If I’d been an 18-year-old freshman or a 19-year-old sophomore, I probably would’ve handled it worse.

But I made it through, and I didn’t curl up and cry like I wanted to, which I consider a success. The shower and the electricity in the bathroom both work. Now I’m just trying to find the motivation to get dressed and go to my first  class–elementary French. Oh, I’ll go, don’t worry. I never skip the first day of classes. Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be my busiest days–French, English, and Fiction Workshop. Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be my longest–only two classes, but the first one is at 9:30 in the morning (Intro Anthropology) and the second is at 4 in the afternoon (an Honors class about the Middle East).

I’m hoping to get a bit more involved this year. Last year, I stuck pretty much exclusively to Writers’ Guild. While I certainly love my school’s writing club and the people in it, I do think I need to branch out a bit more. I don’t have any plans for what I’m going to do at the moment, but I do plan to get out of my dorm more often.

…I’m saying this while I’m still wearing my pajamas, after skipping breakfast because I just didn’t want to deal with people yet today. *eyeroll*

So, writing. Right. I finished the Mpreg o’DOOM last week. 100,084 words. This is the first novel-length project I have ever finished. Know how I felt when it was done? Like “That’s it?” It was exceptionally anticlimactic, and I feel no different about it now than I did when I was working on it. There has been no grand feeling of triumph and accomplishment, no “Thank Godga that’s over,” no…anything. Kind of disappointing. But it’s done. I no longer have to worry about people coming to kill me because it isn’t finished.

Also, remind me never to publicly declare that I’m going to work on a project again, okay? Because I’m not writing Glam next after all. Thanks to several friends of mine, I’m going to be writing Adam Lambert-centric fanfiction instead. After five years, I’ve started writing fanfic again. I already have a multi-part story in the works, too–a House crossover that I really need to update today. I’ve also written several other pieces (most of them naughty), I’m eying a few prompts for my next ones, and I’m tentatively planning to turn one of my one-shots into a series. And I’m getting addicted to getting comments on my stories.

I do still intend to go on as scheduled with NaNoWriMo this year, though. Maybe.

I never thought I’d see the day when I’d long to go back to school, but since college…

Now, on to what this post is really about–writing.  The Mpreg o’DOOM is almost finished.  Within the next 5k-10k words, everything will be wrapped up in a nice, semi-neat little bow, and I will be able to get on with my life.

And I’m not really sure what to do next.

I don’t quite know what it is that got me this far with You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance.  Maybe it was because it was a discard novel, never meant for anything more than entertaining practice.  Maybe it was because of the characters–because I already knew them, because they were easy and fun to work with, because they really did not like being broken apart and had to fix things OMG NOW.  Maybe it was because I had a clear, obvious plot from the beginning.  Maybe it was because I had readers who kept begging me not to kill it (and one even did so in person).  Maybe it was because I was sick of not finishing stories.  Maybe it was all of these things, maybe it was none of these things–I can’t say for sure–but for some reason, it worked well enough to get me a soon-to-be-complete story.  It’s not perfect, it would need to be edited if I ever wanted to do anything with it besides sharing it on LJ, but it’s semi-coherent and it’s a story.

But it’s going to be finished soon–probably sometime next week, if I can make myself keep going.  NaNoWriMo is still months away.  I have a goal to write one hundred words every single day for the rest of the year.  I am not very good at staying consistent when I’m only writing one-shots, short stories, drabbles, and poems.  So I have no idea what (besides schoolwork) is going to occupy me between now and November 1.

Oh, I could take a break, I suppose, give up my goal and just plot sporadically until NaNo begins.  I could try to make one-shots, short stories, drabbles, and poems work for me.  I could slow the pace of my mpreg writing down to a crawl, then drag it out until November (yeah, right).  I could spend the weeks until NaNo wasting valuable writing time, feeling like I should be writing, and not getting anymore practice at all.

I need the practice.  I keep feeling like I’m going to be a One-Book-Writer, somebody who can only manage to finish one novel-length thing in their life.  I don’t want that.  It’s not fair to my characters, it’s not fair to my (few) readers, and it’s definitely not fair to me.  I have this massive story ‘verse lurking in my head, waiting to be used, and I don’t want it to whither away into nothing.  I want to write.

So, I’m starting to poke at the ideas for my next project, and I think it’s going to be Glam.  Glam is unabashedly a romance novel, centered around pansexual pop star wizard Jonathan Cooper’s attempts to woo an enigmatic purple-haired artist, Davin Haverford.  To Cooper’s surprise, Davin won’t go out with him because Davin’s still married to the abusive jerk he’s trying to leave, Ran, a fashion design student who steals other people’s (especially Davin’s) designs.  Davin’s scared, broke, and needs a way out.

It also features Adam and Zeph, the MCs of the Mpreg o’DOOM, as Adam works toward ending his relationship with an unappealing guy named Lucas (the father of the AU mpreg baby, who isn’t nearly as bad in this) and toward finally getting together with his best friend, while Zeph gets increasingly frustrated with Adam for not getting a clue and dating him.  Oh, boys.

Meanwhile, Cooper’s best friend, Dr. Rhys Coursey, continues to date the absolute worst girls EVER and consistently does not Get a Clue about the kind of girls he should be dating–one of those things that will probably never get resolved, ever, because Rhys Has Issues and Very Bad Taste in Women.

Basically, Glam is a modern day off-world fantasy/romantic dramedy about a teen hero turned very adult singer who has just impossibly risen from the dead trying to woo a troubled married boy, a pair of best friends who are afraid to get together, and a guy who really needs to stop sleeping with the dregs of society before something bad happens (like his friends killing him for bringing home awful girls).  It’s like my brain threw Harry Potter, Monty Python, Adam Lambert’s Den of Iniquity, a pinch of Grey’s Anatomy, a pinch of House, a bunch of Harlequin romance novel plots, a few tabloids, and a ton of slash fanfiction into a blender with a bunch of glitter and some booze, pureed the heck out of it, and now hopes to serve it as a literature daiquiri.

…I may be working with another discard novel here, guys.  Or something rather fabulous.

Or I may end up going with one of those options I don’t want to go with.  I tried to write Glam once before, and it didn’t work.  Like so many of my other WIPs, it fell apart.  Because of this, I can’t help but worry that it’s going to fall apart again if I try to write it.  Even though it could be fun and fabulous and a great stress reliever when classes get crazy.  This thing I’m working on now is the closest I’ve come to having a finished novel draft.  So, naturally, I’m worried, because worrying is what I do.

But I think I’m going to try it anyway.  Consider this my public commitment to attempt Glam after I finish the mpreg.

…Crap.  That means I actually have to try.

Today’s lesson:  Take anything a Known Horrible Person says with an oceanful of salt.

I won’t go into all of the details of why I am not giving her the benefit of the doubt in such an open place as this–perhaps in a password-protected post later, if even that.   But she has a long history of being an absolutely awful person.

Basically, my uncle may not be on death’s door, he may be heading home tomorrow, and he may last a while longer.  Or he may not.  I have no idea.

Whatever happens, I will keep you all updated.

Silver Lining: I am definitely incorporating some of my dysfunctional family’s antics into a character’s background, because I am a writer and that’s what writers do.  When life gives us lemons, we cut ‘em up and squeeze ‘em over our characters.  Poor Leandro. >.>

We learned last night that my uncle is dying.  Advanced lung cancer.  There was some bleeding, and he was taken to the hospital in critical condition.  Now they’ve stopped the bleeding, and they’re sending him home to die, I think.  I don’t know all of the specifics, but it doesn’t look good.  “Three to four days” was tossed around last night.  The rest of the family is already talking about who’s going to pay for the funeral.

Me?  I’m trying to stay out of everybody’s way and to keep writing.  I’m writing a semi-silly scene about a pregnant man’s food cravings (a scene that will probably become Not Silly At All in a few hundred words), and the beginning of something completely different—and new.  I got the characters for the new thing when I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea in my head.  There’s not much more I can do than stay out of the way and offer a hug when I’m needed.

We’ve done this before.  I’ve already lost an uncle and an aunt to cancer in the past seven years.  My uncle died in Spring 2003, the second semester of my freshman year of high school, then my aunt died days before my graduation in ’06.  We’re at the “waiting for him to die” stage right now, because that’s all there is for us to do:  Wait for that phone call, the one we know is coming but always catches us by surprise.

Sometimes, I am glad that I am not close to any of my family besides my parents.  Not that there’s anyone to be close to:  My mother has a brother and a sister left, and the brother is dying.  My father has one brother left, and he’s in his seventies and has an aortic aneurysm that’s just waiting to go off—and the idiot is still doing things like buying a four-wheeler.  There are also assorted cousins on both sides, but I know none of them.  If you had a gun to my head and demanded that I name all of my first cousins, you’d have to shoot me.  I don’t know the names of my cousins.  I haven’t even met most of my cousins.  My family is made up of my mother, my father, and, reluctantly, Dad’s brother.  It is a lot easier to cope with all of their family dying when I don’t know any of them.

It also reminds me of how much it sucks to not have a family.  That’s why I hate holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas so much—they remind me more of what I don’t have than what I do have.  That’s why I didn’t celebrate Christmas last year, and that’s why I probably won’t celebrate it this year.  There’s no point.  I’m an atheist, and I don’t have much of a family.  Holidays in our house consist of special food, gifts, and our usual everyday activities.  They might as well not exist at all.

Other family-oriented events are similar.  No one came to my high school graduation but my parents, because there was no one I would’ve wanted there.  No one comes to celebrate our birthdays.  No one came to visit while Mom was in the hospital.  No one came to help us after the tornado.  Don’t other families do these things?  Celebrate during the good times and support during the bad ones?

At least I have some amazing friends.  My parents don’t even have that.

I suspect this is why I’m so fascinated by families and very close friendships in my writing these days, and why I keep trying to have a variety of them.  I have characters who have no one, I have characters who have no one who’s worth having, I have characters with big families, small families, and friendships that are their families.  I have characters who have kids, characters who hate kids, characters who are kids.  I have families that are as dysfunctional as mine and families that make me wish so hard for what I don’t have.

Everybody comes from somewhere, and we don’t always like where.  Since I’ve started seriously writing, I always try to remember that.  Where we come from reverberates through us from the day we’re born until the day we die.  Our past shapes our present and our future, our childhood shapes our adulthood, our relatives shape our relationships.  Does any outside influence affect us as completely as the state of our family?  Events don’t affect us until they happen.  Environment changes.  But family shapes us from the beginning and touches everything.  We can try to escape it, but we can’t erase it.  We can change how we behave, think, and live, but we can’t remove our family from our history.  Embracing or escaping it is just another one of its effects.

So, I’m writing.  There’s not much else to do.  More than likely, we aren’t going to visit my uncle one last time, and if we did, I wouldn’t go anyway.  One one-last-visit to a dying family member I barely knew is enough for me in this lifetime, thanks.

It would be nice if the tragedies left us alone for a few decades now, but they won’t…At least they make good story fodder?

Everyone, meet Luna, my new pet.  Yes, that is a normal-sized fedora sitting on top of her.  My fedora can beat up my computer.

She is the netbook I was stressing over naming the other day, and she is adorable.  She came from Best Buy, she was cheap (about $230, plus tax and shipping), and I love her already.  I have already written over 1000 words on her today, and I intend to write more.  She makes me want to start a new WIP, just to write it on her.  IDEK, you guys.  Maybe it’s because I bought her just to write on her.

And I mean that.  I have already made accessing Solitaire on her incredibly inconvenient, after I caught myself trying to play even after I realized that playing Solitaire on such a small screen was extremely uncomfortable.  I am also pondering banning myself from using the internet on her.  I can’t use it while I’m on her now, since she lacks a modem and I’m on dial-up, so maybe once I get to school, I will be so used to not having internet access on her that I won’t even try.

…Yeah, right.  I’m gonna have to force myself not to give in to the temptation of the wireless internet scattered around campus.

She’s not perfect.  One of her USB ports is faulty, but it’s the one that is inconveniently located beside the power cord, and I already had spare 4 port USB hub thingy lying around, so I can live with that.  She also, as I have mentioned, doesn’t have a modem, and she doesn’t have a disc drive, either–but I knew both of those when I bought her.  If she did, she probably would’ve been filled with Distractions before I’d written my first word on her.  I have no idea how long I can expect her to last, either.  She’s an Averatec, and I know nothing about Averatec.  If she lasts a long time, awesome.  If she breaks quickly, then I got what I paid for, and I’ll declare her my test netbook and suffer with my laptop until I can afford a new, better netbook.  Since I’m not planning to use her for everything like I do with my laptop, then I’m hoping I can make her last a while.

…Her.  My netbook has an identity.  This is so weird.  But kind of cool.

I am really looking forward to carrying her to Writers’ Guild meetings this fall.  As much as I like handwriting, it is a lot easier to keep up with my bits and pieces of writing if they’re all on a computer.  And I am a bit of a show-off. >.> Besides, why not?  She’s lighter than my light-as-air little chihuahua, and I bought her for writing on the go!

I didn’t want much (low price and Windows XP), and I got what I wanted.  And if I start complaining about her malfunctioning a few months from now, feel free to thwap me.

I love new computers. And I blame every single one of my writer friends who have netbooks for me getting one.  I didn’t want a netbook…and then I did. XD And you netbook owners are all to blame.

One of the biggest problems I have with writing is with naming things.  It’s a good thing I don’t want to reproduce, ’cause if I did, my kids would probably end up being named “Baby Girl/Boy 123″ or “Bob” or “Z” or “Adam Lambert 2.0″ or something (mostly because it would make me lol, I admit–yet another reason why I would be a terrible, terrible mother).  Yes, I would hopefully have months to figure it out, but that would just mean I would have months to get overwhelmed and angsty over the many, many choices.  Thank goodness naming a real, live human being is a problem for AU!WD, not me.  I have all of the maternal instincts of a soda can tab, and as much interest in having children as I do in having a clammy, malodorous dishrag permanently affixed to my face.  You’re more than welcome to have and name your own kids, but leave me out of it, please.

Today, I ordered a netbook.  It’s gonna be an adorable, tiny little thing that should arrive this week, since I got express shipping on it.  Lightweight, silver, probably only gonna be used for writing, and so cheap I’m still a bit leery about it (but I’m used to temperamental computers *pets her one-year-old prone-to-overheating HP that has had Issues since the beginning*).  I’m so excited about it that I’m actually thinking about naming it.

…Hold on.  Naming it?

For me, trying to find just the right name for something is a long, torturous process that causes lots of whining and headdesking–and the sad thing is, I can’t write about a character unless the character has a name, and I can barely write a story that doesn’t have one.  Names are important.  Names mean so much.  As a person whose real name has been misspelled countless times (which, among other things, has led to my plan to use a pseudonym if/when I get published.  I like my real name; I don’t like to see it misspelled), I can tell you that names matter.

I don’t name my stuff.  The only object of mine that has a name is Impy the MP3 player, and if you say “MP” out loud you can guess why I named it Impy.  It sort of fits, too–it’s little and mischievous.  It likes to play Adam Lambert right after Rufus Wainwright’s “Gay Messiah” (and I don’t even have a “Welcome to the Rainbow” playlist), it reads my mind sometimes and often refuses to listen, it malfunctions periodically…yeah, it’s an Impy.  I got lucky when I named it, because the right name for it was right there.

I usually don’t get lucky when it comes to names.  Oh, I have come up with some good names.  I’m rather ridiculously fond of Pandora for my dog.  Several of my characters have names that I really like.  But the good names are rare, and they did not come easily.

Take Cooper, for example.  I picked the name “Jonathan Cooper” from the names on two book covers on my bookshelf, because Rhys Coursey (who came from a friend’s suggestion and a telephone book) needed a friend.  Now, look at Cooper–he’s a glittery, loud, eccentric diva who demands attention.  I don’t like his name.  I don’t think it fits.  He doesn’t think it fits.  But I haven’t been able to come up with anything better, and I’m so used to it now that he’s stuck with it.  Sorry, Cooper.  He’s not the only one I’ve had trouble naming.  There are several living in my head who still don’t have names, like one of Cooper’s bandmates and a pair of characters from something else.  The bandmate wants to be named Rafe, but I already have a Rafe–girl!Rafe in my zombie ‘verse.  And I’m sure I’ll have just as much trouble with names in the future.

In short, naming things sucks.  I don’t do it at all unless it’s important, and usually, that’s when it’s the most difficult.  So this new computer must be pretty damn important to me.

…Oh crap.  I need to find a name for it.  D:

It started as a vague, cracky idea–one of the guys in my fantasy ‘verse was going to unexpectedly become pregnant.  When my dear friend Bea dared me to go for it a few months ago, I figured it would be a short piece–like the second mpreg I wrote a few weeks ago.  It wasn’t a serious idea, dammit!  But then my brain decided that it would be more interesting if the Original Mpreg Victim™’s boyfriend was pregnant instead, and the story grew.  And grew.  And grew some more.  I joked that I would kill it with fire if it passed 50k.  I planned.  I lamented that it sucked.  I got that sinking feeling of “Ohshit, this thing is gonna be longer than 50k.”  I lamented some more over its intense suckitude.  I got fishslapped a lot by friends who still say it’s awesome.  It passed 50k.  I didn’t kill it with fire.  It’s still going, and the end still isn’t quite in sight yet.  I still think it sucks, and my friends still disagree with me.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Mpreg o’DOOM, the plot is this:

Bartender and professional woobie extraordinaire Adam van Altena never expected to become pregnant.  But then he did, and with his ex’s child no less.  Thinking Adam secretly planned the whole thing, Adam’s longtime best friend turned boyfriend Zephyr Walcott-Smythe broke up with Adam.  Adam ran off and started working at a gigantic magical bookstore and began getting his life together, while Zeph angsted and began searching for a way to prove that Adam didn’t do this on purpose.  While Adam is dealing with an annoying and stupid ex-boyfriend and a colleague’s bitchy wife who is out for Adam’s blood, Zeph flails without him and is forced by his friends into babysitting and straightening out his life so he can get back together with Adam.

Everything just keeps going to Hell for the boys, until they realize that their lives work much better when they’re together.  And then things keep going to Hell, and they deal with it accordingly.

It is original fiction, set in my “FM ‘verse,” and it’s an AU–this is not part of story canon.  Men can (and do) become pregnant in this ‘verse, but Adam does not.  This is also never going to be published, because I’m never going to attempt it.  I won’t be editing it, ever, and I sure as heck won’t try to submit it anywhere.  You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance is my discard novel.  Through it, I am teaching myself how to keep a long story going and teaching my self that yes, I can finish a novel-length project.  Though I haven’t finished it yet, the chances of me finishing it are pretty dang high.

But needless to say, this is not what I expected my first novel to be.

I’ve started…a lot of novels since I started seriously writing.  Most of them never made it past the last days of November.  Some of them didn’t even make it past November 1.  I was always working with the wrong characters or the wrong ideas, or I just didn’t keep going when things started to get difficult.  This time, I’m dealing with characters I know, I have a fairly straightforward plot to work with, and I have a few readers breathing down my neck, waiting for more.

And one of these readers knows where I live. And she really wants this story to stay alive.

But whenever I pictured my first novel, I always pictured…something else.  The idea of writing an mpreg about two side characters never even thought about crossing my mind.  I figured I’d write something about one of my more established characters, one of my actual MCs like Jackson the snarky, broken, potionmaking genius, or like Cooper, the glittery, shameless pop star who saved the world once.  Not the shameless Adam Lambert insert who was only going to appear in one little one-shot as a bartender and the best friend turned boyfriend he insisted on having.

Then again, I never pictured myself ending up with a massive modern-day fantasy ‘verse with plans for…probably over 10 novels and Ideas for over half of them.

What have I learned?  Well…

• Expect the unexpected, especially when it comes to Ideas
• I cannot say “I suck as a writer” without getting fishslapped
• I have serious issues with pacing
• I also don’t include enough details
• Plotting as I go is a Good and Necessary thing
• Breaking the “don’t edit as you go” and “don’t delete ANYTHING” rules is Good and Necessary for me, too
• I will forget details I included in earlier scenes.  I will also forget events that happened in earlier scenes (No I did not forget Adam blowing up Lucas’s wine glass with his mind, why are you looking at me like that?)
• My characters sigh too much, angst too much, roll their eyes too much, and swear too much
  • Except for Viper.  Viper doesn’t swear enough.
• Sometimes, violating your Magna Carta is okay
• No, I am not going to be a writer who never finishes anything, because I AM going to finish this, dangit
• I only play Solitaire when I have a WIP
• I suck more at playing Solitaire than I do at writing
• I have to keep writing until the day I die, or I will be killed.  Probably by fish.
• Having an audience keeps me writing
• And so does having a daily goal that I’m determined not to screw up
• Several of my characters are a lot more screwed up than I thought

What did I do on my summer vacation?  I finished (hopefully) a novel that I started in April.  And I will not tell my friends about it unless we someday have a conversation about mpreg–which isn’t that unlikely, since several of them read slash fanfiction.

Now, the question is, what shall I do when I’m done?  The answer?  Short pieces and NaNo prep.  Because I am not going to fail NaNo again.  I am not going to drop out again.  And I am going to finish this year’s NaNovel.

Maybe.  If it’s worth finishing.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a novel to go work on or I will die.

Today, I picked up Chris Baty’s No Plot? No Problem! again.  It’s come up in conversation a few times recently, and since it was just lying around, I figured I’d pick it up and read a few more pages of it before putting it away somewhere to get ignored again.

I got up to the section on Magna Cartas–the lists of Things You Like to Read and Things You Don’t Like to Read.  These lists have been talked about before on the writing forum I frequent, and I have attempted to make them before, but none of them “stuck.”  Since I was trying to avoid the computer for a little while because of eyestrain (playing around with 100×100 pixel images for hours is not good for your eyes, believe it or not), I decided “Why not?” and made my Magna Cartas.

Again.

The theory with the Magna Cartas is that you should go into your writing venture armed with the knowledge of what you do and do not like to read about.  Otherwise, those sneaky things you hate might creep up on you like kudzu in the night to strangle your writing to death with their leafy, plant-y evil.  Magna Carta I is the good twin.  It is the list of all of the bright and shiny things one likes.  Magna Carta II is the evil twin, the one you can’t help but hate.  Everyone’s Magna Cartas are different, of course–what may be the biggest baddie on one person’s Magna Carta II might be the most beloved item on another’s Magna Carta I.

And, because I don’t have much else to say, I’m gonna share my Magna Cartas with you.

YMMV.

As you can probably guess, I like characters, creepiness, funny stuff, new ideas, and new twists on old favorites.  As you can also probably guess, I don’t like boring stuff, bad writing, Deep Themes™, Harlequin-style romance, cookie-cutter characters and worlds, and Twilight.

Anyways, feel free to comment on my Magna Cartas or post your own in the comments if you’d like.  Or not–it’s up to you.  You could throw around a bunch of cat Adam Lambert macros, if you’d prefer to do that.

Mostly I’m just looking for an excuse to spam the world with GlamBlondbert.  Never let it be said that I take myself, my blogging, or my shameless Glamberting too seriously.

There has been too much srs bsns in my life recently anyway.

That’s my biggest clue that the Universe is one screwed-up place–how can somebody like me be an adult?  But whatever.  It’s apparently true, and there isn’t much I can do about it.

My mother continues to Not Get It.  Yesterday, after telling her that I’d ordered a couple of posters with the birthday money she and Dad surprised me with, she said that I was “too old” to do things like fangirl Adam Lambert.  The mature responses would’ve been to quietly explain how people much older than me are a lot more…dedicated to Adam’s career than I am, or to give her the response she wanted, which would be, “You know, you’re right.”  My response was to keep myself from saying something bitchy, then quietly go to my room and order more Adam Lambert merchandise.  Because Adam Lambert makes me happy, and I see nothing wrong with devoting my time and money to something or someone who makes me happy.  Especially since Adam Lambert’s career is making him very happy indeed (and I ♥ Adam Lambert’s happyfaces so much), unless he is spectacularly good at faking his happiness–and I don’t think he is–and I think somebody who is as talented as him deserves to have a career.  And sales=Good-for-his-career.

I’m investing in his future, dammit!  I deserve an effing medal! Though posters and music and overpriced t-shirts are better than medals…

And not all of the things I spent my money on were Adam Lambert related, anyway.  I also ordered three writing books, and this NSFW Lady Gaga poster.  I cannot help but wonder how my mother will react to topless!Gaga when she inevitably sees the poster.  To be honest, I am past the point of caring.  She and I are different people, from different worlds.  She is not me, and she is not the person living my life.

Besides, that picture is practically tame for Lady Gaga.  And, believe it or not, Mom likes Lady Gaga.  Yes, my mother likes Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert.  Underneath the failsauce and the crazy glaze, she’s secretly kind of awesome sometimes.  But it requires a lot of digging.

In any case, I am on the path toward not caring what other people think of me, my interests, and the many other details that make up a Walking Dictionary.  Because it’s my life, not theirs.  If I go down in flames, it’s my own Gagadamned business.  I think this may be one of the biggest changes that has happened for me since I started college.  I’m not where I want to be yet, but I’m at least on the path toward self-acceptance and living my own life.

At least, I hope I’m on that path.  It would be so nice to not be beating myself up so often over not fitting society’s definition of an adult, and it would be so nice to just be able to be myself all the time and not care if people reject that.  I mean, the only goals in life that I’ve managed to define are “I want to be happy” and “I want to be me–the real me.”

Apart from wanting to be a writer, I don’t have a career in mind.  The list of things I’m not willing to do is much longer than the list of things I am willing to do.  And I have been told that being unwilling to do jobs is unacceptable and unreasonable, but whatever.  The people who have said this to me the most are people who think I am wasting my time in college and act like I’m never going to amount to anything EVER, so…I don’t care.  Like I said: it’s my life, and if I go down in flames, it’s my business.  And I don’t think their “the entire world is made of shit” viewpoint is as accurate as they think it is, anyway.

I’ll figure something out eventually.  Or I’ll go down in flames. But it’s possible that the only flames that I’ll be dealing with will be the flaming pretty boys who keep appearing in my head…

…I am cursed by Teh Ghey, and I suspect it’s somehow All KD’s Fault, because everything is always KD’s fault.  Especially when it involves Teh Pretteh Ghey Boyz.  Dammit, I want to be worthy of blame for something! XD

Anyways, happy early birthday to me, and may all of my birthday presents arrive before Thursday: Three posters, three writing books, and a t-shirt…That’s a lot of odd numbers.  I, er, may end up ordering one more thing to balance it out, since I hate odd numbers.  Unless you lovely people somehow manage to talk me out of it.  What do I waaaannnntttt?

On the writing front, the Mpreg o’DOOM is still going.  And going.  And going.  It’s over 62k now, and while it doesn’t look like I’ll finish it before the end of this month, I’ll hopefully finish it before the end of the next.  Also, I may not finish it by 100k.  Argh.  But I will finish it.  I’m not sure if I’m gonna get started on another novel right after I finish or if I’ll save Dark Artistry for NaNo.  I’ll probably flail around in the whole “I don’t know what to do with myself anymore” phase for a few days, then get caught up in something else or something.  Or it’ll go on forever and ever and ever, and I won’t have to worry about not having anything to do, because it will eat me alive.

I swear, my blog posts get longer and longer and longer and more and more aimless every time I make them…

So, now that I am no longer braindead from going for over 24 hours without sleep, then standing and walking around in high-heeled boots (not as bad as the ones I wore to my friend’s birthday party and, before that, around campus–never doubt my insanity when it comes to fashion, people), it’s story review time!  Since, as you all know, I witnessed the glory that is Adam Lambert in Nashville Wednesday night, and I kind of promised a review…

First off, the Sporky meetup:  Bea is so sweet and so nice and so generous.  I still can’t believe she did all of this for me.  Awesome.  Very, very awesome.  And crazy.  But mostly awesome.  There was some awkwardness between us when we were trying to converse, but since the majority of face-to-face conversations with me are filled with awkward silences because I utterly fail at having face-to-face conversations…yeah.  If any of the rest of you meet me IRL, expect awkward silences, ’cause I am much better at writing than I am at talking.

And, thankfully, there was not much drama from the parental units over the Ev0l Internet Person–Dad left for work before I announced that I was going to Nashville to see Adam, and I stayed in bed all day yesterday so I haven’t seen him since, and though Mom was concerned and kept going on about how I “didn’t really know this person,” there was no yelling about how stupid I am or anything.  Anyways, I didn’t deal with them much afterward.  I went to bed early yesterday morning, and I crashed until about 8:30 in the evening.

So, the concert?  Fabulous.  I mean, really, really fabulous–the kind of fabulous you can’t quite describe.  The Ryman Auditorium is small–a lot smaller than I was expecting, even though I knew he was doing most of his shows in smaller places–and pretty.  Stained glass windows in the back, general prettiness elsewhere.  This is the first time I’ve ever been there, and I kind of fell in love with the place within the first few minutes of being there.  And I like Nashville.  It’s bigger and more confusing than what I’m used to, but I like it.  One day, when I’m finally driving, I’m heading up there–and I may never leave.

…Okay, if I’m still in college afterward, I’ll probably leave.  But, uh, I’m rather ridiculously sick of small towns.  I grew up in–and still live in–a small town, I go to school in a small city…but I digress.

Anyways, concert.  Right.  The first act was Allison Iraheta.  I came in wanting to love her, because I know about the whole Kradison (Kris Allen/Adam/Allison, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term) friendship thing, saw…uh, one bit of her on Idol with Adam, and because she has awesome hair.  And I did love her.  She is absolutely adorable, and damn, she can sing.  I want to own her album now.  I want her headlining tour now.  I want to steal her hair now.  I kind of want a girlfriend who’s like her now.  Anyways, I loved her.  She was fun, she was full of energy, she rocked, she can sing…loved her.

After Allison Iraheta was Orianthi.  I, er, didn’t like Orianthi as much.  She didn’t ~capture~ me at all.  Her voice was…meh.  Her songs were meh.  Her “Mad Guitar Skillz” left me wishing for earplugs–subtlety is, believe it or not, a Good Thing, honey.  I spent most of the time she was on thinking, “Yes, I get it.  You’re good at playing the guitar.  But you’re just showing off, you’re boring me to tears, can you please get off the stage now so we can watch ADAM?  Or bring back Allison?  Please?“  Not impressed.  I won’t be buying her album anytime soon, and I won’t go out of my way to listen to her again.

Finally, Orianthi was gone.  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.

It was worth the wait.

Adam Lambert’s voice is unreal.  Going into this, I knew that he was talented (of course I knew; I’ve been fangirling him obsessively for months), and I knew that he sounded much better live than in recordings.  But holy SHIT!  There are no words to describe just how un-fucking-believable his voice is.  Amazing, phenomenal, breathtaking, unreal.  I have concluded that Neil Lambert was not joking when he said his brother was “a glittery alien from Planet Fierce.” There is no way a human can possibly sound like that.  No effing way.  And it makes me happy to think Adam Lambert is an alien or the honest-to-Lady-Godga Gay Messiah no brain I will not write that fanfic now, STFU.

Anyways, Adam?  Should change his name to Adamn.  Seriously, ZOMG!  He owned that stage last night.  If, somehow, that man doesn’t become a fucking legend, then I will have to cut a bitch.  He’s beautiful, he’s amazing, he’s so talented…Great Sporking Lork, I want everyone in the world to see him perform live–or, at least, every Glambert in the world to see him perform live.  And if he doesn’t become a music legend, then the music industry and the entertainment industry and the entire fucking world is stupid.  That man is not good.  He is not great.  He is not phenomenal.  He is…words don’t exist yet for how utterly beyond fabulous his voice is.

…I’m sorry.  I can’t get over his VOICE.  Sweet mother of glitter, that man can sing.  Because I was so distracted by the awesome while it was happening, I had to look up the songs he sang on Wikipedia to do a proper review. XD Anyways, he sang, in order:  “Voodoo,” “Down the Rabbit Hole,” “Ring of Fire,” “Fever,” “Sleepwalker,” “Whataya Want From Me,” “Soaked,” “Aftermath,” “Sure Fire Winners,” “Strut,” “Music Again,” and “If I Had You,” followed by encore performances of “Mad World” and “Whole Lotta Love.”  He didn’t perform “For Your Entertainment,” “Pick U Up,” “A Loaded Smile,” or–and this was very disappointing–”Broken Open.”  “Broken Open” is my favorite slow Adam song, and they didn’t do it.  Augh.  But it was hard to care during the actual show, because the show was amazing.  And they did do my favorite fast song, “Fever,” so yay!  (Oh, America, why must you hate the “he” in “Fever”?  That song would make a killer single…)

There also wasn’t much Really Hot Adam/Tommy Action, alas; I’m guessing they toned it down because they were, y’know, performing in Nashville, in the Ryman Auditorium.  Nashville is the home of country music, after all, and the Ryman was once the home of the Grand Ole Opry (and is again because of the floods back in May).  But I am a filthy, filthy pervert who likes boykissing and boytouching and Action, and I was hoping for a little bit.  There were a few ~glances~ and they got close to each other a few times–and, of course, there was the obligatory Adamtastic pelvic thrusting and whatnot–but, for the most part, it was tasteful.

Dammit.

Anyways, during the actual show, it didn’t matter that it was lacking important bits like boykissing and “Broken Open.”  Adam was…there are no words.  As I have said.  Because that man is phenomenal.  Unreal.  Otherworldly.  There is no way to describe how it felt to be surrounded by his voice.  He just…I…*flaily hands* EEEEEEEEE!

My favorite performance?  “Soaked.”  I mean…holy shit.  All of the performances were amazing, but “Soaked” was…wow.  It was easily my favorite performance of the night, and since all of the songs were beyond amazing, that’s really saying something.  Second favorite…um…”Ring of Fire” was sexy as hell, “Fever” was fun, “Strut” was epic win, “Sure Fire Winners” was epic win, “Sleepwalker” was beautiful, “Music Again” was…dammit, I can’t choooooose.  I loved them all.  I even managed to like “Aftermath,” and I don’t really like “Aftermath.”

After the show, Bea asked me what my favorite costume was.  Um…all of them?  I mean, how do you choose when you have all of this (and a few that they’re missing–so glad that plenty of people got pics last night, because my camera sucks) to choose from?  Besides, I was more distracted by the man inside the costumes.  He could go onstage wearing a paper bag, and he would still look fabulous (Oh, Sparkle Gods, why can’t the man do a show naked?  Oh, right, it would kill the entire audience with guh.  Nevermind then.  But what a way to go…).

Have I mentioned that I am a filthy, filthy pervert?  Because, um…

Anyways, there isn’t much more to say than this:  A. The show was epic. and B. If you ever get the chance to see Adam Lambert live, do it.  I mean it.  Seriously.  Do whatever it takes to see that man live, because you will not regret it.

The only things I regret?  Not getting any probably-crappy videos, since I can’t watch anyone else’s until late August fuck you very much dial-up, and not buying any merchandise because I am completely broke and was suffering from a serious case of Crowd Overload.  But I do have a birthday coming up at the end of the month…*starts preparing to make puppy eyes at the ‘rents*

My new goal in life?  Meet Adam Lambert someday.  And Tommy Joe Ratliff.  I’ll almost settle for meeting Tommy–I did, after all, yell “I love you, Tommy!” when Adam was introducing the band members.  No one heard me, but I don’t care; I did it anyway. I love Adam’s band.  Monte is an amazing guitarist, Longineu kicks serious ass on the drums, Camila is fabulous on the keyboard, and Tommy is…*makes heart eyes over the pretty, awesome bass player*

Also, I dare someone to yell “Adam Lambert is the gay messiah!” at one of his future concerts.  I DARE YOU! You have no idea how much that would make me lol especially if he heard you say it. XD

On a more serious note, I was so proud of Nashville and Tennessee the other night–so proud.  I saw no protesters, which I was kind of worried about–I mean, Tennessee is part of the Bible Belt, after all, and is the home of country music.  But I saw nothing but love.  And the crowd at the show was so diverse.  It was amazing. I love that so many different types of people love him so much.  Again, if that man doesn’t become a legend–the good kind–then there is something seriously wrong with the universe.

[insert lame and ~inspiring~ comment about how he really does make people wanna listen to music again here]