The Beauty and the Mess

Can anyone recommend a community for creative writing exercises? The kind where they give you an idea or a scenario, some sort of jumping-off point? Anyone know what I mean? I've seen blogs like that, but it would take time to find them again and I'd probably forget to visit anyway. If I had ideas on my friends page, I'd be more likely to actually do something.

Thanks. :)

Okay, I know I haven't sent out those 2003 CDs yet. I'm sorry. It's taken this long to print them up. I'm probably going to send them in batches so the shipping won't break me. Also, I need addresses. If you know I don't have your address and you asked for a CD, please e-mail me. monalisa816@hotmail.com. Thanks. :)

I have a problem. As I've mentioned, I have been sort of gearing up to write stories again. Or just memoirs...anything, really. I always wanted to be a writer when I was little. I have plenty of chapter stories in my file cabinet, written in pink pen on notebook paper during my seventh-grade science class. I haven't written a story since I took creative writing three years ago, but the desire is still there and I think I might be ready to try again. Unfortunately, I've come to realize that I just have no time. The creative process requires a lot of time. Even if I finish my chores on any given day, I have other things that need attention, like Evan, my still-unfinished webpage redesign, exercise, letters and e-mails, photo editing, and my scrapbooks. I can't afford to spend two hours a night in front of the computer, waiting for something to come to me. This will continue to be the case into the foreseeable future. So I'm thinking I will never get to be a writer, at least until I am a retired grandma who doesn't have to work.

My lack of time is just wearing me down in general. On my employee evaluation this year, my boss's only criticism was that I needed to stop working so robotically. I'm afraid that's true throughout my life because it's the only way I know how to get everything done. Every day, I come to work and spend the whole day putting out fires, one after the other. If I get a spare second, I have e-mails to reply to and bills to pay. After work I go to the store and buy the same necessities I bought last week. I go home and do the same laundry and the same chores I did a few days before. If I finish everything, I curl up on the couch with Evan and watch the same shows we always watch. Then I put on the same old pajamas and go to bed. There's just no time for anything else.

What I want to know is, is this what adulthood is about? This assembly-line existence? Where's the joy and excitement? The new things to tackle each day? I'm not saying my life is totally devoid of these things- I know I'm blessed. And I love my boyfriend. But I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything worthwhile. Writing, the one thing that might actually contribute something to the world, doesn't fit in my schedule. It's no wonder I act like a robot, because I feel like one. I perform a bunch of tasks and then I shut down. The end.

Attention Friends fans: NBC is taking votes for the top six episodes. They're going to air them during February and March. You can vote every day, so bookmark it!

( States and a random thing from Shana )

It's weird how the sun is usually out in spring and summer, but in fall and winter most days are overcast and dark. No rain, no snow. Just clouds and darkness. Can you tell it's Monday? :P

My weekend was nice. Friday night Evan and I went to Lawson's housewarming party. It was fun. I'll have pictures tomorrow. Robin and Helen were there (but not at the same time). I was happy to see them. Some of us played Trivial Pursuit. Jeremy and Teresa were kicking all of our butts, but then Lawson, Lance, and another guy I had just met swept in and took the game. It was my personal worst game ever, but there were still fun moments. Lawson's house is very nice. Evan commented to me later that it would be cool if it had a creek behind it, so we could call it Lawson's Creek. :D

On Saturday my mom had a massive photo-printing project for me. She took me to lunch at McAlister's and then to check out the sales at Michaels, and then we came to the apartment and I printed her pictures. After all that, I went to Evan's. He had been moving all day. Em and her Daniel were in town and we were going to meet up with them, but Evan was exhausted and I was pretty fried myself. Plus, I could tell it wouldn't be quality time- there were going to be a lot of other people there. So instead he took me to Garibaldi's for a quiet dinner, and then we rented Fight Club (first in a series of Movies We Have Always Meant to See). It was very interesting. I don't think I'd recommend it to everyone because of violence and some raunchiness, but that aside, I enjoyed it.

Yesterday Evan and I got to ride to church together for the first time. It was nice going to lunch and stuff in the same car. :) We went to my parents', where I scrapbooked with my mom while we all watched the poor Dolphins get slaughtered. (It was a bad, bad week for Miami football.) :( In the evening I was supposed to go to my 40 Days of Purpose study, but I skipped it. I've realized that once again, my whole life is being planned for me. I have obligations almost every night. When I'm home, I'm cleaning or exercising. I have zero time to read, work on my scrapbooks, or even take a nap when I feel like it. I have no room for spontaneity. I'm not in school or anything, so there's no excuse for this. Whenever I get to this point, I try to rearrange my priorities. Unfortunately, they keep un-arranging themselves. As one of my co-workers told me today, "I need to quit work. It's interfering with my life."

Ryan's roommate, Ashley (a guy), has moved his wedding up from June 26 (Em's wedding day) to March 20, so now I can go to it. I like his fiancee, Katherine, a lot, so I'm excited. Just thought I'd share. Ryan is probably going to move in with Royce, which is also fun. God works things out.

According to that thing going around, I write at a 6th grade level. Isn't that just based on syllables? Should I start using words like fangoriously, extrapolation, and administratively?

This post would earn me a terrible rating on journals_ltd. :)

( Surveys and a Surprise )

Yay Friday! Yay Jeans Day! Yay sunshine! :)

I have added a poems page to my webpage! I want to add many others, but I don't have my old "favorite poems" notebook with me, so for now this is it. :)

Friends last night was disappointing. It just wasn't as good as I expected, and I felt like they could have done without a lot of things. Did anyone else feel this way?

Tonight we're going to the fair! I get to eat Pineapple Whip and ride the Ferris wheel! I may even be daring and go on the Ring of Fire with Kathy and Em. I have never been on anything more wild than a Tilt-a-Whirl (and that was one of my more traumatic life experiences :)), so this is a big step for me. :)

It makes me really angry the way people in power are treating the President these days. He's had a more difficult Presidency so far than anyone has had in a long time, but his own colleagues aren't supporting him. He's a decent, moral guy who's just trying to do his job, and I like him a lot! So everybody quit slandering him! Sheesh!

I didn't really like the Friday Five today, so I'm going to do this ( music thing )

Jessica asked about ministries and what God has given us a desire to do. After I thought for a minute, my "ministry" seemed pretty clear to me.

All my life, I thought I would be a writer someday. I wrote a (very short and silly) novel when I was nine years old. I read it to my class at school, chapter by chapter, and they loved it. My teacher, Mrs. Sweeney, also loved it and started researching children's publishers for me, but nothing ever came of it.

I wrote five or six more "books" over the next few years, and started many others that I never finished. My next-door neighbor and I spent many Saturday afternoons writing chapters and reading them aloud to each other. :) I didn't write quite as much in high school, but I was always thinking about it. I started several times on a Great American Band Novel. (Sadly, I still want to write this. :))

When I got to college, I just stopped. I had more than enough to do for my classes, so I know that was part of it. But I was also frustrated that I could never get a solid idea, or finish anything. In my last semester of school, I took a creative writing class in an attempt to get the juices flowing again. I wrote two short stories which were not that good, but were received well by the class (and Kathy and Em). :) But then I graduated, and went on to other things.

Every couple of months, I can count on my mother to say, "You need to try to write something. You were always such a good writer." I was a good writer, for my age, when I was young. But a talent that was amazing in a nine-year-old is average, at best, in a twenty-three-year-old.

I think the main thing in my way is my own perfectionism. Every time I think about writing something, Lord of the Rings jumps immediately to mind, and I think, "I could never write anything that good." Which is kind of like an artist refusing to paint because he could never do the Sistine Chapel. But I don't want to be mediocre. And I couldn't stand for the smart, well-read people I love to read my stuff and say, "It's not that good."

In closing (as everyone breathes a sigh of relief :)), I really pray that someday I will be able to write again. I find inspiration in some of my favorite authors. Jan Karon, the author of the Mitford books, was like me, a frustrated writer who had given up on herself. Then, when she was in her fifties, she had this vision of a man walking down a street with a big black dog, and the whole story of Mitford came to her. Another example is J.K. Rowling, who was on a train when she suddenly pictured this boy with black hair and glasses, and knew that he was Harry Potter and knew what was going to happen to him. It sounds cheesy, but I hope that someday an idea comes to me this way. :)

And that is all I will say about that.