Look what I got

Aww, this is the sweetest thing ever. Much love and thanks to Dramabeans reader Kaila, who sent me this care package in the mail. Made my day. The Answer Me, 1997 decorations! The CNBlue face masks! (I can’t believe they have face masks.) The “Stylish in Seoul” Stila eyeshadow-blush palette! In addition to the contents, everything was very carefully and thoughtfully wrapped and packaged (glittery hearts, pink bubble wrap, coordinating card and tissue paper) with a very sweet note.

Thank you again to Kaila, both for the wonderfully thoughtful gifts and for coming to the DB meetup last month to hang out with us. Hope you had fun and enjoyed meeting the other Beanies!

Speaking of the meetup, we did get some pretty cool gifts there as well, from a Song Seung-heon hat (seriously) to a Song Seung-heon pen (which I carry in my purse) to hand-crocheted bracelets. I had no idea what to expect going into the meetup — we were just hoping it wouldn’t be the DB crew drinking in a sad little corner (though admittedly if you get us all drinking, chances are we won’t be sad about it) — so it was a pleasant surprise to meet such a great big welcoming group of folks. We’ve gotta do that again someday.

It’s Nanowrimo month! *Freaks out.*

Yup, that’s pretty much it.

WHERE IS THE TIME?

Fourth dimension needs to introduce me to its friend, fifth dimension.

Workaholia

…is the name of the hypothetical company that girlfriday and I will erect (snerk) to take over the world and whatever and such. At least, that’s what we say whenever we swing from one end of the workaholia extreme (supreme laziness) to the other (drama drama drama recap recap recap oh a drink!).

me: Oh my god with the new dramas.

girlfriday: Seriously, May?

me: Do you suppose we could learn to write faster? Or be more efficient?

girlfriday: That’s an idea. Well, I don’t know if we could write faster, but we could try sleeping less.

Karma and cat spittle

So my cat, aka The Brat, is sick. Nothing serious, just a mild cold that has her sneezing frequently, though she’s just as active as ever. Sometimes her sneezes send spittle flying over her fur, which she’ll then groom right off, which I think cannot be sanitary. Then again, we’re dealing with animals to whom licking equals sanitizing process, so maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Anyway, the other day while she was sitting on the window ledge looking outside, she almost sneezed herself off her perch. Yeah, I laughed. What? It was funny!

The Brat is on most days a persnickety, aloof ball of floof — adorable and yet completely immune to cuddles. Which can be sadly frustrating when I want to shower her in kisses and she’s all, Aw, Mom, geroffme! This is so not cool! Ooh, birds! Really, I think she just barely permits me to hug her; it certainly ain’t for her benefit. So the one nice thing about when she feels a little under the weather (and I mean a case of the sniffles, nothing more) is that she gets more affectionate.

Like the other night when I was getting ready to sleep. Normally she pretends to be wholly unconcerned with the whole bedding-down process, although I can totally see her eyeing me, belying her feigned indifference — and then she sneaks into bed after I’ve settled down. Because she’s up and about before I am in the mornings, sometimes I wonder if she thinks she’s fooling me. WHATEVER, CAT. I wake up in the middle of the night when you’re draped all over my legs, YOU BIG FAKER.

But with her being all snuffly, she promptly laid down on my chest for once, curling up as close as she could to my neck, tucking herself right under my chin. I pet her as she purred, and I thought to myself, yay, she’s being sweet! How cute! We are bonding!

And then she sneezed on my face.

Why hello there, November. You again?

Has it really been a year since I last wrote in this blog? I’m not doing the Nano thing this year (am plenty busy without it), but I’m thinking I should probably use this space more.

Was looking at a blog the other day (a half-personal, half-professional sort of dealio), and it was so witty, disarming, and enjoyable to read that I thought to myself, with equal measures envy and resolve, “I should really write a blog.”

Pause.

“Like that one, I mean.”

Funny to think that DB started out on this humble little space here and has since moved on to more expansive, more expensive pastures. Not that it’s run any differently than it was back then, despite the occasional and inevitable “It USED to be so much BETTER!” pointed sigh. (Can sighs be pointed? In my mind they are, with the offended party doing their best to breathe their disapproval in my general direction. I just pretend not to notice, leaving that affront hanging in the air with nowhere to go but back to its sender, who may dispose of it as they will.)

Day 1, again

Here we are again.

It sort of feels like Day 1 is a bit of a cheat, because I don’t have a clear-cut narrative structure in place, but since it’s the first day I have the luxury of just spitting out scenes that I know will come later. No need to organize the thoughts or write scenes sequentially since I’m just getting words on the blank page, the faster the better, because the sooner there’s black on that white, the less daunting it is to keep adding more black to that white. The scenes written today (really, more like barfed up) don’t as yet have a defined place in the overall plot, but I know the emotional context. So it’s a bit like splattering gobs of color at the wall in an effort to create a Jackson Pollock-like work of art and ending up with a Jackson Pollock-like mess of paint.

But hey, I’ll take word count wherever I can.

NaNoWriMo: Take two

All right. Dusting off this old blog again. (Who even still READS this? *curious*)

So last year I made it about a week before I flamed out. I was disappointed to leave the game so early, but in retrospect that was actually not so bad. I’d have loved to have finished, of course, but at least I got a good taste of Nano and a nice (if small) chunk of writing to show for it.

This year I’m a lot less prepared — I only remembered Nanowrimo was encroaching a few days ago — and therefore my mind is all a-jumble with the various ideas I’ve got spinning in this headspace. I’ve got an idea in the works, which I’ve been tossing around in my brain for the better part of the last five years. (I know! Five years! That’s a lot of procrastination, but in case you didn’t know, I am the master of that.) It’s one of those ideas that made me and my love of flippancy a little uncomfortable with its earnest spirit. Plus, I was maybe-sorta “saving” the idea for later, for when I became a better writer and could do it better justice. (It occurs to me that this may be yet another excuse to procrastinate so I wouldn’t have to write it, while feeling okay about writing it because hey, at least my reasons were good!) I suppose this is the point where I bitchslap that flinching ego of mine and tell it to grow a pair and just do it.

Last year I was super-prepared with outlines and color-coded folders with notes and character bios and relationship charts, and I faded in the first week. So maybe this year the lack of preparation might work to my benefit. Well, I can hope.