Renew, restart, refocus

I've always been really bad at journals. Anyone who actually still follows this blog already knew that. Another thing I haven't been good at these last few years is writing really ANYTHING. Well, recently I decided to start making my writing more of a priority, to start really working towards the goals that I have for myself and my life as a writer.

One of the things I decided to do was to restart my blog. I considered just starting where I left off here... but then I realized that the purpose for which I originally started this blog wasn't really for writing. It was more of a way to keep in touch with people I no longer saw, and a way to get some things out of my system. So, I decided to start up a new blog, somewhere else, one that would focus entirely on my goals as a writer and what I was doing to meet them.

here is the link to the new blog, for anyone who is interested: http://www.dreamerdocuments.wordpress.com

The name of it is still Dreamer Documents, and you'll still see me posting there as Jennifer L. Post. ^-^ The only difference is that all of the posts will be about what I am currently doing with my writing, as opposed to random occurrences in my life or odd things I've been thinking about. They'll probably be a lot shorter as well.

I can't say whether I will continue posting in THIS blog, although I will definitely be leaving it up for the time being. I want to say "Thanks very much!" to everyone who has been keeping tabs on me and reading all of my odd thoughts here. ^-^

A New Adventure

Here is a very special story... Short, but veeeery sweet! I have not been so excited to write something since I first began Falcon of Ganst. ^-^

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

The Adventure Begins

We were heading into his house on friday night, to make our anniversary cake. As we were walking he grabbed my hand and pulled me back towards a particular part of the driveway.

"I think this is the spot," he said.

"What spot?" I tilted my head and gazed at him. I genuinely had no idea what he meant.

"This is the spot where we first kissed."

"Oh, it is, isn't it!" I laughed. General mushiness reigned for a minute or two. Then, blithely, I turned towards the house. "Now let's go make some cake!"

But he pulled me back again.

Deep in my stomach I felt a little flutter; although I could not say why. It was only for a moment, so I paid it no mind. He held my hands and I smiled at him.

"What's up?"

"Jennifer Lynn Post," he looked into my eyes, "I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Another woman, with another man, would probably have experienced a stunning thrill. She may well have dared that tiny, breathless thought; good gods this is it! I, however, had become perfectly accustomed to such declarations over the past year or so. I felt a thrill, but it was a familiar one.

"That's awesome, I feel the same about you!" I said, with a kiss and another smile for my own dear Scholar. Once again I turned to head into the house.

Once again he pulled me back.

"You are a pain in the butt," he informed me. He was frustrated for some reason; but still he grinned in my direction.

"And so are you!" I laughed. "We are perfect for each other." He laughed too, for a moment. Then he squeezed my hands, trying to look very serious.

"Okay... Jennifer Lynn Post, I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he paused, slipping down to one knee. That stunning thrill hit me, dead in the chest, stopping my heart for a moment as he reached into his pocket and brought forth a small black box.

"Will you marry me?"

The outdoor light glinted off elegant swirls in a rose gold hue. I could hear my heart beat again, but now my brain was dead. Silence settled around us; until a single word pushed its way through the swirling mass of joy that fogged my head.

"Yes." All thoughts and feeling, words and movement, rushed back in one breath. They filled me up till I was a real girl once again. "Yes I will marry you!"

Costumes and Stories

Haha, almost exactly one year since my last post... this is turning out a lot like my diary.

Anyhow, Halloween is almost here! Whoo! I finally have actually plans about what I'm doing! The sunday before, Lucas and I are going to a dance party. It is hosted by this church youth organization called The Well, so there will be no drinking and most of the costumes SHOULD be a least slightly tasteful. ^-^ There will also be a costume contest and LOTS of dancing!

Lucas and I are going as Little Red and The Wolf, sort of masquerrade/1920's style. ^-^ Been having a grand old time getting costumes together! I actually have two costumes, since my red lounge-singer dress would not work out well to wear at work. So for when I work on Halloween I am dressing up as my own version of Spider Girl! Lucas finds this hilariously ironic. XD

The end of October also means something else, NaNoWriMo approacheth! At the moment I'm having doubts about what story I am going to do... but I'm thinking probably going to stick with my War of the Sisters one... Adorable evil pyromaniacs and stammering semi-nobles are just so much fun to write! And besides that, pretty soon Rhylii enters the picture. Fae + Rhylii can only = awesome fun. ^-^

Whatever I decide, I will be actually posting here about it. Maybe it will give me some sense of accountability and help me to actually finish this time! Wahoo!

Picking Things Up

I love a cleaning kind of day. My brain feels fresh and useful, and I get to see my bedroom floor again. Huzzah! It amazes me how much neater my room looks when all I've done is DO MY LAUNDRY. What amazes me more is how long it takes me to get to the point where I want to do it. It probably doesn't help that I now have a big enough wardrobe that it doesn't become a problem for about a week or so, heh.

At least recently though, I've had a little bit of an excuse for neglecting my laundry. In fact I've had a big, exciting reason! You ready to hear it? ...I have gotten back into writing!! Huzzah! Hurray! *cue jumping and shouting and general merrymaking* ... *oh yes, cue confetti also*

To tell the truth, I never really 'got out' of writing. If I stopped writing completely my brain would probably explode. The thing is, for the last year and a half at least, I really haven't been doing much more than brainstorming, puttering around with story outlines, and writing the occaisional 'super angsty and depressed' poem in runic viking... hehehe... What's funny is you probably think I'm totally kidding about that last one.

Anywho, I finally decided to buckle down on my writing. I even went down to B&N's and picked up a copy of the brand new Novel and Short StoryWriter's Market. Whoo! Ohmygoodness what an AWESOME book that is! I mean, there is a huge list of magazines, what kind of writing they take, how to send it in, and all that good stuff. And not only that! There are also advice articles on all kinds of awesome things. I've not yet read each and every one, but so far my favorites are Critique Groups and Reading With A Writer's Eye.

Other proactive kinds of writing things I've been doing involve picking out the best of my currently completed short stories to further edit and send out into the wide scary world. And I finally put together a sort of idea of how I want the TFG chapter I've been stuck on for so long to go, and hopefully flow. ^-^ Huzzah! I sent it out to my trusted writing friends for some thoughts and critique. Hopefully I'll hear back from them soon... (Yeah, you know who you are! *directs big shiny kitty eyes upon her kindly frienditors*)

Oh yes, and I also wrote a nice middle-length note for my blog. ^-^ Yup, things do indeed seem to be picking up.

A Happier Post Script

I just realized that my last post is rather long, sorry. I'm also sorry that the first post in sooooo very long had to be so very melancholy. It has been so much on my heart of late that I really couldn't write about anything else; even though I have definitely been up to some fun stuff recently.

I would like to leave you with something happy though; something bright that always flashes into my mind when I find myself drawn to these particular birthday memories. Just one little sweet story before I finally go to bed...

Last year on my birthday, after a mostly blah night of bad ideas, disapointments, and holding back sad thoughts, I was riding in the car with Lucas. Leaning against the window, I smoothed a ruffle on my pretty, practically wasted, birthday dress and said something like, "I really just wanted to dance somewhere... I can't believe they didn't have any dancing," in a half-sighing, forlorn kind of voice.

To this, my wonderful Scholar replied, "Well, I can't think of anywhere else the might have dancing... Want to go walking somewhere?" It was too late to go down to our usual spot by the bridge though. Somehow we ended up at Wal-Mart, walking up and down the aisles and talking. I guess it's sort of funny to go strolling around a store late at night, all dressed up; but it was fun.

Then Lucas said something like, "You know, I bet the music sample board in that one aisle has some slow songs on it. We could go dance to that."

"Really? You wouldn't mind?"

And he smiled that special smile that's just mine and said, "Course not."

So we went to the aisle and we picked an album with lovely, slow love songs off the board... and even though it only played about 10 seconds of the same four songs every time we pushed the button, he held me close and we swayed slowly, round and round. In the middle of an aisle at Wal-mart, we danced. I cannot think of a more perfect way to end one's birthday.

Memories of 21

What's this? Is it an actual NEW POST!? Fear not, your eyes are not deceiving you... and you aren't crazy either! Isn't that nice to know? ^-^ A new post indeed!

I have been having a hard time sleeping lately. I think it's been 3 weeks since it started. Can't say why... well I could, except that the 'reason' would probably change tomorrow. Honestly I can't seem to pin it down. I just can't sleep. So I find myself sitting up late into the early morning, playing silly but time consuming flashy-type games, and thinking about all kinds of things. And one of the things I've been thinking about is my birthday, last year. Well, sort of the whole time around it really.

My birthday is the 23rd of March, in case you didn't know. That was just last week. I'm 22 now, and I even managed to plan some really fun stuff to do by way of celebration. (I'll probably post some stuff about that later) I was so excited the whole week leading up to my big plans. It was like I had frothy, plotty bubbles in my head. That's exactly how is was last year too. I had so many plans, and I was sure they were all going to turn out just amazingly.

But they didn't really.

It started the day before my birthday, March 22nd. We had a family party at my Aunt's house. I know for a fact that the cake was delicious and that all 10+ members of my close-about family sang to me in various keys, pitches, volumes, and accents... all at once... because that's how birthday parties always are with our family. ^-^ Beyond that however, things are just a foggy haze of smiles that I wanted to mean but didn't really, and sneaking off to the bathroom to cry.

The reason for this had nothing to do with my family at all. I just so happened to have opened an email right before we left for my Aunt's... I am trying my level best not to be too Anne-ishly dramatic, so I will simply say that this was how I found out that a very good friend of mine had died.

She was one of my writing ladies, and she was wonderful. She had a big heart, and a hearty laugh. I could tell when I first met her that she dearly loved to laugh. She was a very candid person. Whether it was constructive critizism and questions about someone's writing, thoughts or feelings about her struggles with cancer, or just something scandelous and giggle-worthy; she was not afriad to share what was on her mind.

I just remember thinking over and over, "How could such a woman no longer be in the world?" But, I think the thing that shocked me the most, that rocked me to my core, was the fact that she had died in January... and I had no idea. I hadn't even been thinking of her, or my other writing ladies, even though I knew she had been having a bit of trouble with her cancer returning. I was too busy with work, with my brand new boyfriend, to look beyond my own little happy bubble.

About two weeks later, somewhere around the 3rd of April, my dad's family called to tell us that one of my older cousins, one of my dad's nieces, had gone into a coma. Three days later we learned she was braindead, she died. We'd sort of lost contact with my dad's family, but this cousin would sometimes email me, or comment on my Elfwood stories. She used to talk to me online about favorite books and my plans for my writing. I remember she was so excited about us moving back down to California... she wanted our address to send birthday cards to, she kept saying she hoped we would come down and visit her in Sacremento... that I would visit her. I never did, I never even spoke much with her after we moved down. I was too... busy.

These are some of the things I've been thinking about during these recent nights of not-sleeping. In fact, these are the things I think about when I realize that I haven't talked to my Mom in nearly a week, or called my sister-friend in months... that I don't even know what is going on in my own sisters' lives. What a terrible thing it is to be too busy. What a waste it is too spend precious time avoiding and being angry at each other.

I can't turn back time and send more emails, make more calls, laugh more laughs, or put off some other plans to pay a visit. I can, however, strive to never make that mistake again. That was one of my two New Year's resolutions actually, to keep more in touch with my friends. I pray that God will help me keep that resolution too... he certainly knows the best how prone my mind is to wandering and getting lost in its own little worlds. ^-^

Cue Musical Interlude

Interrupting my not-so-regular and very unschedualed posting to share something from my favorite early-morning addiction, vh1 music videos...



Reasons I love Gravity: Firstly, the music video itself is just... classic awesome. Everytime I watch it I see something that I missed before. Secondly, I just love this lady's voice! And the song, ohmygosh soooo lovely and forlorn, and kind of haunting. I have been humming and singing bits of it for weeks.