Tag: personal

I’M BACK! (Hotel Hell #5)

Daphne Shadows18 Comments

I… am….. ALIVE!!

No. I did not die.

I know you probably wondered if I got run over by a bus, drug through the desert and eaten by carrion, but I assure you, I did not.

The last time I had access to internet was on April 3rd. My laptop died. Every attempt at resuscitation failed. Epically… obviously. The library computers were shut down. Then they wouldn’t load anything. No one lives close to us whose computer will load things like WordPress or yahoo. I WAS DYING!!!!! Writer with no internet here!

R.I.P.

R.I.P.

 

 

I got a laptop as a surprise on August 10th. WOOHOOO! So…. You’ve missed a lot and not all of it was good. But that’s okay, I’m not dead – I’m stronger, better off for it. But 5 months is a long time when it comes to 1 blog post. It will definitely take more than one post to get it all out. Here goes…

 

First things first, multiple files on my flashdrive were corrupted. I plugged in my backup flashdrive to save what I could and the corrupted files transferred to the backup flashdrive! So I yanked the first one, wiped it, and plugged in the second one, and wiped the bad files. All in all, I lost three folders – my blog folder, my photo folder, and my critique folder.

Let me translate this: AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I lost all my photos I’d taken in the past 8 months. And I’d lost all the critiques I’d done. One in particular irks me beyond words. I’d promised this individual to read and critique his MS two times prior and couldn’t. This time, I’d read it, loved it, critiqued as I went, and wrote up my end thoughts and opinion. And it’s GONE!

I lost all the posts I’d written. That means, February, March, and April’s Hotel Hell posts? Gone.

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Flashdrive with corrupted files…NOT good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because of this, this post is probably out of order in a few places.

 

– I read “On Writing” by Stephen King finally! I’ve been waiting for a year to get a hold of a copy and I loved it! Definitely helped me on multiple points. Maybe I’ll do up a post on it. Maybe.

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– We got an air conditioner for our room! Now we’re not melting. Woohoo!

– The manager gave us adorable blinds! She’s just that cool.

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– Holly pulled the ligaments in her thumb.

– We got shelves to put all our stuff on, instead of piling it all on the ground.

– Holly got a plant. It died. She got another one, and named her Viper, the spider plant. Viper is doing very well.

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– The last day of school for my mallow minions (aka my sister, Holly and my brother, Dylan) (and yes they like and approve of this nickname) was May 24th. Summer Break began…..

– The first month of their summer break I was extremely boring. Why? I had an intestinal virus for four weeks. That’s four weeks of extreme abdominal pain, nausea, and dizziness. NOT. FUN.

– Dylan’s birthday was July 15th. He turned 11 years old.

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– I’ve read lots of books by new authors and some in different genres. And guess what? I’m more picky than I originally thought I was! But that’s okay. The books I don’t like, I’ve taken back to the book exchange. So even if I don’t like them, it wasn’t a complete loss.

– Dylan got a ficus trees.

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– Mom’s birthday is August 11th – today! Happy birthday momma. 😀

– My mallows wounded themselves while creating art. Beauty hurts, they agree.

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– I have been informed (by Holly) that it is mandatory I tell you of her obsession with the Maximum Ride Series by James Patterson as of late. She loves it but is very unhappy with how the series ended.

– I got a baby jade plant, named her Moira, after the collective 3 Greek Fates. She needs to be replanted, she’s not actually in the pot here, but in a smaller planter leaning inside the one you can see.

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– Lucky tried eating Holly’s cupcake pillow.

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– Oh, and our fridge door fell off.

 

On a more serious note, we’re still living in the hotel, but we almost ended up on the street three times. Each time we were saved by positive attitudes, a lot of hope and work, and kindness. There’s been an abundance of drama and emotional angst. As a result, my writing hasn’t moved forward much. Not to mention the two months of summer break, in which – I have siblings, so I need to pay attention to them and not sit in a corner and type – we did many things together daily.

You already know I finished my rough draft of HUMAN OR HIDDEN. I’ve finished critiquing the first 8 chapters of it so far, I’m about ¼ of the way through, being on about page 100 of about 400. Then I need to go through and fix all the things I’ll find while critiquing. Then I can send it out to be critiqued, which I’m totally excited for!

I’m excited to get back to writing. I’ve missed it. A lot.

I’ve missed logging onto Twitter and being inspired by everyone’s tweets! I’ve missed reading your blogs and talking to you! I missed your opinions on my blog posts! I’ve missed you all so much.

 

So what have I missed in the past 5 months?

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Hotel Hell #4

Daphne Shadows6 Comments

(sing dramatically…)

On the second month of Hotel Hell,

My strange fate gave to me…

Blue fuzzy slippers,

Our vehicle broke down,

And mum got laid off.

 

Month 2: January 2013

I can only guess out of his sanity challenged state, Lucky adopted some fuzzy children. Plush suits him, don’t you think? The munchkins now have a cuddle bunny guardian, which they think is adorable as well as the rest of us.

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Hotel Hell #3

Daphne Shadows16 Comments

To continue my chronicling of my time spent in Hotel Hell, we’ll finish the last two weeks of December 2012. We’re catching up before getting to the here and now because I hadn’t really decided if I wanted to write about my time spent here while I remained or if I wanted to wait until we had moved. Week 3 decided that for me.

WEEK 3

  • (Okay, so technically, I’m predating week 3, but so be it.) A few days before we were to move into our new apartment (YAY!!!), the manager called and told us we could not move in.

Why?

Because we have an eviction on our record and monies owed showing accordingly. This means no one would rent to us.

We didn’t take this news well. We had thought we’d be out of this small room to rent at the end of two weeks. We had even packed accordingly. 2 weeks worth of clothing and needs.

  • The muscles in my neck got stuck on the left side and I had to go to the chiropractor for an emergency adjustment. I couldn’t move my neck and the pain was constant. Really freaking annoying!

After being adjusted and being able to think, we realized that the mattress we’d been sleeping on was not healthy for us. It felt like a giant had slept on it for half a millennium. Not comfy.

Soooooo, we got my mattress out of storage.

Then we realized that the room itself leans inward. Imagine a large “U” shape. Both sides of the “U” curve in at the bottom so that the floors are leaning into the middle, giving us quite the predicament.

A few weeks later a friend was kind enough to saw off a few wooden beams and situate them between our beds so that we could sleep comfortably. Major improvement!

However, the room still (obviously) leans.

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Lucky didn’t seem to notice either way. He was, however getting a little peeved that he couldn’t run around like a banshee.

Continue reading “Hotel Hell #3” →

Balance Within (Some Yin, Some Yang, and a Few Wolves)

Daphne Shadows15 Comments

I am Cherokee.

I’m also Lithuanian, Scottish, Irish, English, German, Welsh, Norse, and Sicilian Italian, but that’s beside the point.

In short, I’m a mutt.

I’ve always liked looking into lore, myths, and traditions.

I’ve noticed a certain interest into one Cherokee legend in particular as of late; the legend of the “Two Wolves Within”.

 

In our current eye-roll-inducing-society, more and more people are forgetting the importance of one question.

Who Am I?

We get so wrapped up in life and all its hustle and bustle; effectively giving ourselves over to the rat race so that we are essentially invisible, even to ourselves.

We forget to live by our own heart’s direction – but instead copy and paste society’s opinions into our own lives and continue to blindly run through the maze.

 

And we’ve definitely forgotten how important ‘balance’ is.

 

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The Shards that Are Me in 2013

Daphne Shadows2 Comments

Well, the world didn’t end and the new year made it here. Not very shocking. It did feel like the year 2012 went by very quickly to me.

Let’s just set something straight before I get into this post though. The Mayan calendar ended on December 21, 2012, yes. The Mayans did not, however specify that this meant that date would be the end of the world. It’s just when their calendar ended. And by the way, the Mayans didn’t include leap years, so technically, by their calendar, the world would have ended before our calendar dictated it was December 21st, as we include leap years.

When the Spanish destroyed the Mayans’ lands, we were left with only a calendar that ended on December 21, 2012. We don’t know what this date meant to them. To some, it signals a beginning, not an end. Someone probably got wind of the Mayan calendar ending soon and decided it was the end of the world and blew it out of proportion.

Kind of like that game, ‘telephone’. Does anyone remember playing that?

Anywho, now that that panic is all over and water bottles are now on the shelves of local grocery stores once more, I have something to tell you…

It’s a new year.

Yes, I realize you already knew this. Unless of course you’re a fruit ball and on some really good medication somewhere tied up in a pretty little jacket with cute buckles. Then I’ll give you a free pass.

 

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Suffer Well

Daphne Shadows15 Comments

Lovely, isn’t it?

Suffer well. Who wants to suffer? No one does.

But what does that mean, really?

Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.

-Edmund Burke

That’s what it means to me.

The opposite of suffering is thriving. Is happiness. Something so elusive yet so convoluted, misused, and hated via jealousy.

Happiness is something harder to describe than “suffer well”, I’m afraid.  Again – to me.

No one will always be happy. Times will never be perfect. Things in your life will happen that make you hate, cry, fear, loathe, cry out, miss times passed, wish for something more – something better, something happy.

But we cannot all have it go our way all the time. And life is a messy mash-up of, simply put, everything.

Give it your all.

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Mi Amor / My Passion

Daphne Shadows22 Comments

I was going to write about genre today. Then I got to thinking about all the specifics and generalities, all the ‘rules’ of writing, and about the craft and how you’ll always be perfecting it, never fully perfect.

Then I generally felt kind of dumb.

Here I am thinking about all these rules, rigid and cold.

Where’s the emotion?

Why did I start writing?

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I enjoy it.

I read a blog post yesterday about caring less. I think that’s a really good idea – to care less. About your rough draft writing, that is. I’m sticking to rough drafts here – no pinning me as responsible for blown kitchens. I say you should care about most things. Like hygiene, sleep, and how long ago you turned the oven on.

I love how Cheryl said it. You can find her post here – if you’re a writer, or anyone who isn’t enjoying doing what they once did, I suggest you read it. She talks about how we should stop caring about how this sentence looks, perfecting this chapter, stop caring that this isn’t the perfect word, while we’re sitting down to simply write the rough draft. If you do, you’ll never get anywhere and the enjoyment you could have gotten from writing will be sucked away into a dismal abyss of nothingness.

Continue reading “Mi Amor / My Passion” →