Fangirling.

Let’s talk about doing things that you’ve always wanted to do but never got the opportunity.

A couple months ago I was fiddling on Facebook, because that is what one does out of boredom, and came across a post in Broken Bow, Oklahoma about a popular food chef that was hosting a get together. I couldn’t help myself && went straight to the husband. I showed him the post, there, staring back at us was a large article about Jet Tila.

Jet. Freaking. Tila.

For my non-foodie-tv-show-watchers, Jet Tila is a popular TV chef that has a cult following. He may actually not have a cult following, but honestly, it feels like he does. I am one of said cult-followers. #teamjettila

I’m not even sure when I started liking him but one day I found myself watching any && everything that has to do with him. I’m sure everyone has some famous person they like like that.

Needless to say, I bought those tickets. We took a small vacation to Broken Bow – which now I understand why people like it there so much, it’s gorgeous. We left Wednesday and came back Saturday.

This is one of those posts I began writing weeks ago && figured it was time to finish it. Let’s talk through photos.

Stand by for the next installment of traveling for chefs. In June, we will be going to see Maneet Chauhan.

I wrote tonight.

I don’t know.

It’s not a secret. It’s never been a secret. I have two loves. Inanimate loves. We all know what they are. I haven’t spoken about anything else since I started this.

I still pay for this blog. I don’t write as much as I wish. I don’t write daily. Weekly. Monthly. I think about it. I will start a blog. Then save the draft. Then a year later, delete the draft. I probably have three or so right now. That have yet to be deleted.

The point?

Everyone knows I wrote a book. Frost. Took way too many years to write. Still not finished. I need it edited. I think it’s crap.

You know, Stephen King thought Carrie was crap. Even threw it away. Straight into the trash. His wife dug it out. Told him to publish it. But he had tried, multiple times, to publish short stories. I don’t know, maybe around that time he had.

I’ve never been published.

I did a thing once. Last year. Wrote poetry for a company that said they’d publish the poems into a book. Yes. Even I can be retarded. It’s been a year. Almost. Nothing. It’s okay, tho.

I wrote chapter one to my second book. The follow up to Frost. I plan to call it Frosted, if I ever write the whole book. Tonight tho, I wrote chapter one. It’s in a notebook. Will I keep it as is? I don’t know.

I don’t know where I’m going with the second book. I just know I left book one open. Could I never write another one and be on my way? Probably. No one has read it. No one really cares that I wrote it.

Except me.

I want to publish it. For myself, I think. Do I think I’ll make a million dollars and be able to write full time? Absolutely not.

If I publish Frost, it will be for me. Only me. Something that I did for myself.

But first, I have to have someone edit it.

I guess I lied. Someone has read it. Someone that said they’d edit it. Someone that is busy with their own life. Someone who can’t drop everything and do something like that for free. I get it. I won’t even say that I’m on the back burner again. Because I’m not. She’s just busy. People are busy.

Sometimes I’m busy.

But if I want something to happen for myself – I need to do it.

I know my writing issues. Maybe I can figure it out myself.

I’m scared tho. What if I take the time, publish it, then someone reads it and tells me that it’s horribly written. The story is okay, but it’s written horribly.

Then what?

Just because I can sometimes write a blog entry, doesn’t mean I can write. At the same time, how will I ever know if I can’t let someone read my writing.

She has read it. She told me she read it. Said the story is good. ++++ But, at the same time, she can see my errors. The errors I know I have. I just need help. But I can’t afford editors who do it for a living. I priced one once. Two cents per word. Doesn’t sound like a lot. But multiply $0.02 by 100,000 – then come at me again.

She is an old high school English teacher. I know she has the credentials. But at the same time, I can’t hurry her up when I am not paying her. She doesn’t want money, either. Just wants acknowledgement. That I can do.

But here I am. Still sulking. With chapter one written for book two.

Gods Library

Walking through Wal-Mart parking lot. I see a bumper sticker that said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, God’s already there”.

Which got me to thinking.

I tell people a lot that He already has a book written of your life – so He knows what’s happening tomorrow. Then started thinking about what His library would look like. 📖

Photo Credit goes to Nemanja Sekulic.

He said he used photoshop to do this with a picture of his dad in the middle.

Books.

I think I have realized that I may like books a lot of people don’t like.

I finished the Colleen Hoover book, “It Ends with Us”, yesterday. When I was scrolling through the comments about it on Goodreads, I realized a lot of people didn’t like the book. They called the book && author toxic because she didn’t add a “trigger warning” to the book. Apparently, according to the comments left, she didn’t want to add a trigger warning to it but what I’ve read from what she has said about the book, she hasn’t tried to play it off as anything other than what it is. That’s half the reason I read it.

I really enjoyed “It Ends with Us” – but I liked the backstory of Lily & Atlas more than Lily & Ryle. I mean, other than the obvious reason, I liked the journal entries that had to do with Atlas, their story was greater in my opinion than that of Ryle.

So, when I heard that “It Starts with Us” about Lily & Atlas, of course I want to read it. I went and added it to my “reading” section of Goodreads, and out of curiosity I was scrolling through the comments of the book. Reviews, if you will. Most of them say the same thing “why does this book exist?” – which seems harsh to me. Apparently, it exists because people wanted her to write it. Why ask her to write something then bash the book? I don’t know… a lot of the other comments were about how they don’t like Colleen Hoover and cannot understand why they or anyone else reads anything written by Colleen Hoover. Honestly, people seem to enjoy her books. Do I like Tessa Bailey more than Colleen Hoover? Yes, I do. But that’s just the slutty part of my brain.

Colleen Hoover does the “use your imagination on the fun parts”. Tessa Bailey goes into more detail. But other than that, their writing is similar.

Either way. I’m going to read “It Starts with Us” && see what I think about it. If I read it like I did the first one, I’ll be done tomorrow && I’ll let you know if this book should exist or not. I’m hoping for the best.

&& Here We Go.

I’m struggling tonight on what to write about. Been sitting in bed thinking – I just cannot seem to think of anything.

I finally finished reading “The New House” by Tessa Stimson. It basically finished the way I figured it would, but I was hoping it wouldn’t. I wanted more for that character. It was a tough read. I got to 35% read before it began getting good. Once I hit the ‘good spot’ I was able to read through the rest. So if you read it, don’t give up. (I had to read six novellas to actually finish it).

Today I started reading “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover. I’m half way through it right now. I should finish it tomorrow if not Saturday then I will start the second one.

I guess since my brain is bad I tonight I’m just going to curl up in bed while I Love Lucy plays in the background to get some sleep. I have work tomorrow.

The Right Direction.

I feel like I’m going in the right direction when it comes to getting back in the groove of writing.

I read a lot of authors takes on what makes them a good author and how they complete their books. The one thing that they all say “you have to write” (&& read). I know this isn’t quite what they had in mind when it comes to writing – they meant more of the whole, open word && start writing the story.

I have so many ideas in my head that I can’t make heads nor tails of most of it. There is one story I want to write – badly – but at the same time I’m not sure where to start. The other day I was reading about popular romance writers && how they start a book. One I read about said that she starts with a scene. The big scene. The IT scene. The scene the book travels to && makes a difference. Then she’ll build from that. Going backwards && to the end.

I have thought about starting at the end. Where does my story end? Why does it end like that? But when I sit down to start writing all my ideas just disappear && I’m left with nothing – which in turn makes me feel useless. I know it shouldn’t. But it does. Every. Single. Time.

But tonight I didn’t want to write a blog post. I just wanted to go to bed && forget about it. Instead, I forced myself up and into the other room to write. ((&& both rooms I have irritated the same cat. First I made him move out of my spot in bed. So he came into the computer room. Then I came in here && made him move out of my chair. He’s not happy with me.)) Like I said, I know this isn’t what any of them had in mind when they say to write – daily – but it’s a start, right?

I just need to work myself out of this slump so I can write the stories that hide in the darkness of my brain.

Revelations.

What have you recently had a revelation about?

I tell you hwat! I’m not liking the last couple days of questions. Hopefully they begin to get better. So another rambling post.

I finished the book I was reading today. && I thoroughly enjoyed it. Had a few cracks about white people in it, but honestly, the cracks weren’t too far off. I think I’m really starting to enjoy thrillers / mysteries. I don’t know what it was about “Almost Surely Dead” by Amina Akhtar, but duuuuuuuuuuude! If you’re in a reading slump I advise you to purchase this book. It’ll pull you straight out of it.

I started another, “The New House” by Tessa Stimson. A friend of mine is in a book club, which I’ve secretly always wanted to be in one, && she added me to their Facebook page – which I accepted. This month they picked this book to read so I’m quietly reading it myself. Why not? It was $0.99 for the Kindle book. I’m not very far into it, when I started reading it I was at work && it was shift change, so it got loud. Figured I’ll read some on it tomorrow – or possibly tonight if I don’t pass out quickly.

Today is Friday, I still haven’t heard back from the weight loss people. I remember when I first sent them a message about getting in with them it took them two weeks – so do I give them two weeks or call back Monday – wait, Monday is a Holiday – Tuesday? We got take out tonight for dinner because we were going to be out late. Boyfriend wanted pizza, so as we were walking into Dominoes to grab his stuff we had to walk by Catos. I sighed at the sight of it and just thought about how I am ready to be able to purchase clothes inside of a store. The last time I was able to do that I was nineteen. Since then it’s been online clothes with hopes that it actually fits.

I’m trying to think if I have anything else to ramble about before I log off && go to bed.

I think I’ve talked myself into beginning a new story. I don’t know if I will finish it or get irritated and toss the notebook out a window. But I’m going to attempt to begin something. I have had a few ideas that I really liked, I just have to get my brain straight so I can write. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

Counting..

Who can you count on the most in your life right now?

Logically, I’m smarter than to answer this in a public blog. Why? People in my life read this – they automatically think why can’t she count on me? && it wouldn’t matter who I put down as the people I can count on the most. I could say the Pope, && someone in my life would get butt hurt.

So let’s ramble a little instead. So I started a book called “Almost Surely Dead” by Amina Akhtar. I got it off Amazon for free this month, which I didn’t know was a thing. Let’s just say, I’m obsessed with this book. I read a review on Goodreads that said “this book helped me out of a reading slump”. I first thought, no way will it work. Dude! I can’t tell you enough how much I’m enjoying this book. I’m about half way through with it right now && I can’t wait to find out what happens && why it happened. I think I have figured everything out and BAM! I was wrong. But of course, that is what the author wanted.

I still haven’t wrote anything other than a daily blog post. It’s still something, right? Maybe a little more writing will help. Maybe a little more reading will help.

I called the weight loss doctor on Monday to set up an appointment to start the journey over. However, it’s Thursday, && they still haven’t called me back. When I called them I stayed on hold for thirty minutes – it was around 4 PM when I called them. After the thirty minutes they said they’ve been on the phone with insurance, which I do know takes a bit, && that they’d call me back. I haven’t heard anything as of yet. I’m hoping they haven’t given up on me. I had started the journey last year with them but money became an issue so I paused. Started talking to a different surgeon about going through them because my job would pay quite a bit on it, plus insurance, so it would be basically free. Free is good, right? However, even free isn’t enough when the dietician did nothing but yell at me every time we spoke.

Why’d she yell? They wanted me to lose 37 pounds, which doesn’t seem like a lot of weight, because it’s honestly not. However, with all of the meds I’m on (insulin included) I’m having a very hard time losing weight. Trust me, if I could, I wouldn’t be looking into the surgery. I need help! But all the dietician wanted to do was yell and scream. Which honestly, I thought I was making that up. I can be pretty sensitive. After one month I went into the living room where Boyfriend was and he asked me what the yelling was about? He had heard her yelling from three rooms over. That’s when I decided I didn’t want to go through them. So him && I talked && we figured out the money. Now, I’m just waiting for them to call me back. Hopefully they do soon so I can get the ball rolling again.

Dreams: Do they come true?

What do you think it will take to make your dreams come true?

I have always been curious if the “American Dream” is true? && is it only for people who weren’t born over here? I know that sounds horrible to even say, but sometimes I feel if you were born in America we don’t have the “American Dream” because we’re already American. But I guess that’s for a different day.

What do I think I need to make my dreams come true? Depends on which dream we are talking about. I don’t know if it’s normal for one person to have a couple dreams. But we’ll break each one down.

Writing/Publish a Book: We all knew this was going to be number one. It’s the dream I have had since I was in fifth grade when I started writing to begin with. I know what it’ll take, I don’t have to give it much thought. I have to get out of my head. Being stuck inside of your own head is a dangerous place to be. && that’s what holds me back a lot. I worry too much about what people will think of my writing instead of realizing that I’m a better writer than what I see in my head.

I need to stop being so scared of people reading what I write. Yes, I know I write in this. But this writing seems different in my head than writing a story. && technically it is. This is me just typing out thoughts and putting them on a screen. A story has to have plots, and ideas, and follow through, and understanding, and great characters. That’s what scares me. You know, to this day, only one person has fully read Frost from start to finish.
Making money from this blog: I know it’s possible for people to make a side hustle using their blog. There are things called “Mommy Blogs”, “Food Blogs”, “Book Blogs”. But they have the one thing I don’t. A theme. A reason to write a blog. I have been writing a blog on and off since I was seventeen. SEVEN. TEEN. That’s been nearly 20 years of me writing a blog && I have a following on here of less than 300. I’m about 75% sure it’s because I have no theme.

I have thought about turning it into a book blog. Writing about books I read and what I thought of them && if I recommend them. I shot that thought away when I realized that I don’t read enough to do that. I read a lot – usually – if I’m not in a slump, however, I get in slumps a lot.

I gave travel food blogger a thought for about three minutes. Then I realized I don’t travel – so I thought, what about just food? I know food blogs are interesting if written by the correct person, but I’m pretty sure no one wants to read about what I cook for dinner every night. Plus, I’m not sure if I’d have enough content for it. Also, uploading pictures on here is a headache.

I’m not a mommy so mommy blog is out the window. I am an Aunt, but no one writes an Aunt Blog. That’s silly.

So it’s left me blank. Which is what has brought me to where I’m at today. Just a blog about whatever I can think of writing about. Maybe I’ll write about a book that I enjoyed reading or maybe I come across a recipe that really stuck out or possible I liked a kitchen gadget really well && I want to talk about that. Maybe a drink I can’t live without, or a new product I found that made me smile. Do I think this idea will ever bring me to making money off of it? No, I don’t. Because if I haven’t in that last 20 years, I doubt it’ll start now. So the blog itself, I guess, is more for me. But trust me, if you like it, please follow & share && enjoy.
Cooking/Food Truck: I haven’t had this dream as long as the writing side of me. I didn’t start cooking until I was 15 && that was out of necessity. Fifteen is when I lost my mother which left me, my dad && brother. I didn’t want to live on bologna sandwiches for the rest of my life, so I began to learn to cook. However, I didn’t begin to enjoy cooking until I was nineteen. That’s when I started reading cookbooks, and watching cooking shows, and coming up with my own recipes.

So the food truck / traveling blogger dream didn’t appear until it was way to late to really do much with cooking. There are so many programs out there for younger people who enjoy cooking – however, once you hit eighteen, just like any other profession, you are screwed.

But to get that dream – I need money. I could be the best cook in the state of Oklahoma, but without money, or a backer, you don’t have anyway of starting up a food business. I think I could make money off this blog before I could get a food truck. To be a traveling food blogger you need money. I’m not going to be one of those people who travel somewhere then tell the people “you let me have this for free because I’m a blogger && it’ll bring you more business.” && yes, people do that. && if you do that, && you’re reading this – STOP IT. Pay the businesses like the rest of the people && if you like it then tell your followers that you liked it && they can go enjoy it themselves by paying the businesses. && go for small businesses. They need it a lot more than some huge butt chain of butt people. No one likes butt people.

So, here I sit. Daily. Writing in this blog. Hoping inspiration hits && I don’t have to only write these daily prompts out of this book. Remember, if you like this topic, write it in yours but attach my blog to it. && if you’re curious about the book, “A 5 Year Question A Day? Memory Journal” – I bought it at Wal-Mart. (&& no, if you click the link I will get nothing from it.) But that’s the book I keep getting the prompts out of. If you buy it && start using them – somehow credit me. Bring me the views. ❤️

Day Six.

What do you need to make more time for?

I feel like this question is asked a lot to people && they usually say the same thing: “I need to make more time for myself.” && in some sense, that’s what I need to do. But it’s more about doing things I like versus making more time for myself.

I feel like the ones who say “I need more time for myself” is talking about making new routines, or just sitting around for themselves. I want to find a peace I haven’t felt in a long time when it comes to things I enjoy doing. Things that make me happy. I don’t want to find a way to make myself happy, I know what makes me happy already. I just need to go back to it.

Reading makes me happy. Every now && again I’ll get in reading slumps which at times can be really hard to get out of. I’m in one right now. I carry around two books all the time: “The Witcher: The Last Wish” by Andrzej Sapkowski && “Wreck The Halls” by Tessa Bailey. I go to pick one of them up && I can’t just read it. I do this. I want to get back to where I was when I didn’t get in slumps. That I could pick up any book && either read it or not.

Writing makes me happy. Since I technically finished “Frost” completely I haven’t written a single thing. I can’t even write a paragraph that makes sense. I have so many thoughts of things to write about, but when I sit down to write all I draw is complete blanks. Some of the ideas would make great novels. But they just sit in my brain. Doing nothing but taking up space. These blogs I’ve written the last few weeks is the most I’ve written. Maybe I’m in a writing slump too. Maybe I’m in a word slump.

Cooking makes me happy. I’m not sure why but lately I haven’t been wanting to cook. Boyfriend bought me a 12 piece Hexclad set for Christmas this year. I have used it a couple times since he bought it. I know it’s only January 6th, so it’s not like I have had it for a year, but most people who loves to cook would already be putting some mileage in it. Me? Food just hasn’t been my friend lately. Nothing sounds good – all I have wanted is soup. (Which isn’t a big deal, I get in this mood every now && again.)

I think right now I just don’t feel good. But I do know I need to find time to do the things that make me happy. Find a joy in them again. Find something that may feel like it’s missing. Maybe writing every day in this will help with my word slump I have going. Maybe it’ll help me find the passion and drive I normally have when it comes to reading, writing && cooking.