Blah Blah Blah!

I'm at a "blah" stage right now. I feel so apathetic about everything in my life at this point in time and I can't bear to try and be creative about my writing. Hell, I'm down to about two blogs a week, if I'm motivated enough. Most nights, my brain is so revved up that I cannot calm down and I resort to either a "House" marathon on USA (very serial-like, each episode is virtually the same) or playing mindless card games. Each night, I fall asleep with Stephen Colbert (when I'm able to go to sleep on time), and the next day repeats itself. I hate working weekends, it sucks the life out of me and leaves me with almost no time for my family & friends.

Blah blah blah.

I almost wish I could go back to working part-time, but if I were to do that, Kayleigh wouldn't go to daycare any more and I'd still be just as busy at home.

Blah.

I've spent the day drinking Hater-ade.

I'm a book snob. There are some books I refuse to read for many well thought reasons. Here's a short list of what I have not and will never read:

1. The DaVinci Code: I know the story. I know how it ends. I know people are so pissed off about this book and its Biblical ideas. I've seen countless hours of programming about this book on The History Channel. And I have no interest in reading this book ever. It was too hyped up back in 2003 and I simply don't give a shit about it.
2. Any of the Harry Potter books: I don't like the idea that JK Rowling was considered a literary "saviour" and she alone was the reason children read books. When I was 9 years old (and this was back in 1991), I was reading Stephen King and VC Andrews. My grade school teacher called my mom and told her I was reading books that were inappropriate for my age level. Mom didn't care, I was reading and that's all that mattered to her. And this was before Harry Potter. And I HATE how snobbish people are when they hear you aren't an avid HP reader. "You haven't read any of them?" they say with a slight curl of the upper lip. Screw off!
3. Nicholas Sparks novels: I've already discussed this one. Not going through that rant again.
4. Serial novels based on TV shows: This includes Star Trek, CSI, Buffy The Vampire Slayer (I know, I love the show but the books are lousy), and Star Wars. I'm sure there are many other crappy knock-off novels that are worth mentioning but I don't care enough to mention them.
5. Chick Lit: I read a few of these when the "movement" first started (The Nanny Diaries, Confessions of a Shopaholic, In Her Shoes). It was witty and cute for about 6 months. Not so much any more. Hell, the name alone sounds like the cutesy mint gum I used to chew when I was in grade school. Now there are so many variations of Chick Lit that it's branched out into the land of Blogs and annoys me even more.
6. Oversexed horror novels: Bentley Little, you suck. Just stop writing. Seriously. It's gross, even for my tastes.
7. Stephanie Meyer: I do believe the Vampire Romance category is out. I have no interest in her, her novels, her wholesome background or anything else that has to do with her. The fact that my Grandma H. loves the Twilight series just kills me (and she's the same woman who thought Gone With the Wind sucked). And remember just over 10 years ago, BTVS debuted with a similar premise: young girl has ancient duties to kill vampires yet falls madly in love with a super hot one. Sorry Twilighters, I'll take Buffy and Angel any day, even if it's not good in book format. (or Buffy and Spike, I'm not choosy).

There is so much more to this list, but I'll save the rest for a rainy day.

"Takin' Care of Business"

I'm having a real shitty week. To be honest, I have no motivation for anything at this point. My "real" job is not going as planned and I may be looking for a new one once Christmas is over. I feel incredibly stressed and today was just as depressing as yesterday was. Maybe my feelings have something to do with how sucky the economy is at the moment. It feels like my whole life is dancing on eggshells and I'm not sure how long it will be before things pick up again. I'm going to spend the rest of my evening watching the Great Debate on tv and playing computerized Monopoly (which is so much more fun than playing with other real people).

Untitled

I haven't had the time to do much of anything this week. Still getting over my cold, taking care of my daughter, and I slept for almost 9 hours Wednesday night. Now THAT doesn't happen too often!

I'm going to try extra hard to accomplish something this coming week. I have Sunday off, but my husband doesn't understand that my days off are days off, not "let's go to my parents for the day" type of afternoon. Gah.

Annoyances with authors

Is it wrong to dislike Nicholas Sparks? I know he's a wildly popular writer of sappy romance novels, but I've never actually read one. I've seen "A Walk to Remember" and "The Notebook" and I was emotionally wrecked after watching both. Years later, I still can't watch the end of "A Walk to Remember" without hyperventilating. Regardless.From what I've read in the reviews, I find his novels to be too conveniently sappy. It's almost like he's seeking out that one lonely group of women who would rather curl up with one of his novels rather than their significant other. And now that he's got a new movie and a new book coming out, he's everywhere.

I don't find too many writers to be annoying. For the most part, unless I actually look at the author's picture in the back part of the book jacket, I have no clue what this person looks like. Same goes for the journalists in the magazines I read. I try not to get too involved with the bios of writers unless I find them to be truly interesting. To me, Nicholas Sparks (and is that even his real name? sounds fishy to me...) comes off as an effeminate male desperately trying to prove he's hetero. And I have no issues with gays, let me clear that outright. I do have issues with people claiming to be proudly gay, yet refusing to come out at the same time. Like Clay Aiken. But that's a different entry for a different blog...

I also find the authors of the "Left Behind" series to be incredibly annoying, mostly because they are so damn preachy. BUT that is the whole gimmick behind their novels. They write Christian fiction and that's how it's supposed to be -- preachy & gimmicky. Bentley Little -- he tries waaaayyy too hard to be this generation's Stephen King. I read one book of Little's and I only finished it because I had invested too much time reading it.

I especially like seeing television interviews with music magazine (Rolling Stone, Spin, etc.) journalists who love to claim they are "writers" except I don't buy it because the column they write is restricted to either a Top Ten list or some random quotes from a rock show they had recently attended. I know I shouldn't knock what they do, but it's almost like calling yourself a Doctor because you have a doctorate degree (and yes, I know someone who does this and has been doing it most of her adult life). It's misleading.

The Pen is mightier...

When I was younger, I used to write all my "stories" by hand. Of course, back then I had a small manual typewriter that was once my mother's and when I felt adventurous, I'd bang out a few pages on that. I still have a story I wrote when I was 11, all typed up on roughly 20 pages of lined paper. It's also full of white out, pen marks, and quite messy, to be honest. Over the years, I've written more on computers, and I've advanced from saving to floppy disks, to zip drives, and now I use a portable flash drive. Transferring everything over from one format to another is rather time consuming, but it's necessary when your new laptop doesn't have a floppy drive (true story, I was super pissed when I realized this). Now and then, I still bust out the pen and paper (always blue ballpoint & college ruled lined) and scribble away. The other night, while I was suffering from a severe sinus infection, I typed up a few pages of some stuff I had written a few years ago. I was surprised at how much material I had and I feel I should focus on that instead of this other novel I was trying to work on. Maybe I can do both, you know, jump back and forth. And maybe it's not a good idea, seeing how at the moment, my train of thought isn't worth a share of AIG stock.

We'll see how it goes. :)

I'd like to thank...

I won this lovely blog award today, bestowed upon me by Darcie over at Mommy on the Edge. I'm supposed to give this award to other bloggers as well, but aside from hers, I don't read a lot of blogs (I'm disqualifying the Myspace blogs, most users have private profiles and you can't read them anonymously), so I will check out some later on and make my selections at that time.

I am feeling better today. Yesterday was horrible. You know how some days you realize you've been staring at the TV with no recollection of the last hour, or attempt to play a simple hand of solitaire and not understand why your 8 of spades won't go on top of the 3 of hearts? That was me. All day long. I don't get sick often, but when I do, I do it in style. I still have 4 full days of vacation left, so I don't consider it totally wasted.

I spent a good portion of today thinking of the physicalities of my characters and I decided it will be easier to write about them if I knew what they looked like. I think I may have found something:

I know it's just Paul Walker & Mila Kunis, but they represent what I want my people to look like. And it definitely helps that they are both pretty hot, agreed?


UPDATE: Ok, here's a blog I think is award-worthy: Disenchanted Forest

Her blogs crack me up, and yet I totally get it.