zeelandia

Today in poetry class we were suddenly interrupted by a movie they were watching in the room next door.

An odd-sounding voice began a count-down that was at first hard to figure out where the sound was coming from.

Everyone automatically looked right at me.

I guess I have some kind of reputation to uphold now.

...is cleaning.
My room is a mess, my desk is a disaster area. There is barely room for the cats to sit, but they don't care.

Status Report:

Room: Sporting that post-pillage look
Reading: The New Space Opera 2 Anthology
Drinking: Spice tea (you know, the stuff with the tang and instant tea?)
Nails: Russian Navy (this is something new)
bpal: Fenris Wolf
Writing: Not so much today, but will get the words in before bed.

I think that works for a post. Also, cleared off two shelves to make room for more books at work. Figures can hang up, shelves are for books.

I haven't posted in a while because school took a big chunk out of my butt last week. Also, my work schedule was finally upped a bit.
I'm pretty behind in both my nano and jonowrimo goals. I did however reach the 10,000 word escape velocity for one of my in progress works. Yay!

Right now it's a little hard to type since one of the kitties has decided she's awake and really needs to lean between me and the lap top, along with knocking whatever she can off the table.

I feel like I owe the LJ-verse a picture post or something of that manner. So tonight I'll do my best to find something interesting.

It was crazy foggy this morning, gorgeous!

I am beat, but also inspired. My story was finally up for critique and the written/typed crit I got from my prof was like having my literary ass handed to me.

I'm so happy!

Seriously, I would rather someone go in, unravel my story and poke at its tender weak points. I need to vaccinate myself against comma splice as well. ouch. I will admit that it wasn't my best work by far, and the things I figured they'd poke at, they did. Sure it stings a little, but it's the good kind of hurt.

No tiny story tonight. Story tomorrow. There's always a story tomorrow...

(Thanks to boxie it's not an actual story, but something I've been meaning dork around about) 
Everybody has one right? At least I'd like to believe so. It doesn't have to be anything like the usual flying, telepathy and super strength.

But does your secret power have a name? Mine does!

Now the first rule of secret powers like this is that you can't name it yourself, someone else has to name it.

My secret power is a vast and terrifying knowledge of all things weird and trivial. One of my specialties is wonderously horrible scifi/fantasy films of the 70's and 80's. I love them with the heat of a thousand toaster ovens!

Here is the story of how my secret power was named.

So I used to work at an anime company and the art dept had just received art from the Japanese covers of Sunabozu, or Desert Punk. Each one parodied a different movie poster and all of them had been guessed but one; something with crazy armored motorcycles and boxy tanks rolling though the desert.

They were stumped.

Then, Young suggested someone take the cover to show to me, just because he's been subjected to my questionable taste in fine cinema. (Let me just say that a man that will watch Zardoz with you more than once is a man worth keepin!)

"I know this movie! I've seen it! Augh! What is it." Then it came to me.

Megaforce.

So now, anytime I end up knowing the answer to something obscure, my friend Sophie pumps her fists in the air and shouts "MEGAFORCE!"

And that is how my secret power was named.

What's your secret power? (yeah, I know by stating it, it's not much of a secret anymore, but we're all friends here.)

(Now all I need is one of those gold jumpsuits and a sweet headband)

Same as Monday, leave me something to write about, and I will.

Today was dead car battery day. We unhooked the old one, exchanged it, put in the new one and had a "Bring me my brown pants" moment when the car alarm decided it lived once again.

Young: *deftly tightens last battery connection*
Car: HONK!
Both of us: *return from low earth orbit*

So here goes my experiment! I'm not saying they're great, but they certainly were fun! They're pretty much first drafts, I just opened open office and started typing.
First Prompt from bluemalibu

The second from boxie (who I would totally write a Megaforce crackfic for, just cuz)
how about a quickie about a princess that doesn't need a prince to establish her identity.Crystalline tears glittered in the sun as they traced down her porcelain skin. Eyes that were once full of light and life, were now full of sorrow. The thin shift they'd dressed her in clung to every curve of her nubile body. She had stopped struggling hours ago, and now it was only the flowers that adorned her hair, which spilled in copper ringlets down her back, was masking the smell of charred flesh.

She had screamed at the approach of the dragon, but now stared in shocked silence as a girl hopped from the back of the blue-scaled dragon and looked at the smoldering pile with disdain.

“Ugh, It's all a game to them isn't it. The well-muscled ones smell the worst.” She pulled a knife from her belt and approached the wide-eyed captive, “I'm from the PLF, Princess Liberation Front and I'm here to make you an offer.”

“An offer?” The Princess looked over her shoulder as the sounds of metal clicking on metal came from behind her.

“What a bunch of amateurs. Seriously, whatever happened to good old-fashioned knots,” there was a click and the Princess shook the manacles from her slender wrists, “you put up a good fight, I can tell you tried to break a hand there.”

The Princess shrugged her ivory shoulders, “I didn't know what else to do. You said you had an offer?”

“Yes, join our front and free others such as yourself, you'll get decent clothes,” She cut her eyes to the flimsy shift and walked over her mount to grab a long jacket that she flung over to the Princess, “and learn to ride a dragon.” She grinned and pushed a lock of sandy hair from her eyes.

The Princess sighed, confusion written across her high cheekbones and reflecting in her violet-amber eyes.

“You'll be better written.” She said, waving a bit of prince jerky at the dragon as it bent to have it's ear tufts scritched.

“I'm in.”

I feel like I'm getting rusty* and would like to do some kind of writing exercise. I know there are thousands of prompts online but I'm hoping for something a little more organic. Also something that will make me feel a little more beholden to stretch those writing muscles. So I'd like to strike a deal with anyone reading this.

Every day this week I will post a little update and I'd like for you to supply me with some kind of prompt. It could be a picture, 5 words, or even "write a story about the picture in my icon"

In exchange, by midnight(central) each night, I'll have a short story posted up that uses that prompt.

Help me out please! Leave something in the comments and I'll get to work!

(If you consider working on 4 different story projects at once rusty. I guess what I'm looking for is a little variety break every day.)

All weekend I've been ripping my hair out trying to do a poem for class.
Then suddenly, I remembered that crazy idea about a sestina that followed the Fibonacci numbers I had about a semester ago. (Only to later find out that Sherman Alexie has written one! *SWOON*)

I decided that the original idea was a bit beyond my scope for something that needed to be done soon, so I just went with the numbers. The poem was done in about 15 minutes, can't say that it was any good, but at least it's done and I'm not too embarrassed by it.

Also pulled 548 words out of nowhere for Stray. YAY!

I did it! I sent out two more poems. One went to Electric Velocipede, because damnit, I want to be rejected by the best! The other to JuiceBox because I've enjoyed what I've read there and it would be nice to end up over there.

I think I read their submission guidelines pages until my eyes bled*. I'm not kidding.

*I'm still nervous that I screwed something up.

Yesterday in my poetry writing class we critiqued a poem titled "Singularity". I didn't bring it up much, even when I'd compared another guy's poem on Tuesday with Black Holes and the way time slows down with someone when you're infatuated with them.

I think this guy was REALLY hoping that I'd say something, but in the words of Inigo Montoya, "I do not think it means what you think it means."

Then this happened:

Guy: Well, I was watching the Discovery Channel and it was thing about super strings and stuff that I didn't get at all. But the Singularity is the Big Bang.
Me: *hand raise* It's also used to describe the point in time when machines develop a consciousness
Giant ceiling-mounted projector: I LIVE!!! (It just came on, like on cue and was projecting a blank blue screen onto the chalkboard. I didn't notice until the whole class suddenly freaked out.)
Class: OMG!!!!!!
Me: *turns to girl in seat next to me* WHERE IS SARAH CONNOR?
:D

That projector has a huge lens so it was very HAL 2000.*

*Did I mention yapping about 2001 Space Odyssey later in class? Well, you write a poem about mermaids on Jupiter and it's bound to come up.

I woke up bright and ugly this morning at my usual 5am for work. I go in and our mgr warns me that next week's schedule is going to be pretty tight since corporate has whittled down our hours to not only skeletal, but damn near ghostly.

I clock in and go around the corner to check out the schedule. I had to double check that today was the 28th, and sure enough...

So I go tell mgr and I'm back in my car and driving home in dark. On one hand I'm happy for the extra free time and sleep I was able to get, especially after a long weekend of clearing out a storage building, but on the other hand the usual annoyance at the ever-changing schedule.

Please pardon my grumping, while I do love working with books I just know I need to move on to the next tier, which I'm working on. I want to work in publishing, even if for now it's just reading someone's slush, making copies and doing mail. Writing copy is something else I have a decent amount of experience in doing. It was never my actual job, but where I worked you did a huge list of everything else in addition to what was considered your actual title.

I just feel all discombobulated today. Then again, it is a Monday.

Hmmm...one hour until Sonic happy hour, now there's something to look forward to.

Dear little works in progress,

Get your butts in gear! You can't let this doofy vampire story I'm writing as a dare overshadow your greatness! You guys are destined to be novel-length! You're my darlings, why are you sleeping so late? I know I've been pantsing a good deal of you, but I guess we're just going to have to go over WIP#1's outline again and finally, painfully outline WIP#2

Seriously guys, it's a vampire story, and a short story at that!

Love and groveling,
Me

I did my 2000 words today!

*electric boogaloo!*

Now I go look at cute boots. Autumn puts me in the mood to look at cute things. Cute things you just can't wear when it's 100 degrees. :P

Tights!
Jackets!
Cute boots!
Sweaters!

I love cool weather.

Okay self, get back to writing and stop looking at cute dresses and skirts online.

2000 words or finish the draft and you can stop at Joanns after the RCM signing and buy yourself some fabric to make the skirt yourself.

That or Goodwill, pick your poison.

Now guzzle that coffee and get it done! RAH! RAH! RAH!

It may not sound like much to some people, but I did 2046 words today! I'm going to see if I can keep this up until next Friday. Goodness knows I have enough projects that need it.

I feel like I'm making up for lost time.

Maybe it's the rain.

Also, just so you know, coffee can save you from vampires. It's true!

Lastly, a new icon to celebrate with.

Home from Dragon*Con, now I sleep surrounded by kitties.

When I moved to California for a few years I didn't realize that not everywhere gets huge wrath-of-God thunderstorms.

Case in point:

Storm in Cali:
SKY: *glows a little here and there*
Young: *goes out to take pictures*
Me: *CONNIPTION FIT* OMG YOU'RE GOING TO BE STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!!! *major overreaction* *Grover-worthy-freak-out*
Young: What is wrong with you woman?

Storm in Tx
SKY: *cloud to ground lightningX300* OVER9000!!! I HAVE COME FOR YOUR BABIES!!!
Young: Oooooooh!
Me: See! See! I'm not a freak!

The weather here is like part of the terrain it's so intense. I never even realized that to people that haven't grown up with storms like this that it's almost like something out of a movie, like visiting a new planet.

My other favorite thing about these storms is to watch them sail across the prairie in weightless fleets.

Oh coffee, sometimes it's the thing that will get to me work in the morning. I love the almost meditative process of showing up at work and making that first pot of coffee.

It doesn't even have to be good coffee, as long as it's warm.

If I'm feeling flush, I'll get a mocha. Mmmm.

Another reason I don't like the warm months all that much, not as many good excuses to go get something warm to drink. Come on Fall!

But coffee, bless it, it gets my butt in gear.

The best things in life are free and one of them was Big Kitty. He just showed up at our apt one cold November day and decided he'd stay. For the first week or two he slept out on the patio, after the second night I had made him a more-or-less insulated box to sleep in. We thought he was just visiting, as apartment cats do, but no, Big Kitty (or Happy Kitty) had come to stay.

Yes, he really is named Big Kitty, says so on his glittery gold collar. We didn't expect him to stay, so we didn't actually name him.

Big Kitty's Top Five Favorite things:
1. EATING!
2. Sleeping on his back, showing off his goods.
3. The Ladies (he likes to be sneaky and put his paw on yer boob)
4. Going outside to poop in the mulch
5. Being let in 5 minutes later.

Big Kitty is also pretty great for my job. He had saved me from missing work due to poor alarm setting, or sleeping though by waking me up a precisely 5:47 every morning. (well, almost every morning)

He also snores quite cutely.

Big Kitty is Big. (He's trying to sleep on top of my computer)