I Can Explain.

How a man can sing that high without having his junk tightly in someone’s grasp is beyond me.

But that’s not the point. I posted this video because – my penchant for old-school R&B aside – I want to demonstrate that I have reasons for why I ain’t posted shit in almost three fucking weeks.

…’cept some of these reasons are personal. Which means I can’t explain everything. So, maybe I’d be better off saying that I have legitimate reasons, instead of the usual excuses. Sure, procrastination was a little bit of a factor, but I’d say less than 5% of the issue. Because believe me, I itched to write. I yearned to write. I just didn’t have the time to do so. There were other things I had to attend to that were of a higher priority than writing. My writing is, after all, my first love, so that tells you how important those other things were.

And that’s when things started getting out of control. So I started taking some over-the-counter caffeine pills to keep me alert so I could deal with all the things I had to do, including fulfill my part as one-third of the group The Hot Fudge Sundaes which included my high-school chums, Lisa Tuttle and Kelly Kapowski, and ace all my exams so I could get into Stanford. But the pills just made things worse; made me terribly hyper, but I didn’t stop. Not even when my boyfriend, A.C. Slater – who, by the way, has the most fabulous dimples and of course, the hottest mullet at Bayside High – discovered the caffeine pills in my backpack after I promised him I’d stop taking them. I didn’t realize I had a problem until I fell asleep the night of my big audition and my best friend, Zack Morris, woke me up, after which I went beserk, screaming that I never had time to do anything. Then when Zack told me it was too late to go to the audition I told him I was fine and started singing The Pointer Sister’s “I’m So Excited” off-key and at the top of my lungs but I guess the drugs were still affecting me, because instead of “excited” I said “scared” and dissolved into hysterical tears. But then Zack hugged me and told me that I’d get through it, referencing a time when we’d snuck out to see E.T. when we were kids and I was scared we wouldn’t make it back without getting caught but we got through it so I could get through my addiction to “Revive it with Vivarin.” And I did! So much so that I moved on to an off-off-Broadway show in Vegas (?) where I showed my tittays, licked a pole, made out with Gina Gershon and had the most bizarre sex scene evah with Kyle McLaughlin.

Ahem.

That – sorta – explains the lack of posts. But there’s also the changed template. Overall, I must’ve changed it about sixteen times, but in the past month: at least three. So I settled for the default template until I figured I’d find one that tickled my fancy, which obviously hasn’t happened, because I decided that – at least for now, because I’m terribly fickle – the simplicity of the current one puts the focus on my words without any distractions, design wise, which at the end of the day is the most important thing of all.

And now for some pre-emptive explaining: if you’ve cruised my blog before, you may have noticed that I write a story for every holiday/occasion. Sometimes, said stories get published late, but nevertheless, they get completed. But my last story was an exception: it was a Good Friday story that I actually posted on GOOD FRIDAY. But Good Friday was also Earth Day, and I intended to post a story about that.  I swear! I’m halfway through it. But that’s exactly the moment I got busy.

So let’s tally up all the late-in-the-game holiday stories I have yet to post:

• Earth Day
• Mother’s Day
• Easter
• (and as of tomorrow) Friday the 13th

But I can’t post them quite yet; they’re gonna be later than late. You know why? ‘Cause I still gotta finish The Bitches.

GAAAAH fuck it, I’m going back on those goddamned caffeine pills.

All Aboard The Procrastination Train!

“Well EXCUSE ME for having enormous personal flaws that I refuse to work on!”- Homer Simpson.

Woo woo!

Let’s tally up the list, shall we?

1. When I started this blog, I said I wouldn’t procrastinate. Then I did.
2. I said I was going to enter some contests I found in The Canadian Writer’s Market – but I didn’t.
3. I said I’d write one story per week. HA!
4. I said that the next story I wrote would be based on advice (not an exercise or spark word) from The Writer’s Block. Didn’t do it.
5. I said I was going to complete NaNoWriMo. Something tells me you already know the answer to that one.
6. I said a whole lot of other crap, too.
7. Which brings us to the latest, in which I said I’d enter the Toronto Star Short Story Contest. Well guess what? Yoooou’ve got it!

I guess you can say I have a pattern. And it’s not pretty.

Actually, that’s not true. My pattern still sucks bit I deviated from it just a tad. While I failed to enter the contest once again, I did finish the story, which I mentioned in  a previous post.

…I[am going to] work on a Family-Day themed story. I now have a holiday category, as I have decided to write a story for each holiday. (Sorry for insulting your intelligence; I know that was pretty self-explanatory.) But much like the other two stories in there so far, it’s going to be written and published after the fact. Also, it’ll incorporate one of the exercises from The Writer’s Block…

I would have posted it even if I hadn’t entered the contest – even though I said I wouldn’t. You see? Again with the lack of DOING WHAT I SAID I’D DO.

Anyway, I still find at least a little comfort in the fact that I finished yet another story (despite its GIANT plot holes). As I’ve said before, I’m the QUEEN of starting but not finishing stories. Hell, in the past if I’d known I wasn’t going to make the contest deadline, I MOST DEF wouldn’t have finished the story. So I’m still halfway there but have a long way to go when it comes to following through. But thanks to this blog, I’m really beginning to learn this lesson, although I feel like I should’ve learned it a long time ago. Is it harder to execute than it seems or am I just lazy? Bad habits may be hard to break but that doesn’t mean they can’t be broken. Like I said – I finished the story, and of course, the other ones on this blog, so I’m making progress. But now it’s time to take the next step.

Speaking of my most recent short story, I’ve mentioned that it was based on a spark word exercise from The Writer’s Block. I’ve also mentioned, in a previous post, that it’s the first Writer’s Block exercise I’ve done in ages. So I’ve found a solution for this – which will mean that Lord Help The Sister That Comes Between Me And My Mister will be the last one from The Writer’s Block. Details to come…when they come. Don’t want to make any more promises that I won’t keep!

The Incredible Lightness of Bee-ing

Since I started this blog, it’s seemed to take on a life of its own.

Originally, I intended to use it as a vehicle to challenge myself by completing every exercise in The Writer’s Block.

Then I started the Stranger Than Fiction segment.

Then I took one of the WB exercises and also made it a regular segment.

Then I started posting short stories I’d written years ago.

Then I decided to write about the books I’ve been reading.

And NOW I’ve started getting ideas – lots of them – for short stories not related to the exercises in The Writer’s Block.

Despite all of that, I DO intend to complete The Writer’s Block (it’s just going to take a little longer). So, as you can see, I’ve made a page exclusively for this purpose: to separate it from the rest of the crap on this blog.

Hopefully, I’ll get back to this project one of these days because, as I said, I have a LOT of short stories I want to write, and I want to write them right away. Lately fiction has been absent on my blog and I would like to change that.

This also means that I once again have to (ok, I don’t HAVE to, I just WANT to) push my novella to February. (Please click the goddamned link ‘cos I’m too lazy to explain the sordid history of this).

Also, please don’t lecture me on my inability to follow through. Because I am very aware of that. Plus, my mother already berated scolded mentioned that she was disappointed that I’ve postponed (I have not stopped) working on it. I started to make excuses, then stopped and listened to her because my new thing is to not make lame-ass excuses.

She told me that I was like a was a wasp…and I swear I was listening, but I don’t quite remember what she meant when she said that. I think it was something about wasps and when they do whatever they do when they’re working, they go from one project to another without finishing the one before it. Unlike the bees, who stick to a project until it’s complete. (Which is weird that I’m not like the bees, because my name means honeybee in Greek and I have a bee tattooed on my left calf).

After my mother’s analogy, I responded in a most mature fashion: I told her that I was NOT a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. She shook her head, and the conversation was over.

Just Call Me Charlie Brown.

Last week I bought a Charlie Brown mug to bring to work. Nothing unusual about that of course, except I already have two mugs currently taking residence in my desk. Not to mention that I already have about a million mugs in my kitchen cabinet. (It’s safe to say that I have tea, not blood, running through my veins.) So this was definitely not a purchase of necessity, though I think about 5% of the purchases I make actually ARE of necessity.

But I think it goes without saying that I bought this mug because I love Charlie Brown; I have since I was a kid. I didn’t just read the comics in the newspaper; I used to read the comic books – took out stacks and stacks of ’em from the library. Why? Because I related to Charlie Brown. I was (and in some ways, still am) Charlie Brown. Socially awkward; didn’t fit in anywhere; had good intentions but always managed to screw up; let shyness, insecurity and self-doubt get the best of me…and of, course, always fell for it when that bitch Lucy promised not to pull away the football.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Blog Must Go On!

Melissa MAD! Melissa SMASH!

While I was working on my latest story – which was almost 4000 words and counting – I lost the entire thing. I’m not entirely sure how – I was saving it quite often – but all of a sudden it went from roughly 3800 words to 0. I guess I have no one to blame but myself – I was typing it directly on WordPress. I guess I should have composed it on Word because I would have been able to retrieve it somehow. And it hurt like a mofo ’cause I REALLY liked the story. (Some tears may or may not have been involved).

But dwelling on my loss isn’t gonna bring my story back. So I’m going to man up….or woman up….and rewrite it. Maybe it won’t be as good as the original; maybe it will be even better. The point is, I’m not going to let this incident stop me from writing. A few years ago, even months ago, it would’ve. But not anymore.

So what I’m going to do is finish The Wrath of Don, then post the rewrite.

The blog must go on.

Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Break My Stride!

I’ve been a bad, bad blogger.

(and not for once again, butchering another 80s classic)

When I started this blog…well, when I started this blog, I promised not to procrastinate, but then I did. Okay. So the second time I started this blog, I was actually following through; writing like gangbusters, like never before!

Why, oh why didn’t anyone tell me that there was a honeymoon period for writing? Because damn, did I ever hit a wall. The Wrath of Don was going really well. Then I got to the third part and BAM! Hit the bricks. So I decided to take a break from it and work on another piece, which was going well and BAM! More bricks. And then I started getting busy. Having less time for the blog. My days became fuller, and when I finally found time to write, I was insanely tired, and tapped out creatively.

But those are half-truths: I realized that they were partial excuses for not writing because it wasn’t coming as easy as it used to; that the little work I’d done on here had been a fluke, and I was back to my writing rut. But that was also not true and yet another excuse to let insecurity and lack of faith stop me from following through. I know I say FOLLOWING THROUGH a lot but it’s a personal obstacle I am fighting to overcome. The only thing worse than not following through on promises to others is not to fulfill promises to yourself. Especially when you have the means to do so; all you need to do is conjure up the will.

Which is THE reason why I stopped writing, and the reason why I haven’t completed a writing piece in years. But I’ve grown sick of my procrastination, my defeatist attitude, my demands from perfection from myself – all roadblocks to my goals, set up from no one by myself. But the thing is – and I don’t care if this sounds arrogant – that I am a good writer, so it makes no sense to not write, to waste my talent for no good reason whatsoever. It’s natural to be scared, uncertain, unmotivated, etc. – but that shouldn’t stop anyone going after what they want. I figure I can feel those things as I’m writing.

Even when I’m not feeling particularly inspired. WORST EXCUSE EVER. If you wait to be “inspired”, you’ll be waiting a long time and before you know it, it’ll be too late. Really, it’s a bullshit excuse. Even when I’ve used it myself I knew it was crap. The best thing I learned in my creative writing classes back in university were free writing exercises. It would be eight in the morning and the professor would force us to start writing something, anything, just to get the juices flowing. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Also: we had to do it at the least motivating time of day, barely awake, not yet infused with caffeine. So what if we came up with crap? No one comes out with a perfectly polished piece straight out of the gate: that’s why they call it a FIRST DRAFT.

Long story short (yay! puns!): I’m back at it and I’m not going to stop. There will be times where I’m writing voraciously and others where it will be sporadic, but the blog will go on. I’m fully committed to this; no longer am I going to fall back on my bad habits (procrastination, laziness, distractions) or self-doubt. Even if no one in the world ever reads this blog, it won’t matter: I’m doing something I love; I’m demonstrating that I have faith in myself, and most of all: I’M FOLLOWING THROUGH.

As for the aforementioned pending writing pieces: I will complete them. The Wrath of Don will continue, but seeing that it’s turning out to be a longer piece than I’d anticipated, and since I’m writing it in parts, I’m just going to go on ahead with the rest of the exercises in The Writer’s Block concurrently.

And now I’m off to write! Expect a new short story shortly. While you wait, say “short story shortly” five times fast.