I’m finding it rather ironic that I just got out of my writing class and I have no idea what to write. lol. I have all this stuff swirling about in my brain, but for some reason my neurotransmitters have taken a left turn when they should have taken a right and my fingers are not getting the message. So, that leaves me staring at this page and wondering what on earth I’m going to write about for the next 20 minutes.
Today has actually been a pretty good day. I haven’t felt too bad, a little run down still, but not sick to my stomach like I was yesterday and the day before. I was talking to my parents about that last night and, evidently, eating grapefruit with slimfast for breakfast is not an intelligent idea. haha. Go me. Mom said that the acid in the grapefruit curdles in the milk in the slimfast, thus causing stomach upset. I’m sooooooooo glad that’s the cause and not the icky throw-up germ that is circulating my office. (thank you, Becky, for getting me addicted to that super awesome term) There’s a small group of smokers at my office that are passing the germ amongst themselves, so I hope it stays with them. Not that I want them all to get sick, I just don’t want to get sick myself. I don’t have time to be sick.
You know, I remember reading in a medical journal about the power of the mind over the body. I completely and totally believe that some things are just psychological. Yesterday, the more I focused on how sick I felt, the worse I felt. When I finally kicked myself (mentally) and decided that I just had way too much work to do to be sick and got down to business, I starting feeling better. I still came home and took a nap on the living room floor because I wasn’t quite 100%, but I did feel better than when I was focusing on it. And, yes, I do take naps on the floor. I took one again today before my writing class because I’m still pretty run down.
The reason I choose the floor is double-sided. One reason is because that’s what I did when I was a kid. For some reason, I always liked to take naps on the floor. They just seemed better that way, more like naps instead of going to bed. I also remember this metal glider seat thing that we had in our backyard that I would nap on, too. When I started doing that, mom took me to the doctor. lol. Not because I was doing that, but because I was literally sleeping everywhere.
The summer before 6th grade I remember waking up to deliver newspapers, going to sleep for a few hours, then doing my chores, going back to sleep for a bit, reading for a while, sleeping some more, watching tv (sleeping in the hour between the two shows I watched), eating dinner and going to bed. That carried over into the school year where I would sleep as soon as I came home, get up to eat dinner, do some homework and back to bed. Come to find, I had mono. lol. Go figure, right? When this continued into 8th grade, they told me I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I guess that’s a better diagnosis than being told for two and a half years that I still had mono. lol.
So, yeah, my mom and I discussed it today and she thinks I’m at the beginning of a chronic fatigue relapse, which sucks, because I have WAY too much to do to be sleeping and achy all the time. Thank goodness for weekends.
Anyways, back to the point. Aside from naps on the floor being better, my living room floor is the only spot in my house where I can lay in the sun. Sunlight is wonderful. When I’m stressed at work, I go lay on the grass in the sun for 15 minutes and I feel sooooooooooo much better. Sunlight provides Vitamin D, which makes you feel happier, so I figure it can’t hurt to take a nap in the sun on occasion. lol
Aside from a general rundown feeling, today went really well. I actually got quite a bit done at work today. I worked three times as many files as yesterday. I think I only did 12 yesterday, which isn’t entirely the fault of feeling unwell. My computer seemed to want a day off, so I was constantly restarting it. Today, it was in a much better mood to work, so we work very productively together and busted out 36 files.
You know, speaking of work, people amaze me sometimes with their lack of effort. I order VA appraisals for the properties we are foreclosing on and the appraisers call me for interior access to the properties. On the forms I generate from the VA website, I include the contact numbers and emails for the different banks we have as clients. It just astounds me that the appraisers will call me and say there isn’t any contact information on the sheet (some are a little snotty about it) and then complain about the size of the font when I tell them to look at box 26. Hey, I don’t control the font size. I just enter the information into the VA website and they generate the assignment sheet. I just email it to you. Some will call and tell me they can’t get ahold of the bank rep using the phone number provided and when I ask if they’ve tried the email address, they say no and then ask me for an alternate contact number. Uh, that’s the only phone number and if the bank rep doesn’t answer, try sending an email. I get a little frustrated sometimes and I have to remember to be polite because maybe that person is having a bad day.
Aside from getting multiple phone calls (and one email – seriously, if you can email me about a phone number not working, why can’t you email the address on the sheet????) about that today, I still got a lot done, so I’m happy.
Oh, I started listening to The Lord of the Rings at work today, too. I have to say, so far I like the movie better. It moves much quicker and is quite a bit more engaging. JRR Tolkien is an extremely gifted writer, but I find his writings have a bit of a verbosity that makes my mind wander to other things……..like my to do list or my shopping list or the strange-looking design that the water leaking from my styrofoam cup is leaving on my desk. You get the idea. But, I’ve made the goal to listen to the entire thing, which is much better than actually reading it. I tried reading it once and I think I sat on the same page for an hour because my mind had wandered and I forgot I was reading a book. lol. Listening to it at work is a little more rigid because I can’t get away. lol. I’ve effectively trapped myself and made my mind pay attention because it’s slightly more engaging than the files I’m working on. I’m sure once he gets past all of the mundaneness of describing the hobbit village (ohmygosh I just listened to this less than 8 hours ago and I can’t remember the name of the village – I’m getting old!!!!!), it will get more interesting. I hope it has good fight scenes. The ones in the movie were amazing. Didn’t hurt that Aragorn was extremely hot. Mmmm.
Anyways, while I was listening to LOTR, I also got to hear the foreword written by JRR Tolkien. He made a few observations that I found very applicable. He said:
“The prime motive [for writing The Lord of the Rings] was the desire of the tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.”
“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. But even from the points of view of many who have enjoyed my story there is much that fails to please. It is perhaps not possible in a long tale to please everybody at all points, nor to displease everybody at the same points;”
I found those thoughts enlightening and insightful. As an aspiring writer myself, I worry about what people will think of my work and if they will like it. He has a very good point that it is not possible for everyone to like a single piece of writing. I know for myself that some authors that I love have works that I’m not so very fond of. So, it’s very practical to go into writing knowing that not everyone will like it. Some people will, some people won’t, so there’s no sense in worrying about making sure everyone will write it. Write what makes you happy and what you want to convey. Just be sure to use correct sentence structure and grammar.
That was one of the things we talking about in our writing class tonight. Some people who self-publish don’t review their work before publishing and I would think the errors in the writing would deter readers from purchasing future works. I know I’ve been less than impressed with some of the e-books I’ve read and I’ve actually deleted a few because the grammar and structural integrity of the writing was lacking. The basic thing everyone wants in a book is for it to be written well and to flow smoothly. Being written well, to me, means that words are used correctly, the flow and pace of the writing varies, punctuation is in the correct place, words of varying length and meaning are used, etc. If the only word every used to describe something someone liked was ‘cool’, I think we’d all get bored fairly quickly. So, change it up. Be adventurous: use the thesaurus.
I’m kinda sad that tonight was the last writing class. It was a very relaxed class tonight and I think it was my favorite so far. Aside from the fact that people were very complimentary towards me (haha), it was just very laid-back and people seemed a lot more comfortable. Or maybe it was just me. Maybe I finally got into my comfort zone with these people and was able to open up and just have a good time. Kinda sucks that it happened on the last night. Oh well. There will be other writing classes.
Back to the whole complimentary thing, that was pretty cool. I mean, I usually get one nice thing said every class (watch my ego inflate) about how I am talented or that I have a gift. Tonight, though, I kid you not, every single person in the class said something about how I’m talented, I’m a very good writer, I shouldn’t give up on writing, I should definitely pursue writing as a career, that they would buy my books, etc. One lady commented that she’s always excited to hear what comes out of my ‘beautiful mind.’ lol. I was a little embarrassed, yet very pleased, at all the comments. It made me feel really good. I don’t normally share what I write with people. I think the last time I let someone read something I wrote was, gosh, back in Utah, before I got married, so that would have been four and a half years ago. After I got married, I kinda quit writing for the most part. I mean, we moved seven times in three and a half years, so I spent most of my time packing and unpacking, when I wasn’t working. I’ve been in my apartment now for just under two years (longest I’ve ever lived anywhere since moving out of my parent’s house 8 years ago), so I think it’s about time I started writing again.
Oh, haha, I promised I would do this, so I have to do it. One of the ladies in class came dressed as a chicken tonight. I kid you not. She full on dressed like a chicken. Feet, beak, everything. It was so awesome! I think that’s part of what made class so good tonight. How can you have a bad class with someone sitting next to you in a chicken costume? Oh, how I would love to have the confidence to pull that off. That was just too awesome.
Now that that’s done (and I’ve spent an hour writing and accessorizing this), I need to go to bed. I have to wake up in five and a half hours. Oy. Good night!
