Jinx maybe?

I must have jinxed myself. I haven't been able to write much since my last post. Sigh. Well thats it. I don't have a lot to say, so... yeah.

Flood gates

         Wow. I really opened the up that super soaker. It was like that one kid who did not have one grabbing for the hose and just going to town. I have written to over 35k words. In just over a week. Thats 14k or so. I wrote the first 21k in four plus months. I do not know if it was something in the water or what.
       Well thats not true. My brother helped a lot. I sent him what I had to read. He loved it. His encouragement really pushed me to keep going. I guess I have built up momentum or something because of it since I have not stopped writing since.
          I am hitting some issues now though. Down time in the story. I need to break up the action with plot and character development and it feels sluggish. I am working hard to make it feel real and unfortunately  real gets boring. I guess a novel isn't like a movie though. You can have the slower times.
         Need to get back to it. I really should. I have only written 120 words today. Granted, I did some editing and reshuffling of words but 120 feels really lacking. Good thing there are still ten hours in the day for me to get to it.

Sleepy...

The last couple of days have been odd. I have been getting dead tired almost as soon as the sun goes down. Like slap myself in the face, need a gallon of coffee and a dozen candy bars tired. I haven't been sleeping any different or doing anything different really. Maybe I am catching a cold? I don't know. I don't really get sick though. I mean I will feel kinda crummy for a bit or something but never like down and out sick.

Well, that pointlessness aside, I've been writing. Got up to almost 25k words. I am proud of that. A bit worried that I may be running out of that super soaker pressure I talked about. I have to find a way to pump my creativity pressure up, instead of just waiting for it to build, because at this rate I will never finish this thing.

Being this tired really is not helping matters. I can't think really clear and I keep trying to blink myself awake. Oh well. Guess I am done here.

Useless post

I am really just typing to type here. I have nothing to say. I am bored, but not super bored. I am sort of bored all the time. I tend to be hard to entertain. Well, hard to keep entertained. the stupidest and simplest things can entertain me for a little while fairly easily. I don't really know what to type though. I seem to have vented out most of my major issues lately. 

I am writing more. I think that this is helping me to work easier on my novel. Added another 200 so far today. Can't really go a whole lot further since I don't have my plot notebook. Its a notebook with character descriptions and the plot framework. its very helpful and I like how I developed the plot in it so I don't want to waste effort and diverge to far from it. Well, this post was just an excuse to type I suppose. I will be heading off to see if I can add to that 200.

Writers block

Once again I find myself wanting to write but not really know what to write. I mean this both about the little nothing blog here and in a broader context. I have been trying to write a novel for the last several months and it seems to be coming in spurts and waves. I will suddenly feel compelled and write a couple thousand words in an afternoon and then be unable to write anymore for several days or longer. I am currently around 20,000 words, last I checked I was at least might be higher. I hope to get it published but that is a series of massive hurdles that I am ignoring until I am a bit closer to them. I mean no need to fret about that when I don't even have a finished first draft.

Still, that has always been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. (Please ignore the fact that I can only remember back til about 14 years old, thats still 11 years.) I want to write, to be published, to have someone read my stories. This current one is the closest I have come to that  dream. I love to write, to create. I want to share that, have other people get lost in worlds I have made just as I have gotten lost in the worlds of others.

My big problem is now my creativity seems to flow. Like I said, I write in bursts. It feels like I have to build up "creative pressure". Almost like a squirt gun, once it is pumped up it will fire a massive blast that slowly dwindles to nothing and then if you pull the trigger again, nothing happens until you rebuild that pressure.

Know what? I'm going to go pull the trigger. Hopefully I will have some pressure build up.

Edit: Guess I did. Added 937 words to reach a current total of 22,385.

Gettin' learnd is eckspesive

I am looking at going back to school, mostly online since I work as much as I do. Wow. Costly costly costly. You would think online would cost the same or less, not more. I mean the way that I view it is that it is far less resources required with online. Less space is needed, you can have larger "class" sizes, you can pay the teachers less because pre-recorded class sessions can be used ad nauseam. Well, it is what it is. I was really hoping to go back.

The main reason I want to return to college is to stop the stagnation I seem to have found myself in on a personal level. My career is trudging along at a fairly even keel, with some ebb and flow but a decent enough pace. My marriage is doing great, I honestly could not be happier there. Financially we are doing alright, a bit higher flux in that ebb and flow then the career on but still. But on a personal level, me being me, I feel like I am not *doing* anything. I am the same person I was a year, even two ago. I have not grown really as a person. I mean, yes, I have some. But not in any quantifiable way,. I could not point out any change to you in my outlook or demeanor or personality. I lost weight and that improved my posture and  overall health, but that's nothing to do with who I am, just what I am.

This little blog that nobody will read is part of that I think. Its an effort to expand myself through the act of pouring my soul through the keyboard into digital text. A self discovery therapy. Like I said a couple days ago, I am still boggled by how active I have been with this. I mean I had a Xanga years ago (remeber Xanga? There's a throwback!) and I updated it make a couple dozen times in the year or two I used it. I've already used this blog more in a week than any given month  of that Xanga page.

I think it has been good for me. I honestly think better when I am typing it out. When I just am thinking I can lose my train of thought so readily that having it typed out before me makes things so much easier. I can look  back and realize what I had been going for, reacquaint myself with my thoughts. I am learning about myself and I am enjoying that. 

Thoughts

I find that due to the nature of my job I have quite a bit of time to think. I think about quite a collection of things but nothing really of substance. It is really amazing how you can put so much time into something and have nothing. I think about things to do or write or create and act on very little of it. Part of this is due to the surprising amount of energy it takes to stay sane for a ten and a half hour work day. I get home and am exhausted.

The main thing I think about is my wife though. She just jumps into my head all the time. I am glad about this. It really helps turn my days around when I am stressed and tired, to know that I have such a strong bond with such a wonderful person. Slows down time though, the waiting and wanting of it all.

I try and read at work but that just does not turn out very well. I think the main reason for this is that I have to have music playing at the store for when customers come in and the music pulls me away from my reading. I find myself re-reading passages because of it.  I can read non fiction, articles and the like, but novels I struggle with at work.

Well then. This was an odd kind of post, just a jumble of thoughts. I guess it has a mild theme but nothing super solid. Ah well, works well enough for me.

Family

I missed a family get together tonight. Had to work and it was about an hour way. The way the party worked out, would have had to driven two hours round trip for what would have amounted to a cameo. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes and then time to go.

So instead, I went to dinner with my wife using a Christmas gift card. Applebees. It was a great dinner and good fun talking with my lovely wife. Then I went to my parents house. My 21 year old brother and his girlfriend were the only ones home. Sat and talked for a while until my parents got home from the family get together about an hour later. I have now been here for four hours. My family, Dad, Mom, brothers are some of my favorite people in the world. I can really think of no people that I can want to spend time with. Spending time with them really helps me find perspective and be me.

My parents house is the house I grew up in. While I own my own house and it is a home to me, something about that old house will always be "Home". Something about going there lets me separate from whats eating at me and relax muscles I didn't even know were tense. A lot of that has to do with my parents. While I did have struggles with them growing up as pretty much every human being through history has had, I never really had any major issues. My parents are two of my all time favorite people, and I think I would feel that even if I had met them under some other circumstance, like as a friends parents. A lot of people love my parents. I honestly can gladly say that I consider every member of my immediate family a close friend, above and beyond the blood relation.

You can go home again especially if home is a state of being, an emotion.

Good people, time well spent.

Doodle

 Changed the layout around because I was bored and it was bland. The background image is a doodle I made a while back. Figured I would post it since more than half is blocked by the blog itself.

Well this is a surprise

I really did not think I would end up posting daily. I honestly figured that I would make that first post and sort of forget about the whole thing for a couple days or weeks, then post again once or twice before forgetting this entirely. Guess not!

Its just that my memory is not exactly strong. I can real sick a little over a decade ago, a few months shy of 2 years now actually. That is a story for another day, and a long one at that. However, what I will say is that due to that sickness I have found myself with memory issues. Ask me what I had for dinner last night. I can't tell you. I do not remember. I might not even remember within 3-4 hours of eating. That is not to say that I cant remember anything at all. I just have to really try. I remember important things, like birthdays, anniversaries, phone numbers, work stuff, etc. If I make an effort to remember things then I can. Unless I am emotional. If I am in an argument, forget about it. PUN! Sorry. Anyway, when I am highly emotional, especially angry, I forget things incredibly rapidly. Due to this I tend to get angrier because I will literally forget what I said two statements prior, or what I was going to say because a statement made shifted the gears in my head. Apparently the key to winning a linguistic duel with me is the ol' "bob and weave" style. Most people can keep a couple trains going at that point but me, I derail and end up on the evening news.

I have been getting better though, at least in other veins of memory. I will sometimes lay away at night trying to expand memories. To take one point in my personal history and go back or forward to fill in the gaps. A lot of my memories of before I got sick, of my childhood, are stories I have been told about myself. So by using those as a jumping point I have been trying to fix the connections that have been severed if I can at all. I ask myself "What happened before this story?" " Where were we for this story?" and once I have the answer that I think it is, I ask the same question of the story teller. I just ask the question as I asked myself too, I don't taint it with my details, such as saying "Were we with grandma that day?" because they might say yes when its not true. Sort of an inception thing, it actually happens, there are articles about it.  Like this one:

 http://www.cracked.com/article_18704_5-mind-blowing-ways-your-memory-plays-tricks-you.html

Well, that sort proves my point that my memory is getting better, that article is over 2 years old. Small victories are still victories. In my excitement at remembering the article existed and which site it was on, I have forgotten my intent as to where I was ultimately leading this. I really hate irony. I will ramble to try and get back on track but I do fear I wont find my original path.

Alrighty! I remembered. Its been about 25 minutes of re-reading the bit before the link but I got it back. So here goes. I remember things better now, but in a bit of an odd way. I "Sam Beckett" myself into my memories. To elaborate, Sam Beckett is the lead on an old show called "Quantum Leap" and he "jumps" into peoples bodies through history to fix problems in their lives. The audience however, no matter who he jumps in be it a young child or even a woman, always sees Sam. That is now my memories work. I can be remembering something from when I was 6 or 7 and I see it as me now, my current age, size, etc. It feels a bit odd overall. I do not really know what to make of it, especially since I often remember things in a third person perspective.

I feel I had more to say but I am struggling to find it so I will just end things here. I got most of what I wanted to say, maybe even all of it. That is another thing of note, not what I was searching for mind you but still. I doubt myself a lot because of my memory issues. I tend to think that I have always forgotten something, or planned on doing something and get a bit stressed about it. Sometimes I actually have, but others I just *think* I have. It gets to be confusing.

So thats that on this topic I suppose. If I remember what I think I need to remember, I'll at an edit to this. That is if I remember to once I remember it.

Boy Meets World

I've been watching a lot of Bot Meets World. As in all of in, non stop. My wife bought me the entire series for Christmas. I had forgotten just how well done the whole series is. The characters, aside from the goofy over the top TV aspects, grow quite naturally and act like real people.

I see a lot of myself in Cory and Eric. Cory for the determination, the devotion. Eric for the fun, but also the whole "tries hard but constantly just misses" aspect. I suppose the biggest parallel is in the Cory/Topanga deal. My wife and I have been together for almost 10 years now, married for over 4. We meet in high school acting class.

We started going out my Sophomore year, her Freshman. We are only a month apart in age, but my birthday fell right before the cut off, so I was one of the youngest in my class. We were each others first date, kiss, etc. Sure we had ups and downs, but we never broke up or any of those wild and wacky things that are so common on TV. She lived with my family for most of high school because her Mom moved away to Minnesota to a pretty unimpressive school system.

Thinking about it as I type, I suppose that is part of why I like Boy Meets World so much. It comes the closest to telling my own story. I can see myself in it.

What I am about

I doubt people will read this, or even find it. I view it at this point as a sort of internet journal, a diary of sorts to just exhale words into. I hope to upkeep it with some measure of regularity, but time will tell that tale. I guess I will explain who I am, just in case anyone happens upon this and feels like reading for God knows why. I'm a 25 year old married homeowner. Sounds like I am doing pretty good right? I am, overall. the problem is that I am starting to flounder. Debt is building due to a change of jobs. Hey, thats a pretty decent story, so I guess I will tell it first.

September 8th is my wife's birthday. September 8th 2012 I was told the Mattress store I manage was closing. I would later learn that half the stores in the company were shutting down. I was rather upset. September 10th 2012 I got a call at work. The owner of a different mattress company had been into my store and liked how I acted and all that jazz. He asked me how I liked my job. I had an interview on my next day off, and a second the Sunday after that, September 16th. I got the job Monday the 17th. I started Monday the 24th. Seamless transition. Except for one little crease. A $600 less a month crease.

So yeah, I am a lot better off than I COULD have been, but still seem to be in a sinking ship. My wife is fighting valiantly to work out debt. Balance transferring credit cards and deferring payments to lessen the interest paid so we can lower our debt to survivable levels. We got rid of cable, lessened our phone plans to smaller caps, and cancelled our gym memberships. Never used the gym memberships anyway.

Overall? I'm happy. Pretty damn happy really. I am stressed. I am strained. My new job is harder, more is expected of me and I get paid less. But I am pretty damn happy. I am married to the best friend I have ever had, who happens to be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I have a very nice house, especially for being only 25. I am employed. I have an adorable little dog who loves me. I have loving parents and four younger brothers who are some of the best friends I could have asked for.

Do I wish life was different sometimes? In ways, yes. If there was a way to erase all my debt, give me a dream job and all that, would I do it? Depends on the details. If it cost me that wife, or dog, or brothers, or parents? Never. If not, in a heartbeat. And that is what it boils down to.

My heart still beats.

I am still alive.

I am happy.