Yoga is the Answer

I've recently discovered yoga. Yes, I knew it existed and I was always intrigued, but I never really tried it because A) Yoga classes are expensive and B) I'm extremely self-conscious and I don't like doing anything I might not be good at in public (I was atrocious at sports, btw) and C) I don't like stretching.

Yes, C is weird. I like doing 100 crunches and 30 minutes on the elliptical but you have to force me to stretch. Not sure why. Just one of my many crazy quirks, I guess.

But now, with this marvelous thing called the Internet and a nice-sized flat-screen monitor, I can find FREE yoga videos online.

Woohoo!

Now, ahem, lately I've been a bit of a witch with a B. I've been tired. Stressed. Sad. Angry. Etc. I've been nasty and mean and hateful and basically a pathetic human being. I blame it on the depression, which is an evil, evil thing. But some times are worse than others and I guess I just spiraled to that point where NOTHING pulls me out of the sludge. I'll be happy for, like, a split second and then hate the world for the next 48 hours. My poor fiance puts up with this. Even when I tell him "Get away from me!" one second and "You never cuddle me" the next.

And now I have discovered yoga. Did you know that studies have said that it's proven to treat depression? Hmm. Well, it couldn't hurt, I guess.

So, I find a 36-minute yoga video, push aside the ottoman and get at it.

Did I mention that when I started this I was EXTREMELY angry? Well, I was. Like, I'm going to rip someone's head off and stab them with toothpicks kind of angry.

It's really hard to stay angry when people are telling you to focus on your breathing, relax and empty your mind.

Yoga instructor in soothing voice: Empty your mind. Focus on the sensation of your breaths leaving your body. In and then out. Slowly. Slowly.

Me: No! I shall NOT empty my mind because I AM ANGRY AND I AM JUST DOING THIS BECAUSE I'M BORED AND NEED TO EXERCISE. Breathing. Breathing. Muscles burning. Breathing. Breathing. NO, I AM ANGRY AND--Breathing. Breathing. Relaxing. Empty mind. Brain=mush.

Yoga instructor: Good, now shift into downward dog, lifting your hips to the sky. Breathe. That's it. Feel your spine lengthening...

Me: Breathing. Breathing. . . . Empty mind....mmmm.

And then later I was like, crap, it totally ruined my angry moment!

But then I thought, This is good for me. I need to do this every day. Unfortunately, I can't do it in the morning before I go to work because it makes me sleepy. :)

Patience is a Virtue

I'm not a patient person. I'm a go-getter, let's-get-things-done-now person. So waiting, quite literally, annoys me.

I think this is a trait I get from my Mom, who gets frustrated at the tiniest little things and explodes. Then she would demand that I fix whatever was annoying her. And then I would get irritated when I couldn't figure it out and swear a lot.

Wow, I really do swear a lot. Not out loud, but, wow, I need to stop doing that. :P

Anyways, on the topic of patience and my lack thereof: Querying is hell for me. Wedding planning is hell for me. WAITING is hell for me.

Let's start on the topic of querying. I LOVE <3 agents who reply promptly, as in within two weeks. Because if the answer is "no" I can just move on. But after two weeks, I start getting antsy. Three weeks, I'm REALLY antsy. And four weeks, I have to move on and think of it as a rejection just so I can stop driving myself crazy with checking my email every three minutes.

As for the wedding...GAH. I want everything done NOW so I don't have to worry about it LATER. Unfortunately, I'm dealing with a bunch of procrastinators (I have nothing against procrastinators, being one myself occasionally) and they are driving me crazy. I've got vendors calling me asking me things like, "Do you have a DJ? A band?" My answer: "Uh, I don't know." My wedding is FOUR (closing on three) months away and I don't know if I'm having a DJ or a band, because my aunt was supposed to be finding someone and I haven't heard anything back from her. GAH. Our guest list isn't finished. Our invitations are just a figment of my imagination. I still need shoes. My bridesmaids need shoes. My fiance hasn't even THOUGHT about when he's going to get his tuxedo. ("Oh, sometime in August.")

!!!

Now, people. Do it now! Before I have a mental break! (Ok, it's not that bad, but I'm irked.)

I could never be in the military. With their unofficial motto: Hurry up and wait, I'd likely be discharged for insanity.

A Return to Me

It's amazing what a couple hours with your girlfriends will do for you.

Here lately, I've been feeling a bit out of touch with the real me. I've been thinking: you know, I used to have a sense of humor...I used to be all chirpy and crazy and silly...and now I'm just boring. And then I had some of my girlfriends over for a Mary Kay party and VIOLA! A return to me. I felt like myself again. Quirky. Girly. Hyper.

It was nice. Refreshing. We giggled and teased each other and then told each other we all were beautiful. Then we had strawberries and pineapple and fresh veggies with dip. It was fun. It was nice. I really enjoyed it.

My cousin invited me to go to the Renaissance Fair with her the upcoming weekend, and I REALLY want to go. Unfortunately, that bleh thing called adulthood is looming before me, demanding I pay bills. So...I'm not sure if I can go. :(

Sunday I went fishing with my fiance again. We walked the creek and I got sunburned. But only on ONE SIDE. So my left side is bright red and my right side is normal. I look like a female version of Two-Face. It's pretty funny, but also pretty sad. People have been asking me if I fell asleep on my side outside. Lol.

I've less than 50 pages to go with my revising of DRAGON QUEEN. I'm excited and nervous. I have it out to a beta reader right now, and hopefully she likes the edits I've made. :)

Problem Characters

Not sure if you knew this, but I'm a big fan of giving all my characters a unique story. Most of the time this ends up strengthening the writing/plot and takes me awesome places, but other times... I really just can't figure out what the heck a character wants.

Enter Honey, the most complicated secondary character I have ever written. When we first meet her, she accuses Jade of stealing her throne and is disappointed that she's not able to kill her.

Then Jade asks her to be her advisor in a crazy/desperate move and we begin to see a different side of her: that she actually cares about other people. And maybe she doesn't hate Jade as much as she pretends.

And then she goes and almost acts like she's Jade's friend, giving her very valuable advice. (WTF?)

And THEN she tries to get Jade to turn against her allies and join with the bad guy. Um... I repeat, WTF?

All of this is in the first draft of DRAGON QUEEN, and I'm sure it seemed all quite logical to me at the time, but now that I'm near the end of editing the story...I've realized I didn't ever quite reveal her motivation...until the VERY end. So, I ask, should it stay that way or should I move it up? Because, OMG, there are a lot of revelations at the end. Too many, I fear. It was a whole lot of fun when I was writing it and posting chapters on the WD Sci-Fi/Fantasy forum (I loved shocking my readers) but now that I've got the whole thing in front of me, I'm dissatisfied.

And a lot of it is Honey's fault.

She plays a key role in getting things going at the end, but I don't know why she does it. WHY? WHY???

So I'm having to go back to the character drawing board (so to speak) and figure out what she wants. What she REALLY wants. I thought I had it figured out...but now, I'm not sure. Bleh. :P

Any difficult characters out there trying to destroy your manuscript?

Subjectivity (and when to go with your instincts)

I've posted the first chapter of DQ in my new critique forum and OMG it has exploded. But what amazes me the most is how some people totally "get" my character and others miss her personality entirely. Jade has a very wry, self-deprecating sense of humor, and while a lot of people were like "Ha! So funny!" some were like "I don't like her. She's whiny and immature."


Now, I will admit that I'm a people pleaser. I try to make EVERYONE happy, but I ended up putting my foot down here. Jade is exactly how I want her to be...and that's that. Not everyone will "get" her, I suppose, but those that do I think will enjoy her personality.

Another thing that came up regarding Jade was her being categorized as the "stereotypical rebellious princess." That bothered me. So, I'm amping up her uniqueness. To organize my thoughts, here are some things I'll be trying to convey:

• Yes, Jade is rebellious, but she doesn't hate/resent her life. She just would like a little more freedom.
• Her parents disapprove of her interest in dragons, which is why she often sneaks off to the dragon rock and reads books about them in secret.
• She is pretty, but she doesn't really think about that. She thinks of herself as awkward and a bit lacking compared to her beautiful sisters. Mainly, it's because of how her mother (Queen Gemera) treats her compared to her other siblings.
• She is more at home under the stars than in a gilded bedchamber.
• She does not have any intentions of "running away" from an arranged marriage. She's known all her life that her husband would be chosen for her, she just doesn't necessarily like the idea. The thing she flips out about is that her intended husband is a DRAGONSLAYER.
• She is considered odd and an outsider by the people of Thorndarl, but she's not hated or shunned or ridiculed. She just bemuses people.

I'll try to convey this better in the first chapter, but, I'm have to shake my head a little at the people who want all this character building shoved in the first chapter. It's a novel, people. That means it has room to breathe and room to grow. I don't want my character to come across as stereotypical, but I'm not going to change her to make everyone happy. 

I'll Never Be As Cool As This!

So, Tahereh has invaded the blogosphere with another awesome contest. I was lucky enough to have her comment on my blog a couple of times, so I naturally followed her home and found her blog (which I now follow religiously (or is it anti-religiously?)). But anyways, if you can come up with a story of how you are bestie best friends with her, you can win some awesome prizes, including a critique of the first 10 pages of your novel by Tahereh's agent Amy Tipton or a critique of your query by the (in)famous Rejectionist . Plus money for books and FREE books. Yay!

Here's the link , but I must warn you that I'm going to knock her socks off (or at least shoes) with my bestie-best friend story so bring your A game.

Mediocrity (Meow) and all that it enTAILS

Dork Moment:

I used to watch those $5 cartoons that you'd buy at the grocery store as spin-offs of the Disney stories because, well, my parents weren't made of money. But! There was this one cartoon about a cat, fishing, who sang a little song about Curiosity. For some reason, I still remember it. And then, today, I rewrote it to fit my life.

Original version:

Curiosity. Meow.
Curiosity. Meow.
Don't know why
I snoop and pry
To satisfy
My cur-i-os-ity!!!
Meow.

Brandi's version:

Mediocrity. Mawr.
Mediocrity. Mawr.
Don't know why
I try and try
No one'll buy
My med-i-oc-rity!!!
Mawr.

Yes, I know. It's a bit self-deprecating, but it made me smile somehow.

As far as cats go, you might be happy to know that my cat no longer resembles a zombie, though he is still a bit odd looking. He's feeling much better though. Last night he was helping me cut out a pattern for the chair that I'm reupholstering (i.e. attacking the scissors, measuring tape, fabric and MY HANDS (I was bleeding. Seriously). Gypsy (my chihuahua) had to do her part as well and dug two very well-placed holes in my cushion. Needless to say, there was foam EVERYWHERE when I got home and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I did a fair amount of cussing, I know. Most of it, however, was at the sewing machine and not my animals. Sewing machines are evil. EVIL. I can figure out most mechanical things and I can't figure out how to thread the bobbin! ARGH!!! (It didn't occur to me to look on the internet for instructions (since the machine didn't come with any.))

But I have learned my lesson! Never again will I try to reupholster a chair. Or sew anything using a machine. Not unless I want to either A) Go insane or B) Kill someone. Most likely someone covered in fur. Or myself.