Saturday, November 08, 2008

Beyond Limbo ... Life

When I first started this blog I was adrift, living without purpose or direction. I was quite literally living in limbo. A lot has changed since then. I moved to Sackville. I moved back to Miramichi. We launched a print edition of Bread 'n Molasses. My nieces were diagnosed with diabetes. My baby brother moved out of my parents house, got a permanent job and engaged to the girl I would have handpicked for him if I had been able to handpick. I started dating again. I fell in love. I got my heart broke. I settled all my unresolved Toronto issues finally after almost 20 years. I became actively involved in the New Brunswick community of writers. I started drinking wine ...

My Wrist

The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on Tuesday, May 8, 2007, and sent via FutureMe.org

Dear FutureKellie,

Six months ago you had a nagging pain in your left wrist. You weren't sure how long you had been experiencing pain or whether the pain was the result of some injury or over-exertion (i.e. carrying a lot of shopping bags for great distances, carrying heavy boxes during the move, etc.)

So what about today? Do you still have this pain? If so, it's been a solid six months! For christsake, isn't it time you go it checked out?!

Love you lots,
PastKellie


I'm happy to report the wrist seems to have healed. Yay!

Mood: manic
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: computer thrumming
Hair: greasy

Thursday, November 06, 2008

If ...

If I were doing Nanowrimo ... which I am TOTALLY not :) but IF I were ... I would be at 21,037 words. If, you know. That's kind of exciting. I'm living this story right now, writing in my sleep even. This is good. Good things will happen this way. Every day I call my mom and ask her if she remembers the time ... and then she'll say yes and we'll talk about it and then I remind her again that even though some situations resemble my real life, the mother character in my story is in no way shape or form based on her ... she says she knows. Soon, I'll have to start calling Dad every day to tell him the same thing. Though the last time I dissed a father character in one of my stories and Dad thought it was based on him, he was flattered rather than hurt. So, one never knows how it'll go.

One thing is for sure, I've definitely started letting go of what really happened and jumped off into the pool of what never happened but wouldn't it make a good story if it did.

Mood: creative, wired
Drinking: water
Listening To: typing
Hair: spiked

Monday, November 03, 2008

Death of a Disco Dancer

I'm all over the place today. Stressed (about money, what else is there?) Restless (moon stuff, dreams, writing, non-drowsy meds). Excited (niece is out of hospital! wrote 10,500 words this weekend on creative personal project!) Listening to old punk and trying to settle in to accomplish something this evening.

Here's a meme. Courtesy of Wandering Coyote. Play along if you like.

1. Do you believe in seeing a rainbow after the rain? I live at the end of the rainbow. FYI, there's no pot of gold here.

2. If you have a dream come true, what would it be? My dreams come true all the time.

3. Do you believe in eternity love? I do AND I don't. I don't believe that there's only one right person. I think we have many forever loves.

4. What feeling do you love most? joy

5. What feeling do you hate the most? fear

6. Do you cherish every single friendship of yours? Absolutely

7. Do you believe in God? Yes ... but not the organized religion kind.

8. Who cares for you most? If you mean who cares for me more than anyone else, then that would be me. If you mean out of all the people who care for me, who cares most, then that's probably my parents.

9. What do you think is the most important thing in your life? my family

10. What emotion do you like to show? enthusiasm

11. If you have something troubling you, what do you do? I cry, write the crap out of it, weigh pros and cons, make a plan, act on the plan

12. Who do you admire most? I admire a lot of people for different reasons, it's apples and oranges to pick a most admired. I tend to admire people who are very calm, optimistic, spiritual and logical.

13. Who did you last chat with in a chat room? I don't do chat rooms. On MSN chat it was probably Joe last week

14. What kind of person do you think the one we stole this meme from is? WC? Hmm, I've really no idea, but from what I've read we have a few things in common, and I know she's a kick ass cook!

15. What color did you use to dye your hair? Right now it's very dark brown, before that it was a light blonde. I've been strawberry blonde, orange red, dark red auburn, light brown ... but nothing too radical

16. Why are you doing this meme? something to do, to get my fingers started on the keyboard

17. What do you do when you’re moody? drink wine, eat junk, watch a lot of tv

18. At which age do you wish to or did you, get married? very glad i did not marry when i was younger, i shudder to think of the trail of divorce i'd have behind me. i used to be anti-marriage, but i'm mellowing on the subject. i think i'll say yes to the next guy who asks ... i broke up with the last three, lol

19. If today is the last day of your life, what will you do? hopefully i know it's the last day and i make plans because if today is the last i wasted it on editing, banking and this meme. if i knew ahead of time i'd spend the day with my family and dog

20. Who is the person you trust the most? me. just me.

21. Last time you smiled? today, when stacy called

22. What are you listening to right now? AccuRadio Vintage Violence channel, "Over the Edge" The Wipers

23. Who was the last person you saw in your dream? hmm, i think it was me ...

24. Are you talking to someone while doing this? nope

25. Do you walk with your eyes open or closed? i do real good not to fall flat on my face with my eyes wide open thank you very much ... closed? wtf? who does that?

26. Is there a quote you live by? For writing purposes it's "you must shine in every sentence" which is not exactly a quote but more of a paraphrase of something Mordecai Richler said. In life it's "Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around" from the movie Vanilla Sky.

27. Do you want someone you cannot have? only if movie stars count

28. Who always makes you laugh? cute with chris, J-Money, Liam Sullivan

29. What was the worst idea you’ve had this week? the week has only begun, but i'd say it was going to sobey's today

30. Do you speak another language other than English? no, though i'd love to be able to speak french and italian

Mood: weird
Drinking: nothing, need another cup of tea
Listening To: melody, serge gainsbourg (oh hell yeah! i am grooving on this, reminds me of frye festival)
Hair: clean but unkempt, i washed it and didn't even comb it afterward, for serious

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Katt Lives!

A couple of weeks ago I started meeting with a couple of writing friends to workshop. We've been meeting once a week, and so far we've met twice with a third meeting set for this week. It's doing wonders for me and my writing. When the idea first came up I didn't know what I would focus on, I just knew that I needed to be working on something and left to my own devices without any pressure to produce for a group, I may very well toil away the rest of my days writing only articles and editorials for BnM.

The first get together with the girls was upon me and I hadn't written shit. So I went into my files and pulled something to take to them. Because of all my hard drive failures in the past a lot of what I've written doesn't exist on this computer, unless it had an incarnation on this blog. Two chapters from Katt's Lives originated on here. So I started by taking them to the group. Two chapters were all I had written, though I have an outline of sorts. If all goes as planned, it looks like a 12 chapter book. Two meetings down and I'm out of old material. Time to push forward. So last week I started writing. I started with the first chapter, the beginning, and by the time the meeting rolled around I had three pages to bring to the table. About 1500 words. Not much, but brand spanking new baby! This is a step for me.

Three pages was enough to awaken the story in my brain. I'm eating and sleeping with Katt now. I'm writing consciously, unconsciously, 24/7. Yesterday I took to the keyboard again. Chapter one grew to 4500 words and I didn't want to stop then but it was so late I knew I needed sleep and I promised myself I'd get back to it today. I dreamed with Katt all night. I don't have all the answers for her. Things can go a variety of ways. I usually write from personal experience. Personal experience is the jumping off point, but then creativity takes over and anything can happen. It's up to me to figure it out and sometimes it's more difficult to leave my experience behind and unearth Katt's experience. But I'm loving the process! I haven't been this fired up since I can't remember when. It's been years.

November is National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) and I didn't sign up or anything, but maybe, just maybe, I'm doing it anyway.

Mood: excited
Drinking: coffee, black
Listening To: running on empty, jackson browne
Hair: sassy