Fictionarium

Woah, sorry for the length between posts!

It’s been a crazy few weeks, with work and school competing to see which can cause me the most stress. My advisor at school told me to stop stressing and start having fun with assignments and such, and that’s helped a lot. I’ve actually been applying that to work as well, trying to “make my own fun” at least once a day just to keep myself from going completely mental.

Also, moving. Ugh. Packing and the act of moving sucks, but it’s going to be great to be on my own again, just me and my amazing kitties, who celebrate their 5th birthday today. Happy Birthday, Poncho and Moofy! Also, this is going to do wonders for my work commute, which is great because that really takes it out of me. An extra 20 minutes of time a day may not seem like much, but I think it’ll add up quickly! And I’ll have time to go on more runs (which leads to improved stress reduction).

I have started up my podcast series for Scurvytown, which I am pretty damn excited about. I created a new character named Magby Aarhus, who is the voice of the podcasts, and I have another series of ideas for skip week content that will make the story stronger all-around. I decided that once November rolls around, I probably won’t even have time for the podcasts anymore, but I can take my vast characterization notes and turn them into character profiles so people can get to know the central players in the story a little better. Then, once I’ve got the details of the new website worked out (planning on doing that during winter break), I’ll have character profiles that can be clicked on very easily, so it’ll be more convenient to keep folks straight. (not that I’m promoting an anti-gay agenda or anything, sheesh.)

Any advice on podcasting is welcome, as I am a total newbie on this stuff. I kind of make it seem like Magby is an amateur podcaster as well, since we’re on the same learning curve and all. Anyway, the first episode was fun, my mom liked it (hi mom!), and I look forward to recording the next one. Bathtub acoustics for the win!

Now, gotta finish my submission for NPR’s 3-minute fiction, and write some papers for school. It’s gonna be a long, coffee-tastic weekend.

As I read some rather dry material for one of my grad school classes, I have Scurvytown in the back of my mind. Mostly, this is a nagging guilt because I didn’t produce any new content this week, other than a snippet of skip week writing that I think will definitely hook people into reading what is to come in the next few weeks. Scurvytown pokes at the back of my brain a lot of the time, and I don’t really mind it. I feel I have become a bit obsessed with writing, and that is what keeps me from hesitating when I call myself a writer. I really feel like I am finally “allowed” to call myself a writer, like I need to give myself permission.

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!

This week’s episode of Scurvytown shall be known as the one I wrote while in the throes of a migraine so bad that I spent three hours curled up in a ball sobbing on and off. Oh well, everyone should suffer at least a little for their art, right?

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.