this was brought to me by a mother. of children.

[intertribal]

I feel like I've been away from LJ for longer than usual.  For no reason really.  I've been working on a story that I thought died an uneventful death many months ago - makes me realize how much I've grown as a writer, to tell the truth.  I've also been working on a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle featuring a Germanic castle of some sort and it made me realize that I write stories like puzzles - I write things down as they come, and it becomes a matter of stitching the parts together, waiting for the right combination of sentences to come.  This is probably totally obvious and asinine, but keep in mind I actually know very little about the mechanics of writing. 

This is the most important thing I discovered during my leave of absence:

I wasn't paying much attention to college football when this happened (in 2007).  But I've been saying "I'm a man!  I'm 40!" for the past few days at random intervals.  The tentative clapping at the end is the best part.

I spent New Year's Eve with essentially the entire Greek population of Lincoln, Nebraska.  Had ouzo for the first time.  I'm not a big fan of licorice, so I'm not a big fan of ouzo, but it's all right.  There was much breaking of plates.  Then we left and went to O Street and O Street was lame, as usual.  I almost died doing the human shuffle on the dance floor because the dance floor was covered in alcohol and my boots had no traction, but Christina caught me, so I survived.  Then Christina almost died walking back to the car (winter is not a wonderland in heels, apparently) , but I caught her, so she survived.  Oh, and I got $1 from a balloon.  The end. 

Oh yeah, and I discovered the new One Republic song, "All The Right Moves."  I like it.  Reminds me of all the 5-star recruits that have fizzled out at Nebraska, because we are apparently destroyer of impressive high school players.  What can I say.  Our defensive MVP at the Holiday Bowl, Matt O'Hanlon, was a walk-on, no lie.  That means he happened to be at UNL and decided to try out for the team, and repeatedly cut it during try-outs.  "The epitome of what Nebraska football's all about," he is. 

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

What's the video?

That description sounds sort of like my 'writing process'...except replace 'sentences' with 'ideas'.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

It's the coach of the Oklahoma State football team totally freaking out in his press conference about an article that's critical of one of his players. And he says something along the lines of, "You wanna come after somebody, come after me! I'm a man! I'm 40!"

Oh yeah? That's cool. What's funny is when I was younger I thought it was really bad, so I would put down all the out-of-order parts in another document and force myself to write the actual thing in order, resulting in sub-standard scenes as I hurried to get to the part I wanted to write, and by the time I got there I'd have lost inspiration to write it anyway. It was just bad.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I've come to the conclusion that there are almost as many styles of writing as there are people who write. I'm always interested in hearing people describe their process--say in radio interviews or something. Ninety percent of the time it's something totally different from what I do; the other ten percent, it's similar.

... I like hearing that sort of thing on the radio, but I can quickly OD on that kind of talk in writers' blogs when they concentrate on their writing and their process and their angst and so on.

You got a dollar in a balloon? So they, like, rolled it up and inserted it into the balloon, then blew the balloon up? And so you had to pop the balloon to get it?

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Haha, yeah, I feel that. Sometimes I feel like if I don't talk about it I'm not doing it, but usually I feel like it's better to talk about the sort of thing that inspires creativity, not the writing process itself.

Yes, I guess, because I had to smash the balloon to get it, and it was all sad and wrinkled up inside.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

exactly! I like to talk about (and read about) the stuff that inspires the stories.


the balloon thing is an interesting variant on the piñata idea. I guess you could just as easily put a twenty-dollar bill in, or even a fifty. It could make a good lottery/gambling thing... you could have a bunch of balloons; people would buy a balloon for, say, five dollars. Each balloon would be guaranteed to have at least a dollar in it, but some lucky person would get a twenty. If you had ten balloons, you'd spend $29, but you'd bring in $50.... hmmm, maybe this idea needs work. Maybe you'd have to not guarantee that each balloon would have money in it....

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

That sounds like capitalist evil to me! Then again I did pay a $3 cover charge to get in the bar...

capitalist evil

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

several years of editing corporate board documents will corrupt even the most communistic copy editor!

(and to think I used to go around drawing hammers and sickles on the chalkboard in eighth grade...)

Re: capitalist evil

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha! That's great.

Re: capitalist evil

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was so devoted. I did a volunteer presentation on Communism in Russia and China to my class (they must have just loved me.....). After the presentation, one girl asked me if I was Chinese. Not Russian, but Chinese. Weird. (I'm not part Asian.)

[wendigomountain.livejournal.com]

On the video: why is that guy orange? Is he taking team pride a little too far?

No I can say with with pride: I'm a man! I'm 34!

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Being orange is a pre-requisite to work for Oklahoma State. Either that or Mike Gundy turns orange when excited, like the Hulk.

No you're not! You're a kid!

[wendigomountain.livejournal.com]

Don't make Mike angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry! :)