Dark and disturbing things are about to happen in Scurvytown, and I am very excited about writing them. Soon enough (meaning tonight), I shall produce a little blurb called “Propaganda Week,” which will point to something that will change the face of Scurvytown forever, and put new spins on existing character relationships and alter the petty and selfish things that the citizens care about.

I think about that, throw a few words at the screen, and then dive back into my reading for school. And as I am reading, my mind wanders, because I have major issues focusing and really paying attention to the text. This is my #1 issue with reading books: full attention, comprehension, and then, constructing intelligent and insightful responses. Boo on this because this is exactly what I need to learn for school. It’ll be a struggle, I fear, but I believe I will start to make strides about mid-semester and finally find my footing.

One thing that occurred to me while my mind was wandering off my reading, is how much I have learned so far, just two weeks into the school year. I am finding my greatest source so far not to be from the texts, and not the instructors, but from my fellow grad students. I have been out of school longer than pretty much everyone in my classes, so it’s really put me on a hell of a learning curve. Luckily, I am a quick study, and readily adapt to changing circumstances and landscapes of thought. Listening to the other students, as we dive into this material together is already amazing. I feel like a sponge, soaking in all this knowledge. My poor brain gets a bit overwhelmed by the vastness of all there is to do and learn in order to succeed in my classes, but I truly feel like all of us have a respect for learning and for one another that we’re going to purposefully and inadvertently help one another get through this… not that a learning experience is something to “get through,” but rather to create a foundation or a backbone.

And honestly? It’s about time I got a little more backbone, especially in the self-esteem department.

Looking forward to more learning experiences, and to let my brain soak up the knowledge at its own pace, for new perspectives, and for some peace of mind, that I can do this grad school thing, because sometimes I worry that I have taken on a bit too much than I can handle.

It’s like learning to run, I suppose, which is yet another thing on my agenda lately: the harder you push yourself, the easier it gets. Many difficult things are the same way; you have to get over the hard part in order to reap the rewards, and while you’re in the struggle, it can be difficult to focus on much else. So you blog about it instead of reading your schoolwork, you know, for a hypothetical example (*wink*)

On that note, it’s time for me to finish this reading, file my response, and get some much needed sleep. Oh, and finish writing my propaganda for impending DOOM! Muahahahahaaaaa!

Migraines are hideous creatures. Sometimes, you feel like you’re finally getting better, but usually you’ve just gotten used to the drone of constant pain, enough to muddle through the day.

Light hurts more than sound. And it also grates right on the mental plate of frustration when a beautiful day that one could be enjoying, instead is spent cursing the gorgeous sunshine. I think the frustration is even worse than the pain for me. It hurts to think, it hurts to cry, but in the middle of a migraine, both of those things are hard to turn off. Sleep helps, but waking up once again to a pain that was only kidding when it started to subside is another poke at frustration on the frontal lobes. And ouch, indeed, adding insult to injury. Pour a little more salt on the surface of my mind, will ya?

And then I discovered Excedrin Migraine, which I am now in love with. I will stop short of turning this into an advertisement, but wow, that stuff certainly is a life-jacket for someone drowning in of sea of headache pain.

I needed to get out of the house for a bit last night, so I went to the patio at Northside Tavern, since the weather was so amazing. Plus, that is one of the oddly magical places for me where I love the ambiance so much, the words just sort of spill out of my fingertips. I stayed there til 10pm, and wrote 1500 words while there. (And bonus, got some dinner from Melt, which is always a delicious treat.) I really wanted to ditch my lappy in the car and check out the bands that started at 10pm, but there was no way my head could have taken that amount of din. Driving home was a hell of a chore, with every bright light in the darkness, causing me to wince in pain, except for one: the low red moon hanging gently in the sky.

So this morning, I managed to drive myself to the drug store and get the pills that brought me back into feeling human again. I have a few paragraphs left to churn out for this week’s episode, and then some editing, and then I shall work on my school stuff. This week’s episode is a flashback episode, because I didn’t really have the mental capacity to progress the story, but had it in me to write some back story just for fun. Selfishly, I am writing this more for myself and the weekly writing exercise than for my audience, but I still hope it’s fun for my handful of readers.

There will definitely be a lot more skip weeks in the coming months, given the load of my coursework. Grad school is a lot deeper than undergrad work, that is for certain. Of course, I expected that, but still was not prepared for it, having been out of school for so long.

And now, back to it.

Anyway, it will probably all be fine. Getting up earlier to get work out of the way so I can get to school on time = win. I prefer getting up earlier in the morning, and for the past 2 weeks, I have been conditioning myself to the early to rise mentality, and have gotten the added bonus of witnessing a few amazing sunrises.

Second, and to get to some fun/funny stuff: finger puppets. I went to the Full Art Spectrum meeting last night, which I am now calling that organization “FARTS.” I decided against reading any of my typical poetry or short stories, because it is really difficult to pay attention in such a short time span and actually give decent feedback.

And really, my main problem with FARTS is that it’s too fluffy. Look, I’m not going to become a better writer by hearing things people have come up with right that second that are good about my work. I want to know what you didn’t like about it, what didn’t work for you. It’s only through that kind of critique, for me anyway, that I can hope to improve, learn, and grow as a writer. “Oh I like x and y and whatever comes after that in the alphabet” is such a broken mechanism for what I’d hope to get out of it, and that’s maybe selfish, but I want to be a better and more effective storyteller, and tweaking what I already do is the only way to do it. This format can make an artist walk away thinking, “Oh, they liked that, so I should keep doing that” instead of, “Oh, I totally know how I can make this better/more effective for next time.” I guess I am of the mindset that no matter how good something is, it can always be better somehow. I don’t exactly strive for perfection, but for what I like, and telling that kind of story in an effective and fun manner for my audience.

Anyway, that little rant aside (because in the end, having FARTS is better than not having FARTS), I chose to read “The Ballad of Squid Vicious,” because it’s an audience kind of piece. It didn’t need to be printed out and passed out to the group, or projected on an overhead. It’s short and to the point. And on a silly whim, I remembered I had purchased a bunch of nautical themed finger puppets from Ikea ages ago, back when I lived in Pittsburgh, with the thought that it would be fun to replicate them. They seem simple enough, but my sewing skills are, um, beneath basic. I guess I can lug my sewing machine to my parents’ house the next weekend I spend visiting them and my mom can help me figure it out. She’s pretty awesome at sewing and artsy stuff.

Squid Vicious

Anyway, one of the finger puppets was a squid, so I spent the day playing with it, and when I decided, “Eh, what the hell, I’ll just read Squid Vicious,” I brought my little puppet friend with me. It was funny, but made me feel like to appreciate the full scope of puppet theatre, I needed a cast of characters, a broken ship, and a few scenes/ dioramas to fully make it the most fun it could be. Of course, I have no time for such things right now, but maybe someday?

ETA: The little puppet show was well received. Laughter in all the expected places. And decent “feedback” afterwards.

And now to get back to finishing this week’s episode of Scurvytown, which is stalled out at 946 words. I have a few jokes in there that make me giggle so hard that I am having trouble getting my focus back to finish the damn thing.

And I leave you with this: Finger Puppets? You’re going to do WHAT to these puppets?

It makes me wish I knew anything on a piano. So I have been watching some total dork’s “How to Play Piano” on youtube, and it’s actually pretty fun, partially because this dude is so totally a dweeb who is in no danger of getting laid EVER. I shouldn’t make fun, not just because it’s mean, but because he could be a serial killer. You really never know about people.

My coworker and I checked out the piano in Sharonville near our work, and it is so cute. Silly me forgot to take a photo and will have to do it that tomorrow. A couple of girls were skulking about, and one of them sat down and played Regina Spektor’s “Us.” It was incredibly awesome and unexpected. Then I tapped the keys a few times once they were gone, but my co-worker and I had to get back to work, so that was that.

Anyway, today on lunch break I wrote a song about a squid while we were having lunch at Alreddy Coffee. It was started as a joke but then I just kept writing it until it was finished. It’s rhyming couplets, and I think it’s pretty funny. It’s called “The Ballad of Squid Vicious,” and it’s most likely going to be this week’s skip week filler for Scurvytown, because I have had a stress filled icky sort of week, which I shall blame on the weather instead of my inability to cope with bullshit this week and churn it into something creative. Well, heck, this silly little song did just that, if I think about it. (but like, it’s all hot outside and thinking is hard!)

Hoping to pick up Scurvytown again next week, and trying not to freak out about grad school starting in just over a week, and the fact that I somehow managed to lock myself out of my school user account earlier this evening. D’oh! and *eep*

And with that, sleep now, editing my silly little song tomorrow!

It was pretty hot outside and the friends I was with wanted to go see Inception at the AMC on the Levee since it was *right there*. I was totally down with that because even though I saw it last weekend, I was completely excited to see it again because I loved it so much the first go-round. The only problem was, they wanted to see it on IMAX and we had 2 hours to kill til then. Because my friends are awesome, they decided to go to the Newport Aquarium to kill some time until the movie. I had never been before, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

As we walked around, I made a few jokes about some of the decor, and about the awesome water tunnels you get to walk through, where the fish, etc are basically swimming right overhead. I was like, “Sweet, when I become an evil super-villain, I am totally installing one of these in my underground lair.” Ditto for the awesome black-lit glowing squid on the wall, I decided that will be painted on the wall of my underground palace of evil.

This is all jokingly of course, til my mind started spinning out some future story arcs for Scurvytown. And oh boy, do I have some fun in store for the citizens of the town. Because I may be the Mayor of Scurvytown, but I love my readers!

More and more, as I think about it, if I decide to do NaNoWriMo this year, I am probably going to set it in Scurvytown, and try to hack out as many episodes as I can in the entire month. I doubt I can manage 30 episodes in a month, but as each one is roughly the equivalent of a day’s worth of writing to stay on task during NaNo, it certainly would be quite the feat.

Anyway, as per usual, going someplace new and having new experiences once again ignited a literary fire under my ass. Now, I have enough fuel to get me through the rest of the summer, and that’s a very good thing… for me, not such a pleasant thing for the residents of Scurvytown, considering the big shake-up that happened in this week’s episode, it’s going to be a lot of fun seeing where the future takes them.

And now, to finish editing that episode and post it so folks can finally read it!

Right now, I am painfully stuck. I stare at the screen, the words written so far, and I cannot seem to focus my thoughts on them. For the next few months, I can blame that one on the half-tab of speed I have been prescribed daily for a medical issue I am finally dealing with the right way. So tough to focus on anything when the speed is working its magic. Wow.

Last night, I did a quick and dirty outline to help me climb out of this little writing rut. I wonder if I go about these things in the right way? Today’s push to the finish line will be this: if I can finish a rough outline by 3pm, I get to go hang out with my friends: poolside, a margarita, and then Rock Band!

Hope to have fun on the other side of the next hour and a half!

Right when I was getting to the super frustrated point where I just sort of force myself to write, I came up with a pretty good idea, I think. First up, going with my original thought of picking up where I left off last time. Second, it’s festival season, and it’s about time another festival reared its ugly head.

So I am 100 words into this week’s endeavor, which is pretty much where I was last week at this time. And this week, I don’t have an impromptu poetry project sprung on me. (Don’t get me wrong about that, it was super fun, and I need to do more of those in the future.) So, I went from feeling utterly discouraged and lacking the focus to even begin another episode, to kind of excited about where this week’s journey will take my characters.

It’s all about perspective, I suppose, and overall, when it gets rough, it really is best to just keep going.

It went really well, which was surprising to me. I was barely prepared, though I practiced many times for a recitation (a reading, not a performance, as I’d written waaaaay too many words to memorize, especially in times of mega-nervousness).

So there’s basically two kinds of applause when performing poetry. There’s the “thank fuck it’s over” kindness, and there’s the “okay, so that was awesome” genuine applause. I can honestly say, I got the latter. Now, this is not so much because of the words, but because of the way I recited them, which was pretty much different from my normal drivel (I like to read maudlin stuff all cheerfully, and truth be told, in part 3, I definitely did some of that). And as a side note, believe me, there have been plenty of times I have received the former type of applause.

I really feel like I tapped into something special, especially on the 2nd part, and it was the rhythm of reading it that meant the second part got the most applause. Part three, well, that just kind of capped it off. I’m not really sure why I feel it was such a special thing I wrote, but it really felt like a burst of brilliance, and one that I haven’t felt in some time.

In other news, Scurvytown is back on track. Gonna keep writing it until I finally get it right!

Or so I thought.

I went to go hang out at my parents’ house on Wednesday, to eat some food that was definitely not good for me, go swimming, and enjoy my parents’ company, which I honestly do. My dad told me some funny stories about drug testing people at work (relevance: I had gotten randomly pulled for drug testing at work that morning) and my mom, as usual, is just absolutely delightful (hi, Mom!) and has been sketching some character portraits for me for Scurvytown. So far my favorite is the mannequin she drew, though her outline of Poke is pretty darn awesome as well. I need to scan the drawings I’ve borrowed (with the sole purpose of scanning them to share them here, der!).

Anyway, while I was checking my email and such before dinner, I got a message from my friend Roy, who said, hey, write something for the Jazz Festival. All I had to do was look at one of his paintings and do a reaction to it. So later that night, from the comfort of my parents’ basement, all snuggly with my favorite penguin/Christmas blankey, I fleshed out a little something. And I sent it off to Roy, who sort of blew a gasket immediately about how good it was. But by the time I read his reaction, I was halfway through a second part to the poem. And then, because why not go completely apeshit at that point, I made it a trilogy.

And if you’d like, you can read it here, and see an image of the painting.

I am heading downtown in a few minutes to read this in front of people, and I am a little sorry I just ate dinner because I am feeling super nervous about it.

Wish me luck!

Yesterday, I not only created that page (since I spent most of the week slacking on writing), but I also wrote a small letter from Captain Tullis as filler for the skip week. It was pretty funny, and it started out with a purposeful misspelling. At first, I had started out spelling everything all silly and using bad grammar, but changed my mind about one paragraph in. The tone of his letters are a bit more advanced than one might expect from the Captain, but I just went with it because for the joke to work, it needed to be clearly written.

And why is this different than his tweets? Well, I dunno, maybe he has issues with keyboards, especially while completely tanked? I guess? I don’t suppose it really matters, so long as the funny is there.

I have a few other ideas for Scurvytown that involve a couple of characters branching out on their own with their stories. But this week, the plan is to get back in the swing of the weekly serial, and get the story back on track. But this will meaning reading the entire project in it’s entirety first (ugh that sounds daunting) or at least the last couple of episodes. I think this is a Poke week, folks, that is to say, focusing on the character called Poke.

I have a few things ebbing away at my productivity this week. Oh, if only I could drag myself away from my re-viewing of Season 7 of BtVS! Hehe, guess I will just have to put a hold on that until more important things are finished! Imagine that!

Cheers!