Diet Dr. Pepper

And a fresh sense of freedom.

Spring BREAK! Haha, spring break means more hours at work, and that is definitely a good thing. Spring break means getting more sleep, playing a few games, getting ahead on my homework for once. I have utterly demolished myself this semester with procrastination. It is no wonder that this past week has been a calamity of unfinished things. But for perhaps the millionth time in my life, and certainly not for the last, I say, "but now I'm going to change!" Now, I'm going to fix things, going to start fresh, get ahead, play the game before it plays me.

It is not for lack of ambition that I find myself in this position time and time again-nor indeed for lack of ability or potential. I have a complete lack of motivational skills. And even then, it's not for a lack of motivation-just the inability to be moved to action by it. Is it lazier still to think it may be a chemical deficiency? Am I just making excuses? A chronic lack of motivation due to a glitch in my brain, or am I just a true blue lazy asshole. We'll see.

It all depends on where I am in a week.

Drew says it is because I don't eat right. Well, I can't afford to eat at all most of the time, so what am I supposed to do about that? I guess just buck up and do it.

Again, I say-"This time will be different! This time I'll do better."

Step 2

I have come to the realization that I am far too dependent on the technology which is so readily available in today's american lifestyle. I waste precious hours of my life staring at this screen, doing one pointless thing after another. I crave the twitter updates, I monitor the lives of my friends, I play countless games, I keep up with my facebook applications... Entertainment is so close and quickly accessible. It is effortless. I sit here and the most movement my body experiences is the typing of my fingertips on the keyboard, the occasional swooping of my arm with the mouse. Surely my retinas are forever burned by the harsh glow of the screen. I do love the ability to keep up with my family and friends so efficiently, but I feel like nothing that I do on the internet is even the slightest bit enriching for my life. I would hate to actually do the math and find out how much of my life has been fed to this beast. It is out of control, I cannot practice moderation anymore.
This is why I have made the decision to lessen my dependence on this wonderful creation. The internet is amazing. Information is literally at our fingertips, but it is dangerously tempting to let it control us. I do not wish to rid myself of it completely, but I feel like cutting back little by little is not going to be effective for me. I plan to cut myself off (entirely-100%) for a week to begin with, and to teach myself moderation from there. So much of my time could be spent bettering myself, furthering my knowledge. I could be reading, spending time with my new husband, playing with my dogs, going outside, working on my own novel, learning something new, cleaning, cooking, exercising, so many things that, at the end of the day, I can look back on and feel accomplished. Too many of the days I live look and feel exactly the same, and it is because they consist of the same components. I feel the need to mix it up a little, add some variety, or else my poor brain may just starve to death. I may not have money, but I am fortunate enough to work in a bookstore which can double as my own personal library. Time with my husband and children (my pups!) is free.
I am going back to school in the fall, and I feel that if I do not untrain myself to this lazy, pleasure based life that I have become accustomed to, I am destined to fail yet again. This is for me, I need to get into a more studious mindset. It is sad that I feel I have to make a big deal out of "cutting myself off," but it is true that I am that immersed in this technological world. It is a problem for me, and I intend to fix it. I will miss knowing instantly what every one of the people I love is doing at any given moment of the day the most. Maybe I'll get to know myself a little better, though-who I am, who I have turned out to be, what it is I want to do. We'll see.

Peace and love, guys!

Starving artist? Check!

I am trying to get my creative juices flowing. I feel like it is so cold today that it is slowing my thoughts down so that they can't get from my head to my fingers without losing heart. I'm having a very difficult time writing today. I always sit down and warm up my thinking engine with a blog entry or a writing exercise, I guess today I may have to sit here and let it run a little longer before I try to go anywhere.
That reminds me, I have a terrible fondness of metaphors. I used to think it was pretty cool that I could come up with a complex and clever metaphor for any situation in life. These days I think it seems a little campy and tacky. It's just the way my brain works, as if I am constantly making comparisons in my mind. What do metaphors accomplish? They can be very powerful illustrative devices, when used properly. They can help convey thoughts, emotions, actions, all in a way that make you think on something a little more. But I feel like I overuse them, and I am afraid to use them too much in my writing.

I am incredibly serious about pursuing writing as a career. I feel like some around me may not see it that way, as if I had said, "I am writing a novel," as though it were some hobby or project I planned on putting a little time into every now and then. This is something huge to me. This is a life choice. I can't quit my day job and sit at home writing all day to make it a more legitimate career-I don't think any writer should or could do that in the beginning. I will be going back to school in the fall and picking my english major back up, changing my concentration from literature to creative writing. This is what I am doing with my life. And yes, it is a difficult decision. I am going to have nothing to show for this for a very long while.
You better recognize!
Hahaha, I hope, SO much, that no one would read this old blog of mine and take it in as a serious representation of my writing abilities. As I said before, this is my warm up. These are my thoughts running wild in word form. No spelling, grammar, or syntax editing. This is rough, I am fully aware of it. Judge me not!

I saw a book at work the other day entitled How to Become a Successful Writer Before You're Dead. That makes me nervous. I shall persevere.

Technology

My old computer sits next to my desk and occasionally gives me this "what did I do wrong?" look. It is pretty unlucky for us that computer technology advances so quickly that we cannot at least sell old pc's for parts or trade them in at a decent value for new computers. I'm sure I could find a use for it. Possibly as a mass storage device...there's a thought. I was considering taking it to a local computer shop and seeing if there were any parts that might be of use on it, that they could maybe cut me a few deals towards a cheap laptop or something, but I fear they would likely just laugh and try to tell me nicely that anything more than six months old is junk in the technological sense. I have had it for a good five years.
Poor computer.
Maybe they won't laugh if I just stop by (sans computer) and ask about suggestions for an out dated pc.

Then again, tech nerds tend to have their own condescending genre of humor. We'll see.

Your First Novel

I cannot remeber a time in my life when writing was not something that I enjoyed. From my earliest memories of my education and reading ficticious stories, I remember thinking, "this is wonderful!" Right from the start, I had a thirst for reading that propelled me into advanced reading groups and going to the language arts sessions in the grade above my own. I was almost as fanatical as Matilda, though I never took a wagon to the library. And then came that fateful day that, while I do not remember specifically, was possibly the most significant of my life at that point. The day I was told to create a story of my own. We were instructed to learn math and science, logical things, concrete things, spelling and geography, subjects outside the realm of our own being. But to be given the assignment-alongside all of these important, factual lessons that were imposed to educate and better me as a human being-to dive into my own imagination and bring forth a lesson from my own existence, that was incredible. For something born of my own mind to be considered significant enough to be read and graded by a teacher, how could that not be empowering?
And so the stopper was pulled, and the outpour has yet to diminish.
The earliest I remember someone taking notice has to be from the second grade. My class was given an assignment involving long strips of paper being folded accordion-style and the resulting panels were to be the pages of a tiny book written about something or another, I'm not sure of the specific topic. My teacher was passing out the strips of paper, and mine wound up twice the size of everyone else's. I remember going up to her desk while the rest of the class was quietly folding and scribbling.
"Mrs. Holker? Am I in trouble?"
She looked up at me with a very confused, "Of course not, Katrina! Why would you think that?"
"Well, my paper is a whole lot longer than everyone else's, and I thought you gave me more work because I did something bad."
At this point, she broke into a smile, "I didn't mean to scare you, Katrina. You are just a very creative little girl, and I thought that maybe your imagination might need a little more room than theirs. You don't have to fill the entire thing if you don't want to."
Recess was right after that assignment. I spent the better part of it in the classroom, finishing my little "book."
True story.
Honestly, I have spent the majority of my life trying to figure out what I want to do with myself. Writing has always been something that I love to do, but for some reason, I have never been able to convince myself that I could actually make a career of it. The prospect has always been appealing, but never an honest option in my mind. Why would anyone want to read something I had written? It never mattered that I had such a love of doing the writing, just the uncertainty that came after. What if no one likes it? What if it doesn't sell? What if I never have the guts to send it to an agent? What if, what if, what if? It has never been for a lack of support that I have yet to pursue my writing professionally. My entire family practically expected it of me while growing up. I am surrounded by people who believe in me and my ability to do this. My parents have so much faith in me, my Aunt Carmon has a poem that I wrote printed out and hanging by her computer. My husband asks me at least once a week why I don't write something. We even have a published author in the family, my Aunt Laura. She writes fantasy stories that have been in many periodicals and anthologies, and a book on the shelf at the bookstore where I work. All of this and up until this very week, quite possibly this very moment, I have been too afraid to make my move. I am terrified that if I try and I fail, it will have meant that the faith and support of all of these people who love me will have been in vain.
But thinking about it and talking about it all so openly and subjectively-I know that they will not be disappointed, even if I try and fail. The only thing that will truly let them down is if I try and fail, and quit. Or, perhaps even worse, if I never do try to begin with.

I accept and acknowledge that there is a very low chance that I will write my first novel and it will get picked up and published and become a hit. I know that the first thing I write may not even be worth a damn. But without that first try, I will never get to my masterpiece(s). So this is for them, for my family and friends, for every english teacher that I have had the privilege of learning under, for all of these people that love and support me and believe in my potential. To all of them I dedicate my first novel. Even if no one ever sees it. :)

A year gone by

I made posts between then and now, but saw it fit to take them down due to their depressing nature.
This year has been...fast. I am at the point in life where instead of experiencing entire days, I feel time flowing by the week. I hardly know what day it is, and wouldn't without calendars. This week is just this week, and next week will be here in the blink of an eye. I feel like I will soon be measuring my life months at a time. I said today, "I can't believe that April is already here," and it was not very long ago in my mind that I was saying the same of March.
I feel as though I could strech my concept of time back out to a more lengthy experience if I put in the effort. Make days more enriching, more distinguishable one from the next. If every day was different in some way, not just work, eat, sleep, play games, watch tv/movies. Is everything in life routine? If I went back to school, would it not just be a different routine? If I chose a "career"-just another endless pattern of days and nights spent generally the same way?
It is as though my life is rapidly slipping out from underneath me, rushing through my fingers like water. I would like to find a way to give it more substance so that I might hold it a little longer, tighten my grip. But how? There are so many things that I cannot do for lack of funding, or perhaps that I will not do for a fear of not knowing how things will turn out. My husband and I have given ourselves a goal to achieve in the next year. Our lease begins and ends in May. We are resigning for this year, and our goal is to move away next May. We've discussed the northeastern states. New York (probably not the city), Maine, Vermont, Massachusets. A decent town within close reach of big cities and a good place to further our education. I will be going back to school, and he will be very nearly done.
I'll keep you posted

Intravenous

It is so frustrating to be feeling wonderful and happy and light just to have it all sucked and drained out of you by work.
There is no way that I should take my job so seriously.