The Insane Battle Between a Non Sentient Machine and Myself

                        Warning: I am deeply caffeine deprived.

I've been wracking my brain all morning to think of something to say about some of the books that I've been reading. It's been a few blogs since I've given a book review so I thought that it was high time to write another one out. The problem is that my downtime has consisted of rereading the Harry Potter series and seeing as that's pretty much a book you know everything about even if you haven't read it, a blog is kind of wasted on that. Then I thought I would go through my shelf and find something there to review, but all of my books seem uninspiring this morning. This is most likely due to my current lack of creative drive but I've been determined to power through this. As one of you lovely readers said, I need to punch this writers block in the face. So, sitting down with a cup of coffee, I decided to ponder my current predicament.

Before I continue, I must make one thing abundantly clear. I love coffee. Nothing is better than a perfect cup of coffee on a cold and early morning. I drink coffee after a work out because I love the feel of a relaxed body and a steaming mug. I have been known to take a shower before drinking coffee because I love that sense of utter relaxation. Coffee is always by me when I write and a good cup of coffee has helped me figure out numerous problems. Coffee and me are timeless.

Now, this morning I did my usual. I brewed a cup of coffee in hopes that this dark and rich nectar would help me through the writers block that I've been having over the past few weeks. But, sitting in my chair, holding my favorite panda mug between my hands, I took a sip of what should have been a rich robust blend with just a splash of cream, and instead got a mouth full of watered down swill that should be ashamed to even call itself a beverage.

This is how I got to this point.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend lovingly decided to make me coffee one morning. I was just waking up, laying in bed and looking forward to that first cup, when I heard a crash. Somehow, he broke the pot. Believe me, it was an emotional day in this household that morning. I was caffeine deprived and he was guilt ridden.

We went out immediately to get a replacement carafe, thinking that something that says “universal coffee pot” would be universal and would fit inside my coffee machine.

It did not.

You know why? Because coffee is trying to break up with me.

Two days later, said boyfriend tried to get another universal coffee pot. A different brand from a different store that came with three adjustable lids. It still did not work with my coffee machine. Granted, my coffee machine was an old, twenty dollar Mr. Coffee but I naively thought that something that was only bought two years ago, wouldn't be this hard to find a replacement for. But, like I said, coffee was and is, trying to break up with me.

I didn't have time to deal with the coffee issues over the next week due to me working Valentines Day at a Flower Shop. I got my coffee on the go and ignored the empty space on my counter where my coffee machine should have been. But then, after the rush of Valentines was over and I had my first day off from the craziness, there seemed to be an end in sight. That proverbial light at the end of the tunnel had decided to shine. The boyfriend brought over his coffee machine and kindly offered that I could use it for the time being. I was overjoyed. He fixed me a cup that morning and either I was so tired that I thought it was the most amazing thing I've ever tasted, or the boyfriend is secretly a coffee magician (he's not). Either way, I thought, finally, the curse is broken.

Later that day I went to brew myself a cup though and realized that his coffee machine is a little hussy that loves no one but him.

The machine in question

I cleaned and shined up this poor girl like none other. I washed the entire machine, inside and out, ran hot water and vinegar cycles through it a few times, and generally, made it look like a coffee machine as opposed to a worn out piece of metal that lived in a house where cleaning out the coffee pot is a novel idea. But the thing still doesn't like me.

It's been a week. This thing yells at me every time I try to use it, it produces watered down, slightly coffee flavored swill for me to consume, and no matter how many scoops I put in it, it somehow comes out tasting like dirty bath water. I have tried sweet talking her. I have tried calling her every name in the book. The thing hates me. At some point, it declared war against me and decided to ruin all at home coffee experiences I ever wanted. I don't know what the hell I've done to it. I wasn't the one who took it outside of its home to put it in a tiny apartment with three cats. That was its beloved owner. But, no no, the thing is going to take its neglect and abandonment issues out on me instead. It sits on my counter, mockingly, screeching out loudly every time I touch it, yet, it purrs for the boyfriend, cuddling up to him like a metal plated cat of some sort. I think it's trying to replace me.

This morning, the boyfriend made a pot of coffee. It tasted perfect. I made a pot about an hour after he left and the little hussy vomited up some bile for me to consume and then laughed at my pain as I cursed and maybe even threatened for a good ten minutes or so.

Needless to say, this bitch is going to be replaced. She's going back to the boyfriend and they can live happily together in sin.

So, all you coffee drinkers out there, I'm looking for a new machine that doesn't exceed a hundred dollars. Suggestions? I want the other woman out of my house sooner rather than later. Also, I want to find this coffee shop.

Seriously, where is this?

Creative Writing Is Like a Scribble

Some day, I hope to read this post while sitting on the back porch of my house that sits along the Oregon Coast. Or in Ireland. I'm really not picky.

I'm in the midst of one of those writer woes where I question every word I write and bang my head several times against a keyboard. Then, during the moments that I genuinely enjoy what I've written, I proceed to question if this is really what I should be spending my time dong because it doesn't seem like it is a viable option for my future. After all, at twenty four, real jobs and real lives need to assert themselves as opposed to the fantasy of writing a novel about children who are being forced to grow up.

I have jokingly been told that if I was the first child born in my family, there probably would have been no more. That is how I feel about book three. If this was the first book I've tried to write, I wouldn't have written any more of it. It's not that what I'm writing isn't good and its not as if I'm struggling to come up with idea's. It's that this is the book that needs to wrap everything up. The pay off that I've been asking readers to wait for is finally here and I don't want to disappoint. Add that on top of what I know about the publishing world and suddenly I become frustrated. Not only do I need to make a compelling story, but I need to do one in a certain amount of words because the publishing companies know that the general populace has the shortest attention span in decades and can only handle so many pages thrown at them. My word count, almost triples the amount of words usually allotted to a new author.  And that is only the first book. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, especially in the fantasy genera, but I don’t think my ego is big enough to assume that I will fall into that small little category of authors who managed to get around that. So, as I'm writing, I find myself wanting to edit and cut as I go, which then just hinders the creative process, which then makes me decide that I should probably cut out certain storylines, which then makes me upset because I'm the writer, of course I think its important to the story and so on and so on and so on. It's been a frustrating loop of ick that I'm sure plenty of writers have gone through before.  In the words of the great Chukc Shurley "writing is hard".

But that's not all. No. Because that? That I could probably handle. I then start thinking about the fact that it doesn't matter if I somehow drink a magic potion and become the greatest writer to ever live. It doesn't mean a damn thing if you are not in the right place and the right time and even then, that might mean nothing if you don't know how to market yourself.

Head. Meet Wall. Become great friends because you two will collide for the next x amount of years.

The publishing world is a mish mash of frustration and tears and proverbial blood that makes me want to run

screaming through the night while tearing out my hair and crying big sobbing tears that I only like to cry when a favorite character on a television show dies. It also leaves me rambling in run on sentences and for that I am sorry.

Add this overwhelming panic to everyday life like college, work, trying to maintain a social life, a blog, and a genuine desire to consume arts and other literature to keep up with the writing world so I can stay on top of the business, and you have just created a very frazzled me. My usually tidy house is in a disarray that I can't even muster up the energy to clean and every day that I don't manage to get out and do some amount of exercise in order to hopefully counteract the shotty immune system that I was blessed with, I feel guilty. Furthermore, there are about a dozen and a half things that I've committed to over the next six months and I have a dwindling bank account because of situations popping up like sick cats, personal emergencies, or you know, food. I somehow managed to grocery shop today which was a feat all on its own.

Last night, this all came to a head. The storm has been brewing for a while and last night it hit in that jittery too much caffeine and not enough hours in the day kind of way. So, I made myself a deal.

There's not much I can do about all this. Work and college and social lives are always going to happen because they have to and most of the time that I'm doing all these things, I'll be thinking about my story. And its because I'll be thinking about my story, that I'm not going to give up on writing because obviously its important enough for me to spend hours every day obsessing over. But there are things I can do to become more proactive.

1. Write three pages everyday because eventually, those three pages will turn into a book.
2. Work on my blog or Whimsy Travels (because yes, while I'm freaking out about all this, I of course started a new project to add to my time spent on the computer) at least an hour a day.
3. Do your damn schoolwork! Thank God I'm good in class.
4. See the sunshine because they tell me its good for you.
5. Do not worry if your house is in a disarray or if you have to turn off your phone and neglect your life for a bit. It's not always going to be this way.

The time has come that I have resolve face. My characters don't deserve to be wandering around the dusty mazes of my mind. They deserve to be out there and heard and read about. In order to do that, I have to go a bit crazy and I have to accept that that's okay. I also have to write blogs like this to vent my frustrations and move on from the fact that I'm falling into a stereotypical emo writing mode that I so very loathe. To anyone that knows me, I have my 'shit needs to get done' face on. Which means I'm probably going to become a hermit. At times like this I'm always reminded of that triangle thing they tell you about when you enter college. At each corner of a triangle is a different aspect of your life; sleep, social life, school. The sides of the triangle only make up two of these aspects or some weird thing like that but basically, what it comes down to, is you sacrifice something. You can't have all three. The PTB dictates that you only can have two. Well, writer me doesn't really have a triangle (so I'm not sure why I'm rambling on about this analogy) but I do have a scribble and somewhere in that scribble, something in my life is gong to get lost or drawn over or violently negated.

I'm not sure where I was going with any of that.

In other news, in order to calm the chaos of my brain a bit, I've decided to re-read Harry Potter. I sometimes forget why I love writing and stories and then I remember nights spent reading by flashlight or days spent eating pumpkin seeds while reading these stories on my bed. It's time to remember why I love creating and who better a reminder that J.K Rowling and the completely memorizing world she created.

Like I said. Hopefully, one day, I will be sitting on a beautiful back porch, cup of perfect coffee in my hands, reading this old entry of mine and laughing at the inner turmoils that were completely unnecessary.

Or I will be in a straight jacket, in a comfortable mental institution, being fed pudding.

Travel Tuesday - Heceta Lighthouse, Ghosties and A Squirrel

The Oregon Coast

There is a place, covered by the mists of fog, where mermaids sing and dragons roam. In this place, the air is filled with salt that pixies feed off of as they dip down towards the oceans depths, gathering star fish to place in the night sky. Bent and beautiful looking creatures tear apart crumbling castles made of sand and sailors hear the sirens song as they try to navigate through the night.

Hook

Growing up in Oregon, I have always been surrounded by images that feed my hungry imagination. However, when I was younger, I tended to dream about adulthood whereas now, I dream of Neverland. One thing has not changed through the years, though. I have always had a fascination with the Oregon coast line. I remember when I was a little girl, I was always made to sit in the back seat during car journeys. In true Oregon fashion, the clouds would be thick and grey the moment we arrived at the beach and would threaten to release salty drops of rain without any warning. I loved this though. I loved looking out a rain spattered car window and watching the waves crash against the shore as we drove by. I loved the rocks that jutted from the water or the way that the air smelt crisp and fishy. During those moments, when no one talked and old

rock tunes wound their way through the car speakers, I used to look out over those rocks and think that if I could only see to the other side, I would catch a glimpse of a mermaid or some other little creature that we had yet to discover. These images came directly from watching way too much Hook as a kid and thinking that the scene with the mermaids swimming through those green waters was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Of course, since those days, I have become a bit more dark with my fairy tales. The once simplistic beauty of a mermaid has become a bit more sinister as I imagine it luring wanderers to certain death. The pixies of my dreams have a bit more of a tricksters side than they once did and this magical land where you are said to be happy is only joyous as long as you don't ever want to return home.

"Fight! Fight for my master, defender of  the house-elves!"

The little hunched over goblin like creatures with hooked noses that I used to imagine climbed the rocks, are nice though. Goblins like that are always nice. Think, House elves. :) But of the none Kreacher variety.

Anyway....

I am not necessarily a fan of Oregon. I can acknowledge its beauty and think that the lush green trees and the rolling hills are sights to see, but I think there are much prettier things in this world than what I have around me. That being said, I have yet to see a coastline that tops that of Oregon's. So, yay on you Oregon. You've managed to convince a girl who doesn't really understand the hype that people give you, to love your coastline enough to make it the setting of the novel she's writing.

I visited the red rooftops of Heceta Lighthouse in Florence Oregon, over this past week. I am always struck by the color that those roofs produce in the gloom of the fog and the way that the light still shines brightly, cutting through the grey surroundings. Its something out of a painting. Now, Heceta is one of the only lighthouses I've visited but I keep coming back to it. It's said to have a haunted little history and one in which I love.

Legend has it that the caretakers of the lighthouse had a small girl. One day, while the girl was out playing, she passed away. As all good ghost stories go, we don't really question the details of how this girl died but at least this story does have a grave to back it up. After the child’s death, the mother became so distraught, that she threw herself over the cliffs edge, falling to her death. It is said that she still haunts the groundskeepers house though, looking for her child and waiting for her to come home. Locals have dubbed her the Grey Lady; a name that is all too fitting given the state of the weather most of the time.

Photo by Caitlyn Tendick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/97205176@N06/

The Grey Lady has a certain penchant for construction workers it seems. In one of the more infamous stories, a man working on the groundskeepers cottage, came face to face with the Grey Lady inside the attic. Startled, he fled from the attic, breaking the attic window in the process. His fear became so much in fact, that he left the attic as is, leaving the shattered glass scattered across the attic floor as he fixed the broken window from the outside. That night, some of the guards heard scraping coming from the attic above. When they went to investigate the next morning, all the glass had been swept into a neat pile at some point during the night.

Needless to say, these workers didn't wish to return to work afterwards.

Items are said to be moved within this house, images of the Grey Lady herself are said to have been captured through the attic window as she stares mournfully out at sea, and sometimes, late at night, you can see her wandering around the bay, looking for her little girl.

Ghost stories aside, Heceta Lighthouse truly is a pretty lighthouse. It's one of the originals left in Oregon. Every time I see it up close, I tend to dance around the land, looking out over the sea, pretending to see ships coming over the horizon. These ships are of course pirate ships.

There is a lookout point not too far down the road from this lighthouse though where you can stare back at the structure and suddenly, the thoughts of ships and the excitement of being on the coast, disappear a bit. Here, standing off in the distance, is this beautiful column of white and red, looking out over the ocean, all alone. There's something so pretty about it. It's like when you look up at the stars for the first time when you're a little kid. Suddenly, you feel very very small.

Photo by Caitlyn Tendick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/97205176@N06/

Heceta is of course one of the many things that the Oregon Coast has but in my opinion, it is one of the best. After hiking up to the lighthouse you only need to drive a bit further, crossing over a terrifying bridge (which my friend drove over about three or four times this trip because she kept getting terribly confused) to get to Mo's.

Photo by Caitlyn Tendick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/97205176@N06/

Yes. Mo's.

It is the fish restaurant on the coast where you can sit and gorge yourself on actual fish as opposed to the cardboard imitations that you can find in your frozen food isle at the grocery store. It is also the place where every table has trivia cards with questions on it that barely anyone knows the answer to and your eyes are always bigger than your stomach. A garage door is opened during the nicer days of the summer in order to open up the restaurant even further. The story goes that after Mo's first opened, a woman had parked her car outside of the restaurant and instead of putting it in reverse when she meant to leave, she drove straight through the establishment. They decided to put a garage door in place of the wall after that, proving that the owner had a sense of humor that most in this world do not. To this day, that same garage door, remains.

You can eat at the original Mo's in Newport and across the street is a small little dock where the seals hang out. Unfortunately, you are reading this blog and cannot hear my marvelous seal impression but I'll have you know, it's kind of amazing.

Also, this is Otter Rock. 

Photo by Caitlyn Tendick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/97205176@N06/

Not to be confused with the actual area of the Oregon Coast called Otter Rock. No, this is my friend, who is very well fed, and who has no fear what so ever.

If you have not had the chance to visit the Oregon Coast, take it if the opportunity arises. If anything, look up some of the pictures that have been taken there over the years in order to get a sense of what I mean. 

Also, does anyone else have the horrid habit of having this scene pop in their mind when they're around a beach?

THE FEELS!!!!

If you would like to read more about Heceta or Mo's, click on the links below.

Heceta Head Lighthouse: http://ouroregoncoast.com/florence-guide/1404-the-gray-lady-at-heceta-head-lighthouse-an-oregon-coast-ghost-story.html

Mo's: http://www.moschowder.com/story.php

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To Read or Not To Read With an Accent

Do you read with accents?

A friend of mine woke me up this morning (why do you text me at nine in the morning on my day off?) with this question. She wanted to know if when reading a book where the character obviously has an accent, do I read the character with said accent. It caught me off guard. I read a lot of British literature, I just finished a book about two women living in the Caribbean, and I've made my way through stories like Huckleberry Finn where the dialogue is broken and should have a Southern drawl to it. Yet, I'm pretty sure that when I'm reading them, they all are American. It's the default setting to my brain. I read and unless a word or a phrase comes up that the author has intentionally used in order to denote ethnicity or culture, I don't even second guess it. Which, I kind of find horrible since this is not what the author intended. It reminds me too much of that idea of unless an author denotes skin color in a book, we tend to think of the character as white. Granted, accents aren't as harmful as the default setting of race but it is still interesting to take note of.

To prove my point to myself, I went and opened one of my Harry Potter books. We know these kids are British. We never thought otherwise. But, when reading the book itself, I had to concentrate to hear the accent. Is this just me? Do other people have this problem as well?

Now, this question was asked of me early this morning (early by my standards) and I've been thinking about it all day. I started to examine my own book and my own characters to see if they had different voices. It comes down to this.

Yes, they have a different voice when I think about it but it is not one that is discernible by accent. Their words have a different cadence to them. One of the boys speaks in short clipped tones while the other one tends to go into longer explanations. One of the girls has a tendency to rush her words while the other thinks about what she wants to say. One character has a teasing quality to her words while the other is taken seriously. So yes, while I can differentiate between their voices, it comes down to the fact that word choice and subtext is what defines them. Accent does not play into this. I live in Oregon. We have a Pacific Northwest voice. When I was in Europe, an Australian girl was able to pinpoint exactly where I lived by my accent. When I read, I'm sure all the characters I am enjoying have the same accent as I do and I just differentiate them through the tone of their words or by the authors indication of what they are feeling when they speak. But, now that I think about it, I have books that have been translated from a different language. Most of my literature is about people living in London, Chicago, New York, Italy... I highly doubt any of them have Pacific Northwest accents.

So, is this a good thing? Bad thing? Does it matter? Are we missing a point that the author is trying to make? We write in order to enhance and share cultures. Are we ignoring a vital part of this enhancement by not hearing these accents? Furthermore, is it right, like in cases such as Harry Potter, for two different versions to be released; one with British slang and nuances, and one without? Would this beloved tale really not have done as well with a British tongue that is not widely known in the States?

It's something to think about and I would love to hear opinions on the matter.