Rowing Along Past Today!

Well, this is my final update for my first round of Row80 and there have been some ups and some downs! I’ve met a lot of new people whom I hope to continue getting to know! I’ve written more on my WIP and thought about starting a couple more. I’ve lost 22 lbs and been able to keep it off for the most part, which is a feat in and of itself. I’ve taught myself to write everyday, and I’m starting my Bachelors in English on the 9th of April!

I still need to work on blogging more, and possibly come up with more entertaining topics..but working 12 hour days, writing on my WIP and trying to be entertaining on this bad boy can be a pretty daunting task!

Here are a few things I have discovered about myself and the world in the last 80 days:

1. I love grapefruit.. I’m talking love it. I could eat a few of them a day! However, they have to be peeled all the way down to just the insides. I don’t like ANY skin when I eat my grapefruit.. that’s what makes it sour.

2. Sugar free peanut butter taste just like it sounds. Free of sugar. I can honestly say I don’t know if that is a good thing!

3. Writing every day bring a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and productivity…I need to work on keeping track of my word counts though, as it gets old recounting every few days when I forget where I last counted up to.

4. Coconut oil is possibly the best thing ever. Period.

5. Blogging is A LOT harder than it looks and people who do it, and do it well are impressive!

6. I am not one of those people…But, I hope to work at it and become one of them!

7. Knitting isn’t my thing… I like to think I’m that creative, but life gets in the way and knitting is the first thing I set aside.

8. I will be doing Row80 Round two because this community has helped me grow as a writer, a blogger, and a person! Thank you all for your encouragement and support!!

Brittney

 

Row80 3/4/12

Well, as you may have noticed I did not post yesterday…and the guilt is slowly eating me from the inside out! No, Just playing. I was exhausted, worked all day and could barely keep my eyes open! So you all got nothing! Muahahah! Hate to admit that today wont be much different. I find that after almost 4 weeks at work, doing the same thing day in and day out.. I run out of things to talk about. Imagine that!

I’m still working on my WIP, and have written every day on it, whether those words are legible and/or staying in the final draft is yet to be determined. I have also started note cards for another WIP,But decided I didn’t want to actually start writing it until I have finished the first draft of this one! I WILL finish this! After three or four false start and stops on other WIP’s I feel the need to scream at myself on occasion…

I have lost about 17 lbs since we started this ROW80, so diet is going well! I read about 6 books this week, so I just have a few more and then I will start working on my “better your Plotting” writing exercise!

Hope all is well!

TBL Thursdays! Funny Stories at Sea..

So, I have decided to share little bits of my life here on the Stalwart, by starting Tug Boat Life Thursdays! So to start off TBL in style, I’m going to share a little story that has nothing to do with me, and therefore can not embarrass me!:) (always the best kind of funny story)

So before we begin, I need to share a little background information about how the tug/barge life works around here. I’m a cook on a tug, simply because there are no cooks on barges. While working on a barge you either A. Are tied up to a tug boat, and therefore have your living quarters and eating area aboard the tug, or you B. (like the 500-2) sustain yourself on hungry man frozen dinners, pizza pockets, and copious amounts of dove bars. If your feeling froggy you might throw in a candy bar or two…Yes, that’s the way it is on the 500-2.

Our story begins with one man, we will call him Jack so no one gets embarrassed, who thought he should make a pineapple upside down cake for the rest of the barge crew. They do have ovens.. surprising, I know. Anyway, Jack being the kind of stand up guy he his, took it upon himself to make it from scratch, coating the bottom of the pan with brown sugar and all the goodness that seeps into the cake part, the pineapples..even the little maraschino cherries! He slaves over this cake, making sure each ring is perfectly positioned, and the cake is perfectly fluffy and moist.

It comes out of the oven, and I can assure you the crew of the 500-2 is salivating. Pineapple upside down cake smell has been wafting through the mess area, begging to be consumed…And anything homemade is a treat, even if it is more sweets! The boys gather round, passing out plates and smiling as they dip their forks into this beautiful cake. Deep golden brown topping, sweet pineapple rings, and cherries. They detect a slightly strange odor, but they are so excited about the cake, that it doesn’t seem to bother them.

The first man takes a bite.

He quickly spits it out, and starts to laugh.

Jack, having rarely used the oven aboard the barge, which is understandable considering the amounts of pre-made junk food they have available to them, has coated the entire bottom of the pan (now the top of the cake) with dried beef bullion instead of brown sugar! This perfect cake, with its decorative topping, and pretty little rings of yellow now tastes like some sort of sweet mushy beef cube!

I laughed pretty hard when I heard this story and I Hope you all enjoyed it! If you have a bag of bullion lying around… labeling it is a good idea!

Cheers!

Brittney

 

Pinterest and My Fascination With Arts and Crafts..

My good friend Catherine is getting married here in July and was asking me last week what sort of ideas I had for the wedding. (I’m going to be a bridesmaid) To be honest, I didn’t have many. It’s really hard to give someone advice on their wedding, for one: They probably have a pretty good idea of what they want, and two: I’m not that creative…decoratively speaking.

So then…*drum Roll please* she introduced me to Pinterest. Wow..how addicting! I spent the better part of my night, and into the wee hours of my very short-lived morning pinning and searching through wedding photos/ideas for her. Putting them on a board marked “Possible Wedding Ideas”…Now, A word to the wise. If you want to help your friend out when she is in need of some creative juices, be sure to say that it is for your friend. I have a few of my family members in an uproar over my “possible wedding ideas” popping up on facebook…Not to mention my boyfriend’s lovely mother.. Oops.. “No he hasn’t proposed grandma, I swear I’d tell you if he had!”…

Yikes!

So, anyway…I fully recommend Pinterest if your like shiny objects, arts and crafts, a nifty writing quote or two…you get the Gist. And that coincidentally is why we are here. Arts and Crafts!

Looking through all these wedding ideas I came across a lot of DIY sorts of things, and besides the writing on the nails a few posts back, I also took note of this lovely tutorial about dying mason jars. Catherine is really into mason jars, and so I thought I could post this for all of your enjoyment..And you don’t have to be getting married to enjoy a nicely colored mason jar. Flowers? or candies? who knows.. use your imagination!

Materials needed:

-Clear jars

-Modge podge or white Elmer’s glue

-Paint brush

-Green & blue food coloring

Romantic Candlelight Anyone?

Instructions:

– In a small bowl mix (approx.) 1 tsp glue or modge podge, 2 drops blue and 1 drop green food coloring, 1 1/2 tsp of water (this amount will color around 3 jars)

– Mix together with a small paint brush

-Using even strokes, brush the outside of jar from top to bottom.  Be careful not to use too much to avoid clumping.  The streaks will become invisible when dry.

– Turn upside down on a paper towel and let dry

*Warning* the paint will chip or wash off, so you have to paint the outside so you can use them as floral containers like this:

There you have it! DIY colored mason jars! And don’t just stick with blue, mix and match your food coloring using the good old-fashioned color wheel! We could have purple, green, yellow, orange! Any color you want! You could even try painting one half one color, and the other half another.. or stripes?! Enjoy!!

What’s in a name?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Shakespeare Romeo and Juliette. 

I have been thinking about this whole pen name/ pseudonym thing for a while now, but just yesterday reading someone’s comment made me take a step back and look at where I was going.

I realize that at this time, you my loyal readers, number in the hundred…I’d say hundreds but that implies I have even hit the 100 mark…However, one of the reason’s that I started this blog, besides getting to know the writer’s social world better, was for the social world to know me. I write posts and I oftentimes haphazardly toss a name at the bottom, or simply sign it cheers, and this is all well and good…unless I want the people I have met and gotten to know to recognize me when the big day comes.

Right now, Some of you know me as Brittney, others as Breezy Vee (A nickname my good friend gave me a couple of summers back) and I’ve come to the realization that I don’t want my name to be Breezy, or Vee… or really any of the variations that come with it. It’s fine as a nickname, and I enjoy the closeness I feel with my friend when I use it, however, I am not that name. I am another name. My real name is Brittney L. A. Van Sandt.. Yup, it’s really that many words…

So, here is my Dilemma.

What is in a name? Do I keep my childhood name, a name all of my friends, family, and distant acquaintances know me by? Or do I branch out and create a Pen Name? A name that hopefully will be better suited for the cover of a literary masterpiece. I have been doing some studying, and these are the general reasons that one would choose a pen name:

1) Your real name is hard to remember and/or spell correctly

2) Your real name sounds silly, stupid or obscene. If your real name suffers from any of these problems, you’ll have a harder time getting readers to accept your work.

3) Your real name is the same as, or similar to, another author or a famous figure.

4) You are afraid… reclusive or fear fame, and want to make sure that regardless of how famous you might become, people won’t recognize your name everywhere you go.

5) If you are already an established author, you might want to use a pen name because of issues similar to brand name loyalty. For example, if you are a woman and have a change of name because of marriage, you might want to continue using your former name as your pen name.

6.) Also, some authors find that their work sells better if they have a different pen name for each genre. If you have built a reputation for writing standard who done it novels and you now want to put out a fantasy detective novel, loyal readers may steer clear of, and or smear the new book because it disturbs their expectations. Also, you need a separate pen name for any subject with a “taint” to it (such as erotica) if you want people to take your literary fiction or nonfiction seriously. Even Anne Rice uses a separate pen name for her erotica, though her more usual vampire novels always sit close to the border between horror and erotica.

7) You are working in a field (such as romance) where books written by a certain gender sell far better, but your name is obviously the wrong gender. Also, some female authors want a gender-neutral pen name because sexism can still impact sales, in any genre.

I feel that my name might be too long, and or hard to remember. Van Sandt is not the most common name, but Brittney is pretty common, and for some reason doesn’t strike me as a cover of novel kind of name.. Could just be me.

I have been mulling it over, and I would love some of your input! I’m going to start going by my real name, get out of the Breezy, Breezeevee, and Bree category and stick with Brittney, Brit, or Britt for now. Please leave me some comments, let me know how you feel about Pen Names, what you think of my name(as a writer’s name) and/or if you have a pen name! If I do decide to don a Pen Name you all will be the first to know! Thanks for your support!

Pleasant Writing to you!

Brittney

It’s F*king Raw!!

And it is. Raw, Real, and Uncut… Or at least that’s what I’d like to think. I don’t know why people come back week after week, season after season to watch Gordon Ramsey annihilate another round of unfortunates on Hell’s Kitchen (myself included)…But, I’m sure for some it’s the simple joy of watching another person get their ass handed to them, yes..there are people who enjoy that. Or for others, it could be the intense drama that it brings to mind, a drama up until now one could only speculate on.

Are We All Just Fruit?

I spent about two hours floating around on a line boat today. Just shooting the cow manure with one of the only other females I have ever worked with, yapping about this and that. You know how us girls get.. We be chatty. Anyway, surrounding yourself with men every day, all day takes its toll every once in a while, and I think we both appreciated the girl time. One thing led to another and we began to discuss one of the staples of our fair sex. Marriage.

We are both going to weddings here in the next 6 or so months, she a little sooner than I, and we somehow went from “were so happy for our friend/brother was getting married” to: God…how much do you hate shopping? In-between that was a loathsome rant about dresses in general, and strap-less things that don’t hold in the ladies. Now, neither of us are polka dot bikini wearing kind of girls.. if you catch my drift. We got us some curves, and we are not exactly dress wearing folk. We work with men, doing jobs that men do, and an unfortunate side effect is that you either A. Look like a moron as you giggle and carry on like the world is all peaches and cream…or B. Realize that your voice drops just the tiniest  bit while you’re at work, and accept that your just “one of the guys”…Here is how our “Dresses” conversation went… I will try to shorten it and make it snappy.. you know, life with out all the boring and what not.

C: Yeah, so the maid of honor went to an intense cycling class the day before we tried on our bridesmaid dresses, and when she got there she could barely move, let alone try on any dresses.

B: Ah…Cycling. Get’s ya every time.

(insert her laughing here.. that’s right.. I’m funny:p)

C: You know it! So anyway, I’m now the big girl, and the other two bridesmaids are about a 6 and an 8 and everything they try on seems to slide over them like a silk hanky. Where as I’m standing there like some bewildered beast as the snooty saleswoman eyes me up and down and finally concedes..”hmm.. Let me see if we even carry that in your size.”

B: Bitch!

C: Ugh, I hate trying on clothes…

B: Me too.. If only they had beds in the changing rooms so you could lay down and slide that last fat roll in. It’s so close when your standing.. It just needs a nudge in the right direction.

(Laugh. Score two for Brittney!)

C: Then she starts going on about fruit and how I’m not really a pear, and I’m not really an apple.. Blah blah blah.

B: What’s with that stupid fruit thing that everyone uses these days?

C: I should have said..No, I’m more like a Banana with Tits.

(Insert my laugh here, then she slapped her hand over her mouth and said, oh shit, that sorta sounds like I’m a transvestite…Insert more laughter, and some trouble breathing here. Score two for C!)

B:…Yeah, or a cherry without a stem.

(And Brittney clinched the win!)

So this is where we come back to reality…All sexual fruit innuendos aside, where did this idea that women have to conform to a certain shape come about? Granted, I see that some women have small tops and larger bottoms, and that there are women out there with heavier tops and thinner bottoms. But, what about those of us with strange curves; curves no fruit known to man can possibly encompass? Are we supposed to start referring to ourselves as deformed vegetation? Like an Orange with tumors, or possible some mutated combination of a tangerine and a Banana. I suppose my point is this. We are all beautiful..Each one of us. We all have something to offer this world, and I don’t think we odd-balls should feel bad about not fitting in the fruit bowl.

Just food for thought! Cheers!

My Time Spent Betwixt and Between..

We’ve all heard about the toss-up between being a Morning person, and being a Night-owl, but what about the Middle day person? What about those of us who don’t really see them selves as either of those two extremes? I’m going to give you my general ideas about each kind of person. The first thing that comes to mind if you will.

Morning person- Runners. People who enjoy/force themselves to pound the pavement. They eat healthier, live longer and are probably nicer people. A morning person has enough will power to pry themselves out of bed at extravagant times in the AM. They are able to resist the pull of their pillow, all soft when they first wake up, and the small cocoon of warmth their bodies have created beneath the covers. They will stay out late on occasion, and still manage to get up at ungodly hours…with a smile. Don’t ask, I’ll never know how they do it.

-I am not a morning person. I don’t run, I try…really I do. But it becomes more of a gasping side squeezing shuffle. Pretty cute. I love carbs, have a wicked sweet tooth, and virtually no will power to speak of. I also don’t believe I’ll ever be willing, let alone eager to get out of my warmth cocoon without threat of job loss, or bodily harm.

Night-owl- Party animal! They dig the night-life, and everything that comes with it! They enjoy junk food at odd hours of the night, and will play video games until their eyes bleed. Their the people in your life with eyes-rimmed in red, those grumpy at any hour before 10..maybe 11 a-clock. Or they might be the people you don’t see before noon. No matter how many times you call, knock, or text.. Sorry they aren’t answering.

-I suppose I lean a little more towards a night-owl, in the sense that I often times stay up late. But saying this.. I usually get tired at around 8:30 -9:00 and merely push through it until I can no longer keep my eyes open. I think of 6 as a morning hour, not a still up from the night before hour and I’m not a big party-ier.. Yup, Sort of a lame duck like that.

So, If you’re not a morning person, and you’re not a night-owl what are you? What am I? I’ve decided that I’m a Midday-maddness kind of cat. I like the buzz of the everyday, the social interaction that comes with having a mixture of morning and night people milling around. I don’t wake up early, I don’t stay up late all the time. I just spend my time lurking in the in-between.. Lurking? That sounds bad… oh, well.

Question(s): What type of person are you and why? Are you a writer, and if so, do you find that you write better at certain times because of when you prefer being out and about?

Row80 Update 2/15/12

I have come to the realization that I need Note Cards… Lots and lots of note cards. I am reading Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and after reading it through zealously with a highlighter, I am going back through and trying some of the awesome ideas/ practice exercises he has in there. I love the idea of jotting down tons and tons of scenes on note cards and then laying them out and flipping them around until they make sense. It’s like a Giant novel puzzle! How freaking cool is that! Did I mention I love puzzles.. Anyway, I need note cards, and so Allen, my wonderful boyfriend is sending them to me. What a sweetie. Im sure he’s just pleased I’ll be noting for the next 7 weeks here at work, and not at home along our wall, or in his work areas, or standing in front of the TV with hands on hips saying, “Babyyyy…I need your help! Come look at these with me!!” Walking over already knowing that I don’t really need his help, I just think I do, and no matter what he says I will most likely argue the opposite side. Were good like that:)!

So, I’m getting note cards. I downloaded this App on my new Ipad called Write or Die.. Which is pretty fantastic! I don’t know if I like it for writing my actual WIP because it has been having trouble sending the Files anywhere but its own clip board…Email pending that little bug….But, I did end up writing about 1400 words about a cute old lady who owned a run down Ice-cream shop next to a skyscraper, and when the man came to try to buy it she sweetly invited him in, sat him down with a warm cup of tea and honey and waited until the drugs took effect before she ate him. Sharp little teeth like the polar bear on top of her Ice-cream shop, three scoops, Vanilla, Chocolate, and Strawberry.

Fun to write. A little creepy, and I have no idea where it came from, but it’s something I might play with later. So I think I’ll use the app to do sprint writing and such. Speaking of Apps.. I also downloaded a free Budget App and have been diligently punching the numbers.. Guess who couldn’t actually afford her iPad…Yeah, this girl right here!

On a lighter note, I have lost a few lbs, probably from all the seasickness…Yes, I know this is a bad way to lose weight, believe me.. But I have switched boats and am now back on the Stalwart…Probably one of the only boats that doesn’t ever leave the harbor. Thank you!

Got about 1400 words in on Monday, about 500 on my WIP and 1300 on WOD, and then today I took the day off from writing to clean, pack, and read more of Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. Worth the Read, a re-read, and a few after that! check it out.

Hope your weeks are going well! See you all on Sunday!

Writing Basics..Snail mail

In my opinion mail is possibly one of the best things in the world…Granted there are other wonderful, probably much better things. But as those who know me can attest, opening, touching, and getting mail is something that I fell in love with a long time ago. I remember my mother telling me one day, after I had whined no one ever wrote me any letters.

“Sweetie, You have to write a letter to receive a letter.”

It was so simple. Why had I not thought of it? And so I started writing letters. Long letters. Short, chicken scratch letters with little or no distinguishable content. Anything to increase my chances of getting that crisp “someone is thinking of you” ting that comes with seeing your name hand written on an envelope. It’s a rare feeling in this day and age of computers, cell phones, and email communication. Besides, it’s like a breath of fresh air amongst all your bills, and credit card offers. There are so many wonderful things about a handwritten letter, that I decided to write a post, not only expressing my love of mail, but in an attempt to encourage others to start putting pen to paper.

I work a 2 month on, 2 month off schedule and when I first started this job my boat was stationed 6 hours outside of port. This meant that we got mail on Wednesdays, not Thursday, never Tuesday…just Wednesday. One day a week. The anxiety I felt at those hours before knowing if I was going to be opening a letter, breathlessly hopeful that someone had cared enough to write me were painful…And that’s what it boils down to. Anyone can send an email, anyone can shoot you a text, or a tweet, or drop you a line on the old FB…But someone who takes the time to send you snail mail truly loves you.

I’ll remind you of what that entails, for those of us who have forgotten the way it used to be.

1. Search your office for a clean piece of paper. Get distracted by the huge pile of bills you snuck under the stack of books, and then settle for rifling through them half heartedly before remembering your boyfriend put your printer paper in the bottom drawer. You don’t have a printer, and you thought it was ridiculous to keep so much white paper at the time, but you smile now as you wrench one free, slightly wrinkled, but no worse for wear.
2. Draw circles on five different pieces of scratch paper until you find a pen that actually works. What is the point of having a pen cup if 95% of them no longer write? Forget it! Your focused, you must write this letter!
3. Start out with Dearest, cross it out, then write dear…only to realize there is a big squiggle mark on the page and you are only one word in. Back to bottom drawer for more paper. This time you grab a couple sheets…Just in case.
4. Start writing, tell them how much you miss them and the new things in your life..blah blah blah. You have nothing left to say. But now there is only have a page filled and your going through all this work, so you feel obligated to make it longer….Insert thoughtful silence here as you scrounge for something, anything that seems remotely entertaining.
5. You open up. You tell the recipient things you might not have thought of via email, because you want this letter to be perfect…perfect and at least one page long. You start exploring your surroundings via pen, explaining the scenery in detail, giving them minute updates so they are no sucked into your little world. You might be outside basking in the Arizona sun with your St. Bernard and drinking out of your water bottle. A water bottle that your mother put fresh mint leaves in. So refreshing. You feel loose, and ready for anything. It’s refreshing, so you continue to write, and soon there are not one but four pages, numbered and catalogued in front of you.
6. You have so much more to say, but now it seems as if you are rambling, so you quickly express your love and sign off. You don’t want them to think your a weirdo. Or at least you want to ease them into the knowledge.
7. You fold the pages careful, tri-fold style so they fit like a glove, and then lick the glue at the lip of the envelope. Your tongue is a little numb, but with the weight of all your words in the palm of your hand, it seems worth it.
8. You spend the next 25 minutes trying to remember where you put their address and just as your about to give up, they respond to your text with their address, curious as to why you want it. You don’t tell them. It’s a surprise, and now that most of the work is done, you can’t wait until they read it.
9. Her address looks a little crooked, but you decide to just go with it and head to the post office. You knew starting out you didn’t have any stamps, but you  figured you could buy one when you get there.
10. After waiting in line behind the yappy lady that knows your mother, you finally stand in front of the postal lady. She seems a little snooty, but you forgive her, because you just had to listen to the same lady for the last 15 minutes. The stamps are so adorable, and even though you planned on just paying to have the letter sent, you end up buying two books worth for some outrageously large sum.
11. The letter sent, your tongue beginning to recover you head home and eagerly await a response.

This is letter writing for me.. A whirlwind adventure from start to finish, frustration, hand cramps, and above all effort. An effort put forth for someone you care for…Who else would you write to? It is the same effort and caring that someone else puts into your letters when you receive them in the mail, and it is with that knowledge that I open each letter. This is why I love snail mail. Sure it takes days to get information passed, and there is the possibility that all that work will get lost in the postal system. A mostly man run operation…But isn’t that what life is about? Taking a little risk every now and again? I have a wonderful pen pal whose writing voice is entirely different from her speaking voice, her texting voice, and her emailing voice. I get to be apart of her life through these letters, and as I sit on this boat wondering if I have been forgotten, it is those paper creations that I turn to for affirmation. I am loved. Snail mail gives this to us…it gives us a ting that email, text, tweet, and Facebook just can’t measure up to.

I hope that you enjoy writing letters…or at least receiving them as much as I do!

Question(s): When was the last time you wrote a snail mail letter? Is the experience of getting a hand written letter exciting for you?