A Little While Later

I'm not trying to make up for six or so months worth of neglect by posting every hour. I am, however, bored.
Caitlyn didn't wake up so I did a runthrough of my flashcards and found I know about half of them. That's not to bad for a few hours of cramming. It's not too good, though, as I have to write a test an hour from now and I'm blogging instead of cramming.
I wrote a little more of my novel in the works. I'm quite pleased with it and I know that even with the impending headaches that will accompany National Novel Writing Month, I will not forget about my 44 and a half thousand word baby while I follow the rules and start over new to meet the 50k word mark. It'll be in my thoughts and in my dreams.
I know I talk about writing a lot, and most people who know me are either sick of hearing about how much I want to be a writer or are sick of me saying that I'm writing a novel and I won't let them read it, but I want to talk about it some more.
I have always wanted a structured outline - preferably something I could just print off the internet and insert character names and little tidbits of my own thoughts here and there - that would be the ideal because it would be so very easy. I scoured the internet for more hours than I wrote, sometimes, just looking for this thing that would make my life a breeze and let the control freak inside my brain take control.
I'm a contradiciton, I believe.
Creative and organized.
Touer says he can't write with an outline, says it boxes him in and stifles his creativity. I am just way to OCD to write without knowing what's going to happen in the next scene. I think it's because I've always needed that comfort of knowing what will happen next.
Like in life: I am spontaneous with my friends, but with my life, I like to be certain. I only took this Pharmacy Tech thing so I'd have a real income while I scribbled away in a notebook of ideas during breaks and at nights. And now I am paying the consequences of having learning come easy to me.
In high school I rarely studied and got average-good grades. That was with no effort. Most things came naturally to me, like English and Biology. Now I have to study up to thirty drug names in the course of two-three days (usually this means cramming the day of or night before the test) and do tests where I should actually care what the outcome is. But here's the problem: I am missing the gene that causes stress.
At least for academics, that is.
I think my brother got what should have been spread out over the five of us. Out of all of us, he is the most stressed, takes his schoolwork the most serious and is, unfortunately, a little high strung. The rest of us are mostly laid back.
I have the chronic inability to care about things.
For instance, when I was in Europe, I didn't really oooo and ahhh at the things I saw. Tammy did and I feel a little responsible for taking away some of the awe factor with my "crankiness" (I like to blame it on being a teenager, but I know the problem runs much, much deeper). I didn't care about Big Ben or the Vatican or anything in Venice, to be honest. The only time in Europe that I actually enjoyed was time spent in Paris. That could possibly be because it is the make-up capital of the world.
But whatevs... I've got issues. I should see a therapist, but until then, this near anonymous blog will do.

A Long Long Long Time

As the title may suggest, I have been away from this blog for a long time. Long enough to have forgotten my password. I had to go through a slough of red tape to get back to this point. I was so close to just starting a new blog.
Anyways...
I've gradutated.
I'm in college. Well, sort of. It's part time college - one night a week and all day Saturday - but part time so that my days are filled with what? Nothing, that's what.
Oh, actually, I'm sort of writing a novel. And it's not the one I was complaining about not being able to write but wanting so badly to write in the last couple posts. It's one I wasn't even thinking about writing until Life is Easy was written. That went down the crapper, though.
Whatever. Life moves on.
So my literary career is in the works... and my carreer as a Pharmacy Technician is as well. I hate studying, though, because I have to remember tons and tons of drug names. I pity people studying to become pharmacists because I only have to remember three things (generic name, classification and brand name) whereas a pharmacist student would have to remember things about each drug. I just wouldn't be able to do it.
I'm supposed to wake my sister up now so she can help me cram for my test in three hours.
Wish me luck.
I'll probably be back with the scoop of the day when I'm done school, but for now, I'm off!

Almost Grad

It's almost grad. There are 16 days, in fact.
I have my dress, it was altered. I figured out what I'm doing with my hair and nails. I have had my shoes for a long time. I just need to buy a necklace, a bracelet or two and something to hold my hair together (I don't think a regular ponytail will be acceptable). Other than that all I have to do is wait until grad and not gain any weight. The woman altering my dress took it in a lot and now I have to work double time with the working out to fit into it nicely. And I think I will.
I am such a girl.
And I made fun of Amber so much for announcing how much weight she's lost. It's always "yesterday I lost half of a half of a pound" or "last week I lost a pound". I don't care. Call me when you've lost 30.
I am happy to say I have lost 30 pounds since last summer. I know it isn't that much to lose in 10 & 1/2 months, but just being able to keep it off is enough for me. YAY I ROCK! Today was the first day that someone other and my friend (or her family) noticed.
But now I am being an Amber, so I will stifle myself and go on with something else.

I know I said before that I really want to write, and I do, but I just can't. I know how I want the story to go, but for some reason I am unable to start it until I have it all planned out. Touer thinks that's a bad way to do it, that you should let your characters guide the story through their decisions. He says he has an ending in mind and that's all he needs. I need structure. An outline. If I have that, then I can write a certain number of pages per day because I know what to do with each scene.
I love writing and I hate it at the same time.
I'm only 18 and I want to be the best writer ever, though I know it won't ever happen. I read Zadie Smith's books and I'm in awe. I'm also slightly depressed that I will never be as good. I'm only about as good as the authors I make fun of, which I know is hypocritical, but I suck.

I'm so sad about that. I want to write.
I am writing now, actually to be perfectly frank, but this doesn't county.

On a lighter note, I got a tattoo on April 28th. It's a rose and it's on my neck.

Writer's Block

I have been trying for days now to write the storyline out for my novella (LIE) and it has been unsuccessful. I have to come to grips with the fact that maybe, just maybe I have a small case of writer's block.
I have no desire to edit JF, but I want to write LIE because if I don't write it soon, I don't know if I'll be able to accurately portray the main character. Mostly because I'm 18 now and the character is 18, but I am sure I'll start to forget what it was like to be 16 and 17 and the brief moments in the story when the main character is 12.
I want to write.
I wrote on my fiction blog. I know that will do nothing to stop this writer's block, but at least I'm writing. That's the way to keep the juices flowing, right? RIGHT?
Anyways...
I still haven't bought a lottery ticket and it's almost been two weeks since I was 18. Good news though, I got my ID and had a chance to use it on the weekend. I bought a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Captain Morgan's. Don't worry, it wasn't all for me. It was in part to bootleg for my younger siblings (who have already been drunk, so I'm not the bad influence. Besides, if I didn't get anything, my father or step mother probably would have anyway, and this was a way to stifle my slight agoraphobia.

Ooo, by the way my cousin got married on Saturday, so congrats Alex and way to go Eddie, welcome to the family. If I remember, the next time I'm in Sherwood Park, I'll upload the pictures we took on the digital camera. They probably won't be of Alex and Eddie, but they'll be of me and my sisters and brother in nice clothes. That's good enough, I think.

My Birthday; The Weekend

I realize it's been a while. I would be lying if I said that I was busy because I am never busy. I have no life. I just haven't gotten around to doing it, and not that writing on the blog is a chore, but I never seem to be near the computer and I never seem to want to write.
But now I do. So whoopee for anyone passing by this blog.
Anyways, a week ago I turned 18. HOORAY. Yeah, big whoop.
My ID is still in the mail and only one of my friends is 18 (and she has a baby so she's not exactly available to drink whenever she wants). It was not a big thing. I didn't have a party (that's in a couple weeks, and there IS a reason) and I didn't get any presents. I'm becoming an adult (though technically I've been a woman for six years now - ladies, you know what I mean).
There was a sense of loss on my birthday. For the entirety of my life, I had been under this blanket of childhood and if I did something wrong, I rarely had to face the consequences. Of course, just because I turned 18 doesn't mean I'm suddenly mature. That's been coming for a long time now. It sucks, being mature. I still have a ways to go.
Now about the weekend.
On Thursday, my mom and Derek offered to buy me some alcohol. I asked Laura (ha ha, oh Laura) and she suggested Kahlua. I thought I shouldn't ask for any of the hard liquor I've had so as to avoid suspicion, and I had heard that Kahlua was good. Turns out I don't like it. Turns out I can handle the taste of Royal Reserve (that's right, I said it) better than Kahlua. But I'm not here to slander.
On Friday, my mom bought a bottle of vodka and I was satisfied. That night, after 9 shots (from a shot glass that my 14 year old sister bought me in Mexico) I was drunk. It felt so weird, being drunk in front of my mother. Every other time I had had alcohol and she was in the vicinity, I had played it cool (and was believable if that sounds believable). But then again, I thought it was weird when Derek offered Touer a beer when they were watching football. Hmmm. Maybe I'm a prude.
Sunday was Easter and Laura and I made a fantastic dinner. It was sort of stressful at the beginning when I spilled the water the potatoes were soaking in all over the floor. Laura spilled the second pot of potato water. Then as the potatoes were cooking, they boiled over (though many, many years of being in the kitchen through holidays had taught me to expect something like it - it happened every time - I had not anticipated it. Perhaps I had thought it wouldn't happen to me.) and the stove was covered with water. This was, of course, just as we had to take the ham out of the oven.
But all in all, the dinner was good.
The turkey was moist.
The ham was scrumptious.
The potatoes - oh lord those potatoes - were fantastic.
I'm running out of synonyms off the top of my head. You get the picture.
I also saw "The Prestige" which was another one of those really really really really cause-you-to-repeat-a-word-so-many-times-you-just-wanna-barf kind of good movies. Tristan and Isolde. Lucky number Sleven.
So many good movies.
But I really like the smart ones with good acting, ones that are aesthetically pleasing (set and actors) and have a good story line. That's one thing I hate to see happen to good actors/great sets/etc. It's embarrassing as a fan of the written word that people can pump out crap and it does well. I hate it. I hate it.
But I love the movies above. They are awesome and they also make me sad. This is mostly because when I watch a movie like Lucky Number Sleven (not so much the other two since I don't really know about magic or the middle ages) and the story is so fracking good I know that I would never have been able to think of something anywhere close to it, let alone write something that good.
I know I just bashed bad writers, but I think I'm mediocre, so long live the mediocre writers. If you didn't have them, how would you be able to tell which are the really good writers? **Ahem**Zadie Smith**Ahem**