Donate for Water...

When it comes to charities, I'm normally a pretty avid giver.

I recently did a two mile walk for The Lupus Foundation, where I got severely sunburned (by severe, I mean the worst sunburn in my entire life...), but it was worth it. Lupus is such a difficult disease, and actually knowing someone who has it puts the charity that much closer to my heart.

Another charity that I'm rather fond of is the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation that was established on the memory of a nerdfighter named Ester, and is created to financially aid those families who have children living with cancer.

The most recent charity that I've become interested in is the water charities. There are a few, but there are two that stand out to me Charity: Water and Water.org. Yesterday while attempting to create something on Photoshop, I again Stumbled Upon one of these websites, and was struck with inspiration. Though it didn't turn out EXACTLY the way I wanted it too... I think it gets the message across.



If you'd like to donate to any of these charities please click on the links provided.

Resources for graphic.
3D continents
clean water
dirty water

Caffeine. A writer's life's blood.

It's been a while since I've made something on photoshop that didn't have some sort of fandom tie.

Today, in between taking care of my wounded husband, I was playing on StumbleUpon. Now let me tell you, this thing is your best friend and your worst enemy. It is the procrastinators BEST FRIEND. While flipping through sites, I 'Stumbled Upon' a site full of photoshop tutorials.

Normally when I run across these, I'll click on one and it involves ACTUAL drawing. Which is something I don't do. But this site had a lot more 'Use the tools of photoshop' type tutorials. After flipping through a couple of pages I found a tutorial that I wanted to use for a wallpaper.

This is how it turned out...

Though I'm not a coffee drinker. I figured a cup of coffee would look better than a can of Dr. Pepper or Pepsi. I also chose to use one of my favorite quotes by Caprice Crane (the full quote can be found in my sidebar).

I'm rather proud of it.

I blame May Sweeps....

It's been a while.

Not much has been up in my life. With the small exception that I'm pretty sure all my tv shows that are ending for the season are going to kill me.

I blame my lack of updates on May Sweeps.

For those who don't know, I watch a lot of TV. When I say a lot, I mean... A LOT! Blame the fact that my husband works nights, or that some TV shows are just too addictive, one way or another, this is the time that all of the shows pull out their big guns. Some shows are very upfront with how they're going to end their season, the show Chuck for example, entitled their season finale "Chuck vs. the Cliffhanger". Hmmm... I wonder how that's going to end. Whereas others are a little more vague in their titles like Bones' "The Change in the Game".

This got me thinking about how people come up with titles for things. Books, TV shows, Movies (that aren't already based on something), and so on. Most TV shows for instance have a theme with their episode titles. Shonda Rhimes' shows have the titles of songs, Friends episodes always start with "The One With/Where...", The Big Bang Theory episodes sound super scientific like "The Lizard-Spock Expansion", I could go on. I think that would be a really fun job. Just coming up with names for episodes of TV shows.

Authors and those who come up with Movie titles have it a little bit harder. The title has to be somewhat descriptive, but it also has to draw people into to read or see it. Take the (amazing!) book by Meg Cabot entitled "Every Boy's Got One". That's right, IMMEDIATELY your mind goes there. No matter how hard you try and fight it, it goes there. But turn it over and the first words are "Every Boy's Got One... A Heart". To me, that was enough for me to pick up the book and read it in just a few hours (the fact that I love Meg Cabot has nothing to do with that). As for movies, have you ever sat through a movie then thought "Why did they call it THAT?" It doesn't happen very often, but when it does I'm one of those people who have a hard time looking past the title to the movie.

I hate to say it, but I'm actually fairly judgmental of titles and covers for books. If the title doesn't grab me, or the cover art is rubbish, I have a hard time convincing myself to pick it up. I'm also one of those people who get frustrated really easily if I can't pronounce a name or something in a book. When I first tried reading Harry Potter in 6th grade, I remember getting so mad that I couldn't figure out how to pronounce Hermione's name that I didn't pick it up again until after the movie came out. At which point I've became obsessed, but that one name and frustration was enough to put me off the series originally.

Just one of the oddities that make up the dazzling person typing this while on break at work.

"Hey, I can be flexible. As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I'm totally flexible."

Oh Lorelai Gilmore, how true your words are sometimes...

I don't like change.

In fact I normally try and stay away from change. I don't like to break out of my routines or out of my own little bubble. I've always been one of those people that has to be kicked through the door before I would normally even consider opening it.

The person who used to be able to kick me through that door, used to be my mother. But with her on the other side of the country, her legs don't reach that far. So I've had to try and kick myself through that door. Even with the amazing friends and family that I have, I've always been afraid of doing new things. Afraid that I'm going to fail, afraid that I'm going to get done with it then realize I wanted something else. So maybe I should change my first statement... It's not that I don't like change...

I'm kind of terrified of it.

I do think that as I've gotten older that I've become a little more accustomed to change and a little less terrified, but the fear is always there. I've finally come to a decision. That instead of letting the fear and anxiety take over my life, I'm going to (attempt) to use it to push me further into what I want to do.

I have an interview this weekend with a college to talk about my options. I'm not so nervous about the going to school. In fact I'm kind of excited. I'm one of those people that kind of miss school sometimes. Sometimes. I'm more nervous about the COST of school, because, oh my hell, school is expensive. I know that there will always be a way, I'd just rather not be paying off my school loans until I'm 40, if I can help it.

I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested...

I've never been a critique partner before.

It's a little nerve-racking to be honest.

My amazing friend Helen , sent me her story to critique. Now, I know that I need to give more critique than "Aw, Helen, that was a GREAT book!!!" because every author knows that it can only improve. As nervous as I am to be a critique partner, I'm also kind of excited. It'll be nice to feel like my opinions about a book might actually make it better.

Thankfully, I follow amazing authors who give advice on how to be a good beta. *hugs amazing authors* ilu. &hearts

As nervous as I am to try and critique my friends' novel, I'm more nervous about having them critique mine. I've never really let anyone read my stuff. Not only that, but I have yet to get past 30,000 words in one singular novel. Recently a new idea popped into my head and it's definitely in uncharted territory.

Most everything I've written is with a male main character. Which may seem odd to some people, but for me, it's kind of awesome. You see, when I was just getting into writing I would do online written role play. In these role plays there were always an abundance of female characters. So to ensure that I would have someone to talk to, I ended up making a male character. It always worked. I became so accustomed to playing male characters that its always been hard for me to detach myself from them.

Not only did written role playing introduce me to a different perspective of writing, it also made me more adept at writing in third person than in first. I've tried writing through a female perspective and it never seems to work out as well as the male. I've tried writing from first person, and I just end up thinking it's wonky.

Now comes my conundrum. You see, there are these characters that have popped into my head, they're chatty, and dorky, and everything I love in characters. But they seem to only want to talk to me when I write their story from first person. However, these characters have grapsed my interest enough that I keep trying. I end up writing in third person, then they stop talking to me (which may be a good thing when I'm at work), and don't start talking to me again until I change it to first person.

My characters are rude to me, but I love them.

(btw, I'm not crazy. Having characters talk to you is completely normal behavior.... for writers.)
Any ideas on how to cope with being outside your comfort zone? Or should I just dive head first into it?