Thursday, November 23, 2006

Too busy and still too tired

I'm not so sure I like this working and still trying to blog thing!! I love to blog! I need to blog! But I'm getting a bit frustrated at the lack of time I seem to have to do it anymore. I'm slowly adjusting to the working thing. I'm a little less tired this week than I was last week. And now that Dancing with the Stars and Lost are off the air, I have a bit more time. But still - I got used to posting almost every day and now I can't seem to be able to do that. I don't like it. I don't like it at all! Of course I'm also getting de-programed from the soaps which is a good thing. Although I really do want to know what happens with John McBain darn it all!

So - being as my brain still hasn't fully climatized, I thought I'd share another writing exercise we had to do. This one is a 500 word more of less than 10% dialogue. We all had to have the same first line and the same last line. What we put in between was up to us.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Becky cried. She dropped the pen she was holding and looked up from the bed where she was doing her homework and glanced in anguish at her mother who was standing in the doorway of her bedroom.
‘Damn him,’ Katherine thought as she looked down at her beloved 16 year old daughter.
‘Didn’t he didn’t he care that it was their child that was being hurt by his nasty games?’ It was this lovely girl who suffered whenever Michael, her ex-husband pulled one of these stunts.
“I’m sorry sweetie.” Katherine replied sadly.
“But your father just called and he claims he doesn’t have the money for this month.”
“But you promised Mom!
You promised that we would go look for a special dress for the dance on Saturday.
“I know I did, but that was before I had the trouble with the car.
That ate up a lot more money than I thought it would.” Katherine said on a sigh. She entered her daughter’s bedroom and glanced around at the lilac coloured walls that they had such fun painting themselves and the posters of whoever was Becky’s celebrity crush of the moment and idly thought back to her own teenage days and how black and white the world seemed then.
“Well, there has to be something you can do” Becky said impatiently.
“You KNOW how important this is to me! Kyle Turner asked me to go! Kyle. I mean like every girl in the class wants to go with him.”
Katherine looked back to her daughter.
She knew she felt a mothers love and was bound to be prejudiced, but her daughter was a beautiful young woman with her auburn hair shoulder length hair and large chocolate brown eyes that expressed every thought, her tilted nose with just a brief sprinkling of freckles, her normally infectious that was know where to be seen at the moment.
‘She was a good daughter’, Katherine acknowledged to herself.
Katherine knew she was lucky that way. Except for a few rough patches, so far they seemed to be handling this mother/daughter relationship pretty well.
“What if you use your charge card?” Becky asked, a hopeful tone in her voice
“I’ve already pretty much hit my limit on it.” Katherine replied.
“After working so hard to get it paid down, I don’t want it going up again.”
“Well, how about if I call and ask Daddy?” Becky countered.
“Maybe if I tell him how important it is, he’ll come up with the money? He must have some saved. He has a real good job this time.”
“I think you’ll be wasting your time honey.” Katherine sighed.
“He’s already overdue on his payment. And besides, I don’t want you getting in the middle of this issue between your father and me. It isn’t fair to do that to you.”
“Well, then.” Becky announced.
“I’ll call gramma D and ask her”
“No!” Katherine sharply replied.
“You will not call her.”
‘That’s all I need.” Katherine thought to herself, ‘to get my ex mother-in-law involved in this.”
“You have to do something then.” Becky said, her voice rising.
Getting up off the bed, Becky flounced out of the bedroom and with a final shot, angrily announced “You must have some money. I never knew you were such a cheapskate!”


'til later

13 comments:

Nicole said...

Yeah, I know waht you mean about working and lack of energy to blog. But it might come back. Just has to be more of a priority and almost a scheduled thing.

Nice paragraph. Only thing I'd recommend is using less dialog tags.

CindyS said...

I was wondering how you were doing but have been having 'tummy' issues all week so I haven't been e-mailing as much. I figured work was kicking your butt ;) Nothing like a change to throw everything all topsy turvy again.

Are you enjoying the job is the more important question and is Zina still using her litter box ;)

Also, none of us are going anywhere whether you blog every day or once a week, we'll still be around. Give yourself a chance to be flustered for a bit.

I liked your assignment - my suggestion would be to have Katherine acknowledge to herself that this was going to be one of those bad times between her and her daughter - only because the last line is like a slap in the face of a mother who thinks she's very lucky in her relationship with her daughter.

CindyS

Kristie (J) said...

Nicole: I hope so :) cause I miss not doing it as often. I see what you mean about the tags. Since it was supposed to focus on dialogue though I used more than I normally would.

Cindy:I'm adjusting - but too slowly for me. And I am enjoying the job. It's interesting (when there is stuff to do - at times there isn't much) and the people are very nice.
In the assignment we had to use that last line. That's why the daughter came across as so bratty :) but I see what you mean.

nath said...

Hey Kristie :D

Well glad at least that you are doing well :D Don't worry about blogging tho... as soon as you adapt, you'll have more time... it's totally normal that you feel tired because of work and everything :D

Kyahgirl said...

about working and blogging-I struggled too and finally just decided to cut my posting way back. I rarely post more than once a week but I'd rather stay in it for the long term than give it up altogether. Your faithfull blog friends will stick with you, regardless of your schedule because they want to truly connect with you. That is what I discovered.( Actually, I wish EVERYONE would post less, then I might have a hope in hell of keeping up with them LOL.)

ABout your paragraph? Excellent job of capturing that teenage angst and the money pressures that so many parent face, single or otherwise.

Dev said...

Well, I'm sure you'll find a balance between blogging and life ~ it's certainly not any fun if you feel you have to force yourself to do it.

ReneeW said...

I'm stuggling with the same problem because my job has been so hectic. But we'll be here whenever you can spare the time.

Jenster said...

Great paragraph, Kristie. I'm enjoying reading your stuff.

Jen

Kristie (J) said...

Jenster: Thanks! I'm really enjoying the class. There are only one or two left but she also teaches an advanced writing course so I think I'll sign up for that one next. Don't know if I ever will write - but it's interesting thinking about it and now I'm further ahead than I ever was before.

Renee: I love blogging and don't think I'll ever stop - but I did get into the habit of doing it more when I wasn't working that's for sure.

Devonna: I think as I adjust to working, it will come more often again.

Kyahgirl: I can relate to not getting a chance to read blogs as much as I want to! I missed a few there and then I did read them but was too tired and brain dead to make comments :) And glad you liked the writing exercise. I'm enjoying doing them!

Nath: I agree. It's just a matter of getting used to working again.

Anonymous said...

hey kristie,

I like all the exercises you're doing with this creative writing class. I know what you mean. That's why I told myself that I'll maintain 2 to 3 posts a week.

I think that has been doing fine for me, what with updating the church website and a christmas musical to rehearse. And like what Cindy and the other ladies sad, don't worry ... we'll check back every now and then. So you just get your work-personal life back in balance.

{{{hugs}}}

Nicole said...

Totally off topic of your post but I know you like westerns. At least I'm pretty sure that's you, lol. And didn't you say you read Sunset Embrace by Sandra Brown? Well I'm in the mood for that type of book and wanted to know if you could recommend anything. If so email me. jazzy_pez@yahoo.com thanks so much girl.
Okay now back to the regular schedualed program. lol.

Rosie said...

Kristie, I'll join the choir. Even though I'm currently on a lay off from work I just seem to be busy as hell. I take it as a good thing though...keeping busy and active keeps us young...right?

Mina Wolf said...

I keep up with my soaps via www.soapcentral.com