I hate Apartments

Tell me one good thing about them. Having a pool/workout community doesn't count because technically that has nothing to do with the living that goes on within in an apartment. (This is the biggest and perhaps only pro I can think of). And you might be thinking "I can call up maintenance anytime to fix something" to which I say, "define 'fix;".

    Normally I'm not a complaining bugger but today our water was shut off with no forewarn. All day. You never realize how much you need and use water on a consistent basis until you go to flush the loo and nothing happens. Or you go to wash your hands and nothing comes out. Or rinse a spoon. Or add water to your dinner recipe. Or come in from a hot morning at the pool ready for a cold drink of water and its been turned off and your 2-year old daughter guzzles down your last water bottle and you feel bad about wanting to yank it out of her small, innocent hands before she's done but your mouth shrivels as you watch the last drop disappear.* In our community email, it says it was an emergency water valve issue. But as I mentioned, I was at the pool this morning and overheard two maintenance workers talking about shutting off the water and it didn't sound like an emergency to me.

     Let me preference this rant by the fact that we have the weirdest neighbors that have only fueled my perseverance towards publishing and getting us out of here. Like the one across from us who will stomp out onto her porch and rant to the world about all her problems. Then she repeats the process about ten times slamming the door every time she goes back in. Oh, and she also likes to spray shaving cream at an imaginary Obama and any office manager that comes to tell her to stop.
   Needless to say, I'm pretty ready to move. Preferably to a house with 3+ acres. Because nothing ever goes wrong with your water or appliances in a house (hehe).

   The good thing out of living in an apartment in the middle of the desert with wacky neighbors and no water is that as mentioned it really has spurred me on to write more/better/faster/consistently. Whenever these things happen I always think "As soon as I publish I won't have to deal with this." As soon as I publish maybe we can move away from here...buy a house...I can finally decorate because we'll stay in one place...I can stock my pantry with tons of food so that I don't run out of powdered sugar and forget about it until I'm ready to frost my feel-better-about-no-water-situation chocolate cake and can find a 1/4 cup of powdered sugar (which any baker knows if about one individual serving of frosting. And even less if you were counting on drowning yourself in chocolate soothing). I can make more friends. I can have an awesome community of readers and book affecionados and we can chat about books 24/7. I can finally have something of success under my belt. I can finally look good with blonde highlights. I can shop at JCrew and their clothes will magically look great on one whose chest isn't as flat as a board and who has hips.

 Publishing will probably end world hunger.

Bring it on published novel. I'm ready for you.



*And you're 7 1/2 months pregnant which means you sustain yourself on water. Esp through a Nevada summer.








  

The Importance of Book Clubs *Updated

    Tonight I went to my first book club meeting. Needless to say, it totally rocked. Now that I'm home basking in the glow of a well spent evening I'm wondering why I haven't joined or started a book club earlier? The only down side is that until tonight I considered myself a well-read person..boy was I far off! I've gotten into this niche of reading YA novels because my WIP is YA and I had few adult books come to mind when we went around with suggestions. (I was pleased when someone said "The Book Thief because seriously, that book transcends categorization. READ IT.).
   Anyway, my point of this post is that it was such a well spent night discussing literature, hearing others' insights of how the book applied to their lives and feeling like I was actually gaining something from the conversation that I had to come home and write about it and urge you to get involved. If you like books AT ALL.
    The highlight was good conversation. It is something that has become so rare in my life. There are few girlfriends I can talk to where the conversation doesn't revolve around shopping, something on Pinterest, yet another _______ (insert with: personal work-out schedule, cleaning schedule, kids' schedule etc). It's fine to talk about those things but lately I've been craving the kinds of conversation where I leave with more than I came with. It also helped that most of the other attendees were older than me, I love any situation where I can gather up bits of wisdom since they are so much wiser than I.

 So..if you're lonely or feeling like all anyone cares about is Jersey Shore and the latest hyped whatever this might be the outlet you need..

**Update: Today I saw on Fantasy-Faction a NEW Sci-Fi book club! Right on the heels of my post last night...I'll admit, I love a wide spectrum of genres but I've never really gotten into Sci-fi. But this book was chosen by readers who know their Sci-Fi so I feel confident it's got to be pretty good. Fantasy-Faction also has a fantasy book club @ 1 book per month. I discovered their site not too long ago and have really enjoyed their articles and author interviews. They have an anthology coming out and there is a contest for your work to be included. So if you're looking for a way to get your footprint out there in the writing world... check it out here!**

First Post

The first post on a new blog ought to reflect the purpose of said blog. The problem is, I don't really know what its purpose is. I suppose it's a place to house all my ramblings. Maybe I should have called it Jenna's Ramblings. Hmm. Anyway what you can expect (if you so choose to read) is a lot of posts on writing, wanting to publish, tips and tricks of the trade, entertainment reviews and a whole lot of rambling about topics I would love to hear others' feedback about.

   I'm a writer. I'm writing a book. You'll probably hear a lot of the ups and downs that go along with that and I hope that if you're in the same boat I am that you'll chime in with your words of wisdom, experience and opinions. Maybe this place can be one where you can ramble too.

   The title I Live Beyond is taken from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn one of my all-time favorite books. Here's the full quote:

 “Because," explained Mary Rommely simply, "the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for.” 

 To me this summarizes my purpose for writing and for reading. So often when life begins to buck, there, in the back of my mind, lies an entire world that is so real because I need it to be. And sometimes it's only because that imaginative world exists to give me a short respite that I can must up the strength to get through another difficult circumstance, day, whatever it is. 

(Also, I may be a writer but I've never been good at grammar so please excuse!)

Is that enough rambling for one post? Okay :)