Friday, January 31, 2014

Three in a row? Really?

Yup, head over to Skullduggery & Madness for another Friday Flash Fiction.

Sorry I've been offline quite a bit lately, I have actually seriously been banned from writing... even emails... and I've been staying offline so I won't be tempted... my arm is really bad right now.

That being said... yes... another flash fiction... come play along!

Happy 4711th Chinese New Year!

Last year was the year of the (yin/fire element) Black Water Snake, now it's the year of the (yang/fire element) Green Wood Horse!

If you're curious, or simply want to kill a bit of time, you can check the wiki page to find out which animal you were born under, or to be really detailed (seriously, the longitude of where you were born?), you can go here.

Also, the Huffington Post put out an article where you can check how this year will affect your zodiac animal (apparently I have to watch out for love-triangles O_o). To waste even more time, you can scroll down through this site to find out your lucky numbers and all sorts of other things.

Oh, and interestingly enough, the Lantern Festival (always on the 15th lunar day of the Chinese new year) falls on Valentines Day this year!

I bet Chinatown and Richmond will be in full-out party mode! I'm definitely going to check the local events calendars to see what fun things are going on...

Anyone celebrating Chinese New Year, or the Lantern Festival?

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

I needed to read this

With the emotional exhaustion and the frustration of my arm not working/in pain and being banned from my computer (...I know, I'm such a rebel...), I needed to read this today.

Nothing is wasted.

Yeah, that's a good thing to remember/believe.

Happy writing to everyone out there :) I'm planning to pick something out (one handed) in a few days for Flash Fiction Friday...

Friday, January 24, 2014

New Flash Fiction Friday

Head over to Skullduggery & Madness, play along, and have fun!

You know how I love reading flash fiction... and I was so happy a few of you wrote delicious flash fiction for me to drool over and feast upon.

Mine will be up within the next few hours, as per usual :)

I've been in Chilliwack all week, helping for the convention coming up in May, and I'm heading home later tonight. Don't tell my physiotherapist I've been using my computer non-stop for 3 days, and wow can I feel it... kinda like slamming your finger in a door... but imagine it being your entire arm -> shoulder joint to finger tips.

(oh, and I sketched phalaenopsis orchids with my left hand... surprisingly, not bad...)

Among other things, this week I've designed and put together a 30 page program/booklet. Of course there are still many empty/template pages, especially for ad space. There'll also be a memorial page for my deceased Nana as she was really involved in the Porcelain Artists of Canada guild.

Seems those rusty marketing-monkey skills are still usable, at least for things like this. BUT, although I love my Mac... Pages is so not a great program to be using for something like that... I need to get the Adobe suite, 'cause freaking page numbers? REALLY??? Does it have to be this hard to put freaking page numbers on a dual-page, legal-sized folding booklet...? I felt like I was back in the stone ages editing text boxes and lining them up individually on ever...single...freaking...page... even after copying/pasting, I still had to edit their attributes individually so I could move them to the margins!

Anyways, have a great weekend!

...and seriously, come play along for FFF :) I am hungry! Feed me flash fiction!

Friday, January 17, 2014

AAAAAAAND... I'm back?

Sortof? Maybe? A little bit in the interim?

My first Flash Fiction Friday Challenge is up @ Skullduggery & Madness. Come join the fun... please?

I still don't have the mental/emotional fortitude to leap back into the marathon that is 'novel', but I can whirl around in the flash-fiction playground a little, maybe dangle upside-down off the monkey-bars and pretend to surf on the teeter-totter...

Also, my physiotherapist* has officially banned me from drawing, painting, or writing with my right arm for the near future... so picking out flash fiction one-handed... expect that they're going to be short.

As usual, mine should be up later today, so come by, play along, and feel free to offer comments/criticisms!



Oh yeah, and this is my 500th post... W00T!

(sorry, that was probably annoying...)

WOO-HOO!

(better?)



* I'm pleased to say, "Wow, your shoulder was completely adhered to your neck when you came in, but now I'm getting a little bit of movement!", and, "I can finally feel individual ribs under all the scar-tissue!" are milestones of my current progress. And nerve-flossing? Waaaaaay more boring than it sounds... but still super useful :) I figure, I'll be crazy happy if I'm given the go-ahead to paint again by May, when the convention is.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

For those who want the Flash Fiction Friday prompts back

Since I'm keeping this blog in its current, difficult-to-browse-state until things in my personal life are more settled, I've started a new blog for Flash Fiction Friday.

For now, there are no new ones posted, but I have links to the old challenges if anyone wants to revisit them.

Skullduggery & Madness

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Bailiwick

For the few of you interested in my non-writing projects, after mulling over the different photo-sharing options, I decided it was better to simply start a new/separate blog for that kind of stuff.

It's bare-bones at the moment, and maybe of no interest to most of you, but here's the link just in case.

Honestly I don't know what the scope of that site will be, but for now, it's going to mostly include painting stuff, especially as the 2014 Canadian porcelain convention is coming up soon...

Over the next few days, I'm going to post about the piggy banks I painted for those two friend, and the process involved.

Hope you're having a good weekend, I am: The Seahawks are up 16-8 in the 4th against the Saints.

EDIT:

WOO-HOO, a Seahawks win!

And for some reason the 'About' page on my new blog isn't showing up... and I did have an explanation for the strange name:

Bailiwick - one's sphere of operations or particular area of interest

Optics - of or relating to vision or the eye

Monday, January 6, 2014

When we can write, and when we can't

Warning, I'm writing this at 3:30am, so some of it might not make much sense... but it was promoted by two things:

1) A long-time writing buddy posted recently about writing experiences we *haven't* experienced.

2) Over the holidays, my dad asked me, out of the blue, at someone else's house, with no lead-up whatsoever, if I've been writing. In his experience, creative people either get fiercely motivated while experiencing emotional turmoil, or they get backed-up and can't do a thing.

From the conversation with my dad, I'm definitely the latter. I haven't written since early November, and I think other than (perhaps) the occasional blog post, it'll be a few weeks at least before anything other than simply-relaying-facts-or-thoughts come spewing forth from my fingers. But until now, I couldn't even do that much.

From my friend's post, I have been thinking a lot on that subject over the past year... especially how no one deals with a situation in the exact way that someone else will. I've  learned a lot through self-examination, and actually surprised myself in many ways. Good, and bad.

As per my previous post about 'going dark' back in November, my head has been too full of thoughts to write. Oddly enough, I've had no problem with other creative activities like drawing or painting, disregarding the current physical limitations of my dominant arm not working properly, but that's something physio will eventually fix. What I mean is, doing that kind of activity has actually eased the noise in my head a little... but writing? Can't squeak out 50 words that could remotely be considered 'creative'.

Perhaps it's because drawing/painting is a different 'language' of output. There is no need for additional words/sentences/thoughts to interfere with the current storm.

Perhaps it's a limit of my dyslexic brain, because I can't fully commit 100% of my attention, the words are too scrambled up to put down in the correct order.

Perhaps I'm just emotional exhausted and don't have the energy to put myself in a character's head and experience their emotions as well.

Or perhaps I can't write someone else's story until I've figured out my own.


A further thought on my friend's post, how writing is "...a fumbling towards truths..." (great line by the way, eh?) no one can say that I write *myself* into my stories, but I do borrow from my own past, my own thoughts, my own feelings.

As writers, we can twist and mould our own experiences until they are nearly unrecognizable.

You don't have to have been raped to understand the emotion of betrayal, defilement, or terror. You don't have to lose a child to understand grief. You don't have to be an alcoholic to understand a pure desire that runs contrary to logical thought and self-preservation. You don't have to get physically beaten down to understand abuse or bullying.

And I think that, as a writer, eventually this past year will become fodder for new characters and new stories.

I hope it will, at least.

It is, perhaps, a stray thread of silver-lining.



What are your thoughts?

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year! …and photosharing?

2014 is gonna kick 2013's ass, right?

I believe so ;)


For those who are wondering, yes, my blog will return to its former state (with all the tabs, searchable labels, etc,) after I have a signed separation agreement. So no, nothing's been completely deleted and it'll all come back (hopefully) soon.

I am probably also going to re-start Friday Flash Fiction at that time.


One question for any photo sharing junkies out there… Since this year I want to get back into painting (since I am on the board for the 2014 convention in May) and other stuff like that, I wanted a place to document the development processes via photographs. For example, while designing/painting the pigs for my friends, I took a picture at each stage, both to share with them, and to keep so I can go back and re-look if I forget how I did something. For example, I need to remember if working with lustres, never to put the darkest one on first… argh…

I'd like to have these photos online so I can access it from wherever, and so that those who are interested can check it out (like those two friends have expressed interest in seeing the steps involved), but I don't want to post the photos on my blog since this is more intended for writing related stuff.

I'm looking at DeviantART, Flickr, Pintrest and a couple other sites… they each have pros and cons…

I like that you don't need to sign in to view DeviantArt, but they don't have a phone app, which limits my ability to update, Pintrest, I think you have to sign in to see anything, so I might discount that one outright since that's annoying to people who just want to causally browse and not have to create an account… so, perhaps Flickr?

If anyone has preferences/etc on your experience as a casual user (either poster, or viewer), will you please comment, or send me an email?

Thanks!

And hope you all have a wonderful New Year's Day today!