Reading Journal

I finished Persuasion today.  Now my Pandora shuffle is playing the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack, from the 2006 version.  I'm supposed to be writing.  That's my goal for being down here.  I did do some typing on an LDS forum.

I also just updated my goodreads.  I'm only four books behind my reading goal.  Which I set at 15, planning on one a month, plus about one more per quarter.  My own books are still packed.  I need to get my bookcases, or at least one of the big ones, somewhere other than my bedroom.  I need to be sleeping on my bed.

Finished a blanket today, too.

I guess I'll just go out, get  a writing prompt and do that.  Small but simple things.

Writing Journal

I'm doing this for real.  Again, I guess.  But for real.

I read this article by Kiki Schirr about setting a rejection letter goal, and it inspired me to start writing again.  This weekend, I made the final moving steps into a new home.  It's a humbling experience, but I needed to leave a toxic work environment.  And there was no other place in the town I was living in to make what I needed to make in order to afford my apartment.  My best friend had a room open in her home, offered it to me, and I decided to take a leap. 

My life still feels a little shambly as of this current writing, but I can already tell that it's going to be better for me than what I left behind.  For instance, I don't have a place in my room for a bed.  For the past three nights, I've been sleeping on communal couches.  It's a process.  One that, quite frankly, I'm hoping will be conducive to my artistic endeavors. 

Right now, I'm writing on a table set up in the basement.  Last night it was used to play Magic: the Gathering.  My plan is to listen to Pandora and write until the battery on my laptop gets to low or my drink runs out.  Not sure what I'll be writing.  Mostly journaling to start with.  I might work my way into book or movie reviews or short stories.  We'll see.

Reading Journal

I set a goal in January to walk sixteen minutes every day this year.  I did that for about two weeks, then I got lazy one day, it got cold the next, I got off work too late, the third day, etc.  The past month or so, though, I have taken to reading walks, wherein I read while walking.  People think it dangerous, but thanks to (marching) band, I have excellent peripheral vision.  I also come to a complete stop a good three or four feet from the road at any intersection busy enough to warrant a sidewalk.  In short, I'm safe about it and can put the book down for the few moments it takes to check for vehicles in all directions or in otherwise unsafe conditions.  It's the only way I can read LotR.  I'm almost done with the second book.

In general, I've been better than I have been in recent years about reading.  However, after I finished Monica Halloway's "Driving With Dead People," I decided to pull my Thomas Hardy anthology off the shelf and read "Far From the Maddening Crowd."  I'm only a couple of pages in, but I just don't think I made the right choice for a second book right now. 

Today, just now, I kind of feel like I've had a bit of a break through in thought.  I wanted to restart my Old, New, Random, True cycling habit, which I fell out of for a while.  Until I got a library card this week.  This means I can read books that have been published in the last three years without having to go to another town to purchase them.  However, I also have what I refer to as my Personal Gospel Library, that is, books and films I own related to theology and Gospel topics, the majority of which are of the LDS faith.  (I couldn't pass up a fifty cent copy of the Apocrypha inscribed to someone who shares my first name, or a manual about Jewish courtship and marriage practices from the 50's/60's.  That kind of thing.)  I have been wanting to read "Jesus the Christ" for years, and finally purchased a copy of it for myself just over two years ago. 

Hence, I have decided that one book will be from my cycle.  (So, the LotR series are counting as my Old.)  The other book will be from my personal Gospel Library, which means I'll be starting on rereading Daughters in My Kingdom, partly because I need a refresher and partly because I'm considering sending a copy to one or both of my sisters.

Writing Journal

Today, while I was at work, I came up with a great line.  For a book and a story that is not the one that I am currently writing.  I mean, I may be able to work it into some memories of Grandma Betty's, but that's about it.  It just doesn't sound like anyone else.  And, since Chiraq and Grandma Betty were both going as far as Chicago, there's no real need for me to bring in any more characters, like I've been doing between Sacramento and Salt Lake (which is the stop I'll be writing about tonight.  It'll be interesting to take the story off the train for a while.)

I'm considering putting it up for adoption on the appellation station, but I selfishly want to keep the line for myself for a future story.  One that actually involves a budding romance.

"S/he went from not trying to flirt with him/her to trying not to flirt with him/her." 
Maybe used as a direct quote in dialogue as two characters discuss their relationship: I went from not trying to flirt with you to trying to not flirt with you.

It's beautiful, and I just want to use it, but I can't!!!!!

On the plus side, I thought I was going to have to drive to Norfolk to write again, but then one of my coworkers invited me over to use her kitchen table and keep her company while she makes a cheesecake.  She said those were her plans, and I said that mine were to try and find a place to write 10k words (really closer to 6k) tonight.  She said, "How about my kitchen table?"  I said, "Ok.  I'll give you my number and you can text me your address."

That's how my life works, people.

Writing Journal

Craaaaaaaaap.
In February of 2014, I took the train from Omaha to SLC and back.  The return trip is the entire basis for my novel.  I've known since it happened that this story needs to be told, and now I'm wishing I had actually finished it last year.  Because.....one of the people I met on the train introduced himself as "Chiraq."  That's what he asked us to call him because, in his own words, the part of Chicago (south side) he was from was more violent that Iraq.  When I asked him what he did for work (as a small talk question), he said that he was in the, uh, distribution business.  (nudge, nudge) One of my college classmates posted a status about how he wasn't going to "knock Chi-raq" until he had "seen it."  Figuring it was a movie, I went to imdb, and, sho' enough, that was one of the featured trailers on the site.  Directed by Spike Lee, due to come out December 4.  A modern-day adaptation of the Greek play "Lysistrata" about the violence in Chicago's Southside.

One more odd bit of insight about tonight's learned lesson is that I was on the floor in the living room, avoiding writing, and realizing just how white-washed my movie collection is.  The only movies I have that my MC could possibly even come close to identifying with is Akeelah the Bee and Drumline, which stars Nick Cannon, who is playing the character Chi-raq in the movie.

....and now, after a bit more research into the term, I've found some homework to do.
Namely, watching this.
I also have to put up my map to track Lawrence's journey by train and I realized today at work that I forgot to assign them all families.  Like, I know that Lawrence has an older brother who doesn't live with their mom and I think a younger sibling or two, Chiraq has step grandkids, and Zoeyanna has a younger brother, a stepdad, and a mother. But do they have names?  Not yet in my NaNo world.
And I also only have only about half of the timeline up on my wall/storyboard.  Have to finish that before too long.
Yeeesh.