Current Mood: Annoyed

Hmm, I haven’t posted for this month until now. I guess not much has gone on, but I’ll rattle off a few things anyway.

So, in January I rewrote a scene in chapter one of Wilder Side book one, then, as I feared, I slumped back into procrastination. Actually, I like to call it Subconscious Developmental Procrastination, meaning I feel pressured to speed things up and write but I’m not, in all honesty, ready. I wish I could work faster, but alas, that’s just not me. Plus, I am bored with this project. Dead bored. When enthusiasm is low, I’m not a quick worker.

Anyway, good news! Five days ago I suddenly felt ready to start writing the new material for the gutted chapters 2-4. I really do write on whim these days. I finished a new scene and even feel ready to continue (a nice feeling!), but am holding back because I need to type in what I’ve already written lest I get far behind. And I hate typing, so I’ve been procrastinating on that for the past two days. But I will force myself to get started on that today. Today! Today! Today! (I’m trying to turn it into a battle cry)

Actually, the primary reason behind the procrastination is that I tend to do the very first edit while typing, and I’m not looking forward to it because I’m so rusty at writing right now that everything came out sideways and it’s going to be a chore just typing it in. I’m shocked at how rusty I am! I never thought this would happen. What has happened to me? What have I let happen to my writing? I hope I can one day be back to the place I used to be with my writing, where I enjoyed it and it felt satisfying. All I know is that won’t happen while I’m stuck in these two &#!*$@ books.

I hang my head in shame. I used to have such good writer’s discipline. It’s pretty much nonexistent now, but that’s partly because I have no routine with books one and two. I never have. For the last six years I’ve gone back and forth, forward and backward, gutting and rewriting and editing and starting the process again, endlessly. These two books have just been wrong from the start, and it seems like no matter what I do they’ll always be wrong. I don’t even really like them. I feel like they are in my way, preventing me from writing what I really want to write.

I’m not feeling discouraged as I write this, though. Just being factual this time. I’m sure I’ll get through it eventually, even though I’ll probably never like the first two books. Heeee! I’ve been through too much with them, and they’ll always remind me of six very crappy years of my life. But the characters keep driving me, because I love them so. Well, most of them anyway (I’m looking at you, Lancer).

So, there’s an update on my writing. Yay?

~ * ~

Now, since I know you wouldn’t recognize me unless I’m harping about something (what, the above paragraphs already qualified? ), on to some random annoyances:

MySpace finished integrating my imeem playlists, and I decided I just couldn’t sell out to it. Not only was almost every song missing (there is more to music than popular songs that have been released in the last five years, people!), but I just loathe MySpace. I do not want an account there. I do not want anything to do with that site. So, I’m stuck using playlist.com, and they’re missing a lot of songs, too (though not quite as many). It’s such a shame, too, because with imeem I only had one song to go. Just one! And now, no more individual songs for my blog entries. I’ll have to spend some time going over my old blog entries to remove the dead codes. What a pain, and a disappointment.

~ * ~

I don’t know why I get personally offended when artists get all sensitive and throw tantrums when people have anything negative to say about their work.

Case in Point #1:
I was reading the blog of a new author, and Author Who Shall Go Nameless was having an angstfest about receiving a negative email.

Case in Point #2:
Whenever a new dragon is released at Dragon Cave, there’s always a thread on the forum for people to discuss it. Drama therefore always ensues, and for the most part it’s lulzy to read, but recently something kind of ticked me off. People were saying they liked one version of the dragon better than the other (that’s all! Not even really criticism), and the artists got all bent out of shape and threatened not to show their sketches and never do dragons for the site again.

Really? Really?

This kind of behavior never ceases to amaze me. How do writers think they can write something, have it published, and expect everyone who reads it to just adore everything about it and sing its praises? How do artists think they can draw something and everyone will think it’s perfect and love it as much as they do?

As an artist, that attitude really irritates me. What makes some artists think they can and should be immune to criticism?

Most of us have to face and accept criticism.

Criticism is how you grow. Accepting criticism is how you improve.

I understand that artists can love their work so much that criticism hurts, but I don’t understand an artist expecting everyone to like their work. That is utterly impossible. People are different; we do not all like the same things, and there’s nothing wrong with that. People could be more diplomatic in the way they offer criticism, of course, but not everyone has diplomacy skills. Plus, we are in an era where sarcasm is encouraged; you see it everywhere, from forums on the internet to sitcoms on TV. It would be better if everyone understood and respected that people have feelings, but that’s just not how it is right now.

That said, most of the time a person who is giving criticism really doesn’t intend it to be mean. Artists are just defensive and thin-skinned, but it’s annoying to see them go all ballistic rather than behave professionally.

As an artist, you simply have to expect to be personally insulted.  If you can’t handle it, then sharing your work with others is not a good plan for you. People have the right to express their opinions, but as the artist if you lash back or go on public pouting fests, especially until someone comes along and makes you feel better by praising your work (and especially if you hinted for it), you are only tarnishing your reputation as a professional.

~ * ~

And now, more venting. I’ll put this behind a cut in case anyone reading this hasn’t seen the recent episodes of Lost.

Read the rest of this entry »

Current Mood: Excited & Sad

…until the season six premiere. Eeeee! I’m both excited and sad about it. The final season! I decided this morning that it’s the acting I’m so fond of, more than the characters. Even the characters I can’t stand (I’m looking at you, Katie Sue), I can still feel for because the acting is so darn good. None of them have blank faces and monotonous voices, you feel what they’re feeling all the time. The direction on this show is just fabulous.

And I don’t want it to end!

Current Mood: Geeky

So, I love Michael Emerson. I think he is one of the greatest actors of our time, etc. etc. etc., but I only just found out that he won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor. I don’t know where my head is at.

Anyway, I went to YouTube to find video of it. The clip I watched showed the other actors nominated in the category, and an actor named John Slattery caught my eye.

Check out this picture.

I couldn’t help but think, wouldn’t he make a pretty good Isaac? He isn’t English, but as an actor I’m sure he could do an English accent. Right now he’s a bit younger than Isaac, but at the rate I’m going he would be the right age by the time Wilder Side is finally published. Heeee!

Then I went back to YouTube for some video of the guy (I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in anything), and my belief that he could make a good Isaac was reinforced by this fan video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I_DsNIkcps

It reminds me a lot of Isaac and Ursula, after she finally fell in love with him, even though the actress doesn’t look like Ursula.

Anyway, I just had to post this for fun. I still don’t think I’d sell movie rights. I think Wilder Side would require a lot of CGI, and I swear they did better effects in the 60’s than they do now. Some TV shows have better effects than the big budget movies. So, I’m thinking no. But it’s still fun to point out a relevant actor when I stumble across one.

Current Mood: Productive

All right, I’ve recovered from my Dragon Cave drama, but must now complain about other drama that I’ve been mentally grumbling about since it happened.

imeem.com sold out to MySpace Music. Blah. I hate MySpace. So right now all the playlists and individual songs I’ve posted on my various subdomains are an orange void, as you’ve probably noticed. MySpace Music claims they’ll have my playlists back in the next few weeks, but what about individual songs? I’m waiting around to see how all of that will work, mostly out of curiosity, but I’ll probably end up moving on. Guess I’ll have to go back to playlist.com after all. I did like Deezer originally, but you can’t even search on their site anymore. I liked imeem the way it was. *kicks MySpace*

~ * ~

Ow, my knee! Yesterday I kept getting these horribly sharp spasming pains in it. I think it’s the boots I wear. Leather laceup boots with zippers and buckles are difficult to come by these days (at least locally), so I had to settle for this crappy pair whose toes arch upward. Every winter I wear them, at least one of my knees starts hurting. This year it’s much worse, though. I guess I’ll have to give them up. Crap. I don’t want to wear Uggs or anything that remotely resembles them. Can fashion please recover from the funk it’s been in for the last ten years? Please? Maybe I’ll have more luck finding leather boots online. I just can’t wear those anymore.

I’m hoping my knee won’t have any more of those pains today. *whimpers and begs knee*

~ * ~

Randomness! The other day my mother and I were leaving the house to do the grocery shopping, when we spotted two birds flying in our direction. I wish I could say how high they were up in the sky, but I’m terrible at estimating things like that. Let’s just say they weren’t flying too low, but it was low enough where I could see some detail in the feathers of both birds, and I have 20/15 vision if that has any bearing on this. One was a seagull, the other was about twice its size. It looked like a bird of prey, a hawk maybe. Anyway, the seagull was chasing the hawk, squealing at and dive-bombing it. It was so strange, I simply had to mention it in my blog.

~ * ~

I’ve actually been a little productive lately. I finally did some much-needed work on my Finding Faith website. I changed the layout and updated the graphics and information, even though the site and the series are kind of in limbo. Oh well.

I also found and implemented some new WordPress plugins that make improvements I’ve been wanting for a while. I installed one called WP-Smiley so that I can better control emoticons and add new ones at will. I also installed one called Cricket Moods,  and now I have a much better method of assigning moods to my blog posts. So, yay!

Best of all, I’ve been working on Wilder Side book one, In the Blood. The first four chapters, to be exact. I rewrote a scene, and I removed the parts I’ve decided not to use. This is the first time I’ve written anything since May 2008. Dude. And it actually felt good. I forgot that when I’m not writing, I feel lost and a little crazy. I thought that was just how I was now. I forgot the feeling of…normalcy writing brings me. It was nice.

Now I’ve got to prepare to write the new material. There shouldn’t be too much to add, so I’m thinking it will become three chapters instead of four. That’s good. I hope I’ll be able to trim down the final word count, too, but I’ll worry about that after the new material is written.

At least I seem to be working again. I hope it lasts.

Current Mood: Disappointed

Warning: It is time once again for me to moan, whine, and complain about something utterly unimportant so that I can get it out of my system and hopefully feel better.

This year’s holiday event at Dragon Cave.

In two words: Epically disappointing.

Summary: It will be a long time before I can hear the names Holly, Yulebuck, or Snow Angel without experiencing a whole host of negative feelings.

In several paragraphs: Every year Dragon Cave has a new Christmas dragon release. The Hollies, which were from Christmas 2007, are super rare because, apparently, hardly anyone who was around in 2007 is still active at DC. So, the few who are still around this year bred their Holly dragons, and the eggs mostly went out to their friends or people who brown nosed them to death or people who are popular at the site’s forum. I was mostly okay with that–as I acknowledge that I am schizoid and I really dislike forums–and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t snag an egg, but it was a little disappointing all the same.

The Yulebucks were from Christmas 2008, and were abundant again this year because plenty of people who got them last year were around to breed them. I got one of those, planning to freeze the hatchling at Stage 1 because it’s the cutest in my opinion, and I don’t care for the adult (freezing means the hatchling will never grow up). But apparently I froze it too late, because the little $?@*&! grew to Stage 2, which I didn’t want. I acknowledge that was my own fault, as I don’t fully understand the number of views it takes to keep your hatchling at Stage 1 (I’ve never wanted to freeze a hatchling before), but it was still disappointing.

This is the stage I wanted:

This is the stage it progressed to:

There was no sense in keeping something I didn’t want, so I got rid of the little sucker.

Then came the 2009 Christmas dragons, the Snow Angels. This one had several tiers of disappointment. First, you can only have two. That normally isn’t a problem for me, as I don’t want to collect a million of the same kind (except, oddly, the vampire dragons, perhaps), but then I found out via reading the forum that the adult Snow Angels come in three varieties. One would assume that meant you could only ever have two of the three varieties, but I was willing to accept that because I reasoned that if I got two of the same kind, or one I didn’t like as well as the other, I could always ditch it and try again next year. Right?

Wrong. It turns out your account is programmed so that you only get one variety of this dragon. Ever.

This is the one I wanted the most:

This is the one I would have been okay with getting:

This is the one I liked the least:

Can you guess which variety I got? Yes, of course, the one I liked least. I’m not saying any of them aren’t pretty; that isn’t the problem. The problem is that you can only ever have one variety, and that it is predetermined for you.

What a stupid, pointless idea. I thought the point of this game was to collect the dragons you wanted, and have the chance to (eventually) get all the dragons you liked. I guess that isn’t the case anymore.

The Halloween event for 2009 was much better. The new release was the Pumpkin dragon. I got one and named it, then another name suddenly popped into my mind so I managed to snag a hatchling, which just happened to gender correctly for the name that came to me (Jack the Pumpkin Ripper). Also for this event, the Halloween 2008 dragon, the vampire dragon, was given the bite function, so everyone who already had vampires was biting eggs and abandoning them for other people to get. I managed to get two of those, as well, and I thought all of that was handled fairly. The Christmas releases, however, seem to be dumb, and I don’t know if I’ll participate in the future.

It’s a dumb thing to be disappointed over, and in the grand scheme of things it means very little, I know.

Oh, well. I’m just glad the holidays are over. We have way too many in a row. Actually, we have way too many holidays, period.