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This is a personal Challenge to write 500 words a day. Join me on my Journey. |
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The Challenge: Write 500 words every day for a year.
Can I do it? Join me and find out! |
| One of the places I learned how to write is www.rmimagic.com. It is a site that brings together writers who enjoy the Harry Potter books. The way it works is that they created a world based on the HP world, and you create a student to attend the school. This forces you to create your character, his or her history, family, etc. Then, you write posts back and forth with other students. Your character attends classes, plays Quidditch, and spends time eating in the Finer Diner. The biggest reason this helped my writing is it made me more versatile. You aren't in control, you see. You don't have any idea what the other person is going to write, so it adds an element of excitement that I've never found it writing a story alone. When writing in a community like this, you have to be able to respond to whatever direction the other person takes you. It's so much fun to guess how they're going to react, and to plot how you'll respond. Romances bloom and are crushed, students get detention for playing pranks, and all sorts of things can happen. One of the difficult things I found was keeping it PG. My writing strays into the dark quite often, so even this was a learning experience for me. I had to find a way to be interested, while keeping it kid friendly. I think I managed pretty well. Eventually I lost interest in the site, but I have to say that I'm very glad I worked on my writing there. It helped me learn how to draw the most out of my characters, and how to bring them to life. I learned how to sound the depths of their souls and found out more about them than I ever thought possible. Each situation forced me to figure out more about my character and how they would react. When you write by yourself, you always have some idea of what's going to happen. When writing with others, even if you think you know what they're going to do, you might be completely wrong. You'll experience situations you never would have thought of on your own. This can be greatly challenging. It forces you not to be ridged, and ' more importantly ' it forces your character to evolve. There are times when we want to keep our characters safe, and not let them grow because their experiences might hurt. This site forces them into new experiences that heightens their development. It also forces you to keep track of what's going on, who's doing what, and what you want to happen it the future. There are times when you are forced to become a master mind while you try to get other characters to do what you want. This always makes me feel like a brilliant evil genius when my devious plots finally come to fruition. There's nothing better than when you've laid out an extravagant plot, and maneuver other writers into fulfilling it. Word Count: 501 |
| Here's a book you might find interesting. It's called: METAtropolis. It's an anthology featuring the following authors: Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi and Karl Schroeder. Unlike the average anthology, where a group of authors is given a topic to write about, these authors were brought together to create a joint world. Then, they all wrote their stories set in the world they'd created. I really like this idea, because it shapes the stories, but allows the authors to keep their individual styles. In this anthology, the authors created a futuristic world centered on the cities of the future. This isn't like the Jetsens or anything like that. Instead, it is after America crashes and burns, how the world breaks up from that event, the effects of human impact on our world, and the different cultures that arise when our world begins to fail. Personally, I think they did a fantastic job. It isn't doom and gloom like such a story may sound. Instead, it feels'very real. It is like peaking into a window to the future, not everyone screaming in woe, or dead, but doing what humans have done from the start'adapting. Each story looks at different adaptations, different angles on how to conquer the problems, or at least survive them. It looks at how individuals fair, how governments crumble and reform, and how the world is redrawn. Instead of the world being split up into countries, it is more broken up by city. The peoples of one city may have more in common with those on the other side of the world, than the city next door. It shows all sorts of things that are fascinating and frightening. With how the world is now, it is not inconceivable that we will see something similar to these stories in the not so distant future. There is a great description of America before the fall, it is like a giant Zombie shambling along under the force of its own weight. That's where we are right now. We're being hollowed out from threats both inside and out, and I believe at this point there is no saving the corpse. Surviving the crash will be difficult, but it will be interesting to see what grows on the decayed bones of what was once America. I know most people don't think this is possible, but that is the blinders we wear day in and day out to keep from running through the streets screaming. I think we're like children who turn away from a car accident because we can't bear to watch, but even though we turn away, there is still nothing we can do to prevent what's coming. Instead, we'll go on living our cozy lives until the day it all falls down around us like a house of cards. The amazing part is that America lasted this long. It was a grand experiment, but one ultimately doomed to fail, just like every other democracy ever tried. The tree of America is rotten, and now all that's left is the fall. Word Count: 511 |
| If only ants could record their own history, it would save so many insectile lives. How grand it would be if they had their own mini culture and could carve out tiny stone tablets depicting the seemingly glorious home up in the sky, and give their decedents the warning that even though this place may seem perfect, it holds nothing but death. Alas, they do not share with their prodigy, and every spring the slaughter is reenacted, and poison laid. Every single spring, the little black ants try and move into my mail box. Why? Who knows, but every year we have to kill them and their little white eggs and put poison all along the pole to keep them from trying to move in again. This happens every year! You would think they would get the point and stop trying, but no. Every year we have to kill the ants. Perhaps it would be best if I laid the poison in the beginning, but in my way, I'm just like the ants. Every year, I hope that the ants won't come, and every year they do. It's hopeless on both sides. A battle without end that will be enacted for my whole life and countless generations of ant existence. I've found a sure fire way to make it rain. All I have to do is have several bags of lawn clippings outside, and it will rain. This happens every time I have bags out. Today, it rained, and now I have 15 soggy bags of lawn mess. Moving those is not going to be fun. I hope none of the bags rip. In truth, I am a house creature through and through. When I was a child, I liked going outside, camping, and roaming the mountains, but the older I get, the more I find myself preferring the indoors, air conditioning, and dulled light. There are times when I go out side and the bright sunlight hits me where I feel like I must throw my hands up and scream 'I'm melting!' My favorite days are days like this, where it is cloudy, rainy, and not so bright. We had a fantastic thunderstorm this morning. Lots of lightening, and some good booms. There was a great deal of silent lightning too. It was lovely. It was grand laying in bed and listening to the rain and the storm. It was very relaxing. I'm glad my little yip dogs are not afraid of storms. When I was younger, my parents had a large Rottweiler. She was utterly terrified of storms, as well as fireworks. July was a humorous month for us, trying to drag the huge dog outside to get her to go potty. And watching her try and scamper under furniture that she was much too big to fit under was good for a laugh. She didn't grasp her size. At heart, Sarina was a little dog in a big dog body. For her whole life, she thought she was a lap dog. Word Count: 504 |
| Ouch. My body is crying and crying. I'm surprised by how much my hands hurt, though it does make sense. I had to work them hard when cutting down all the little trees with clippers. My arms and legs hurt. Getting up this morning was an exercise in pain. I felt like a little old woman. I'm not looking forward to the day that I grow old enough to feel like this all the time. Well, my mom still gets around pretty good, but her mom is badly crippled by arthritis. She's going into surgery for her back soon ' they have to fuse part of it together. I feel bad about how hard she has it, and I know there isn't anything one can do about old age. But, it's still a hard time for her to go through. My grandpa is also going to have surgery, a hip replacement. Both my mom's parents are having a lot of physical problems, but my dad's father is starting to slip mentally. I don't know which would be worse. To have your mind go before your body, or your body to go before your mind. Old age is a scary prospect, but not quite so scary as the alternative. Yesterday, my neighbor got her driveway redone and ended up scaring the crap out of me. They used a tractor to break up the cement and then dropped the huge chunks into a big metal box. The sound was huge, and it sounded like something in my house had come crashing down. I work in the basement, so it was terrifying. Surprisingly, they got the whole thing done in one day. I wonder how much it cost. Our driveway has a lot of cracks in it, and I wouldn't mind having the whole thing redone. Someday, once we start making money we'll do it. I also need to get the roof redone. I think it will hold up for a few years yet. That, the bathrooms, and the kitchen. People who win lotteries always go and buy huge homes and cars and everything else that will get them into trouble. I would remodel this house, pay everything off, and live happy. It's amazing how many people end up in even worse condition after they win the lottery than before they had. They get in too deep, not realizing that even if you buy a house outright, you will still have to pay insurance and taxes on that land forever. Those taxes eat away the money so fast, and then you end up having to go into bankruptcy. For too many people, the money ends up ruining their lives instead of making them better. It is the perfect idea of how money cannot buy happiness, mostly because people who never had a lot of money don't know how harsh a task mistress great wealth can be. They never know how quickly and easily it can dry up unless you tend to it. Wealth is what we all want, and it will crush those who don't watch their backs. Word count: 514 |
| The grand battle of the yards ended with fourteen bags of yard rubbish and bloodshed. I looked like I'd gotten into a melee battle with a sack of kittens. Tons of little scratches line my arms from the wretched squirrel trees that I manhandled out of the ground. With mom's help, we were able to beat back nature, and reclaim my yards for civilization. The birds had a proverbial feast by the time we were done. They were so happy. I think they were afraid of my yard before this. The grass in our back yard was easily 10 inches, who knows what might have been hidden among the forest? At the very least, my two tiny dogs stalked the grassen plains. So, I was able to check that off the list. We got a lot done, there's still a lot to go, but at least it is a start. Sadly, I did not get up early this morning. To quote Alice in Wonderland 'I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.' That seems to sum my life up well. Such good advice given, yet I never bother to take it. Sigh. Well, I did get an hour of copywriting work done yesterday, so I'm happy about that. As for the dentist, two more teeth done and seven more to go. Ugh, that's awful. For such a nice man, I hate him so. How odd it must be, to know that most ' if not all ' of your clients hate you. I read a book the other day entitled The Devil and The White City, there was a passage talking about dentistry back then, and my how truly barbaric it used to be. The dentist was always in a dour mood because he forever had to bring great men, powerful men, influential men to their knees weeping in agony. No, I wouldn't want anything to do with dentistry in the 1800's. Dealing with the dentist now, even with all the modern pain killers, is still nerve wracking. I hate the first few minutes of drilling, when each second you wait for the sharp zing of pain, telling you that the medication hasn't worked. Once that's over, I'm alright. Mostly it is the sound that bothers me most. It's worse than anything else I can think of. Some days, filling up my quota of 500 words is effortless, but days like today are difficult. I've run out of things to say, and still need another 75 words before I can stop. Hmm, well this is a random thought for you. We had fierce talk training at work a few weeks ago and one of the ideas they presented was this: gradually then suddenly. This stuck with me, because it is how most things in life work. A man was asked how he lost his home to foreclosure, and his response was 'gradually then suddenly.' The point is, these things, good and bad, build up before reaching some critical mass and tipping over into suddenly. Well, there we go, my quota is met. I'll talk to you again tomorrow. Thank you for reading. Word count: 524 |
| Okay, I have a plan! My plan is this: I will get up when my husband leaves for work and do my Copywriting for a couple hours before work. I don't work until 6, but I have to get husband up at 4 because he works at 5. So that will give me a little less than 2 hours a day for my copywriting. I will also try to get it done at night, too, but I think setting aside this time in the morning will really help. Coming to this decision was difficult, because I love those extra two hours of sleep, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made. I'm going to start that tomorrow, and I'll let you all know how well it goes. I got the idea from a writer interview I read once. I no longer recall who the writer was, but she said she wrote her book by getting up two hours early every morning and doing it before the rest of the family was awake. It took her years to get it done, but she managed it. It all comes down to how badly you want a thing. Even if you have to carve out the time in snatches of ten minutes here and ten minutes there, you can do it! Life is a busy thing, and trying to change it into something new can be challenging. I work full time, and I have a 3 year old son. With keeping track of him, keeping track of the house, and attempting to tackle the jungle called a yard, it is hard to find time to do what amounts to even more work. I need to remember to give myself time for the things I enjoy as well so that I don't burn myself out. Right now, the copywriting is thing that would suffer because it is the only thing I can just drop if I run out of time. But, I need to think of it like a job, so that I don't do that. Over the last two weeks or so, the copywriting fell a bit to the wayside, so I need to do something to get myself back on track. It would be like deciding not to get up for work one day. I would never do that, so I should never shirk on my copywriting if I want it to become a real business. Today my mom is coming over and we're going to tackle my yards. Hopefully I won't hurt myself again. We're going to get all the grass mowed, get it fertilized and re-seeded. We're also going to cut back all the little trees and get the shrubs under control. If I have time I'm going to start breaking down the crazy garden. When I get it all under control, I'll think about adding a little garden next to my porch. I'm thinking of planting some bleeding hearts and mini roses. Then, at 3:30 I have a dentist appointment. Word Count: 500 |
| There are days when I don't think I'm very female. When shopping, I really have to wonder at my spirit's gender. Because I HATE shopping. I do not understand how women can find this an enjoyable pastime. I despise it. Like many men, shopping has a draining affect on me that leaves me feeling completely exhausted by the time it is finally over. Shopping for groceries is the worst. There have been times in my life where I've been reduced to eating saltine crackers with peanut butter for days on end because that's all that's left in the house. For many years, husband and I lived off fast food because we both hated shopping so much. After we had Shay, we decided to start playing the part of adults and actually going to the store and buying food and cooking it. It turns out that husband is the better cook, so he's got the job. It's not so much that I'm a bad cook, it's more that I'm an indifferent cook. I get board easily when it comes to cooking. My mind wanders, and before I know it, the food is hopelessly burnt. I can do pretty much anything that comes in a box, but recipes are evil, evil little things. I don't know what it is about them that give me such problems, but they rarely turn out anything like the picture indicates. When I was a girl, I tried to make chocolate chip cookies, and mixed up table spoons and tea spoons. They were horrifically salty cookies. Ugh, I am not fond of cooking at all. Give me a box mix any day, I don't even care if they never taste as good as home made. Truth is, my home made isn't edible, so the box stuff is forever better. My brothers topped me in this area. They tried to make mashed potatoes from scratch, and forgot a vital ingredient ' water. They didn't realize their mistake until the potatoes began smoking. We never burned down the house, but all of us are rather bad at cooking. Which, come to think of it is rather strange, because my mother was the perfect example of a stay at home mom. She cooked, and cleaned, and did it all. We went behind her all the while messing everything up and making her do it all over again. My dad was a working dad. We only saw him at night, for dinner and on the weekends. My how things have changed. Now both parents, if there are two parents, generally have to work, and the children spend their days in daycare with a gaggle of other children. Thankfully, Shane's never had to do day care. My mom watches him three days a week, and Paul's mom watches him the other two days. I have no idea how people pay for daycare, especially when they are poor. Daycare, at least where I live, is almost as expensive as my mortgage. It's crazy, just crazy. Word Count: 502 |
| Well'at least husband gave it the good old college try. Sadly, our lawn mower is ailing, and he couldn't get the lawn done. We'll have to take it into the shop to get fixed. It is spewing great clouds of black smoke. Odds are, we'll have to get a new one, which sucks. Here's a lesson for all the kiddies out there who don't now crap about living on their own. When you have a yard, and you have a lawn, and you have a lawn mower, always ALWAYS check the oil before you use it. We learned the hard way that if you run a lawn mower down with no oil, it dies a smoke choked death. I give to you these hard won pearls of wisdom so you may learn from me. Also, roses don't like water all that much, don't water them a lot or you will murder your roses too. I thought when they started wilting, that they needed even more water'yeah not so much. Ugh, I hate gardens. I'm going to pull out my attempt at a garden, and just have a nice vast expanse of grass. A couple years ago, Brother ended up in prison. He still has three years left to serve, and he was the guy who took care of our yard for us. When he got locked up, it kind of all went to hell. So, now I have to try and get it back into shape without him after ignoring it for the last two years. Darn. Anyway, prison is not much like the movies. There's a whole booming business in barter, and the strangest thing is that they use envelopes for money. No kidding. The currency of prison is calculated in envelopes. My brother has always been an entrepreneur at heart, so he has a number of little business to make money. His first business is making holiday cards for the other inmates to send to their families. He's always been pretty good at drawing, and apparently you can buy colored pencils and whatnot while you're locked up. Actually, you can buy all kinds of things. They get catalogs, and have a prison account where people can give the money. You can get your own TV, Xbox, music, food, and art supplies. So he makes cards, but he's learned a new thing not too long ago. He figured out how to make really nice rings out of popsicle sticks. I know that sounds stupid, but they look really awesome. I don't know how he does it, but they are perfectly smooth, and he uses floor polish to shine them up. He rubs the wood with baby oil before he starts making them, and it darkens and brings out the natural look of the wood. So he's selling those too, and they're pretty popular. Prisoners make all sorts of stuff from knitted sweaters to jewelry boxes and everything in between. Someone could make a lot of money selling prison arts and crafts I think. Word Count: 504 |
| I could lie and say that there was no way I could do the things I put on my list for yesterday, but I won't. The first thing was to mow the lawn, and this didn't happen due to an interesting phenomenon known as White Knight Syndrome. If you ever want your husband to do something, but he just won't do it, wait a few days, then tell him you're going to do it yourself. Then, suddenly, it is imperative for him to complete the task'tomorrow. Between his tomorrows and mine, our yard is going to turn into a jungle. That's alright, I'll see if his tomorrow works out or not. If he doesn't do it tomorrow, then I'll do it myself. With the abrupt halt to the first thing on my list, I must admit, I kind of fell on my face. I had myself all psyched up to mow the lawn, and when he told me know, it killed all motivation for everything. I know, that's a terrible excuse. I felt so bad about it, I almost didn't write in my blog today because I knew I'd have to tell you. But, I promised I wouldn't lie, so I'll keep this blog truthful. It would be easy to say 'Oh I had to do this, that, or the other, so I couldn't do my list.' But, no. That's not the case. My husband threw in a speed bump and it derailed my whole motivation for the day. How disappointing. With things like this, I wonder how I'll ever make it in the world of business. I did get something cool done today. I got my Yahoo e-mail address onto my phone so I can start reading all of my back snatch files. When going through the program, we were given a seed list where we could sign up for direct response e-mails and newsletters. I've gotten way behind on them during my vacation, and haven't even looked at it since then. Now they'll be easier to access, I'm hoping to read through more of them. I have to say, I love my phone. It's an android and I basically have a mini-computer in my pocket at all times. It's now linked to three separate e-mail accounts, I have unlimited data, and everything else I could want for a pocket computer. I can access the AWAI site, read my Barefoot Writer magazines, and play games. I have access to several e-readers, audible, and a radio app. Truly, my phone is my best friend. There are unlimited applications at my fingertips, and a never ending supply of information. Sometimes it's hard to remember the days when cellphones were a si-fi dream. When I was a kid, we still had the phones stuck to the wall, and when we came up with the wireless hand held phone it was a great innovation that turned out to be a pain in the rump. Lose your phone today, and someone can use their phone to call it. Not so much back then. Word Count: 509 |
| Shane had his graduation today, and it was pretty cool. They performed three songs with dances, and he did a great job. The first was a fish song I've never heard, the second was the Hokypoky, and the third was five little monkeys jumping on the bed. He had a bit of a hard time with it, but not too bad. Next year he'll be right up there with everyone else. He was born in July, so he'll always be younger than everyone else, or older depending on when we start kindergarten. He's right on the edge of the cutoff date for when he can start. So far, I think we'll be able to start him when he's five. With the pre-school, I believe he'll be able to keep up with his peers. We'll see how it goes. If we don't, our pre-school offers some pre-kindergarten classes he can take. Right now he knows most of his colors, and he's starting to get his shapes down. It's pretty funny, he can remember shapes like trapezoid and parallelogram, but has trouble with square and rectangle. There's a website online that has shape sheets and we go through those a lot. I'm sure by the time he starts school he'll have it all down. We're also working on the alphabet. That's also going well. I think I need some more accountability. So I'm going to start writing down the next day's goals on here. Tomorrow I will: Mow the front lawn, finish part 2 of copywriting, write my blog, and do lumosity. My hope is that by writing my goals here I'll be more likely to accomplish them. We learned that it is best to figure out what your goals are for the whole week, then break it down to what you want to do each day, but I'm not very good at that. I have a hard time deciding what I want to accomplish in a weeks' time, and how I should figure it out for each day. Then, when something comes up it messes up the whole schedule and I get frustrated. Perhaps I should be less ridged when it comes to scheduling. I know I need to work on that, but it is hard. My wild nature abhors schedules, and as a result I get nothing done. Sigh, how rude. This is my baby step into learning how to keep a schedule. Once I master getting my crap together one day at a time, I will work on moving up to one week. At this rate, someday I might be a real live grownup. I'm sure it'll be alright. See, even me, the forever pessimist, can have moments of optimism. Funny baby moment. Shane was eating dinner tonight and he had a glass of milk. With a perfectly straight face he said, 'The milk is cold, it'll break my tummy.' Silly, yet terribly cute. At least I can understand him. My brother's sons were very hard to understand for the longest times. Their parents knew what they were saying, but all I could do was smile and nod. Word Count: 519 |
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