Oh, hey. It’s Sunday, which normally means it’s time for me to stumble through all of the writing, reading, and other nutty antics I’ve gotten into throughout the past week, highlighting both victories and failures alike. I enjoy those posts, because they were a start to me making sure I was regular (toilet humor goes here) with posting to Misadventures In Fiction while also making sure I kept up with my writing, reading, and…miscellaneous antics? Whatever. Continue reading
Tag Archives: goals
Old stories, new stories, and Saturday miscellany
Or “I’m pretty sure the only thing I’m accomplishing outside of work this weekend is licking windows, and I’m not entirely thrilled with that”.
Holiday weekends always leave me a bit catawampus. Friday seemed liked Saturday, and today seemed like Sunday, so I’ll probably wake up early tomorrow, very afraid I’ve missed the weekly conference call at work. I’m probably kidding.
Today was filled with unexpected episodes of nostalgia, which is the worst kind of nostalgia. It inflicted memories on me that I was happy to revisit, and some I could’ve done without spending time focusing on. Enough about that, though.
This isn’t a post about today’s weirdness so much as it is a post about tomorrow’s hopeful productivity. That’s the exciting stuff, I hope. The plan is to get up relatively early, which is easy enough since I’m no longer able to sleep past 8a.m. anyway, and get as much writing done as possible. I can’t think up a sufficiently clever name for it, so Sunday Marathon Writing Bonanza-Thing. It’ll be a little of the old, a little of the new, and enough writing to make my fingers bleed. Two stories that helped inspire my post on my story mortality rate. A story inspired by The Bloggess’ Fourth of July tweets. A story idea that happened at work or while I was celebrating yesterday or at some point other than those. I’m a master of Fuzzy Thinking today, with some particularly impressive Mush-Brain attributes. Maybe a new Warpt Factor, unless all of my fingers have fallen off by that point.
I’m beta-testing the pilot episode for Phil’s Misadventures in Podcasting before, you know, recording an actual first episode. Not before figuring out how to convert and upload the pilot, of course. So that should be its own misadventure in dumbassery.
There’s also some exciting news for This Week in Misadventures. I guess I could just say how the news is about [redacted] and [withheld], but not without forgetting [spoilers].
I’m so goddamn funny.
That’s all for tomorrow. Tonight’s for recovering, Adventure Time, and remembering what day it is, because I still keep thinking it’s Sunday. In about an hour, that’ll be right…so hooray for small victories. I hope you all, dear readers, enjoyed a pleasant Fourth of July with your bald eagles, burgers wrapped in steak, and your assault rifles that launch fireworks, and avoided the standard Fifth of July Hangover. See you lovely folks tomorrow for the standard weekly recap.
The publishing house I’d love to call home
As a writer, I have all sorts of goals and dreams, blended neatly with what I can only assume are powerful delusions of grandeur. I dream of becoming published. I dream of finding a decent-sized audience and having tremendously fun interactions with them. And so on. I could go the rest of my life without such luck, and I’d actually be perfectly content still writing. I have an established group of readers. Some of them may (definitely, most certainly) be biased, but they’re all wonderful to me.
However, there’s that one thing that will gnaw at me no matter how well or poorly I do as a writer. I, like many writers, have a dream home. I’m not talking about the sort of home you need a mortgage for, of course. Getting to the obvious point here (unless you bypassed the title): I’m talking about the publishing house I dream of calling home. Continue reading
This Week in Misadventures…and procrastination
Or “Let’s try this again from my laptop so it doesn’t keep breaking WordPress,” and “there was a topically appropriate subtitle but backspace kept deleting everything on my Surface”.
This week has spanned the good, the bad, and the ugly in terms of motivation and productivity. I could easily say I accomplished a lot of what I’d wanted to, but the comparison of completed planned things versus completed unplanned ones is a bit askew in favor of the unplanned. Hooray, things got done. Boo, lack of discipline and being easily distracted. In light of this post being “This Week in Misadventures…and procrastination” (we’ll get to the procrastination part because I’m not letting myself off the hook there), I suppose I should get to the actual misadventures from my week. Continue reading
Time to revisit some of my goals
Or “Oh god oh god I’m writing this in IE on my Surface and it feels so wrong.”
This past week, and I’m okay with saying this past week because I have no concept of day at this point, has had more than its fair share of reflection (or, rather, I’ve spent much of it reflecting; whatever). Back in January, as some of you may recall, I set some pretty lofty writing goals for myself. And then, because I never half-ass things (I either whole-ass them or go all over-achiever), I ended up writing an entire first draft of a novel by the time the Oscars aired. Since then, my writing has still been pretty consistent, and yet I’m not happy. I’ve not always made it a point to write every night, and I could very easily say the other difficulties in my life were to blame.
However, that sounds too much like an easy excuse. As a solution to this, I’m outlining some revised goals for myself here as a WordPress guilt-trip in the event I start slacking again.
Writing
I need to write at least one short story a week. Flash fiction, regular variety, or oh-shit-this-might-become-a-novel varieties all apply here, so long as I create some work of fiction that isn’t just a couple words strung together. Unless those words turn out to be really good, like those two sentence horror stories. I also want to write at least one post for Screen Robot or Magific (my latest writing gig), and at least three for Misadventures in Fiction. I realize the three post minimum on here may seem a bit lofty, but it’s a lot easier for me to vomit out my thoughts on here than it is to write a story sometimes. Also, I love my site so I have to give it plenty of attention so it doesn’t do what all neglect blogs do (take up a life of criminal inactivity).
Cutting back on pop
Before I even go any further, I was born near, and lived around, Pittsburgh most of my life, so it’s pop. You can disagree, but you’re wrong and also a jagoff*. I drink entirely too much pop for my own good, which is something of a difficult realization. I mean, I’m not saying I enjoy Mountain Dew more than the average consumer, but I am saying if someone were to try drawing blood there are days it would probably come out green and carbonated, and with fine print reading “Property of Pepsi-Co”. Tonight was a last hooray of sorts at Olive Garden, where I indulged in three glasses of Coke. I am a bit ashamed to admit that after not drinking pop yesterday and most of today, I already was able to savor the way the carbonation tickled at my tongue and the roof of my mouth or the taste and texture. When I go without pop for long enough, it might as well be the Nectar of the Gods as far as I’m concerned (save for diet varieties, which is the Sewer Water of the Gods).
However, and I make no efforts to hide this, I think I need to lose some weight. I’m a bit on the rotund side, in that some smaller people mistake me for a planet (I played Melancholia in the not-so-great movie-with-the-same-name). Cutting out sugary beverages, among other things, will help me shed a few pounds and maybe join Pluto in the League of Former Planets.
I’d also like to announce, before I forget again, that I will be posting live from Interventioncon this August (the 22nd through 24th). Preregistration prices are still available at http://www.interventioncon.com, so check it out.
There was more I wanted to say, but I’m distracted by the horrifying black clouds and too-close-for-comfort lightning strikes.
Help my friend realize her dream
I went back and forth on this a bit, and then I decided I’m going to write a post for it afterall. My friend, and former college roommate (who has, no doubt, wanted to kill me at one point or another, which is perfectly all right because in the time I lived with her I assure you all the desire for homicide was mutual), Brittany Barnabei, dreams of becoming a voice actor. It’s a goal I once held, believe it or not, and I honestly think it’s a pretty terrific one to have. The really cool thing is she has a chance to make tremendous strides toward that goal by going to France to meet people in the field of voice acting. I can also say, with certainty, I know she would go out on a limb for me like this if our situations were reversed, and so I present the following link to her GoFundMe page. I realize that’s a lofty request, asking for donations.
I’ve known Brittany from before High School, which feels like decades ago now (even though it’s not, thankfully), and she has always been very passionate about acting. She is a very talented individual, and she deserves a chance to realize her dreams just like anyone else does. This gives you, dear readers, a chance to be a part in her making her dreams come true. If possible, please donate even a little to this endeavor. Donations don’t have to be money, of course. Or just give a moment to share the link so others may see it and have the chance to support her cause. Spread the word, give generously, and please help make my friend’s dream come true.
After all, it’s these dreams that keep so many of us going, and it would be absolutely wonderful to see someone like Brittany be able to achieve what she’s been working so hard towards for so long.
In hopes of forging new habits
Or “Help, I’m Experiencing a Horrible, Painful Book Hangover.”
I was planning this blog entry for earlier, and by earlier I don’t mean earlier today so much as some point yesterday. Then I worked for ten hours, which transformed me into a three-toed sloth with a strong, overwhelming need to loaf about the couch. I had also wanted to come up with a really witty title about having a sizable, ever-growing backlog of books (that didn’t pan out anyway, because the best I could come up with was “book-log”, and that sounds like toilet humor).
The three new habits I hope to form this year, which aren’t to be mistaken for New Year’s resolutions because, as mentioned in my last entry, I don’t usually handle those well are as follows:
- Read, even if only a little, every day
- Write, even if only a little, every day
- Write a journal entry every day before bed
The first one is actually what waylaid me from making an entry earlier. Instead of writing about how I have a backlog of books to read, and how I already have some titles I want to add to my library (I’m looking at you, “Vampires in the Lemon Grove“), I ended up reading the two-hundred-some pages of “Dreams and Shadows” I had left (and hadn’t gotten around to for the past couple months, which is a shame because it’s a fantastic book). Since a bit before my last year of college, I noticed I’d been making less and less time for reading. Not for lack of wanting to read, and not for using the time for video games or other means of entertainment. At some point, reading began happening less. Yes, I realize there was probably an actual, underlying reason for that. Since I genuinely enjoy reading, and I like to claim I’m a writer (though there is limited proof of this), I feel like I need to get back to reading, and reading often. The intense feeling of sadness I have from finishing “Dreams and Shadows”, which I referred to above as a book hangover (if you don’t think that’s a great term, you need to reevaluate everything about your life because it is a great term) is something I’ve missed. Falling deep into another world for hours on end is something I’ve missed even more. And, of course, those new books I received for Christmas aren’t going to read themselves.
The second habit I intend on getting into will be a bit more difficult for me, but it’s one I need (emphasis on need over want) to get into. I’m a writer, damn it. I should start behaving more like one. My schedule with my nine-to-five job, which is almost never actually 9a.m. to 5p.m. usually leaves me more ready for extended periods of sleep. That being said, my notebook for “Joshua’s Nightmares” has been sitting out in places where it can make me feel guilty, and I acknowledge how awkward it would be if all of these lovely notebooks I have were to continue to remain blank.
Thirdly, and feeling a bit like a simple variation of the previous habit I hope to build over the course of this year, I want to start keeping a journal daily. My all-around wonderful sister got me a TARDIS notebook this past Christmas, and I’ve been thinking about what to occupy its pages with. A couple days ago, for whatever reason, the idea of starting a journal popped into my head. The idea of journaling then proceeded to buy prime real estate in my head, where it built a tiny, but cozy, cottage, unpack all of its things, and refuse any notions of eviction. I’m the sort of person who tends to worry a fair bit (read as “I’m a ball of anxiety on a regular basis”), so I thought it couldn’t hurt to have another outlet for what’s on my mind (without polluting Misadventures in Fiction with it). It’s also a great way to make sure I do at least a little writing every day, though that one pertains more specifically to writing of a creative nature.
Anyone else working to form new or stronger habits, creative or otherwise, and feel like sharing them? Post ’em in the comments.
And now, in line with all this positive-thinking, new-habit-forming business, I believe it’s time to write a journal entry.
Phil's Misadventures In Fiction 