Skeletons (or Not) in the Closet

Today’s post comes to you from “642 Things to Write About”, which asks the question: “What’s stored in your closet?”

Well, right off the bat there are a lot of closets in my house. There’s the one in the hall upstairs, which is where we store our towels, surplus bath and hygiene products, and basically anything you would normally find in a bathroom. There’s the closet in the basement, which is full of a bunch of old computer parts, and is also where my husband hides presents for me. Then there’s the closet on the main floor that serves as a kind of pantry for bottled drinks and discounted Halloween candy, and also has a bunch of board games shoved up on the top shelf. And I haven’t even mentioned the mudroom closet, the half-bath closet, the spare room closet, or my daughter’s bedroom closet.

But this prompt, I assume, wants me to talk about my closet – the one that’s next to my bedside.

The obvious answer, of course, is clothing, but those fall into several categories. There are a handful of sweaters and a stack of jeans and yoga pants that I wear regularly. Then there are a few pairs of capris, shorts, and cute dresses that I only wear when I’m feeling good about myself (*cough*rarely*cough*). On the top shelf are a bunch of jeans, turtlenecks, and winter gear that I only use when I’m on a job that requires me to spend a lot of time outside in the colder months. Finally, there’s a pretty red storage box that contains the dress and shoes that I wore on my wedding day.

But clothes aren’t the only thing in my closet. On the lower shelf there is a container filled with sewing and craft supplies – fabric bits, ribbons, thread and needles, and a mini-hot-glue gun, amongst other things. On the floor beneath my clothes is a tote full of old stuff I’ve kept and things with sentimental value, like the scrapbook my best friend made me back in high school. And on top of the tote is our extra set of bedsheets, which are some of the comfiest damn sheets you’ll ever sleep on.

And of course there are a few things I’m not mentioning, because a girl has to have her privacy. ^_~

Oh, and dust. Because every closet needs a little dust.

This was a silly prompt, but I’ll ask anyway: so what’s stored in your closet? Please share!

Also, a reminder that I am running a contest throughout the month of March. For each comment you post on my blog throughout the month, you will receive one entry toward a draw for a hard-copy of my zombie apocalypse novel, “Nowhere to Hide”! Please note that in order to accept the prize, I will need you to give me a mailing address where I can have the book sent. If the winner drawn did not intend to enter the contest and/or does not want the book, I will draw another name. Please also note that obvious spam/duplicate comments/etc. will not be counted toward an entry…play fair! And good luck! ❤

Something Stolen

Something you had that was stolen.

Have you ever had something stolen from you? I’m fairly certain that everyone has had something stolen from them at one point or another, whether it was something big and expensive, like a car, or something cheap and easily replaced, like office supplies. Myself, I work in the trades, which means that I have a lot of experience with things like radios, tools, and parts sprouting legs and walking away. I even know one guy who had his prescription safety glasses swiped from our trailer, as though they would be of any damn use to the thief.

But when I saw this prompt one item in particular came to my mind immediately: my childhood bike.

It’s almost difficult to believe now that every kid who can dress himself has a $700 smartphone/supercomputer in their hands 24/7, but when I was little every kid’s pride and joy was their bike. We would ride everywhere, sometimes spending the entire day from dawn to dusk just riding around town. On grading day every year the local department stores would have rows of bikes on display because they knew any kid who had outgrown theirs would be asking for a new one. Bikes were serious business. I was on mine non-stop during certain years of my life, but like most kids tend to be, I was careless with it. I would often drop it in a friend’s yard or even right on the side of the road while I was off doing something else. I didn’t think anything of it, until one day when I came back to get it and it wasn’t there.

To say that I panicked would definitely be an understatement. I was only about 8 at the time, but I understood that bikes were not cheap and that my parents didn’t have the money to just throw around on such things. I started searching in a frenzy, certain that it had to be somewhere nearby, desperate to find it before my parents found out it was gone. I tried to enlist the friends that I’d been playing with, but they’d been called home for supper and promptly abandoned me. Eventually my own father came looking for me and I had to admit the horrible truth: someone had stolen my bike.

I’m fairly certain that I recall Niagara Falls opening up in my eyes then.

Now, it turned out a little while later that my bike was not stolen in the traditional sense. Like any neighborhood, mine had its share of kids who were rotten little jerks for the sake of being rotten little jerks. It turned out that a couple of these bullies had seen my bike laying in the neighbor’s lawn and thought it would be funny to make me think it was gone. Knowing that they couldn’t just take it home without their parents asking where the heck it had come from, they’d tossed it into the trees and bushes in the vacant lot at the end of the road. Luckily my father and a neighbor were able to find it and it was returned to me with a gentle talking to about leaving my stuff laying around.

So in the end all was well, but something like that can affect a kid at that age. For quite a while after that I was pretty paranoid to leave anything I owned unattended for even a few minutes. Even to this day I’m a little bit twitchy about things like my daughter taking a toy to school for ‘show and share’, and I blame it on the fact that this incident taught me not to trust other kids around my stuff.

Have you ever had something important to you stolen? Did you get it back or was it gone forever? How did its loss affect you? Please share!

Also, a reminder that I am running a contest throughout the month of March. For each comment you post on my blog throughout the month, you will receive one entry toward a draw for a hard-copy of my zombie apocalypse novel, “Nowhere to Hide”! Please note that in order to accept the prize, I will need you to give me a mailing address where I can have the book sent. If the winner drawn did not intend to enter the contest and/or does not want the book, I will draw another name. Please also note that obvious spam/duplicate comments/etc. will not be counted toward an entry…play fair! And good luck! ❤

What Does Writer’s Block Feel Like?

This prompt from 642 Things to Write About amuses me, since writer’s block is exactly what the book aims to abolish.

So what does writer’s block feel like? Well, it’s too simple just to say that it’s frustrating, but that’s a good place to start. It is extremely frustrating. Have you ever been telling a story to a friend and got hung up on a particular word? You know exactly what you mean to say, and you can maybe even think of other ways to say it, but you can’t come up with that one word that you really want to use. It’s right on the tip of your tongue – you can taste it – but for some reason it won’t come out and the entire story is ruined because of it. That’s kind of what writer’s block feels like, except multiplied by the thousands of words that won’t come out.

A lot of people think that writing is easy – and for some lucky people it is – but when writer’s block hits it’s like being struck blind, deaf, and dumb. Imagine that you’ve had years and years of training in a particular field, and even more years of experience working in that field. You know your stuff. You’re good at your job. Now imagine that, sporadically and without any kind of warning, all of that knowledge and experience is wiped from your head and you’re left floundering around with absolutely no idea of what you just did or what to do next. That’s kind of what writer’s block feels like, and you have no clue or indication at all of when (or if) your brain might start working again.

Have you ever desperately wanted to finish something, but couldn’t because of circumstances outside of your control? Maybe you suffered an injury during some kind of big competition that you’d been training for. Maybe your car broke down and made you miss a huge event that you’d been planning for months. Maybe you’d gathered the courage to confess your feelings to someone, just before finding out that they’d confessed their feelings to someone else. You had something in your life that felt like the most important thing in the world, but it slipped through your fingers and you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to get it back again. That’s kind of what writer’s block feels like, except that the troublesome outside force is actually an evil blankness inside your own head.

Long story short, writer’s block feels like incompetence. It feels like you’ve been reduced to a base state, a blank slate, and you have no idea how you’re supposed to bring yourself back.

So next time you hear someone complaining that they have writer’s block, maybe consider giving them a hug.

Have you ever experienced writer’s block? What do you think it feels like? What do you do to try and break through it? Please share!

Also, a reminder that I am running a contest throughout the month of March. For each comment you post on my blog throughout the month, you will receive one entry toward a draw for a hard-copy of my zombie apocalypse novel, “Nowhere to Hide”! Please note that in order to accept the prize, I will need you to give me a mailing address where I can have the book sent. If the winner drawn did not intend to enter the contest and/or does not want the book, I will draw another name. Please also note that obvious spam/duplicate comments/etc. will not be counted toward an entry…play fair! And good luck! ❤

Why write? Well since you asked…

Note: Today’s post is courtesy of a prompt from “642 Things to Write About“. Today’s prompt is: “Why you write.”

I was flipping through the “642 Things” book this morning when I realized I’d forgotten to write today’s post, and this was the prompt that I randomly flipped to. It made me chuckle a little because of all the 642 prompts in this book, this is probably the easiest one for me to answer.

It all started (she said, ceremoniously) when I was in the third grade, and it started in an odd kind of way. You see, one night I was having trouble sleeping. I must have gotten out of bed and been playing with my toys or something, because I woke up my father. He came in my room to tuck me back into bed and I complained to him that I couldn’t get to sleep. I can remember, plain as day, he told me to close my eyes and just think about my day, play it in my head like a movie, and eventually I’d drift to sleep. I nodded and he went back to his room, and I closed my eyes. But I didn’t think about my day. I thought about more fantastical things. I imagined myself in a crazy story, with monsters and heroes and lots of fun and danger. And eventually, I fell asleep.

That became my nighttime routine. Every night I would imagine myself in a “movie” in my head. Sometimes I’d be fighting alongside my favorite superheroes, sometimes I’d be the damsel in distress, and sometimes I’d just think of the craziest thing I could imagine. I enjoyed making up these stories in my head so much that sometimes I’d wake up in the morning actually excited to get to bed that night.

Then I found a better outlet, thanks to a school assignment. We were to write an original short story, paste it on construction paper, draw a cover, and bind it all together. I nailed that assignment, let me tell you. I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what the story was about, but I can tell you that I called it, “The Mystery of the Emerald-Eyed Cat”, and I drew two creepy green cat eyes on my cover, and I got an excellent grade.

That was the first real story I ever wrote, and it started one hell of a lifelong desire. In those early days, and for many years afterward, I mostly wrote stories featuring myself and my friends, because I was basically writing down my nighttime “movies”, but as time went on I moved on to fan-fiction and more professional fiction as well, and the rest is pretty much history.

So why exactly do I write? Because, to be honest, I’m still that little girl laying in bed trying to get to sleep. It may sound funny to people who have trouble sleeping because they think too much, but I still lull myself to sleep by telling myself stories in my head, and these days those stories are the scenes for the books that I write. Playing those thoughts and ideas through my head every night is something that I think I’ll always do, and as a result I think that I’ll always write because since that first story I’ve always felt the need to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the paper. ❤

Gym Class… My Old Enemy…

Note: Today’s post is courtesy of a prompt from “642 Things to Write About“. Today’s prompt is: “Your worst experience in gym class.”

Well this is an easy one…ANY experience in gym class was a bad one for me.

Okay, okay, I might be exaggerating just a little bit, but the fact of the matter is that gym class was a horrible experience for me for many, many years. It wasn’t so bad back in the first years of elementary school when we were just running around doing tumbling, or making obstacle courses, or marveling over the fact that not one of us could climb those damn ropes. But as we began to get older and started doing more actual sports and the like, gym became nothing more than torture to me. I’ve never been the athletic type in the least, so I was the kind of kid who got picked last for teams and hid in the corner to avoid ever having to touch the ball. I was actually pretty good at things like gymnastics and basic exercise (situps, pushups, speed runs, etc), but those were the kinds of things that we rarely did in gym at my schools. Mostly we played an ungodly amount of basketball, interspersed by the occasional game of baseball, tap-football, or floor hockey, all of which I was absolutely miserable at.

So if you want me to pick one particular experience? It would probably be in the 9th grade, mid-semester, when our report cards came out and I found out that I was dangerously close to failing gym. Failing gym. I was making 90’s in every single other class, but I was failing gym. I nearly had a heart attack. The thing is, the reason I was getting such poor marks was a refusal to participate (I often came up with excuses to sit out, and even when I was playing I was obviously doing my best to avoid having to actually do anything), but at the time I felt like it was an injustice, like my gym teacher was purposely torturing me for being artistic instead of athletic. In the end I pulled up my shorts and forced myself to participate in order to bring my grade up, but at the time I felt like everyone in the world was against me for daring to not enjoy sports. I think every artistic kid feels like that at one point or another, don’t you?

A Nightmarish Impression

Note: Today’s post is courtesy of a prompt from “642 Things to Write About“. Today’s prompt is: “What’s the worst nightmare you can remember?”

It’s strange the kinds of things that can scare the hell out of a kid. I’ve had lots of nightmares over the course of my thirty years, but there is one that stands out and it may not be what you’d expect. After all, I’ve had nightmares about zombies attacking my family, about my classmates and I fighting and dying in an unending war, about my husband leaving me, about all of my friends and family leaving me, about being on an airplane as it crashes to the ground, about being lost in the woods at night and being attacked by rabid wolves. I’ve had some doozies, is what I’m saying. But the nightmare that stands out is one that I had when I was probably about ten years old. I don’t remember much of what was happening in the dream at first, but I was at my grandmother’s house, and suddenly I was left alone in the living room with my aunt Judy. For some reason she began to smile at me, a really creepy, too-wide smile, and then she raised her hands to her face and as she did all of her teeth began to fall out of her mouth, into her hands, and all over the floor.

It might not seem like the most terribly frightening of things, especially considering other nightmares that I’ve had, but that morning I woke up literally bawling my eyes out. For some reason those teeth falling out of my aunt’s mouth scared the ever-living beejeezus out of me, and just thinking about it gave me shivers for months afterwards.

The Post Where I Catch Up on Things and Explain Absenses

If you follow my blog you may have noticed that I missed three posts this week: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which should have been one Accountability post and two “642 Things to Write About” posts. And if you’re a follower you would also know that for me missing posts doesn’t happen very often, so I hope you’ll sympathize when I say that there just wasn’t any time. I traveled home from my shift out West on Monday/Tuesday, and though I normally would have gotten the “642 Things” posts written and scheduled during my layovers, I was actually feeling quite unusually nauseated and motion sick during my flights, so I instead spent my layovers curled up in the fetal position on the seats at flights’ gates. Then I got home and threw myself immediately into decorating for Christmas, which may seem like something that isn’t exactly a panic just yet, but since I fly back to work for two weeks on December 1st I really wanted to get the Christmas stuff out of the way so that I can actually enjoy it a bit before I leave again. And on top of all that my daughter’s 4th birthday is next weekend, so I’ve been running around getting stuff together for that. On the upside of all of this, I’ve only been home for three days and I’ve got quite a ton done. Today I should get  a ton more done, and then I should (mostly) be able to relax a little for the rest of the week.

In the meantime, here’s a couple of things you’ve missed because of my sporadic week:

Authors Answer #3 is up, and it’s a pretty interesting one! In this installment the 10 other authors and I discuss how easy or difficult it is for us to write characters with a different set of beliefs from our own. Check it out!

My goals are a bit scalded from being on the back-burner, and I refuse to step on a scale today, but I can tell you that social media has been my friend, I’ve sold a few more copies of the book, and my arm is damn near broken from all the handwriting I did while I was out at work without my laptop.

NaNoWriMo has also been put on the back burner due to all the stuff I’ve been trying to get done, but it’s not as bad as all that. Before my sickly travel day I managed to get my (HANDWRITTEN, remember) word count up to 30,000 words. That means that as of today I’m 5000 words behind, but you must remember that I’m also home now…where my laptop is. If I could HAND WRITE 30,000 words in 18 days, I’m sure I can use my almost 100-words-per-minute typing speed to bang out the last 20,000 words in 9 days.

I KILLED a brand-new pen, straight out of the box!

Maybe.

We’ll see. >.>

I feel like I’m missing a thing or two, but at the moment I can’t think of anything and I really should go about trying to get the rest of my nonsense done so that I can have a bit of time to myself, so I’ll leave it at this for now, and I’ll say that I’ll try to have proper posts up for next week, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I don’t. Because you’re all awesome. You know it. ❤

A Room With a View (of Collectibles)

Note: Today’s post is courtesy of a prompt from “642 Things to Write About“. Today’s prompt is: “Describe a room in your house.”

Though it is technically the guest room, I consider this particular room to be “mine”. Much of the room is taken up by a bed that is actually just a box spring and mattress laying directly on the floor. Another large chunk is taken up by a chest-style dresser that is filled with blankets and sheets and has an old-style 32″ television sitting on top of it.

On the wall with the window there is another dresser full of more blankets and sheets, a large stack of old university text books, and a broken bedside table, on which sits a small pile of special stuffed animals that I’ve kept around.

In the corner by the closet is the duckling-shaped rocking chair that a friend of the family made for my daughter, another pile of blankets and sheets (because apparently we don’t have enough of those) and my winter work boots. Inside the closet is a wide variety of items, including spare pillows, stationary and craft supplies, old work and school notes, old magazines, unused picture frames, hidden birthday and Christmas presents, and (you guessed it) some blankets.

So why would I consider this random hodgepodge of items to be “mine”? Well it’s not all the items I’ve mentioned; it’s the ones I haven’t mentioned. See, on the wall opposite all this mess are four bookcases, and those bookcases are filled with things that I love. First and foremost are books of a wide variety. There are classic comics and manga comics, horror novels, fantasy-epics, supernatural YA series’, old kids’ books from my childhood, Star Wars books, inspirational books, some random school textbooks of a Shakespearean nature, and the first ever hard copy of my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide. But wait, there’s more! On top of the cases is a display katana on a lovely wooden sword stand, surrounded by a variety of McFarlane Dragons from each series. The shelves that contain my manga also house a few anime figures and toys. The shelf that holds my traditional comics also has several Marvel and DC Funko Pop figures. There are several more Funko Pops from various TV shows and movies on other shelves, as well as a variety of other small toys, figures, and collectibles.

In short, these shelves do an excellent job of giving a description of who I am…at least, the geeky part of me. ^_^

Recipe for Disaster

Note: Today’s post is courtesy of a prompt from “642 Things to Write About“. Today’s prompt is: “Write a recipe for disaster.”

Start with a handful of full-grown adults of various shapes, sizes, and flavors. You may wish to also incorporate some children into the recipe, but grown adults enhance the flavor due to the presumption that they should know better.

Chop up the adults’ ability to hold their tongues and tempers by slicing their skin with early mornings, standstill traffic, thankless, dead-end jobs, inconsiderate families, unsympathetic friends, and ungrateful kids.

Rub some salt on the open wounds.

Place thoroughly chopped adults in a melting pot set to high heat. Sprinkle in a little hot weather, a handful of per peeves, and some deep-seated intolerances. Flavor to your liking with racial, sexual, and religious prejudices.

Bring to a boil and stir constantly. Once boil has begun, stir in a healthy portion of fists and feet, and if you’re in the mood to get spicy you might throw in a few police officers with twitchy trigger fingers.

Stir once more, vigorously, and serve immediately.

Social Media of the Future

Note: Today’s post is courtesy of a prompt from “642 Things to Write About“. Today’s prompt is: “Write Facebook status updates for the year 2017.”

For the sake of having a nice number, I figured I’d do one for each month.

January

Happy New Year everyone! My resolution is to write more this year than ever before! Woo!

February

Final Fantasy OhMyGodHaven’tWeRunOutOfNumbersYet from my hubby for Valentine’s Day…he knows me so well. ❤

March

Anyone want to line up some March Break play dates? I am SO not used to having the whirling dervish in the house 24-7.

April

Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone! I’ve gotta be honest though, 33 doesn’t feel much different than 32. 😛

May

Goddammit, why are we still running our pellet stove? Come on, Spring, where the hell are you?!

June

Congratulations to all the little rugrats on their Grading Day! So proud of my little missy for acing the 2nd grade!

July

Big Summer Sale, everyone! For one week only, get the ebook version of Book One of the “Other World” series for FREE! Get it now because Book Two will be available before you know it!

August

Oh man, we’re more than halfway through the year and I have amassed twice as many new goals as I have finished old ones. Will I never get the hang of this nonsense we call life?

September

It’s Day One of the third grade! Good luck little missy! I know you’re gonna do just as great as usual. ❤

October

Joining our Halloween decoration family this year is Michael Myers and Pinhead. Hubby, dear, I think we’re starting to run out of room for this stuff.

November

Damn you and your strange, masochistic allure, NaNoWriMo…don’t you know I have a book release to deal with? Only 30k words to go…@_@

December

Happy Holidays everyone! Some wonderful presents in the Tobin house today! I think my little missy will be quite well to do with until 2018….next month. XD