Would you like some guilt with that cake?

So I'm about to do that thing I said I wouldn't do, but its my birthday so I'm giving myself a pass.

I felt I needed to check in on my little home here. Its a little sad and dull, but I have an amazing friend who is on board with taking some pictures for me to liven the place up. However she is currently gimping around on crutches after a freak injury chasing down Frankie Munoz...I mean  Channing Tatum. It was totally Channing Tatum, because who tries to run down Frankie Munoz for a picture? Nobody I know, that's for sure.

Anyways...

It may look neglected, but I think about it regularly and I'm disappointed I haven't managed to produce more as I had originally intended. Of course I thought I would be able to put out a story each week, and quickly realized that was a lot of stress. I get stressed and my creativity collapses.

So I figured every two weeks was reasonable, which it is, until something bigger creeps into my mind. I have only neglected this space because not one, but two new seeds have sprouted into what might one day grow into actual books. Its early yet. I usually get fired up about a story and plow away for some time until I wake up one day and realize its terrible.

Its the inevitable fourth chapter. Its my nemesis. Its scarier than clowns. You know clowns are creepy as hell, thank you Tim Curry and Stephen King. I do find it ironic that Tim Curry as a clown is much scarier than him portraying a demon in Legend, even with the bad ass make up. The green goblin dude though...stuff nightmares are made of. Kinda like chapter four.  When I reach that milestone I just don't know where to go with it. Its too early for an actual crux in the story, but if I don't move something along it will be be at a dragging pace. I am refusing to let chapter four kill me this time.

I've made an arrangement with a friend that is also trying to get back into writing. Every two weeks as of May first we  have to hand in something to each other to prove we have been making progress. It won't be about critiques and such, just giving each other deadlines.

I know part of it is procrastination, but there is more to it. Fear. I want this to work so much that the thought of it not working scares me. (See goblin/clown reference above and multiply by a full sized Easter bunny costume. Yeah, that scary.) I have a huge admiration for people who know what they want and charge with no intention of taking prisoners let alone the words "I can't".

I have an amazing friend who took her first scary leap, and she will succeed because she is one of those people. She wants to write, and needs to be writing. She needed inspiration one day, so I found a prompt consisting of four words. In under an hour she killed it. See for yourself:

http://totallyrandombut.blogspot.com/2012/03/four-words-and-story.html

When she tells a story, there is something so honest and moving in her words I can't help but be engaged and fully invested in what I'm reading. She has other stories in her blog too. Go check them out and tell her I sent you with a gallon sized Starbucks.

So, with her bravery as inspiration and a new deadline I'm laying another one down here. Back to two stories a month, that includes April. I slacked so I have to cowgirl up and get it done. I'm telling all of you so the guilt alone will motivate me, but feel free to send a snide remark my way now and again.

In the spirit of all this, I might possibly be taking a writing class this fall. Through a serious of totally random events (which is pretty much how everything happens in my world) I discovered a class in the fall being taught by a professor I know. Why is she so special? Well, this woman stopped me in the middle of campus one day to tell me that I needed to do something with my writing and not let it go to waste. That will stick to you like peanut butter on the roof of your mouth. Its not a definite, but I know she's full of tough love and that's what I need.

At this point I just need to keep moving forward.

This rant has been brought to you by the birthday angst of "oh great another year and still nothing."