Twice in one week... popping on here... feeling like blogging, but nothing much to say. I'm not sure what that means -- the need to babble when I don't know what to babble about. I guess sometimes I'm full of words and they need to come out somewhere. And not in the form of an email pitch to a writer or an editor asking them (very nicely) to write about my band(s). Those are fun a lot of the time. But sometimes, words escape me in that context. Oh, don't get me wrong. I have plenty of words. But, at this particular moment, they're refusing to comport themselves properly. They're not spewing out of my keyboard in a well-written, concise, witty fashion. It's times like that when I have to take a step back and not do work emails.

So what do I do instead? I write on here. Which is a more public forum and therefore should be reserved for times when the words are not only comporting themselves properly, but are also cavorting and frolicking in the best way possible. Is that happening now? Not so much. So forgive me my lack of frolic. It's not because I love you less than the writers and editors. I just have to put the words somewhere. I'm sure you understand.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a writer. People find it strange that I can be a writer and a designer. Something about right brain/left brain, I guess. Words and language are left brain. Symbols, images and visual stuff is right brain. So I guess I'm a bit of an anomaly. I flip-flop between the two with a great deal of ease. Not sure how I manage that. I'm not a math/science person, and that is left brain. If I were to guess, I would imagine I'd be right brain dominant, but I have no idea really.

So I Googled, as one does to find out more, and I found this: right vs. left brain. Interestingly enough, the first response I had was left brained. She was turning counter-clockwise. But when I looked at her again, she was turning clockwise. I'm not sure what this means. Perhaps I do jump between the two. Looking at the left brain list, I am very much a logical person. Very detail oriented. But on the right brain side, I'm very strong on the imagination and spatial perception fronts (I scored ridiculously high on a standardized test in school on "spatial relationships"). So maybe the fact that writing and design are both passions of mine makes sense.

So I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I wrote a book. I started it in 1997. Finished it in 2003 (took me forever if you look at it, but I really wrote it in two concentrated several-month-long spurts... took me maybe seven or eight months all total). I had some people read it, critique it, give me feedback. Overwhelming positive comments. I started looking around for an agent, because to get a book published, you really need one.

But then life and my day job and a move in the middle of all of that really brought the process to a grinding halt. I put the book aside. Hadn't even LOOKED at the manuscript in the past four years. And suddenly, I wanted to take it out again last night and read it. See if it stood up to the test of time... would it still be ok all these years later or would I read it, snicker, and wonder what the hell I was thinking by writing it in the first place...

Well, 80 pages later, I am completely caught up in my own manuscript! Oy. I can't believe I'm admitting this here. It sounds so blatantly egotistical, but you have to realize, I haven't looked at this thing in YEARS. Not a glance in its general direction. I know the whole story. I know what happens. But I forgot all of the great and laugh-out-loud funny details I put in there. I found myself saying to myself, "I can't believe I wrote this." I sound so completely full of myself. And I'm not really. I guess I'm kinda proud of it, truth be told. Even if it never gets published, I wrote a book. How many people can say that? I'll have to let you know how the rest of it seems once I finish it. It could suck by the end of it. Who knows.

So I started having this little fantasy of having my book published last night while I was trying to fall asleep (and really wanting to sneak downstairs and keep reading, but it was already 1:30 a.m. and I needed rest). And it made me start thinking that I might want to try. I don't know. I'm not sure I'm up for the rejection that is certain to follow. Who wants to set themselves up for that willingly? My other big issue is severe lack of time. I would, of course, curtail my Mental Blocks playing on Facebook to make something like this happen. But how do I do that AND my day job AND continue to design? I need the former to pay the bills. I need the latter for my mental health (because nothing de-stresses me like a good PhotoShop session...therapy in software form). But writing... playing with words... that feeds my soul too...

I'll continue reading. See if it's worth my time. It does need one more edit before I'd send it off, but I have to say that so far, I don't have a lot to tweak. Minimal things... some culture references that need to be updated, a detail here or there that I want to fiddle with, but so far, I'm digging the book.

And I got the genesis of a plot for a second book as I was falling asleep last night. I might have to write another one soon. Maybe that's why the words are wanting to come out. The writing muse has awoken from her long-time slumber.

We shall see.

So now you know my secret. Well, one of them, anyway. Surprised?