van

So, I had a slightly surreal experience just a bit ago.

I had an appointment at 3:30pm and needed to get gas and run a fast errand before getting to it, so I left my house about 2:50pm, just in time to catch the elementary school by my house letting out. I usually get home from work around exactly the same time, and often see the same groups of kids walking home and enjoy watching them while I wait for the crossing guard, etc. There's an adorable little albino girl in sunglasses I sometimes see who always randomly makes me smile, for instance. Watching all the kids walking home is definitely more fun than bitching in my head about how much longer it takes to get past the school during this time of the day (because of all the kids crossing the street and additional cars). So I try to enjoy the silly antics they do, the way the group together, the way sometimes there are ten kids walking back with a different parent in charge each day, or what funny fashions are in now, etc. Once I got past the school I remember thinking that although I still don't think I'd ever have a kid if I dated someone who didn't want them or remained single all of my life, but that the thought of being with a person who someday wants kids really doesn't scare me the way it used to. It'd lead me on a completely different path than I'm currently on, and it's not one I'm rushing toward or anything, but it's no longer one that completely turns me off. With the absolutely right partner, I could see that being a possibility, and can see myself enjoying having a kid or two. It's a pretty huge thought for me, because not five years ago I was a card carrying member of childfree, and tend to still find most children annoying. (Though I've discovered it's usually the parents not the kids that I dislike.)

Anyway, there's a 7-11 about two blocks from the elementary school, and I pulled in there to get my gas. $40 and a mostly-full tank later, the car in front of me, blocking me in, still hasn't started pumping gas. Since I am on a slightly tight schedule, I decided to back out and go around her, something I've done before at this particular gas station. Today, however, I misjudge the distance to the curb and one of my tires ends up going over the edge. This isn't usually a problem, because most curbs are the same height on either side, so you just give the car a little gas and pop back over. However, at this gas station the curb on the other side is like a ten inch drop into dirt next to the sidewalk, compared to the five inches on my side, and due to the way I was angled, the tires weren't getting enough traction to back up OR pull forward. The tire was just spinning.

After getting out and assessing the situation, trying to turn the steering wheel a different way and having no success, I get back in my car and call my dad. I'm ten minutes from home and have four bars on my cellphone, but for some reason the call won't go through. While I'm waiting for it to start ringing, someone taps on my window and asks what's wrong. I look up to see a kid looking in, and despite the fact that it's a kid, I explain to him that my tire isn't getting traction, I'm stuck, etc. He looks about twelve and has three or four other kids with him, all of whom look about seven to nine years old, clearly walking to the bus stop after getting out of school.

The kid suggests I put the car into neutral and he and one of the nine-year-olds try to push it out. Ignoring my incredulity that this kid even knows what "neutral" is, I attempt it, to no success. I get out and tell him there's no way that a twelve-year-old and a nine-year-old are going to be able to push my car, and try to help them push, also to no avail. Someone says the twelve-year-old is actually fourteen (though there are no junior highs around here, so idk), and the fourteen-year-old finds a large rock and shoves it under my tire. That still doesn't work. He finds a paving stone in the dirt next to the car and sticks that and the rock under. It actually looks like it could help, as it's forming a little ramp up the curb. I try again, forward, neutral and (carefully) reverse, with the kids pushing/helping, but it's still not budging.

I try calling my dad again and, as the phone is ringing, a motorcyclist who stopped to get gas asks if he can help. The kids and I explain the situation quickly, and he thinks we're gonna need a jack to get out of the situation. (Frankly, I'm not sure a jack would even have helped. The tire was already lifted. It needed to be on something.) The motorcyclist sees the rocks the kids have set up and, clearly thinking it also looked like a good plan, suggests I put the car in drive and try again, this time with him AND the kids pushing. My dad picks up about the time I'm giving it gas, and with the added strength of the motorcycle guy, the car manages to get on the rock and then over the curb. Success!

I'm thanking everyone profusely as my dad is listening confusedly, and explain to him there was a situation, but a bunch of kids saved me with the help of the muscles of a motorcyclist. I check my tires and axel and while I'm not completely convinced they're undamaged, the tire isn't blown and the car runs smoothly to my appointment, errand and back, so I can't complain.

I am seriously impressed! I don't know why that kid had such knowledge about cars, but his quick thinking definitely got me out of that situation. I really thought I was going to have to call Triple A and cancel my appointment and get a tow truck out there or something, but a handful of mostly-elementary school kids saved me with two rocks and the muscles of an adult. If I'd left twenty minutes earlier or twenty minutes later, I undoubtedly would've missed them and it very likely would've ended screwing up my evening.

So, wherever you are tonight kids, thanks very much! I guess you're not all so bad after all.

It's also stuff like this that gives me kind of epic story ideas. Just saying.

So, when I was in Malibu, CA the other day, we took a quick sojourn to the beach where I picked up a few neat looking rocks off the shore. Three of them were fairly typical smooth, shiny or flat stones that you find at the beach. The fourth is unlike any rock I've ever seen. After doing a little googling, I'm still at a loss for how it was created and what it's really made of, so I thought I'd turn to the flist to see if anyone has suggestions. I'm unlocking this post in case any of you have any geologist friends you can link this to. I suspect it's some sort of sandstone, so I'm mostly interested in how the heck did it do that?

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Haven't done this "year in review" meme in a few years, I don't think, but I feel like doing it this year. Ganked from brouhaha and lj-cut for your pleasure.

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Last night's Doctor Who/Birthday Party Bash!! thing was a lot of fun! I put up a bunch of photos on my Facebook here, but some highlights are behind the lj-cut. XD

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So, seems a lot of my flist is down, depressed, busy or otherwise not happy these days. I'm doing all right, but I can always use a pick me up. So I decided to go through some of my pictures and just upload anything that made me smile. There are a lot of random fandom pictures included, but some non-fannish things as well, like landscapes, animals, etc. You basically have to be me to appreciate them all, I think, but maybe one or two will make one or two of you smile. XD I tried very hard not to fill it all with pictures of the same subject. Believe me, most of these I could post 40 pictures of one person or fandom. XD

If any of them make you go "wtffff" feel free to ask about them and if I know the story I'll elaborate.

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It was actually quite a bit of fun to compile and hardly the icing on the cake of pictures that make me smile, so, who knows? Maybe I'll do another one someday. XD

I should probably write this in my writing journal, I but I think I'd rather house it here for easier referencing someday.

There seems to come a time in every novel or story I write (often several times), where I lose confidence in the idea completely. I wonder why I'm wasting my time writing this, why I ever thought it was a good idea, or why I ever thought someone who wasn't being forced or pitied into reading it would ever want to read it. If I write 100 stories, I will lose confidence in about 98 of them. There are very, very rare exceptions where I'll get through the story without feeling that way, but it is very rare and usually confined to short stories I finish in a night or two.

This loss of confidence has happened with almost every long story I've ever written and 100% with every NaNoWriMo novel I've attempted. It is the thing that, after hitting my 50,000 word goal, stops me from putting the 30-40,000 more words it needs on it to reach the ending. It is what stops me during editing and leaves me thinking, "Why bother? No amount of editing is ever going to make this good."

And yet, I know deep down, that it isn't true. When these stories do get published (I speak here in the instance of fanfic), they're always well received. Even the ones I cringe over the most tend to be well liked and recced and read. Often the lines I hate the most are the ones quoted back as being especially impactful. I've had complete strangers who don't know me and have no reason to kiss my ass tell me how good some of these stories are. I know I can write well. I wouldn't dedicate all this time and effort into writing a story if I didn't think it was worth it.

And yet every year in November, I start feeling like every other story is better than mine. I rationalize it in horrible ways too, like, "Well, that may be a horribly written rip off of Twilight-meets-Zombieland . . . but that's what society wants right now, so clearly it has more chance of ever getting published than Gay Pirates In Space" or whatever it is I'm writing at the time. I start thinking about other stories that will be BETTER than the one I'm working on now. (But which will ultimately seem like crap when I start on them, of course.) I start resenting what I'm writing. I start talking myself out of everything. I really, really hate it.

I hit that spot pretty early on in my novel this year. I'm usually pretty stoked for the first 10,000 words and it's the next 20,000 that make me resent and hate. This year it was from the first word I laid on the page and that resentment probably lasted the first 30-40,000. I'm currently just over 58,000 and I estimate I have another 25-30,000 more to write. But I've discovered that now that the characters are all introduced, they've all made their mistakes and gone on their journeys and have started to develop and recognize their problems and fix them, I'm not hating it as much anymore. They're no longer strangers, but starting to turn into friends. I'm over the "hill" in the novel so to speak, and now I can stop "pushing the boulder" and just sit back and let it roll. It isn't easy, but I'm starting to get excited. I'm starting to see the pieces fall into place, the connections I predicted have begun happening, the infatuation has organically started to turn into real love, the politics and plot points have begun to connect into logic. In short, I'm starting to hate it all a bit less.

The knowledge of the amount of editing and reediting it will need is daunting, but it's getting better.

I'm going to try to adhere to writing the same model I do with happiness: that one must think happy to be happy; that holding onto and dwelling over negativity will only perpetuate that in your life. I don't always manage that, but I do have a lot less negativity in my life than a lot of my friends, and what negativity I do tend to have often is channeled into meaningless chasms, such as hating a TV character instead of my parents or the kid that bagged my groceries wrong, etc.

Anyway, what I'm saying is I know I'm a good writer. I know that under all the self-doubt and typos and grammar and poorly phrased words, this is a good story. I know that with enough editing, these will be good characters. I know it, and damn it, I am going to prove it. I don't want to be arrogant about it, but I need to be a lot less self-doubting and pitying. No one telling me the story doesn't suck is going to help unless I genuinely believe it doesn't suck. I have to know it doesn't suck. And to prove to other people that it doesn't suck, I will want to edit it and refine it and make it as good as I possibly can.

Even if then it doesn't become popular or believed, I can know that it doesn't suck deep down; it might not appeal to anyone else, but I'll have the confidence that I made it amazing to me. And I believe with that confidence, other people will like it too. After all, I have a good track record with fanfics in fandom and the types of stories I write are geared for those exact same audiences.

Anyway.

This is sort of a pep talk to myself. It's funny that it comes AFTER I'm out of my "THIS SUCKS" stage, but I'm sure I'll get into that stage again, and it'll be nice to have this memoried so I can easily refer back to it.

You're brilliant, Van. Now go prove it to the rest of the world. :)

kingzgurl dropped off my cake today:



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