Brain Matter and NaBloPoMo

http://www.blogher.com/join-us-daily-blogging-aprils-nablopomo?wrap=blogher-topics/blogging-social-media/nablopomo&crumb=113590

One thing they tell you to never do while under the influence of any illness is to make an agreement of any sort. 

So as my brain matter is shoving its way out through my nose, ears and down my throat, and the world is spinning at double speed, I did not follow that advice.  Not that following advice has ever been my area of expertise.

In my brief moments in between dying and almost not dying, I have agreed and or planned to participate in April’s NaBloPoMo for BlogHer, again.  (and we won’t discuss how I think they need to re-name this whole thing since National Blog Posting Month simply cannot happen every month) 

Beyond insanity, I do have valid goals for April and it’s “NaBloPoMo” madness.

1. Organization.  I want to discipline myself in ways where I can organize thoughts ahead of time.  Also to have better flows and topics.
2. To reach more viewers.  Which also includes being a better “viewer”.  I know my own faults. (and also includes trying to figure out how I can acquire something beyond dino-dialups, which is more of a dream than a goal)
3. And as always to write better, which takes practice.  I want more in-depth, more entertaining and better thought out blog post.  (which is a HUGE MEGA ULTRA challenge for me when aiming for a blog post every single day of the week.)

I have a few ideas ready to help carry me through the next month, and I’m praying they pan out and that I’m not still delusional with fever and meds.  Also too, I’m praying that I’ll remember the ideas beyond what I wrote down, because going beyond thinking right now is a hefty challenge.

Will I be seeing you in the NaBloPoMo links next month?  What are your goals?

Blogs are Like Vampires, Almost

My blog and I seem to have a Buffy (the vampire slayer) and Spike (the evil bad, yet not so bad vampire) love affair.

 

There’s days when I can’t belive how awesome a post came out, how many views came my way, and how much in love I am with the whole process.

Then there’s the days I want to grab my blog right out my screen and choke the living daylights out of it before stomping on it five million times before tossing it to the goat.  And then, maybe, just to be safe I want to take its shattered remains and burn them in a bonfire while doing some sort of voodoo dance to ensure it’s gone for good.

Pressing “Delete” just is not that therapeutic.

Love/hate relationships like this obviously need a lot of therapy. 

I hate having to write, or more so I hate the days when I have NOTHING to write but I know I should WRITE SOMETHING.  I hate the days when I think I have nailed it, and the public tells me otherwise.  I despise the goals I think I have to meet.

But then again, I’d be lost without it all.

It’s my own special private little bad boy vampire without the sparkles.  Because (I’m going to lose every single teen reader I might ever gain RIGHT HERE) vampires should NEVER SPARKLE.

I’m With and or In the Band

As  I’m standing outside last night my husband pulls down the driveway, just returning from work.  He rolls down his window and calls out, “So I’m picking out a bass guitar for you because the new guy at work is an awesome lead guitarist.”

Me, “Huh?”  Because obviously I’m missing something here, and obviously my husband is missing the fact that I have no clue on how to play a bass guitar outside of 80’s Guitar Hero and that’s using a Playstation remote, and not the plastic guitar hero guitar because that always seemed way too creepy to me.  Well given some time to warm up I might be able to belt out “Hot Cross Buns” or “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the recorder, or “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and a rhythm less version of “Ode to Joy” on a keyboard.  But that’s it.  And what is he talking about anyway?

Eventually as he finishes flipping through the mail he gets out that this new guy at work plays a lead guitar, and how he told him (my husband told New Guy) how he plays the double bass drums.  Which all equals to them being lost soul mates who will be starting a laid back, no intention to ever play a gig, band in our basement.  And they need a bass player who they can bring up and won’t try to take over the timing and lead of the band.  Which immediately prompted my husband to suggest me… and voila.

I recapped back to my husband, “So you’re saying my abounding musical talents fit the bill?”  He ignored me and started calling Craigslist ads for slightly used bass guitars. 

Hrrrrrm.

I was with a band once.  Barely.  As in my best friend was a lead singer for her band, and they called me a manager so I could get into all the shows for free, get free drinks, help haul equipment, and apparently (just found out a few months ago) the bass player had a small crush on me. 

The thought of joining the band for real fluttered through my mind for about five seconds, the day they were auditioning backup singers.  My friend and I sang at karaoke bars several times together and always had gotten applauses, of course those could be thankgawdthatbadsingingchickfinallyhasshutup or theysoundreallyawesometogether or imtoodrunktoevenknowwhatthehellisgoingon applauses.  But it was enough to almost tempt me.  Until the last audition of the day left, and my friend tried to shove me up to the mike.  There were too few lemon drop shots (as in none) running through my veins, and I dug my chicken shit arse deep into my metal folding chair. 

Somedays I regret not having guts on that day.  Other days not so much.

There could’ve been absolute horribleness as a result of trying out.  Like if they all made fun of me.  Would I have lost my free ride?  I mean what if I had something to do BESIDES selling tickets on a street corner to their last battle of the bands show, by myself, in downtown St.Louis.  Or getting screamed at by the old scary guy because he wanted to hear country in Decatur IL instead of what he called, “Rap Crap.”  (um the band played rock)  Or sitting around in a Buffy-ish looking bar, waiting for vampires to jump off the chandelier, talking to some groupie named “Wolf Man”????? 

Who would have wanted to miss out on that fun?  (put your hands down)

So now apparently I’m in an almost band.  With the husband on drums, “New Guy” (because the husband never did tell me if this guy has a name) on lead guitar, and yours truly who will be holding a bass guitar and air strumming along… because again, I CAN’T PLAY MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.  But the good news now is that I can finally dye my hair pink and get away with it, because if I’m going to once again play the rocker chick I have to look the part… right?  I wonder if I can still fit into those old pleather jeans?  Ohhhh!  I bet I could teach the goat to play the cowbell!!! 

(my husband is going to regret this, isn’t he?)

 

~Fever & a Guest Post from the Grave~

Yesterday I started to plan my funeral.  No joke.  There was going to be story time (where someone read my lost manuscripts, choking back their tears), a coffee bar, reruns of all of my favorite movies (including things like The Lost Boys, Lethal Weapon and of course Terminator), a karaoke hour and a petting zoo (where no doubt my husband would try to pawn off every last one of my animals). 

It’s bad when your son gets sent home with a 102* fever, it’s worse when the bebe is teething and has a fever herself, it’s worse when you wake up at 3am lost in delusions that your flesh is on fire and you can’t even make it to the tub to extinguish the imaginary flames. 

After a full 24 hours of a fever that never left the 100*s, I think I might make it after all.  I’m finally at 98.9, I can finally get all of my muscles to move, and instead of 500 sumo wrestler kangaroos beating the heck out of my brains, I think I’m down to two of them.  I’m sorry to say, even though it would have been extreme awesomeness, the funeral is cancelled. 

Which is quite unfortunate because today out of all days my first ever GUEST POST will be released over at THIS N THAT.  How morbidly awesome would that have been?!  Melissa could’ve had a whole new meme going “Guest Post from the Grave”.   (sick I know, perhaps I should go check that temperature again)

And honestly I can’t remember one dang thing I wrote about, beyond the fact that she threatened me if I didn’t comply to her request.  Which now that I think about it, this whole deadly fever sickness began the minute I opened a package sent from her…  Hrrrrmmmm.  And is it mere coincidence that she mentioned MY NAME in the middle of a ZOMBIE post? 

Go see for yourself HERE. 

But CAUTION!!!!!  Do not let her flattery rope you into a guest post, she’s only acting nice so I won’t turn her in for poisoning me!!!

And why are you still here?  Go now: http://www.myalienbody.com/2012/03/guest-post-2-emily-of-coffee-and.html

On Your Mark, Get Set, Drink!

The busy season is here, and it always, ALWAYS, sneaks up on me.

You’d think I’d be ready, with the planning, the seeds already growing, the research, the mad dashes of spring cleaning.  I should be ready.  Until the day spring actually arrives, or is it summer, or are we still in winter?  I have no friggen idea what season we’re in.  Forst in the morning, tornadoes in the afternoon and 80* temps in the evening… I’m not sure Mother Nature has a clue either.

Back to the point, I thought I was prepared, until I woke up this morning, stood outside and noticed everything went ahead and hurried without me.  Weeds are growing, the grass is thick and needs a mowing beyond the goat, the branches on the lawn have multiplied… wasn’t everything dead and brown last week?  Didn’t I just have a head start on ALL of THIS?!

And how do I always have MORE dishes sitting in the sink when I haven’t even been home?!

And didn’t I just finish all the laundry, yesterday?!

Whatever season this really is, it is the beginning of the infamous “Emily runs around in circles” season. Garden, Animals, regular lawn stuff, minions, blog (I have three *headoven*), book editing, reading, my list of 101 in 365, daily domestic stuff… and what can I possibly let go of?  What can I throw to the wayside?

And did someone really just invite me to an “important” event via facebook, again?!

Thank gawd for coffee, and thank gawd for a six-year-old who is easily bribed to help out, and thank you app gawds for your .99 cent app games that are thrifty enough for me to bribe said six-year-old with.  Did I mention my gratitude for coffee yet?

But despite a calendar with no white space to be found, and the shaky “I’ve had too much coffee” hands, and everything else, I’d rather be busy than be in winter any longer.  Which I’m sure I just cursed the entire Midwest to a sudden blizzard of epic proportions.  I’m sorry.

So in a hopes to wrap this up, here’s my question of the day:

When will you be here to help?  And will you bring more coffee?  (or beer?  or vodka?)

 

“When You Show Me”

“When you show me, when you actually have something physical to hand me, then I will be excited.”

Those words are stuck in my mind, never mind who they came from.  My celebration of finishing the first round of edits on 1/4th of my novel came crashing down.  I’m only 1/4th through my FIRST round of edits.  Just 25%.  Only .25, lots to go, before it ever becomes a “novel”.

And then if you continue the math, really, I’m most likely only 2% through the editing phase before I’ll have that demanded physical proof.

Who knows, still, if any of this is worth it.  And I want to be down and discouraged, I want to whine that everyone (okay not everyone, bust most) is shrugging off my excited non-stop talk on “Hey I have two young kids, fifty million animals and things to do, and I still got over 6 hours of work in last week!!!”  But I won’t, I get it, the proof will be on the paper, and maybe, MAYBE on a shelf one day.

appropriately today I stumbled upon one of my new favorite blogs by Robb Grindstaff and in his article of 10 Writing Lessons, he nailed what was in my head:

Lesson #9: Never, ever, ever give up.

You need to write. Your soul requires it of you. There are readers out there waiting to read what you have to say. They need to read it. The quality of their lives depends on it. But first, you must learn to write it the way it’s meant to be written.

He doesn’t ever mention that “Hey you moron, you can’t write.”  Or, “If you don’t have this list of skills or experience you should probably give up.”  He says, “You must learn to write it the way it’s ment to be written.”  Learning is okay.  Struggling is great.  You just have to do it.  After all, “The quality of their lives (future readers) depends on it.” even if today the work in progress is enough to send an english professor into an early grave. 

It’s time for me to not allow other people’s non-excitement and disbelief to discourage me. 

My “soul requires it of me.”

What’s your soul requiring of you?  (or did you sell your soul off to the millions of cookie pushing crack dealers girl scouts this weekend?)

An Almost Perfect Day

It’s cold, rainy, windy and plain out gross outside.  A day that would be perfect for sweatpants and slippers, coffee and pizza, writing and moody music.  Instead it’s the school bus and gas station, laundry and cleaning. 

The life of a mom, so close to having those perfect days, yet always so, so far away from them.

And like I said, I have cleaning to do, because I am crazy and I love my son.  Yup it’s his fault.  His fault that I have to prepare for MORE ANIMALS.   Which honestly are only a couple more chicks to add to our four chickens we got last year, and who can say no to a boy who so carefully reads out the flyer to you, with those big brown eyes, and does cartwheels the minute he finds the ad on chicks. 

Because chickens make eggs, and this momma loves animals that pull their weight, or lay their weight, either way, 80 eggs last month from four little hens, I’m not going to complain.

Well I might complain, just a wee bit, because one of them likes to attack me when I’m in the garden trying to till up the rocks I seem to grow.  Apparently she sees invisible worms crawling up my fingers and arms, and I’m sure she’s only trying to save me from these invisible worms that she knows are really vampires in disguise.  And really she should feel lucky that she lays pretty blue/green eggs because I really think she’s crazy and my dogs would sure love some fresh meat I mean my freezer could really use some fresh meat…

Now where was I?

Yes, it’s raining and dark and cold and windy and all in all completely nasty outside.  I’m feeling completely inspired to work on my edits, and completely un-inspired to blog.  And really none of it matter because I have cleaning to do, many much cleaning, and a toddler to chase.

It’s an almost perfect day.

 

~Road Trip~

One of these days, somehow, I will be packing myself in the car, Alone, with just my favorite music and my thoughts.  Just a day or two, maybe three, in my car alone, going somewhere other than here.

No kids, no husband, no dogs, no cats, no goats, no birds, no people, just me and the road.

Just driving to nowhere, with a stop overnight.  Coffee and quiet.  That’s all I would need.  Just once, just short, just to breathe deep.

I don’t want a destination with time eating away at the quiet.  I don’t want lines of people, tickets or layovers.  Just my car that’s been worn just right, suited just for me.

I want horizons and sunsets, time and space.  Fields of corn, forest of cedars, farms filled with cattle and passing cities. 

Not to escape, but just to stop time, just for a little bit, just once.  That’s all I would need.

~Inspiration~

My brain is filled with thoughts on inspirations and dreams.  The things that move us, inspire us, the things we dream about while comparing prices on toilet paper in aisle twelve.  Those things.

I’m one of those who are easily inspired.  Which would be awesome if I had the motivation to ever follow through, but my inspiration always falls short of actual follow through… I’m a dreamer with a huge imagination that takes little to inspire it.

My current work in progress is all in thanks to an afternoon of Man vs. Wild re-runs and one PBS special on horseback riding through Denali National Park.  And doesn’t that all just scream a tangled web of vampires and broken hearts?  At least that’s safer than actually being dropped off out of a helicopter onto the top of Denali… right?

And why is it that inspiration always shows up when you’re in the middle of driving 65 mph on a super busy highway while your kids screams for a dropped pacifier? 

What inspires you?  What dreams do you have?  Are you a go-get-em type of person or do your prefer to sit back and daydream in the safety of normal life?

 

 

Getting Back On

Look, I'm in an actual photo! And yes there was a horse at my wedding.

I fell off of a horse once. 

Honestly I actually didn’t “fall”  I think more accurately I was more so flung into the air.  You’d have to ask my friend who had the bright idea of teaching me to ride WITHOUT using the stirrups, I was too busy trying not to die to see what exactly happened. 

And even more honestly it was all the fault of the brilliant wanna-be-cowboy who thought it would be a genius idea to jump onto my horse (a trained western rodeo, used to be a bucking bronco type of horse) from the round-pen fence while we were cantering.

My horse didn’t think any of this was too neat and decided to show US his skills from back in the day.  One tiny buck, two tiny bucks, one real buck which ended with me on the ground seeing tracers of my hand.  (Which is really fun to play with IF people aren’t freaking out around you)

After I was done playing with the tracers and laughing about the small dent in my helmet I rushed over to my horse, and with shaky knees got right back on.

That was easy.

It wasn’t so easy to get back on the horse that chased me down in a field with a whole famous western scene stallion rearing up with the sunset behind him.  Yeah.  His name was Freckles.  He should be glue.

I’ve also stayed FAR away from the horse that tried to kill me with me on her back, while my dog training instructor giggled, “How’d you manage to stay on her?” 

Fear.  Pure fear, that’s how I stayed on, and friggen thighs of steel. 

You fall off you get back on.  The fear may not disappear but you get back on, unless the horse’s name is Lucy or Freckles, then you just stay the hell away, but normally you get back on.

So what do you do when your brain, your conscience, your self-esteem is the big scary horse that threw you into a brick wall?

You brush the horse poop bad thoughts off of you, take a picture of the dent in your helmet laugh off the hurt, tighten the reins and dig your feet securely into the stirrups.  You Get Back On. 

Even if you have to ask for a boost from a friend.

Even if you need a shot of liquid courage first.

Even if it requires an entire bottle of Advil.

Even if you shouldn’t.

You get back on.

And yes I might be repeating a theme from the last post.  Deal with it.  It is THAT important.

I still don’t think or believe that I have the talent for this whole “writing” deal.  I still think my book should have a date with my goat’s stomach, but I’ve never been the type to let anything get the best of me, even if it’s a horse that’s 5 billion times bigger than me or a dog that sent me to the er after he thought my flesh would make a tasty snack. 

How scary could a little book be?  Certainly no scarier than a hoof to the hip, or a 70 pound Belgian Malinois with a grudge. 

Shakey knees, butterfly filled stomach, and a billion pounds of doubt and all, I am getting back on.

What fears are you facing?