Tabs

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Airbags

I'm a car accident veteran/survivor.

May 9, 2008, my best buddy and I were on our way home from SHE-Event (A Rebecca St. James concert-type thing) when Amanda swerved.  We were going all over the road and finally, we jerk to a stop.

Yes, I thought.  Now we can get out of here and go home.

Bam!  The airbag deploys and my glasses break.

Oh crap, we wrecked.  Then I see the pole in front of us.

November 20, 2008, two years ago today, Amanda and I were on our way to school.  It was Thursday, and I was wearing my chapel uniform.  I hated chapel, which is why I remember it, probably.

Amanda swerves off the road and slams on the breaks.  We flip multiple times. 

We're gonna die!  We're gonna die!  I don't remember, however, if it was me screaming or her.  Somewhere at the back of my mind registered that it was kind of fun.  If I didn't think I was about to die, anyway.

The car stopped between two poles.  How we missed is a miracle.

It's kind of funny though.  Statistics show that you're more likely to get into a car accident if you're listening to country.  We were listening to Taylor Swift's Fearless album.  It had just come out.

People stress the importance of seatbelts.  If we hadn't been wearing ours, we probably wouldn't have survived.

At least my air bag deployed and was already deflated by the time we stopped rolling.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

De-Stressing

I'm not taking part of NaNoWriMo this year, as most of you know.  Truth is, I'm not doing much of anything this month that has anything to do with reading and writing. 

I'm still doing both, but I'm not making myself.  I'm doing it because I want to and not because I have to.  I've read 60 books cover-to-cover this year and reread 9 cover-to-cover.  Actually, I've done 10 rereads, but I'd read it for the first time this year and then re-read it a month or three later.  I marked when I read it, not when I re-read it.  I'll post a full list of all the books I've read this year and my ratings.  My favorites and the ones I didn't care for so much.

Instead of reading and writing, I've been worrying about other things:  what I eat, what I wear, and how my hair looks.  I'm in college and I think it's time I started caring about those things. 

The CMA's are tonight.  I'm so excited!  :D

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Printers and Patience

I finished another read-through of Black Sight today.  It's a total of 203 pages and I spread it out over my half-cartridge left of ink in my printer, and my new cartridge.  The cartridges I have print approximately 200 pages.  I got 136 off my old cartridge and got what was left on the new one.  There is a huge pile of paper sitting on my bed.

I'm handing this copy over to my mother with a red pen.

Now, I'm going to read someone else's published work and will call it a night.  My godkid's harping for the computer to play JumpStart or Hoyle or something.

Good night and God bless.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

November 1

I'm pleased to report I survived November 1 without striking blindly into creating a new novel that has had no planning.  (Not that I ever follow the plans that I do make.)  Instead, I've been hard at work editing Black Sight.  It's only 48,000-something words, close to 49,000.

I took a pen to the printed copy my mother and sister read.  While going chapter-by-chapter, I realized that I left out two chapters in the printed copy.  Oops.  So those two haven't been edited yet.  I had wondered where certain scenes were while I was going through it and editing, but thought perhaps I decided to take it out and I just didn't remember.  Wrong.

During my pen edit, I jotted notes like, "Don't forget to make sure you change this name, and make sure you do it in every chapter." and "Add explanation for this SOMEWHERE in the book."  Those are not word for word, but that's what they say in essence.  My real notes don't make sense.

There are other scenes that I just bracketed and wrote, "Rewrite" in the margins.

I complained to my mother yesterday (or maybe the day before) that I needed to learn how to drive and I needed to get a job.  I only go to classes twice a week (college student with a driving hang-up, who knew?) and that I needed something to do for the rest of the week.

My mother just told me to worry about my book and try getting it published and bring in some money that way.

Er, no.  It's okay to dream of making a million dollars for a great book, but that almost never happens.  And it probably won't happen to me.  I read Stephen King's On Writing:  A Memoir of the Craft recently.  I knew this already, but in there, he says that if you're in it for the money, don't do it.  I mention this because SK is an authority on it and people respect something when they know an authority endorses it rather than just some random article.  So I'm not the first nor will I be the last to agree with it.

I have to be in General Psychology soon.  Have a good one, and God bless.