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Sometimes it's easy to get lost in the shuffle around here ... |
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Best quote to describe me (Anonymous): "Do not think you are on the right road, simply because it is a well-beaten path." I am what I am. Learn to live with it. And realize that comment is as much directed to myself as any reader who ventures here. Tempest arrived 31 March 2009 - changing everything, but she's pretty awesome. Dogbert arrived 13 January 2012 and is working on making the rules change again. I have two writing personas, Ransom Noble and Sheta Storm. Each has goals, and I work on them slowly. Both are published, and will continue to strive toward bigger and better things. I finally figured out how to describe myself in three words: Creative, Determined, Ambitious. It doesn't have anything to do with how I relate to others, but I do use all of those in my many relationships as well as my career goals. I know others use words sometimes like "kind" or "caring" but I think that list is the most accurate if only using three words. Cast... Sesheta: Me Dilbert: My Husband Tempest: My Darling Daughter Dogbert: My Hungry Son Sheer, Nemo, EyeKandy(K), Diego: Friends/Brothers Sugar, Wolvenwings, Mrs. Light, Jori, Trillium (others will be added): Friends It's a start, anyway. Off-Site Blogs: http://ransomnoble.wordpress.com/ http://sheta-storm.blogspot.com/ Upcoming Events: Beaverdale Books signing for Art of Science - TBD Other Items about Me: "Invalid Item"  "Invalid Item" "Failing is a part of success. To make goals effective, you have to fail at them 50 percent of the time, or they didn't stretch you far enough." Chip Wilson, courtesy of an article by Ella Lawrence called Set Your Course from Yoga Journal |
| I finished Don't Tell Your Mother. Decision time: Do I wait for more feedback? Do I send it out? Do I self-publish and take my chances? I will not let myself put this in a drawer for five years. I will not let myself wait for endless feedback. At some point, I simply have to shove it out there, somewhere. Have updated the portfolio (I have a backup!) and the other one is on SkyDrive until I figure out where the heck I can save it. At least tomorrow I can start making notes on Next Jane and Next George. That should keep me from getting too punchy. Have I mentioned I hate July? And I need to work on yet another book that started because I got pissed off at something someone said. The friend at the playdate said that was a good way to deal with it. While it does sublimate the negative emotion into something acceptable for society, it isn't always the best way to deal with anger. I mean, I worked on DTYM for 4 years. (in August) Is it really healthy to draw it out that much? Eventually it changes into something of its own, but until then, that's a lot of negativity I dwell in. On the other hand, if I buy another MP3 player, I have it narrowed down to two different ones. Neither is an iPod. |
| Trying to get used to the idea that Dilbert will be home all next week. Bought myself an external hard drive and copied over almost all the files I've accumulated, esp the ones I wasn't ready to get rid of that Dilbert needed off the network. He removed iTunes and he may or may not have reloaded it yesterday. We played with our Swedish friends, and they leave/left for Sweden for three weeks today.  Really going to miss hanging with them- because we do stuff together several times a week. 4 this one, in fact. I do feel a bit better after the files got segregated. Will be checking for duplicates, etc, but I didn't really know how much I had together. Now wondering if I'll have to get another mp3 player for all that stuff. The other reason it will be good is I can move the books there and he won't have to ask so much about whether or not they're legitimate. GAH! And then I feel selfish and sorta bad that I do have a few pirated things, but I plan to buy them when I get money. Me? money? Right. Remind me to get off my ass and finish those stories and check in with my artist so I can publish. So I need to make another list of the music I did lose. And that ought to get my worked up more to get things done. Perhaps. Final read through and tweak of DTYM started last night. 5 chapters in. Then wondering if I really know what to do with it when I'm done, and wondering if I'm really going to be done when I let others read it. But I want to move on to Next Jane. I guess why it really bothers me is he doesn't talk to me about this, just springs it on me and says "I'm doing this." Like when he said he wanted to delete everything, and he just went ahead and deleted almost 3000 files that he thought weren't legal. (And yet, most of those were contained on a CD in my library which I dug out the following day, thank you very much. They're only 6-20 seconds each, and they are Chinese and English translations.) That was AFTER he agreed to give me a day to figure out which were legal and which weren't, and he simply deleted them anyway RIGHT THEN.  I also realized I now have three books (Don't Tell Your Mother, Entwined, and Next Jane) that began from someone saying or doing something that bothered me enough to write a damn NOVEL. [All right, DTYM is technically only 35k, but it's almost double AofS.] And I wonder if all the stuff going on right now with Dilbert is going to spawn something else that I may or may not want to be distracted for. And that was possibly the issue with some of the unfinished works, that they didn't have that passionate fury behind them to force them into creation. I remember how nice everyone thinks I am, and maybe that's why I can seem like this to others- I'm siphoning off the drama and excess emotions into something that is an acceptable sublimation for society. Weird. Dilbert still asleep, and time to head to yoga in a few minutes. Remembering to breathe and thankful for people who are helping me smile, laugh, giggle, etc. Because I need that right now as much as ever. July is imminent. |
| But I'm going to fucking kill Dilbert. 1. I do not get to choose my digital devices. This gives me indigestion because I get comfortable on one platform and BAM! I get switched. 2. I need my own hard drive. Detachable from the network. Where he can't go "Are you sure this is all legal?" every single time he wants to clear something out. 3. I lost two chapters this week, which happens from time to time with transfers. I'm lucky I didn't lose more. 4. He has a system on the network within the house. I'm only supposed to put things in one or two designated folders that he deigns to set up with a backup. [lucky for me, I was saving the new stuff to the backup so when the regular one got FRIED I was okay.] 5. He asks me where I'm saving things. And I said I have a copy "in the cloud" to which I mean a combination of 750words, WDC, and a couple cloud accounts that I may or may not actually need... However, if he's gonna be a freakin' Nazi about all this, I need more. I mean, technically Gdocs is a cloud, but it works. It's bad enough I feel irrational on my own, but this isn't helping. I mean, July is imminent. I can feel it and it sucks. Plus there's an entire drama unfolding between an almost friend (our daughters are friends) and the photographer who took pictures at the girl's birthday party. I'm horrible that I want the pictures, but there is fault on both sides and the almost-friend sounds like someone I do NOT want to be involved with at all. Plus the repeated warnings against flirting with a new friend because of a jealous wife. Both of us are naturally flirtatious people, but it has absolutely no intent. Why can't people get this? However, I had a lovely breakfast this morning with my friend and her almost-daughter (she and the girl's mom are engaged- whee!) and anytime the Supreme Court can knock DOMA down another notch is going to brighten my day. Plus I got another lovely idea about writing transgender character in a novel. Like I need another idea. |
| Two nights of work... GONE. I mean, I knew the Surface wasn't sharing well with the computer, but I saved it on the stupid Surface. Then when I went to retrieve the files today to send back to my regular computer - GONE. I've looked everywhere. Word won't recall the two most recent files. Nowhere in the drives will it bring it up. And I saved the stupid things. I know I did. Because I had to rename the file because I had to email them to myself and then it said "enable editing" which required a save. Keep trying to reconnect the network, but it says my computer might be named wrong. Nothing has changed except the power blinked on Sunday and everything lost the connection. *KICKS SURFACE* I hate MicroSoft. |
| The kids played at daycare yesterday. R&D gave me a lovely warning for the second time that my new (male) friend has a jealous, possessive wife. And somehow, that sinks in as something that they might or might not know that I don't. What is it that puts my guard up when they give me a second warning? Did they think I didn't hear the first time? Did something someone said tip them off that I'm in danger? But Alas, this is the same couple that accused me of being an introvert this week. Me? Have you MET ME? Dilbert came home halfway through the day yesterday (and did not ask where I was or what I had been doing) sick. He stayed sick. I got the kids, took them to the park, then to R&D's place for dinner. Home a little after bedtime. Today both conked out in the living room before 1130, but Tempest stayed awake the rest of the day until we got home (and finally got her into bed) just before 11. Gah!!! So I am exhausted. At least Dogbert had the good sense to nap most of the 5+ hours in the car. Sad I had to go to the wedding by myself, because Dilbert didn't feel up to it. The drive was long. But I told the couple I wouldn't miss it - and I'm really glad I didn't. I'm sorry I couldn't join them for the mosque ceremony and only came to the restaurant part (But wasn't invited to the earlier part and it was in the middle of naptime, so that would have sucked.) I'm very glad I didn't miss it. It would have been up there on the regrets list. They're great together and I hope their current happiness multiplies through the years. Yet all those hours in the car, with one child sleeping if not two, was too much time in my head. And Tempest screaming out random things from the ipad (or about the beautiful moon) was pushing me over the edge. Dilbert had to help me get her into bed. She simply wouldn't quit. Please, please, please, let them (and therefore me) sleep in. |
| Playdate fail number 2. I mean, we see the one kid and his mom all the time. We're great friends- so much so that the three kids have begun to act more like siblings. Last week I invited every single kid on the playdate list from preschool to go back to the Museum... Four kids showed up. (including Tempest and her not-quite-sibling). Sigh. Today I invited two specific kids to join us. They said they would come, but that was two days ago. Yesterday I sent time and location. Today one of them (when I sent an update on the construction situation around the park), that they couldn't come because her mother-in-law wanted to go to the strawberry farm. (To which my friend said, if she'd said that earlier, we could all have gone.) And by 11 (1.5 hours after playdate began...) the other said she just left the gym and they were going to get food, but definitely next week. (that was what she said last week)  I haven't called anyone to talk about it because no one wants to talk to me anyway. I feel the black cloud looming over my head and it's just as well because they don't want that crap anyway. [Maybe it is too big of an assumption that since no one answers the phone when I call, it must simply be ME they don't want to talk to, but that is what I have to work with.] I finished reading The Man from Beijing. I was too tired last night, lights out by 930, but Dogbert woke me up around 5 and then I finished it. Printed out my snippets of DTYM. Working on that next. Been brainstorming more Next Jane (and sequels). Very serious consideration of simply publishing DTYM myself when I finish it. Use {suser:seisa2) as editor and send it out into the world. Though that would mean I'd need a freakin' clue for a cover, which I do not have right now. Then following with the Next series when I get them closer. |
| More yoga students. They said they found me because I was on the schedule... but... no, seriously? I'm not. The front desk guy checked. So how did the three of them get there? We had six. Not bad. They have confusing names, but they don't start with a /k/ sound, at least we're branching out. Had fun, though. Yoga is good. Also did the treadmill and pull-ups and dips today. I'm sore. But I'm working on more fitness stuff to try to combat the mood swing. Whatever it is. It's coming, it's not fun, and I hate obsessing over things that shouldn't be so big. But a few people can still make me smile, and I'm trying to hang on to that. So I'm also trying to dedicate to things. Writing things. So I got Next Jane ready to print out and move around like I read in The Writer in the three-draft method. I have the first draft. Second draft will be structural. I can learn to do this and be good at it. Going to print out those last seven segments of Don't Tell Your Mother. I think if I print them out I will be more likely to fix those last few things. Then I read another thing on Zite about how the traditional publishing way was giving things away too much to go "begging to the publisher" rather than trying it on your own and having something to bargain with when they came knocking on your door. Made me thoughtful... so I sent it to Brandiwynš¶  because once she slows down I'm sure she'll need blog fodder again. And there's no way she won't have an opinion on it.  I'm thoughtful like that. To bed with me. Must finish The Man from Beijing and sleep. More plans for tomorrow. And the next day. |
| I logged into Facebook, and a couple land mines I didn't quite expect make me want to kill myself. Not quite literally - mostly in a "KILL ME NOW" fashion. But I'm completely messed up in my head today. An unhealthy dose of paranoia and daydreams plagues me. Then I see it might be PMS. Please, please let it be PMS and not back to that PMDD crap I had a couple years ago. I thought my period would go away with the whole IUD thing, but it is periodically bugging me. Probably because of weaning Dogbert. Fingers crossed. I can't handle the hormone mix of my brain chemistry on my own, which is another reason why I got the IUD. Not just for family planning purposes, though that is nice. |
| I hear these ads attacking Google, and I just must have my loyalties. Since I got the Surface, I had Bing thrust on me. Give me Scroogle any day. I find I have a bit of anxiety about calling people. I texted about the mass preschool playdate tomorrow. I've been getting tired of constantly rearranging my schedule on my mother's say-so. And every time I call my mother about it, she acts contrite and giving. Which drives me FREAKING CRAZY. But I'm starting to organize. A little. Last Friday was the first time I felt like I had a handle on the cleaning of the house. Except I spent a couple hours on the phone (been lonely - Dilbert was gone 3 days and it's not easy to be alone with the kids so long). And I'm still working on other things. But I'm going to figure out how to manage things. Next time I'll figure out how to get through the rest of the house faster and kick my butt into editing. I resist this part of writing, of digging to find the essence of the story. Why? When I answer that question, I'll be able to get through it.  |
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