Being a Writer is a Nuisance

Why being a writer is a bit of a nuisance, by Captain Monkeypants

1. Because it’s hard. Even when you want to write you
a. Don’t have time for it.
b. Have time for it but suddenly feeling like watching those episodes of “Parenthood” that you have on your DVR.
c. Have puppies who don’t understand why their ‘mother’ is sitting at a weird contraption hitting buttons when they want to play.
d. Discover that Microsoft Word is going to freeze up on you and even if it’s done an auto-save, it’s not auto-saved the fabulous paragraphs you just wrote and you’ll never remember.

If you do actually write, there’s the inevitable question of “Why am I writing.” In my earlier writing days, the rush and thrill of creating something, of creating worlds on paper was enough. Now, as I’m nine books in, I’d love to say I still get that rush but I’ve been out there in the real world and it’s just not as easy to stay wide-eyed and bushy tailed in hopes that the first time you submit it, you’re going to get published because it’s fabulous.

Here’s the thing. It may be fabulous. It may be well written. It may just land on the desk of the editor or agent or publisher at the wrong moment. They may just have read a book that they liked or seen a movie and suddenly, that’s what they’re in the mood for at that moment. So when they read your query letter, they’re just not in the mood for that particular kind of book/story and so they send you back a rejection.

To them, it’s just a casual response. To the writer, no matter how often rejections happen, they still sting.

It’s interesting. My new job as an IT recruiter means that I’m constantly trying to help people find jobs and, at the same time, fill positions we currently need to fill. Sometimes they match up. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes, I get calls from people who are desperate and out of work and really need a job but when you look at their resume, they haven’t done very much, if anything, in IT at all. They may have used a computer in their life or they may have been able to replace the keyboard on their dad’s computer but it doesn’t mean they’re qualified to work at a help desk.

It’s hard when you get a candidate like that. I want to help them but, really, they’ve called the wrong office. We help Information Technology professionals find jobs, hence the “IT” in “IT recruiter”. I’d love to find everyone a job but it’s just not possible. Also, if they’re been doing something like Help Desk/Technical support and they suddenly want a job as a database programmer, it’s just not possible if they haven’t actually done any database programming.

The point of this is that this type of thing happens to me several times a day, in between juggling candidates who are qualified for jobs and people running into my office needing me to change my direction and start trying to find candidates for a completely new job we just had open up. Yet, each time, when I get a call from an unqualified candidate, I do my best to put aside my frustration and really hear them out. Each one of them is a human who just wants a job. Sure, there may be times when I’d rather work on getting actual qualified candidates into jobs because that’s how I earn my money but it doesn’t hurt to talk to people for even a few minutes just to see if maybe, just maybe their resume is just bad and they actually are qualified.

I’m not comparing this to an agent/editor/publisher, exactly. Unlike my 4-5 calls a day from unqualified candidates, they deal with hundreds, even thousands of submissions a day from unpublished writers. They can’t talk to each one individually. They just don’t have time. They have time to scan the query letter, decide if it suits them and move forward or, more likely, send a rejection.

On the opposite side of the fence to this is the writer, in this case, me, who has sent my novel/short story to them in the hopes that they’ll stop and read it and think, “oh, this sounds promising.” Instead, what usually happens is that they skim the letter, think, “Oh, well, this isn’t what’s selling,” and send the rejection.

It’s sad but true. Sure, vampires are selling now but five years ago, it was dragons and wizards. What is hot now will not necessarily be hot in five years.

I suppose what I’m saying is that sometimes it just doesn’t seem fair. I have so many rejections, there are times that I wonder why I write. I’ve mentioned that before. It’s disheartening. I know the optimist in me always hears, “You can do it! You just have to keep trying!” but sometimes that optimist drowns underneath a sea of rejections.

And I know it’s not because I’m a lousy writer. For a while, I let my self-doubt believe that. I know I can write. It’s not arrogance, it’s confidence. Like a singer who can sing or a dancer who can dance, I’m a writer who can write. Being a writer and submitting something is like going to an American Idol audition, I imagine. There are thousands upon thousands of other hopefuls. The wackiest ones make it to the judges so that their ridiculousness can be mocked on national TV. The pretty ones make it because even though they may not be the best singers, they’re decent and they look good. Some of the power-house singers make it because they’re that good. Yet for the thousands you see lining up to audition, we, as a TV audience, see, maybe less than 10% of those and that 10% includes the worst of the worst.

So you can’t tell me in that other 90%, there aren’t some really, really good singers who got missed because they weren’t boisterous enough or they didn’t have a sad story like a mother who has cancer. I’m not knocking or mocking those that have sad stories it just seems like those are the ones we always see on TV because they make the best drama and, let’s face it, people like drama. In that 90%, how many of them are good but they’re not TV worthy?

What happens to the 90%? Some of them re-audition the next year. Some of them give up. Some of them realize that maybe they’re not a TV singer and find somewhere else to sing. Yet if their dream is of becoming a recognized music artist, chances are they’re going to have to get on TV at some point and thus begins the downward spiral of them trying to figure out what they did wrong.

It might be that they simply aren’t good enough. That would take away a huge portion of the leftovers. Yet maybe they are and then what? I suppose my point is that, as a writer, the biggest nuisance is trying to stay positive, to not let the rejections sink you because if you’re good enough, you know it. There’s only so many times you can submit something, get rejected and still think that the agent/publisher/editor just wasn’t in the mood.

Of course, when you submit anyway, chances are, they’re just reading a query letter and they judge you on that. Just like on American Idol, you get just by a couple of moments of singing. It’s not enough. In the end, you end up with seven+ seasons of a show where the only winner who succeeded was from the very first season. Everyone else who has done well on that show didn’t actually win; the winners turn into Top 40 radio standbys but without any real presence. It’s not about the singing, it’s who can make the money. I think the writing world is the same way. There are plenty of writers who can’t actually, um, write but they can sell books. It’s writers like that who make it hard for writers like me. I self-published. It’s freakishly hard work to get yourself out there. Still, I’m trying.

It’s just a huge nuisance. Ah well, at heart, I do it because I love it and that's the important thing.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Have a great weekend and Happy Halloween!

The Decline of Quality TV....

It was another dreary day today. It rained a little but mostly it just threatened to pour without actually doing more than spitting at times.

It wasn't as bad in the office though. My coworker was out which means there was a little less interruption than normal. While I don't mind a chat, we tend to use Instant Messaging in our office to communicate without disrupting others. My coworker gets rather bored and likes to IM me to tell me she's bored. Yesterday, she spent 30 minutes discussing a haircut. She has short hair. It's not a very interesting subject, particualarly when you're trying to work on a project that requires toggling between two windows and when an IM window pops up, it ruins the toggling.

Still, today wasn't bad which is always a good thing at work. Tuesdays are nice merely because they're not Mondays. Besides, they're good TV nights. Well, for now, at least. My very favourite show, Lost is coming to a final end this coming Sunday. Even though I admit that my relationship with the show hit a rocky patch in Season 3, once I gave it another chance, I became completely addicted. Just don't ever try to watch the show without watching every single episode because it will never, ever make sense. Well, actually, to be honest, even if you watch every episode, it doesn't really make sense but I'm hoping it will. If not, well, it's been fun anyway.

Lost isn't the only show ending for good. Jack Bauer and 24 are ending next Monday for good. It's high time in Jack's case. Last night, he did a very good Iron Man impersonation which would was quite funny except he wasn't supposed to be funny. It was quite entertaining though. Our Jack has gone rogue (yet again) and he's out for blood. He's also reached the stage where he is now officially a superhero, moving at the speed of light, delivering death like an out-of-breath avenging stubbled-beaten and worn angel Also, he's never, ever stopped to go to the toilet and, well, if that doesn't make you a superhero, I don't know what does.

Both of those shows are due for their end. However, there are others that aren't returning next season which I'm sad about. I am one of the people who anticipated FlashForward because I was hoping it was the next Lost. Well, it isn't but, for the most part, it's been interesting and entertaining. I was hoping it would get renewed so it would find its footing completely. If they'd just have lost that whole government-conspiracy-that-caused-an-ordinary-ex-alcoholic-to-sneak-into-Afghanistan-and-rescue-his-kidnapped-soldier-daughter, it would have been WAY better. Still, I'm sad it's over. Also, I've been increasingly fascinated to watch it and see how many more European actors they can add. Seriously, many of the actors on there are English and every week, there's a new one. It's quite fascinating. The male lead, Joseph Fiennes, is a Brit. His wife on the show, a former Lost actress is also British. Her lover on the show, played by Jack Davenport...also British. His science partner is played by Dominic Monaghan who is Scottish. The ex-alcoholic rescuer man...Irish. The new villain...British. You get the idea. It's quite entertaining, actually.

I was sad that they cancelled that show and renewed V instead. I tried to want to watch V but, well, after the pilot, I accumulated a ton of episodes on my DVR and never wanted to watch it so I just realized that there was no point in keeping them. It just couldn't keep my interest.

It seems like networks are giving new shows far less chance to succeed. My parents are fans of both Mercy and Miami Medical, both medical dramas that were new this TV season. I've watched both and they're both entertaining but, apparently, they didn't have enough of an audience to keep them going and they're both cancelled.

It's sad. There's more and more reality TV popping up and less and less quality 'fictional' series. I know it's to do with budget. It's far cheaper to follow an annoying quasi-celebrity around and watch him/her make an idiot out of his/herself than it is to get good writers, good actors and a good crew together to make a real TV show. It seems as though the guilty pleasure shows have become the norm and real TV is fading away. I still watch Glee but I worry about that show a little. It was fun and original when it started but now it's a powerhouse hit and it's spinning off more CD's than American Idol. I used to like American Idol but it's become a formulaic little show these days. There are stereotypes that are filled every season: The rocker, the country-singer, the folksy-earthy one, the girl who can sing rock songs but still surprise with a ballad, the nerdy little boy with a big voice....it's just boring these days and without the insanity of the questionably-drunk Paula Abdul, it's lost its sense of humour. I've flipped it on before another show starts and it's just nothing but filler or the kids talking about how the song they're singing is important to them because, you know, it's, like, well, they can just feel the song inside them.

I'm rambling. My point is...what's going to happen to TV? Sure, the good stuff is still on cable. There's still True Blood and Dexter to look forward to this summer. But the regular old quality TV, the type you don't need a satellite dish to access is fading slowly away from the networks and being replaced by dancing, singing, boss-trying-to-be-one-of-the-people, wife-swapping, bachelor(ette)-seeking-love type of shows.

I know in the grand scheme of things, TV isn't exactly a necessary thing in life. Yet, for me, it does enhance my life by providing a little escapism. After a bad day at work, there's nothing more therapeutic than watching Jack Bauer eviscerate a Russian terrorist. There's nothing more fun than trying to figure out what exactly Lost is really about. In short, it's just a fun way to relax and if I didn't have it, I'd miss it.

Still, for tonight, at least, I shall kick back and enjoy the last regularly scheduled episode of Lost...ever. The thought makes me sad but there's nothing I can do about it.

Maybe something will come along next season that will get me just as hooked. There's always hope.

As always, thanks for reading. Happy Wednesday!

Stuck in the Middle of the Pile...

It's come to my attention that I am what I've started to refer to as a "Middling." I'm not rich and I'm not poor....I'm in the middle. I'm usually in the middle when it comes to most things.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I'm very fortunate when I think about the people who don't have what I have: A job, a house, a family, security....the list can go on.

It's just that being a middling, you tend to get passed over for almost everything.

Take, for example, the show I watched tonight. I've been DVR'ing "The Worst Cooks in America" and I finally watched the first episode. The show takes twelve of the worst cooks in America and will put them through a ten-day boot camp where they get to learn how to cook from Anne Burrell (who, by the way, was Mario Batali's sous chef on Iron Chef America") and Beau MacMillen who....well, I'm not sure who he is but he sounds like he's from Boston.

Now, while I'm sure these people are the worst cooks in America because based on their sample dish, they certainly don't seem to know how to cook but...well...there's a little voice in my head saying, 'hey, that's not fair!'.

I'm ashamed to admit I hear that voice more often than I'd like. These people get to learn from professional chefs and have the chance to win $25,000 because they are terrible cooks.

On the flip-side, there are the shows like Chopped, Top Chef and The Next Food Network Star that reward the best cooks, professional chefs who want the chance to move further in their career. I salute the contestants on these shows but they're picked because they're professionals.

So, you have shows for the best and shows for the worst. What about us humble cooks who'd like the chance to compete, to win money because we can cook, we just haven't been to culinary school?

I know...I'm whining. Yet I can't help but get frustrated when I see shows like Clean House on the HGTV network that reward people for being huge, giant slobs by having professionals go in, clean their house and buy them all new stuff. Or shows like "What Not to Wear," that give terrible dressers $5000 to improve their wardrobe.

I'd like $5,000 to improve my wardrobe. Unfortunately, with the exception of the giant gold blob incident, for the most part, I'm a safe dresser. I know what works for me and I stick with that. My biggest wardrobe crime is that I'm boring. I'd like to be more daring but, unfortunately, no one has give me $5,000 to try being more daring with my wardrobe.

I'm not begrudging people who really deserve it but once in a while, I feel like I want to quote Ben Linus from Lost and just say, "What about ME????"

But I'm a Middling like so many other people I know. I make too much to be poor but not enough to have enough money to be frivoulous. We slip through the cracks because we're not worthy of aid or help. I looked into going back to school and filled out a financial aid form. I got it back to discover I'm not eligible because I have a full-time job. Which is true except I need the full time job to pay my mortgage, pay my bills and support myself. There's nothing left for school. Since I'm still paying off my undergrad loans even though I graduated 12 years ago, there's no way I can take on more loans.

So, I won't be going back to school. It's not that I had my heart set on it but I would like the chance to actually think about it and at the moment, it's just not financially possible. On the other hand, my brother and sister-in-law who are both unemployed and have three children are both going to a private university and not having to pay anything.

I can't begrudge my brother that. He was laid off and I'm proud he's trying to get an education. He's lacking direction and I hope he can find it.

I do admit, I'm a little bitter. The devil on my shoulder whispers in my ear that I work and pay taxes while they don't work and therefore don't pay taxes. Yet somehow they get to go to school for free and live off government aid while I go to work at a job I really don't like.

The angel on my other shoulder tells me that I wouldn't want to be in their situation and at least they're trying to improve their lives.

I agree with the angel but that devil certainly can be loud sometimes.

The problem I'm finding is that since I can't go back to school, it's going to be hard to move up into a job that pays much more than I'm earning now. Which means for better or worse, this is my standard of living and short of winning the lottery, miraculously landing a lucrative publishing deal or marrying someone wealthy....I'm stuck treading financial water.

Thus...I'm a Middling. We Middlings tread water, making ends meet, sometimes a little too creatively but we manage. We don't need help so we don't get any. When it comes to pride, that's a pretty good boost. Yet it does occasionally lead us to wonder why, exactly, that's always the case. Can't there be something, some reward for those of us that work each day, doing too well to be bad, yet never truly great because that's beyond our reach?

I'm not intending to be political at all although I'm sure this could easily turn political if I let it. I don't want to though. It's no one's fault- it's the way things are. If I really, really wanted, I'm sure I could do something about it. After all, I'm a dreamer and I believe that if I want anything badly enough, I can get it in some form or another. It's just that once in a while, I admit...I want to be lazy. I want someone to notice me, to remember that there is something in between rich and poor and while it's nice not to be at the bottom, the middle can be awfully dreary sometimes.

It's just that between the best cooks and the worst cooks, the biggest losers and America's Next Top Models, there are those average folk...the ones who aren't really anything enough to rank on a scale of goodness or badness...we just are. We're the steady ones, keeping everything going. I guess there's something to be said for that.

I apologize if I've got too heavy. Trust me to get philosophical after watching The Food Network. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all unhappy with my life. I may not like my job but I'm not in the dark place I was a few weeks ago. It's my job, for better or worse. It's just that sometimes, I think everyone wants to be Cinderella, to have a fairy godmother make things better, even for a little while. It doesn't matter what form the fairy godmother takes: government, TV network, Simon Cowell, Ty Pennington....it's just that sometimes I worry that the fairy godmothers forget that sometimes life can always be a little better for everyone, regardless of how good, how bad, how rich or how poor they are.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the fact that I'm NOT one of the Worst Cooks in America or, at least, I don't think so. I'll enjoy the fact that I'm not deluded enough to go on American Idol. And I"ll enjoy the fact that my house is clean because I want it to be. I suppose in a way, I am rich...I'm independent and have power over my life....I'm also free to make choices.

That's not such a bad thing.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Happy Wednesday.

Drowning in the Undertow of Rejection....

So, last week, I promised that I'd be more more positive this week. Unfortunately, given that my DMV rants aren't exactly a beacon of positive energy, I think I may have been a bit premature in my promise. Especially as today, I have a feeling I might be a little less than positive.

I got a rejection last night. When I saw it in my email box, it didn't phase me because though I knew it was rejection, I'd honestly forgotten I'd even submitted to the publication and thus, clearly didn't hold much stock in it.

Then I opened it. It was for a literary magazine that has a rather nice policy of having several reviewers read submissions, supposedly 'blindly' and then when you get rejected/accepted, you get to see their comments. I've never had this before. I had entered a short story of which I was proud. It was more literary than my usual efforts. Granted, it hadn't taken me too long to write but then, my best stuff never does.

The first comment was overwhelmingly positive. The rest...well, let's just say that by the time I was done reading, I wanted to cry. I know it's all supposed to be constructive criticism but it wasn't constructive at all. It made me feel like a complete amateur, as though I didn't know what I was doing. It picked on my writing, said it was stiff, that my word choices didn't suit the reviewer, that they thought the subject was silly. The piece I was written was supposed to be slightly quirky, slightly poignant, slightly wistful. Apparently, it was none of these things. The things that were criticized were intentional. I was told "It was too ethereal, too dreamy, too much in the character's head". Well, oddly enough, the piece was a story about a man in a coma and the odd places his mind took him, places connected with his life. It was actually based on a friend's memories from a three-week coma in which she had been trapped. By the time I was done reading the comments, I felt as though I'd been beaten, bruised with the might of a thousand critical words.

The problem with getting emails like this is I think about them too much. They force me to take stock of my life and that's not such a pretty thing when I think about my writing. I've written novels. I've written short stories. I haven't had any luck getting anything published. I get rejection after rejection. The people who read my stuff like it but they're usually people I know, people who's opinions I value until I step back and think too hard about it and then I start wondering if they feel obligated to be nice about my writing.

In truth, I'm feeling a little like a failure again. I know it shouldn't matter. I've said before in my blog that I love to write. I do. That counts for something, I know. Yet I have this horrid fear that like one of those kids who audition for American Idol, kids who've been told their whole lives by their loved ones that they should be a professional singer. Yet, when they get their chance, they reveal that they're actually terrible, that they have no talent at all.

It's crushing. I don't have much to show for my writing career except a few finished products, a couple of articles published in an online magazine and a stack of rejection letters. The best use of my writing is for academic papers for friends. They give me an outline, I turn it into a paper. That's the extent of my whole writing existence.

I want it to be so much more. I've always said before that I'll appreciate it more when I do have success but the whole process is so brutal that I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be able to make it to that point. Apparently what I think is good writing isn't, it's merely mediocre. It's times like this when I feel that my grip on my dream of being a published writer is precarious at best. I'm not fond of clichés , but I'm forced to think of the one of the tree falling in the forest and nobody hearing it; does it still make a sound? As a writer, if I write a novel and nobody reads it, am I still a writer or just someone who puts words on a page?

So much for being more positive. I apologize profusely for being a huge downer. Yet part of the reason I started this blog was to deal with the ups and downs of trying to be a writer. Today, it's a down, one that's so low that I'm wondering how I'll get back out of it. I know criticism is supposed to help but it stings. Eventually I'll probably be able to read it and learn from it. For now, I'm not at the point. In all honesty, the process is beating me down and I can't seem to find that passion for writing that usually floods through me. It's drowning in a pool of negativity.

I have to get out of it but I'm not quite sure how. I can't keep asking my friends and family to be my pep squad; I've already had a couple of friends hint that maybe if it's this hard, I should give up which never helps my fragile self-esteem because then I start to believe that they secretely think I'm a bad writer and they've only been supporting me because they feel like they have to. It's a downward spiral. I keep waiting for something to grab onto, something to give me a little hope but everytime I put myself out there, I just end up spiraling even further down. Does there get to a point in which you've hit rock bottom and there's no way up, that I just have to accept that I'm deluding myself?

I don't know. I don't want to think that. I think if I did, I probably wouldn't be trying to rationalize it in a blog, a place where I am, in fact, still writing. I'm going to try to keep going because, in all honesty, I'm not sure what else to do.

Then I remember that I have this quote from a calendar pinned to my message board and I pinned it up for times like these. It goes:

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that say's I'll try again tomorrow." - Mary Anne Radmacher.

When I read this quote, I tell myself that what I'm doing is really courageous, that by constantly trying, I'm still accomplishing something. As long as I remind myself to try again tomorrow, I haven't given up, that tomorrow, I'll find that glow that a good day of writing gives me because I do believe it's still inside me, no matter how many rejections try to kill it.

I will try again tomorrow because that's all I can do.

Happy Thursday.

At Least Let us Sing Before you Boot us off the Stage!

Is it sad that I'm already ready for the weekend? I know I've only been at work for one day this week but I'm really ready for another couple of days off. I don't think that's a reflection of my job but, rather, that I actually stopped to appreciate the slowness of life this past weekend and I don't quite think I'm ready to give it up.

Still, if it were a normal week, it'd only be Tuesday rather than Wednesday so I'm going to try very hard to appreciate that fact today.

Last night, I took a look at my novels to see which one I was going to enter in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. That's the nice thing about having a pile of them; there's several to choose from. My original intention was to enter my favourite one, Rainlight, but I've since realized that chopping out over 14,000 words will not be easy nor will I be satisfied with the finished product. I'd rather keep it as is and try to shop it around. I sent out some more queries on it. Sometimes I do wonder why the agents and publishers make us bother; I get the feeling that the query letters we send are rarely actually read and digested but, instead, are skimmed but when they see we're yet unpublished, we get the badly xeroxed letter or the standard email rejection.

I'd like to believe that it is possible to get an agent to read my letter and the first ten pages I send. That's why I keep trying. I'm not bitter at the moment, just frustrated that this should be so hard when the writing is so easy. I've been told that I should go to conventions to meet agents. I would love to but given that the average entrance fee is at least $300 and I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck trying not to incur more debt, it's not as easy as just signing up for one.

That's not going to stop me though. At the very least, there's the Amazon contest. The nice thing about being a somewhat seasoned writer (even without any publishing credit) is that I have almost everything ready to go. They want a pitch this year- essentially, that boils down to the meat of a query letter. Since I'm the queen of queries, that's the easy part. I have one of the potential novel candidates already edited and ready to go. I might have the other one I'd like to try edited too. The only thing with that is I can't find my hard copy with my edits scrawled across it. I have a sneaking suspicion I loaned that to a friend before I left California but said friend isn't returning my emails or calls to confirm. I think the only thing to do is to hit the manuscript freshly and re-edit, just in case. That's not exactly torture, to spend hours with those characters.

And if I get rejected from Amazon again this year, I will try very hard not to be too depressed, too bitter or too disheartened. I will try not to be jealous of fictional characters who magically send a manuscript to an agent and voila! publishing contract.

(That just happened in that book I mentioned on Friday, The Baker's Apprentice. One of the characters happens to write a memoir/fictional novel and sends it off to an agent. The agent likes it but wants it completely rewritten. Then after the rewrite is done, the writer gets a nice-sized publishing deal.)

I'm sure that happens. However, all the writers I know, including myself, never quite get that chance to completely rewrite the manuscript to change points-of-view and structure. We just get the "thank you for submitting. Unfortunately, we do not feel we are the right agents for your work" email. For us, it's like getting to the auditions for American Idol, filling out our form and being rejected before we're even allowed to sing because we're not pretty enough for TV or we aren't wearing the right clothes.

Ok, so maybe I am a teensy bit bitter. Maybe I'd like the chance to get to 'sing for the judges' before they decide I'm not worthy. Maybe I don't want to be the girl who wears a bikini just to get Simon Cowell's attention or the person who dresses up in a Star Wars costume just to prove I'm unique.

Maybe I, like so many other fledging writers, just want the chance to "sing", to prove that while I might not have a famous name or face, I can write and my novels are worth reading. Then, if I'm rejected, I'll at least feel like I had a fair chance. That's not to much to ask, is it?

Ah well, 'tis all experience. That much I do know. One of these days, my efforts will pay off. Until then, I'll keep dreaming and writing. That's all I can do.

Happy Wednesday.

Revenge of the iPod

So, it's morning again but it's a Thursday. I like Thursdays. They're almost as good as Fridays. Mostly because a Thursday evening means I get to watch "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Office". The problem with Thursdays, though, is that I usually stay up way too late because I tell myself, "It's ok, you've only got one more day before you can sleep in." Which, inevitably, results in me being exhausted on Friday night and just wanting to hibernate for the evening. Yet I do it almost every week. It's a vicious cycle.

I was going to make this a more writer-y blog today. Then I put my iPod on and I realized that I didn't want to be deep. Instead, I think my iPod deserves its own blog.

My iPod is an iPod mini. In the world of new technology, my iPod is a senior citizen. I bought it off my sister back about four, maybe five, years ago. She wanted to upgrade to a full sized iPod and I just wanted to listen to music so it worked out nicely. Well, for a couple of months anyway. My first iPod mini would freeze as it booted up. I couldn't play music. I still had a warranty so I sent it to Apple who sent me a new iPod mini in its place.

Until recently, my iPod was one of the possessions I had that I couldn't do without. i wore it at work to cut out the background chatter and focus. I wore it when I went places to write. I wore it when I walked. You get the picture. It was like a pet...except it made less mess and only required its battery to be charged when it was running low on energy.

Lately, however, my iPod has been showing signs of dementia. I think its age is showing. I think in iPod years that my iPod is about 100 years old. Probably older. (One year of human life = 25 iPod years. Yes, that's a very scientific number that I just made up, thank you very much).

It's stopped letting me take control of its playlist. Instead, it controls me. We used to be in sync; if I was having a bad day and I'd put iPod on "shuffle', it always managed to find the angriest songs on my iPod, heavy on the Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson and REM ("Bad Day" is an excellent song for when you're having....a bad day). When i was feeling hyper and energetic, my iPod would shuffle into the punk stuff on my iPod, the Ramones, Stiff Little Fingers and, of course, Green Day. When I was melancholy, it was heavy on the Beethoven, Linkin Park again, Coldplay...whatever suited my mood. You get the point. My iPod got me, it understood me.

And, well, these days...I have no say. For a start, my touch wheel doesn't work. I can get it to work but I have to "mash" it. Mashing it means I put the iPod on 'hold' (you iPod owners know what I mean by that) and then just mash the scroll wheel for a moment or two. I push it a lot. Most of the time, I get control of the scroll wheel after this. Well, at least for a few minutes, anyway. So, I usually manage to get enough control to hit 'shuffle' so at least I have some music playing; it just means I'm at the mercy of my iPod.

I knew it was over yesterday though. I mashed the wheel because my iPod had decided to play all of the embarrassing songs in its files. And by "embarrassing" songs, I mean the stuff that you don't tell people you actually have on there, the stuff you hide until someone grabs your iPod and starts being nosy. Yes, I have some Kelly Clarkson on my iPod, ok? Yes, I know she was an American Idol but...she's catchy. And, uh, yes, I did have a moment of dementia of my own and I downloaded some of last years American Idol songs on iTunes. So Jason Castro...is on my iPod.It was a moment of weakness. But I stopped before I downloaded Chikeze, I promise! But that's most of my 'embarrassing stuff' except, maybe, Bon Jovi's "New Jersey" album which I downloaded because I was in the mood. But that's not embarrassing...it's retro...right?

Anyway, I'm digressing. Again. Or I'm confessing. One or the other. I got excited when iPod decided to play "Calling You," by Blue October. I like that song. My iPod usually doesn't shuffle to it and though I've put it on a playlist so I can hear it when I want, I no longer have enough control of my scroll wheel to try using a playlist. My 'mashing' only lasts long enough for me to select one option. If I try mashing again to continue to my playlist, iPod stops responding. So...when it shuffles to a song I really want to hear, I get excited. When "Calling You" stopped playing, it shuffled to "Starlight" by Muse. I like Muse a lot but I'm a bit burned out on them so I hit the 'back' key to replay "Calling You."

Except iPod didn't go back when I hit the 'back' key. It went forward. I thought that, maybe, I'd hit 'forward' by accident. I hit it again. It went backwards. Again. So, I hit the 'forward' key and, naturally, it started going backwards. So, I sighed and realized iPod was just being tempermental, decided to go along with it and attempted to get back to Blue October. Except then BOTH keys decided to start going backwards, WAY past Blue October and all the way back to the Kelly Clarkson stack of songs it had played earlier. I couldn't get my iPod to skip the songs. Clearly, it really wanted to hear Kelly Clarkson. I was its active audience.

I'm trying not to believe it's punishing me for the fact that I tend to be a little obsessive. If I like a song, I repeat it, over and over. Recently, it's been Coldplay's "Viva la Vida". iPod rarely shuffles to that song anymore. I also do have the entire Green Day catalogue on it, including a Japanese import. It doesn't like Green Day much and when it does shuffle, it's always to the Green Day songs I like least. I know I've abused it a little, forcing it to play the same playlist of five songs for five hours straight. I've apologised but, alas, it no longer seems to hear me.

I tried again this morning, realizing the the scroll wheel was not working at all. With the aid of a paperclip, I have managed to get some functionality back. So far, I can move forward and backwards. I still can't adjust the volume but I rarely get to do that anymore and since I managed to get it at a nice soft yet audible level, I will NOT complain. I am afraid to complain; sometimes, I actually have to plug it into its power cord just to get it to boot up, even when it's still got a full battery. I'd hate to think what it would do if I complained about something so minor as my not having control over the volume.

iPod seems to be in an Oldies mood today. So far, it's shuffled to the Beatles at least five times as well as my "Across the Universe" soundtrack, also Beatles songs but with the actors from the movie singing. I'm not complaining about that- I love that soundtrack. It's also playing a lot from "Juno". I guess it's feeling very free and quirky today.

The thing is, I'm not feeling so quirky today. Maybe I will later. It's too early to tell.

Then again, my iPod just started playing Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You." Maybe it's time to get a new iPod.