Tag: Writing Projects

Taking A Gap Year To Write A Book

Dear Internet,
A few weeks ago, I teased there was a big announcement coming, and I am finally in a position to make that announcement:

I’m taking a gap year to write a (fiction) book(s).

Come July 1, 2014, I will officially have the new status of “writer in residence at Throbbing Manor/Cabin.”
Many of you, hell most of the population probably already knows this since I’ve had to tell people privately for a variety of reasons over the last couple of months, but I wanted something official and concrete on paper. I was holding out until I got the official rejection from the job I interviewed for in April1. I was also holding out until I could get in touch with a few close friends so they knew before it became a Facebook status update. I was able to make that last final personal connection on Friday, so here we are!
Here are some of the big questions I’ve been asked: How did I get here, what am I writing, and what is happening with library land?
How did I get here
This is all TheHusband’s idea.
Truly.
He’s known me forever (nearly two decades) and he knows the ultimate goal in my life was to write books. While he’s pretty supportive of my ideas, he also knows me well enough to know I can only handle one big thing at a time; whether that thing is a job, writing, or getting a degree. I’ve conceded long ago I’m not someone who can multitask big projects easily. Before I left my job at UUNet in 2002 to go back to university full time, I had signed up, attended classes, and either dropped or failed out of three colleges. If I wanted my undergrad degree, it had to be THE ONLY thing — I could not work full time and go to class. Once I made it the only thing, then I sailed through it with a breeze (while amping up my GPA from 1.7 to 3.3).
But you know, life happens. It always happens. I had an opportunity to write full time in between degrees, but choose not to because I wanted cash in the pocket,as I was tired of being broke, more than my dream. I had a second opportunity after I graduated from library school and I was on that dreadful job hunt where I applied for 114 jobs over 8 months before landing at GRCC. TheHusband bargained if I could not get a job within 100 applications, I could write full time. I pushed on to 114 as we had just moved to Grand Rapids and boom! Job at GRCC.
“I’ll write part-time,” I said. (Look how well that turned out.)
For the last year, I’ve been in big debate about whether or not to accept the contract when it came up for renewal. Six months ago, I found out they were not renewing my contract and if I wanted to keep my job, I had to reapply just like everyone else on the open market. In January, I knew for sure I was not going to reapply for the position. After making that decision, I started the arduous task of the job hunt version 2.0.
Even during mania, I would get crushed under the soul sucking weight of job hunting and with each opportunity came along, I did not feel elated — I felt like I was being ripped apart. TheHusband and I sat down and ran budget simulations, figures, and possible outcomes across a wide variety of scenarios. Right after I phone interviewed with the California institution, TheHusband came to me and said, “Why not take a year off to write?” His reasoning was it would be much cheaper for us to stay put while I wrote, where we could maintain our current lifestyle (with some heavy regulation), without putting us in massive debt. I lept at the chance. And mentally felt like I lost a massive weight on my soul.
Since we made this decision two days before I was scheduled to fly out for my second interview, we decided if they offered me the job and it was beyond fantastic, I’d take it. Anything else, we would not accept or if I was passed on the position then I would go forth and write.
What am I writing
I’ve got numerous projects already lined up:

  • I’ll be co-editing a non-fiction book on lib/tech/gender issues that is slated to come out next year #fingerscrossed
  • In the fiction realm (which is why I’m taking the time off), I’ve got two books in process (one of them my edwardian series I’ve been keen on for the last three years to finish), and one, possibly two, anthology of short stories based on two different cycles
  • Graphic novel
  • Other projects / ideas
  • Freelance work

TheHusband and I spent some considerable time putting together a business plan (not a typo) on how create, manage, and also make passive income while I’m writing. I still need to work out a schedule, and we’re thinking of getting space at a local a co-working joint. There is a lot of back end work that needs to be done in conjunction while I write.
What is happening with library land
Or more to the point, “What happens if you fail miserably and everyone hates your books?” Easy: I’ll go back into librarianship. TheHusband and I have not defined what it means to be successful yet, but the low bar is any kind of income I can generate from writing. Then who knows.
I’m still very much want to be on the pulse of the profession, so for many of you, it will be like I’ve never left. I’m keeping my memberships and plan to still be active. I’ve got a few projects that I will be working on, but as for the day to day stuff, I won’t be there.
This is already getting far lengthier than I had anticipated, so expect more tidbits and updates on this to continue.
But I just want to say, to those whom I’ve already told and whose support was not even a teeny bit wavering on this new path: THANK YOU! ♥ Seriously, I am floored by how supportive people have been. I love you all!
x0x0,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe:


1. I met my competitor at a conference prior to our interviews and we were in simultaneous shock when we discovered we were both being flown out to do the second round. After my interview, I was told it would be 1-2 weeks for the decision. I found out within that period, from my competitor, they had offered him the job, he had already negotiated his salary, and was in the final throes of finalizing details. I had YET to hear from the institution, so I waited. Three weeks after the interview, I emailed my contact a polite follow up request and it was nearly another week before they got back to me. So we’re a month plus past my interview and I’ve already known via the Internet I didn’t get the job for nearly three weeks of that time.

the symbol of the thing in the thing itself

Dear Internet,
I want to take Chingy’s Holidae In and gender reverse the roles, something along the lines of Law Revue Girls’ Defined Lines. As I can neither rap and laughably have moves that no way indicate my decade of dance lessons as a child, someone else should get on that toot suite.

««««»»»»

TheHusband asked me how I was doing with the social media sabbatical, I found myself answering honestly — I kind of have not missed it. Oh sure, there have been times when I want to just brain dump and Twitter is a natural fit for that activity or there are times when I find this really awesome link and I can’t really share it excent on my weekly roundup, which doesn’t quite have the same satisfaction.
Before I took the sabbatical, I was often finding myself posting a link or a quote from somewhere and spending more than say 2 or 3 tweets giving my opinion on the matter. Which is, frankly, kind of useless giving the context of how Twitter works. Someone coming in on the middle of me bestowing random commentary would be confused. I was churning how to handle this since I recognize this is not Twitter’s intent and that I often get cross when others do the same trick. I came up with linking, asides of things I want to share but do not want to get buried in the weekly round-up.

««««»»»»

I’ve started Clarice Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart and it is beyond exquisite. I injected half the book in one sitting last night and had stop because I was getting woozy on a Lispector overdose. She adroitly does things to language and words, even in translation from Portuguese to English that is just breathtaking. I am having trouble reconciling that it was published in 1943 as it reads so contemporary. Reading Lispector is breathing flames under the muse for me and I’m reconsidering how to write fiction.

I’m terrible at fiction. I always feel so damned constricted when trying to form the rules of the game, my writing comes out halting and unsure. I’ve got brilliant ideas for stories, I see the stories in my head as they are played out but getting them onto paper? No. The ease of my language sounds immature and protracted. Sure, you could argue if I practice more it would mature and grow and there is some truth into that. But I think because I’ve been reading tightly bound prose for so long, I’m near drunk on Lispector’s stream of consciousness and realising that yes, this is how you do it. This is how you give birth to a story and how it will end.
Feral. Unstructured and messy, like life.
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2012, 2003

Brevis in longo

Dear Internet,
Apparently, I’m pretty prolific. In addition to upping my writing here, I’ve also been writing every day in DayOne, which I mentioned here, and also actually working on my fiction. There is one thing to be said for a humanities scholar: We know how to crank out verbiage like no one’s business. Between the three, and this is including the re-writes of public blog entires and the fiction, I’m cranking out about 5,000 words a day. And that is being conservative. Now how much of that is “good” writing? Hard to say, really. My writing in the public sphere tends to be tighter since I obsess over the editing, the writing on the private journal has better readability (because I an writing more freely and more about the minutia of my life), while the fiction writing is still uneven in a deckled edged way. Some of what I produce for the fiction side is dreck and other times, it’s pure gold.
(Also, I decided to style myself as a modern day Samuel Pepys, at least in my head.)
I think one of the reasons why this is becoming a lot easier is that I have finally figured out a system that works for me to keep all of this organized which was so problematic for me for years. I know, it’s crazy considering that I organize shit for a living, but I couldn’t organize my writing to really work for me until now. Finding the Day One app was probably the tipping point, and also being a heavy user of Evernote and Scrivener also helped.
Here’s the status of my current projects, and which will find it’s way to Readers. The main landing page for my writing will also have all posts about this topic on the page, and if a project has their own landing page, those too will have posts updated on their landing page. Thus, if you’re hot into Edwardian good times but not Viking gore, you can skip directly to the landing page for the Edwardian projet instead of slogging through all the posts about Vikings and everything else.

Books

Project Name: Cabinet Particulier
Status: Research
Details of the project on its own page, so I won’t repost them here. I started collecting the research in July and currently haven’t moved forward yet other than doing the readings. Ideally, I see this as a pretty big project (read book series) so I want to get it off to a good start and I have a vague idea of how the first book will go, I want to dig deeper into her world before I begin writing.
Project name: Unnamed Medieval project
Status: Idea formation and preliminary research
Details: At this point I know it’s going to concern a woman, possibly in Scotland, sometime before 1066. Possibly containing Vikings.

Short Fiction

Title: PETITIONS OF THE GODS
Status: 80% finished
Summary: From my notes: Anonymous protagonist gives background on the invitation, a brief history of the Althing, and beginning of the world creation.Our protagonist is losing power and she knows this. The struggle with her, and with others like her, is how to remain relevant in a world when less number of people are believing in them. What would you do to stay relevant?
The beginning and ending are strong, but I’m floundering in the middle. It’s already at 2500 words with some heavy revision in the last week, so much so that the outtakes have their own folder in Scrivener. TheHusband read one of the first drafts and liked a lot of the clever uses for explanation of things but I can’t unstick the sticky at the moment. While I think this is at 80%, I would not be surprised if I end up ripping it entirely apart and restructuring all of it.
Title: AD LIBITUM
Status: 80% finished
Summary: What happens inside the Sistine chapel when no one is looking? Answer: Sex, drugs, and disco.
Idea sparked a “what if” when reading an article tonight about Russia’s Golden Ring and the author wrote eloquently about the medieval cathedrals and churches they were visiting. The line, “Jesus jumped off the cross, stretched, and went to light a cigarette.”, which sparked the idea of what in the hell happens in a cathedral at night when no one is around? Within minutes, I found this gorgeous virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel and the story started writing itself.

———————————-

So far, I have nearly a dozen people signed up for Readers, which is awesome. I haven’t decided if I should close the request at this point or keep it open. I had planned on start pushing some of my older stuff through the list to get those cleaned up and publishable, but after reading through many of them decided not to. They are that wretched or I am not into the genre as much anymore or the story just doesn’t appeal to me. So they will stay buried in the digital trunk.
I’m so motivated to be creating again but I keep thinking what do I want to do with the stuff that I create? I definitely want it to be read by the world, but how to go about that is tap dancing in the back of my brain. Having been a bookseller for many years, I work now as a librarian, and then throw in all the writers, literary agents, artists, booksellers, and other people in the publishing world I either know personally or stalk online, I feel pretty grounded on the back end o the industry. I just want to make sure that I do the right thing by my work.
I was pretty thrilled to discover Duotrope yesterday in my quest to sort out submission organization for at least the short pieces because my librarian-fu was actually failing me looking for a comprehensive source for magazines, literary zines, and other such publications to submit my work to. At the very least, I know this is the path I want to take with my shorter fiction. I’m also thinking of some kind of crowdsourcing shenanigans might also be in place too. This is going to be amazing.
TTFN,
Lisa

Decadence Tackycake

For years I’ve talked about consolidating and collating every single thing I’ve written into a central, preferably online, location. And for years, I’ve ignored the digital written mess building up though I kept buying domains and designing pages like it was going out of style. I kept producing the near daily online journal, sure, but it was everything else (the prose, the poetry, the essays, the fiction and the absurd) that needed a separate digital home. Bits and pieces kept getting shoved about into folders and sub-folders, directories and strange cataloging systems that made sense to my 23, 28, 34 year old selves but that the 39 year old self could only ask, “What the bloody fuck is this mess?”
So years of “some day” and “perhaps next weekend” were piling up. Domains bought, produced and lapsed. Finally, it was thanks to our telephone lines getting cut this past Monday morning for the fifth or sixth time1, I found myself with plenty of time (and with lack of Internet comes no procrastination) and renewed interest to work on this project. I pillaged my hard drive, went digging through all the nooks and crannies.
Here is what I found:

  • 16 books outlined & started (Though to be fair, most of them are similar in theme to the other and some are only a chapter or two in.)
  • Hundreds, literally hundreds, of finished pieces written in a variety of formats (prose, poetry, non-fiction essays, stories, etc.) that were published $deity know where
  • Dozens of pieces started, notated and never quite finished.
  • Hundreds of web journal entries dating back to 1996, with web publication “officially”beginning in July, 1998. This is in combination of what was published on The Lisa Chronicles from 1998 forward AND LiveJournal entries from 2001 and forward. For a long time there was separation between the two, but consolidation between the two started in the late 2000s.

Mind, this is just the digital forms. This is not including all the materials & research I have in paper format from when I unearthed what I unpacked and sorted my office last week.
Not everything I wrote is pure brilliance. Or even witty. Or fuck, even good for that matter. But finding those chunks of writing that are so pure, the language so on target or even just a simple line is so beautiful, I question who the author is every single time. And every single time, I genuinely am surprised to find out that said author is me.
I am overwhelmed, not only with the voracity of my output, but with the range of topics from men to sex to jobs to emotions to state of affairs to current events. I pile on reviews on books, movies and music. I drop science and knowledge on so much goddamned information, philosophize about everything. I thought the discovery of my high school journals was bad, simply because I had much more material then I originally believed, but the digital format makes the analog look paltry.
Writing is such a fucked up career move. I’m not talking about the Cassandras who pontificate about the chances of a writer making a living off of their work (slim to none), or how difficult it is to break into traditional publishing (slim to none) or even finding an agent (slim to none). I’m talking about this catch-22 mythos that if you do not publish something of brilliance before you are 30, you are worthless. But by the same token, there are dozens of critics who postulate that clearly one cannot have written a masterpiece when one is under 30 because they have nothing of substance to write about, let alone publish. (We’re a pampered generation, after all.)
25 came and went. 30 came and went. 35 came and went. I ate myself alive knowing I would never make it to 20 Under 40 or make some supposed (depending on who you ask) prestigious book list for best young writer. I would not be crowed with my supposed speakers for my generation, at least those as assigned by Time. Many of whom, if you’ve asked me on such topics, I tend to wholly disagree with or find their work highly derivative.2 Or full of crap.
It was like those years of interviewing myself in front of a full-length mirror, prepping for my big interview with Arsenio Hall that sadly never came to pass, was all for naught?
This is what I told myself (and continue to tell myself) for weeks, months and years. All the while, being bitterly, insanely jealous of writers as I watch them come from under the pack and push forward to the big times. While I beat my chest in mea culpa, waiting for my own recognition when I’ve done what? As time moves forward, as opportunities (we believe) get more scarce, as we find ourselves tired and lacking of energy because our youth has faded past us. Because tomorrow, tomorrow tomorrow is always another day but we always seem to think we can get caught up, inbox zero, take time off of work.
And we never fucking do.
I installed in myself I had completed nothing, when discovering all these years later that was such a blatant mistruth. How could I have ignored so much of what was completed?
Why did I live vicariously through others, paralyzed by jealousy when the back list actually exists?
Why did I, in so many ways, sabotage myself?
It ends now.
I have so much work to do.

1. Major construction on our road, the telephone company (regardless of various incarnation of said company throughout the years did not bury our lines at the minimum of 18″ as policy but between 3-4″. In addition, some of the lines were not properly marked.
2. Except for Gary Shteyngart whom I harbor such a major fan-girl crush on, that it is kind of (but not quite), stalkerish in its intensity.

busy as a bee

I never did finish my NaNoWriMo novel, but congrats to the people who did. I had issues, matter and concerns happen in November and it was perhaps the overwhelming stress of trying to be wonder woman that I just threw down my lasso of truth and said ‘fuck it’.
modgirl.net has been nicely updated, much more than my LJ, which is fine. My new project was installing and using the patch for greymatter to add all the old entries in my journal and use a database instead of doing it singlehandedly. If you want to read the past, be my guest. I suppose I have this fetish that I need to get this completed sometime in my life. I have this fantasy where my children will find the web page and get a better understanding of my life. Nothing like living in the ether.
[Originally published at LiveJournal.]

11.13.01

Seven months from today I’ll be 30.
Last night Paul and I watched some tivo’d episodes of “AB Fab” and the one episode where Paul felt would be reflective of me is when Edina turns 40. He says her attitude is very reminiscent of what I’ll be like when I turn 30, or maybe when I do turn 40.
Rob and I had met for lunch yesterday at a Mexican place close to the vet, which timed out very well since I had go pick up Pugsley yesterday afternoon. I love our vet, even if they are nearly 1/2 hour away, they are open on the weekend for neuters. Pugsley returned home minus his balls and five teeth, and I returned home stuffed on Mexican food.
The talk turned to NaNoWriMo and my writing of the novel. Rob got very serious about literary criticism which wholly made me doubt what I had written. So last night for a few hours I went over what I had written and denounced it as such crap, I plan on re-writing it. I had this lovely idea in my head on what I wanted only to discover that I couldn’t finish it at the current state it was going through.
Last night in bed I half-awake mused that if I rewrote the first three chapters and pounded out 5k a words a night, I could finish the novel in 10 days, leaving me nine days of freedom.
Don’t think I won’t do this.
x0x0x

6290

is how many words I have so far.
I’m feeling really good about the story but, I”m finding I’m losing concentration some times because I keep jumping around. I have to take a break and get away from my lead character because she’s screaming to get out.
Tonight I’ll probably do homework and work on the story later. Decisions decisions.

NaNoWriMo

So,tonight Paul and I are on our way home when I start telling him about doing NaNoWriMo. I will be the first to admit it that I may not finish and that I may not even get somewhat done, but damn it, I want to be able to say I tried. Now, the thing is he said to me something that was unencouraging — and I don’t remember what it is off hand. But it really made me sad (which sounds trite but true) and he said something along the lines of “Well, you have had all these opportunities in these last few months and never followed through” (uh — huh?) and then he went on how it wasn’t my fault and he was encouraging me and that I hardly write anymore — well I DO write — quite a bit. I write to myself in paper journals and I write to friends and I post on all the boards that I’m on. I’m one mad writing fool. I was just fucking pissed that he said that shit to me. This is exactly what I mean by what he doesn’t even have a clue to what I like to do and what I’m about.
Goddamn.
I’m angry.
But yah. follow my progress here on livejournal or here.
x0x0x
Lisa

barnes and noble

Brian (Pauls brother) and I hit barnes and noble tonight for me to get some quality writing in and for brian to get out of the house for awhile. I came across a book in the clearance section called Writing For Self-Discovery. I had brought along my notebooks so I went ahead and sat in the cafe and started reading the damn thing. The first exercise on the very first page (which surprised me as most books go into more theory on why you should write before going to the nitty gritty) was to sit in one spot and write about what’s around you. Pick and object and go from there. This is what occurred:
barnes and noble cafe. people. feeling anxious. left breast has slight pains from being anxious. feeling stupid sitting solo at the cafe table with my white painted fingernails, people milling about. various people studying. remembering the cool cafe in Berkeley, CA where all the CalState kids went to. drank coffee. study. college. missing school. thinking of my father. small silver urn around my neck. thin people. beautiful people. grad school. college university. hard tables/chairs. people still here. sitting with Cathleen at the cafe. her sister Carolyn who was way cooler. why is it that people with “Ca” beginning names are called “cat”? on some people it sounds wrong. on others it sounds right. what can one say about the name lisa? derived from Elizabeth. fear to run. flight or fight. i ‘m in a public place and i’m scared.
dreaming about my father more. i’m not sure but it dawns on me in the bathroom tonight that the dreams are a realization he’s okay. he was younger and happier looking. there were scars on his forehead. “Dad, I say,” where are those scars from?” and he points to my necklace — the small silver urn with some of his ashes on it that i wear daily. My father, close to my heart.
i was watching la femme nikita the other night with brian and i saw what i wanted to be — her. Nikita. she is tall, blonde and perfect. except i don’t want to be blonde, just tall and perfect. and she’s was wearing this long black skirt that hung low over her hips and there was an inch or so of skin showing between her shirt and the damn skirt. with her pale skin and deep blue eyes. she looked amazingly exotic. and that was my inspiration. that is what i want to be. i have to lose 100lbs.
fuck.
i remember when i was 14? 15? I weighed 140? 150 pounds. I was like 5’9 or so. And I remember laying on my bed at night, obsessing about my weight and running my hands over my concave stomach and thinking “i’m never going to be fat. i’m not going to allow myself to get past this point in weight.”
that was 1/2 a life ago!
been reading more journals online again. going through diarist.net and sorting by women and ages and reading generally anything of anyone within my age group. and i realize that the 25-32 age bracket is nearly empty — not empty but it’s like what overcomes people between that age group to not write. i’m looking for a REASON and i’m finding it. Ana Voog is 34. Cheryl Tigs is a mom at 54. She can, next year, legally qualify for the AARP. I have 30 whole years left before I need to. And for once I smile. At the cafe. Where the cute goth girl works.
I’m obsessed about ages. People think i’m 22. Brian thought I was 22 or 23. No one believes I just turned 28. But i’m obsessed with other people’s ages. When someone tells me a story, I almost always ask “how old are they?” so that i can make the comment of “she’s immature” or “he should have known better”. and it’s stupid to gauge other people’s life by my age. at 28 i should have accomplished many things and i haven’t. but in a way, i’ve accomplished more than other people ever will. because i took chances. i took the chance, no matter how stupid, on flying to SF with nothing and making a go of it. and when that didn’t work, of driving cross country solo to another state and trying again. and seeing those stupid “jesus knows” signs along the highway. meeting paul for the first time in atlanta. BUT the thing is, i did it. myself. these are my stories and i know lots and lots of people who don’t have the balls to leave within 50 miles of where they were born.
west texas sucked.
my dad was 45 when i was born.
and today i really like me, imperfections and all.
-finis-
so tonight, when the urge struck me to redesign again (and i really do like this new design btw), i felt it. the cold crushing feeling in my chest. and it’s different from all the anxiety attacks i had before. because this time i was not obsessing about anything — I WAS FREAKING WORKING IN PHOTOSHOP. and i start crying. paul is freaking out because i can’t breathe (or so i say between the sobs). my pulse is normal but my chest felt like a ton of bricks landed on it. i call the 24 hour hot line my hmo has set up and i get picked up on the first ring. i tell the woman, mary, what is going on. she assures me i’m not having a heart attack. “you’re on klonopin” she says. “what’s your dosage?” i tell her i’m taking the bare minimum these days – .5mgs .25 in the morning and sometimes .25 later in the after noon. “did you take a dose?” she asks. “yes, i replied — a few moments ago”. klonopin takes 30 minutes to kick in before it works. she talks to me. calms me down. turns out she has done over 15 years as a coronary specialist nurse. i’m not having a heart attack. i’m so low risk it’s disgusting. ‘but this crushing” i keep telling her. it hurts. i don’t know what to do. the klonopin has been my miracle drug for the last two weeks. tonight was worse because it was fast and furious. and i’m so scared something is going on with me. she tells me if the pain doesn’t stop within the next 15 minutes, take another klonopin. after an hour, if there is still pain call. they are open 24 hours. i can be seen.
within an hour brian and i were at 7-11 buying slurpees and a big bite.

i keep coming back

on July 16th 1998, i had made the decision while at work one day to start doing an on-line journal. this wasn’t anything really new to me, other than the fact that i had been writing and posting my journals on and off for about 3 years before that. however, i never had any continuity or any real schedule — but it was time to change that.
i had been browsing the web on and off and finding similar sites and decided i could indeed write not only better but more productive than those who were doing it already.
on that day, i sat down and wrote my first entry and thusly the lisa chronicles were born.
in that year, i’ve shared a lot with those who have come here. the site initially was getting about 25 hits a day (normal for me back then when random people would find it) to over five times the traffic now. i started a counter later on that month and as you can see, nearly 15k worth of unique hits have hit my site. now i’m getting 5x the traffic along with nearly a 100 people subscribed to the mailing list as well. several hundred people eagerly await, daily, for any words or tidbits that i may dish up. sometimes i’ve been silent for a few weeks and others i’m posting several times a day.
my site has been recognized by other sites as being unique and one of a kind. and while people, in the “scene” had known about me for years via “simunye” and my exploits around the web, new people were coming and liking me for what was presented here and not for any past rumors that they may have heard. one night when i was in Memphis, mike and i were at taco bell. i had been drinking and was lollygagging around in the ‘stang, when i had commented “I will forever be known as an on-line diarist”. and then i had said it with such disdain and contempt. the next day, i got an invitation from The Unreal World to apply on being a member (and no, i haven’t heard back from them yet).
i suppose there are many worse things than being known as an on-line diariest. i could be a crackwhore, but i suppose that is beside the point. in the last year i’ve cried, bragged, loved, lost, took chances, became frustrated, just basically lived. in my own hindsight, i no longer read others journals and i no longer read my own. why? because in the past when i had become enamored of a site such as mine, it became a tossup of whether i was living my life or i was living through them. i started having memories of things i knew didn’t happen but my own involvement within that site made me think i did. Or maybe it was my split personality Sam who thought so, who knows.
Regardless, thank you.
Thank you for everything. The next year proves to be even more exciting as I’m finally getting my supple young ass off the west coast and move back east (confirmed and set for October). I love you guys, even if you are all just big big freaks.

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My friend Dan (he’s a big freak) asked me one day to make a wav saying “You’ve got mail”. And so I did:
mmmmmmmm……you’ve got mail
mmmmmmmm……you’ve got oral
The second file was generated for Pawl, who also asked me to do the chorus to James Brown’s “Sex Machine”. That file won’t get put up.

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I’ve been slacking, I know, however, taking a cue from several people, if you click on lisa above in the above nav bar, you’ll learn even more about me than you ever wanted to know. but it is slightly amusing.

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Back in early July, I started a club on yahoo!. and it’s been pretty amusing. go join in the fray and sign up worship me some more — you know the usual stuff. i’m on as g0desslike. that shouldn’t surprise you.

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and lastly, i’ve been thinking, with all the changing going on around here, the name of the site will no longer be “The Last Word: The Lisa Chronicles” but “Girl Extraordinary: The Lisa Chronicles”. And just where does the word “Girl Extraordinary” come from? Simple:
“Neglekted”
By Afghan Whigs
I know a girl, extraordinary
Suggested something, unsanitary
The rest of the words are located on the whigs site. What can I tell you, Greg Dulli is god. And that song is so me. So is “What Jail Is Like” from the album “Gentlemen”. If you are planning on getting any cds soon, I so highly recommend that one and 1965. I’ve converted so many people to Whigism. I own.

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I will be at LinuxWorld Expo August 9-12th. I’ll be meeting a bunch of ufies as well as just hanging out. In October, I’ll be heading to the Linux Showcase in Atlanta, again hanging with Ufies. Y’all come and find me, kk?

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And finally, in the spirit of the 1st Anniversary of The Lisa Chronicles, I was thinking of regging the domain name girlextraordinary.xxx (xxx stipulating whatever TLD i choose: com, org or net) and using that for the basis of journals instead of simunye.org. Any ideas?Thoughts?
Reason?
It’s time for a change, and while the nick Simunye will always be associated with me, it’s time for something new. hell, i need to pay for
iwubpawly.org still, but that is another story 😀
i want feedback on this 🙂

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And I’ll leave you with these words:
What Jail Is Like
By The Afghan Whigs (of the album Gentlemen)
I’ll warn you, if cornered, I’ll scratch my out of the pen
Wired, an animal, the claustrophobia begins
You think I’m scared of girls, well maybe but i’m not afraid of you
You want to scare me then you’ll cling to me no matter what i do
Tell you a secret, they shared a needle once or twice
i loved her, she loved me, we slept together a couple of times
you think i’m proud of this, well maybe but the shame you never lose
infatuated with a lunatic and cornered by the muse
and it goes down every night
this must be what jail is really like
and i will scratch my way out of this pen
lonely? maybe or maybe not at all
depends your idea your image your definition of a friend
if what your shoveling is company then I’d rather be alone
resentment always goes much further than it was supposed to go
ich liebe dich.
ihr inneres und mein inneres immer zusammen

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