Music is my passion.... well....

Words are my passion. When they flow from me as the scene unfolds it is sheer joy. Music helps with that. Over the course of my editing my very helpful friends helped me discover a gap in the book. Mr. Bad had a missing piece. Why was he the way he was? I hinted at it but didn't explain it and other than the first chapter Mr. Bad was not to be seen again until chapter 13. Granted the first 12 Chapters covered only a few days but still. Once the gap was found I had to solve it. Obviously I knew why he was satan and why we had 12 chapters cover a week and then jumped forward a few weeks in time. The reader had no idea and we needed to cover that. So write I did. I added a nice chunk to chapter 6 from Mr. Bad that explained the questions my team raised. Then I added a chapter between 11 and 12 that answered a few more questions and helped with the leap forward. The chunk was about 900 words and it seemed to take all day to write. I wrote it on my laptop, downstairs, during all the mommy, wifey, Lila day stuff. Ugggg...... It took ages. I worried it was choppy and weird but my team loved it. Today I tackled the new chapter. They haven't read it yet since I just put it up for them but it was 1900 words and it flowed. I wrote it on my PC. My beautiful dual screen beauty with music streaming from Pandora in the background. Oh it was bliss. It was a small chapter but it did what I wanted it to do and in 2 hours the words cascaded out. I wasn't even sure when I sat down what was going to happen, just that 2 vital points needed to be addressed. Why was our hero avoiding our heroine? AND why had a talk not happened that had been alluded too all book long? Answered both. Beautifully. I think anyway, lol. The music helped with that, being in my space helped with that. I have been trying to edit with the kids around and that just ends with me feeling frustrated. This worked better. Yay!!! Lila found her groove!

When you face a darkness it is always with you in odd moments.

I was a teen statistic. I was rebellious, I was often sneaking out, I flirted with whatever danger I could find and if the proposition seemed sweet enough I did a lot more than flirt. I did it in cycles. Some months I was the A student, head in her books, always in class, the next few months I was cutting constantly and high as a kite as I slinked away with whatever boy I was desperate enough to let in my life. When I was acting out I was a liar. If I spoke it was probably a lie. Somehow I maintained a 30 hour a week job and managed to do my junior and senior years at once to graduate early. I was pretty weird. Driven to be on my own but sick of life. I was at war with myself and my parents. My dad did the best he could but emotion and females we not his strong suit and my biological mother walked at her first chance and never looked back. I learned during these teen years that the abuse i thought was dreams was truth from her and knew I was better off but a huge part of me ached for a mom. Luckily at 16 I got one and to this day she is a wonderful addition to my life and though she and my dad later divorced he has also grown much better at communication and is happily married which seems to help our relationship.

All of the up and down led to some pretty rough times. I am a very emotional person. I cry over everything even if I don't want to. I just teared up singing to Monkey for nap time because I was so full of love for her. It is frustrating to me but it completely drives people around me demented. Luckily Hubby tends to let me cry and then once I am done and back to being me we talk. So from a young age the people around me told me to stop crying. All. The. Time. Even if it was something worth crying over. So when I got upset as a teen I cut myself. Or I had sex. Or I did drugs. Or I drank. I looked for ways to hide from any emotion. I wrote a lot but that usually meant feeling too much. So all the acting out to hide led to more stupidity. I tried to commit suicide. Luckily that failed.

One thing that helped and still helps is music. Music seems to find a way to express how I feel when I can't. I also write my books. I knew I wanted to write love stories but I decided to add more crime to them, more overcoming these horrible things to find love. That gives me a couple good things. I get to re-imagine myself every time I tell a story. I also get to kill a few people in extremely gory ways at times and get some vengeance without ever having to really be violent. Such a cathartic experience.

I think any time we go through times when we feel drenched in darkness pieces of it linger as a reminder of what we saw and did and what we overcame. I catch a glance of them in odd moments as I go about my life. I am blessed that when I met my Hubby we were both in the dark but saw something in the other we wanted to save and we each knew that to do that we would have to step into the light as well. We took a journey together that has had it's moments where it felt like the dark was going to pull us back but we struggled and fought through and we continue every day to save the other.

Nothing is permanent. No bad time is endless. It can be easy in a moment of strife to look back at a seemingly better time and wish we were there instead of in the trials surrounding us. One thing I have to do is find something positive always. Yes money sucks, bills seem endless, health is crazy, kids are fighting, blah blah...... BUT I have a great marriage. I have beautiful daughters. I have food in my belly and a roof over my head. I have more than I ever dreamed I would and I would not change that. For all the worries and fears I live a very blessed life.

So I leave you with some of the songs that have spoke to me. Yes they are all girly. Sorry for that. None of them are classic anything. But the words speak to me about my feelings in the dark and my journey through and the fabulousness of the life I live. Maybe they will help you, make you smile, give you a laugh, or lift your spirits. (Or someone you know as tough strong men admitting to enjoying Demi Lovato would be crazy right?)

And break...

So, I took a bit of time off this week to just veg out and not do anything. The Boy and I have taken to going for long car rides with the windows down and radio up in the evenings. Good way to cool off (although not very "green" of me to be burning gas) and it's a de-stresser for me to be able to relax and just drive. The Boy likes to give directions, and is actually starting to get a decent map in his head of where he wants to go. Twice this week, he very much on purpose took us to a Dairy Queen. He went two different directions and tried to be sneaky, but he got far too excited when we got close for it to be a coincidence.

Tonight I'm going out to a concert at a local pub-type spot. A friend from school's band is in town from Nashville, and they are actually decent so it's worth the babysitting money. It'll be nice to kick back with some cold beers, great music and good friends.

Not sure yet what's up this weekend, but I'm sure I'll let you know.

Creating a musical soul.

So for a while now I have known it was time to get Bug into activities. She is 7 and really needs things to broaden her horizons. (And get her out of my hair!) I have thought some sort of music class would do her good. I played the flute and violin for a long while and I loved it. If I still had my flute I think I would play still. So a boon of this whole move thing is that we will be closer to my piano playing step-mama. She is amazing. Her fingers can fly over those keys in record time. She has offered to teach Bug how to play and I jumped at the chance. Piano can lead to many other instruments with ease and is such a wonderful skill to have. I find music to be immensely relaxing and am looking forward to seeing how well Bug does with the discovery of music.