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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The Conversation I Wanted To Avoid

The current plan is for me to spend another semester at Perk and get that last credit--which isn't even a full class.  Probably no W.  Probably not transfering to a local university.  At least, not this semester.

So, while Lacey (who's gonna get her Associate's too) and I were sitting the counselor's office, the counselor asked what I was majoring in.

I told her I was getting my Associate's and then getting out.  Then when she got The Look on her face, I went on, "I know that's not what you like to hear."

"Why would you do that?" she asked, more like demanded.

I told her I wanted to be a writer, but I would never major in it, and I was going to get out and get a real job and then just write on the side, like I've been doing with school and writing since I was thirteen.

She said that I should major in Creative Writing because it would make me more marketable to publishers.  That I could perhaps teach it and then have more time to write.  There was more to the lecture, and I mean it was a lecture, but really while there are "a billion reasons" why I should, as she said, there's one little thing that can keep me from doing it.

Money.  And student loans are the devil, apparently.

Let's see.  Finish Associate's, look for a job now, the sooner I get one the better, live a relatively happy life.

OR

Get more education, put myself or my parents into debt, get out unemployed or be miserable in a field I hate.  I can do that without a degree.

I don't know what my ideal day job would be.  I don't want to be rich (well, yes I do, but I'm not ambitious), I just need to make enough to support myself and my book habit and the cats I intend to take in when I'm a crazy cat lady.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Note

At first I felt like a hypocrite, because I wrote a vampire story, even though I don't care for vampire books.  I like living, breathing human men.


But, for those of you who didn't read "My Fair Donor," Julius doesn't get his girl until he becomes human again.  Calling it a vamp romance is a bit of a misnomer.


It's an ex-vamp romance!


I stayed true to myself.


No, I am not a hypocrite.  I wrote the vampire story I would like to read.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

A Week at Grandma's

I spent the past week with my grandma, my mom's mom.  Saturday to Saturday.  I had no access to a computer (except for one day, and I didn't use it much), and a little access to the Internet from my Blackberry.  Still, getting on from my BB isn't nearly as good as getting on from a computer.

I wrote over 10k words, which considering how I was doing before I went, that's pretty good for me.  I re-read two books.  Read a little bit in one of the books I'd brought.  I brought my Kindle along too, but it broke.  That's what I get for putting it in my duffel bag with real books.  That's 310 points for print books.

So, in addition to spending some time with Maw Ann and helping her around the house, I got some words packed away, both putting them out and taking them in.

There was nothing else really to do at Maw's.  Before you scold, she did work for several hours each day and I could only do so much housework while she was gone.  She didn't have cable.  She didn't have a computer to play on.  I had my Blackberry, two of my baby name books, my notebook, my diary, and my prayer journal.  Oh, and my Bible. 

What else was I supposed to do?

Well, to be honest, I watched a lot of Madea/Tyler Perry plays.  You know, the ones that are on DVD.  Maw has a lot of them.  Well, maybe not so much as watch as pop in and listen to.  Madea gives great advice.  Also, I got into Andy Griffith.  Maw had The Best of Barney Fife, and then two other Best Of DVDs.  I am now a fan.

But mostly, I wrote.  I emailed myself my current WIP so I can refer to it, only to find out I can edit it in Word To Go.  Edit, including writing more right there on my BB.  So, I did.  It was not quite 3k words when I emailed it (I checked the original docs) and was 9, almost 10k, when I emailed it the last time to myself to replaced the original doc with what I worked on on my BB.  There was another nearly 5k in my notebook that I handwrote for some other writing projects.

Amazing how much you can get done when there's nothing like a computer or cable to distract you.  And you're worried about going over on your data plan...

Now that I'm home, I'm back to writing on my computer.  I'm back to doing a billion other things than writing.  Instead of just worrying about keeping Maw's house clean and checking her turtle traps.

It was a good week while it lasted.