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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** "This is pretty much what journals are all about, at least to me. I knew as I wrote them that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me." --- Colleen Wainwright "Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it." --- David Sedaris "Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment." --- Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey "In giving of myself onto these pages every day I allow myself to write regardless of the depth and meaning. I share myself with others without fear of recrimination for these are my thoughts, my feelings and my very being, and there are non who's opinion of me matters more than my own." --- Rebecca Laffar-Smith   The Writer's Round-About |
| Ok, well I've not been blogging, but what else is new. lol Apparently some people have been missing my Mental Meanderings. I can't imagine why, they're just a collection of pointless rambles and rarely offer anything interesting. I have been blogging, just not here. Each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I update The Writer's Round-About with some new interesting thing. At least I think it's interesting and apparently a couple of my regular readers do too. But I haven't been blogging (or really reading blogs) on WDC lately. I've noticed recently a sense of restlessness about my online presence. A homeless kind of floundering unable to fit into any sort of niche anywhere on the web but a yearning for that sense of community spirit I've known in the past. I guess it's because what I want from a community changes over time so while simply companionship worked before I'm now more interested in a uniting sense of working together that I haven't been able to find. I suspect a part of that has to do with the fact that writers who are actively working at creating and expanding their career are off doing that, instead of hanging out in communities. There are other communities I've visited online for various things where I just feel odd. It's strange but I guess it's nothing new, this sense of not really belonging anywhere. I don't really think I'll start blogging here regularly again. Unless of course people ask me too like Ger did today. I don't know what to say here any more. Random ramblings seem pretty pointless and nothing interesting happens in my life worth mentioning. I'm pretty much exactly where I am this year as I was this time last year and nothing looks like it's going to be changing any time soon. So, with nothing to say there's no point to blog. |
| On the 2nd I got tagged by Michele L. Tune for 8 Things That Make Me, Me . I've had a busy week, what with keeping up with my Writer's Round-About entries and kids home for term holidays. We DID go to the Royal Show and had a great time. So, back to this 8 Meme. Apparently there are some rules I have to post: The Rules: * Link to your tagger and post these rules. * List eight (8) random facts about yourself. * Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them). * Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs. 8 Random Rebecca Facts: 1. The 400+ entries in this blog already reveal pretty much everything about me. 2. I am seriously allergic to bees. If I get stung it is an emergency that is life threatening. 3. I have zero full blood siblings, 5 half-blood siblings, and 7 step siblings. 4. I read sappy romances when I'm feeling down and book exchange them 30 at a time. I collect fantasy series and books about writing. 5. I'm hooked on Californication. I occasionally enjoy watching House and I love Stargate but don't watch it on TV because it starts too late on Thursday nights. 6. I love movies about writers and watch movies that are based on books as research. I read the books too! 7. I'm addicted to: Simulation Video Games and Chocolate 8. I used to smoke and I avoid alcohol and gambling because I know if I gave into the temptation of either I'd become an addict. Well, there you go, I actually came up with 8. lol Now I'm supposed to come up with 8 other bloggers which is harder. You Are Tagged: Hermione - http://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1175344 Rain - http://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1180193 Cassandra - http://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1327063 Anne Creed - http://lifepundit.typepad.com/novel_struggles/ Anyea - http://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1311239 Lisa - http://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1260406 Sweets - http://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1167405 Geraint - http://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/1173176 |
| Ok, so it's Monday and I have to figure out what the hell to write about today. Not for here since I can write or not write here but Monday's is when I update Kids, Pets and Family! I keep trying to run around in my mind with fresh ideas. Something captivating and interesting. Something to draw in the readers. I've contemplated running with the idea of the impact of television and childrens programming on babies. I read about it recently but honestly, I don't know enough about it to give a fair judgement. From personal experience there has been no detriment to my daughter who watched a good amount of baby genius type videos as a baby. My son is speech delayed but he watched the same things she did so I'm not going to try and lay the speech delay at the door of educational childrens viewing. I considered talking about toilet training but then I figure it's the kind of universal topic that gets too much coverage. I want to be unique and in these early days of this blog it's important to highlight the difference between mine and the million other blogs on the same topics. Obviously, I'm creating a huge hurdle for myself with these high expectations. All I can really do is run with whatever comes to mind and let things grow of their own accord. But it still brings me back to the dilemma of having nothing to say. Of course, leading into school holidays here I could talk about ideas for surviving school holidays. It's not really a universal topic however. In the US kids are only just back at school and have a several weeks until Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm hoping to take my kids to the Royal Show at some point this week. My finances conspire against me of course with the mortgage being tight to pull off and waiting on child maintenence that would usually have covered the mortgage. Still, since we aren't currently in the US like we had planned earlier in the year I wanted to treat the kids to something special and the show only comes around once a year. Costs an arm and a leg but it's a fantastic day out for them. And now I'm officially rambling. I have one hour to come up with and write a spectacular article. Of course, I could just delve into my archives and recycle something but I wanted to save those for true emergencies. This stupid case of writer's insecurity and inferiority complex hardly calls for such extremes. If I could just spark on an idea, any idea... *sighs* Back to the drawing board. |
| How many clocks do you have in your home? If you're like me you'll have at least a few. Most people have a side table alarm clock in the master bedroom. Families might even have clocks in the kid's rooms too. You can usually find one on at least the microwave in the kitchen if not also on the wall. These days in super techy houses you might even find one on the oven or refrigerator too. Each computer has a clock on it and some people will have another on their desk or wall in their office or wherever they keep their computer. There should be at least one somewhere on your Entertainment System (TV, DVD, VCR, Top Box, Stereo, Video Game Console etc.) You also have one on your cell phone and many people have watches. Ok, how many clocks is that you have? I have 9. Not as many as some but more than others. The thing is, they all tell the wrong time. Right this minute I have no idea what the exact time is. None of my clocks are telling the same time and while one of them might have got lucky and be on the right minute it's certainly not to the second accurate when it comes to telling me the time. AND I'd have no idea WHICH of these 9 clocks is the lucky one. I've often wondered if we perhaps could lose or gain time because of this phenomenon. It reminds me of the way the earth's and the moon's cycles just don't quite match our calendar year. Every four years we have to leap a day to catch up. Do you have to leap a day when it comes to clocks? Do they run just that little fast constantly making us just that little more ahead of the actual time? It's not noticeable, especially with the changing weather but what if we are very, minutely, (oh the irony of that word) losing time? Or gaining time. Could I be a minute in the future because my clock is wrong? We certainly make that joke when it comes to time zones don't we? Yanky: "Yay! It's lunch time." Me: "No, it's Thursday." Yanky: "WOW! Really? What's tomorrow like?" Me: "Well you know, the world didn't end." Yanky: "I can sleep easy tonight then I guess." Me: "Yeah I guess, although there's always the axe murderer under your bed to worry about." Ok... Well thinking about time makes my head hurt. When we talk about time we're really discussing something that doesn't actually exist. It's a construct. It's a manifestation of physical boundaries created to give humans the opportunity to feel like what they do from moment to moment means something. Of course, most of the time (ICK!) we're wasting time. Doing nothing significant. Like this blog I guess.  Still, since I don't actually know what the time IS I guess I can relax because somewhere in the world it's still the present and so I guess I didn't really just waste that minute. Or did I waste two when I thought I only wasted one?AHHHHHH!!!! *wiggles into a straight-jacket and takes herself to a mental institute* |
| It's strange the way moods seem to come and go. After an intense few days I started getting into a spin today. I feel like a magnetically rocketed compass. You know the kind right, they've stumbled over a charged magnetic spike which sends their dial spinning in hyperdrive because they can't figure out which way is up? I suppose it's to be expected, after accomplishing so much and sleeping so little I'm expecting a bounce. That's ok, because I'd really like to try and push myself through it. I did today and I enjoyed doing it. Working was harder, it was harder to concentrate, to stay focused. Especially since the article I was writing was research intensive. Especially since I stayed up till 2AM last night righting an equally research intensive article. I think the greatest pressure with today's article was the scrawny word count allowance. My regulars here at Mental Meanderings know how I'm inclined to be rather wordy. I love language and I'll use it, at lot, to convey as expressively as possible what I want to say. So having to write a ten point article in under 500 words and have it actually MEAN something, have it more than just a bunch of hyperlinks and pop words was challenging. In the end I wrote the damn thing the way I wanted to write it. It wasn't as spicey or intense as I'd have liked but I knew I'd have to cut it to shreds after I'd finished so I tried to stick to the basics as I was working the first draft. Cutting it to shreds after was hard. I'd ended up with 900 words in the first draft and needed to get it down to 500, that's 40% to cut. Thankfully when it comes to non-fiction I don't have an affection for my words. When I write fiction I can feel much closer to my phrasing and it'll be painful to change. I know it has to be done and I do it but it always feels like menacing an infant. With non-fiction it's more like lancing a wound or doing open heart surgery. Not that I've ever done either of those things but that's how I look at it. Like a doctor, a surgeon, going in and cutting out the bad stuff, and sewing it all back together again so it works better than ever. I guess with my fiction I'm too much the mother when I try to be the surgeon. I'm worried the book won't wake up from the anesthetic. I'm worry I'll slip and cut some vital organ. When I write non-fiction I'm always the surgeon, impartial, get the job done and send it back to the ward. *sighs* I'm still spinning. It's time for me to take myself off to bed. I wanted to finish reading Hooked today but I don't know if I'll be able to stay awake. I also need to read more often because I'm trying to do a book review a week but other than the two books I've blogged about recently it's been a while since I've finished a book cover to cover. In fact, those two books I haven't finished yet. lol I was thinking of picking up Writer Mama again to jog my memory on that one for tomorrow. If anyone has a good book they've written or would like to see reviewed let me know and I'll dig it up if possible. Meanwhile, here's a reader question, do you ever have days where you feel like you're in a spin? When you can't focus? What do you do about it? Do you continue to push through and work anyway? What usually causes your spins? And finally, What have you written today? |
| Hi, My name is Rebecca and I'm an addict. I'm addicted to stationary. Ok, ok, I confess it already. I have a lunch box full of blue bic biros. They're my backups because I already have at least three in every room of my house. Yes, even the bathroom. I have even more pens in my purse and still more in my bag. With all of these pens however I'll STILL buy more if I see them on special in the shop. I won't use any other kind of pen either. I hate them. They range in textures and grips and flow but I can't stand them. I have to have a blue bic biro. The hexagonal shafted kind. They're clear, I like to see how much ink I have left. The ball point is so smooth and it's a good grip for my little fingers. Why do people invent fancy pens? I've never seen the point of a fountain pen. The ink is expensive and they aren't as clean and smooth and easy to tote around as my biros. I hoard notebooks too. I'm hooked on 100 page, 127 x 203 mm notebooks. They come in all colors and are spiral bound at the top. I usually have a half dozen of them going at a time, I have three open on my desk in front of me right now and two more on my bed and one in my bag. I have a draw full of blank ones. Again, if they're on special in the shop I'll buy even more of them. Purple! I also collect any purple stationary at all. If stationary produces ever knew this they could focus their ranges entirely around me. Even if I don't have a use for it, if it's in purple I'll buy it. Purple highlighters, purple ring folders, purple mouse pads, purple pen holders, purple project holders, purple exercise books, purple journals, purple sketch books, purple pens, purple, purple, purple!!! I don't need any of them. I'll use them but don't really need them. And still, if they're in the shop and I'll buy MORE!!! When it comes to purple it doesn't even have to be on special unless I'm strapped for cash for me to buy it! Purple Stationary!!! MINE!!! I sometimes buy pads of post-its that I never use. I don't, seriously. I keep thinking post-its are a good idea. I'm forever sticking bits of paper up around my workspace. But when I do it's never a post-it. I find the stick factor of a post-it note just isn't viable. I use heavy duty tape and random scratchings of paper instead. I'll rip up pages from my notebooks and sticky tape them to the edges of my screen or tape them hanging down from the shelf above my computer. But I still buy post-its that I know I won't use because "they're post-its"! The last admission is compounded if I find PURPLE POST-ITS! If they're purple I'll buy the whole supply on the shelf in the store. They don't serve a purple, the sticky part means they're not even any good as a scratch pad because I can't collect piles of them together without them sticking to everything. So, I confess, at last I confess. I have a problem. I'm a stationary addict and it affects my life. I can't leave the house without at least three blue bic biros and a notebook. I wake up at odd ours of the night and reach for a pen and my notebook. I can't walk past a stationary display in any store without slowing down to scan the shelves. I could spend hours in a newsagent if they'd let me just stay there touching all the stationary. It's so bad I'm trying to come up with a way to waterproof paper so I can't keep notepads in the bathroom. I swear, the shower is one of my most prolifically creative places. If someone can invent waterproof notepads I'll buy shares in their company and arrange for regular delivery and a lifetime supply. Now, I've admitted how horrendously obsessed with stationary I am. It's your turn. Time to come clean about some secret. What are you addicted to? Can you not avoid walking past a certain shelf in the store? Will you only ever write with a particular type of pen? Does a certain color send you into a frenzy? What is your secret? |
| Ok, so all that talk about finally updating my biography had me spending a lot of time looking at my website, and Writer's Round-About, an the website and the blog and the website. And I just didn't like it. Every few months I redesign the website. Each transformation takes it another stretch closer to looking professional. I was looking at rebeccalaffarsmith.com and I couldn't stand the mixture of blues. When I designed it a few months ago, those soft tones were a great offset to the white, it softened the starkness and added a feminine touch. But now I can't stand it, the sappiness isn't professional, the massive I-Frame home page was hideous and on some resolutions the whole thing was a big pile of ICK! So, since I was in there fiddling with the pages I started tinkering. Well, one all nighter later and I have an all new, much improved, snazzy looking website! YAY! It's white (mostly) with clean lines. I'm hoping it will prove more appealing to visitors and if any of you want to let me know what you think, I'd really love the feedback. I don't have the setup these days to test the site over multiple mediums (like I used to do when I focused primarily on programming rather than writing). Personal feedback is always so much more informative anyway.  Along with that I posted up Part One of my Six Part "Seat of the Pants" vs "Planning" series on Writer's Round-About. The first post is actually a quiz. I wrote the quiz myself and I 'hope' it's entertaining, and I 'hope' it works out to be accurate. You can all be my guinea pigs if you like. *grins* (http://laffarsmith.blogspot.com/2007/09/part-one-are-you-pantser-or-planner.html...) Of course, after 24 hours (almost straight) techy-gibberish I'm feeling wiped out and buzzed at the same time. It's a weird feeling. That sense of excitement and the slow breathing of finally being able to come down a little from the mania. I'm hyper productive so I'm worried this is a BiPolar high. It's been a LONG time since I had one. If you look back over my blog calendar you may notice that I didn't blog at all in the month of August. The truth is I barely even wrote at all in the month of August. The past couple of months have been sluggish. I'm on game now with a new attitude and sense of purpose. I'm just afraid that if this positive feeling is maintained because of a manic high I'm going to crash and burn when it comes back down again. Having said that, perhaps it isn't. I was just thinking that it's three weeks since I started weight watchers again and the motivation to rejoin that is something that can't be done in a low. That means I've been stable at least for the last three weeks. *sighs* Oh well, it's all too much for you head to wrap around. I'm off to get a few other projects done. |
| Have you ever tried to write a page about yourself for the consumption of readers? No, I don't mean filling in those little quizes about your age, star sign, likes, turn ons and hobbies but an actual biography page that is clear, informative, interesting and doesn't jabber on about how lame you are but actually makes you sound like you know what you're talking about (even when you don't). Today I set myself the task of FINALLY writing up my biography block for http://www.rebeccalaffarsmith.com. The bio page has been a big black hole for a couple of months now and as a web designer I know what a big bad no, no it is to have a link that leads into an abyss. But I keep slamming against an invisible wall. I don't know what to say about myself, how much to tell, how much to admit. I don't know what I can say to make others believe I'm an expert on writing. Sure, I do this full time but I don't make enough to live on (yet!). I didn't even graduate high school let alone go to college or get a degree of some sort. I've no published a book (yet!) although I do have a couple of random credits around the web for non-fiction articles and poetry. Everything I think of about myself just isn't interesting. It's not captivating and if I were reading it about someone else I'd lose interest very quickly. So how do you do it? How do you find a way to talk about yourself (often in third person) and wax lyrical about how great you are when a lot of the time you just don't believe it? *sighs* I should dig into my archives here because I know I wrote an entry about "primping without lying" at one point and maybe it's wisdom will help me now. Still, I don't know what to say, how much to reveal, what readers might want to know. Do they care that I live in Western Australia and have lived here all my life?Do they care that I'm a single mother of a seven year old daughter and three year old son? Are they interested in the fact that I used to run two roleplaying web sites and a virtual nightclub? What sort of information do readers and potential clients want to know about me? What could I tell them about my experience as a writer that would make them want to hire my services? *pulls hair out* This thing is driving me nuts! Thus why it's been sitting there blank for months. *sighs* It'll sit there blank for at least another two hours now as well because I've run out of time and have to go get the earlier mentioned daughter from school. |
| *frowns* Ok, so I'm sure I had a few blog ideas yesterday and last night but right now I'm facing the blank page of doom. I have no idea what I might have wanted to talk about but I remember reflecting about this time yesterday that I'd already had a September 18th post because of posting late last time. I was struck by inspiration last night. A recent comment on The Writer's Round About (http://www.rebeccalaffarsmith.com) made me begin in earnest a six part series that relates to writing. And of course with the muse on my shoulder I was scrawling away for a few hours and created the full introduction to the six part piece (technically a seventh part, lol) and the first part which is more of a quiz than an informative article. Anyway, I of course want to post all of these up today but know I have to hold myself back and post them one entry at a time on my scheduled posting days. (Thursday, and Saturday - Tuesdays are Book Review days). Still, it's very nice to be struck creative. I've been reading a lot of blogs lately too. The internet is a wealth of interesting articles and blog commentary on a range of topics. Wednesday is devoted to general browsing with very little insistence. I could stumble about anywhere on the web gathering Tips to Read links and blogs to follow up. It's amazing to find what is already out there. There are a lot of interesting and articulate writers. Neither of these topics however had anything to do with what I was going to blog about. Oh, I could mention my newest blog. It will be updated every Monday and is focused on Kids, Pets and Family! (http://kidspetsandfamily.blogspot.com). Um, that's the title too by the way, creative huh? But I guess it's good for the search engines. lol I'm doing a lot of writing and writing related projects at the moment but not making much progress with my novel. I keep thinking I should focus some of this energy there but still find myself being busy elsewhere instead. I haven't pinpointed exactly the problem. Perhaps I should spend some time freewriting about it all. I'm certainly evolving the story in bits and pieces but the word count is stalled at about 40,000 (half way). Anyway, a run around post that isn't particularly entertaining but it's a post all the same. I hope you're all leading interesting lives and making progress with your own projects. Have fun and keep writing, Yours truly, Rebecca Laffar-Smith ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I got an email at the end of last week from Dymocks that invited me to an author event for Kevin J. Anderson at my favorite Dymocks Bookstore. I was excited and very much looking forward to checking it out. I was pleased it was on a day and time I could manage to be there. But alas, the best laid plans of mice and men... The journey into town is not an easy one to make, especially with the crazy weather we've been having lately. Thankfully I was able to borrow my mothers car which cut the two-hour train trip into a half hour drive. Baby boy and I were there in plenty of time. Normally I could spend hours hanging out in a bookshop but my three year old does not have the patience for book browsing. Still, I hung around for thirty minutes, well into the time the acclaimed author should have arrived. He was a no show. But strangely enough the store didn't look set up to recieve him either. There was no desk for him to sit at for signings, no big pile of books for them to sell. I can only assume they've given the wrong date. All the other WA Literary Events on their calendar are sheduled for November so perhaps it was simply a sheduling mistake. Of course, their listing also has Anderson set for a reading tonight at another venue (a time, day, and location I can't manage). I should have been brave enough to ask. I'd printed out the invitation so I wouldn't forget any of the details and I could have shown it at the service counter and asked them outright what was going on. Of course, by 12:30 my toddler was ready for lunch and with three new books in hand and the little niggling voice on my shoulder telling me I really couldn't afford such a purchase I moved quickly, paid and headed off to the foodcourt. We passed the bookstore an hour later (heading back for the car) and sheer power of will prevented me from reentering it with a recently fed three year old. I've often dreamed of owning a bookstore. A Dymocks franchise branch in my local suburb (something we've dearly lacked for about four years now). I could be very happy with so many books at my disposal. *chuckles* My bank balance isn't very happy with me any time I enter a book shop. I don't seem able to leave without buying at least one book. So, my attempt to attend a writer's event flopped when the powers that be conspired against me. But I suppose it was an important step through my sociaphobia that I even went. In days not long past I wouldn't have made it out of my front door. Still, I'm on the look out for other writer events to attend. Alas, Western Australia is literature event schedule is particularly paltry. Everyone knows Australia's culture is in Sydney and Melbourne. Maybe I should just move to L.A. or New York. |
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