my heart is a glorious machine;

Right, I've run into a bit of a brick wall -- well, maybe only plaster -- in the NaNo and need some information from those of you on the f-list who are, unlike me, actually British. The vampire-hunting society turns out not be a Society at all but some sort of government, erm, thingummy. This solves a lot of problems, coincidentally, such as why both Evy and Mr Caruthers are convinced (or ordered) to work for them when they don't agree with the way they do things, and, you know, why they exist in the first place. Now that I've thought of it, it seems very silly that all of the rounding up of undead threats (and calming of any and all other supernatural shenanigans) would be left to citizens; surely there would be a special branch of government/police/something to deal with this. (And so there is!) Anyway: I don't really know how to go about naming this branch of government, figuring out what sort of power they would have and how much, and whether they'd be a sub-division of something else. And what sort of offices people in it would hold. And suchlike. Any help would be very appreciated and possibly rewarded with fresh chocolate-chip pound cake or mixtapes.

Well, no more writing on the job for me. Bah. And of course it was Cranky Manager who told me, although she did it fairly diplomatically. The thing that upsets me, however, is that she, by her own admission, does not mind me writing, the store manager is very unlikely to mind me writing, but Company Policy minds me writing, and if The Man happened to walk by and saw me writing on the job they would probably fire me on the spot. I kind of hate corporations right now. 

Let me rant for a minute.

1. Writing helps me do better on the job. It keeps my mind active and my temperament cheerier.
2. Thus far, writing has never, ever gotten in the way of me doing my job in any way.
3. My job involves, at the moment, me making about one sale per hour. In between I have virtually nothing to do, except occasionally straighten calendars. Writing for five minutes at a time and then going round to make sure things are all right and making certain I am alert to any and all potential customer needs cannot possibly hinder this. I understand that I will get much, much busier -- someday? really? PLEASE? -- and of course I would not spend all sorts of time scribbling when I have lines of customers and people knocking things down and making messes.
4. THIS IS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST NANOERS. CAN I SUE? [/flippant]
5. Writing + books + bookstore employee. Do the math. It is of the good.
6. I really, really hate wasted hours. Quite a lot of people will laugh at this because when I have a bad emo fit I spend quite a lot of time sulking about and doing nothing -- but really, few things make me feel worse than doing nothing for hours on end. When I go to work I feel very insignificant. I spend four hours standing around doing very little. I sell people calendars occasionally, and yes, I am earning money and gaining experience, but it feels so very -- pointless? -- in the end. That's coming off a bit strongly, I think -- what am I trying to say? Superfluous is the word I keep knocking up against. I sell people somewhat expensive things that they do not very much need. Certainly I may make some people happier by -- being pleasant towards them? Making things go more simply? 

So, yes, I felt really horrible and emo after work today. Silly and selfish of me I suppose. I won't write on the job anymore, and if I get into the store eventually I won't have time anyway -- and that's all right with me. I just hate that I have hours and hours in which I can't do anything useful at all. (Of course claiming that my writing is very useful is somewhat presumptuous of me.)

In better news, I was slated to lead worship all by me lonesome this morning and had scrapped together some songs -- all gospelly things that I enjoy playing and singing, because I am very tired of limp worship songs, but I was not exactly looking forward to it because I am Not Very Good at leading worship. So I was practising a bit, and then Jonathan got on the piano and we ended up jamming for a bit, which turned into impromptu-ly adding him to the roster. It was the best worship ever. My voice only did something funny once, the congregation was actually singing a lot, I managed to be slightly charismatic ("okay everybody, we're going to sing this song now!" and "all together now!" and "one more time!"), Jonathan sounded fantastic, I felt really involved in the music, and I wish I could clearly say that it was because I was worshipping, but I can't tell, really, between music-propelled emotion and actual worship, but at least it was good, and whole-hearted, and joyful, and well-meant, so I think that counts for something. Also, everybody sang. It was kind of mind-blowing. I have so much trouble getting anybody besides my parents to sing with me. (And, um, Dad tends to throw me off sometimes because he is sitting in the second or third row singing a really different melody and harmonising and throwing odd little bits in and, argh. I mean, it's kind of adorable, but it really throws me off. And sometimes people start singing a different melody or tempo than I am singing and that messes me up terrifically. But anyway.) 

(Also I had this really vintagetastic new Goodwill dress, which made me a little happier than clothing probably ought to, although practically every single person in the car made fun of my green stockings at least once.)

I wrote two thousand three hundred or so words today, I think. I meant to go for another two hundred at least, but it was eleven o'clock, and I already wrote more than the Daily Quota, so if I keep that up I'll catch up by the end of the month, at least. I can't expect to write three thousand words every day from now on. (Also when I checked my word count I was at 22,222 words, which was so awesome that I had to stop there.) And, oh dear, how I hated most of what I wrote. There is a certain underlying problem, though, that caused most of the hating, which I may expound upon later. But there were about two hundred words, near the end, that I really liked, and after so many exhausted, trite metaphors and repetitive dialogue and my characterisations going bland and stereotyped and melodramatic, that felt good.

Good heavens, my characters will not behave. I have just discovered to my horror that Mr Caruthers has shed ten years and gone and fallen in love with Evangeline. What on earth shall I do? (I hadn't planned to have any romance in this novel, drat it! Also, because I am apparently terrifically vain, I imagine my novels as though they are finished, published, and have at least a tiny fan following, and was envisioning the Evy/Mr Caruthers shippers with amusement, and the shipping wars that would go on between them and the Evy/her vampire lot.) Now I will be forced to find the confounded gentleman a Christian name; how vexing.

Furthermore, I was informed of this information after I had written most of the conversations between Evy and Mr Caruthers that will probably take place for several writing days -- the Plot Point is about to come up, although I really wanted it to happen at Christmas, and it's only November in my novelworld -- and so now I know that the dynamic ought to be somewhat different. Also one would judge Mr Caruthers, from his general speech, to be about EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS OLD. (Then again, Giles was, what, in his late thirties in S1?, and he totally sounded like he was fossilising into sixty.) -- Oh, hang it all, I think they're really sort of adorable. BUT YOU CANNOT SPRING THESE THINGS ON ME AT SUCH A LATE HOUR. YOU SIMPLY CANNOT. (Oh dear, he must have been terrifically broken up when they found Evy in a burning downstairs room full of vampires. SHUT UP BRAIN.)

The hilarious thing is that this realisation happened while I was at work this evening. When I get new ideas I tend to want to run around and flail and talk very excitedly to myself -- when I had the sudden burst of knowledge about Mr Caruthers = Giles, I ran outside and made circles around the house for a while. Of course at work I am in Public and cannot flail or talk to myself (very much): so I had to be very quiet and not skip or anything, although I did throw up my hands and sort of laugh, desperately.

Work: better, but not one of my favourite days. I had three customers in four hours. *facepalm* I know I will regret, when holiday season comes upon us, wishing so fervently for business to pick up, but hang it all, I wish business would pick up!! Fun observations: a young woman and her boyfriend walked by; the woman cried, "Look, T.J.: something better than Twilight, even!" and held up a Princess Bride calendar. (OH YES, I thought. ABSOLUTELY. I LOVE YOU, T.J.'S GIRLFRIEND.) Some teenaged boys walked past the kiosk, clearly -- um, how do I say "together" without having it sound as though they were gay? -- but both of them were on their cellphones. My love for human nature took a deathly plummet. (Not very much later, they came back -- talking to each other, but one of them was texting. ARGH.) And then this bloke came up to look at the calendars and said, upon seeing me: "You look like a modern-day librarian!" I think it was the glasses? (My contacts are going bad; I've ordered a fresh set, and am wearing my crimson horn-rimmed spectacles in the meantime.)

Also, they have moved Edward, thanks be to God. They stuck up the Jonas Brothers in his place, but they're on a magazine cover and, more importantly, not staring directly at me with icy fury in their bloodshot eyes. (Seriously, Wardo: I have not taken your stickers nor have I used the last of the Windex.) Mostly I do not notice them at all. I am much more comforted now.

Over eight thousand words, and I dislike my story a little less. In fact I have written an entire sequence that I am really quite pleased with, and which even involved a tiny bit of plot. The terrifically aggravating thing about NaNo is that apparently -- I'd mostly forgotten this -- things change rather frequently in my writing, by which I mean I will have written something one way and then realise within short order that it actually came about this way, or that this thing happened in between, or that person has been here all along. Then I go back and write in the explanation or the introduction. NaNo, of course, is all about Pressing Onwards and Not Editing Ever. So I currently have: an important secondary character who appeared, complete with name and personality, out of nowhere, a sort of sunlight talisman whose origin I have not quite discerned, and an odd ability of Evangeline's that must have been discovered a very long time ago.

So, yes, some Plot did happen. I am so pleased. Not any of the Plot I had planned, but it does lead into my plans, and I hadn't figured out what did that yet, so this is nice. My somehow writing over two thousand words today (twice as much as my usual daily output thus far) is mostly due to finally having something to write about, although the sessions with Victoria and Jonathan last night also helped. (Also I know what is going to happen at the end of this chapter, and that will make everything much more interesting and finally give me much material with which to work. They say the beginning is the best and the second week is the hardest, but honestly? For me I think the second week is going to go so very much better.) 

Yesterday there was work, and it was dull. Oh goodness was it ever dull. I did not, however, muck up any sales so badly I had to void them, so that was a perk -- but I only had six or seven sales in four hours. I was warned the kiosk could be deathly boring. Well, now I believe them. I am not allowed to bring things to do -- like my notebook -- because The Company (not my boss, but The Man, seriously) does not wish for me to look otherwise occupied and therefore discourage customers. Says I: BUT THERE ARE NO CUSTOMERS TO DISCOURAGE. I swear, tomorrow I am going to smuggle in a book under my shirt or something. Wear a jacket with pockets. I want to be a good employee and not flout rules, but also? I am cannot be a good employee if I am so inactive that I can barely think straight, which is what happened yesterday. That was one of the things that I really loved about working Waldenbooks, by the way -- even when there weren't customers I could still keep busy with useful work, mostly finding where books go and putting them there. (Also there were a lot more customers.) Now the only thing I can do to relieve the boredom is walk around the kiosk multiple times, making sure no-one has knocked over any of the displays (they haven't). GAH. I cannot wait to acquire store hours again.

I did find a notepad and a pen after a while and wrote fifty-one words on the sly. I would have written more, but again, I was so utterly bored I couldn't even focus. I don't even get bored most of the time. (But then, usually I can bring a book.) 

ALSO? My kiosk is right in front of FYE. Right at the doorway they had this GIGANTIC POSTER OF EDWARD CULLEN. He looked clammy and damp and seriously contagious (whose brilliant idea was it to give the vampires bloodshot eyes? they don't look eerie or beautiful or otherworldly, they look like they have THE WORST COLDS KNOWN TO MAN and all I know is that I DO NOT WANT THEM TO SNEEZE NEAR ME). So my entire shift he is there, glowering at me and looking rather nauseated and all I could think was "STOP STARING AT ME I DID NOT TAKE YOUR STICKERS LEAVE ME ALOOOONE."

This is where you observe that I have gone mad from boredom.

And my legs ached like -- something, I am out of metaphors after two thousand five hundred words or so -- when I got home, ow. I won't even tell you guys about closing up the cash register after my shift. (LEAST. FAVOURITE. PART. EVER.)

Then I walked to Jonathan's, because the Angelmobile, while not totalled, is certainly out of commission until his tire gets fixed. There was a NaNo get-together with Victoria. Because of the walking I arrived ten to fifteen minutes late, and it took five to eight more minutes for anyone to figure out I was waiting outside. (Jonathan's apartment does not have doorbells. Nor can I get into the hallway and go up and knock on his door without a key. Usually when people come over he waits on the porch to let them in, but I was -- like I said, kind of late.) I threw bark at his window and waved my arms and yelled and everything. (One of his neighbours looked out the window at me curiously and I kind of smiled apologetically and kept waving my arms. I didn't want to make a lot of noise because I really didn't want to upset his neighbours, but I also did not want to stand outside all night. Fortunately it has been extremely warm all week.) 

He finally saw me and let me in, and then there were rollicking good times with word wars, candy, describing each other's NaNos, catching up with Victoria, and general organised chaos. It was splendid.

Today I did not work and instead wrote a lot, sometimes outside, and baked cupcakes, and finished re-reading Sunshine for approximately the thirty-seventh time.

First off: Here I am on NaNo! Friend me, or however it works in those parts, and we can keep tabs on each other. (Also, my user-picture has me missing my hot pink hair all of a sudden. Perhaps after my cut and going strawberry-blonde-red, streaks could potentially come back into being.)

( more rambling about vampire-hunting librarians and me not having nearly enough plot. )

Right, church in the morning, so sleep now.

I shall likely regret this later, but I am feeling regretful that I have not written anything at all for Valentine's Day, although thus far I have never managed to write anything in time for a holiday, except for that one magical year I somehow managed to write a fic for Remus' birthday. (And, um, my poor rl friends have not yet got their Christmas presents, and to make that even messier the half-finished documents are trapped on Computer Which Is Currently Ravaged By Virus, which, yeah, I haven't actually mentioned, but it is, and this is the spare, and we are attempting to get it taken care of.) So I am issuing a writing challenge. Have at it. Give me a fandom and a prompt (more than one is permitted, but I might not do both), and I shall write you a ficbit. Try to keep your prompts fairly simple (I mean, if you actually want to see the result, ever) -- which mostly means "not epic or requiring a complicated plot"; i.e. no, I really can't write the story of how the Doctor helped the Faithful escape from Númenor, although I could write a short segment about the Doctor being in Númenor during the fall. You lot know my fandoms fairly well (and, as usual, I might be persuaded to eke out a smattering of original fic, but only if you ask very nicely). And if I don't get to your particular prompt, don't take it personally, as I've a short-term memory resembling not so much a sieve as a veritable hole.

So.

I was going to write about how (as is generally the case) I'm a bit embarrassed about being emotional, and I'm inexpressibly grateful for all of you, and then I was going to throw in something witty and exciting, but I feel wretched and am not very up to dashing turns of phrase. I've been under the weather most of the week, and it's decided to be tricksy and fool me into thinking I'm all right, so I eat a proper sandwich instead of toast or move about a bit too vigorously, and whoosh! -- here comes the nausea. Great fun, as you can see. It's pounding behind my eyes, too, now. I don't seem to get sick very often, but when I do it just clings. It's never very dramatic, just irritating and uncomfortable and lingering.

Firefly, by the way, is extraordinarily fun to write in. I'm, um. Still writing Christmas presents for my local friends (er, maybe they're very early Valentine's Day presents now?), and most of them are in the Firefly-verse, and -- it's delicious, really. I get a little drunk on words. I love the dialect; it reminds me a bit of the Elizabethan era, when everybody seemed to be so dizzy with wordplay. (Perhaps if I ended up seeing it first-hand I'd be disappointed. Perhaps they just had a disproportionate record of really excellent writings survive, I don't know. Shakespeare's coinages are enough for ten or fifteen writers, to be sure.)

take_a_sadsong commented on my entry of 31 December with, "I've decided that for me 2008 will be the year of doing, and not just dreaming of doing." Which I think is a brilliant sentiment and exactly what I didn't know I was looking for. It's how I spent most of my time, you know: dreaming of doing. Occasionally I have really extraordinary adventures, but mostly they happen because I have people to drag me along on them. I'm not forthright. I'm not in control of my own destiny. I'm like a character in a bad novel -- I don't act: I'm acted upon. And I remember how good and right I felt after my impulsive trip to Oliver!. I wanted something -- and I got it, because I tried hard and did things that don't come naturally to me. This should be a pattern, rather than an exception. I'm writing this here because I need someone to keep me in mind of it. I mostly forget to make resolutions for the new year (other than the age-old: stop biting my fingernails, and lose weight; for the first time in possibly fifteen years I seem to be making some headway on the former, so that's a bit encouraging even if it is something silly), but that's what I want to resolve. And I want to be better person, because I'm not much of one, really, but doesn't everyone? I just -- feel so tired all the time. And there are so many things I want to do -- learn to sew, write and write and write, work on projects -- and I know in ten years I'll be disgusted with myself because I never did them, and I won't have the time later. But it's so hard to -- do things. Ugh. I don't know. Rubbish to whinge about your own resolutions, isn't it? Bad form.

I think Moony and I are going to go off to watch Firefly together. Because nothing cheers one so much as vests with buckles on the back. (Well. Okay. There are other incentives, too.)

I've written my first entry for rt_challenge and feel the need to exult a bit. Shush, it's my first ficathon. And somehow what I was writing turned out to be a poem, which was utterly unexpected and totally influenced by all of the rain-themed music I was listening to while writing. Well. There isn't enough fandom poetry anyway.

Also, if we all keep our fingers crossed, I may have a fanmix EP out for you lot tomorrow. May. Er. I'm hoping that mentioning this has not just jinxed the poor project beyond all hope. I did make the covers and everything, so. Um. Well. Also because my mind works in mysterious ways, I have just made a sort of gloomy-but-also-hopeful mix at what may be the absolute wrong time. Er. Yes. In my defense, they don't die in my universe.

Which brings me to That Fic I Keep Talking About And Never Producing, which, um. Yes. It is almost finished. Really. It has also been in the same state of almost-finished-ness for three days, but that is beside the point. A certain Eliot-loving bloke is being far too angsty for everyone's good and I am trying to work it out into a proper hopeful ending. And I wrote myself to the end of a paragraph and suddenly realised, um, oh no, I have no idea what happens next. Blast!

My oh my, I've made an entirely fandomy post! This hasn't happened in months, if you don't count the rather incoherent posts written immediately after viewing episodes of Doctor Who. Or the equally incoherent post-Lost ones squeaking "what?"

I feel like catching up on the memes that have been floating about under my nose for the last eon or so. I always want to do them and never get 'round to it (mainly because I have a sneaking suspicious that I am, indeed, a lazy git--and forgetful). I have to dig up the five questions that avendya asked me--oh, back in April, I think. I did them in a Notepad document and lost them, and then I found them again, and now I have to re-find-them-again. 

Anyway, mermaidrain tagged me for the five-odd-things-about-you meme not too long ago, and while I'm thinking of it, I ought to have a go at it, yeah? It's been a while since I've done it, and there are lots of people reading this journal that weren't then. (I don't remember when this was, incidentally. Back when I had three or four friends, more likely than not.) 


In other news, I got a package from lexiedohtoday, containing the belated Christmas present of this very fantastic shirt (!!!). I wore it to my lesson today and my guitar teacher loved it (as do I, naturally). It is utterly perfect!!

Er. I really haven't got a good explanation for this. Here are two storybits from the Evangeline thingummy (I'm still looking for a surname, by the by, and the furthest I've got is the realisation that it needs to be monosyllabic and probably ought to mean something interesting). I wrote the first one and sort of forgot about it, and then I tried to write it again and came out with something mostly different, which is why they repeat each other in bits, and certainly in general theme, although they are also talking about different times, I think, and I need to marry them together into a continuous narrative of some sort, except that I still have very little idea of what this story-thing I am writing is about. 

Er. Also, this is mainly for lady_moriel , because she did nag me about writing some Evangeline, and I know she wants to read it, and also because nearly anything having to do with vampires is her fault by default, really. :D And because her birthdayfic is still a bit of mind-mist at the moment. ♥ (Okay, so is everyone else's. For some reason, I have had immense difficulty writing anything over the past few months. My mind freezes up and something vaguely akin to panic starts up. I have no idea what I'm afraid of: that I can't write all of a sudden? That doesn't make sense.) 

Well. Anyway. 




...This is completely barmy. Aaack. *trepidation*