I don't even want to attempt sleep

Not after everything that happened today. This is the 'net after all and I don't want to fully divulge but I just feel so bottled up inside. I haven't had a moment to myself, a solitary moment for anything to sink in. Until now. The rain is splashing against the windowsills collecting into muted puddles and i'm alone. If I try to sleep I fear the sadness will overtake me. I fear what the darkness will unleash. But if I stare at this screen until the smallish hours of the morning i'll miss out on some much cherished time with my little man. Not to mention i'll feel even worse.

The anxiety today has been enough to turn my stomach into knots and send my limbs shaking. Not eating didn't help and I just need to get it out. I'm afraid I won't be able to stop, to contain myself. I finally dulled my aching mind, who knows what I feel. What I might feel, already do feel, don't want to feel.

A long time coming. It's so odd to always know that someday things will inevitably happen. Then someday becomes now. Before you know it. And everything changes with a snap of time's fingers before you can blink. Nothing will be the same soon.

I just don't want to talk about it over the internet yet I feel something needs to be said, even if i'm the only one who understands what these words mean. And if you ask, I will tell you. At this hour I have no one. No one to tell, no one to talk to. Just me and these keys.

And I don't feel an ounce better..but it does feel right.
~B.

A post on frustration

I just need a little venting. First my mind was working against itself and I couldn't get in a groove.

Then my glasses are bent and i'm out of contacts. Stage two of writers block: failing eyes.

Now- I am sick and running on no sleep.

It is one of the worst feelings ever. I get this feeling right in my veins, begging me to relieve it and WRITE.

Do I have skewed priorities? When I woke at 4...yes 4! I cleaned the kitchen, dining room, did dishes....all after making breakfast and coffee. Now I am hoping to nap while Koel does, a collossally rare event I try to not partake of too often.

Perhaps tonight. Tonight- we write. What about you?

Third Draft

I have decided tonight is the night. I've been thinking about book 2 and really getting excited about writing a few chapters. I'd like to have novel one completed first and hopefully it will go alot faster than the second draft did. I am elated that the excitement hasn't diminished!

I am starting a few new books, complete draft three before spring cleaning mid month, and of course all of this once my role as mother is fulfilled first. :) Enjoy my pretties.

~B.

Second Draft ~ Completion

Finally, the second draft is completed. I can stretch my limbs and rest my mind until the third, and hopefully final, draft. I think I will approach the third draft a little differently. I plan on locking myself in my room each night, the laptop across my legs, and reading from the perspective as reader alone, not also the creator. I feel that approaching a piece, as the writer, from many perspectives really helps to round it out a little better. Viewpoints and all of that.

Yesterday was beautiful! Spring is underway, hopefully she can break from the clutches of winter by the weekend. What better time for a break than my second favorite season? So many things are coming to look forward to. I was reading through my resolutions and am happily startled that I have kept up with the majority of them. That is a first for me.

Sometimes I feel like I am ready to pass out or lock myself in a steaming tub with a glass of wine but once I can relax at night and I know I gave my best in every way that I could- I feel damn good.

I hope you can all say the same, loves.

~B.

For Your Amusement

This post won't be much but hopefully it will be plenty entertaining.

This is me- a little 70's-ish but still. I always have bits of paper with ideas jotted on them. For once I was passing the laptop when I got one. I don't bother to take a seat, I just hover while I type it out. :)

And this is me on edits.This here was a nice taste of frustration.

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Much love

~B.

Two out of Four isn't so bad

So, yesterday I had another root canal appointment. Usually a root canal takes about three appointments but mine has been extended to four. They split the first visit into two so it was much the same as the first. And I have heard from people jokingly before that root canals are comparable to child birth. Well, I have done both and let me tell you- root canals are NOTHING like child birth. :)

Editing is coming along. Pretty much the same news there as usual. About to construct another chapter. I haven't been online or even on the computer really and it felt awesome. I think we get sucked into this little screen far too often and more likely than not it is nothing but a waste of time and drama filled, among many other things. When I sat and thought what my life was like at its best, it was much easier to point out what it didn't include than what it did. That might have been the key I needed.


And setting my sights on all of these changes I would like to make is coming along well. I haven't felt this good in a long time. Relieving myself of alot of old sources of strife was so liberating I couldn't stop smiling the past few days. I love making all of these memories with my family and cherishing the memories I have already made with people who deserve to be recalled. And as always nothing brings more fulfillment or smiles than being with my son. We have done nothing lately but enjoy alot of laughs, get alot accomplished, and alot of visiting family and friends.

So here I type, just living life my way by my choices. Surrounding myself only with those I love and only spending my time,tears, and smiles on them.

And it feels amazing.

~B.

Root canals on Valentine's Day

So is my fate. I have gotten behind on my edits once again due to massive amounts of pain last week. Really the weekend was the most painful, landing myself in the E.R. at 2:30 a.m. and I had to walk there no less. I went to the dentist and they want to see me three more times, the first of which kicks off my root canal process on Valentine's Day. It's a good thing I don't get into the holiday that much. Three years ago that day I found out I was pregnant with my son. Pretty much the only factor that gives it any significance. But for now it is antibiotics, pain meds that make me feel like crap, and taking care of a toddler simultaneously.

I am proud to say I have been handling this juggling game rather well. Today will be alot of cleaning, alot of edits, and alot of cuddling to gain some ground over all I lost last week and will probably be losing in the future. I will leave it at that until I have more to say novel wise. I never intended to use this blog as a venting source and am struggling to keep it that way. So to date I am only working my way through Chap. 8, the word count continues to climb, and I am thinking I will have to construct at least one if not two new chapters. That is pretty much it, loves. Apologies for the mediocre post, I promise one day much better will be posted along this space.

~B.

If I had a moment of silence.

Well well well.

I was excited to post once again and then I really took a look at my edits and realized I am only two chapters farther. The word count has climbed and I am proddingly working my way through. To think I haven't even come to the point that will involve far more work, that will come in a few more chapters. As is the case with me consistently- I have also been scribbling notes and ideas and concepts for further novels, namely novel two.

It seems with everything I am juggling so far this year I only have time for my edits when i'm alone during nap times and have finished everything else. Which really isn't a good amount of real time to sink my teeth in anyhow. And then there is reliably right before bed, my witching hour when it comes to reading. Sadly after a long day I am lucky to make my way through three pages before I have to give in and turn out the light. Plus side is those three little pages have been completely engrossing. A very good sign indeed.

And so I call upon my muse, submerging my body into other bodies- of water that is. I have taken to locking myself upstairs in the tub, trying to edit without inflicting too much water damage on my precious pages. As you see by my progress it is becoming a long road. And to think we haven't even come to the winding one yet. Until next time, loves.

~Eternally,
        B.

It can only last until it ends

I've been editing novel one, including a possible title change, and I promise to fill all those holes in once things are more established. I'm only on Chapter 3. But I have been thinking about novel two simultaneously. I have far more questions than answers and it's causing a slowly forming cloud over my inner perception.

I openly admit this undertaking has been nothing short of Cathartic for me, hence the blog title. What music and family couldn't do, writing has always been able to soothe like a sort of therapy. We always have these people we wish we could be and I decided to give her a voice. I'm not trying to cast any pretenses, novel one has become this thinly veiled biography of some sort, at least partially. But as with life itself it never is as simple as that, complication is the unseen framework of our lives- written, lived, fabricated, or otherwise.

Besides i'm sure it will be alot of fun trying to guess which parts are based on memories and which are concoctions of the thin ether air. I don't know any piece of literature that isn't infused with the writer themselves, whether in character or story, to some degree. Isn't that the nature of creation- it has to arise from a certain point. Where is this point and what is it composed of?

And from my wanderings along this expanse I return to my former thoughts and have to wonder where it all will lead. Impossible for me to know or premeditate, the characters lead and I follow. I remarked the other day that as much as novel one is cathartic by nature, so will be the novels to follow as well just to a lesser degree. I see novel one as the foundation, the solidity, the emptying of my soul. And all novels to follow, well- who knows where they will bring us?

~B.

5 days early is better than 5 days late

I caved. Slowly but surely.

Each day a little writing on novel two here, a little character refinement there. Little scratches of the pen on scraps of paper began littering my desk again. And the bed. The dining table. Anywhere I happened to be really. It became a full out cram session in the mid hours of the night going over what notes I have.

So, 5 days before intended shows remarkable restraint on my part if you know me well. Today I will begin my own edits to add among the two pages of notes already compiled. A few notes have been discarded or left for consideration but all in all I am excited to begin the next phase. A sincere thank you to my mother and megyn for their support. I can't remark on my mothers written input as I haven't seen it yet, but I really enjoyed our conversation over the phone. Hearing someone remark on the characters as *real* people set it further into my mind as a reality. I want to thank megyn for catching a few things I hadn't and telling me my inner voice had been right when I had turned in another direction. It was awesome that a few things that crept up for me she brought back to my attention. And especially thank you both for your enthusiasm and connection with the characters, your absorption into her world. I can't begin to describe how surreal the feeling is when I see the book mirrored back to me in such a way.

Well. The highlighter is in my peripheral vision and I can see the adorned binder to my left, waiting for me to submerge myself once more among her pages. But as the true nature of the devoted mother I see a beaming little face calling to me more. Who knew curling up on the floor with a few trains and a cup of coffee could be so appealing. Anything is worth those little arms tight around my neck and especially when the sound of his amazing laugh is ringing through the air.

Much love.

~B.

A little more behind the scenes

I'm unsure if anyone else appreciates things like this but I like to know how a writer's process is, what is going on, and little inklings into their mind or what was happening at the time. Hence posting the playlist. I am struggling today to not only stay awake after a really late night, MEGYN, and not doing my second round of edits.

As a writer I have come to notice you either read the lines and feel the magic, feel that stirring YES as it leaps from your lips. Or you don't. Intuition, that gut feeling, whatever meaningless label you have set to that inner voice simply must be listened to.

To make a short story long that is what I intend to do. Follow their voices as they call to me through this ink.

I am type A, in fact i'm sure I may have been the inspiration for it. That's not entirely true. But really, I have concluded alot about my own process. I always begin by feeling something playing with my imagination, that little muse whose wings tickle my lobes as she flutters by my ear, whispering inspiration to me. And when she doesn't come water fills the void. My cure for writer's block is I always take a bath or shower and like the water the ideas simply flow. When I write I have music but when I do a read through I have silence. I read aloud in what I call my coffeehouse tease voice. I tried to use it for megyn on the phone but only got half way there, my pacing was off. I felt silly honestly.

And once that initial draft was done I said let your mind settle. I could feel the snap that was to come if i strained much further. So I gave myself a month to let it settle and go back when it was fresh in my mind. This notion I applied from reading Stephen Kings: On Writing. Even if you don't write, you simply can't miss out on this amazing book. But back on course. I also have my mother, husband, and best friend giving me their uncensored notes during this time. This is where we have now come along the winding process.

When I allow myself to curl around those pages once more, there is a process to be found within the process. I will be taking a highlighter before I use anyone's notes and going through every page as simply a reader and not a creator. This will be extremely difficult seeing how I all but bled over every line. I wanted to stay as true to catharsis as possible in this first novel and find more freedom to let them run free in those to follow. The only lines that will glow are the ones infused with magic, that have my inner voice calling yes!

In the aftermath it is my intention that any line not glowing a obnoxious yellow simply must be changed/altered. Obviously. And then I will sit with my notes in addition to the other three and go from there by comparison. I highly value the opinions I have sought, whether I agree with them or not, and I really hope each of them knows that.

I leave you with a few pictures of me hard at type. Much love.

~B.

Playlist Example

I consistently listen to music when I write, so I thought I would give a short sample of what I was listening to when I wrote novel one.

The List of 25:

1.    H.I.M.

2.    Slipknot

3.    Killswitch

4.    Straight Line Stitch

5.    In This Moment

6.    Manson

7.    Rob Zombie

8.    Flaw

9.    Evanescence

10.  Otep

11.  Mudvayne

12.  Silverstein

13.  Armor for Sleep

14.  Taproot

15.  Bullet for my Valentine

16.  My Chemical Romance

17.  The Toadies

18.  Breaking Benjamin

19.  Hatebreed

20.  Rockstar Supernova

21.  Hole

22.  The Crow Soundtrack

23.  Pink Floyd

24.  Alice in Chains

25.  ...and alot of burnt cd's

What put you in the mood to create?

~B.

Edits?

Somewhere in the in between of 2-3 weeks final edits will be made. I'm nervous, excited, and impatient all at once. A peculiar feeling. I put so much of myself into this endevour. There were many points of overly emotional displays and me speaking to myself when I was proud of a certain tryst with the words. On more than one occassion I found myself exclaiming "That's so damn good." and doing a little jig I can only hope was cute in case anyone was secretly witness to it.

When I commit myself to something I do so wholeheartedly. And I can be like a plague that cannot be overcome. I told myself when I was letting the first draft sit I wasn't going to write anything at all, perhaps not even journaling. And that was the first thing to go and closely followed by the half finished first chapter of novel two. What was I supposed to do, that feeling propeling through my body wasn't something within my control. As so many factors of the heart never are. I must admit I am very proud of my restraint on novel one, I haven't flipped through so much as the cover page.

Enjoy my lovelies.

~B.