Novel Writing...

is hard to do-o. (sing in the Grease fashion of Hopelessly Devoted).  So I'm sure that many are aware of this, but some may not be, I wrote a novel called "All is Fair". A true story of my experiences dating someone that was in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  It's a story of love, loss, and the aftermath of war and PTSD. Editors, agents, and publishers do not like this novel. Most of the regret letters that I receive are generic, "we don't want you" kind of letters...but I do get some back, especially from agents that say, we would work with this book, IF you "insert change here".  I refuse to do this.  I've come to find out that's because the story is so close to my heart. EVERYTHING is true in this story, nothing but some sly changes of names have occurred...for instance my ex-fiance's last name is Fisher, and in the story his last name is Basser...get it....fish...bass...anyway...I decided to start writing a new novel, this time Fiction, which is surprisingly MUCH easier to write. 

I'm super excited about this endeavor.  I've decided that after I get this book done (I'm shooting for next year), I would make it an E-Story and put a chapter a day on this blog (or maybe create another blog especially for that story.  So far I just have my getcha line to interest publishers (which may change since it still is in draft mode). This story is influenced by my experiences in life, but does not describe in any way my feelings. I created this story from my love of the idea of God's Tapestry, which I heard from somebody, somewhere.  God's Tapestry is the idea that God is the weaver of our lives.  Our lives being the beautiful tapestry.  We only see the back of this loom that looks like a big knotted mess with different color rows that seem to be making no sense.  But God sees the front side as he works, it's all coming together for Him, and he ultimately knows what the final picture of our lives will be. If we start trying to correct things or try to make sense of things from our side, we will mess up the big picture.  We should only trust God and his decision for our lives (Tapestry), no matter how bad we think he's screwing things up in hopes that the bigger picture makes sense and is the best life for us.

So my story is about a fraught wife, and mother of 3 who despises the hand she was dealt in life, and gets the chance to see how things would have been had certain events never happened.

Crossing my fingers that this is more "readable" than my last book attempt.

Come to my window

"I would dial the numbers
Just to listen to your breath
I would stand inside my hell
And hold the hand of death
You don't know how far I'd go
To ease this precious ache
You don't know how much I'd give
Or how much I can take
Just to reach you"

-Melissa Etheridge "Come To My Window"

It's been almost 4 years since he was mine, and I still have to fight off the urges to pick up my phone and call him. It's hard. When I have good news, I want to call him. When I'm having a bad day, I want to call him. And more than anything when I think of a shared memory I want to call him....

But it's almost like he's a drug. Something that would be gratifying in that instant, but then cause turmoil the next minute, and even more heartache the next day. Not to quote another song, but it's kind of like "make it hurt so good". I have to resist if I don't want to be disappointed and heartbroken the second I click the END button.

Sometimes Love don't feel like it should.....make it hurt so good.

Newness

I had yet ANOTHER Harry Potter dream and this is after I went cold-turkey on everything HP related.  This dream was kind of like the HP Lego game that I bought ( I know, I know, my DORK is showing).  Me (I somehow in this dream was Harry) and Ron were fighting off dementors, and one came and knocked off his head.  In my dream I kept thinking , "This is way too violent for children to be seeing".

In other non-HarryPotter news....

• I decided NOT to call Mr. Aisle 12, a little too smooth for my liking.
• I bought a 50" flat screen TV. My coworker joked with me asking if I was trying to lure in a man by building a man cave....didn't think of that, but now that she mentions it.....
• My cell phone finally bit the dust, and I am temporarily using a phone that looks like it was manufactured in 1998. New phone coming in 17! days!
• I bought a dining room table at Ikea, with the help of my sister reupholstered the chairs with grey/white fabric, bought a yellow/grey painting of New York and hung it up, and created a centerpiece.  Pictures to come soon (as soon as my new phone comes!)

Words to live by

This week's "Words to live by" are short and sweet, and hopefully true.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

-Khalil Gibran

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.  Enough to fry my brain out.  Where do I want to live? Who do I want to be? What happens if Plan A never happens? What is Plan B? and most importantly, Who am I?

The 'Who am I?' question scares me the most.  I don't know who I am.  I know who I want to be though, and so I'm focusing on that.

Mr. Aisle 12

I was doing my normal Friday night, 'I want something delicious to eat' grocery shopping. For those of you who know me, you know that I do not cook.  Well, let me rephrase that. I can cook, I just don't cook well.  It's a running joke in my family that every year at Thanksgiving, my job is to make the deviled eggs, and even with a job as simple as that I still have to ask my big sister, "Now what goes in these"?

But anyways, back to the grocery store...

I am focusing hard on the pre-made hamburgers, thinking to myself now which one of these would be the easiest to make? When I hear a deep voice behind me say "Don't tell me your beautiful, and you know how to cook"? I turn around and all I see is beautiful green eyes, and tight curly brown hair.  I stammer....Thinking of comebacks quickly is not my forte.  I immediately feel the hives (a nervous tell tale sign for me) form on my chest.  He then says "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you".

I tell him that it's ok, I'm not embarrassed, and that I actually can not cook at all.  He chuckles and tells me that I'm in a very peculiar place then if I don't know how to cook.  He is obviously MUCH better at clever banter than me.  He then proceeds to say that I should let him cook me a meal sometime, and maybe he could give me a few pointers.

I took his phone number, which he wrote down and gave me with such ease, as he reiterated that he is serious about the dinner, and I should give him a call.

Help! What should I do? I am definetly NOT going over to a strangers house, so what should I do??

Lessons I didn't want to learn

I was talking on the phone with a friend, and the subject of lessons that we've learned from not-so-great situtions came up.  After talking for awhile she said that she thinks that God plans it out that way, that he has to put you in these situations because you have to learn certain things before you can "graduate", so to speak.  She (also unmarried), feels like she hasn't found "the one" yet because she hasn't graduated, hasn't learned some valuable lesson that will help her down the road.  She also suggested that the not-so-great things that happen to you make you who you are, and maybe you have to be that 30 year old person, that has graduated with all of those "lessons learned", to be the perfect partner for your perfect partner.

I completely agree with this, but I truly hope that I'm close to "graduating". 

Here are some of the lessons that I didn't want to learn...

• Cheating (in my opinion) is most of the time an indication that something is lacking from your relationship, and most of the time can not be overcome.  Also, (and I NEVER used to believe this, before it happened to me multiple times) once a cheater, always a cheater.
• Your gut is right 99% of time.  If you are scared to death that he is not going to go through with the wedding..in my case...you are probably right. Also, your mother is right 99% of the time.
• You should make a list of qualities that you value the most in a partner, and stick to it.  Now I do not mean the silly lists that all women make with eye/hair color, profession, style of dress... I mean the important qualities..in my case...Christian, Strong morals, Not an EXTREME Drinker, Family man, MUST want children.
• If you don't like someone A LOT, don't force it, it's not going to happen.  The older I get the more I think I try to settle for someone I don't like everything about (aka J), and maybe I have'nt fully learned this lesson yet...but I did break up with J.

Don't you think I'm close to graduation? What lessons did you not want to learn?

Dreamin...

I've been having some crazy dreams as of lately.  I mean beyond bizarre.  I think that some of them have a lot to do with the fact that in one weekend I watched all the Harry Potter movies like I would die if I did not see all 8.  Then I continued the craziness by reading Book 7 every night before bed (almost done with that one).  But here are some of the crazy dreams...

I woke up grabbing my forehead.  It felt like someone had stabbed me there.  I had dreamt that I was at a local tattoo shop getting a lighting bolt tattooed to my forehead.  I had to run to the bathroom when I woke up just to make sure it was a dream, that's how bad I thought my head hurt.

Next night...I was in a tri-wizard tournament, which involved riding around on a horse drawn carriage through hogsmede.  The carriage had a table on it full of B-12 Energy drinks which were to be chugged rapidly.  It also involved a fire throwing contest. weird.

Last night....I dreamt that I was at a party with J-Lo, my friend Ashley, and my friend Karla.  We spent most of the night taking pictures with J-Lo and asking her questions about her split with Marc.  She showed up to breakfast the next morning, wearing the same dress from the night before and said that they had reconciled. double weird.

Wondering what dream I'll have tonight?