Had to set my comment moderation to "Always" because someone's spamming my blog. Anyone have tricks for screening this nonsense?

There are sooooo many different writing software choices these days, especially with the addition of iPad versions or iPad apps that you can add to your writing workflow (INDEX CARD is my favorite!). It's easy to get bogged down in the hows and never get any actual writing done.

A lot has happened since I last posted anything on this blog. The biggest impact: my mother was diagnosed with cancer around the time of my previous post. I moved home to take care of her a few weeks before she passed away this past December. I wish I could update this blog with all of the things I've been working on, but the truth is that the creative wellspring has been pretty dry. I've wondered if perhaps it is because I don't have that many life experiences to draw upon-- I haven't traveled much or extended myself often to do things that forced me to step out of my everyday existence. I've even wondered if the truth is that I don't really have anything to write. Perhaps I'm more of an editor, a thorough reviewer, since I seem to still be competent at that end of things. I'm not ready to give up just yet, but I find myself getting disheartened by all of the successful writing around me, and that's just not a good sign.

So I've gone back to revise the one book I've written all the way through so far. My critique group's cheering me on, and my imagination is flexing its underused muscles for sustained workouts. But I've been a casualty of the weather and the cycle of illnesses that come with seasonal changes--more than usual now, since I've married a doctor, who brings all sorts of interesting bugs home with no effort at all.

To get myself in the right frame of mind, I upgraded my copy of WRITER'S CAFE, a thankfully cross-platform program that allows me to keep track of all of the bits and pieces I used to put my story together. I also bought two books--one, Thinking Write: The Secret to Freeing Your Creative Mind buy Kelly Stone, to help me tap into my subconscious mind to be more creative and more prolific; the other, Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors by Brandilyn Collins, was admittedly something of an impulse buy because I was fascinated by the option to pay a wee bit more and be able to access the book's text online through my Amazon account. I thought these books would help me get the ball rolling again, get me back into the mood.

Alas, chain colds and fatigue do not make for a good baseline for building good writing habits. I'm far from ready to admit defeat, but I'm also far from where I want to be in my return to writing. And I fear falling back into that old tar-pit of procrastination.

I'm sitting here, wondering where the evening went as I type in my gray Dickensian compression gloves (thanks, Shauna!), wishing I could take tomorrow off and sort through some mental fuzziness. I'm officially a married woman. Married life has definitely not been what I expected so far--no dust-ups or regrets, but I've had a nasty fall and been sick and still have to keep reminding myself that I don't have to go home, this IS my home. One luxury that neither I nor my honeydo have at this point is time. There are things that need to get done, money to be made, bills to pay. Adult life, in a nutshell.

Now that the wedding plans and execution (ouch!) are over, it's also time to get back on the writing bandwagon. As I slowly blend my belongings and habits into my new husband's household, I also need to re-incorporate my writing habits into my new lifestyle. Too much time spent away from the notebooks, though I've managed to collect a few interesting tools along the way. Time to recapture the kitten of creativity, nestle it around my neck, and keep it entertained long enough to capture its purrs on paper.

Mrf. I need a cat.

One of the most dangerous sentences in the English language:
"I'll work on it later."

I haven't had trouble writing lately because I haven't even dared to try to write. Too sick originally, then too stressed out, too anxious. So I've been playing computer puzzles, which the fabulous man who gives me my anti-anxiety pills says is a wonderful way to de-stress. Most recently, I've become interested in Escape puzzles in which you find yourself in a room full of hidden clues and you have to find them and figure out how they work with each other to get the key that lets you out of the room. I used to hate these, but suddenly they're very calming....

...which led me to a sudden thread that I'd like to follow in my writing. A puzzle like this would be perfect for the great scheme of my storyline. But how do I build it? Do I decide on the clues themselves and how they fit together to lead toward the prize first, or do I look at the general surroundings and work in toward the details and the best places to hide them? I'd ask the Escape puzzle creators, but so far, most of the ones I've found are by Japanese artists/programmers.

Any advice?

I'm home sick today after a weekend spent battling stomach cramps. On the bright side, I spent so much time trying to distract myself with computer games that I don't feel the urge to start one today. So I'll spend the day working on my wedding guest list, registry, and writing. Reworking Chapter 2 to fit the "new vision" and hoping that my voice comes through.

It's very easy to become intimidated by other people's successes. Each achievement you congratulate in others who're following the same dreams you have highlights your own failure to reach those same goals. The trick is to celebrate other folks' victories without bitterness toward them and to remember that we all have different life paths and different experiences. The stories I want to tell now are not stories I could've created ten years ago (my original publishing deadline) or even three years ago. So as hard as it seems, I keep muddling along and hoping I can get through the rut and the distractions and someday be just as productive and excited as all of the talented writers I've come to know.

I never thought I would reach a day when I had too much to do but not enough time to do it all. The internet has created a whole new set of tasks for me to keep up with. I have a number of podcasts that I never get around to listening to (mostly writing reference and TED talks), Facebook friends to keep up with, other blogs to follow, writing workshops and newsletters, games....it all keeps piling up. And the books....I'm not buying as many new ones, but I have so many used ones I never got around to reading! (Starting to catch up on those now; a used one for every new one I read)

Tonight I had to acknowledge that I've let inertia become too much of a friend. Perhaps I can't keep up with all of this all of the time, but there are so many times I've caught myself staring at my computer screen or playing the same game over again even though there's no satisfaction in it. Time to jump-start myself, to get back into an active mode mentally if not physically.

I have busily been adding the blogs I want to keep up with to Google Reader, which I just thought of today. For someone who enjoys the Net so much, I am woefully ignorant about some of its features. Anyhoo, this new (for me) tool means I will now actually be current with what's going on at all of these pages! Hooray!

FINALLY getting around to completing the meme that Sphinx Ink included me in. Here's the SIX RANDOM THINGS ABOUT ME meme:

The Rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

My six random things:
1. I have an anxiety disorder. This makes life a thrill-every-minute rollercoaster, only without the fun bits.

2. When I was a preteen I would roller disco through my grandmother's house. Got pretty good at it, too; but to be fair, a 5'5" beanpole probably doesn't need to be rollerskating through narrow labyrinthine hallways.

3. My love of small furry creatures began with a stray kitten that used to wait for me to pet him every morning before nursery school. My mom would scoop me up and rush back inside to wash my hands. While she was unlocking the car, I would, of course, pet the kitten again.

4. Small, benign acts of silliness make me very happy :)

5. My first pet was a goldfish that kept jumping out of its tank. I never figured out why. We treated the water very carefully as instructed by the pet store owner. I have been scarred for life by the experience of trying to catch a wriggly fish and put it back and have not wanted a pet fish since.

6. A few Christmases ago, my Mom and I broke into a spontaneous dance routine during a Muzak rendition of Jingle Bell Rock in the TJ Maxx department store. No one noticed.

I'll have to break the rules here, because everyone I know well enough to tag for this meme has already been tagged. But if you're reading this and feel the urge to continue the meme, let me know when you've done so!

I'm trying to be creative, I really am. But I'm also being bombarded with other people's worries about the economy and admonitions that we should be spending as little and saving as much as possible. I'm getting married during the worst financial period in recent history, listening to Oprah recordings where people are talking about how much they have to give up and their struggles to save money. The dissonance here is eating away at me, and my wedding-anxiety dreams are getting worse. I don't have any credit card debt--I pay the balance at the end of every month and often use online checking instead--but I'm reexamining every little happiness I allow myself, every book I consider buying, every edible treat, trying to see where I can cut things down without making life seem like it's not worth living and still be able to afford the big event next year.

It feels like I'm the only one in my household that's aware of this on a personal level, the only one who's carrying this anxiety. If I mention it, it gets dismissed. But I can't help feeling that the roof is about to fall in and I'm directly beneath it.

I've decided to recapture my creativity. To that end, I've started working with the 3D artwork software I bought some time ago and have not used since I got frustrated with the somewhat steep learning curve. I've also gone back to my most recent manuscript--not an easy task since, in my zeal to use the online word processor I found, I erased about 65% of the chapter I was working on. And then found that I had somehow removed that part from the original I've got on my desktop as well. Note to self: Don't get rid of ANYTHING until you're successfully working with a publisher on the finished manuscript! :(

I've also been invited to participate in a meme, which I shall do as soon as I think of some things people don't know about me. I'm a pitifully open book.

Feel free to feed the turtles in my sidebar. It's soothing :)

Go ahead. Poke the penguin >:)

I finally decided to start keeping a journal. After researching journal keeping a bit, I also decided that I would do well with a visual technique rather than sticking to words alone. I got some lovely digital collage sheets from Etsy.com and started looking into books about art journal techniques.

Unfortunately, I found a number of good books. And then I realized that I have no supplies. And THEN , Shauna Roberts interviewed Jade Lee on her website, and I ended up wanting all of one of Jade's series as well. AND I'm SUPPOSED to be saving to pay for a wedding! And when will I do all of this, even though I want to, very badly, and I think it would be good for my thinking processes? I think a LOT of things would be good for me that I turn out not to follow up on. But I really, really like this idea. Can someone please arrange it to rain money and time? Thursdays are a good day for me, and I always have an umbrella handy....

I've found a new writing tool! Zoho has a suite of Office applications plus more, all online, all secure (hopefully), all can be kept private unless you want to share bits. For me, this means I can keep my outline, chapters, and info online as well as on hard drive. That means no more wishing I had my notebook or folder or memory stick. I don't even need to be on my own computer! Today I tried to start writing with the Zoho Writer application but ended up revamping the most recent storyline I started, tweaking it as an outline so that I have a better idea of where I'm going (and am not so intimidated by that big blank white space).

A co-worker introduced me to wordle, which has become one of my favorite toys. It makes a word cloud that visualizes the word frequency in a passage you copy to the wordle site. You can experiment with different layouts, colors, and fonts until you find the image that makes you most content. This seems like a good tool to use in writing; it could allow you to see what the dominant words (and the ideas linked to them) are in a chapter or scene.

Usually when I'm looking for a character's face to inspire me, I go to the Casablanca modeling sites. This can leave something to be desired, as all of the faces there tend toward the idealized end of modern beauty standards. This morning, however, I ran across a site called Ugly Models. Very good for everyday people and if you need to visualize tough guys, unusual looks, or warrior-types. Don't be put off by the name.

I just started PLEASURE UNBOUND by Larissa Ione. Even though the story idea is a new one for me, it felt oddly familiar for some reason. Then I realized why--there's a pattern common to the supernatural romance series that are so popular right now. They all have this list of necessary heroes:
1. The reluctant ruler/leader
2. The peacemaker
3. The techie/intellectual
4. The lover
5. The tortured (literally) outsider
6. The tough female loner
7. The cynic

Have I forgotten anyone?