Tiffany Rambles

Yes, it's true. This is my personal blog, so I honestly don't care if telling you about my monetary situation is in bad taste. I'm not even an adult on my own yet and bills are already killing me. This whole starving artist crap is really starting to get to me, that's for sure. I can't afford my phone bill. I can barely afford to see a CPA for my business and pay my monthly Aweber newsletter bill. I would love to buy a printer/fax machine/copier/scanner, but I know I won't be able to buy it for a while. Hell, more importantly, I need to find out how I'm supposed to pay for college and a car.

I'm trying to be a trooper about this, but it is so very hard to get a part-time job (and I'm applying everywhere. I used to have 'standards,' like I thought I would never apply to McDonald's, but now I don't care) and a stready stream of clients.

What I like the least about this starving artist thing, beside not having any money, is just that it's starting to feel like I'm doing things more and more out of a desperation for money.

Now, now, I'm not saying that I do things for money. In the business of writing and editing, that sounds greedy and like I'm undervaluing the services, but I'm not. I promise. I love editing and writing and reading and promoting. I do those things because I do them best and because they make me happy. But I really do need to start making some more money soon, somewhere, someway (legally).

On another note, my mind is still a story factory. It sucks all around that I haven't been writing fiction. I've been writing plenty of self-help nonfiction, yes, and I do enjoy it because I enjoy the idea of helping other fellow writers, but fiction is a totally different game. From the minute I wake up to the minute I sleep, stories play out in my head. Characters, new and old, talk to me. I smile at scenes as though they were memories. I zone out and cease to exist as nothing but a storyteller.

So, basically, right now I'm a 'poser' writer, but I at least wanted to make it clear that I have NOT given up. Here's a hilarious song and a depressing song. Enjoy!

You know, sometimes you just have one of those days where damn near everything that can go wrong seems to go wrong. Take today, for instance...

• My laptop got a virus. I don't know how. All I know is that it happened super fast and threw me off guard. I generally take good care of my electronics. Hell, I'm one of those snobs who don't understand how anyone could let their computers become virus infested with so many free, wonderful opportunities like Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG, Adblocker and CCleaner when, in actuality, they just may not be aware of those services. The fact that someone has a virus infested computer shouldn't lead to an assumption about their personality. Anyway, my laptop got a virus and wouldn't turn on for about five minutes. I rage cried and realized that if I had to buy a new laptop, that'd take all my car savings. However, my computer performed a basic recovery and everything is working fine now...except I no longer have my music, documents, pictures, or favorites. Thousands and thousands of stuff I loved was lost. Fortunately, I'm an e-mail hoarder and could save some of the stuff I lost (for instance, a whole draft of my novel Savior of the Damned and the books I need to review), but that's the price I should pay for not being smart enough to back my shit up ages ago.
• My phone froze and blacked out on me right as a potential client messaged me on Twitter to say that they were considering my editing services. I had to completely take the battery out.
• My Kindle would not let me type a status on Facebook. I'd hit the letters and numbers on my touch screen and nothing would happen at all.

Mind you, all of those things happened back-to-back. However, after all of that, I'm still hopeful. I have Matthew (our one year anniversary was yesterday) and my business stats are steadily progressing (my Alexa stats are finally in the hundred thousands instead of the millions, I have 10 subscribers to my newsletter, and I have 60+ page likes).

Today I'm writing for five hours - one hour each for this blog, Reader's Den, my marketing book, scholarships/contests, and Cracked (oh yeah, I'm now a writer for Cracked! It's like a dream come true. My firsy paying gig) - and I'm actually very excited! It's been a while since I just sat down like this and created content.

Hopefully, my next post will be a continuation of my Cool Things about the Internet series. Maybe I'll talk about Googling yourself or maybe I'll talk about TV Tropes. TV Tropes sounds more appealing though.

Anyway, heres an amusing vid (so much passion!) and a song I currently really like (I don't know why).

I had a weird dream/nightmare last night. Half of it took place in my room, and the other half took place on a boat. See, I don't like boats and, at least to my knowledge, nor does anyone in my family. I can't swim all too well, and the idea of being surrounded by loads of water scares me for the same reason that being surrounded by the sky does (yknow, airplanes) - the uncertainty, the knowledge that everything surrounding me is huge enough to swallow me whole.

I don't really remember the half that took place in my room, 'cept that half was less interesting than the water half anyway and was probably just about the problems I'm having with my family. In the water half of the dream, I had a cousin who lived on a boat and all my family was there for...some reason. There was a window on the boat where, if you looked from a certain angle, the clouds would spiral open and reveal the kingdom of heaven. When approaching the window, the image of heaven would shift into a mass of destroyed boats covered with dead bodies.

I...don't know what that's about. Maybe the boat is like that boat/yacht from Triangle and trying to approach heaven from ze magical boat is a fool's errand?

Nearing the end of the dream, I separated from the family to write and read. This is something I often do at family events. I just can't help it. Like my nightmare was scripted by a bunch of horror writers, me separating from everyone trapped me in an area where the only way I could escape was jumping into all that damn water. I turned back. No door. No walls. I was on a raft, and all I could do was jump.

So I sissied out and woke up in a deep sweat instead.

This dream probably means that I'm holding back and I need to learn how to jump into the unknown or some shit like that. Or maybe I just need to learn how to swim? Ah, probably.

Now that I'm done sharing that dream (I just had to. That image of the clouds spiraling apart to reveal a bright image of heaven was just...wow, beautiful. I can't get it out of my mind, and I'm not even religous, though I'm not an atheist either. It's like that time me and Matthew were lying on his floor after wrestling and the light from his window shined on his face at just the right moment to make him glow. Jeez, I was mesmerized like a total spazz), it's time to talk about other things. Like, more professional things. Let me switch back to my professional voice and get out of this foul-mouthed vernacular that I hide for...whatever reason.

I am going to self-publish a how-to guide on marketing for writers. It won't be the absolute everything guide on marketing. Instead, it'll be a guide of al the things I've learned and tried over the years. I realized I had a lot to say about marketing and promotion when I wrote 'Market Your Book Without Emptying Your Bank Account' for Rhemalda's blog.

Now, I know I said I was publishing a workbook for writers, a checklist of sorts, on my 'Support Honest Crits' page. After summarizing the marketing book and the workbook, I realized that the workbook would take me muuuuuch longer to write and research than the marketing book, and I want the book published in 3 months. The sales from this book will go to the business and my education, but I only have five months to at least figure out how I'll get the semester out of the way.

Here I am, switching gears again. Have you heard of that Lucky 7 meme? Well, here are the rules:

The Lucky 7 Meme Rules• Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
• Go to line 7
• Copy down the next 7 lines--sentences or paragraphs--and post them as they're written. No cheating.

Because my story is separated by chapter numbers and not in one full document, I don't know what page 77 is. Instead of going to page 77, I went to chapter 7 of Savior of the Damned's 4th edit. Here are the next 7 lines after line 7.:

The blinding white light at the top was always out of reach. The steps were disintegrating faster than I could run. If someone didn't acknowledge my screams for help, I would fall.

My mom, almost angelic in image, appeared in the doorway. I grabbed tight hold of her hand. Afterward, the basement became a replica of hell, with fire everywhere and monster hands dancing around a colossal hand with a mouth instead of an eye.

"Mom, you can help me up now."

"Shut up you demon spawn."

And here it is from the original draft, the one I wrote when I was a freshman in high school:

When I first met him he gave the impression of being a very talkative person, but, then again, second expressions are seldom exactly like the first.

Augustine’s footsteps stopped, and mines stopped shortly after his. We were now at the door to the house. My mind was still blank. I found I couldn’t make myself think. Why couldn’t I make myself think about anything? It was just...fog.

Augustine began to talk. “Levi Haze, if you’re eating then”—

“I am not,” he interrupted. “You know I’m not. Now bring her in already. I already told you how important this was.”

If you made it all the way to the end of this loooong past, here's a congratulations for you. This video just cracks me up. Here's the explanation, explained courtesy of good old TV Tropes:


And here's a song I really like.



February 2012 - the most active month for Honest Crits/Reader's Den

A couple of days ago, I finished reading a great book for writers and small business owners called "Business Tips and Taxes for Writers." The section on record keeping talked about spreadsheets and the importance of consistently recording a business's finances. At first, I was a bit bleh about this method of record keeping. I'd never used a spreadsheet before.

But, when I stayed up until 2 AM recording my income and expenses for Honest Crits, I learned that I loved spreadsheets and seeing exactly where the money from and for Honest Crits/Reader's Den goes. As of lately, most of the money has been going to my office and research, and more people pay for the Promotion Plan than anything else. Of course, this all makes sense. My business is not at a point where I'm actually making any profit. The money I make from the business goes to the business. Pretty soon, though, the money I make from the business will go toward college as well.

I have five months to figure out how I'm supposed to pay for college. All four years is about 28,000, so one year is roughly 7k. I already have 800 (which is really only enough money to pay for one class and a half -_-). When I went to IUB for the summer and the first semester, I worked my ass off and did almost 2 scholarships a week for months. I won enough money to pay off the first year and parts of the other 4 years. Because of a scholarship mix-up, I still ended up having to take out a $2500 loan to pay off the first year. Already, I have loan money that is building interest.

So this is the plan that I've come up with to help pay for college: Sure, little-by-little, I'm making more money with my business. But I could be making more. I need to change my editing prices; I need to better promote my websites so that I can offer advertising; I need to enter into more writing contests and freelance for paying markets; I want to self-publish a helpful book for writers; I want to make a donation page.

It'll be stressful, I know, but the best way to push myself is to push myself. If I tell myself that the money I make with my business will help pay for college, at least the first year and a half, then I'll have even more incentive to work harder. Whatever doesn't get paid for with business or scholarship money will have to be paid for with loans (ick). Because I have to spend these next five months working specifically on Honest Crits and Reader's Den (when college starts, most of my Honest Crits services won't be open. I don't want to make college even harder on myself), I'm officially taking a break from working on my novels.

So, what'll I be doing in college? I plan on getting a Bachelor of Arts in Human Resources and minoring in English: Writing. A B.A. is perfect for me. There's not much math and science, and getting into the business school at Purdue University Calumet is nowhere near as hardcore as getting into the business school at Indiana University Bloomington. If you fit the qualifications, you get in.

Yep, that's all.

Okay, so the Snowflake Method isn't new. I first learned about it about six or seven years ago, when I was big on writing high fantasy and found the idea of planning a whole story and world very overwhelming (I found it overwhelming in the seventh grade and I still find it overwhelming as a freshman in college, which is why I've put all my high fantasy stories in a dusty box in the back of my closet).

I still remember preteen me sitting on the floor, filling page-after-page of my flimsy notebook with notes on the plot and characterization. I actually finished all of the steps. Unfortunately, preteen me abandoned that story when she realized she loved horror and wanted to delve into stories about the supernatural world.

Still, I never forgot about the Snowflake Method. It was a lot of fun to do and very insightful. Now, years later, young adult me is using it again - this time for a story I've already written and rewritten about five times (Savior of the Damned) and a brand new story I haven't started on yet (Dream Catcher). The snowflake method is helpful for both stories you've already written and stories you plan to write.

For instance, I really struggled with Step 2 of the method for Savior of the Damned. I realized the middle of my story didn't really have a defined act, a second major disaster. And, while it's okay that not all stories follow the three-act structure, I realized adding a major disaster in the middle - emotional disasters, as of now - would only enhance the plot overall. Had I not done the Snowflake Method just because I've already finished SotD, I may have never come to that conclusion.

Plus, me and the boyfriend brainstormed a wonderful one-sentence series summary and first book summary.

Series Summary: The Savior of the Damned leads supernatural creatures in a war against an all-powerful demon.

Book One Summary: An ex-drug addict travels within her mind to clear inner demons and become a goddess.

Now, about this info overload and consistency stuff. For me, they go hand-in-hand. When the year started, I made a big deal about unsubscribing to a bunch of newsletters and blogs. So I did. And, three months in, I've started subscribing to stuff again. People, this is a problem. I think I'm an info junkie. And I think there's a thin line between an info junkie and a procrastinator.

What doesn't help matters is that, instead of checking my e-mails once a week, I've instead decided to check 25 e-mails a day. 25 e-mails when each of those 25 e-mails are FULL of 5+ articles on writing, blogging, marketing, and editing is way too much info for everyday, definitely when you consider I'm also reading many more articles and blogs outside of my e-mails.

There's a such thing as trying to cram too much knowledge into your mind. It's overwhelming. Writing after reading all of those articles is much more stressful because all the things I've just learned are fresh on my mind, bothering me while I'm in the middle of writing a sentence. Then consistency is ruined. I find myself constantly wanting to keep up with these articles and posts, but there's just too many.

Because I'm a coach and an editor, it's great that I keep tabs on the writing world, but there needs to be a limit for both the sake of my sanity and my productivity. So I think I'll need to go back to checking e-mails once a week or once every two weeks.

Now I leave you with the first episode of Charlie the Unicorn and the song playing on my playlist as of now.

Last summer, I lived in a dorm in Indiana University Bloomington, took classes, and went to a number of meetings courtesy of the scholarship I'd gotten. It wasn't easy, that's for certain, but I knew it wouldn't be easy from the get-go. Three things in particular made it especially hard for me.

1.) Before this, I'd never been so far from home, let alone for such a long amount of  time. I didn't want to admit it, maybe because I like to see myself as an independent individual very capable of doing well enough on my own with the right resources, but I was severely homesick - not just from my home, but from my environment. I've spent most of my life in Hammond, Blue Island, and Chicago. Bloomington had very little in common with the places I grew up in.

2.) Before this, I'd never been in love (at least not real love) and had no idea how much being a part from the first person I've ever loved would hurt. This is also another thing I didn't want to admit to myself, namely because doing so would make me feel as though I were too attached. But hell, I missed him a lot.

3.) I discovered that I sucked at math. When I say sucked, I really mean sucked. I failed the placement test so bad that I ended up in the lowest math class they could put a person in. For the most part, I base my life around intelligence and determination. However, here was something I wasn't smart enough at no matter how hard I tried, and the more I tried and failed, the more defeated I felt.

Suddenly, everything I held close to me - love, environment, and intelligence - seemed out of my grasp. Coupled with financial issues, college became hell for me. I developed a fear of it. I wanted out. And, after one hell of a semester where I struggled with depression, I finally did get out. I unenrolled, came on back home, and decided to take a break from college.

Honestly, I didn't know how long this break would last. Part of me had plans to never go back again. The other part of me did want to go back. Guess what? Finally, after many nightmares about college where I realized I actually felt guilty - like I was letting myself down - and a good conversation with my dad about college, the latter part of me won out.

I'm going back. Fall 2012, I'll be going to Purdue Calumet to hopefully get a B.A. in something business related and minor in English. I feel incredibly stupid for not taking this route in the first place. My dad tried his hardest to make it clear to me that going to Purdue, a college in walking distance from my house, would be best financially and mentally. For some reason, I saw that as him not supporting me. Plus I really wanted to get out of the house.

Sometimes, though, you have to learn something the hard way.

This is my chapter outlinem Messy, yes. ^_^

Speaking of learning something the hard way...I've discovered that I can not write a chapter of a story unless I outline the chapter first.

My chapter outline (or the picture to the right) follows the same formula each chapter and every story. Basically, I put the title of the the chapter, a T-chart with the characters and setting, vague summaries of the important things that need to happen in the chapter, and then an in-depth summary of the important points. These in-depth summaries have all the dialogue, all the descriptions, and all the things that need to happen in the chapter. They're so in-depth that these often take me a day or two to write and 5+ pages.

The best part about this system is that once I sit down to write the chapter, everything comes together. I'm excited to get everything I sloppily wrote down in the outline into proper story form.

For some reason, when I finished the 6th draft of Savior of the Damned, I stopped doing chapter outlines. Instead, I sat down in front of a blank piece of notebook paper like I could really just...poof out a chapter from nothingness. My boyfriend can do it, many other writers can do it, and even I could do it back in middle school and high school, but I can't do it now.

And this plays a part in why, even when I do spend an hour or two on writing, I *maybe* complete a page. I don't like not knowing where the hell I'm going. For me, it leaves too much room for me to second guess myself. As thus, I'm returning back to the system of chapter outlines because that would be, I don't know, the smart choice. -_-

On another note, the first vid is something I find amusing while the second vid is my most recent favorite song:

Holy hell, I have a massive migraine. I also woke up this morning with a mind deadset on relapsing back into depression. This isn't new, though. What *is* new is that I've gotten much better at pep talks. All I had to do was get indignant with the doubts and the bullshit and tell myself, "I don't want to be a better someone else. I want to be a better me, and I can be a better me without being blind to the good things about me now."

It worked. These days, that always works. Now, apart from the migraine and what I think may be a sore throat in the works, I feel just fine. Fine enough to do a more upbeat post about the cool things on the internet. I'm sure this will be a series of posts. There are LOTS of cool things on the internet I'd love to talk about, like Cracked and TV Tropes and Memes and Creepypastas and Let's Plays....

Alexa Toolbar

Yes, I kinda suck.

Yesterday I went into extreme marketing mode and got fixated on finding stats for Reader's Den. Of course, just as I expected, stats for Reader's Den are pretty damn low. Sure I get 50-99 views a day and, on a day where I post new content, I get 100-200 views. But, in the grand scheme of the internet as a whole, I'm like a baby mouse in space.

In spite of the fact that my Alexa rank is so low (for now) that I perhaps shouldn't have it on my front page like I'm proud of it, I went and downloaded the Alexa Toolbar.
That was an awesome choice. Even if you're not a website owner obsessed with you and your competitions' website stats, downloading the Alexa Toolbar would still be an awesome choice.

I spent a lot of time yesterday going to all my favorite sites, looking at their ranking, and clicking the wayback button to see what the very first post of the site looked like. I learned that the top four websites are as follows:

1.) Google
2.) Facebook
3.) Youtube
4.) Yahoo!

I really wish I could guess what number five is. I mean, I knew those four sites would be the top four even before Alexa told me. The ranking was fun, but not half as fun as the wayback button. Ohhh boy. Wanna know what Myspace looked like in the 1990s? It looked hilarious, that's what. Wow has Myspace changed over the years.

I giggle every time. -_- But hey, it *was* the 90s. Limited internet abilities and all.

Same thing for Youtube.

Youtube has changed so much that it's hard for the robots to even capture it.

I really wanted to see Google and Facebook, but those sites make going wayback impossible.

Beside the fact that the wayback feature often makes me giggle about website design in the 90s, I kept going wayback because I love progression. There's something wonderful about comparing the beginning product to the current or end product, about jumping between the past and the present and being able to easily say, "Wow, things have really changed."

For me, that's motivation. It's a way of saying that just because your Alexa ranking is embarrasingly low today, and you have limited website capabalities now, doesn't mean that it will always be that way. If I work hard enough, I can press wayback for my site and giggle at the past as well.

Plus, I also find something eerie about the old versions of this site still being there and archived. It's like they're perpetually trapped in the past but...also not.

Anyway, next time I'm gonna talk about Googling yourself because that's also a cool (yet sorta scary) thing about the internet. Now I leave you with a funny vid and whichever song is currently playing on my playlist. The first vid is much funnier if you're into Skyrim or know about the FUS RO DAH meme. On another note, the migraine calmed down by a lot. ^_^

In my most recent post, I talked about the Special Syndrome I suffered through throughout highschool. It was a hard post for me to write because for the longest time I hated the idea that I always wanted to feel like a special snowflake. I hate stories with 'special snowflakes.' Those types of characters irritate the hell out of me. Yet I spent so much of my life hypocritically wanting to be that way. Putting the post up, though, was a way for me to let those feelings go and get them out in the open.

I got three comments on the blog and one on Facebook, which is much more than I'm accustomed to. The comments were a great help, so thank you Aaron, Michelle, Jawan, and Cindy! Because Cindy asked me to post how I got to where I am now, this is the follow-up post where I will do just that.

How I go to where I am now? Well, I don't particularly feel like I'm anywhere right now, to be honest. I feel like I'm in a limbo of trying to get somewhere, like I'm on this loooooong highway trying to get to some semblance of independence (a car and a steady income) and some semblance of my idea of success (a published novel and a consistent stream of clients for Honest Crits). But because I'm a progressive person who is always trying to reach that next big goal, I mostly always feel like I'm in a limbo. Of course I do stop to admire what I've done along the way and what I'm doing now, but I'm not the type of person to just stop and remain in one spot. Love is the only thing where I prefer sticking along for however long me and the guy can make the love last, and even then I like progression. I want us to grow with each other, to talk, to figure out what we want and what we don't want and respect each other as a result of knowing that.

But I digress. I'm sure that when Cindy asked that question, she meant how did I (for the most part) get past all those terrible emotions I faced in high school and find enough confidence to post it all on my blog and put it behind me.

Well, it was rocky. I got to this point after a couple of panic attacks from being overwhelmed and realizing that I was living the life others wanted me to live and not the life I wanted to live. See, that's what happens when you're a people pleaser. When I was in college, miserable as all hell, depression almost ate me whole. Of course, having Matthew by my side did help by a lot. He makes me feel beautiful and most of all he makes me feel loved and cherished. I know my own value now. So I thank him for that.

But what really got me here now was being able to analyze my emotions and understand the main reason I've been depressed.

The voices. For me, it's the voices. When I'm depressed, the thoughts in my head always put me down. You're ugly. You'll never make it. That was a dumb choice. He'll leave you. Why do you talk? Blah blah blah. I think...A LOT. I'm constantly analyzing, theorizing, creating, arguing, but all in my mind.

Those voices are bad when you've mistakenly trained them to attack yourself. However, those voices are wonderful as hell when you apply them to something in life that DOES need analyzing, theorizing, creating, and arguing.

Ever wonder why I'm a reviewer, editor, and writer? Well, my thoughts work perfectly for all those tasks. Because I'm focusing all those voices on a business, on something not me, on something I could make money from, the voices are too occupied there to turn on me. Sure, I wear a lot of hats, but that's because I have enough thoughts in my mind for two people anyway.

I know that sounds crazy, but these are how I got where I am now and how I hope to get somewhere even better as life goes on:

• I fell in love and allowed myself to trust my heart with another who respects me.
• I analyzed where my problem lies - in the voices within my head that put me down - and applied that problem to the things I'm good at. By doing that, I was able to make something positive out of the negative.
• I've practiced retraining my thoughts to not attack me because, I don't know, that's rather silly.

And, because I always do this, here are two videos for your enjoyment. The first one is just ridiculous and funny. The second one is a song I currently like:

For the last couple of days, I've been arguing with myself about this blog post. Should I put it up? How will people think of me? Can I really write about something that, for the longest time, made me despise myself?

And you know what? I can put this up and get these thoughts out. It's time I fully accept myself, enough so to talk about things that bother me on this here personal blog. So here it is...

Maybe it started with all those romance books, where the heroine would always be so 'special' that this guy would fall head over heels for her no matter what she said or did. Maybe it was all the video games, where the main character was special enough to be chosen to rescue everyone. Either way, by the time I got to high school, I was a terrible mixture of the following:

1.) Stepford Smiler
2.) I just want to be special
3.) Romantic Runner Up
4.) The Perfectionist
5.) Always Someone Better

I've finally stopped being a 'Romantic Runner Up'. Matthew and me are still together, going strong. There finally isn't another girl in the shadows that he'd prefer to be with. I finally don't feel like a guy is only with me because he couldn't get his number one choice. And boy that feels good. The stepford smiler syndrome has also lightened up by a lot ever since I hooked up with Matthew. He was the one that pointed it out to me that I was a stepford smiler. It was a realization that bothered me as much as it bothered him. For me, being a stepford smiler goes hand-in-hand with being a people pleaser. People pleasing is one hell of a dangerous disease.

However, I still struggle every day with perfectionism, wanting to be special, and feeling like there is always someone better. I want my life to be worthy of my parents, my family, and my boyfriend being proud. Some part of me feels like I have to, yknow, make up for leaving college and my job back at the school and the only way to do that, the only way to truly be redeemed, is to be a success story, is to work my ass off every day until I'm a success story.

People say I work too hard. I'm actually better now than I used to be, like much better. I take breaks to watch anime or Let's Plays and talk to people and eat candy while I blankly stare out the window. I hang with my boyfriend. But I won't deny that I probably do work too much. In my mind, it's not enough work.

And I think the deep void in my soul or heart or whateverthehell always gets darker when I start thinking of shit like, "It's not enough." Then I start thinking of how witty this guy is or beautiful this girl is or blah blah blah.

Sometimes I'm sure I'm getting a lot better and that I'm confidently becoming that girl I've always dreamed of being, but other times it's like I'm terrified. Like I almost want to delete this post and forego publishing it altogether. I'm araid that everyone will see...everyone will think that I'm frail. I don't want to be underestimated. I don't want to be told to change. I don't want to be pitied. I've survived a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't have. I *know* I'm not defunct and weak.

So I'm gonna publish this rambly post that has all my top fears and problems and let you all see what I've been silently holding inside. Here are two videos that make me happy:



Hey, this is my ACTUAL to-do list. Putting my camera to use. ^_^

This morning I woke up at 8:30 am instead of 9:30 or 10 am. I had tea, oatmeal, and sausages instead of soda, an omelet, and waffles. This is me, trying to wake up earlier and eat healthier, and I'm happy I'm finally trying. What pushed me? Here and there, I've been reading posts about the daily lives of professional writers and entrepreneurs who work out of their home. The majority of those posts drilled into my head that if I'm aiming to be more productive, I need to take better care of my health and start my days earlier. I knew that before I read those articles, yeah, but they were the push I needed. I now want to eat more fruits and veggies and drink more juice and tea. I feel proud to admit that.

Anyway, my to-do list is HUGE today (hence why I call it the monster list). I know, I know, it's Valentine's day. Shouldn't I be spending today with a friend or with my boyfriend or TV? Well, as it turns out, the boyfriend goes to work today and I have a lot of work to do as well. We anticipated this already and decided to do our Vday stuff together yesterday. It was wonderful. I gave him things, he gave me things, we cuddled and talked and laughed a lot. Mostly the day was just like any other day we've spent together, in that he played video games and I worked on my business, but we didn't need the excuse of Valentine's day to feel extremely thankful to have each other.

Now that I'm done being a lovestruck goober, here is what I'm up to:

Yep, this is the card and candy.

1.) Start editing novella: If you don't already know, I'm a freelance editor who owns an editing business called Honest Crits. Because I had to edit the stories of those who won my Big Giveaway Contest over at Reader's Den, I had to wait to start editing the most recent novella that's been submitted to me. It's 74 pages long. If I give myself until March 5th to complete it, I can do 3-4 pages a day. Now all I have to do is make sure the writer is okay with that date.

2.) Promote my review of 'Spur of the Moment' by Candace Bowen Early: I'm very satisfied with this review. I wrote it without an outline and the words still easily came to me. The review also turned out to be longer than I thought it would be, which always makes me happy. Feels like the review has more depth. Today I'm gonna go into hardcore promotion mode and promote the review on more than 25 sites and pages, but already 3 people have particpated in the giveaway. That makes me incredibly happy! Since my promotion plan is 15 bucks, I always feel so terrible when an author doesn't get at least 3 participants and/or a discussion in the comments. Already, I won't have that problem with this review.

3.) Mark David down for second week of March: This means that, the second weekend of March, I'll be reviewing the second book in The Black Earth Series. I already reviewed book 1 here. Soon, David will be joining my Reader's Den team of writers. I'm thrilled to have him as a writing companion.

4.) Finish 'Common Errors' article: Actually, I need to start it too. -_- In March, I'll be doing a blog tour for Honest Crits, but first I need to write all 8 articles I'd like to promote throughout the web and then contact the blog owners whose blogs I'd like to appear on. The 'Common Errors' article will be a two-part article exploring the errors I see time and time again when I'm editing.

5.) Do at least 500 words of Dream Catcher, damn it!: If you read the last part of my previous post, you'll know that I'm very upset with myself for not working more on my fiction. I've been so into this business life that it feels like the creative part of my mind that allows me to write about creatures and alternate dimensions has been closed off. I can write articles and reviews with no problem, but work on my story? Fiction is where I started. I need to return to my roots, and making myself do at least 500 words today is supposed to help with that.

6.) Make sure dad gets boxes and 40 bucks: How handy is it that my dad works at the post office? Anyway, this is in regards to the fact that I need to send the books of those who won my giveaway contest out. It slipped my mind yesterday, but to make up for it slipping my mind, I finished editing the winning stories.

7.) Start polls for Reader's Den posts: There are two questions and two polls I'd like to have a lot of readers' inputs on. First question: Do readers really care about where and how a book was published? Second question: What do readers do with free Amazon books? Then, when these polls have been circulating for a while and I feel like enough readers have participated, I'll write two posts at Reader's Den about the answers to those questions. It should be fun.

8.) Submit at least 1 job application: My sources of income are rather shaky right now. Twice a month, I get 50 dollars from my dad, but my phone bill is 40 bucks and I have a tight budget. When all is said and done, only $7.50 of that 50 goes to me for general spending. Percentages of the rest go to self-publishing, savings, and my business. The business money I make is, of course, sporadic because Honest Crits is still in the process of being launched. Hency why I'll be doing a blog tour in March and advertising in April. So far, all the money I've made for the business has gone back to the business. As thus, I need a part-time job.

9.) Clear at least 25 e-mails: Even after going on my large unsubscribing spree, my e-mails still multiply very fast. And it doesn't help that I have about 6 e-mail addresses. I could very easily spend a whole day clearing e-mails, but I don't have the time for that. Clearing at least 25 e-mails today seems good enough for me.

Will I complete all of this? I don't know. Chances are, I won't. But it's not a big deal if I don't complete them all, as long as I complete 3-5 of them. As always, I leave you with the two most recent songs I love most:

I'm practically a Determinator (though I'm not into the whole 'no price is too great to pay for success' crap), so being scared doesn't mean giving up. For me, it may mean wasting an hour of my night curling into a tight ball, crying like a little kid and threatening the determinator within me that I'm gonna give up. In fact, I'm not ashamed to admit that that's exactly what I did last night.

It's always an empty threat though.

I'm not a mess anymore. When I was in college, I cried every night. But I NEED to cry every now and then.  Crying, at least for me, is a way of gathering up all the things I'm terrified of and letting them all out at once instead of letting them simmer in my mind every single day until I get depressed. Even though yesterday was one of those days where I felt extremely happy to be alive, I still ended up breaking down. So what are the things I'm so afraid of?

• Love doesn't terrify me as much as it used to, but holy shit...me and Matthew have been together for 10 months. That's almost a year. For all you people who have been in relationships that have lasted years, this may not seem like a big deal. It's a big deal to me. First, he really actually loves me. You don't understand how much this blows my mind. I spent so much time thinking no guy could ever really actually love me, at least not for longer than a couple of weeks. Before Matthew, none of my relationships lasted longer than 3 months, if they even lasted that long. For a long time, I used to think it was because I wasn't pretty enough or smart enough or interesting enough, but I refuse to attribute every break-up to me not being 'the best.' It's not always my fault. It's silly to think so. Still, when I cried last night, I wondered if I was boring to Matthew, or if I could ever make up for how clingy I was in college. It's like...I can't get over how so very pitiful I was. God, I hate being pitiful. Which brings me to my next point...
• I'm terrified of embarrassing myself. Now that I'm an editor and businesswoman and freelance writer, my cloudcuckoolander attributes become more and more out of place. While I want to accept that yes, I can't pronounce many words and my memory is just not up to par sometimes, I still want to shoot myself when I say something wrong and someone goes, "God, you're an editor/businesswoman/writer. I'm disappointed in you. How could you speak so incorrectly?" I mean, I grew up speaking slang. Saying things incorrectly mean very little to me. It's writing things incorrectly that bother me. Plus, I'm NOT a grammar editor. I'm a content editor, damn it.
• I want to prove to people that me taking a break from college to write and work on my own business was NOT some big mistake. At the same time, I hate hate hate that I want to prove anything to anyone. I sincerely just want to say, "Fuck everybody else." I can't say it just yet. As far as I can tell, the only way to prove to them that I'm not messing up is by having money in general, a license and money saved away to get a car, and a steady job to assist the business. But hell, it's really going to take me lots of time and hard work to get there, and I get afraid because it feels so far away.
• Yknow, sometimes you get afraid that the success won't come or that, if it does come, it won't complete your life the way you thought it would. Then you freeze. You get stuck in wanting, wanting, wanting and don't take action. I sincerely feel like this is happening to me. There is NO real excuse for why I haven't been writing more. There are all these contests I can enter into, all these novels I can be working on, all these articles I could be finishing. And yeah, the editing and reviewing business does take a lot of my time, but seriously wtf. I don't have an out-of-the-house job right now, I don't have classes, and I don't have a crazy social life. I can write. Back when I was doing the first couple of drafts of Savior of the Damned, I wrote whenever I could find any time to write. What ever happened to that shit? Why did I stop? I know why. Because I'm scared. I'm scared of fifty thousand little things that I always tell writers not to be afraid of when all they need to worry about is writing the damn thing.

So now that I've cried, I say it's time to put it all behind me until the next time the overwhelmed kid in me needs out. After I post this, I'm finishing the first article for my Honest Crits blog tour and writing at least 1-2 pages of Dream Catcher. Then I'm gonna do some editing. As always, here are my two most recent favorite songs:

Disclaimer: This is not a depressing post. I am NOT depressed (surprising, right?). Actually, I'm very happy. I'm in love, I'm doing the things I've always wanted to do and am finally starting to get paid for it, and I feel like I have a reason for existing. However, being happy doesn't mean there aren't times where I think, "Damn, I really suck." So, in no particular order, here are the reasons why:

1.) I'm a cloudcuckoolander

This is moreso in reality, when I'm hanging out with people (and especially my boyfriend). I'm a lot less of a cloudcuckoolander on the interwebz. If you read the page, you'll notice that being a cloudcuckoolander isn't all too sucky. It's pretty awesome, since skill is often underneath all that weirdness, but it does make moments with me a little awkward. I say random, irrelevent things just because said random, irrelevent thing came to my mind. I ask questions just because. I blank out a lot and end up in some imaginary world within my mind. However, I'm still paying close attention to reality (except when I'm not). Worse of all, it makes me come across as an airhead. Which brings me to my next point...

2.) I'm a contradictory conundrum

See, even that title is puzzling. I'm like two different people in one. On the one hand, I'm super serious and motivated and all about success. I have an ego that doesn't take well to being told I'm stupid and I have a dangerous streak. On the other hand, I'm really a dumbass who blanks out. There is so much going on in my mind that my thoughts overload into nothingness. I'm as harmless as a teddy bear (yknow, the adorable ones and not the ones that come to life and try to kill you). The problem with having two separate personalities is that switching between the two confuses me and everyone around me.

3.) I get antsy for change and adventure

Which, as crazy as I am about research and preparation, makes me come across as reckless. I like to take risks. I don't like doing things the normal, healthy way because I'm all into defining success on my own terms. If it feels nice outside, you better believe that I'm packing a backpack with artsy stuff and heading out to...do whatever. This will often involve meeting a psycho. -_- Sure, this is all part of the entrepreneurial drive, but it makes me anxious when things are consistent and that's a feeling I need to get rid of now that things are, well, consistent and very well should be consistent.

4.) I Stretch Myself Thin

I'm not as bad as I used to be. This time around, I take breaks and talk to people and make sure to get more sleep. In all, I am no longer an insane workaholic with one too many goals. However, I do have a hell of a lot of goals, so much so that I can honestly admit to myself that if I'm not careful I'll stretch myself thin. I want to self-publish a book, traditionally publish a book, submit to a number of magazines and contests, get my license, learn how to cook, get and maintain a part-time job, run an editing sole proprietorship, and run a book blog. That's....a lot, lol.

5.) I'm Still Not There Yet

I accept myself. I love who I am and I accept that the bad stuff I went through is what made me who I am. Still, I'm not *totally* there. As in, there are still moments where I look at or someone or hear about their achievements and think, "Shit, I'm not good enough. Look at her, doing so well in college. I bet my parents would be more proud if I were there right now, doing that well. Look at him, being so clever and intelligent. Why can't I effortlessly be clever and intelligent instead of a contradictory cloudcuckoolander who both thinks too much and not enough?" The thoughts come and go. They don't put me in the dumps and make me cry, but it still sucks that I waste about 5-10 minutes of my day even thinking about that stuff.

So, it's been weeks since I've last posted. The next time I post, which will be soon and not weeks later, I'll actually talk about the things I've been doing. I just really wanted to do a "5 Reasons Why..." list, namely because I love Cracked. Also, because I'm random like that, my most recent favorite two songs:

How long this blog post will be depends on how much I can type before the bell rings. I've never put up a blog post during school, but this is just about the only time I have available, so here goes.

This entire week was planned in advance last week. My senior-year-of-highschool and personal life is basically eating up time for my academic/professional life, but that's okay. I'll be going to college this summer. There, I'll be right back to my tight schedule...meaning I want to cherish all this time with my boyfriend and friends as much as I can.

Tomorrow is prom. THAT certainly feels surreal. It's not really setting in, honestly. -_- For the longest time, I was certain I wouldn't go, yet here I am.

Yesterday was Wednesday Writing/Work day, where I take a break from any social activities that do not involve me writing or working on my website. I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but I DID complete my next article for Best Damn Creative Writing Blog (BDCWB). I'll send it to the editor some time after school. I also submitted my resume to Elance, where I can hopefully start getting paid for freelancing.

As excited as I am about this freelancing stuff - it's been my dream to prove to myself that I do have the strength and energy to consistently write for other places - I really want to get back into creative writing. Today I wrote two more paragraphs of my short story and one more paragraph of my Chapter 4 summary for Savior of the Damned. That's just not enough, tho! I know I can only push myself so much, but still...

In all, I'm busy, extremely happy and grateful that so many people support and care about my endeavors, and very tired/afraid. Soooo much is about to change. Jeez, I can feel it everywhere I turn.

Yesterday, me and my boyfriend were talking about the pros and cons of longhand writing and typing. Here's the text message I sent:

I do understand why so many dont [longhand write]. Its messy, and in a world of technology where you'll have to type it anyway, it seems silly. (2/3) But i love writing with paper. i love the scratch outs, the margin notes, the arrows, the stains. I love having to take hours typing 15 pages. Why? It (3/3) forces me to read it again and i always catch errors that way. Why isnt this a blog post at rambles? Tomorrow it will be.

Today is the tomorrow in that text. On Facebook, I put up a status asking if anyone prefers to write on paper instead of type, and all of the 8-10 writers who answered said that they preferred typing. There I was, the youngest writer in the discussion, and I preferred hoarding loads of notebooks and pens to write my story over using cleverly awesome apps and technology. With Dream Catcher, I tried to do the whole typing first thing, but it didn't work. I couldn't do it. And in this post I'll try and explain my attachment to longhand.

First off, though, I am NOT writing this post to argue that my way of writing is superior to the other. That's silly. People should write how they see fit.

• Recognition with family and friends: Each of my notebooks has the title of my book on it in big letters. When people I know see me taking my pen out and opening that notebook, it's like they instantly know I'm writing and need to be left alone. But when I bring out my laptop, even if I say I'm working on my novel, they seem a little suspect that I actually am doing such a thing.
• Less Distractions: Writers are notoriously good at finding distractions regardless, but I don't get distracted as easily when I'm just listening to music and huddled in a corner somewhere staring at my notebook. With the computer, even when I try to restrict myself, the internet calls to me.
• Can easily refer back: When I get furious with a sentence or even a whole page of writing, I put a small line through the sentence or a big X over the whole page, but I often find that the very same things I once decided was bad could very easily be used later on. However, when typing, I press delete and lose all of that.
• Fun with margins, stains, arrows, etc.: My story notebooks are highly amusing. There are all type of crazy things in the margins that, when I look back on them now, I have no idea why the hell I wrote them. So many notes to myself, so many suggestions, so many random sentences. Since I take the notebook with me everywhere, there are mystery stains I try to decipher later. And then the arrows! My paragraphs are often written terribly out of order, so I have to use arrows and numbers to make it flow. It's like a puzzle!
• I'll have to type it: Yes, this is often frustrating. If I've written over 5 pages, and I very often do, it will take me hours to type it all up. But in those hours, I'm forced to reread everything I've written, and all types of errors jump out at me that way.

So, do you prefer to write or to type? It'd be wonderful if someone did a post in response to this, but explaining why they prefer typing.

The first three pages (and only three pages) of Dream Catcher that I wrote before I realized college would eat up too much of my time to do Nanowrimo have been scrapped. I just couldn't write any more of it, in spite of how exciting and action-packed it was. It didn't feel right, similar to how the very first scrapped chapter of Savior of the Damned (when it was called Corpse Eater) didn't feel right.

In Corpse Eater, I wanted Alecia and Levi to be lovers in spite of his being a corpse eater demon thing. I was dead set on doing a supernatural romance that wasn't a vampire/human or werewolf/human romance. However, when I wrote that first kissing scene, I couldn't write another word for weeks. Even then, before I created the complex hardships that are present in Savior of the Damned concerning Levi and Alecia's relationship, my muse knew they could never easily be lovers. Plus, I realized I'm no good at writing romances.

What went wrong in Dream Catcher was writing in first person simply because I'm comfortable with it (I spent six years writing Savior of the Damned in first person) and not figuring out how I wanted to portray the dream world. Even though I'm certain college will be the bane of my existance for the next 2-3 weeks and interfere with time I could be using for writing, I can see the story coming together in ways that surprise me. Also, my storytelling style seems to have changed! Here's the first paragraph:

When in the waking world, Joachim Horowitz is as solid a human as everyone else. He has tangible skin that is at least two shades away from being very pale, dark hair that rests in a curly mess around his face, and sharp hazel eyes that people often don't notice due to his mastery of keeping them closed. If he stands out, which is a rare occurrence, it is either because he is standing - at a whopping 6'2" - or people have realized that the proportion of time he sleeps in class outweighs the proportion of time he's awake.

Between Chicago, Hammond, and Bloomington, it feels like I've been all over the place. I admire Neil Gaiman's travel lifestyle, but I also wonder how he does it. I'm so ready to just sit down in one place I feel comfortable at for certain, preferably my work desk at home or next to my boyfriend anywhere in his house, and write. Right now, I can't really do any of that. I'm going back to Indiana University Bloomington for another three weeks, a place where life is always hectic and all over the place. I dread going back. I really do. That's the honest truth.

The saddest thing, perhaps, is a comment my sister made recently when she saw me taking notes for Dream Catcher in a notebook: "I haven't seen you write in a while. You used to always have a notebook or book with you and you'd always be writing or reading. I thought you stopped."

I remember back when the only website I had was a small forum called Writer's Haven, when Savior of the Damned was my writing life. I did write and read a lot more back then, almost feverishly. I never kept track of word counts. I just wrote passionately as much as I could everyday, and I'd stop for a month or two and return with even more passion.

Soon, I plan to be a full-time writer and entrepreneur; I plan to try and make money off of what I've always loved and did for free through contests, freelancing, clients, self publishing, and traditional publishing. To begin, though, I know I need at least one month where I can bring my unorganized, scattered life back to an equilibrium and just sit, comfortably, at my working desk.

My college desk will never do it.

On another note, here are the two most recent songs I can't stop listening to:

The first graph comes from Hootsuite, the second one from bit.ly. They are both free services, but of course you can choose to purchase more advanced versions. I don't use them as often and as consistently as I should to get a general idea about my site, but I really should take them more seriously.  Under each picture, I'll explain what the graph is showing.

Hootsuite

Bit.ly Bit.ly is my favorite. The graph above shows me getting 41 clicks on the shortened link to my blog post "How (NOT) to Survive Nanowrimo." The 41 clicks, which is unusual for me, happened as a result of people on Twitter RTing. I need to use Twitter more often, so maybe I can write a marketing series for Twitter similar to my Facebook and Marketing series. Basically, you put the link in the bit.ly box and it'll shorten the link for you. Promote said shortened link in all the normal places you usually promote links and then go back to the page and click the 'information' part next to the shortened link. It'll show you a bar graph and the circle graphs above, unless you didn't have any hits at all (sadly, this has happened to me a number of times). I'd recommend joining the site for free so it can collect all the links you shorten with bit.ly. What are some services you use for keeping up with your site's stats?

On a Personal Note

This, sadly, will not be the year I finally win Nanowrimo. As much as I'm ashamed to admit it, way too many other things are competing for all of my time, so I'll have to back out. December is actually more ideal for me to write a book in a month. Also, can't forget the two songs I've had on infinitelooper lately!

On the first day of November, I opened Microsoft Word only to realize that I had a 7-page paper to write and then work for the last 5 hours of the day. As thus, my first day of Nanowrimo was spent getting thousands of words for school and maybe ten words for my story before I crashed of exhaustion and went to sleep.

The days after that jumped between those types of schedules. It's the 6th day of November, and I only have about 700 words toward my book. It's 700 words I really like and 700 words I'm eager to add more to, but that's a meager number to be nearly done with the first week of November. Right after I finish this blog post, I have an analysis paper to write and then a book review to write. I know for sure that I'm gonna want to take a Buffy break too.

If I'm lucky, it won't be well past ten by then and I can get back to writing again. I left Joachim in a nightmare realm. The floor is about to cave in, and he'll finally find the dreamer he needs to rescue. I'm very excited for all of this. Though I won't be turning to Savior of the Damned again for a couple more months, I left Alecia in her room waiting for a dinner that will destroy her life. She'll meet the Big Bad, or Samuel.

I love the differences and similarities between the Insomnium series (Dream Catcher) and the Danse Macabre series (Savior of the Damned). It's good to write something a little different each time, test your writing and imagination:

• Setting: The characters in Dream Catcher live in an actual city (Evanston, Illinois), work at real places, and go to a real college (Northwestern). All the settings in Savior of the Damned, from the city to the schools to the stores, are made up. However, it is based off of Blue Island, Illinois and the surrounding suburbs I grew up with.
• Characters: Apart from Joachim being a rogue dream catcher and Lottie being a witch, the characters are pretty normal, in that they have some contact with friends and family and no really large mental issues. They want to find a lover, make a future for themselves outside of their supernatural abilities. The vast majority of characters in SotD are supernatural creatures with different cultures of their own, and Alecia is already a damaged shell of a human when the story starts.
• Death Count: Lots and lots of characters will die by the end of Danse Macabre. It's a really long series, between 8-20 books, and there will be many wars and large battles and world altering moments. Most of the action in the Insomnium series takes place in nightmares and most trained dream catchers never die in nightmares.
• Romance: I'm harsher with romance in Danse Macabre than I am with Insomnium, but Danse Macabre is also darker.
• Conflict: Danse Macabre has actual villains to be fought against. There are Big Bad's in each book and Small Bad's littered along the way to make it harder. Though there is also personal conflict, it has a tendency to end up closely intermingling with the overall conflict of the story. The conflict in Insomnium involves how hard a nightmare is. There is no tangible Big Bad. Perhaps in later books there might be inner conflict, but it wouldn't be on the level of inner and outer conflict in Danse Macabre.

On another note, music I've been addicted to lately:

I'm an observer. Klout says so, and I know so. I watch Facebook and blogs and my e-mail all the time. That's how I know that Amanda Hocking's book Switched is one of the four most requested books on the Library-Thing's early reviewers program; that's how I know that the cover for Michelle Davidson Argyle's book, The Breakaway, has just been revealed; It's how I know that Tiffany White is building her publishing portfolio and her hard work, as proven by the fact that three of her stories have been published, is finally paying off; and it's also how I know that J.S. Chancellor is back on her writing cycle with an admirable, inspirational fervor. There's probably also a lot more I'm aware of. Hell, I could send a weekly newsletter gathering all the info I pick up when browsing the web.

As a person whose life is for serious based around the writing world, it's important I observe and keep track of what's going on. To improve my writing, editing, and coaching, I need to know what's happening. Still, there needs to be a limit to all this observing. What happens is that you read about all these OTHER people getting their success that they've worked hard for and will continue to work hard for, and you start to live vicariously through their lives. In spite of all the goals you may have set for yourself, in spite of all you want to do, observing makes it easy for you to slowly but surely put your own goals behind you.

Also, it feuls that dreadful voice all us writers have that tell us we're not good enough and will never be good enough. You start to think, "Damn, I could never reach that point."

Observing all these success stories is good and inspiring, but you have to be willing to get out there and make your own success. Or else it'll pass you by and you'll be saying, "Damn, I could never reach that point" forever.

Any measures you could take now to assure that doesn't happen to you?

So, today has consisted of breakfast, a movie, class, a meeting, lunch, and blogging (which I'm doing now). After blogging, there'll be another class, a guest lecture, a phone call, and then research. I'll probably be up until around 2 am doing research. Nanowrimo is in 5 days, I have two papers due, and I still feel like there is a lot I need to know about dream catchers, witchcraft, and downtown Chicago.

See, this is why I love the internet. So far, I've learned that Joachim and Lottie live in Evanston, Illinois. Joachim will go to Northwestern University and work in some restaurant there. Lottie won't be a college student, but she will be working at Amaranth - a used book store in Evanston. I know exactly what apartment they will live in (I searched for apartments for sale there) and what it looks like when empty. I'm still trying to understand Northwestern's curriculum, but I can easily find that out with just a little bit of site searching and put a makeshift schedule for Joachim together.

I also found some cool sites for interpreting dreams and nightmares. The first chapter starts off with Joachim in someone else's dream. I'm eager to start outlining said chapter, but I can't...I need to have all the dreams I plan to use in Dream Catcher already written out. Preferably, I'd like them to symbolize things. I want Joachim to not only cure nightmares by rescuing people, but also by interpreting them. First, though, I have to become really good at interpreting dreams. I don't think it'll happen in the next five days, though. I can only spend so much time on research. I need to spend more time writing a general chapter guide to get me and the characters exactly where I need them.

As for witchcraft, I just need to know what the different kinds are and if one better fits certain type of people.

On another note, I've watched three movies in the past few days: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Adjustment Bureau, and Almost Famous. They were all good in their own right. I'm a critic of books, but not so much movies. I always get much too into any movie even remotely good. Anyway, I think it's important that I've been overdosing on movies lately. I firmly believe that it's a good thing for an author to surround themselves with lots of entertainment, definitely of varying kinds. It really complements the muse.