Monday gratitude

Gratitude List:

~new headphones for my nephew
~finding a laser pointer/flashlight combo at the dollar store
~buying a new and excellent color of lipstick
~ginger tea, especially with honey and lime juice
~new quotation in my email signature: "You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you." - Robert Anton Wilson
~creating awesome stories with smart, creative, wonderful friends (if you think I might mean you, I probably do)

Every little bit counts

Gratitude:

~The blogger iOS app lets me edit posts off-line, then post when I have wifi
~finding a pack of plain hair combs for $0.50! The decorated one are always blah to look at and rather spendy
~trying new hair toys (or hair toys I've not used since I was a very little girl
~getting some writing done
~playing a home-brew RPG w/Kiddo

My inner critic is a total meany-head

My inner critic is a total meany-head. That particular part of my psyche tried really, really hard to get me to put off writing until I had an idea or plan that would be worthwhile, since, according to my inner critic, my current plan sucks like the vacuum of space. Even if my inner critic is correct (which is isn't), crap writing is better than no writing at all. You can revise a blank page. My plan is pretty good; my inner critic is factually incorrect.


Gratitude:

~sitting down and writing despite the persistent thought that everything I write is utter crap
~cool morning walkies
~Thrift shops

Independance Day

Happy July 4th!

I didn't end up doing any actual writing today; I hope to make up for it tomorrow :)

Gratitude:

~having the day off work
~Thrift stores, both for good prices and for fun window shopping
~good sausage cooked on a grill
~catching up with friends
~being home to comfort my doggie before the fireworks start
~listening to a beautiful novel beautifully read

Voice!

On Saturday afternoons I create stories with a group of friends. Every other week we play a New World of Darkness game. Of the player characters, 3 are Bound and 1 is a Hunter. My character, Brian Jamison, is one of the Bound.

World of Darkness is a table-top role playing game. The Bound are people who, at the moment of their death, make a Bargain with a spirit. The newly dead person comes back to life, as if waking from a near-death experience, and the spirit tags along. The two are Bound together, sharing psychical space. The spirit is called a Geist, and the revived person the Bound.

In this game I play Brian Jamison. His Geist calls herself Mother Medea and resembles every perfect 50's TV housewife. The irony of having that Geist riding in the psyche of a gay teenaged boy has not been lost :) Make no mistake - Brian died. If he had declined the Bargain, his friends and family would have lost him, he never would have gotten that almost certain football scholarship, and he would never have gotten out of his little home town. The World of Darkness does earn it's name.

When I can, I like to have my characters tell their own story. Being a talkative person, I tend to play talkers :) Brian, though, isn't much of a story teller. He wouldn't write about his experiences for himself nor for posterity. But, he would talk to his girlfriend, Jessica. She's more of a BFF than a romantic interest, of course. They get to hang out, his manly rep is bolstered and she doesn't have to fend off suitors. Brian wouldn't keep a journal - but she would. He's her best friend, confidant, and brother-by-another-mother so she would never share his secrets. But it's hard to know really weird shit is happening and not talk about it - so she talks to her diary. Her voice will let me show you who Brian is in her eyes, which are both caring and realistic. She's not blinded by young romance. She knows Brian better than anyone - probably even Brian himself. Even his parents, who do love him, see him through a filter of their own expectations. Jessica sees the Brian who really exists. If I write well, you'll get to see him, too.

Gratitude:

~finally figured out the right voice for writing Brian's story! I'd been stuck on this for ages
~all the screw-ups at the workplace are either resolved, or well on their way to being resolved - work was much more interesting than I prefer today
~fresh cherries
~I didn't fall out of my chair when I turned to find a crane right outside my office window, although I did spit water down my shirt when the crane dropped the pallet of roofing supplies directly over my office.
~My doggie is the bestest!
~planning crochet projects with Kiddo
~taking nature pictures when the whim strikes

Ending June, Planning July

I seem to be really, really bad at this whole "writing daily" thing. In June I appear to have written actual narrative non-fiction all of 8 times. Still, some writing is better than nothing, and I've learned something from each month's challenge.

In June I (re)learned that writing what's on my mind does good things for my mental/emotional health - Sometimes I need reminders of things I ought to know by now :)

For July I'm work on Game Fiction - writing stuff for and about role playing games :) I've wanted to write about my RPG characters for a while; it's high time I focused on that. Instead of writing a complete thing each day, I'll pick one thing to work on each week, posting my progress daily. Ideally I'll have something readable to post for each week in July :)

My tentative writing plan:

This week: character background for Brian Jamison (nWoD game)
Week of 7/6: character background for Lisbeth Walker (Unisystem Morningstar game)
Week of 7/13: nWoD campaign log/story
Week of 7/20: Morningstar campaign log/story
Week of 7/27: tentative superhero background

Here's the first line for Brian's background:

Telling my father, the minister, that I'm gay just isn't as impressive as telling him I came back from the dead.

~~~
Gratitude List

~bellydance class!
~Nia!
~the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
~excellent customer service at the Apple store
~Seafloor Explorer lets me do a bit of marine biology without changing career :)
~electronics breaking while still under warranty
~My fingernails look good with very little effort
~July's writing plan