that’s my opinion, obviously I’m indecisive. How about you guys? What do you believe?

Here’s one of my favorite videos of all time. I figured I’d post it because when we think of aliens we think of destruction, of the end of the world. But there are other ways for the world to end. ;-)

Writing Update

Small, but an update is still and update.

I gave in earlier this week to the new voices in my head and started a new story. I've only written about 2000 words, but that's better than nothing. I'll hold off on details. I also worked on my main WIP today. Again, not a lot, about 500 words, but at least I started Chapter 13. :) Now if only I can write those missing chapters that lead up to the 3 chapters that I already wrote. :P

1 migrane and a couple of headaches

That's why I haven't blogged. I swear it's not an excuse! LOL I could barely read much less write. Today is the first time that I've been able to be on the computer for more than 10 minutes, and I'm going to cheat. Instead of writing a blog (though some would consider THIS a blog) I'm just gonna tell you to go to my OTHER blog and read the new book review I just put up. :D So gooooo to Book Universe. You know you want to.

Not very motivated to blog

Howdy ya'll. I wasn't going to blog today because I ended up working longer than expected and then I was at a co-worker's house trying to fix her daughter's computer. I'm tired. And I'm heartbroken tonight.

Sadly, I get this a lot. There's someone out there that I care about and have feelings for, and we're not together. Actually we're not even friends anymore, sorta. I'm not going to get into this looooong drama, because besides being long, it's all confusing. At this point I don't even know who's to blame, though it's probably both our faults. But I decided I needed to get him out of my life because he wasn't healthy for me, emotionally. It's been 2 months since my decision, and it's hard. It's even harder now that last week he left me a message on my phone that he needed to see me. It sounded urgent so I let him come over. Big mistake! He stopped by to see how I was doing and to give me a gift.

As if it wasn't hard enough to be away from him. Every song I hear, I think of him, and every night I break down and cry because my bed feels so empty without him in it. I miss talking to him before bed, or calling him at 2 a.m. because I had a nightmare and him driving to my house. I miss playing video games with him, or just hanging out. I miss us laughing together, I miss his laugh. I miss the way he looks at me and the way he says my name. I just miss him.

A Question For Writers

I decided to seriously pursue a writing career recently. Like a year ago, maybe less. It’s safe to say that I have no idea what the heck I’m doing or what the heck I got myself into. But we’ll see how this all turns out. Anyway, the reason why I’m sharing this information is because I wanted to talk a little bit about my writing process.

When I was in elementary school I wrote poems and essays. It wasn’t until middle school that I began to write stories. I don’t know what exactly prompted me to do so, except that one day I was at the library and a “voice” in my head began to whisper. Next thing I knew, I had been on the computer for about an hour and had a few pages typed up (albeit the font was big, but whatever, it was still an accomplishment). Till We Meet Again was half Sailor Moon fan fiction and half original story, I worked on it for about 2 years on and off. I never finished it though. That became my routine. I would get excited about a new idea and start working on it, write pages and pages of stuff, and then doubt would creep in. Who’s gonna want to read my story? I can’t write. Hell, English isn’t even my first language, how can I possibly think that I can succeed? With tears in my eyes and a defeatist attitude, I would tear up and delete my work, never to be seen. Time and time again, story after story, they all suffered the same fate.

I eventually began writing and finishing short stories, but the doubt would once again creep in and I would dispose of my stories. To this day, I have kept only one of the stories that I’ve written. Everything else is long gone. I know this is HORRIBLE, you don’t need to tell me, but I’m sure someone will anyways, and I’ll have to agree with you. Now, for the first time ever, I’m working on a story that’s longer than 10k and I’m apprehensive. I’m somewhere around 27k at the moment which is the most I’ve ever written on a story. Last night though, I may have encountered a problem. I was trying to figure out where my characters were supposed to go when a new set of characters began to whisper in my head. At first I thought they were connected to the story I’m working on, so I let them in. Boy was I wrong! Now they refuse to shut the hell up. I couldn’t concentrate on my WIP, so I had no choice but to give the voices a place to rest. Now I’m working on this story because the voices aren’t shutting up, and now I’m afraid that if I start working on this I’ll never finish the other one.

I’ve heard of writers who work on multiple stories with no problem. Others only work on one because they say that if they start a new one they’ll never got back and finish the first. I’m afraid that’s going to happen to me. All those hours of hard work and my story will just lay there, unfinished. I already had to walk away from it for a while because I felt that old doubt creeping back in and I was afraid that I was going to delete it. I really do want to finish it. But I can’t work on anything when I have these other people in my head, giving me a headache.

So what the heck should I do? Has anyone been in this predicament before? I need suggestions, or stories, or…I don’t know…something.

My Life...Or Lack Thereof...Maybe

Did that title make sense…yeah well welcome to my life. I may not always make sense.

I decided today to talk about me personally, because the majority who read this don’t know me in person. I will tell you a little bit about my life and what I do, or don’t do, and what I figured out recently.

For those who don’t know, my name is Jennifer, I am 23 years-old and I’m Puerto Rican. I’ve been living in Connecticut (Bridgeport to be exact) for about 16 years now. I graduated from Bassick High School in 2004 and went to Teikyo Post University from 2004-2005. I won’t get into why I didn’t finish school, I can always talk about that on another post if anyone is interested. Anyway, right now I share an apartment with my friend Ashley, though I pay most of the rent and all the bills myself. She was having problems with her living arrangement and I offered her a place to stay for only $300 a month because that’s what she was paying in her old place and that’s all she can afford. I don’t mind because I had a spare bedroom and an extra $300 in my pocket is better than no money at all. I work full-time at a laundry mat and convenience store simultaneously (Cuz I’m wonder woman, lol, joking. They’re attached). That’s about it, lol. I work Mon-Fri 7 a.m.-3 p.m. and I always go home right after work and lock myself in my house. Doesn’t sound like much of a life, right? Now are you getting the first half of my title?

I pretty much do nothing. I sit at home on the computer almost all afternoon and night, and weekends. Personally, I’m tired of people, like my roommate saying that I don’t do anything, and I’ll explain why. It looks like I don’t do anything, but I actually do. The only difference between me and other people is that I live my life through computer. I just recently figured this out too. I used to bring my laptop to work and do stuff online there and then come home and continue, but I no longer have internet at work (Bad girl that I am, I was stealing wireless from somewhere down yonder and I guess they moved their router because I can’t pick up the signal long enough to do anything). Now I have to wait till I get home to do everything, and I have a lot to do. I’ll break it down some:

1. Check my email: I have 2 hotmail, 1 msn, and 1 yahoo. I have to check all four and I usually have around 20-30 emails in each account. It takes me about an hour to go through them.
2. Check my myspace: I’ve had the thing for almost 4 years and I’m still as addicted as I was the first week I got it. I gotta check my messages, and blog comments, and whatever other comments there is. Plus I read my friend’s blogs and on occasion leave messages. And I gotta feed my pet (my myspace pet, not the real one, though that’s the first thing I do when I walk through the door.) This also takes me about an hour.
3. Blogger: Well now I’m blogging everyday, though I usually write my blog at work (like this one). But I read around 8-10 blogs everyday. That’s another hour.
4. Check the couple of forums that I’m a member of
5. Check out whatever website has been brought to my attention that day
6. Log in to the Fairfield County Writers Chat Room. I usually do this as soon as I get home and just leave the window open and talk while I do everything else.
7. Read. Very important because I love to do it, and now Book Universe (my other blog) is getting more traffic. Gotta write those book reviews. :P
8. By the time I’m done with numbers 1-6, there’s stuff already piling up on my inbox and other places, so I have to start the routine over.
9. Write. I’m an aspiring writer. Which is why all the things I do online are important. I’m not just reading people’s blogs for fun, though it is fun. But I’m also learning about how other authors got where they are today, what steps they took to achieve their goal. And most importantly, I’m networking. Ooooh aaah. Networking is very important because if I have a question, I know I can feel comfortable asking someone that I’ve established a relationship with, and they’ll give me an honest answer, tailored to my needs because they know me and my needs. Plus if I ever do get my book published in any way, I know that as a new author I’m going to have to market myself and sell myself to people, and if people in the writing community already know me, then it’ll be easier to promote my work. See? I’m a smart cookie, I know what I’m doing. Plus everyone I talk to is awesome! I love all my writer friends, they’re funny, and insightful, and most importantly, they get me.

So you see? I actually do a lot. By the time I’m done it’s way past my bedtime and I have to go to sleep and repeat the process in the morning. I know that when I take a break or have some spare time on my hands, I end up staying in my room. I can’t help it if I’m shy, introverted, anti-social, and all my hobbies happen to be in my room. I like to play Sims on my computer, or play Guitar Hero on my Wii, or play with my DS, or read, or write. So I never leave my house, unless forced, and I apologize for that, but this is how my mom raised me. I was the only child in the house, my mother didn’t like kids, and so she bought me video games, Barbies, painting supplies, writing supplies, anything to keep me in my room and out of her way. It isn’t my fault. But don’t act like I don’t do anything because I do. I’m a Capricorn and not only do I take things personal but I’m not afraid to defend myself, and I’ll end up offending somebody. Like, for a person who doesn’t do anything, I sure am working on my dream of becoming an author. What are you guys doing with yourselves? You work and go out and party hardy, but are you really doing anything of value? I didn’t think so. Most of you still live at home with your parents.

Ode to Libraries

I thought I’d take the time today to talk about a place that is near and dear to my heart, libraries. If you know me from the Coffee Time forum you might have read my signature quote, something along the lines of, I have seen the error of my ways with libraries. Borrowing and returning books? What’s that about? That’s like adopting a child and then returning him. And I stand true to that, I have every book that I have purchased since I was 13 years-old. That’s around 500 books. But if it weren’t for my local library I wouldn’t have that many books, or writing this blog.

At first, the library was just a place for me to hang out. It was the only place I was allowed to walk to when I was 10. It didn’t bother me much because I didn’t have any friends outside of school, I have always been shy and introverted. I just needed a place to go because my home wasn’t a good place to be. So every day after school I walked to the library, not to read, but to play on the computer. I always played the same game, it was a typing game, where you had a little town and bombs would fall from the sky with words in them and you had to type the word to blow up the bombs before they hit the town. Anyway, the library was shut down for two weeks for renovations, and when they re-opened the game was gone! I was terribly upset, it was my favorite game. So what to do now? Well, I was at a library, and there were a lot of books, and I did like to read on occasion (I was going through my Goosebumps phase) hmm…maybe I should read a book! And that’s where it all truly began.

I got myself a library card and started borrowing books. First Goosebumps, then books by Christopher Pike, and later L.J Smith. Somewhere along the line, I befriended the librarians. They all knew me by name and we spent hours talking when there weren’t many people around. It became routine, every day I showed up, even Saturdays. I would read or use the computer, looking for Sailor Moon pictures on the web. Diane, my favorite librarian, suggested I read Caroline B. Cooney, and I did. I loved her stuff, it was beautiful and unlike anything I had been reading at the time. The Stranger was the first work of fiction that made me cry. When I was in the 8th grade, around 4 years after I began my library routine, a friend of mine gave me a Harlequin Intrigue, and off I went into the world of adult romance. And wouldn’t you know it, my library had tons of Harlequin. I devoured them. Those books, along with my V.C Andrews and L.J Smiths were the ones that made me realize that the one thing I didn’t like about libraries was that I had to return the books. But for a young girl who didn’t have a job and couldn’t afford to buy books (the way I buy books, which is crazy) then the public library was heaven.

I have so many fond memories, about all the people I met, and all the things I did. I started my first and only book club there, where we read more Caroline B. Cooney books, as requested by Diane, because she knew how much I loved them and the sneaky woman had arranged for Cooney to come to one of our book discussions. Oh what a day! The library was also the place where I got into habit of writing outside of school. I spent hours on Microsoft Word creating short stories and Sailor Moon fan fiction. And on the day of my 8th grade graduation, after I got my diploma my mother asked me, “What do you want to do today?” And I said, “I’m going to the library!” And off I went to show my diploma to Diane, Carmen and Paul, where they were already expecting me and had a surprise party set-up. :D It’s still my favorite graduation party.

Alas, I am rambling. I just wanted to share my memories and explain why libraries are good, why they are necessary. If it weren’t for my library who knows what I would have done with my time. I never would have started writing, or reading different genres of books, I probably would have been stuck in the hell hole that was my home, or worse, been on the streets.

Death of Cupid!

Valentines is less than a week away. I'm sure everyone has their plans set, reservations made, gifts bought, outfits picked out. Well not me. I hate Valentines Day. Why? Because I've never had a valentine. Sad, I know, but true. For someone as romantic as me, it blows to say that no one has ever gave me a gift or bought me flowers or professed their love to me on such a romantic day. But that's the reality of my life.

So while everyone is spending the day with the person they love most in the world, I'll be in my bedroom listening to Tori Amos. Yeah, I'm bitter, but not so bitter than I can't be happy for those celebrating. So I wish everyone a happy valentines day, I hope it goes well and it's a night you'll never forget. I would love to hear what everyone is doing. Or even, what your best valentines day memory is...most memorable even.

So share with me, happy, sad, romantic, weird, or funny moments. :)

Heathen Talk

For those of you who are just getting to know me, I'm going to mention "the heathen" a lot. That's my kitty cat Selene. Trust me when I say she IS a heathen. :P

Anyway, Selene decided today that she wasn't going to let me sleep. The heathen, who slept in the living room last night, decided to wake mommy up at 6:30 because she was hungry. Ok, I can forgive her for that, because that's usually when I feed her on the weekdays, and she's used to it. But then around 10 a.m. she decides to cry in front of my door. I let her in. Not 10 minutes has gone by when Selene cries for me to let her out. Really Miss. Kitty Cat? Ok, I let her out. As soon as I close the door, she's already in front of it crying.

Ok, I get it now. She wants me to get up, she's lonely. Selene starts following me around the house, including the bathroom. She has this pesky little habit of wanting to go potty the same time I do, go figure! Ok, so we all assume the meowing is going to stop now. Nope, we are wrong. She's still crying. I feed her again (though I only feed her twice a day, but it's the weekend and she's not fat so she can have a lil extra sometimes). She eats the food, then starts up again. I open my bedroom window for her so she can crawl outside (I live on the second floor and she likes to hang out on the little roof at the window) after 2 minutes she crawls back inside and begins to meow.

I'm pretty much fed up at this point, I don't know what it is she wants from me. Well, I decide to ignore the heathen and her crying. I get the laptop and log in to my yahoo launchcast and turn the volume up on my music. About 10 minutes into my music session, they play a Tori Amos song (I love her), and I can't help but sing along. Wouldn't you know it, that lil bitch Selene climbs onto the bed and lays next to me, purring up a storm. That's all she wanted. She wanted to hear me sing. HEATHEN! HAHA. I don't know why she likes it so much, but there has been times where she's down yonder in the house and I start singing and she runs into the bedroom and climbs onto of me and positions herself on my shoulder. *Shrugs*

Lesson learned: When Selene is crying, sing to the heathen.

A little bit of writing

I hope I’m not shooting myself in the foot here by saying this, but, I think I need to start working on my discipline a little bit more and write on here daily. *Gasp* I know, I hardly ever blog, and if I do it’s usually about Bones, but I want to prove to the world that I’m serious about becoming an author. So I’ve decided to write on this blog every day. Let’s see how long this lasts, hehe.

Why the sudden determination? I dunno! It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while and I’ve just been too lazy to. And that’s actually the problem. I love to write, and I love to blog, not a day goes by that I say to myself, ‘hmm, I should blog about this.’ And then I don’t. Why? Because I always put it off till later, and when later arrives, I no longer feel like writing.

So this is what I’m going to do: Whenever I get the urge to write/blog, I’m going to do it. No matter where I am, or what I’m doing, I will write. I’m actually writing this entry at work. I have no internet access and I really wanted to do this, and I know that if I wait till I get home that I’m no longer going to be inspired. So from now on, I’ll write at work, or wherever I am. I have plenty of journals to write in so it shouldn’t be that hard.

Now the harder part is figuring out what I’m going to write about everyday, because I doubt that anyone (besides me) is going to be entertained by discussions of Bones or Gossip Girl. :P But that’s ok, I’m up for the challenge. It just strengthens my creative brain muscles. :D

Thankfully, today, I don’t have to come up with something because, well, this is it! Do you like it? HAHA. Hopefully people read this, and enjoy themselves somewhat. And if anybody does read this and has any questions for me or wants me to blog about something specific, ask me. I’ll try my best to accommodate you. All I ask in return is that you bring people here.

Crazy shit that happens to me

Good golly, Molly. My costumers are insane!

This lady came up to me today and asked if I had case quarters, I did, and told her as such. She then hands me a $20.00 bill and I ask her how much of it she wants in quarters. She tells me she wants the whole thing. "Ok, twenty dollars it is." is what I say. I'm about to grab the quarters when she says, "How much did I give you?" I look at the bill in my hands and say "Um, a twenty?" She then says, "Hmm. That's what it looks like to you, doesn't it?" Um, yeah....WEIRDO.

But wait, it gets better!

After I count up the twenty dollars in quarters and put them in a cup for her and hand them over, she says to me, "You're welcome." Ok, I found that strange, I thought maybe she got mixed up. So I look her in the eye and smile. She then walks away, only to stop and turn back around and say, "I said, you're welcome." making sure she enunciated every syllable. I look at her with a sweet, charming, confused look on my face (It's the one I give the cute guys when I have no idea what they're saying but I'm still totally interested. They love it.) and say "Your welcome...?" Weirdo then turns back around and proceeds to walk out of the store and mumbles "The devil and its lies."

WTF!!!? O.M.G! Really?

Just thought I'd share that.