My Parents and Video Games

My parents have never really been big fans of video games. Well, maybe with Atari. And we rarely had video games in the house. A Sega Genesis that lasted about a year. Then a GameCube that was solely mine. But then... enter the Wii.

They loved Wii Bowling from the first time they were talked into playing it, but after spending some time with that, I tried to get my mother to branch out a bit more. She opted for Wii Boxing. I spent a few minutes showing her how if she moved her hands, the hands on her Mii moved as well and would punch my Mii. She got it quickly and was ready to go. We are both standing in front of the TV watching as the countdown flashes over the screen. 3... 2... 1...

Suddenly the woman jumps sideways and starts punching me in the arm as fast as she possibly can, laughing and grinning ear to ear as she did so. Once I was snapped out of my shock by the pain she was inflicting, I tried to retreat but she followed, continuing her assault on my arm. I'm yelling for her to stop but it's nearly impossible to hear over the roaring and hysterical laughter from my cousins who were watching my mother beat the crap out of me from the safety of the couch. I retreat a bit further into the kitchen and she yields, only to say: "What are you doing? You can't fight from over there!"

After a moment of staring wide-eyed at the woman as she playfully bounces her weight from side to side, ready to pounce again the second I return to the living room, I shake my head. "You aren't suppose to actually hit me!"

She freezes, straightens her posture and looks at the Miis on the TV. "Oh."

I have never played another video game with my mother since then.

Heading out of town

I'm heading out of town tomorrow but I hope to return in a week with some good stories and some pics to share. That is the goal at least.

Memories

It's funny how talking about random things causes old memories that you had forgotten long ago to pop back up. That happened this morning when I was talking with a friend about sleeping which lead to sleep walking/talking which then lead to stories of my mother of course.

My mother use to talk in her sleep all the time, like, full conversations. It wasn't uncommon when I was growing up to be woken in the middle of the night by my mother talking rather loudly. It was never really directed at anyone and most of the time was relatively unintelligible. However, one night stood out amongst all the rest in my mind.

I was probably 13 and it was about two in the morning. I was laying in my bed, my eyes were closed and I was in that light form of sleep when:

Mom: Brandi!
Me: (jumps awake, startled)
Mom: Brandi!
Me: What?
Mom: Shut the hell up and go to bed!
Me: I was.
Mom: I don't care. Go to bed.

It always makes you feel special to know that your mother even yells at you in her sleep. At least you know you've made a lasting impression

Words of Wisdom

I have finally decided to post this. These are the wise words I read in a book that snapped me out of a long standing creative funk and I know that a lot of you are either struggling with your own writings or have yet to be able to find that confidence in expressing what you have to say. So I'm posting these words by Dorothea Brande and hope that they help you as much as they did me. Because I'm not sure I would have started "Where Love Leads Us" without having read it.

"But then comes the dawning comprehension of all that a writer's life implies: not easy daydreaming, but hard work at turning the dream into reality without sacrificing all its glamor; not the passive following of someone else's story, but the finding and finishing of a story of one's own; not writing a few pages which will be judged for style or correctness alone, but the prospect of turning out paragraph after paragraph and page after page which will be read for style, content, and effectiveness.

 

Nor is this by any means all the beginning writer foresees. He worries to think of his immaturity, and wonders how he ever dared to think he had a word worth saying. He gets as stage-struck at the thought of his unseen readers as any sapling actor. He discovers that when he is able to plan a story step by step, the fluency he needs to write it has flown out the window; or that when he lets himself off on a loose rein, suddenly the story is out of hand. He fears that he has a tendency to make his stories all alike, or paralyzes himself with the notion that he will never, when this story is finished, find another that he likes as well.

 

He will begin to follow current reputations and harry himself because he has not this writer's humor or that one's ingenuity. He will find a hundred reasons to doubt himself and not one for self-confidence. He will suspect that those who encourage him are too lenient, or too far from the market to know the standards of successful fiction. Or he will read the work of a real genius in words, and the discrepancy between that gift and his own will seem a chasm to swallow his hopes. In such a state, lightened now and again by moments when he feels his own gift alive and surging, he may stay for moths of years.

 

Every writer goes through this period of despair. Without doubt many promising writers, and most of those who were never meant to write, turn back at this point and find a lifework less exacting. "

Today

So, today... I'm pretty sure was one of those days where the world got a laugh at my expense. Because you are left with no other choice but to find the humor in a head ache that just wouldn't go away and forces you to lay down and sleep it away... only to have to listen for the next thirty minutes as the ice cream truck circles your apartment complex playing "O Come All Ye Faithful".

Answers

I'm making this post to answer a few questions I've been getting emailed to me. I have officially started the first chapter of the sequel. I just want to have a few chapters done before I start posting. It wont be daily updates but there will be muntiple updates a week. Also for the blog, I will be getting back to posting more I promise.

I'm getting the mind going again. Starting the story just felt natural. It was like I was home. lol. Give me a few more days and I will try and post the first chapter either this weekend or Monday.