So an artist has to be comfortable with showing vulnerability. I think this is still a major hangup I have with writing, and one that I will have to get over.

Look, I did it again.

Really, though, how can I expect to create something beautiful when I'm afraid to bare my soul? I don't even do it with my own feelings very often - once in a year or two, as this journal shows. I think I knew how to do that at one point, and all the technique and pretty prose in the world won't make a difference if you're only a reporter.

The act of putting it down makes it real, even if you are using a persona you've constructed as a vehicle for your own experience.

All those are things Nevada told me dozens of times. I'm still angry that she's dead. I will be even angrier if I can't rise above it and put her lessons to good use.

Another piece for the RP character.  I actually have a short vignettish-type thing that I'm working on too that will probably be put up soon.

 

( Strawberries )

Just a short piece about an RP character of mine that I really liked.  I've been really busy working on longer and hopefully publishable projects, so it's nice to get a chance to write something not as serious once in a while.  To be clear, it's told from the POV of the character's father, not the character herself.

 

( Regrets )

Wow.  So, the lesson of the night is that Bacardi 151, in conjunction with cinnamon liquor, or the drink that Brad has colorfully termed "a rocket up the ass," -really- fucks you up fast.

Since people have asked, my back is fine and the incision is doing much better.  I've gotten a good bit of feeling back, though we are nowhere near 100%.  Also I have really sharp uncomfortable pins and needles on a fairly consistent basis, which tends to sometimes make me grumpy.

On a side note, I miss getting to hang around with friends and bullshit on a fairly consistent basis.  Everybody's busy a whole lot, including me up until recently, and I haven't been here for the past month.  Or maybe I just miss having somebody to really -talk- to every day.  I get the lonely.  It usually passes, though - it's worse when I'm not working and not busy.

Also I have a short thing to post.  Just a quick blurb that I wrote at my writer's retreat that I liked.  The prompt was to write exactly 100 words about a character that has everything - money, family, and friends - and loses it all to a mistake.





Also got some real, actual, definitive progress on the novel I've wanted to write for a while.  Decided on a genre to help focus/detail the plot and mapped out the characters and the plot a bit.   This is exciting since I've had things in the planning stage for the past three years or so.

Sadly I will have plenty of time to devote to this in the next few weeks because I was laid off due to the amount of time I had off after the surgery.  If life were a D&D game I would be the character whose player constantly botches rolls - it seems like things that I have no control over usually turn out badly.  But maybe I will find a new job that doesn't have the crazy hours or the long commute, and finding a job should be easier this time around because of the experience I accrued at the other one, so I'm fairly hopeful.  I have a million things to do tomorrow, including applying for unemployment.  Also maybe I will find a leprechaun and I can cut off his foot and carry it in a pocket.  Or is that rabbits?

So, a quick update. 

The good news: Work was very understanding and I will be allowed to come back to work once I have control of certain problematic bodily functions again.  Hopefully this will be soon.  My therapist also called and was very understanding and told me some ways to get in contact with therapists in the area while I'm healing.  I was able to sit up and get out of bed today without pain and went shopping for a little bit with my mother.  The stitches are coming out tomorrow, and I no longer have sciatica or back pain other than that caused by the incision, so once that recovers I can -do- things again.  Also Amanda and probably Seth and Deb (!!!) are coming to visit shortly and I'm very excited to see them.  I have several weeks to catch up with Kirk's character on WoW.  It's a new year and hopefully it will be tons better than the last one.  I am dealing with this and able to look at the positives much better than I would have three months ago, indicating that the therapy is helping tremendously and we are taking baby steps towards making me not-depressed.  I told my insurance company to fuck themselves because they haven't covered a damn thing since I started paying for it and continually find loopholes to get out of covering my conditions.  My parents and close friends have been very supportive.  My parents got me a very nice wool coat for Christmas, and an expensive wine-colored dress shirt that looks very good (it's also a medium and I haven't worn one in God knows how long).  I weighed myself at home and discovered that I have lost a total of 40-45 lbs as well as two and a half pants sizes since graduating from college.  Go me.

The bad news:  I am depressed and overwhelmed trying to deal with this.  I am afraid of going out in public due to fear of having an accident.  I never feel clean - a sorry state for someone very concerned about personal hygiene.  I was getting to the point where I am ready to start dating again but now I have no idea how I will manage this in my current state, especially if it persists for months to a year to forever.  I haven't noticed any changes in feeling/function so far and the neurosurgeon had hoped I would recover those things within a few weeks, if I recover them.  It may be months yet.  My insurance refused to cover any of the surgery because I had seen someone in the past and they qualified it as a pre-existing condition.  Luckily the hospital has ways to cover people like me so I'll only be paying 20% of the cost of everything; however, due to the fact that everything will probably total around $50k when all is said and done, this is still exorbitant.  My parents will help.  My family eats much less healthily than I do at home and I am forced to be inactive due to a three-inch incision in my back, so I am worried about gaining some of my weight back.

It's going.  Trying to get better at finding silver linings.  I took pictures of my incision and I will probably put them on my Facebook to show everyone that I am a badass for dealing with this mostly with a smile and hopefully I will have an awesome scar.

I will be away from home and slightly fragile the next couple of weeks!

I've been having back pain for a few years (we assumed it was a slipped disc) but over Christmas while I was at my parents', sections of my pelvis went numb and I lost control of several bodily functions (cough.)  Upon being rushed to the hospital and given an MRI I was diagnosed with a very rare condition called cauda equina syndrome - a bulging disc was pressing into my spinal cord.  They did some emergency surgery on my back to remove the disc and take pressure off my spine, and I've been in the hospital the past five or six days, I just got home a few hours ago.

Since some damage was done to the spinal cord (not quite as bad as it sounds, it's possible for those nerves to regenerate and bounce back) and we don't know if/to what extent I'm going to recover function and feeling, I'm gonna be at my parents' for a bit until I recover and until my back is completely healed up.  The good news is that I can walk around just fine and should be able to live mostly normally even if I don't recover things; the nuerosurgeon said that things are working in my favor, though, so I have my fingers crossed.

I'll be playing things week by week depending on how things go, so I'm not sure exactly when I'll be back yet.  This has been a very life-altering week for me in a lot of ways, so I'm intending to write something on it.

Here's to the new year.

Dear Novel,

We've needed to have a talk for a long time now.  I know I haven't been as attentive as I should have been in the past - as I have been in the past.  I don't know what happened.  In the beginning things were different and I was so passionate, but I guess the flames must have died down.

It's been a combination of a lot of things.  This year has had a lot of major life changes for me and a lot of ups and downs.  I'm not the person I was.  Those times when I tried to devote my attention to you, I always felt pressured, and I frequently just couldn't come up with anything at all.  I have a beginning but I don't have a middle or an end.  I lack planning.  Sometimes when I do get something written I get frustrated because it simply doesn't do you justice, and I throw it away.  I know it's hard to be around a perfectionist, but in my mind I feel like I can't do anything that will be good enough for you.

I also have to confess that I've been unfaithful to you.  I've had a few one-night stands with a few short stories.  I just couldn't help myself - they were done so much more quickly, and they never required the same amounts of attention you did.  I suppose I just have commitment issues.  Or maybe I'm just lazy.

But I've felt really terrible about it lately.  I know what we could have, and I've decided that I want to try to be a better writer to you.  After another few short stories, that is.

Affectionately,

Staci

On the note of taking myself less seriously, soon there will be SHADOWRUN AND OHMIGOD I AM SO EXCITED BECAUSE I HEART IT.  Also though I am mildly ashamed to admit it, it is the awesomest thing ever that my little sister got a Facebook because we have been using it to have fun together and stay in contact.  I am mildly ashamed because I am mildly ashamed that I am actually using Facebook to keep in contact with someone instead of the phone or something, much less my sister.  Still, she's a busy kid.  It makes me sad that I haven't been around much since she hit her teens.

I turned in an app at Starbuck's in the hopes that they will hire me so I can bring in some money until I get hired at an office or firm, and it is looking good.  I talked with the two baristas there for a bit to leave a good impression.  I think I actually got hit on by one of them, but with other girls it's hard to tell whether they're just being friendly.  I'm hoping I'll hear back from the firm that I was a pretty strong candidate for soon.  They're offering a lot of money and it's pretty much exactly what I want to do (other than that they're an auditing firm so the writing material is kind of boring.)  I'd rather be in entertainment or doing PR for a nonprofit, but that usually requires more experience than what I have.  I'd be willing to take the probable pay cut to work with a nonprofit (as opposed to the business firms I'm looking at now).  Perhaps someday!

We have been doing outside stuff a lot lately.  This makes me very happy, I hope the trend continues.  Hiking by myself is boring but I get the urges in the fall.

Found this today.  I wrote it a few years ago...at the end of my freshman year of college I think.  Just a short little vignette.

 

The short story behind the cut is a short story for my creative writing class, partially inspired by American Gods.  It's a little bizarre, I'm not sure it works.

I have decided to begin posting my writing in this journal, as previously threatened, since I've just finished my creative writing class and have stuff to put in it.

Read if you like, please leave criticisms if you have them.

The first one is a poem.  I normally don't write poetry, but I wrote this for my creative writing class, and I actually still like it.