Rambling session

I'm not sure why, but I feel that lately I've had too much to complain about. Well, that's not true; I'm just complaining about everything. My body has been sore a lot lately and I think that must have something to do with it. I've just had so much to adjust to in the past few months that, even with a lack of job, lack of a need to go to bed and get up at certain times of the day, and lack of rent to worry about, I still feel as though my whole life has been turned upside down. I'm not sure how many ways I can say it (because I know I've complained about this before), but I really feel the need to let loose on a few things that are really bothering me:

1. I have all this time to write, but that doesn't stop me from getting stuck on what I'm writing, and it doesn't help that I get interrupted quite often (going from living alone to living with my mom and her cat: issue #3)

2. I may not have rent to pay, but I'm still paying all my other bills and I'm only getting half of what I used to be getting paid from unemployment at the moment (although, I have to say, a part-time job would probably pay less)

3. I don't live alone anymore. I love living alone. (I feel that everything about my situation is backwards: I wish I could have had all this time to write while living alone. It only seems feesible to have a roommate if you have a full time job.) I was never interrupted in doing whatever I wanted when I had my own place. Now my mom's cat likes to bug me when I could be writing. She's neediest cat ever. Trust me, I'm not exagerating. (And believe me, I do love cats. I'm definitely NOT a dog person. I suppose if I ever have a cat again, it should be male. They're not quite so needy.)

4. The stupid windy weather over here is a serious problem. Even if it's sunny the wind takes all the fun out of going outside. It's been like this for weeks now. I don't remember having this much continual wind when I lived here before. It's ridiculous.

5. The not having to get up at a certain time anymore is actually a problem. I got used to getting up around 8a every morning and it seems my body does require some sort of schedule or regimen. I'm getting better at getting more regular exercise so that helps.

6. Lack of friends. It's definitely a problem, but I lack the motivation to go out and find new ones. I don't want to be out partying, I just want people to talk to. I do have my mom, who is my best friend, but having people my age would help. I have too many points when I feel so lonely and I miss my old neighbors in Santa Monica so badly it hurts.

7. And I know I already said this in issue #1, but this is just to overemphasize the importance of this issue: I'm so frustrated with my story right now I could scream! And it's incredible because I'm not stuck on the fantasy part of it (this story is about dragons, btw), I'm stuck on the love story part of it, which is usually really easy for me (get me writing about my ex and what I would have LIKED to have happened and I could write forever). I think my problem right now is that I can't seem to get my head in my characters' world and this is definitely an issue because I'm literally creating their world. I try to think of it more as discovering their world, as though it already exists and I just have to figure it all out (I really do like to think that the story already does exist in my head and I just have to remember it). Tolkien thought of his stories this way and I think it's a good way of approaching fantasy or any other story, for that matter. Mainly though, I would just like to get into my story the way Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series) talks about her stories: she says with Twilight that she enjoyed her characters and their world so much she had to write it down and she could barely write fast enough sometimes. I feel I'm lacking that enjoyment and that immersement into my characters and their world, which is why it's becoming so frustrating.

What I do like about not having a job and not having to go, go, go all the time is that time itself seems to have slowed down for me. I'm not sure that's ever happened to me, perhaps with the exception of summer breaks when I was in school; but even then, time goes by quickly. When you're a kid with no responsibilities, life is just so much more fun and time doesn't have as much meaning. It does now though. It's nice to appreciate each day instead of only looking forward to the weekends when I didn't have to work like a dog and I had my time to myself. Although, it's odd. Now that I don't have so many things going on in my life on a daily basis, it's more difficult to remember what happened the day before and the succession of things (my pictures that I take every day and this blog do help with that though).

Some of that will be changing in the next month, however. My mom and I have planned all this stuff to do in May and we've got a concert that we're going to tomorrow in Santa Barbara that I won tickets for from a raffle for Jefferson Starship. They're an older band that I don't know very well, but I think everyone knows this song:



Next week we'll be going to Magic Mountain, which is one of my favorite places ever, so I'm really looking forward to that!! So I suppose that's enought complaining for one day lol. I do feel a lot better now :)