First Snow

Today has really been a strange day. Our family was planning on going on a trip this weekend - my mom got a half day off school (I didn't have school today), we'd all packed the night before, and I even had to get out of bed before I wanted to just to get ready! Then, about fifteen minutes before we would have left, I went out to feed and check on my rabbit. He wasn't normal.

Usually he's really chipper, and whenever someone comes outside by his hutch he immediately gets up and tries to get your attention. And he absolutely adooores apples. I brought him a whole (small) apple, and was giving him lots of food, yet he seemed to have no interest in any of it. He didn't even come over and "say hi" to me! I've had other rabbits that were acting sluggish and I dismissed it as tiredness or a change in the seasons, and shortly after they died. I've also had a rabbit who died while we were on vacation. Not wanting either of those things to happen again, I freaked out.

This was on a deeper level than just freaking out. So I suppose I should say I was upset. I cried, ok? He's my pet, I love him, we were going to leave, and I was worried that he would die while we were gone! So naturally, I was upset. After some consideration, convincing my parents that this was a valid worry, blah blah blah, we went to the vet. (Yes, the vet was open, and yes, my dad would drive me, and yes, they were willing to delay the trip on a suspicion that I have...I have amazing parents.) Describing the visit to the vet would take way longer than I have to spend right now, so in short, he has a hairball. Keep in mind that I did say in short.

So we decided to all stay home, because of the rabbit, which totally changed our plans. All of us were quite thrown off by it, and I'm glad I had the distraction of a rabbit that needed to be force-fed to keep me from dwelling too much on the fact that I would be home all weekend.

But, as my dad pointed out later, what if we hadn't been planning on going anywhere? I wouldn't have paid nearly as close attention to my rabbit's mood, and we probably wouldn't have gone to the vet so urgently. And then he could have gotten worse or even died! So I suppose this was one of those times when things just seem to work out together, and all depend on each other. Fate, I would call it.

Today was also the first snow. Isn't sticking, the flakes aren't huge, but it's still snowing.
And I love it.

I feel like such a little child again when it snows. I run around, laughing and smiling and sticking out my tongue to catch the flakes. I forget everything else, because nothing else seems to matter in that moment. Just that those tiny, amazing little snowflakes are falling from the sky in the first time in (approximately) 365 days. I even cried some tears of joy tonight when I went outside to check on my rabbit (who is doing well now). Tears for him being all right, for the snow, for the fact that even though this weekend isn't going to be as expected it'll still be all right, tears for the fact that I can have tears of joy instead of misery. I hardly ever cry like that, in such a nice way, and it felt good.

By the way, NaNoWriMo is going amazingly swell (hmm, I should use that word more...). I settled on a wonderful idea, and so far all the writing that I've done has amazed me in its splendor! So I'm very proud of myself ;). Plus I'm ahead of where I have to be to achieve my word goal!

Good night, world. I hope someone out there is listening...or will listen, anyway. Good night, world, and happy first snow.

Today and This Blog

First, let me just say Happy Halloween.

(Side note: Why isn't trick or treating on Halloween these days? Halloween has completely lost its meaning. Sad, really... but this is beside the point.)

Today's one of those useless days. Well, it's a good day, I can't deny that, but I'm not getting much done. I want to be...but my mind is too full of mush. Actually, it's too full of ideas, and they all get thrown into a blender and churned up into mush, and it's hard to keep the top on...yes, sadly, I can't keep all of them from flying out, and some are lost.

I find myself wanting to do so much, to write so much, to read so much, to show the world so much about who I can be that I end up doing absolutely nothing. Nothing is never good, so I decided to start a blog.

I've started blogs before, but they were pointless ones. Yes, this is really just for my own therapy, but i feel like maybe someone out there will discover it and get hooked, and maybe care just a little about what I have to say that they keep reading. Sorry for the rambling...it's why I'm here though.

So I find myself sitting in my extremely comfortable easy chair by the wood-burning fireplace in my house on a Sunday evening, totally comfortable and relaxed, and my eyes about to close from hardly sleeping last night, and thinking about NaNoWriMo.

That's right. National Novel Writing Month. The challenge to complete an entire novel in only 30 days.

Right now the task seems so impossible that I think I might just write a fictional account of myself writing a novel in a month (yes, that was one of my ideas); being impossible, it's the perfect thing to write fiction about. But who would want to read that? I wouldn't even. So I turned that idea down before even considering that. Plenty of other ideas are racing through my head, but first I feel as if I must decided whether I want this novel to primarily be focused on a world, a character, or an idea/theme. As I said in an email I sent to my friend earlier:

"...if i want my nanowrimo novel to meaningful or just fun...if i want it to be eventful or idea-ful..."

I also mentioned that I thought a blog would be a wonderful way to complain. So I apologize in advance. Oh, I said "an ultimate complaining tool." Gosh that's degrading. I really am sorry.

Back to the novel. I'm still undecided as to what to write. That'll probably always be the case, so I suppose I should say I'm undecided as to what kind of story I want to write. Yes. That's the biggest problem right now. I have ideas I could fall back on, but my question is always: will I be satisfied with that? What if it turns out to not be as great as I thought it would be? And how the HECK am I going to start this thing?

That last question remains at the top of the list for every piece of writing I do and sometimes doesn't even seem to be answered even after I've written it.

I have a short attention span with things like this. I'm also a perfectionist. Strange combination, because as a perfectionist I take extra long on things. But I have to be thoroughly engaged in whatever that thing is, entirely engrossed it in, or else I won't finish it. And that means it has to be interesting, and deep, meaningful, fun, something I can learn from...and unfortunately those come in kind of short supply.

I haven't said much in all this writing, but the point is this: I'm stuck at the moment, and I need to get unstuck, so I thought I'd write about my stuck-ness. This makes me feel like at least someone might read it, rather than the impossibility of that with saving it on a word document in my computer.

Here's my purpose as a writer (probably should have mentioned this earlier): to express my opinion of life's challenges and my love of words through various arrangements of words, whether that be poems, stories, character sketches, descriptions of scenes, speeches, essays, ideas, mythical creatures... I also want to show who I am and what I can be and all that I stand for.

So there. My mission. In words. About words. For words.

Again, Happy Halloween, and wish me luck, whoever you are, on NaNoWriMo.