The answer is: You should be writing.

My coffee cup tells me so and oh how right/write it is.

They are:

Why Not
Just Do It

and Organic (writing)

Let’s start with the first.

Why Not – Don’t be fooled. This isn’t a question (← see, no question mark!). This is a statement, something I think we all need to ask ourselves when standing on the precipice of creativity (or anything really). You get a new idea, you think it’s stupid. No one will like it, nothing will ever come of it, blah, blah, bladdi-dah!

Obviously you can think up a million and three reasons not to go for something. It’s human nature to cave to caution and avoid any possible pain that may rain down on us. It was a good survival trait when we were hominids foraging on the Serengeti, just learning to walk upright and work past the grunt to give that giant golden kitty cat a name before it killed us was adventure enough. Why Not is perfectly understandable self-advice when faced with dangerous situations like that.

What I don’t get though is why Why Not applies so heavily and so harshly in non-life and death situations. It’s silly. Why don’t you go to the dance? Maybe no one will dance with you? So what! Why don’t you give that passionate speech about something you care about? It’s scary? You might really suck? So! Why don’t you write that weird beyond genre novel? It might never get published? It’ll suck? You’re wasting your time? So, so, so!!

Who knows, it might rock. You might make a point or dance like a rock star and if not – is it going to kill you? Is a little social scorn enough to hold you back from having even the tiniest chance at having the time of your life? If it is, I’m sorry but in the end please don’t let it be a question. Let it be a reminder.

It’s not going to kill you to try but it’s hard to live if you don’t.

Just Do It – If memory serves me right this has something to do with Nike commercials but as I’m proud to say I haven’t yet turned on the blasted television today it’s not likely to have anything to do with shoes…

Everything else on the other hand, yes. Writing most especially.

Once you get past Why Not all that’s left is to do it – to just do it. Sitting there thinking/complaining/worrying/whining and other notorious ing words aren’t going to get anything done. They don’t write page one and without page one you have no page one hundred and ten in your future unless you slipped on that banana peel and fell into a dyslexic time paradox (also known as a concussion).

If you don’t Just Do It you never actual take the chance. Nothing (aside from the aforementioned and hence banished Why Not) is standing in your way except that first step and then the one after that. You just have to Do It. Open your wings, jump the fire, collect your bonus points and +1 life  and then write!

Nothing is accomplished by waiting for it to happen.

Organic – A simple word followed by a concept that isn’t always so. I often connect it to one of my other favorite words, raw, and an assortment of prosey concepts like untempered metal fresh from the kiln, sun spotted flesh and laugh wrinkles, vines of lightning splitting the sky with elemental energy. Broken molds. Grainy breads and hard cheese. Smells and sights, fragrance and pigment. Chipped paint on China dolls and torn lace under stained teacups.

Obviously I find organic to be a bit on the beautiful side. I also find it very helpful.

If you’ve ever done the NaNoWriMo then you’re familiar with writing by the seat of your pants. You sit down, grab a pen or keyboard and just go, go, go! Some of us just skip the sitting down part. The goal of NaNo is to write 50,000 words within thirty days, the idea is that if you Just Do It and keep doing it that you can write at least a standard sized novel in a money (1,667 words a day).

The often less focused on part of NaNo (because 50,000 sounds so horrifying at first that you can’t possibly push anything else into your brain) is the write without looking back part. You don’t edit and you seldom plot save for some ideas on the back of a box of Tampax. That’s what I’m talking about when I say Organic.

Have you ever just written? Just laid down a paper and let your brain hit the surface with a great big splat of ink? Have you ever painted without worrying about the lines and colors and does a person really need all ten fingers? What if Picasso ha been a perfectionist?

What I’m saying is – yes, while eventually you’re going to have to make sure your main character has the same name you gave her 300 pages later and run more than just a simple spell check – don’t get hung up on all that jazz. Writing is writing. Painting is painting. Doing is doing and fine tuning… is better left for when you have something to tune. In the mean time, have fun with your work. Explore your characters and your canvas. Don’t be afraid to be stupid and silly or passionate about something scary. Don’t worry about being good or great, just be.

Perhaps I’ve rambled and I’ll be honest I’m not sure I’ve made the point I was aiming for because I’m so easily sidetracked but either way…

Don’t ask Why Not, understand it and Just Do It. Most importantly Do It Your Way.

But first, we must resume the position.

Back supported, feet resting, fingers ready to fly. Now it’s his turn.

As I am the willow you are the tank. Elbows tucked, hips drawn forward, shoulders rounding over my knees. Head up and watching or head down and watching more slyly. Paws always politely tucked and tail bookmarking your place in my next. I pet you and you purr, content to wait with senses open and ready to swat any of the younger muses who might come and distract me away from my work.

Good kitty. I am certain you control gravity, if not always grace. This I know for sure for it is you who decides when I rise and when I write. A meticulous feline prowess that I will never fight unless my bladder tells me to.

Now if only you could keep me off Facebook.

[Pictured: Muse Mowgli, king of all muses with his ferocious albeit teeny meow.]

Music thrumming in my ears. Muse-cats within reach. Honey dulling the bitterness of tea and keyboard at the ready.

The words are waiting for me to pluck them from the air, like buttered butterflies I dip them in starlight before savoring on my tongue. An abundant treat with a rare taste.

I’m longing.

Tonight, like every night, is a night to begin.

[Edit #2: Elpis is back on the map (what a busy week for Adam!) as of a surge of users and reviews. Don't forget to show your support!]

Finally!

I know this might seem kind of pointless but as a blogger when I feel compelled to share… well, here it is.

Dear Fellow Writers,

I know you have attention-span issues. I know against your better judgment you find yourself on the internet far more often than the next chapter of your novel. I know you try to fight this urge using a variety of different means.

I also know a lot of you, like me, need music to concentrate and, also like me, if you’re not careful this attempt at concentration can become distraction waiting to lure you down the path of procrastination.

Especially if you’re listening to Pandora.

(ooo,… I make it sound so devious, no?)

Pandora is an online music service, streaming, blah, blah, blah. Normally I use Last.FM on my computer but as I’ve embraced the mobile age and LFM charges (a very tiny) monthly fee for mobile users I’ve been forced out of my natural habitat.

Not to say Pandora is bad or anything, I’m just picky, hate commercials, loath ads in general, like the word scrobble and all the many services it can be connected to. That said, as I have been using Pandora lately with my writing and I’m a creature of habit I’ve been tuning in at home too which also happens to be where I get my most important writing done.

The problem?

Let’s start with the continuously open FireFox page with blinking and winking shinies that flirt with me whenever I go to like, dislike or quickly kill a track before it can putrify my ears… when it starts playing rap on a station you’ve cultivated toward softer tones… you know what I’m talking about. It just has to be done sometimes.

Ads are distracting (commercials are unavoidable on free Pandora so I’ll ignore that). A browser being open at all is dangerous to the attention-span even if you leave it minimized 90% of the time. You see your toolbar and go, ‘well, while I have this up I might as well check my email.’ Or Facebook or whatever and you know each one of those leads to a whole new set of distractions.

Each one which kills valuable writing time.

My point and solution?

Just as I have a desktop client for Last.FM I now have one for Pandora.

Why is this worth sharing with the rest of the blogosphere?

Because I had to go through three sets of software before finding one that works.

Starting from the beginning:

• Googled Pandora and desktop.
• Went directly to the official Pandora website.
• Discovered they have a beautiful application… and that I’d have to pay in order to use it.
• Went back to Google.
• Amended my search, Pandora desktop free.

Found a lovely post naming off seven decent sounding softwares and tried out the first one that met my needs according to the summary. OpenPandora.

Alas, I’d discovered from the home site that OpenPandora hadn’t been updated since 2009’ish. Well the post I was reading ‘about’ OP in was fairly recent so I ‘assumed’ they must have tried it out first, right? Well if they did they must have had an ancient (by contemporary standards) computer because when I installed that beast it did nothing so I went back to the home site where it tells me if beta # whatever doesn’t work try an earlier one.

Don’t eat my soul for trying out betaware. I do know better but c’mon. I was desperate.

So I tried the earlier version. Didn’t do shit and I had to manually uninstall it. Manual as in it doesn’t show up in control panel and you can’t simply type any fragment into your search bar. I have an awesome computer, stuff like that should nada happen!

Next I tried the second software that seemed it would meet my needs. Screenshots showed it was browser based but cut out a lot of jarble-garble-distractions and didn’t provide access to all the other browser based junk that might lead you astray. It was called Pandora’s Box.

Now what do we learn in school, children? Nothing good comes out of that damn box!

It worked if working is what you’d call it. Opened, glitched every time I clicked like or dislike, setting, just about anything. I clicked to view the boasted about lyrics window- nada. Bunch of error messages alerting me to a scripting error before IE of all things pops up with a lyric search sight. Just awesome and to top it off none of the controls worked from the launch bar so you had to have the little unresizeable browser square open at all times.

Well, shit.

Uninstalled, closed out the post without wasting my time on their ‘lesser’ recommended blargles and went back to Google.

Found Elpis.

Immediately wary I go to the home site instead of wasting my time reading the review. It’s sparse but recent.

• Updated, check.
• Free, check.
• Pretty, check.
• Simple, check.

My only worry was that it happens to be betaware BUT… so far so good. I’ve been listening to it for the past two hours compared to the nine and a half minutes I tried to put up with Pandora’s Box out of sheer desperation.

I could give you a review about how simplistically awesome and totally not distracting it is while remaining perfectly functional or you could reread the above and decide you don’t want to waste your precious writing time trying other things.

My only regret is that it doesn’t scrobble.

Elpis – http://www.adamhaile.net/projects/elpis/

Android users, if you’re using Natural Notes (free) upgrade it or say goodbye to your backups. Even if it claims to have created an export file it. Is. Lying.

No wonder the pro version backs up in .txt files instead.

I haven’t purchased pro, I might seeing as aside from this I do like the app and it’s only two bucks but in the mean time I’m using another program to store and SAVE my more important writing.

Clicked back up. Clicked send export file to memory card. Clicked ‘okie dokie’ after it confirmed my writing had been exported.

Reset my muchly happy tablet (she needed some intense love after my newbie abuse) to factory newness.

Added back in all my apps. That went fine.

Added in all my settings. Fine too.

Tried to import my export file… not so much.

Well #$&%.

Good thing I only had a bunch of notes on there. Time to buck up and buy a better app.

Alone that may sound terror-ific but what I haven’t told you yet is that I like the rain. I like that dazzling darkness and the smell of energy burning in the air, half feral winds pulling me up off my feet while I scramble for shelter. It’s beautiful and honest and some of my best thoughts trickle out of this maelstrom like the first pure stream in Spring after a harsh and nebulous Winter.

Proseful illustrations aside I’d like to babble a bit about this idea of mine.

My grandfather died a few months ago. I handled it better than others perhaps might have seeing as he passed the night before I was able to fly out to see him. Some might bemoan that last lost opportunity to say goodbye while others might slowly let fester what could have, should have and whatever other ‘oulds there could have been between us but not me. Perhaps it’s this constant difficulty I feel in connecting to others or maybe it’s because I connect on a totally different level that allows me the rare opportunity in my age to look beyond the momentary.

Over the course of my rather short but seemingly long life I’ve had so many things taken from me, lost, destroyed or simply removed from my life. Mind you that while I say things I’m referring to ‘things’ beyond simple items. Family, friends, homes, safety. Precious photos of moments never to be visited again, beloved pets and dear ears and shoulders to cry to. Books and teachers, religion and the firm ground beneath my feet.

Lost, taken, destroyed or removed.

Some of these things could be replaced, others not so much. Either way the sentiment is always what has changed and it’s often that intangible piece of meaning I’ve found myself grasping at. Sometimes it’s all I’ve had which is why, more or less probably, I find myself far more attached to the concept than the thing.

In short:

My grandfather’s body is naught but a symbol, an image one can put energy into in order for it to mean something.

My grandfather, as in the man I knew and grew with, is very much still alive as far as I’m concerned.

He lives in the memories he gave me and the teachings he passed along. He lives everytime I contemplate how to build something, my earliest lesson involving a rainbow colored birdhouse. He lives everytime I hear a bow drawn over the strings of a violin of a scant of Irish lilt. He lives in all my favorite poems and the tale of Monte Cristo.

He lives in cigar smoke, dusty boots and cowboy hats. He lives in my inability to tolerate contemporary hip hop and far too repetitive lyrics and everytime I call the cats. He’s there in homemade blankets and green rugs, antiques and an appreciation of the world beyond the seen borders.

He lives in honor and respect, love and obstinacy.

And without further digression I come to my idea…

I want to write something for him. Something to honor his memory, to show how much I respect all he has taught me and though I love him a great deal just how obstinate I have learned to be against some of those teachings.

I don’t know what it will be yet, a series of short poems or stories perhaps. I feel that I’m at a disadvantage for my yearning because of the small window of time I was afforded to know him and how narrow my view might be as a result but maybe that’s the beauty in the whole thing. He was so much more than I can ever know but I have what I do know of him and death can never take that away, sentiment can live beyond the circle of life if you’re not afraid to tell a story again and again.

Mostly I am still learning Hiragana which is a brilliant place to start, seriously! But tonight I wanted to spend a little time digging up what I could across the great wide net about Japanese grammar. I found a few good starting places, most noteably Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar (Google it). I liked Tea Kim’s page best not only because it was the only one I managed to click through tonight but because of the key philosophy: learn Japanese as if you were Japanese. Don’t aproach it and try to apply it as if it were English because the two might as well be water and oil for all the similarities they share as far as basic sentence structure goes.

Some other things;

-Japanese sentences do not require a sentence subject.
-Contex matters more than most English speaker geared textbooks would have you think.
-The words ‘the’ and ‘a’ don’t exist, hence trying to form direct translations… you get the point.
-They don’t (though whether this is ever or mostly I don’t know) use a distinction between current and future tense. Ex: “I will go to the store.” to “I go to store.”

Some interessting wordness I learned that should make any student cautious of any ‘simple’ English to Japanese dictionary;

-Dirty can mean sneaky but cannot mean sexually perverse.
-Tall can mean expensive.

Unrelated to Tae Kim’s awesome page are some unrelated vocab words I gave myself tonight;

Cat – - Neko – - ねこ

Kitten – - Koneko – - こねこ

Rabbit – - Usagi – - うさぎ

Monkey – - Saru – - さる

Rat – - Nezumi – - ねずみ

Dog – - Inu – - いぬ

Frog – - Kaeru – - かえる

Bird – - Tori – - とり

I am the quiet girl, often sneaking by with her trademark purple hair. I’m the one usually lost in a world of her own making, consulting characters about the future as if they were shards of myself- a strange and brokenly beautiful mirror that can reveal all if I’m willing to look hard enough.

I’m the one who prefers big Koss headphones over fashion sensitive earbuds so I can pretend I’m whispering through a monastary in the middle of the city, talking to gargoyals and relishing the sound of stone beneath my feet. I’m someone you shouldn’t take too seriously but I caution you, there is a truth to all I speak.

I love buttons and paper. Origami, chess, crochet and anything I can learn to do with my hands. Butterflies and bottlecaps. Singular notes plinked or pulled between violin or piano call me most often than not but I’m not above falling asleep or spending my quiet time with rock ballads or Metalica. Still, I most enjoy writing to the sound of a lone music box or anything in a language other than my own just so I can hug the foreign sounds as they come to me anew.

Speaking of language, I love it. I love the word language and how it resembles luggage: a collection of things one can’t ‘supposedly’ live without whilst traveling. Like whole and hole, I find an irony between the two. I am currently learning Japanese and reveling in their three alphabet-like systems, looking forward to the day I am competant enough for it to open up a whole new world’s worth of media to me; manga, novels, movies, newspapers and penpals. Every word is like an exciting new adventure just waiting for me to toe along the path.

I dislike starting paragraphs with the word I. It makes me feel narcisistic. Also, I don’t have spellcheck on my Archos tablet and realize on my own that I can’t spell worth mustard.

I married an often wonderful man with six shy kitties. Together we now have ten very social cats. Gabe, Tommy, Ivan, Odie, Mowgli, Clarice, Isis, Basset, Cassa, and Ed.

I’m a flowy follower of the way of Tao and Unitarian Universalism which means I have a love of learning all senses of spirituality, theology, philosophy and other words ending in y. Currently I am entranced by Buhhdism. I also love folk lore, faeries, photography, web design, programming and am considering an asociates degree in Nursing.

I am troubled and traumatized but all the richer for my lot of pain. Someday I want to find a way to use my writing to help others but until then I’m just hoping to get all these words out of me and onto paper before my head implodes with the force of a thousand inky butterflies.

I am not unlike a zipper, something just waiting to be pulled into bringing two halves of a whole together. I’m an untrained dancer, unrestrained singer, a speedy typist and the worst possible mathmatician.

I don’t drink caffein. Ever.

I’m just a kid, my life barely begun with a mere instant of infinity’s stories to be told. Wife, writer and cemetery walker. Volunteer, voice and very quiet. Loud, colorful, a bit corosive and not unwilling to be so. Passionate to a fault, many, many faults.

I am Feeby.