Feeling :  contemplativecontemplative  Listening :  Say Something - Mariah Carey and Snoop Dogg  Reading :  Ranma 1/2 #5

Crossposted from mySpace with some edits.

I made a conscious effort to NOT do my homework Wednesday for my Thursday classes. It is usually my one day off where I don’t have to run to school or work. I can just fart around if I want to. Truth of the matter is, I just didn’t feel like doing anything.

I’d been complaining to my BFF Kat for the last 2 days that my creativity has been zapped by my current life situation of utter monotony: close at work, school during the day and not on the same day. Be a good little worker bee, Gilly, and sit the fuck down. I’m tired of that, and I wanted a break from it all.

So I flipped my commitments the bird and did absolutely nothing. It was glorious.

I take that back.

I didn’t completely waste the day. I made spaghetti, and took the girls to Sahara West for their biweekly library fix. I got the first few Ranma mangas they had for myself. This decision was based on the fact of me walking past it for months as it’s near the kids’ section of the library (which I doth protest). And my nieces are still youngins and all. I decided to get some to reacquaint myself with the series, and manga in general.

I miss that part of my past. I was such an otaku in high school. And right then and there, I decided to start collecting mangas. I never had the lettuce to do it back in high school. Anime and manga were a rather expensive hobby to maintain. And some incomplete sets are on eBay for hella cheap. Just waiting to see how much is left over after this payday. *crosses fingers* Then I found this cool site that could fill in the gaps! I’m so excited. Working at the bookstore that I do has inspired me take up reading recreationally again, and that’s definitely helped.

I was inspired by my marathon MySpace message with Kat to change some little things I knew I could change on my own. I decided that instead of bitching about how I’m not writing, to just STFU and write. So in Bible as Lit on Tuesday night, I took the whole class time, and wrote a one-off short story inspired by Understudy. Under the guise of taking notes, of course. Tee-hee.

I used to do that ALL THE TIME in high school and the early years of college. I bang out stories better when I’m in an academic setting, for some reason. Maybe too many technological distractions at home? Probably.

I miss Understudy so much, and this character - an agent in another Section Seven program - leapt out at me. She sounds like me at this point in my life, which is what Understudy is to begin with. Understudy is a fictional autobiography of my life from 19 and on. She’s cynical because of her circumstances, about where her life is going and where it has led her so far. Anyways, I don’t want to give too much away. It’s really good, if I can toot my own horn.

Then Wednesday night, I said, “You’ve got two choices for the rest of the night. Finish the works-in-progress you’ve had on the Brandon or do your homework.” Brandon is my computer’s name. :) I had some light reading to do for my classes.

Of course, I chose my stories. For some reason, I felt inspired by my demons. That night, of all nights.

I banged out the endings to “Everything We Had” which I renamed to “40 Steps” (and yes The Academy Is… references are intentional). As well as “The Car Thief.” I might subtitle it “A Love Story,” but that would be kinda cliche, and maybe even cheapen the effect I was going for. I had them on Brandon for months. They were burning holes in my hard drive, know what I mean? I’m still editing them. They’re 99.9% done.

I was going to stay up all night and finish “The Car Thief” in one go, but I thought I should get some sleep since I had to close at work on Friday. I could feel my body falling asleep as I was writing it, but my fingers and brain were like, “NO! A little bit more.” And I obliged.

Not like sleeping did much good. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I kept waking up for some reason. Like I had some burning desire to do something else. Finish the stories, I bet.

I guess no matter where my boring life is headed, writing is my passion. I can’t ignore it. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m not gonna make any money from it, but writing is my destiny. I knew from the moment I could write that it was what I was meant to do. I just knew.

Writing and music are my drugs. Screw anti-drugs. I need them to survive.

I love the fact that when I write or type out a story, I can’t write or type fast enough. It’s like the characters in my head have a great need to bleed through my fingers to get their stories told.

This is the epiphany I’ve been waiting for. I hope I can keep it up. Frankly, I don’t care what I have to do to keep the bills paid, so long as I can write. And write. And write and write.