Chug Chug Chug

This is the sound of the engine running out of steam, only partway up the hill. How did that damned story go? I forget.... Sometimes thinking that you can ain't enough. You just have to KNOW it in your gut. I talked with Anders today and said, I've had block for 3 days man, 3 days! I don't know if I can do this..I'm at 32,000 words and I only have 10 days left.." And Anders said "Of course you'll make it." And that was that. Now I'm at 38,000 words, sailing right along with some other, underused characters that I enjoyed introducing way back on November 6th or something and they are carrying their part of the story quite happily.

To see how I'm doing, you can check the Official NaNoWriMo link. There's a Facebook dealie that updates my word count on my status, but I don't think I can link it here. I have captured today's pic of my progress for you to admire though, so that's fun.

It is dismal and grey outside, but the cats enjoyed gamboling around chasing leaves. They were happy to get in though, as it's a trifle cold. This time next week I'll be ensconced in my new Joe Job at Stats once more. It is surreal to me that I'm returning. Hopefully I can crank out another 12,000 words before going back so I won't fail the NaNoWriMo :-P

My story shows absolutely no intention of coming to an end neatly at the 50,000 word mark. It's funny, looking back at my "Terra del Meurto" story, when I'd reached 31,000 words over the Labour Day Weekend, that was it. It was done. I was left with the truncated bits of 3-Day novel in my lap, begging to be re-cut, rewritten and finished. I'm not even going to look at that until I finish this. And this has taken on a wondrous life of its own. It is a marvel, living and breathing on the page. The characters are fun and I don't have a clue what they'll do. I've set them up like pins and I keep throwing a ball. Sometimes I miss, sometimes I strike, sometimes the lane extends the length of two football fields. Go figure.

The joy is that barring the quote I've just added (I'm sure Adams would've appreciated the irony!) deadlines seem to be the fuel, fire and combustion I need to keep going. I forget where I heard this quote from ... Robert Genn? That: "A Goal without a deadline is a wish." Fantastic. The more goals/ challenges I have provided for myself, the more I have produced and I am delighted. It is exhausting, exhilarating and thoroughly satisfying work in which to be involved.

I'm hoping the joy and pulse of creativity can keep me sane as I return to the 9-5 drudgery of our modern life. If not, I'll try holding off the crashing and burning until the debts have been cleared up at least.

Cheers!
Suzanne.

PS--thoroughly enjoying reading "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain; 1960's hardcover edition with illustrations and unabridged. Wonderful language!

Somewhere over the Rainbow

"Somewhere Over The Rainbow"
Music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far
Behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow.
Why then, oh why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can't I?

I keep pinching myself, and realize it's not a dream, or a poppy-induced hallucination, or even (occasionally) a psychotic episode. I'm free. A limited pass, acknowledged, but for the time being (May 14 - July 6th) my personal leave from Stats is in place, signed in triplicate by various people (some of whom I have not met) and approved.

56 days.

Why do I feel as if they will fly by as quickly as any weekend, a mimeographed blur of sweet May winds, balmy 22 degree C. temperatures, cheap hops in bottles, dandelions bobbing egg-yolk heads as I trip and waltz over cracked asphalt. It will flit like rods in blurry video-images. It will dash and gaily blurt beep! beep! even as I spin and blink bewildered Wiley Eyes.

Until I learn to Stop Time. Or bend and fold time like a balky empty cardboard box, flexing in trembling arms, collapsing into a resisting accordion. Now You Will Slow Down For Me. My days will slow down. I order this; command that trickling minutes be transformed into piles and piles of seconds; bumping one another and asking why the line won't move?

My Spring's end, my Summer's beginning. My sweet, silent, time of memory, reflection, beauty, freedom and art. A mere trickle of days gathered like precious fallen leaves in supplicant's folded hands, ever grateful for specks of time.

So; what happened?

I got an offer I couldn't refuse to do some freelance animation, something I haven't done in a few years. Of course, I spent some time trying to figure out what the hell to do. As usual, most of my rumination and self-induced stress pushed me in several directions at once. But, for once, I didn't wait for the easy road to unfold like a squeezed up cellophane ball. I said: Self, if you let this baby slide by, then you're not allowed to complain about Stats ever again. Got it? You'll have to march in grey jumpsuited delirium until you drop dead or retire and you wont' be allowed to whine about it.

Actually I think Clay said that and I agreed soberly.



I'm currently helping my friend Nick work on Storyboards for Nelvana's animated show Wayside, based on the popular kid's books by Louis Sachar. Nick roughs the boards and I get to clean them up. And it is SO GOOD to be drawing again; it is like when you have dealt with having pain for so long (like an irksome toothache) that it's second nature and then suddenly, it's gone. Gone. And you bite down on a carrot and it doesn't send a nail of pain puncturing your frontal lobe. Drawing = no pain. Wow.

I didn't know I could get leave from a job. Correction; a gov't job. But, yes, you can apply and you can go and do whatever the heck it is you need to do(maternity, going to school, traveling in the Alps, becoming a joint Producer and/or Owner of a failing animation company... ehhh...) and come back to your job. I think all I have to pay back is my pension. Man! Any other job from my past the answer you'd get to a proposition of a need for some time off would be: "Sure, enjoy your time off.. Don't come back." (Followed by the waving of a cheery pink slip.)

So, I will report more when there is more to report. I have been negligent of my poor Blogs, sorry. I got sucked into Facebook :-O I will post a funny drawing I manipulated for a Facebook Group called the Super Hero Secret Identity Network. (S.H.S.I.N.) Usually I can do better PhotoShop drawings, but for some reason my colour is really off. I probably have screwed up a setting on it or something!

Oh, and the intro pic at the top of the post is a drawing I made for the Care2 site's Suicide Intervention group, started by my friend Heidi Thomson. Check it out if you are feeling blue and need to talk.

Cheers all!
xx-oo
Suzanne.

I Dominate evil-doers with my patented Brom-inator cudgel. It runs off a car battery. YAY!

I don't make this $@*# up..

The horror..the horror...