That's Just Sick

Has anyone heard about this horrible stomach virus hat has shut down nursing homes and schools across the U.S.? Here's a link to an article about it, if you haven't: USA Today's 'Stomach flu' rips through he nation.

I can personally attest to this illness, as both me and my dad had it. I have no puked in over 12 years now...until the other night. This stupid virus kicked my butt and had me shaking and shuddering over the ever-so-pleasant household commode for hours Saturday night. If it were only that one night of unpleasantness, I'd be far more happy. But, no, I've managed to stay sick to my stomach for 3 weeks! That's almost an entire month!

I am so sick of being sick. My mother had pneumonia and stomach issues at the same time, so I had to take care of her while being sick myself. AND my dad had it and we were both retching over the toilets on separate ends of the house on the same night.

So, I'm very sorry I haven't been on lately, folks. And, yet, I'm also not sorry. I was very poor company while ill. You wouldn't have liked me if I had come on here. I was truly not my abnormal Kyla-self.

But I'm on the mend now. Hopefully we'll have a break from extreme troubles in my life for a while, and I can get some writing done. If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry.

Glad to see all of you again (if you're still reading; I wouldn't blame you if you'd given up on me)! Life has been crazy as usual. If any of you have ever lived on a farm, you know how vividly it paints life. On one end of a farm, you can have death and disease, while new life is born right under your eyes on the other side.

That's what happened here. Our calves got sick at the same time the humans did. We've lost two calves already this year, and the two remaining look ill now, too. We're hoping they'll survive, though. But, meanwhile, in the goat pen we had the miracle of life put in a truly grandiose appearance. Grandma, our oldest female, had twin babies last week, and cuter creatures you've never seen. I named the firstborn (a boy) Starburst as soon as he was born, for the huge star mark on his forehead. His sister, born a few minutes later, we named Lightning Bolt for the vivid white stripes across both her sides.

Watching them run and play never fails to put a smile on my face. I wish you could see it. I'll have to get some pictures to share on here.

This is NOT them. But it's close. Aren't they cute?

Hope all of your weeks have been equally incredible, but perhaps less sickly. Have a great day everyone, and happy writing!

You Might Be A Redneck...

...If you are honked at by a trucker for holding a goat in the backseat of your itty-bitty, four-door car.

That was what we did yesterday. Three girls in a little red car driving down the road for an hour and a half with a little pygmy billy goat in the backseat. Take a moment and picture this, if you will. His huge horns pointed toward my body. His butt to the window. His pooping on the side of the door. The trucker looking down from his semi laughing his butt off at the goat in the backseat of the crazy women's car.

It was hilarious. We died laughing. I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe and eventually got the hiccups, and I swear I almost puked, I laughed for so long. It was crazy. It was fun. It was an adventure.

I'd forgotten how important that sense of adventure was in life. If you want to be a fantastic writer, you can't forget. Adventure in life is what writing is all about. You have to experience; you have to live. And boy, was that an experience...

Now, I haven't told you the full story. A family member who I love dearly just moved into our house to stay for a while, at least. She's really nice, we're getting along great, and we've had lots of fun. But it has upset my schedule like crazy. Hopefully, we'll all adjust. Anyway, she, my mom, and I went to get a billy goat for our three girls to "enjoy". ;-)

We found him on craigslist, but he lived pretty far away. That was almost a deal breaker, but then we were told how nice he was and we were sold. We'd get him, come hell or high water. And so off we went, in our cute, little Sunfire.

First, my aunt (that family member who moved in) bought me a pair of beautiful new shoes. That was really cool and I can't wait to really wear them somewhere nice. They are some black sandals with pink butterflies on them. They're so cute and girly! They practically scream Kyla.

Then, we drive through a sudden rainstorm. What was so cool, though, was the sun was shining very bright in this rainstorm, and the rain was pouring hard. So, we spotted a truly incredible sight: a double rainbow. One of them was a truly full rainbow, with all the colors and almost solid looking instead of transparent. The other hovered above it, transparent but almost as striking in intensity. I'd never seen a rainbow like it.

As we continued on, we got hungry. Now, we thought it would probably be best to get some food before we went and picked up the goat, so we stopped to eat. It was a wonderful meal and we all enjoyed ourselves. Some very generous women who were celebrating their birthdays gave us their free ice cream, because they weren't hungry, and I got to enjoy some sugary goodness. But the truly hilarious moment happened as we left the restaurant. My aunt stopped to pick up her cigarettes and smoke a moment. She happened to be wearing a very loose sarong and the knot had loosened on it. Predictably enough, what we now call the "nip slip" occurred. My aunts breast slipped out on the right side and she DID NOT NOTICE. She walked around that restaurant as cocky as you please, and my mom and I couldn't stop laughing. We told her as she got into the car and she was so embarrassed, but also found it hilarious. So, we were already feeling pretty goofy before we got the goat.

Well, we picked the goat up and paid for him. He was just as nice as advertised, running to us like a puppy dog and behaving like we were his long-lost buddies. So, we loaded him in the car and laughed to think what interesting fun this would be. The guy gave us a look like we were crazy, but we ignored him. We hadn't had many options in the vehicle department, and we'd done what we could (pick-up truck is a diesel and it would cost around $120 to get the gas to go up there).

We pulled out and started rolling, but soon were forced to stop at a stop-light. And there, sitting beside us at the light, was a large semi. The man sitting in the seat of the semi was staring into the car and started laughing so hard I don't think he could breathe. My aunt, being the funny girl she is, waved at him and pulled her hand like she wanted him to honk. He honked, but also pointed at the goat while laughing like a maniac. The goat then decided to start pooping while he sat there watching, right up against the door the trucker was looking into. Even worse, the light was long and we had to sit there for around 30 seconds while he continued to laugh and point. 

Finally, we took off. We were free! All of us were thanking our lucky stars for that freedom. Only then did we discover a problem, because we stopped beside that same trucker at the next intersection, passed his partner on the other side a little while later down the road, and even passed him when he'd pulled over to sleep for the day. And every, single time we passed, he would honk his horn and laugh.

Needless to say, we were embarrassed. But also laughing like crazy. I can't remember the time I laughed that much or that hard. And that trucker was not the only person who noticed the goat in the backseat. He was perhaps the most memorable, but not the only one. We had men, women, children laughing and pointing and generally having a good time at our expense. 

Well, we got the goat home safely. And he and his new lady friends seem very, very happy. But the adventure of it all will live on in my memory for a long time coming.

What a day.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that, but it is time for our writing quote:

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs.  ~Stephen King"

Talk to you guys later! Have a great day and happy writing!

Writer's Block Murdered My Talent

 Well, today's topic is for 3red! She asked me today how I deal with writer's block, the great bane of all writers, and I don't think I can really handle the topic in a comment. So, I decided to do an entire post about it. Hope everybody enjoys it!

Before we get started, though, I'd like to apologize for it being so late in the day. I planned on doing this post much earlier, but, well, life is rarely how you plan it. First, I shut the internet off for 4 hours or so to work on my book (got my 3000 words). Finally, when I got back on to get to work, it was time to go pick up the goats we bought.

Yep, you heard right. Goats. 3 to be exact. All female. We have the grandam, the dam, and the kid. The grandam (yes, that is the correct word) is four years old, the dam is two years old, and the kid is around five months old. Now, if anybody reading this has ever held 3 goats down in the back of a moving truck with only 1 other person to help and a speed demon at the wheel of the truck, you know how much fun that was.

Anyway, I'd also like to say I am not an expert writer, by any means. In fact, I believe it would take longer than the 100 year lifespan most of us hope to attain to become an expert writer. But, well, I have about 10 years of experience doing just about everything wrong in writing you can, so that has to be worth something. You might want to take those facts in mind before taking any advice I may offer, however.

All that being said, let's move on to what we're here for...

So, writer's block. Has anyone else out there ever had it? It can be a very frustrating affliction, sitting at a computer, ready to type, and...nothing. No words come to mind, no pictures of what's happening in the story you're working on, no idea how to get from Point A (where you are in the story now) to Point B (where you want to be in the story, because you know what to write when you get there). It reminds me of getting stuck up in the mud with a pick-up truck. The tires go round and round, but you ain't getting anywhere.

In my experience, writer's block comes because of one of two reasons. Number 1: Some plot hole is tripping me up. Usually, I don't even notice (consciously) that I've written some kind of paradox, but subconsciously I know it. When that happens, I can sit at the computer for an hour and stare at the screen and think. And think. And think. And still get no where. How I fix this type of writer's block is to sit there for that hour, and if nothing comes to mind, I re-read the entire book to that point. Whether that is a few paragraphs or 20 chapters, I read it all the way through to the point I'm stuck on and see if I can't find some flaw in the logical construction of the story.

And usually I find something, fix it, and voila! the block is gone.

Number 2: I can't get started. Let's face it, beginning to write, even when you did it just yesterday, is hard work. It's like revving the engine when it's too cold outside. You got to let the engine warm-up first, if you plan on getting anywhere.

There are a lot of ways to warm up your writing engine. The one I use: poetry. For some reason, poems come more naturally to me when I don't feel like writing. I choose a subject, an emotion, anything I feel like writing about that day, and start rhyming. This gets me going, and when I come to the project I'm working on, it doesn't seem as difficult to get writing.

Another warm-up I do is to find a poem or short story somewhere that I've written on paper, but haven't typed up yet. I just copy out the words I've already written. I don't know how or why that loosens up the writing muscles, but it does help (usually).

Several warm-ups are out there. You could use a writing prompt (there's a half-billion on the internet). Or find a picture that inspires you to write a story. Or think of a popular song you like and try making the lyrics fit an original story of your imagining. Or write a journal entry about your day or the day before. Or write an entry in your blog (but not too much, as that can become a distraction). Do something, anything, that makes you write. It's the best if it gets you writing creatively.

Think of it this way: singers have to warm-up before a performance. So do actors. Even painters often sketch before they tackle the painting of the day. Writing is an art, and sometimes the magic won't come. So, try warming up and see if that helps. You may find the magic happens.

If, on the other hand, the words aren't flowing, but you know what scene you want to write, maybe the problem is just that you need to relax. Do some stretches, take a walk, or do some yoga. Another great thing to remember: Breathe. Seriously, ten, deep breaths can calm you down quicker than just about anything.

Try changing your music. Classical is said to improve brain-power, while jazz is often soothing. If you like pop, that's great, but I personally find the lyrics distract me a lot more than I realized. Something instrumental with no lyrics helps the words flow the most, in my experience.

Here's some music that might help:

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If none of that is working, there are a lot of places to find out more about writer's block. Here's a few I found with some helpful advice (I think):

Top 10 tips for Overcoming Writer's Block

http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingroadblocks/tp/block.htm

Hack your way out of Writer's Block

http://www.43folders.com/2004/11/18/hack-your-way-out-of-writers-block

Beating Writer's Block

http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/beatingblock.html

One thing I'd like to add: sometimes the biggest block is simply the fact that you don't have the time left in your day to write. You have kids to care for or work or a big event planned. That's okay. But try to carve out just 10 minutes a day. Maybe get up in the morning 10 minutes earlier or go to bed 10 minutes later. 10 minutes of writing, every day, adds up.

Anyway, hope I haven't bored you all to death and someone out there finds this useful! Time for the writing quote of the day, and then I'm done, I swear!

Writers are not just people who sit down and write.  They hazard themselves.  Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.  ~E.L. Doctorow

Thanks for reading everybody! I really appreciate you taking the time!