Chaotic Array

It's 2:30am, and I should be asleep, but I'm not. Being up late isn't anything new to me, but tonight I'm only up because my acid reflux is making it really hard to sleep - the sounds of my own choking on stomach acid? Not the sweetest lullaby. So I got up and made myself a coffee, grabbed my laptop, and turned on some music. I'm listening to Disclosure, because I really like their new song with Lorde, and I like a lot of their older stuff. I wrote up a writing schedule the other night so I know what I'm working on up into May 2016. I like to plan things. I'm following Rachel Aaron's 2k to 10k method, because I have a lot to do and a lot more I want to do. But some nights I get lazy. Some nights my brother comes home and I have to be quiet because his room is right below mine, and the sound of my clacking on keys keeps him up all night. So, here I am, not working, drinking coffee, blogging, listening to electronic music in the middle of the night, in...

So the other night I realized blogs are my favourite books. I was sitting in bed reading Amanda Hocking's old blog posts for like, the millionth time, and I realized I am obsessed with reading blogs. And I don't mean blog posts - I mean blogs themselves. In their entirety. When I find a new blog, I will go to the last/first post in the archive and read the entire blog from the first post to the newest post, even if it means reading three to four years worth of posts. I've read blogs like Amanda Hocking's ( http://www.hockingbooks.com/blog/ ) and Zoe Marriott's ( http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.ca/ ) and then I'll read ones about military wives who travel around to different bases around the world, or uni students living in Japan, or manga artists moving to Hawaii. And I'll read them more than once. A good blog is like a good book, but even better, it's like a good conversation. A good blog has that nostalgia to it, like remembering a 3am conversation wi...

In the film Enemy at the Gates, a Russian sniper in WWII, Vasily Zaytsev, is transferred to the sniper division after he saves a comrade of his. In reality, he served as a clerk before being transferred to the Rifle regiment. The story of the film doesn’t mention his early war career at all, but instead jumps into the battle at Stalingrad: while in Stalingrad, Zaytsev meets Tania Chernova, who a comrade of his also likes. The comrade, Danilov, transfers her away from the combat to keep her safe. This is all a lie. The love triangle is a lie. But more importantly? So is Tania. In real life, Tania Chernova was a ruthless sniper who met Zaytsev at a sniping school he ran. Tania had lost family and decided to take out her enemies, the Germans, in revenge for their deaths. She was a ruthless and skilled sniper who called the Germans ‘Sticks’ as she though all they were good for was breaking. Tania traveled through Stalingrad on her own and, at times, with Zaytsev, and the two became lov...

I finished another on of my daily goals. I went for a walk. I wrote earlier that I wasn't sure if I would force myself to do it or not, because I wanted to be a slug. Well. I did it. I morphed from a slug into a grossed out and mildly agitated slug. It was boring. It was sunny. A met a cute dog. I found a dead crow. A few bugs stalked me for about forty feet and then gave up. There were trees. I miss my treadmill, because when I had that walks were fun. I watched True Blood. I listened to music. I talked on the phone. And I walked more, because I didn't have to actually go anywhere. The treadmill broke and I can't afford another one, but someday I'll buy one. I need a new computer first. And then new clothes. and then, then I can start saving for a treadmill. And when I get it, I will finally be a happy slug.

I've posted like 3 times already today, and I'll probably post a few more before the day is done, but do you guys remember when I posted like, 2 blogs a month? Now I post like 2 an hour. Ah, the good old days, before I realized I could use blogging as a form of procrastination.

I'm being a slug today. My daily goals are: Do at least an hour of outlining for Shadows and another project each. Do at least two school assignments. Go for a walk. And here's what I've actually done: Eat leftover Chinese takeout for breakfast. Eat an entire pack of bacon two hours later when I get the munchies. Watch two episodes of the Mindy Project and then stop because it makes me sad I don't live in New York with a slew of awkward and slightly condescending love interests. Watch a bunch of Mirror's Edge Catalyst promos I've already seen. Listen to the song Same Old Love by Selena Gomez like ten times. It's 12:39pm, so I should be working already. I should have been working since 11. But I haven't been. I've been watching Mindy Khaling be the perfect human being and listening to the same three songs on repeat for hours. And I like Cage the Elephant, so that's okay, but I also like to be productive, so it's not. ...

A few weeks back I had the scariest dream of my life. I regularly dream about serial killers and monsters coming after me, cruise ships sinking while I'm on them, and snakes strangling me - but this dream was scarier than any of them, because the monster was human. I don't know if I'm the only human this afraid of doppelgängers, but I am. I don't mind clones - use science to explain my exact double and I'm cool with it. I don't mind long lost twins, clones, people who look similair, et cet. But doppelgängers? Spooky exact copies of people that turn up without explanation? I wasn't the one with a doppelgänger in this dream, though. It was a random guy I've never met before. The dream started out line any random one: I was at the movies with my dad, and we were seeing a Superman movie. Well, in this movie Superman had a male love interest, and on the way home my dad kept complaining about it. We got in a fight, as you do over gay superheroes, and he ...

I feel like my blogs have been really dark and personal lately, and while it's important to me to talk about personal stuff to form a connection with my readers and show who I am, I also feel like it's fun to keep stuff light and recap-y and, well, bloggy . And I like talking about pop culture. So much that it's almost all I do. I'm working on a side project right now while I take a short break from everything, and it's just something to take my mind off stuff when I crave the motion of typing or thinking about storytelling. It's just an expanded version of a short story I wrote almost two years ago, but it's in a different pov and verb tense, and it's bery Richelle Mead. Or, well, as Richelle Mead as I get - my writing is a lot more mope-y and emo than hers, but still. Anyway, while I'm writing I'm collecting a bunch of good music, bust last night I stumbled across Same Old Love by Selena Gomez and I'm loving this song . It's differe...

I'm thinking about being alone. I've been alone a lot lately. I stay up all night, alone, working, and nap for most of the day. When I'm not working or sleeping, I'm home alone because my parents both work during the day. I'll only be going into the city once every week during this semester, so I'll be spending days on end alone. I'm thinking about every day being school work and then regular work, and how it will be long hours at my desk and late nights doing stuff I'd rather not. And I wonder how I'm not gonna go crazy from boredom. From apathy. But you know, I'm very good at making things good. I think as long as I can make coffee and play with my cats for a minute while I wait for the water to boil, as long as I can walk down to the river everyday and watch how winter creeps in, as long as I keep dancing to my new playlists while I'm home alone, I'll be okay. I just need to let the little things in. I need to keep reminding myself...

I've been doing these two things lately (lately being the last three days) where every morning I go to the same page in my sketchbook, and on one side I write down five things or virtues that I like about myself, and on the right side I write down three things I want to accomplish in my day, no matter how small or simple they are. I don't know if the 5Things has been helping, but I love the daily goals part. I've been super productive since starting this, pushing myself to do little things like write 2000 words or do some homework or go for a walk. Plus, at the end of the day I can't say I wasted my day, because I accomplished those three things. I think it's a nice little way to get motivated, which is hard for me sometimes because of my depression. It's also nice on days where I'm not having symptoms but would otherwise be lazy. If you have a lack of motivation I really recommend it - especially if you're on a deadline!

So yesterday was my first day of school. I have to admit, I've been anxious about this for weeks. The end of summer was getting closer and I had no idea if I would be back in school daily or on the same program I'd been on last year, which was one where I basically home-schooled myself. I had to meet with the principal yesterday to figure out what would be happening. I think a lot of people are surprised to find out I'm still in high school, and that always surprises me. It shouldn't, honestly, because I'm too old to still be in high school, so the assumption makes sense - but I'm not used to people taking me seriously enough to not immediately assume I'm an adult imposter. So why am I in high school? I failed two grades, among other things. I don't know how I failed grade one, so don't ask - I don't even know how it was possible, but it happened. In grade six I started skipping school a bunch, and had to repeat the year. I kept skipping after ...

Title from ' Haunting ' by Halsey~ I feel like I should be happier than I am. I feel like I should probably be better at shoving out these empty spaces that keep trying to fill me up. And it's like I win, you know? I win the battle, and it convinces me I've won the war, so I stop being afraid to smile. And then as soon as things are good again, it all floods back in. I don't really know where the person I actually am ends and the person my depression turned me into begins. In a lot of ways I think they're the same person. But I also think I had the capacity, once, to be happy, and naive, and innocent. I can remember being that way. I can not remember exactly when the chemicals in my brain starting turning against me and eating away at that person, but they did, they have, and they've been doing it for so long it's become my new normal. And I worry, too - I worry that someday I won't beat it. Someday I won't be strong enough to swim against ...

So, Souls of Salt and Seawater is coming along. Coming along as in, I'm going to be ready to send out ARCS by November, as in, I'm having fun with it, as in, the cover came out and I forgot to post about it here. I'm a pretty forgetful bitch, if I'm being honest. I'll forget something is a dream and wake up excited to use my new laptop or go find my new husband in the backyard and then realize - wait a minute, I didn't actually go on an electronics shopping spree or marry Brandon Urie! It was all just a dream! My dad says it's because I smoke too-much pot, my mom says it's because of my dad (his genetics are cursed with this pesky thing called alzheimer's - my gramma has it really bad) and my brother says it's because I'm plain stupid. But then, he's probably just salty because I got better eyebrows than he did. So anyway, I forget important stuff, and then I make up for it by posting it late and trying to make it seem like it's...

I'm in a lot of pain right now. Did I break a leg? Cut myself? Sprain something? Nope: I went to a friend's house and got a lot of flea bites. They're swollen, because I'm allergic to flea bites, and itchy, because they're flea bites, and it sucks. Fuck fleas. Honestly, they can go to hell. Flea bites aside, though, I've been having a (mostly) good time, as of late. But life is still weird, in the way it's always been weird, and between bursts of goodness and fun, life has been a cloudy mess of nostalgia and dread lately. Basically, it's almost fall. To start with the good, I've had a great past couple of weeks. I promised to post more about my vacation and then never did, so to start I guess I should get into that: around a year and a half ago, my grandmother and aunt (who is not actually my aunt, but who I've always called my aunt anyway) moved out of the city to my aunt's home town, which is called Campbellton, and is a four hour drive...