After spending a good hour rereading old stuff and poking and prodding stories, what do I decide to work on? A totally pretentious story that I started just because I found the very formal and flowery writing found in Victorian letters amusing. So of course I started coming up with a crazy plot to justify using these totally ridiculous letters. And now I'm writing more on it.

Sigh... at least I'm writing something.

I have all these ideas for writing and absolutely no urge to write. It's like as soon as I open a blank document, my mind goes blank as well. Hopefully once the thesis is done this will go away. Of course, I keep saying that about a lot of things. "Once the thesis is done I will read more books... write... update my webpage... work out more... be able to think once I get home instead of just vegging..." Getting a Master's degree is hard.

miome is attempting to make banana bread pudding with rum sauce. I get the feeling it's not going well. I get this feeling from the fact that random curse words keep coming from the kitchen.

( And now, have some pictures! Very picture heavy. )

Dear fairytale,

Please stop eating my brain. I have work to do! I will write about you (even if it's just a plot outline to keep myself from forgetting) when that work is done. Maybe this afternoon or tomorrow. NOT NOW.

No love,
Tsaiko

PS - BEING A THREESOME WILL NOT MAKE ME WAVER FROM THIS.

PPS - NOT EVEN IF YOU STICK A DRAGON IN THERE.

PPSS - NO SERIOUSLY. STOP TRYING TO TEMPT ME.

Why is it that the first night I have access to my own laptop and all my old files, my muses decide they don't want to play? WTF? ARGH.

Not help by the fact I did something nasty to my shoulder and I can't turn my head to far, move easily, or pick anything up without being in pain. This is not conductive to writing porn, which is really where I am in the dragon threesome story. And I don't really want to work on the Young Avengers story because it requires research, which I just don't want to do. I could write something new, but I think people would kill me if I started another WIP without finishing something.

I know this is just me being contrary because I'm not use to the laptop yet. It always takes me a few days/weeks before I start thinking of a laptop as mine. And until then, I'm just not as comfortable writing on it as I should be.

Blah.

Dear muses,

Get inspired! Or something. I'm bored and want to write and of course, now you decide that nothing seems interesting. Ugh!

No love,
Tsaiko

Have you ever gotten a grade and felt that it was totally unjustified and undeserved?

Now have you ever gotten a good grade, nay a perfect grade and felt the same way?

I got a perfect score on my mid-term for one of the classes and it rankles me because I didn't deserve it. I know I didn't deserve it. Hell, I wouldn't have given myself a 100 and it was my mid-term. It's frustrating. I don't just want the grade, I want to deserve the grade. YOU ARE TAKING ALL THE FUN OUT OF LEARNING, MR. PROFESSOR.

At least they turned to heat on in my office. Of course it's still too cold, but at least now I'm not wearing three layers of clothing and still feeling my hands stiffen. I have a small space heater that I also run and that seems to keep in pleasant in there.

In other news, my inspiration is still in the toilet. All I've managed to do on the writing front is editing and writing on a novel of mine. It's now up to 46 pages (or about 25,000 words). Not even near being ready to show other people though. I'm looking at all the drabble requests and just... nothing. There's no spark. It's annoying and I know it's got to be annoying listening to me complain about it.

Anyone have any suggestions for getting over writer's block? Usually I just wait for it to go away, but dammit, I'm too impatient this time for that.

Why is it when I finally get the urge to write, nothing will cooperate? This happens way to frequently. Which of course means it's drabble request time. Request some drabbles people. Inspire me!

I should do a theme, shouldn't I? It's very autumn like right now so the prompt should have something to do with the autumn seasons. As always, drabbles will continue until I get through the writer's block or inspiration dies on me. Open to fandom, original, or writer's choice if you want me to pick what to write about.

Why is it that some stories, the names for character just come to me and in other stories I spend an entire 2 hours just trying to come up with three names? It's so damn frustrating. And when I finally get three names nailed down, I decide I don't like one of the names and have to start over with that one. I use to keep a list of names that struck my fancy (still do... somewhere), but after awhile I started reusing names. That's all fine and dandy as long as I'm writing for me, but people notice when I have four different characters named Rioran.

I just wish these characters would stop being difficult and make with the porn already.

Now that the internship project o' doom is out of the way, I find myself with a lot of free time. I should write. I want to write. But every time I start to write, I have a moment of "Oh god, what else do I need to be doing?!?!?" and then an equally befuddling moment of "... nothing."

My brain is still hard wired for stress and deadlines right now. I'm hoping I can at least sit down tonight and get something written.

I should say something about the fact that I'm always slightly surprised when people like the stuff I write for myself. The stuff I write for other people usually has some sort of romantic plot as well as a story driven plot. It's all the yaoi, yuri, het stuff. The stuff I write for me is usually sci-fi or fantasy and has no romantic plot. I rarely post it, but when I do, it seems well received. I still can't quite wrap my head around this.

When did I start to assume that people wouldn't want to see anything from me other than romance? I wish I knew.

This scene is only five kisses long. FIVE KISSES. That's the entire scene. So why has it taken me all afternoon to write just three of them? The first two weren't even that long. ARGH.

And of course, I'm not going to get it done before class tonight which means the soonest I'll get to work on it is this weekend. I really wanted to have this done today.

Dear mind,

Why did you give me a story idea where one of the major plot points is a girl accidentally breaking the erect penis off of a hermaphroditic statue? Seriously?

No love,
Tsaiko

I cannot believe that I am contemplating writing this.

Why is this scene being such a pain in the butt to write?

Why do people ask so many questions when some random person crashes their harem for two months?

Why does my cat insist on walking across my boobs in order to get my attention, thereby blocking my computer screen?

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

Don't you hate it when a story just will not cooperate? I have the coolest idea (although I know trying to explain it to people would make it sound really corny, hence the temporary title of 'Vampires... IN SPACE!') and I just cannot get a plot to work with it. I swear I have started something like seven stories based on this idea, and I get about a page maybe a page and a half into it only to have it keel over and die a horrible twitching death. What gives?

Anyone else ever get a really good idea, but not a plot? Did you give up? Eventually get a plot to go with it? Beat the keys on your keyboard until through the sheer force of a thousand monkeys something resembling a story came out?

Any hints? Tips? Tricks?

...

Bueller?

Dear stories,

Either consent to be written or stop lobbing plot ideas at me. I am not pleased when I get something like 12 ideas, the urge to write, and not a single damn one of you will let me write you. ARGH!

No love,
Tsaiko

I hate it when nothing cooperates.

Interesting week. Seems I once again have two part time jobs. One of these is the internship and the other is another study where I get to do... more photo interpretation. I thought the digitizing different land covers was tedious. It has nothing on this thing. Ugh. But it pays what the last job paid and it is part time work over the summer. Might only last a month or so, but that's a month more than I had before. Best of all, I can work from home. It's actually easier to work from home than my last job because I have everything loaded onto an external hard drive .

Second, my boss from the internship said that since he couldn't offer me the $15/hr he wanted to, I was to add my two hour drive time to my hours worked as compensation. I am getting paid for my drive down to other town now. Have I mentioned that I love this internship?

Finally, I have gotten sucked hardcore into the Young Avengers fandom. I was tangentially apart of it before. Now I'm writing fanfics. Multiple fanfics. Multiple fanfics that are EATING MY BRAIN. Yep. Back on the fandom wagon.

Still working on my original stuff as well. I guess the writer's block is gone.

Now back to work.

When I have enough fairytales, I am going to publish through Lulu just so I can have a copy of the book. Even if no one else wants one. Because I just saw a copy of one of my stories formatted for Lulu and it looks awesome. And now I'm all jazzed because I could do this.

Now I just need to work on the stories and not put every single one up for everyone to see...

I got the idea to rewrite Hans Christian Andersen's The Nightingale in my own unique way. I just have two questions. First, who should be the pairing? Second, should I keep the nightingale female since the text is pretty specific in that regard? That's where you people come in.

Please note the gender designations at the end of the options.

Poll #1187852 The Nightingale (or The inspiration bug bit me hard)
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31

Which pairing should I have if I rewrote The Nightingale?

I can't believe this idea just dropped into my head like that.

Edit: And as soon as I post this, I find a version of the story that has the nightingale as being male. Now I'm even more conflicted. Sigh. The life of a writer is so hard. XD

I finally have free time and my urge to write has died. -_- I suspected this would happen. Give me a few days and it will come back.

I hope.

In brighter news, I have books. Thank you itlandm. The timing could not have been better.

Dammit, I want to write and absolutely none of my current stories are cooperating. I want to finish something. I don't want to start another WIP. ARGH.

This is why I have so many files/stories on my computer. That and the fact that I never know when a story is just going to die an horrible, messy death on me.

So I've been waiting for Spring Break for weeks if not months. An entire week where I've got nothing planned. One whole week. No homework. No assignments. Just me, my couch and my cats. Glorious, glorious free time. I could crochet. I could read. I could write. The possibilities are endless.

Only now... I have no idea what to do.

Sigh... and of course all my muses pick this week to completely leave. -_-

Looks like I'll be picking through my files and adding to them one paragraph at a time until something clicks.