It's Never Too Early...but it can be too late

With the advent of fall, the creative juices for most of us NaNoWriMos start to flow a little more freely.  We're all aware of that fateful day in November when we will see what we're made of - if we can truly manage 50,000 words in a single month of madness.  Since I first started participating, I have loved every moment of the struggle, and the reward of simply winning.  

With this in mind, I dove head first this year into a greater level of responsibility by applying to be my local municipal liaison (which I have yet to spell successfully on a first attempt).  It is an opportunity I am so excited to partake in that I get a little bubbly just thinking about it.  This year will mark the fourth and final book in a series (though I have already decided on add ons for coming years about other characters and the "what if" years after high school).  It will be a year of truly wonderful beginnings and less than wonderful endings.

However, this will also be a bittersweet year.  The inspiration behind my character who is set to star in November just passed away unexpectedly.  Wendy was truly the most remarkable, loving, caring, unselfish being on the face of the planet, and I cherished my friendship with her.  She was everything that people should aspire to be.  She was my friend when I was still a neurotic girl, barely more than a teenager, and she remained my friend for over a decade.  She helped push me into publishing, she always encouraged me to write, and she read everything I ever sent her.  The greatest tragedy is not that I never told her what she meant to me - I did but I could have done more - no, the greatest tragedy is that stories she had wanted to know the end to will never be read by her.  She will never know how Nora and Ivan survive their teenage years, she will never know how Scarlett finds out about her father.  Most importantly, though, she will never know all that Mary Usher has to offer.  Mary Usher was based on Wendy, and the hidden strengths of such a sweet, loving woman were set to come out in this young girl.  

There is no question in my mind that Pandora will be dedicated to my wonderful friend.  I just wish that there had been time to tell her what would happen, how it would end, so that she would never have had to wonder while I struggled with the time to put to paper all the complexities mirrored in her fascinating soul.  

For those who believe that the dead watch over us, I hope you're correct.  I hope that for a few, brief moments, Wendy might be able to see that without her in my life, I could never have even had the ability to even try and live this dream.  

Emotions are the fuel that fans a writer's flames.  We live and breathe love, hate, and everything in between.  But sorrow and tragedy are harder still to articulate, especially when we are still mired in the midst of them.  I can only hope that in six week's time, when the world of writers comes together to frantically put together their stories, that I can do justice to my friend, and tell mine.

-L.E. 

When a Passion Becomes a Curse

Most writers suffer writer's block at some point along the way.  While this isn't my greatest issue when it comes to writing, the feeling is the same.  We writers have a grand passion for the stories we want to share, and when we can't do what we love with all of our souls, we suffer.  The darkness that resides in the mind of most writers is often a source of inspiration.  We can draw upon that dark pit that would otherwise eat us from the inside when we need to evoke pain, loss, and sometimes even joy in our words.  We keep the darkness from spreading by writing - and it might be a delicate balance, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

What happens, then, if a writer can't write?  Does the black abyss slowly start to eat away at us, do we fall prey to the darkness that we also secretly crave?  

Well, I don't speak for everyone, only myself, but I can safely say that on a day-to-day basis, I survive.  It is only when I have a moment that I realize how massive the darkness become, how it has seeped into more than just one part of me.  My conundrum now is not only how to keep it in check, to feed the beast as it were, but also how to make it work to my advantage.  

Never, in all my thirty years, have I hated writing as much as I do right now.  This isn't to say I have started to hate my creations - I love them now more than ever.  The less time I am allowed to spend with my literary friends, the more dear they become.  No, my issue now is a horrid college class.  English taught by an engineer is an oxymoron, and torture to an artist.  Anytime I try to let my passion eke out and splash a page, I am eviscerated in the grading.  And yet...I cannot bring my wild, writer's soul in check for the whims of one narrow minded man.  I am now left trying to salvage the raw wounds left from too long spent from what I love, all the while weaving an essay of supreme effort that can satisfy me enough to move one.  Because I have to move on, and I don't mean passing the class.  A year from now, ten years from now, the class will be a memory, but I will still be a writer.  And that is why this grand passion can also be a curse.  It never truly leaves us, but at times, it can be overpowering, and there is nothing to be done but survive.

L.E.

Top 10 Things I Just Learned About My MacBook

This is the first entry in what will, no doubt, be along, winding path as I work to familiarize myself with my MacBook Pro.  Having never really worked with Macs (at least not since public schools), this will take awhile.  In the meantime, for those who are similarly struggling, here are the Top Ten facts I have learned this week.  They might seem incredibly simple, but for anyone who has similarly made the transition, you'd be surprised what becomes alien so quickly after a lifetime of learned behavior with the rest of the computer world.

#1. The internet screen can be minimized, closed, and enlarged by the three colored bubbles on the LEFT side of the window.  Mind blowing, honestly.

#2. CTRL C is no longer the way to copy something.  Instead, it's the key with the apple on it and then the same letters as before.  

#3. On the MacBook at least, the scroll bar was not available when the internet was open unless I hovered over it.  To fix this, I had to go the System Preferences (found either at the bottom with the gear icon or at the top under the Apple icon)

#4. That System Preferences will become your best friend on that first day.  The sound, the mouse control, etc are all found there.

#5.  Speaking of mouse control, there is no right click on this MacBook Pro.  The solution?  Apparently, if you hold two fingers on the mouse pad.  Who thinks of these things?  Thank goodness for Google.

#6. What can and cannot be moved to the trash is really trial and error - but mainly error.  There is a nifty additional option to see what you can do by holding the mouse down while over the icon.  If it doesn't want to leave the task bar, then it won't be an option.  Then System Preferences comes back to hold you hand.

#7. Nifty trick: If you save an image to your desktop, you can simply drag it into your blogs.  Like so:

#8. Chrome is incredibly picky about being closed.  On every other computer I've ever used, I just closed it out with the lovely little "x" in the right hand corner.  Now, it appears, that I have to close it with the left bubbles, but also to go to the top of the screen under Chrome and select Close.  

#9. There's intuition, and then there's learning a new computer.  This is not an intuitive experience.  This is a hunt and peck experience.  It's like watching someone try to type on a reverse keyboard. Only worse.

#10. Last thought of the day: Take it slow.  Nothing is going to make sense.  Nothing at all.  I'm having to get used to this, but it's actually kind of fun.  

I'll see what nifty tricks of the Mac universe I can pass on for next week.  Until then...


L.E.

Something New...

And what else would be new?  Over the course of this blog, I have written about horses, start up enterprises, writing, and even Smart Cars.  So, one might ask, what possible reason could I have to swtich strides yet again?

I've decided to stay pretty near to just writing on this blog from here on out.  I'll make detours (see the blog on off roading Smart Cars - literally a detour).  And with that in mind, the following posts will be geared from a writer's standpoint. 

I am a writer who has grown up on Microsoft Office, specifically Word.  I feel vaguely apprehensive when I have to work in different programs.  Word is what I know and what I'm comfortable.  Being a strong Microsoft person, I have had little interaction with anything Apple since I was in high school.  (For the great unknowing public, that was 12 years ago - I have officially hit 30).  Being back in school (nearly done with my AA - now exploring a Masters program after my BA...so basically two years down, three to go if I'm lucky), I found myself in a small conundrum.  I have a family computer, but I don't have a great deal of time to use it other than late at night and a laptop that doesn't always want to turn on.  I suppose this makes me sound a little bit shallow.  Here I have a computer and a laptop, but I'm embarrassed by how slow it moves.  Other people less fortunate than me don't have laptops, and rely on public computers.  I get that.  I do; I really, really do.  For me, however, it is an inconvenience that I had put on my radar to remedy.  My goal was to have a laptop that I could use once I started my Junior year at WSU.  

Playing on the fact that there are many without computers, I'm sure most of the world is well aware that they are not cheap.  A well functioning laptop that can last is even less so.  My parents looked for me right around my momentous birthday, but nothing worked out.  It had been pushed by my family to become a graduation present (graduation with my AA, not my BA).  Then something truly remarkable happened.

The general manager at my job quite literally came up to me this week and asked, point blank, "Do you want a laptop?"  He then handed me his MacBook Pro.  I was a little too startled to fully grasp what had happened, and then he showed me the battery that had completely imploded.  He told me it was still perfectly good to work with as long as it was plugged in, and that was an end to that.  I did, somewhat hesitantly, ask him a little later if this was to be for work only or if it was just mine.  The answer, well, let's just say this has been a week of miracles.

And so, let me pause to say a huge thank you to my manager, Tim.  This is amazing, and words don't really do justice.  I have a MacBook that looks to carry me through college.  Truly, three days later and I'm still a little bit speechless.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, but as I mentioned, my experience with Apple products is severely limited.  Like any true child with a new toy, I powered on the laptop at work just to see if it functioned.  (A reasonable thing to do, right?)  It did, but I had not idea how to move around in it.  My coworker had to explain that the enlarge and minimize my screen, I needed to look on the LEFT side of the screen, not the right.  When I took my prize home, I spent my evening learning the bare essentials, like where the mute button was.

Now, to end all my rambling, I have given an overview of where I am going.  I am going to write, in the simplest form possible, how to survive a transition from Microsoft/Android based systems to Apple.  And I will dial it down to as short an answer as I am capable in the hopes that if anyone out there has a similar problem, they can check out a blog or two and find out that to right click your mouse, you have to put two fingers on the mouse pad.  Honestly, who thinks of this stuff?  

Anyway, I'm off to skim MacBook for Dummies and wrap my head around this wonderful, baffling addition to my life.  Stay tuned.

L.E.

(Just because no post is complete without a picture)

What If? (two of the most terrifying words imaginable)

Such a small word.  So simple in its appearance.  And yet so very, very daunting.

 What if I were to give up everything to pursue a passion?  
What if I were to tell a certain man how I feel? 
What if the world we create is simply a fantasy?

There are hundreds of writing prompts out there to jog the imagination down the marvelous paths and tunnels and waterfalls of the written world.  What exists with far less frequency are prompts to write nonfiction.  There is now a delightful phrase: creative nonfiction.  But for the life of me, I still struggle to grasp what it means.

For the longest time, I kept my passion for the written word to myself and my very, very closest friends and family.  Now, however, I am being asked to do something more.  I am being asked to share with others what I do, what I have, a time or two, been paid to do, and what, at times, I can be quite good at.

I am a writer.

Unfortunately, the caveat that comes with that bold statement is that I am a fiction writer.  As an only child, I was creating stories in my head long before I ever put them to paper, but for all that, now I must figure out how to turn a grand passion into a tool to be used at work.  Rarely have I felt so ill adept to the task at hand.  Now I must learn a new task, a new trade, and one I have very little experience in.  Now I must learn to write what is fact, with only the faint flourish of an artist's touch to help me along.

If I must first walk before I can run, then the problem becomes: how on earth do I learn to walk?  I am a writer, but my preferred medium is fantasy, with the occasional historical piece.  How on earth am I supposed to take that and turn it into something completely different?  I look at the task before me and feel that I am being tasked to turn straw into gold.

For anyone else out there who has faced a similar road, please share any insights.  I feel that I'm walking this road alone for a time, and while I am anticipating new opportunities to stretch my own limits, it does not mean I won't long for my comfort zone.  In the meantime, what insights I find, I will happily share, in the hopes that maybe someone might do the same for me.

Having expressed enough to feel a small burden relived, I shall now go back to homework, with the barest hint of contemplation for the daunting road ahead.

Rambling, but with a new direction now...
L.E.

Life 1: Writing 0

Writing is so much more than simply putting pen to paper or typing up a document.  It comes from our hearts and our souls.  But sometimes life steps in and we simply cannot express what we hold within.

I have found from a personal stand point that when I am stressed, I can't write.  Well, I can, but even when I'm with my characters, all I can dwell on is what could go wrong around me.  This is for those situations where there is no right answer.  When I'm stressed about issues that there is a set ending, I can still write.  In fact, my characters offer me shelter from the world around, but not this time.


Being a full time employee, a full time student, a writer (which, for those of you who write know it never really shuts off), and a part time riding instructor doesn't leave much time to do anything other than pack in a full schedule.  This week, with a statistics exam, I knew my ability to write was going to be limited, and I had a mental countdown for when it would all be over and I could write again.  That countdown was over Thursday night, but here it is Saturday morning and the only things I've written is this blog and a handful of necessary emails.  

By now, the creativity in my brain should be fit to burst.  The story that sits just behind my every conscious thought should be ready to come flying out, but I have the sinking feeling that if the starting gates were to open now, I'd be left standing.

And so we circle back to stress, that horrible thing that never really leaves us.  Stress about work, stress about money, stress about the current state of the economy or the potential presidential candidates.  Stress is everywhere.  This week's edition, though, is one instance that I cannot rationalize a way around, and I know full well that I cannot solve it in a way to make everyone happy.  That, to me, is the very worst.

One of my many commitments is to a therapeutic riding organization, where every spring and fall I work with kids with disabilities to introduce the wonder of horses to them.  This year, with the aforementioned schedule, I cannot carry through on all of my commitments and the stability of maintaining my job has to have precedence over everything else.  If, say, Monday morning I received a wonderful book offer, I might be able to have more flexibility, but let's be honest... And so I'm stuck here, knowing that what I have decided is the best for me, and, by extension, the least painful solution for everyone involved.  At the same time, however, no one can be happy.  And until there is some resolution, my stories will stay trapped within, waiting for this storm to finish.  Only then can we all come back to play.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I feel that this week's blog needs to start with that thought, because it has been a defining one for me this week.  

When comparing my two great passions in life, horses and writing, I once foolishly thought that horses would win every single time.  My thinking went something like: I don't have to write my stories to know how they end.  Right...

Now in the past, I have been a firm advocate for writing your own way.  Don't write my way (why would you?  It's a recipe for insanity), don't write the exact way Stephen King or J.K. Rowling write.  Write the way that you feel most comfortable.  If that is laboring over the proper placement of the furniture in a room for weeks before moving on with the dialogue, do that.  If it is writing all the dialogue and then belatedly recalling that there should have been furniture, do that.  Do what makes you feel free.  There is simply no other way to write.  We writers are both at liberty with our passion and controlled by it.  

This week, it became "life and death" imperative that I be able to write.  I felt a little like the Shining in my brain, and Thursday, on my way to my cellular biology exam, I was hit with blazing insight on just where my current story needed to go.  Talk about terrible timing.  However, I completed class, hurried home, and wrote until nearly midnight.  That was therapeutic.  Unfortunately, it left me a little too depleted the next day, and as the day wound down at work, I was increasingly out of sorts.  I knew my cure, and that was to write, but as soon as I finished more requirements (i.e. stats homework), I was left with nothing.  NOTHING.  This rarely happens to me.  Usually when it does, I'm okay with walking away for a day or so and letting my characters catch a breather as well.  This time, though, I couldn't.  I NEEDED them to speak to me, to soothe me, to make me whole again.  

Finally, after stepping away for half an hour, I realized that what I needed to do was step even further back.  Sometimes I write very sequentially, Chapter 1 is directly followed by Chapter 2, etc.  Other times, the plot twists and bits of dialogue come from all over the place.  This would be one of those times.  After finally taking the time to gather my thoughts, I decided that a session of story-boarding was in order.  I did manage to glimpse a tiny snippet of conversation between my characters before they left me for the evening, so the night was not a complete waste for writing in general, but, more importantly, after writing down all the twists and points I am hoping to accomplish with this story, I felt a weight lifted from my shoulders.  I might not have been able to charge on ahead at full speed last night, but I was able to plan where to go from here.  It might have seemed like I was going backwards, but the path ahead is so much more clear because of it.

My advice then is simple: never assume one way is the right way to write.  Play around with your own ideas until they work for YOU, not for famous authors or your friend who likes to blog.  After all, we are not here to write for their amusement but for our own sanity.

I hope that in my rambling way, I can empathize with my fellow writers out there who similarly share the agonies of a full time life and the passion for writing.  It's not a fun road to lead, but we wouldn't have it any other way.  As always, feel free to share your own thoughts on the matter.  We writers are also solitary creatures, yet secretly desperate to know we are not alone.