Writing for yourself in the new year

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” ~ Stephen King

It’s now January and 2016. It’s raining outside as it has been for the entire Christmas holiday. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the holiday as good as it should have been. I was wishy washy, insecure, and feeling downright sorry for myself.

Our holiday started on 19th of December. I was supposed to work that Saturday, but since my schedule changed for my new IT job, I was free. We took a trip to Edinburgh that Sunday, and that didn’t start out very well either. We missed a bus that didn’t turn up in the morning, and by the time we got to the station we had only 15 minutes left to get out tickets from the kiosk and board.

But we couldn’t get the tickets. I had forgotten that back in October when we booked the holiday, we had the tickets sent to the house. Where they are now – who knows? That’s just an example of how jumbled your brain can get when you work full time and have a zillion other things on your mind from the minute you wake up until an hour (at least) when you get home.

Steve eventually bought a fresh set of tickets for us, 1st class as well, and we travelled in style up to our own city of lights. Sunday was super packed and raining, as expected, and I was just a grouch. I’m finding it harder and harder to settle down after working. It’s not like the job is fast-paced or stressful, I think it’s just that I have to be go-go-go all the time that when I sit down at home, I’m like, “I’m so bored!”

And that was kind of how I was for the better part of the trip. We went to the National Museum of Scotland and relaxed indoors for the better part of Monday. In the evening, we went back to the market which was less packed and found ourselves some tasty German beer and food.

During this trip I also decided that I need to desperately lose more weight because my feet have been killing me lately. I’m sure this was all part of my fussiness too. The doctors had said I have plantar fasciitis, but the tops of my feet started hurting too. My chiropractor said it was a tendon that was inflamed, but whatever it is, it’s driving me batty. But, I digress …

We FaceTimed my parents at the market, just so they could see all the fun we’re having here and try to lure them over for a visit. A vain attempt, but it is fun to share the experience with them in Florida.

We came back on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I had my first official work Christmas party in England. (It was at lunch time and I was the only one drinking, but hey, that’s how it goes.) Afterwards my friend from my old library and I drank mimosas and wine at Jamie Oliver’s in town and had a gift exchange/catch up. That made me feel 100% more festive.

Back home, Steve and I hung out, we had a lovely Christmas, and I was spoiled rotten with gifts. (Steve outdid himself this year, and I was really surprised by my new iPad Air that he’d sneakily hidden A Christmas Story style by the television. Bless him.)

I went back to work on the 29th for a one off day. It was fun too because we sat and caught up, waited for the phone to ring, and left promptly at 5PM to start the rest of the five day break.

I did get some cabin fever, and grew totally listless with the same old same old attempts at distraction and killing time. I’ve played Sims 4, Fallout 4, LEGO Dimensions, Disney Infinity 3.0 (the Star Wars packs!) and watched all of Making a Murderer on Netflix.

After a trip to the Metrocentre yesterday, wading through traffic, and trying to hobble through the mall with my dodgy foot (it was the left one, now it’s the right one – I can’t win!) I was a complete grouchy pants. Finally, I decided it was time for me to just stop being miserable and get on with things.

So, with all that said, my topic was of writing for myself. I think too often when we’re sitting around trying to do good on our promises to ourselves, we get too insecure or too down on ourselves when we see that other people are publishing their books at a much higher rate than we are.

Someone on Twitter had said a while ago that if we’re sitting around trying to write for fame and fortune, we should re-evaluate. True, the notoriety isn’t the best angle to view your work from, but with this audience that we can see the outline of in social media, I think it’s hard to not take them into consideration.

“What would people like to read? Would they enjoy this story, or this other one better? Will they think it’s too much like this book or that book?” Etc.

It made me think about Stephen King’s quote again, about writing with the door closed. I think with all the Wattpad, Twitter, #pitchmad, and blog posts about writing that we have in abundance, it’s hard to forget that we’re doing this just for us as a #1 priority.

With that in mind, I’ve sort of reasoned with myself that posting stories on Wattpad, or talking about projects probably isn’t the best way for me to work. I even debated mentioning this in a blog post because, yet again, I’m blathering on to the potential audience. I’m really too private to be doing that.

I’ve made my peace with Twitter and jump in and out without making much of a ripple in the account. I’m going to look at all of it as a means of inspiration rather than comparison. If someone at age 20 has 200 books already published by Disney Hyperion then, bravo. However, they are not me. I am not them. End of discussion.

I’ve also thought about how to keep myself in check throughout the year and how posting word counts or updates lets someone else in to the writing process.

Granted, I think all of this sharing with the world is second nature to most of us anymore, but maybe this year, as I learn to become the Mistress of IT, ironically, that I switch off the connection between the world and my little hidey hole of creating my own reality.

What Up Wednesday 11 Nov 2015

For my second instalment of What Up Wednesday, I can offer some information about my current NaNoWriMo project.

I’m always second guessing what project I should be working on. Last week I decided to work on the Wattpad story I started on vacation in September. Of course, the moment that I made the decision to work solely on this story for a whole month, the second guessing came back.

“Why not work on this book? That other book? Why?”

But then it hit me in the most simplest way – it doesn’t matter.

I can work on one thing for a month and ignore the other story ideas I have for a while. There’s always next month and the month after to go back to them. What I didn’t work on last month, or even what I was working on, can wait a month while I do this gut instinct response project.

It doesn’t matter.

So far I have 4383 words of the small 25,000 word goal I set myself for my own personal NaNoWriMo experience. I think putting things in perspective and aiming for smaller goals sort of makes it easier on me. Too often I have the grandiose idea of what the whole series and all the characters will do. Granted, that’s fun in itself, but it means trying to work out too much all at once. This way, I’m taking it in smaller chunks.

It’s been too easy for me to get involved with the routine of work, even though there’s not much going on at the library at all. Without the word count aims, no matter how small for each day, I would only have the day job to place my aspirations in. That’s just not enough.

Steve and I have been talking about how day jobs suck the creative opportunities out of it for us. At the end of the day, what do we have to show for what we’ve done, especially if we’re just working on something that someone else has given us as a project to do. We’re a small piece of the puzzle there. At home, with our own work, we can take pride in doing our own book or our own artwork. There’s more self satisfaction and pride in that kind of work.

Anyway, for my book inspiration I’ve been reading The Secrets We Keep and Life and Death. I’ve been using Word, Scrivener, Wattpad, and Evernote to get my word count down. I even added my story to Inkitt for the NaNo contest. Wish me luck!

What Up Wednesday 28 Oct 2015

Since Wednesday is my only day off half day, I’ll try to update with a What up Wednesday theme for posts. I’m intentionally not making it What’s up Wednesday because the apostrophe doesn’t translate well when my auto links generate to Twitter.

So, what’s up?

1. I’ve been offered a position on the IT team for the libraries, so sometime after Christmas, I presume, I’ll be moved to a big customer first centre to hang out with the librarians and the techies. I’ll still be an assistant, but I’ll be roaming about, learning and teaching and computing. Yes, I am totally excited.

2. We watched the first episode of Mr. Robot, which was really good much to my surprise.

3. Last movie I watched was Jurassic World – better than I thought it would be as well.

4. We bought our tickets to The Force Awakens. We’ll go on opening night after work. Hooray!

5. I watched the rebroadcast of Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch. That was, hands down, one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I’ve never been to a really, big time play before, so after seeing it on a cinema screen, I can only imagine how much more amazing it was live. I really could write a whole review on the thing because it was so well done, but just trust me when I say you have to see it. It was movie quality with awesome sound and set design, and they moved the play along so well it was just … well, see it when it comes out on DVD.

6. I’m still reading Life and Death. I only get to read a bit at a time, and it is interesting, I’m just snatching a few pages here and there during my commute.

7. I hear from my high school/college bestie on FB messenger. That’s always a nice thing.

8. I’ve been invited to a birthday party for one of the girls at work – that’s a nice thing too.

9. I bought Sims 4 finally because it’s only £30 at Game. Not sure if it’ll work on my current PC, but I thought I’d try it now that we’ve updated to Windows 10.

10. I had an incident with the bus Monday morning. Our stop was covered in “there will be bus reroutes” signs, but no info where we can actually get the bus. The neighbour and I have no had to walk all the way down the road to the next stop up. On the bright side, I now have a little chat with my neighbour in the morning.

11. No real writing done. I really need to brainstorm ideas. At least I have the weekend off to start NaNoWriMo properly.

The #AmWriting Birthday Party

What is #amwriting. I always figured it was short for “I am writing.” But our leader of the community, Johanna, writes in the early morning. I was afraid for a while that my afternoon and morning tweets were null and void.

Luckily, the #amwriting community for all of us who are writing – in the morning, noon, evening, or too late or too early to really know.

I started using the hashtag a while ago when I was first embracing the self-publishing world. I was surprised how many indie (and traditionally published) authors there were on Twitter. It was intimidating and frustrating at first, but then I realized that with the #amwriting hashtag I can easily tag any random questions, word count updates, or worries about editing. It works so much better than having my updates (or, random whining, if you will) getting lost in the sea of Twitter updates on my followers’ timelines.

So, thank you, #amwriting community, for giving me a community of like-minded writers who are just a hashtag away.

JuNoWriMo 2014 begins in two days

Right, so I finished half of my current WIP during Camp NaNoWriMo – now I’m going to use JuNoWriMo to get the rest of it finished. I know this is kind of a backwards, defeating the purpose kind of way of going about these challenges. However, I am terrible at setting my own deadlines and with a whole community spurring me on, I know I have deliberate, achievable goals for each day.

The currently project is another NA thriller, like the most recent one I’m editing. I’m dying to get back to my YA/MG book projects though, but I need to have this silly first draft done. At least my CP can help me with this one too. I used an outline this time and everything!

Also, I’ve made myself a little author page at: suzanneschultzpick.com

I’d be intimidated about having such a long name for a domain, but there are lots of writers with Suzanne or Schultz (spelled more than one way for each) that I may as well just stick with the simplest option.

Steve’s birthday is this weekend, so we’re planning on a nice, quiet celebration at home. He’s on work duty so we can’t go far, plus we just got back from our bank holiday visit to visit our fellow Picks down by Liverpool, so we’re good for travel for a few weeks.

19 Things for the 19th of March

1. Have stupid back trouble, so I have to stay away from the computer chair. No where near as bad as it was this time last year, but it's not great either. (Back is better today, hence my ability to post this from my computer desk.)
2. Been watching Breaking Bad. Just started Season 2 last night.
3. Have been working on outlines, but every time I write one I feel stumped on how to execute the plot. Have decided to write outlines, then set them aside after knowing how I want the plot to go. Trying to adhere to them zaps any creative flow for me.
4. Have to find a theme for Blog Challenge A-Z for April.
5. Have to decide which book to work on for Camp NaNoWriMo. (Well, nevermind, I just put my book info down, so I guess I know which one I’m going to work on.
6. I am the worst at decision making. I keep thinking I’m wasting my time on the wrong book, or jumping into projects without thinking about them enough. Now that I have outlines and a pretty good sense of the characters, I think I can get to work on a book with a decent, logical plotline.
7. How to keep up the pacing is a new issue though – now that I know what happens in the book from beginning, middle and end, I need to get it in the 50k word mark for a first draft. I hate the idea of adding filler if I get through the plot points too quickly too. Ugh! Organization is so tough!
8. I didn’t get involved in any PitchMadness because I don’t have anything finished and polished. The indecisiveness keeps me in half-worked projects all the time.
9. Must finish things. Must finish things. Must. Finish. Things.
10. Is being a “best seller” really that big of a thing? Sure, a NY Times Best Seller is, but for Amazon, best sellers can change daily, can’t they?
11. What is up with Twitter? It’s so quiet anymore. I can ask questions, use hashtags, and try to get involved in discussions and a rarely get responses (and they’re generally from the same people I chat with regularly.) I wonder if it’s run its course, this Twitter thing.
12. We’re thinking about getting another cat since I keep worrying that ours is lonely. Of course, I don’t like the idea of having twice the amount of cat fur all over the house, so we may not.
13. In April I plan on going back to the gym (to help the back, mainly) and getting a new set of tires on the car. That’s as exciting as it gets, so my blogging and NaNo-ing should be fine.
14. I finally figured out how to get the always available classic books from the library via the Overdrive app on my Kindle Fire.
15. The weather has brightened up around here, but it’s supposed to get cold (surprise) again by Friday.
16. Last two movies we saw in the theatre were Frozen and The LEGO Movie.
17. I have a one book project that I could do, but I don’t want to because it would require some intense-ness. Anyone ever have that?
18. I could be going to a writing workshop today, but I’m sort of gun shy now, so I’ll stay home.
19. I’ve decided that my next phone is going to be a Nokia 920 because my Samsung Galaxy S3, while having a nice camera, does not like WiFi. It gets hot while it tries to find WiFi and won’t connect to it. Steve and I can go to Frankie and Benny’s and his Nokia will work fine, mine will sit there and struggle until I finally give up.

Your stupid is showing, Twitter

As I type this, I’ve finally set my Twitter account to “private.” I know people complain about that and don’t understand why anyone would do such a thing, but I’ll tell you why: because I’m tired of the stupid.

Twitter has always been some on-going IRC that lets its users have way too much anonymity. This leads to people creating abuse accounts that can do nothing but trying to create anger and fighting. And I’m sick of it.

For those who have told me they’ve not encountered this, I am amazed because this stuff happens all the time. Recently people attacked Stephen King for saying something on Twitter. The creator of Flappy Bird was abused online, so he had to drop his game. And this crap doesn’t just happen to celebs, it happens to regular people like me.

First this happened: Olympic snowboarding commentary draws complaints

So, of course since I was part of the 300 complaints, and mentioned on the news report, people took to Twitter to snuff out every single person who used the #BBCSochi hashtag. What it turned into was that the viewers, like myself got hateful, angry @ replies about how we hate the Olympics, Team GB, Jenny Jones, and everything else in the world. Plus, my username including a link to my account was online via the BBC News so I would block one user, and three more would spout something rude back at me.

Even after I deleted the original tweet with the hashtag (which I’m glad I did because I didn’t know BBC News had posted it at the time.) I was getting, “Can’t you see how wrong you are?” posts. Even a UK registered charity had RTed me with some nasty comment about how my saying the commentary was unprofessional was a challenge to them. Absolutely, insanely stupid.

Anyway, so I’m hesitant to post this, but since I privatized the account, I’m hoping that will keep outside viewers from seeing any future posts. I just absolutely cannot stand how ridiculous Twitter has gotten. Your comment on something televised can be posted in the news so people can throw virtual fire at you. I don’t want any other that kind of crap disturbing my peace.

With that said, I’ll post this, keep my account private, and stay off Twitter for a while. I needed that extra push to finally get myself off of it, and this pretty much solidifies it for me. Really makes me sad and angry that the internet has turned into a haven for spambots and trolls, but that’s how things always work. We can’t have nice things because people always ruin it.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 17

I didn’t think I would do as well as I did today on my word count, but I got over 2,000 words down today. I used Write or Die this afternoon, then this evening, I sat on the couch and did the rest with my AlphaSmart. I’ll tell you why this works so well: no distractions. I don’t have any alerts on my spelling, and even if the sentence structure is a bit wonky, and I fix it up, it’s not the whole page, looking at me, waiting to be fixed. I can keep going. There’s less to muddle up the lines between imagination and typing. I really needed something like this.

We’re still getting through Season 3 of Walking Dead on Channel 5. Now, I’m a whiner when it comes to shows a lot of times, but I really like this one. I like the characters, and I like the shows ability to make me and Steve sit upright and scream at the television. I use to do that with Lost and I dearly miss being involved with a show like that.

So, that’s that for today. Steve did a lot of cleaning. I did some laundry and worked on said project. I’m really aiming for September for a 1st draft completed goal because I have three projects sitting there half done and I need this one done (even though I sat there today doing the same old, “But is this really a good story? Is this even the one I should be working on?” crap.) Ugh. I hate that second guessing stuff.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 15

So tired. I’m taking less naps, which is good, and I put some writing advice I read today to heart and started a timesheet with my deadlines and word count. Someone on Twitter tonight was saying I should write 10,000K a day as the book I was reading suggests but, man, I just don’t know if I could do that any time soon. I mean, if I did, I’d have a book done in a week. I can’t even wrap my head around that concept.

Anyway, I did work today and I also got a call from my doctor’s office (which scared the crap out of me), but they just said my test results indicate that whenever there are any future children, I have to advice the midwife that I carry a strep virus that could pass to a baby. Very weird. But it makes me more confident in the NHS because we’re no where near readying for children but already they’re being taken care of. Nice feeling.

Tomorrow is chiropractor day which should also be swimming day though I really, really don’t want to. Last time it was too busy and exercise is just a hassle. Granted, when I feel like going to the gym and jumping on an elliptical machine I feel better, but swimming makes me tired. It’s a tough exercise to keep up for 30 minutes; especially when you’re dodging children out on summer break who love to splash their friends in the pool.

And so, with the night at a close, it’s time for bed-readying. Hope tomorrow is a good, even more productive day.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 7

Okay, only 35 minutes left of Day 7, so I’ll write a quick list of things that happened today:

• Found another bee in the house. He was flying around the living room. No idea if he’d been in there since the weekend’s fiasco when a bunch of them flew in from my computer room window, or if he figured out another way in. Regardless, all the windows are now shut and staying shut until it gets cooler and the bees who are making their nest or whatever in my windowsill get out of here.
• Put Write or Die on my netbook, then went to Starbucks and wrote 998 words in 28 minutes. I really wish I could just sit and do that for hours a day like the 9 Weird Habits of Highly Effective Writers.
• I also thought the 27 Problems only Introverts Will Understand was interesting too. I thought I was fairly extroverted, but apparently not.
• My parents sent a care package to us. I now have a fresh supply of flavoured Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, and the AlphaSmart 3000 that I bought on Ebay. I was really impressed with it. Now I don’t have to lug anything heavy around, or get distracted with signing into WiFi, or Tweeting. I can just get some writing done when I’m out. Plus, you just plug it into the PC, hit “Send”, and the text pops up on whatever word processing program you have pulled up. Just super cool.
• I picked up Steve from work today and took this photo for the skyline theme of today. I’m so glad the weather isn’t monstrously hot anymore. It’s helped my mood 100%.
• We say Sharknado tonight…well, what we could handle until we turned it off because it was just awful.
• Someone on Facebook posted the awesome video of Jimmy Fallon, Robin Thicke & The Roots Singing "Blurred Lines" on classroom instruments.
• And, finally, I’m on page 126 of Mockingjay.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 4

Sunday is a good day to discuss today’s theme of love. Saturday is the doing day – the day to go out and about and explore the great North East of England. Sunday is the doing nothing day. Sundays we set aside to just hang around the house and enjoy each other’s company. It’s our day. We get up at any hour we fancy, then Steve makes waffles for us while we watch Adventure Time or something equally as nerdy (today it was Ginx Videogaming TV.) The cat sleeps in various rooms of the house happy to have us both home. Steve plays games on the Xbox downstairs while I sometimes write, or play Sims 3, or blog.

We call both of our families back home, we eat (the best) roast dinner consisting of chicken, Yorkshire puddings, gravy, mash, carrots, and roasted potatoes. We watch Top Gear. We watch recorded episodes of The Soup. Steve takes a bath while listening to podcasts, I read a book on the couch. Then we go to bed to start the week.

Yup. Sunday is a day for love, that’s for sure.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 3

I took this photo today at Beamish Living Museum of the North, per the yellow theme for today. We have been there three times this year alone and every time we go, we see something new.
I was happy to see the animals, as usual, though I didn’t see any calves that were born this week. I did meet Sam the Horse, and a nest of swallows. I also rode the steam train and discovered the stores of donated items that are on display. Such a cool, interesting place.
My Flickr set for the museum is HERE and we’re already talking about going for Halloween, Bonfire Night, and Christmas again. It’s just fun to go there and soak up the history and the nature. Today the sky was really blue (which makes my photos turn out nice) and it was windy, so the heat wasn’t too bad.
My other yellow photo was taken this morning during breakfast, hence the food theme.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 2

I took these pictures while I was waiting to pick up Steve again today. This is the first time I’ve used a collage app, so it’s not my best work.

Today I played some Sims 3: Island Paradise then went to the chiropractor. My back is doing better, but I still need to go each week. His advice is always to go swimming more because that really strengthens the back muscles. I went once this week, so I’m going to have to go again. Inconveniently, I just cancelled my gym membership, but when I’m working, I really don’t go down there that much. Eh, maybe I’ll register for a membership again later. It ends up bring about the same if I pay once a week or once a month anyway.

We have been trying to watch our grocery budget too before we go on holiday. I really do miss having coupons as an incentive to find the best deals. I’d be an Extreme Couponer (not a real word) if I could.

When we got home, we saw the last part of the last episode of Sherlock again (that show is so awesome), and they showed a sneak preview into Season 3. (And, dang it, I just saw a spoiler!) Also, we’ve been  catching up on The Walking Dead Season 3, but I’ve seen the trailer for Season 4, so I already knew who was going to get it during this season. I’m still intrigued though. This whole season has been all over the place crazy with stuff going on.

Anyway, hope everyone has a great weekend.

#AugustBreak2013 Day 1

Right. After yesterday’s post, Tami @ The Thrift Shop Commando pointed me to the August Break 2013 Blog Challenge where “Each day, for the whole of August, take a photo and share it on your blog. You can add words if you want — or not.” Since I’m into my photos and I wanted some kind of motivation to post this month, I’m starting this challenge today.

The suggested theme was breakfast, and while this is a photo from Starbucks, it wasn’t breakfast. It was around 5:30PM. I have been stopping by there on my way to get Steve from work in the evenings, so if I make myself get out of the house, even for an hour beforehand, I can get some writing done in an air conditioned environment.

This is my way of saying I’ll be posting a lot of Starbucks and café photos this month.

I really wasn’t feeling well today, so I spent the afternoon lying on the couch with the cat, watching Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules on LoveFilm, then after my nap, I took my little adventure to Starbucks to get some kind of work done. I have one big project and one smaller-ish project right now. They’re similar themes, just I really want to get a decent middle grade book done so Steve and I can work on the illustrations and get it self published like we did for the first book.

So, that’s all I have for Day #1. If you’re planning on participating in a similar challenge, do let me know. I love to see what people come up. I’ve also added myself to the August Break 2013 Flickr Group because I love my Flickr as well (despite the new layout.) There are plenty of posts if you search Twitter, so it’s definitely worth taking a look.

August is almost here! Where are the blog challenges?

Since it's going to be the first of the month, and I have all this extra time, I was thinking I'd take up a blogging challenge. However, I don't know which one to do. I've found #BlogFlashDaily but I don’t know if there’s one up for August 2013. I have found some that require a newsletter sign up, with a person who is a blogging guru now that they’ve been blogging since 2009. Um…no. If you don’t know what Geocities is, you’re not a blogging guru. Plus, a lot of these challenges are for business so, no, not for me. I found another one for writers that is the #WPad Challenge for August so I may do that one even though it’s for script writers.

Honestly, I may just pick and choose and make my own. We’ll see. Since I’m such a big Instagram junkie, I may do a picture prompt thing. Not sure if I could keep that up for a whole month, but we’ll see.

Anyway, are there any other good blog challenges out there in August?

A Case of the Mondays for 29 Jul 2013

July had been hot, as we all know. I think we’ve gone through a record number of popsicles (lollies, as we say in England) and (cloudy, not the clear fizzy stuff that looks like Sprite) lemonade. The rain has been here, so at least it’s not unbearable like it has been. It’s the last Monday of July. I always have energy from resting over the weekend, and I get so excited to get back to my project. Then the week drags on and it turns out, I’m restless and ready to do cartwheels in the back yard to ward off cabin fever. I’ve had all three fans running non-stop, and I can only open the computer room window at night because I have a squad of bees doing their business above in the window sill. I shudder to think how many there are up there, but I do know they love to come and in to say, “hello” if I open the window a crack. (No, we don’t have screens for windows in England either.)

Anyway, I’ve opened a LiveJournal account as missusp. I just wanted to use it again. I miss it. I miss that you can have people in groups chat with one another. The social networking is right there without having to use a feed reader or Twitter to get to each other. Granted, that was in its prime, before hackers, spam, and Facebook. I may get some satisfaction out of using it again, maybe not, I just felt like trying it. *shrug*

It’s only three more days of Camp NaNoWriMo and I’m only at 14,441 words, but they’re decent words and I have an ending to aim for. I said before that I was trying to outline. That didn’t work. I mean, it was fine to jot down the ideas I had in my head, but once I started writing, the story just turned into something different than what I had originally intended.

Since I have all this time in the world due to Summer break, I’m really trying to get a ton of work finished before the holiday is over in September. Granted, supply teaching is hit or miss, but if I’m steadily busy, or get some kind of temporary job, I’m just too preoccupied. When I taught full-time last Winter, I was too tired and busy to even read a book. I know working like that is food financially, but, man, not having any time for anything other than teaching is hard for me. I do get bored out of my mind, though, so I’ve been hitting Starbucks regularly for a Frappuccino (I learned last week that they’ll make a triple caramel light Frappuccino!) I can enjoy the A/C and write a little bit in a different environment. It at least makes me feel like I’ve left the house.

I’ve made a photo set on Flickr from our trip to the Lake District.  Other than that, nothing much exciting is going on. I’m trying to sign up with a couple other teaching agencies, but it usually ends in never being called again, so I may not bother to pursue any others now that I went through the process at a new one already. For me, Summer is kind of a low-key thing that entails a whole lot of staying indoors, watching the weather, and trying to get stuff done.

Technology makes writers of us all

Steve and I were talking about how depressing the world has gotten with technology. He speculated that if legendary great minds like Einstein were living today, they’d be ReTweeting pictures of Sheldon Cooper with “LOLZ”. My take is that it’s created us to all be the same. We’re on the same sites, having the same accounts, looking at the same things, and discussing the same issues. I hear this word “Connect” a lot and I want to know why people need to connect so much.

Let me first say that I have a private list of people on my Twitter account who I really like and chat with on a regular-ish basis. Don’t get me wrong, I use Twitter. I don’t have big, long discussions with them, or feel like I’ve found a Twitter family in cyberspace. Some people do, and I understand that being in the same career field, or just finding someone with similar interests is good. Librarians like to see what other librarians are up to. I’m assuming from the Tweets I read, that most of them are using a computer all day during the day as well. I’m still not sure how much of the usage can be personal since every place I’ve worked at (which was a public library, a public school, or a government contractor, mind you) didn’t allow us to use computers for personal use.

Anyway, for writers it makes sense as well because we’re sitting at home doing our work at a computer. Free reign! We can find new books to read and have chats about our word count. I like that, especially now that school is out, I’ll probably be on more than I have been recently. I’ve purposely not used Twitter as much this week since Steve’s been home and we had our holiday in the Lake District. We purposely wanted a holiday away from a lot of technology. So, I checked my feed, saw a couple of things I wanted to address when I got home, and that was it. I don’t think I’m missing much by not being online all the time. (I can say that my word count for Camp NaNoWriMo has suffered greatly though.)

There are millions of “writers” now, and that makes me depressed and ill beyond belief. Everyone has a computer now. Everyone has a Twitter account. Everyone thinks they should write a book. Doesn’t anyone else get angry about that? I wish the economy would go back to giving people some jobs so I don’t have to see the garbage flooding sites like Smashwords. Horrible book covers, horrible ideas, and just a wasteland of trash that is masking around as a novel. Yuck. I’ve had enough. There are even auto generated books being thrown into the mix. Makes me want to cry.

I thought about just making a new Twitter account and starting fresh because it’s nothing like it use to be. At first I was happy to find fellow writers, but I’ve just made my short, separate list of Peeps, and left it at that. My however-many followers, who knows what they’re doing? Do I care? Not really. Doing a mass clean-up is virtually impossible because of Twitter’s stupid ratio rules. I can’t even find articles about statistics of how many books are self-published a day, or how many indie writers there are in the world because the internet is flooded with Writer’s Tips! Good grief!

I’m probably one of the only people who longs for a time when people didn’t have to be connected. The people I talked to in email or chat where people I actual knew in real life. This is why I keep my Facebook page. I don’t post my Foursquare check ins to Twitter, because I only want my family and friends back in Florida to know what I’m up to. I love my Instagram because photography is just plain fun for me, but all in all, the addiction to technology is bringing me down in a major way.

Even my new phone isn’t the top selling gadget (a Samsung Galaxy SIII), because I don’t use it as much as I use to. Back a handful of years ago, the idea of sharing and having someone care what I said and did was so exciting. I would love to have that feeling back again, but I think it’s become so diluted with sameness that everyone is just mulling around like zombies, going about their regular business. I even use to get excited about my blog posts. *sigh*

The best Tweet I heard about writing last week was,

Write the next book and stop focusing on social media so much.

Amen to that. And lastly, for motivation to get the heck away from the computer for a while is from our friend Anais Nin,

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.

Now, I’ll go share my quotes online and get back to doing stuff.

Writing and the last of the Summer Whine

The weather app says it’s only 60+ degrees outside, but this flat gets so hot, it’s unbearable. It's so hot in this flat and it makes me incredibly grumpy. In Florida we have weather management systems. This "we don't have air conditioning because we don't need them for more than one day a year" motto is driving me crazy. It's too hot to sleep,  even with a fan. The air outside is hot and even when it cools down, I can’t open the windows to let the stuff air out because we don’t have screens to keep the bees out (they hang out by the computer room window, waiting for me to invite them in) or the cat out (he’s equally waiting for such opportunities.)

So, with that said, I’m just not in the greatest of moods. Usually I’m excited for Monday to start up because I can get work done, maybe get a couple of teaching gigs set up for the week, and so on. Today, I’m just tired, hot, and grouchy. I even tried to get caught up on my Camp NaNoWriMo this morning only to have Microsoft Word give me the “not responding” crap and make me lose the three sentences I wrote.

I’m totally behind on NaNo because of work, and with this technology to fight with, I’m seriously considering getting a word processor like the Neo 2. Taking the netbook out has been okay, but fighting the “not responding” error messages, just wastes time. I try to get the programs to work, and then resort to Wordpad, just to type out something for the day.

I also use to really have grandiose ideas about posting to my blog, Tweeting, sharing photos, and such, but that isn’t really that important anymore either, sadly. I know most people don’t agree with me, but I feel such a decline in social networking that I’m starting to feel that most of it is pointless. I’d never get rid of the accounts all together, but here and there posts are about all that’s necessary each day.

So why not use a word processor instead of going through the task of using a netbook? I use to think the idea was really stupid, but now I really see how handy that would be. Of course I’d have to write and I think the ease and availability of it, instead of having to boot up the computer and force myself to sit and do the work while waiting for technology to catch up would be good. Of course I could handwrite things, which I do for notes and outlines, but the actually word count and productivity needs to be typed.

Now that school’s almost out, it’s time to get busy. Too bad Sims 3 Island Paradise and Animal Crossing have other plans for how I use my time. I get really bored in the daytime now if I’m not at school, and while writing is my hobby, and I have to get down what I can when I have to time, having the whole day to embrace entertainment outlets is just way too tempting for me.

I wonder if they have a support group for procrastinators.

If you need more motivation, like I do, my link for today is Why the First Draft is Usually Awful (And Why it's Ok). Notice that they used the same word processor photo that I did. Great mind, you know?

The driving begins

It’s almost June and it’s gotten cold enough to switch the space heater on in the living room. Surely I will live to be a ripe, old age because I’ll never thaw out. Where is summer?

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I have been busy living this thing we call, “life.” On Wed, the 15th of May, I passed my Practical Driving Test! Changing instructors was the best thing I ever did for myself. It only took 3 months of driving with her and I passed my test on the first try after the switch. She’s awesome and while I’m relieved to have that stupid test over with, I’ll miss my lessons.

So, after passing my test, I was exhausted emotionally - the whole process is a 40 minute drive that renders you mindless because you’re so freaking nervous. But I went to search for cars as I had been doing for a year since I started learning to drive.

Let me tell you what an absolute pain buying a car can be. First, I wanted to try the Kia Soul because it’s so stinking cute. They had a used silver one at Benfield and I took the Metro, then walked all over creation, including a busy highway, just to get to the car lot. The salesman was nice, and I drove on some quieter roads, just to get the feel of the car. I drove it pretty well, and I would have bought it, but Steve assured me that I should try out some others. I asked about the promotions they have for the Nissans there, but was told that the £115 a month sales on the Micras were only if you put down a huge £3000+ deposit. No thanks. I told them I’d be back for the Kia once my husband was available to look on Saturday. Of course the salesman wanted to drop the car off at the house to ensure we focused in on the one car, but I declined the generous offer.

I moved on to Evans Halshaw because we had looked at new Hyundais a while back. The salesman there was nice and he had to shoo off another salesman as we were looking (to which he apologized for his co-workers actions.) We really thought we’d get that i20, even after we looked at the Vauxhall Adam which was too small, but very cute. The salesman at the Vauxhall branch leaned in the window very intrusively as well, and we wanted to get out the minute we got in. Well, when I went back to Evans to look at used Hyundais, I noticed that few cars had any info on them. When I asked for the mileage on an i30, some super pushy salesman came out, stood in the door of the car so I couldn’t get out, told me all about how Evans was the best place to buy because people always come back. After sitting in the stupid car for 1 minute, the pushy salesman goes, “So, do you want it?” I really should have laughed at him, but instead I had to push past him to get out of the stupid car, and told him how I wasn’t going to buy anything until Saturday. He tried to get me to buy some weird looking Peugeot too which was and never has been in my consideration list. (No offense to Peugeot.)

After escaping the pushy salesman with the, “yeah, yeah, here’s my number, I’ll be back Saturday,” b.s. the salesman went, “Well when you come back Saturday, don’t talk to anyone else but me!” He also gave me his card twice within the minute I was there, and printed off info about the i30 and said Peugot for me to take home. I threw them out at the gas station next door. He’s called at least 20 times since that meeting as well. Next time he calls, I’ll tell him to bugger off.

Aside from being full of pushy salesmen, Evans also is in a really crappy area of town. On my way back to the Metro station, I also got accosted by yet another drunk who was being looked for by the police and wanted to pretend he knew me. I talked to Steve on my mobile as I walked to the Metro with a drunk dude with a shopping sack full of wine. I was ready to buy that Kia and forget ever taking public transport again after that. Good Lord, I must just look really nice or something.

Anyway, I went home and looked online for other cars I could compare with the Kia at Benfield. When you use their online chat, there’s one rep who contacts the local dealership about the car you’re interested in. When I went to chat the second time, they threw the original rep at me who was questioning me about the Kia. “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine, but can I see another car to compare it with?” Their site indicates that any car on any of their nationwide lots can be brought up to another dealership for viewing. I mentioned this in my previous posts on the history of my car ownership and my speculative U.K. car purchase that I have had 2 Toyotas in my past and both of them served me well. I asked Benfield if I could take a look at an Auris they had listed. They said they could but it was in Leeds and I’d have to pay them £100 to have it brought up to look at. What? No. I could go to the local Toyota dealership and look at hundreds of them for free.

And that’s what I did. I looked at two Aurises from Hodgson Toyota and chose a black one that I took through Northumberland on my test drive. (I didn’t realize Northumberland was that close because I’d never driven a car through there before.) The salesman was nice and not pushy at all. He drove me back and forth to the bus station as we went through my paperwork visit too. I like my Auris because it’s pretty much set up like my old Corolla that I sold when I moved to England. I picked it up on Saturday the 18th, just before they closed (we took a detour to the Toby Carvery and then slugged through traffic in the taxi.) Now it’s sitting out front with my “P” (for “passed my driving test” – my U.S. friends were confused by that) and my Hello Kitty magnet from EPCOT on it. It’s been well taken care of and I’m extremely happy with my executive decision to buy what I know.

As for the roads and the actual driving – oh my. Steve bought me a Garmin which helps me immensely, but I still get nervous and freaked out about getting in the wrong lane or taking the wrong exit. It’s not like being in Orlando and knowing, relatively, how to get back towards the coast to get back home. But now that I have a car, the supply teaching jobs have been pouring in. I’ve also been driving myself to teaching jobs, which is way better than taking the bus for an hour. My first assignment was to go up the highway/motorway to Alnwick (pronounced “Annick”) which was a 40 minute drive in the country. Basically it’s Virginia, just on the opposite side of the street up there. I was scared to death to do it, but I did. I took wrong exits and just followed the Garmin’s instructions to get back. Sometimes I get confused by what lane/exit to take because once you get in the roundabout you have options. I hate that. Tell me to go here and here for the A1. That’s all I need to know. Sometimes the exits aren’t even marked, you just have to hope that you followed the roundabout sign 50 feet ago and the lane markings correctly. (Yes, we have signs and writing on the lane. Confusing!) But I’m really enjoying working in Primary Schools so maybe they’ll hand me a job next school year or something. At least I can drive to it.

But anyway, I’ve been driving Steve back from work, and we’ve been able to do more, as I predicted. Yesterday we went back to Beamish. It took 10-15 minutes but I had to go on these super windy, tiny, hilly, narrow country roads to get there. I’ve seen roads like that in Ohio when I was little, but back then I wasn’t in charge. I had no intention of going 60 mph as the speed limit indicated. I took my sweet time and made it without having too much of a heart attack.

So that’s my story of the driving. I am still in the not 100% sure of what I’m doing mode but I’m not going to be too hard on myself – I’ve seen plenty of people who don’t look like they know what they’re doing either.

Video games, books, and cars

Ah, it’s a nice, rainy day in England. I’m still wondering when a full attack of Spring will be upon us. I’ve been turning on the oscillating fan in the living room on at night, so I guess it’s getting a bit less like winter. Still chilly and windy so I need some sort of coat when I leave the house. After living in Florida for all those years, even if I wasn’t an outdoorsy beach person, it’s hard to live in a place that doesn’t have an inviting kind of day that makes you want to go outside.

Anyway, I’ve been playing The Sims 3 a lot lately. This has been my go-to obsessive game for years. When The Sims first came out, my poor PC couldn’t even handle it and I had to reboot it over and over. But the game was amazing fun, so it was worth it. There’s no skill involved in playing The Sims either; you just mess around in a little pretend world and screw up characters’ lives. Fun. Plus there are so many expansion packs, I’d work a couple of days just to buy them all. (No, I’m not kidding.)

Actually, I screwed up my back initially when I started playing The Sims again in March. I sat here at the computer desk for hours, leaning forward, then when I was on the coach watching The Hunger Games, I realized it was a bit sore. By the next week I was out for the count. Sims are fun, but not worth all that.

Also, I moved my book reviews and weekly reading memes to a new site: bookblogarama. I needed a fresh start because I see so many really well done book sites and I wanted one too. So I’ve started adding things to the Tumblr site too. Projects are nice to have, especially when they give you something to look forward to every day, and reasons to investigate things.

I went to City Library on Tuesday to investigate World Book Night. I wrote on my netbook in the cafe over my £2 Americano while I listened to the music in the atrium. I found no free book giving though (unless you could the books that you can borrow for free anyway.) I did check out Me Before You from the World Book Night display by the cafe so my mission was complete. I had to meet up with Steve so I didn’t stay for the Murder Mystery event they were having afterwards – that seemed fun.

And I’m still not test-ready because stopping on hills in a manual-shift car is just not an easy thing to do. So I keep practicing until I have this down pat, or I throw in the towel and opt for an automatic (which, in most cases, is considered a mobility vehicle in the UK.) But in order to keep my options open, I’m sticking to the stick shift and the steep banks. Incidentally, I found an article on USA Today called 10 cheapest cars: Why (almost) nobody buys them. that are supposedly they cheapest. They claim that, “the bottom-price model has a manual transmission. Few can or will drive a stick-shift nowadays.” Just the opposite goes for us in England. Also, USA Today sites issues with insurance that is different here too. Insurance is based on size of the car and its engine, so like a Fiat 500 is in the lowest price bracket.

But when I get my license, I’ll try plenty of them out. Now that both Steve and I have hurt our backs, I’m thinking a little car that sits low to the ground may not be the best choice. Sorry, Mini. Cute, fun, little Mini.