Scratching and clawing

I don't know if I can drag my carcass over the NaNo finish line. 1500 words plus a handful. Arrgh!

Random poetry props

Umbrella Issue 4 has some lovely poems, especially Intervening by Janna Layton and The Green Gaze by Penny Harter.

Yeah, dead things. Damn. I need new drugs or something.

Except, I like badges

wordcount widgets

Rather unhappy thoughts about poetry

After the debacle with Raintown, I went back to my earlier position of "Publication? Who needs it!"

So, I'm not very happy to come to the realization that I think I might need it.

I'm feeling incredibly isolated from poetry, and I've finally added two and two and understand that when I've felt this way in the past it's been because I have isolated myself through resistance to publication.

It isn't the publication in and of itself that can ground my writing. It's the attempt to take part in the larger conversation.

But, oh god, I'm so tired. I don't want to think about submissions and picking and choosing and working so hard. But when I don't, I don't do anything with poetry. It's either the hard road or no road. Am I ready for no road?

Maybe my mother was right and the whole poetry thing is a phase. I'm just slower at getting over my phases than normal people. (Oddity, I nearly wrote "real people." Apparently, I think I'm Pinocchio.)

Oh, where to start?

We are in Kentucky. The drive down last night was horrific and I charlie-horsed my neck and couldn't turn my head for the last fifty miles. Finally this morning I was feeling better and we went to the in-laws' where Steve ate something that disagreed with him and spent the next several hours barfing. In the meantime, I end up corralled by the sister-in-law who was talking about a children's play area and said, ""Not to be racist, but that's because the niglets haven't come there yet."

Hey, bitch, if you actually don't want to be racist, how about not, you know, BEING FUCKING RACIST?

She's lucky my shoes are new or she might be wearing one home up her nose. Bitch. BITCH!

Fun with hair

New haircut.

I can now make my hair look exactly like Heat Miser's hair. Ha!


The expression isn't far off, either.

Woo

Thanks Rik and Scavella.

You know how in Fletch...

... there's that guy (played by that guy) who hires Fletch to kill him? I need a Fletch.

Why did I agree to go to the in-laws' for Thanksgiving? Am I actually as stupid as... wait. I'm not going to finish that, you smart asses.

And another one from my mother

"So, are you still writing poetry or are you over that phase?"

I need a headslapping smiley.

Orson the Giant Kitty has died

We had to have him put to sleep tonight.

I haven't been well, feverish and dehydrated. For a while, I couldn't even cry. I guess my body finally decided it could dehydrate itself a little more.

Dammit.

Some people have an angel on their shoulders

I have an alien!



You too can save an alien (though it annoying requires Facebook, which I hate).

Still, they are cute. The item clutched to my alien's side is a rubber chicken, a la Magnum, p.i.

CC gets CY

Hooray.

If you don't know what this post means, you probably wouldn't care anyway!

oh-for-two

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from. And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi. Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics... Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Your Brain is Blue

Of all the brain types, yours is the most mellow. You tend to be in a meditative state most of the time. You don't try to think away your troubles. Your thoughts are realistic, fresh, and honest. You truly see things as how they are. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about your friends, your surroundings, and your life.

What Color Is Your Brain?

The little engine that...

... isn't entirely sure.

I wrote over 9000 words over the weekend and I think I broke my will to live, or at least write.

Look at that!

I finally have more words written than I am behind by. It can no longer be denied. I rock.

Because you can't have too many meters

Gotta love those entitled editors

Here's a real winner:

Please do not importune us with queries concerning the status of your submissions.

How about no one importune you with submissions of poetry, you overinflated gasbags?

Things I never thought I would say at work, but did

"Oh, did you Swiffer behind the desk... with your face?"

Said to the new office puppy.

Oh dear, did I want to know that?

Firefox has a NaNo add-on that is sitting balefully in the lower right corner of the screen. It tells me that by the end of November I will have only 18,300 words. Suck!

Ignorance was bliss.

Sinus rhythm

Two weeks of sinus headache.

A couple of days' reprieve.

Two weeks of sinus headache.

A couple of days' reprieve.

I could go on.

You get the picture.

The reprieve is now over.

Everyone back on your heads.

Julie needs a new pair of shoes (and this cd)

My shoes are broken. Not broken in. Broken. There is a pinch residing somewhere near the least of my metatarsals and it's pissing me off.

On the bright side, I couldn't really walk around Best Buy earlier today, so I lounged against a post. And in my lounging I spied a collaborative cd between Alison Krauss and Robert Plant called "Raising Sand."

I haven't bought it yet, but based on the samples it is built of many bricks of awesomeness. Door shut, window opened, shoes pitched.

Like the beat beat beat of a tom-tom

I think I officially am a whiner, but dammit! My ears are going nuts. I keep hearing popping and banging and it's worse than an audition for a garage band drummer.

The NaNovel is going, barely. I used to be good at this whole writing on demand thingie.

Does anybuddy know?

I don't have any Writing Buddies on NaNo. I don't know what a Writing Buddy is, but I would like one. Would you be mine, could you be mine, won't you be my buddy?

I'm here. Be my buddy or millions of people will DIE!

Only 50 words? I need VOLUMES!

Steven Schroeder is bringing out a new poetry journal in early 2008.

From the guidelines:

Either in the file or the body of the e-mail, include a cover letter with your name, contact information, a contributor-note biography of 50 words or less, and a statement of 50 words or less on what you’re against in poetry.

I feel lately like the list of what I'm against is twice as long as what I'm for.

If I read another cutesy sonnet that doesn't say anything I'll... I'll... okay I won't do anything but seethe.

Daylight savings

Makes the baby Jesus cry!

What time is it? WHAT TIME IS IT? *sob*

Yeah, I'm procrastinating

But look! Nosferatu!

\
8-B
/

Badges? We don't need no steenkin' badges!

Which is good because my NaBloPoMo badge doesn't work.

To be a NaBloPoMoFo, you just need to post on your blog once a day. A tad easier than the other Nas, and you can have a badge and everything if you're not me!

About NaNo and other things

I probably won't be posting any other NaNo excerpts, at least to this blog. It's so backwards that it drives me crazy. Yeah, if there's a clamor (ha!) I'll post to the Wordpress blog. It handles the long stuff.

This post is also for NaBloPoMo, for which I am posting at least once a day.

And considering I'm still only about a quarter of the way through my 1000 lines of blank verse, I am obviously silly for taking on more challenges.

And my car is making a funny noise, and my sinuses hate me and hate you and hate everything.

Grr.

Na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na
Hey hey
Goodbye until tomorrow.

NaNo excerpt--699 words

I heard the shot when I was halfway down the hill, running toward the fire. I was out of breath already, just from trying to talk and run and keep my balance in the dark.

“Did you hear that?” I said into the phone, gasping. “There was a shot. Get 911. A fire and a shot.”

“But...”

“A fire and a shot!” I screamed. And then there was a woman's voice on the phone just saying okay and she hung up without saying goodbye.

The trailer was just a square shadow behind the flames, with tarry smoke rolling out like water after a rock got dropped in. I got twenty or twenty-five feet away before the skin on my face made me stop. That was too close. Thick clusters of embers were dancing around me and the air, well, there wasn't any air there. Nothing to breathe but that smoke and the sparks no matter how I crouched and turtled around looking for a way closer.

I tried to spit on my sleeve and hold it up to my face for something to breathe through, but it's hard to spit when you're coughing and gagging and your body is just telling you to run your stupid ass back up the hill. When your own kneecaps know you're being a damned fool, that's a bad sign.

I ran to the other trailers. There were three, arcing around the end of the graveled lane, away from me. It was the middle one—Timmy Helton's trailer, Dale's trailer--that was burning. There was no space to pass between the fire and the southernmost trailer, so I had to run around it. There was no answer as I screamed and pounded on the door. The northernmost trailer's door stood open and I went through without knocking, just yelling at the top of my lungs, constantly, like a yodel. No one was home.

I didn't know how loud the fire was until I tried screaming over it. Part of me knew how pointless it was, acting as if someone could come walking out of the trailers now, answering to the shrill sound of my voice with me saying, “There's a fire” and them looking back over their shoulders, all startled at the idea. “Oh, I didn't notice. A fire, you say?”

It would happen that way in a movie. A bad movie, but still.


I didn't hear the first truck pull in, had no idea I had company until someone clutched my arm and started shouting incoherently into my ear. My eyes were dazzled by the fire but I think he looked like Santa Claus. He pulled me farther from the trailer and then another pair of hands were tucking a blanket around my shoulders and pushing at me. I tried to catch myself but it was only a couple of inches and I was sitting on the tailgate of an old Ford Ranger, watching in the strobing light of the flashers and the flames as a firetruck trundled up the lane toward me, its siren wailing and chirping through the roar.

I recognized the firefighter. “Tom, I don't live here,” I said. “I'm just a bystander.”

He looked at me in surprise and I realized that Tom didn't sound quite right. Tim. Tony. Toby.

“It's Chad,” he said after a second.

“I thought you were Tom.”

“I get that a lot.”

The light was too spastic for me to tell if he was joking. I would have to ask him later. “I don't live here.”

“Is anyone in any of the trailers?” he asked.

“I looked and didn't find anyone in that one. But that one's locked.” I didn't tell him that I had slammed my shoulder against the locked door a couple of times doing nothing but smacking my elbow hard on the doorknob.

He nodded and yelled at Santa to check the locked trailer and Santa jogged over there much faster than I had managed earlier. He just leaned on the door and did something to the knob and it popped open.

Shown up by a fat elf. At least I was the only witness, and I wasn't admitting anything.