Not sure this is what they meant by employee empowerment...

Now, I doubt anyone except my boss reads this, but just in case...

My boss at my day job has been my best friend since we were eight. She's been my bestie for literally 2/3 of my lifespan and to this day, (fck if I know why,) puts up with and helps me fight through all my sht. She's like a sister I actually like, and I don't know what I'd do without her behind me. I now I work for her. Fck me, right? (Kidding. It's actually great. Even though she pelts me with stale bagels if I don't refill the dairy dispenser.)

We're this tight. And just as Irish, kehd.

I'm obviously Renner, Shan.

Coke and XBox.
Or... Tacos and Steam.

Anyway, during downtime between crazed coffee craving hordes, I mentioned to her how much I've been reading; about 2-3 books a week. And she asked me, "Why don't you like, write? Three books a week?" While I quickly rebuffed that question with the inevitability of any effort to do so literally killing me, girl made a valid point.

I've been seriously neglecting my writing for far too long. Things in my life have been turbulent, but it's coming around to a sense of reluctant acceptance and apathetic balance. And that's where I need to be to write. I know, I know, the best material and inspiration comes from times of emotional vulnerability, but I think it becomes too personal when I write in that frame of mind. I find it works better for me, and my imaginary friends, if I revisit those feelings for inspiration, rather than immediately refine them into literary babbling.

I want to go on the Martha's Vineyard writer's retreat next year. It's a week on the Vineyard, where I've never been, (I'm a bad Masshole!) with room, board, and a week of workshops and seminars and an option to have a manuscript read and reviewed by published authors. While I probably won't know who any of them are, and more than probably won't have read anything they've written, it certainly wouldn't hurt to get a professional and established eye to look over my garbage.

Nothing more inspiring than wood sculptures of sea murder!
I'm Rhody at heart. And we know all about this sht.

Until then, I need like a day or two off, (see that, boss?! LOL No, J/K, I need money.) to just apply ass to chair and get sht done. I've coached a Facebook friend on his writing and find that I should take my own damn advice. I told him that all first drafts are shit, and the best thing you can do is lay out the staging for the figurative mansion. And each rework of that draft staging is adding more wings, more secret passages, sprucing the garden, bathing and feeding the servants properly... wait, you mean rich people don't have indentured servants anymore? ... Oh.

I figure I'd oblige the internet by using a meme to illustrate a common comment;

(Translation; Original Poster is a fag.)

I think I'm going to finish reading what I just started today, the series I have the first book of, then read something I bought with intent to inspire further work on my NaNoWriMo project, and get to it. So... two weeks?

Reading, will read, inspiration.

         <--- Wicked stoked for this one.               

- RaRa out.

Yay, 2015. Let's get this rolling.

ALRIGHT WELL.

So, I bet the one person that reads this blog aside from me will want an official update on NaNoWriMo2014. Well, I did it. My official total was 50,235 words.

Sort of.

The story I attempted was only moderately planned out ahead of time, and was written strictly chronologically, in an allotted two hours per night, from 11 pm to approximately 2:30 am. As most ideas tend to do, it flourished, changed, and warped as I went, and I had a serious main character crisis. So I decided to make this story a duology, in that it will be the same plot, from two different perspectives, in two separate books. Similarly, I've decided to crisscross timelines with my other main series and it's planned spin off, as some events happen simultaneously and are as relevant as any other plot points. Confused? Yeah, imagine having 15+ separate, defined personalities inside your head at all times that occasionally break through into real life.

But anyway. The main body of the NaNo story (the chronological, planned, and slightly polished final word count,) was approximately 18,000 words. BUT, here's where the "winner!" part comes in. I learned, from other WriMos, that at the end, when it comes to tally the counts, they add in random but related non sequential scenes, outlines, and bits of dialogue or character bios. So, technically, it's kind of cheating. BUT. It's all directly involved with the main story, so I'll consider my first attempt at NaNoWriMo a success. A cheap, cheating success, BUT DAMMIT I WANTED A DISCOUNT ON SCRIVENER.

The struggle is real.

I love this project. It's two female main characters. One, a gender fuck/fluid but biologically assigned female, the other, a strong, independent and resourceful yet definitely feminine biological and identifying female. It's a challenge for me to not write a male main character, as society has conditioned even me to lean toward masculine protagonists and more defined male characters as selling points or engaging story driving characters. And dammit, that needs to change. I think writing one strictly female, more passive character, and one who is more androgynous simultaneously in the same arc will help me figure out what works and what doesn't, because dammit, it's hard to write from a perspective with which you don't necessarily easily identify. BUT. Women are people too, and I want to join the authors that are trying to facilitate the expansion of valid, interesting, marketable characters.

Kameron Hurley pretty much nails it. Also, her book is totes on my TBR list. ... Which is a million books long. Dammit. I should work on that...

BTW. READING THIS:

YOU SHOULD TOO.
Or Kail won't bring your mother out for a nice dinner the next time he booty calls her.

Review to come. :3

- RaRa out.