Do you ever?

Do you ever have one of those days that you just want to end?
That seems so terrible you just want to stop whatever you are doing/saying/working on and hide under a pillow fort somewhere?

Well that was tuesday this week for me.

It started off innocently enough. Not a sign of how things would change as the hours ticked by.

It just felt like I couldn't do anything right. Nothing at work was working. (Though my computer not working was/is NOT my fault, the stupid thing hasn't worked right form day 1) But just stupid mistakes adding up to give me this horrible stomach pains. I didn't feel good either, I felt like I was going to have to hurl.

Luckily I did not, and I somehow managed to make it through the day. When I got home I did hide, but not in a pillow fort, sadly. I just stayed inside away from other people, and away from whatever else the world had in store for me.

Maybe there was hint that I should have stayed in bed...I missed my first two alarms for work.

Ahh universe, you cruel teacher! 

Is it just me..?

So the other day I was driving home from work, like I do 5 days of the week, and something happened that doesn't often.
Some one was following me, and I didn't recognize the car.

Now a normal person would simply continue driving home and not think or notice anything out of the ordinary. Well let me tell you the reason why I start to panic when someone follows the same path I am driving.

Several years ago, I was driving to my then boyfriend's house after college classes. I happened to take the back ways, which means country roads. Almost all of the roads are 45MPH, and so I was turning onto a road, watching traffic, and decided to merge. Clearly the woman driving the car that I went ahead of had been speeding up instead of actually going anywhere near the speed limit. As such, I watched her tap her breaks and continue on a distance behind me.
I continued on my way, and it was only when I turned on to the small side street the house I was going to was on, did I realize that she had been following me.
Now let me quantify something...I had been on backroads...the college I was driving from was a half hour away from the house I was going to...and this lady had followed me for over 20 minutes.

I opened my car door to get out, and lo and behold the woman was already out of her car, and walking towards mine. She proceeded to shout at me claiming I was irresponsible, and that I had forced her to brake so hard that her sleeping baby had slammed its head against the carrier. All the while, she left her car door open, the vehicle running and she had no idea who I was or if I had a weapon with me.

Clearly I was not the irresponsible one. I managed to get her to go away, and only when she was gone did my then boyfriend come out of the house. Instead of being understanding, and considerate of my feelings, he chastised me for showing her where he lived. (Again I don't know why I didn't realize we were not good for each other sooner)

Since that day, if a car following me takes too many of the same turns and I am near my house, suddenly I am interested in not going home. Instead of going right home, I now take random turns until I am sure that the car has turned off.

Suddenly I am in a chase and must escape the (enter in whatever force you want to)!

Saying Goodbye

Today is D-Day.
Today I say goodbye to my best friend for the past almost 8 years of my life.
Today I will load Electra onto a trailer so that she, and I, can each start the next chapter in our lives.

I have been thinking about not having a horse for many months now. And have finally made the decision to donate her to a camp. She will be taking kids and adults out on the trails all day, which she will absolutely adore and love.

No, there is nothing wrong. Either with me or her, no one is sick, lame or a terrible horse. In fact she is probably the best behaved horse I have ever met. She has had kids falling on her face, sitting under her and poking her belly, pulling her tail and ears, and running behind her.  As well as my shenanigans over the years. Like going over tarps, jumping ditches, trail riding where there was no trail, some horse shows, and of course throwing cats on her back. And she has taken it all in stride.

I took an un-rideable, scared little 4 yr old horse that no one could break, and molded her into the great, loving, and safe horse that she is today. She has also changed and molded me. I hate to think what my life would have been like after my first horse died had I not had her. We have helped and saved each other in so many ways, and I will be eternally grateful to her.

If I could say one thing to her, and have her understand. it would be:

"You have been an incredible partner, and I will always love you. Now, go make some kids very happy, and show them what a great horse you are."

This is the hardest decision I have ever made in my life. But I know that for me and for her, right now, this is the best choice.
So please do not say "I'm sorry" when you see me or when you read this. I am not sorry, and neither should you be.

A new Venture

So aside from all of the other personal things and adult type decisions, I have been inspired and thinking about starting a youtube channel.
I have my favorite YouTubers, and I find them really inspirational as well as entertaining. While watching I think, "Yeah I can make people laugh. I have things to say about adult life, writing, being creative, and some nerd-y interests." I already have a screen name or YouTube name in mind, but my question is:

Would you listen to me for a minimum of  5 minutes in a video?

I haven't decided if I would do a video a week or every two weeks. I know that my life is NOT exciting enough to have a daily vlog,  since it would basically be me driving to and from work and writing. But I have brainstormed some ideas for at least 3 videos so far.

So, yeah, just let me know either by liking this on FB or by recommending this on Blogger.
Who knows? Maybe I'll just do it anyways :P

The dreaded words no writer wants to hear....

That's right, this post is going to be about Writers Block.

All writers at some point or another have felt this much feared aspect to living a creative life.
Most blame TV, Movies, Books, our families or life in general. They say, it's a bad writing day, I'll just come back to it tomorrow. Or maybe it starts slowly with writing a little less each day until the writing stops.  However it comes about, Writers Block usually has nothing to do with the actual story the person is working on, it's usually not even an outside force. Rather it is a psychological blockage.

In my own writing life I have encountered Writers Block in a few forms.
Some of the worst Writers Block I had was when I was emotionally drained from a relationship I was in. It probably didn't help that I was also working 32+ hours a week, as well as attending college full time. I was so drained from trying to be everything to everyone that my personal writing sadly fell to the wayside.
The only thing that helped, and this was only one of the two good things that I took from my capstone professor, was an assignment to write 500 words 5 days a week. They had to be new words of fiction. Unlike the two stories we were supposed to write, they could be anything. So digging deep I unearthed a story idea that I had started when I was 16 but had stopped writing.

Ta-DA. I got so jazzed about this new project that completing my 2500 words a week soon became easy, and was actually enjoyable. I could easily hammer out my weekly word count in an hour or two.  It was me time. Time to escape.

Fast forward to now when I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. My chosen project is the third installment in the series, and while I may always hit my word count, my spirit was lacking. My heart wasn't really in it.

Finally earlier this week I had an epiphany.

I had been trying to figure out how to take the events needed to finish this series into books three and four. And I suddenly realized that this needed to be a trilogy and not a cycle.
I quickly started writing more and more this week. Each day getting close or over 2k words. My passion for this project is back.

Morals of the story?

Don't spread yourself too thin.
Make your writing sacred, and do not cancel your writing time, FOR ANYONE.
Do anything to get yourself excited about a project. Take the time to flesh out your characters. Write scenes or background that your audience will never see. Anything to get excited and passionate about your project.

The world deserves the story you're writing. Your story matters. You matter.
Take the time for yourself, and your writing will follow.

Happy Writing!

Scene

This is something that I just wrote, with little to no editing.
Enjoy!
 PS- Nairn is a dragon :)

“As you can see, we come with nearly a thousand warriors.”

“I only see half of that.”

Yaretzi, Chimalli, and Damien were all seated in Cisneros’ large tent with his two sons. He seemed to be letting the eldest son do most of the talking.

“What are talking about?”

“I mean, you brought men and women. Meaning that you only brought half of what you think.”

Damien sat back, his arms crossed over his chest; he noticed that Cisneros also had an amused expression. Clearly Ciccero had much to learn about women despite his being a grown man. Yaretzi stood from her crouched position.

“I would take ten of my best female warriors for every thirty of your males.” Her hips swung to the side, and her hands planted on them in a gesture that Damien was beginning to be familiar with. He was just glad that it wasn’t at him this time.

“Is that so.” Ciccero stood as well. His arms, while not overly large, were corded with lean muscle. He clearly had had practice swinging a sword.

“Yes.” Damien watched as Yaretzi’s eyes sparked. “I challenge you to a duel. First blood wins.” She shrugged, “Nothing serious. Nothing that you can’t handle, I am sure.”

Ciccero looked to his father, a questioning look on his face.

“Well, you’re the one who claims women can’t fight. This would be the time to learn.” Cisneros looked past his son to wink at Damien before sipping from his drink.

“I accept. First blood wins.” He smiled his teeth glinting. “I will try not to mar that pretty face of yours that my brother likes.”

“And I will try not to take your manhood away.” Yaretzi spun on her heel and left the tent leaving Ciccero with a confused look on his face.

Cisneros coughed, “She means…” he pointed down the middle of his son’s body until a look of understanding came across Ciccero’s features.

Without another word Ciccero stomped out of the tent, followed by Crosns, leaving Chimalli, Damien, and Cisneros.

“Well this should be interesting.” Chimalli stood and stretched before leaning to grab some nuts and fruit off of the table. “Better take some snacks.”

Damien followed after Cisneros, and blinked rapidly while his eyes adjusted to the bright light. When he could see again, he found a ring of people already around where Yaretzi and Ciccero stood. The young man stood with several of his mates, while Yaretzi stood alone, fastening her long handled blade together. Damien calmly walked up to her.

“Please go easy on him, we do want to make friends.” She smiled fiercely up at him before leaning up closer to him.

“He won’t know what hit him.” She turned and met him for a passionate kiss before she broke away. He walked out of the ring to where Nairn had wedged himself so that he could see as well.

‘She’s going to whoop him.’

‘Yep.’

‘Be fun to watch though.’

‘Yep.’

‘At least you got better, I was worried that you would never amount to much of a swordsman.’

‘Hey!’ He swatted at Nairn’s nose.

‘Well she was always beating you. Until you learned to read the ground and how people move.’ Nairn moved his head and nearly knocked over Chimalli. ‘Ooh it’s starting!’

The call of writing/NaNoWriMo

Founder Chris Baty delivering an excellent, inspiring speech!