on writing about good and evil

Artwork by Ilka Lesonen.
Source: Haunted Florida

Before I begin, would you be interested in seeing one of the bizarre findings I occasionally find on my phone on the account of having a child who likes to just press buttons and crap when she has it in her possession? This is a potential blog post that might have posted from "me" had she been astute enough to actually know what the hell she was doing:

I like frozen in my head now and then 20 the same time 9th thrill k knhrghrjrhuwuyj3msnsbnfndnsmksehmekdkksnkshjhwhjjmnwknnsnjdehjrm.   Maybe some help hfj. The hotel. We 30 gggrhejsjekkmejwgrbhrnsjenwkrjjr

\=!!%!_£₩94₩69689₩€€&*,;,&***&¥*(¥$%&&&*$÷

Honestly. I think things like this are pretty good evidence of what the inner workings of a child's mind is like: weird, confusing, and scary. In addition to things like this, in past mishandlings of my phone, she's:

*Private Messaged a mad-faced devil from "me" to Patresa Hartman, who sweetly responded with: "Uh oh." and was very good-natured and understanding when I explained what was going on.

*Started a Words with Friends game with at least 3 adults who totally would've beat the pants off her had I allowed it to continue.

*Almost posted an Instagram comment from "me" under one of Jason Isaacs' pictures (watch DIG on USA--March 2015!). Very similar to the one above. Oh, he wouldn't have freaked out at all at that crazy message if he'd seen it, I'm sure. :-/ (....though, quite frankly, it would have served him right, because he posted a picture of himself this past summer with blood dripping down his face, which slightly freaked her out when she saw it {"Mommy! That boy has blood on his face! What happened to that boy on your pictures?!"}, thumbing through my Instagram account as she sometimes does. We had to have a talk about how actors pretend, that was just fake, that boy's name is Jason and he was just pretending; he's going to be just fine. Then, a few days later, he goes and puts up a picture of himself getting operated on in a hospital scene. So I had to do damage control, show it to her, and explain: he's still okay, still just acting. Then, about a month later, he goes and puts up a picture of himself with shrapnel coming out of his neck AND then follows that with one of him beat up and bloodied in some type of garbage heap. The garbage heap one she did see on her own, and wanted to make sure "What's WRONG with him?? Is he going to the hospital?" Quite frankly, I have no idea what's wrong with him, love--I mean, physically he's okay...but I suspect Jason Isaacs may have a slight issue with the macabre. Maybe? Though I bet this means he's had some kick ass Halloween costumes in the past.)

*Left a really bizarre picture with ensuing comment on my Instagram account which I didn't find until about 375 days after the fact. I left it up as evidence for what I have to deal with, day in...day out.

*Called several people at inappropriate times. Once left a bizarre voicemail. Possibly made a few calls overseas to complete strangers.

Okay, that's addressed. Now, let's move on to the writing process/novelist-in-training (aka NaNoWriMo 2014 project):

I love this process.

First of all, I'm ahead of the game. Thanks to a bottle of wine (Day 1, which was actually Day 2 of Nanowrimo), I made up for lost time. Then, thanks to Election Day (aka a day off work), I was able to get ahead of the game by about 10,000 words. This is unheard of for me. I am never (never!) ahead of the game, any game. And so this is going fairly well. 

The story is not going with the outline I set out to begin with. This is okay. I like it when stories veer off to the left, the right, and zigzag around several bends. I think this is how Life works anyway. 

I generally like my main character so far...I did some character development for her, but I don't really have a good feel for her yet. However, you know who I do have a good feel for? My antagonist. He's the coffee shop owner's son/Main Character's boss, and he's decided he's very psychic, and not in a good way. Sort of in a Rosemary's Baby kind of way--looks normal/nice on the outside, secret sadistic Satanist on the inside. And aren't THOSE people always such assholes. But god, when they're attractive, they're insanely hard to resist.

What I'm trying to communicate is: I would like to have unpure moments of wild abandon with this character. This character could take a nice girl and teach her to do very, very bad things at incredibly inappropriate moments in unseemly locations.

But you know what the most exciting part is, the part where I'm having the most fun? The research. 

So one of my characters (who I've not gotten to yet--he's coming, and I am So! Excited!) is a pirate. A dead pirate. The ghost of a pirate. And don't even look at me like that couldn't ever really happen because currently I'm reading WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GOD, and it's teaching me all kinds of amazing, scientifcally-proven/Neil deGrasse Tyson-approved things about the utter mind-blowing, breathtaking magic of the Universe, atoms, energy, quantum energy, and the nature of all energy everywhere since the dawn of time before there was time. I say this all the time, but I'm pretty sure Science is one day going to back me on it when I'm long gone: GHOSTS ARE TOTALLY REAL, Y'ALL. 

I'm also researching pirates. Historical ones, not the dipshits who are out there going nuts on Captain Phillips and friends. Fascinating. I'm talking lesbian women pirates, pirate-hunters-turned-pirates, crazy ones, sane ones, greedy ones, courteous ones. All kinds of people sailing the Seven Seas once upon a time. And they had ridiculously awesome music, too, as if all that other stuff wasn't good enough. 

It's that part of the process that I think is making me too, too happy. Just the very act of researching builds onto the story in my brain. I'd like to find a pirate expert and talk to them. And now I also want to go on a ghost hunt with real paranormal experts. (Ask my friends who've been on ghost tours with me who are all laughing their ridiculous heads off right now why that's hysterically funny...I'm easy to scare the crap out of, is why--I almost pulled one friend's arm off the other night in the basement where The Shadow Man resides in the Sorrel-Weed House). 

But mostly I'm finding that research is also, in and of itself, sort of character building: lots of "what if?" questions pop up...what if this pirate had xxx? and what if there was also a girl pirate who xxxx? and what if my pirate really did xxx? 

I love that.

I just realized I wrote about God and quantum energy and pirates and ghosts and good and evil and my kid in one blog post. I also confessed to wanting to be lewd and inappropriate with someone who doesn't even exist. AND managed to stick in a Jason Isaacs/DIG (on USA!) mention on top of it all.  I am most proud of letting everyone know, publicly, that I'm willing to go bad places with fake men. I think it summarizes my purpose here on Earth pretty well, in terms of why I write. 

Go ahead and judge all you'd like...'cause God gets me and that's all that matters. Proof: the Milky Way Galaxy. (Read the book.)

technology dreams and hypnotherapy writing sessions.

You guys! November 2 is over in 14 hours here and I haven't written a single word for my NaNoWriMo novel. I have a huge stack of papers to grade and I need to write 3200 words before I go to bed. Because you have to write like 1600 words per day to be successful. NO EDITING.

In my defense (aka excuses, excuses), we had a busy week and weekend: Wednesday was getting M's hair done in honor of her birthday (omg, I love it when I'm not the one with the comb making her scream), Thursday was our nuclear family celebration at Dave & Buster's, Trick or Treating Friday, and then M had 3 little girlfriends over for a small birthday party yesterday. We're done with big production birthday parties for awhile. I'm all about small, laid back things at this point; my overflowing brain and blood pressure cannot handle Involved. For example, the party theme yesterday was Frozen, and I googled some Not Involved games with a Frozen theme we could play at her party. One was Toss Snowballs (or balled up white socks) into a Bucket. The other was Stick the Carrot Nose on Olaf. Except I forgot to get the bucket. And the white socks. And I never made a white posterboard Olaf. Or orange carrot noses. Because my brain had too much information in it on the account of I had a 2nd grade fire to put out on Friday afternoon and after that I had to emotionally decompress most of Friday evening before trick or treats, and when this happens I temporarily completely forget about my own child. This is my biggest complaint about public school teaching right now: Dear Parents...please raise your own children so we can focus on ours. Some of us do have our own children to raise, not just yours. Thanks, Mommy/Teachers Everywhere.

At any rate, it was fine. Turns out little kids don't give a rat's ass about games...they just want to play. Plus, they came up with their own game--yesterday's invention was a Dance Off competition. A very uncoordinated, LOUD dance off. And someone got her feelings hurt. And M started crying because she couldn't be first. And someone else ran off because SHE wanted to be first. Girls are exhausting. And loud. Did you know this? Girls are loud and exhausting. And they have too many emotions. And I can say that, because I am a girl. (Who is not loud, but CAN be emotionally exhausting.)

Speaking of socializing: Social Media thoughts...I've downloaded HootSuite. I hear it's THE way to go, in terms of managing your social media accounts and your time. I'm still teaching myself the HootSuite ins and outs, though, and this is a process.

(Related Side Story: When I was 13, my dad signed me up for a summer school computer class. This was back in 1985, when computers were the size of a table and you told them what to do in "string" format. I think about typing in these formulaic string codes, telling a computer the size of a table what to do. And then I think about how I bitterly cussed at HootSuite yesterday and got all annoyed with the process. When we were sitting at these gigantic machines typing string code, did we even KNOW we'd walk around with phones in our purses/pockets with more data in their microscopic computer chips than the entirety of all human knowledge since the dawn of time. I mean, you can stream a movie from the middle of the Sahara Desert if you can find a GPS cell tower connection. On Thursday, at Dave & Buster's, M and I paid 12 points off her swipe card to sit in a machine that made us feel like we were actually IN an animated movie. I can get on Skype and talk to someone on the other side of the world and a computer will translate the whole thing and beam it up to the alien nation of Alpha Centauri II for the love of all.

Still. Goddammit, HootSuite! Are you for real!? Why the hell can I not link my public writer Facebook page to you?! And damn you, I DO have a Google+ account under that email address what are you effing talking about, HootSuite?! expletive expletive expletive this is hard expletive.)

What I'm saying is: Jesus Christ. We need to manage our social media? I can't even manage my offline social life--make an app for THAT, Apple. ......Bet they have one, and I'm certain I'd swear bitterly at it, too.

Here is where Social Media does come in handy: yesterday I saw on Twitter where Jason Isaacs (watch DIG on USA starting March 2015!) tweeted to someone about how he uses YouTube hypnotherapy sessions to sleep. I read this and thought: what?! there are hypnotherapists on YouTube?! So I went over there and did some research. Sure as shit and Donald Trump is an egomaniac, there are! Y'all! There ARE hypnotherapists hypnotizing people about all kinds of things. On YouTube! Technology: it frustrates and amazes the brain.

Friends! The possibilities are endless! I'm going to try it on my class this week and see if I can make them be quiet. And then I'm going to try it to see if I can lose weight, actually want to run a 5K, get to sleep faster, be less stressed and more organized. And then I'm going to try to it to see if I can write more productively and win NaNoWriMo for the first time ever, and have one whole novel done. This is...this is just amazing. I'm just so happy I was exposed to this concept. I don't know if Jason Isaacs will ever know how drastically he just altered my life, but hopefully one day I'll run into him somewhere and can high five him for this knowledge share. He's proclaimed publicly he thinks social media is weird (so do I) and doesn't really get it (me neither) but apparently is doing it because it's what you're supposed to do if you're in the storytelling business these days (he's in my tribe!). Yet look at all the good he is doing on it, and he doesn't even know! He doesn't even know. Which is why he wins Best Human on Social Media for November.

(Related Side Story: Speaking of sleep hypnotherapy, I did try one of Jason's hypnotherapy YouTube videos and it does work. Which is why I really want to get on Twitter and leave Jason Isaacs and Jessica Chastain a whole series of tweets letting them know I dreamt about them both last night, thanks in part to a British lady's calming, hypnotic voice. I can see why Jason Isaacs wormed his way into my subconscious since I fell asleep on account of a video link he social media-shared, but I have no idea why or how Jessica Chastain got in there. At any rate, the plot of the dream was: Jason, Jessica, and I went to a theater. But not together--we went separately.

Jessica and I were sitting next to each other, and we were both behind Jason. When the play [or awards ceremony or movie or whatever we were doing] was finished, Jessica and I had a nice conversation and then I asked her to sign my file folder. My empty, letter-size, manila file folder. Because you'd totally bring that to a fancy theater with you. And I remember, in my dream, she asked me if I wanted a selfie with her, but I said no because I thought her hair looked more beautiful than mine. But then she was so interesting and friendly so it was really important she sign my file folder, and she did. She signed: "Love, Jessica Chastain." That was it.

I really wanted Jason Isaacs to sign my file folder, too, but I decided to just leave Jason Isaacs alone, because he seemed nice but I didn't want to bother him in case he was in a hurry. But then he stayed and talked to the person next to him and so I thought: why not. Maybe I'll ask him for a selfie. Maybe because my hair would look okay next to his? Brains are weird. So I did ask, and he was very kind and sweet and we took a selfie together. We actually took two, because he said the first selfie wasn't awesome enough to share on Facebook. And because he was concerned about making sure I had an awesome picture of me to share on social media, it made me brave. So I asked him to sign my file folder. And he did. And he wrote a 2 paragraph essay right next to Jessica's "Love, Jessica Chastain." On my file folder. And every time he wrote the letter "i" he made a heart on top instead of a dot.

However, I decided not to leave Jason Isaacs and Jessica Chastain a series of tweets about this that might show up in their Twitter @Mention feeds, because I didn't want to look crazy. You know how sometimes you'll have a dream about someone you know, and you'll tell them your dream, and they'll look at you like you're crazy and go: Um, Okay. And then that's it? You had this WHOLE involved dream about them, and their reaction is just: Whatever. 

?! What ?! No! If I dream about you, it's a compliment. Listen, I have a lot in my life going on, and a lot of other people my weird brain could be sticking into my dream pathways. If my brain pulls you out, it's a compliment. I always take it as a compliment when someone dreams about me. But I think other people don't, and when I tell them about the dream they were in I'm worried I'm creeping them out and they're thinking: Hey, tell your spooky brain to stop adding me to its dreams. 

Personally, I think when you dream about other people it means our souls may have connected interstellarly. But take that with a grain of salt, because I'm a double Pisces with a moon in Cancer and that's how we navigate this planet. Not everybody navigates it like this. Which is why I'm careful about telling people when they have a starring role in one of my dreams.

.....one time, I dreamt that Bradley Cooper and I went on a date together, and our date was gardening. We picked roses and weeded a garden. And a friend of mine said, "Oh, is THAT what you're calling it these days." And I said, "No. Seriously. We gardened. We weeded and picked roses. We GARDENED." Stop trying to sully up my chaste Bradley Cooper dreams, people. On an interstellar level, Bradley and I totally connected through flowers, and you're just jealous.

So anyway. I think this means that if I am ever anywhere that Jessica or Jason will be, I guess I need to bring an empty file folder with me so they can sign it. Or write a brief essay on it with heart-dotted i's. And if I ever run into Bradley Cooper and he brings up his love of rose gardens, I'll know my dream theory is correct and you atheists can all suck it. Meanwhile, Bradley and I will be bonding at the Botanical Gardens.)

So I'm off now. M's Big Halloween/Birthday Weekend: it's a wrap. And now I get to start my genre-less pirate/beach/ghost novel. A friend suggested I not worry about genre or how it sounds as I write; just write the damn thing and see what the hell happens. She didn't say that last part--I said that...she's very Southern and far too polite to say that. But seriously, she had a good point: just write it and see what happens. This was most astute, and incredibly impressive coming from someone who isn't doing NaNoWriMo. She wins Best Human on My Private Facebook Page for November. (Hi, G!)

In conclusion, I think the clue to getting much of anything creative done is to get some sleep, but also will yourself to stay off Social Media. I'm going to go to YouTube and see if they have a hypnotherapy session for that, too.

i edit as i go.

No Sigmund Freud, this one.

Last night I took Ernest Hemingway's advice to write drunk; edit sober. I did not get drunk, but I did get close. And here's what I found out: Ernest Hemingway gives crap advice. Please know this. Do NOT write drunk; edit sober. I'm going to flip that and say it's probably better to write sober; edit drunk. I couldn't even find the correct keys to type, and I gave up about 4 paragraphs in because I just wanted to get on social media and hug someone, tell a stranger how much I loved them. Do not do this, Internet. Put down the bourbon and FOCUS.

I'm signing on for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) again. My handle there is amy223. If you're doing it, too, link up to me! Let's suffer for Art together. I've taken on this November writing project in the past, and I have finished a novel this many times: 0. The idea is to just write (sober or drunk, but seriously: do it sober) and do NOT edit for the whole month of November. If you do this a certain number of words/pages per day all through November, you should have a 50,000 word novel completed by the Nov. 30. 

It's the "do NOT edit for the whole month" part that trips me up. I DO edit as I go; it's a disease and I can't help it. I go back and re-read what I wrote and go: WHAT?! That makes absolutely no sense! or What?! Those facts don't line up at all. or Was I on crack when I typed that?! So the not editing part is very very hard for me. I do have a bit of perfectionist in me--I'm certain this is also why I'm a procrastinator. 

Have I promoted Jason Isaacs' show DIG lately? No, I have not. Let me update you on that: It will be on TV in March, specifically March 5, 2015.  AND the network thinks it's so awesome-super-cool they ordered 4 more episodes in addition to the six they already paid for, which makes 10! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN total episodes of DIG on USA! (Please go back and re-read that in the voice of The Count, from Sesame Street) (also, as a writer, I'm thinking: this is GOOD! more writing work for the writers! but, as a writer, I'm also going: holy shit! how do you take a story arc you already finished and add MORE to it??) (I bet the DIG writers don't have that fear at all, that the only reason I even have that thought goes directly back to my problems with my edit-as-I-go disease).

At any rate, set your DVRs, get your inner FBI agent/archeologist ready. They're in Albuquerque, New Mexico filming it right now. (Well, actually, not right now...according to Jason on his Twitter account, he's off promoting the movie Fury. First he was in New Mexico working, then he had to fly to Washington, DC to promote Fury, and now he's in London at a film festival promoting it. Famous people seem to have to change time zones a lot; just reading about how many different places Jason Isaacs has been over the last week or so makes me want to take a nap.) (In addition, he posted a picture of what an actor promoting a film sees when walking a red carpet...lands, that looks overwhelming. A thousand people with cameras going off, shouting at you. I wouldn't even know where to look. Bless you, famous people.) (Unless you're a douchebag--in that case, I hope a wayward camera flash permanently blinds you.) (Jason Isaacs is not a douchebag; I've only ever heard how very very very nice he is, which is why I've put him on my Superhero List.)

In non-famous people news: Miss M got her first report card.  Basically, she's an excellent reader who needs to work on her handwriting, listening/following directions skills, and self-control. I tell her this all the time myself, so I'm glad it's now documented on paper forever. I plan to whip it out and remind her when she's an adult: EVERYbody said this about you. It's a problem. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, sigh. She's a teacher's kid. You'd think teachers would have the niche on how to raise a perfect kid. We do not. I think it's because we're so focused on raising other people's kids and we forget we have to raise our own. (This is the part where I start singing: 

Being good isn't always easy

No matter how hard I try...

The only one who could ever reach me

Was the kid of a teacher woman...)

Next up is her birthday. She'd like exactly 1000 things, needs to analyze the frickin' thing multiple times each day, and doesn't necessarily want to wait another 10 days for her birthday presents and likes to have melt downs when you tell her NO, you have to wait. These are some of the 1000 things she'd like: One Direction stuff, a marriage proposal from Harry Styles, some type of Barbie thing, a FROZEN doll that changes her dress, some cool things, some really awesome things, Monster High, a REAL pony (real as in, it eats grass and you ride it and it poops large mounds of crap on your lawn and your HOA people have aneurysms about it), all the candy she wants, a gigantic chocolate and vanilla birthday cake, a sleepover, lots of cool stuff, fresh pajamas, and a Queasy Bake Oven. (I don't know who taught her to call it a Queasy Bake Oven, but I think whoever did has clearly eaten something baked in one of them.)

This coming weekend, I'll be in Tybee Island with friends. SO excited about this. I don't know how much writing I'll get done, but I do plan to sit on the beach with a notepad and at least concoct one tremendously bad poem. I'm also hoping that walking the beach and collecting sea shells will help me sort myself out. I am finding I need an awful lot of sorting lately, and I don't know where to start. 

...actually, that is untrue. I do know where to start. But I'm reluctant to, and dragging my feet about it. Because it is hard. And I don't do hard very well. (Remember? I like to edit as I go.)

On the plus side, Magic Mike XXL is currently filming in Tybee Island, Georgia. There was a picture in PEOPLE magazine recently of a shirtless Joe Manganiello tossing a ball. WITH NO SHIRT ON (did you get that?). I don't necessarily need to see Joe without a shirt on while I'm there, but it would be nice if he at least tossed his ball and it hit me in the head. And then he felt really bad and was scared I'd sue him, so he took me and my friends out to dinner. And then he gave us all an invitation to the red carpet movie premiere. (Would Jason Isaacs attend that? Shirtless Joe Manganiello is pretty hard to resist, I think.) 

That's all I want: dinner with (shirtless) Joe Manganiello on the beach in Tybee Island. (What did you just say? He has a girlfriend named Sofia? It's just dinner, yo. Plus, I'd bake him dessert in M's Queasy Bake Oven and then he'd know: I am not the one for him.)

I actually had a blog post about why what happens at a kid's home has a direct effect on what happens at school, but it had a lot of swearing in it and was kind of angry. So you got this unfocused mess instead. It's Sunday night and I have a long week of testing ahead of me. Deal with it.