Tattoo Frenzy

There’s a tattoo thread over at the Compuserve Writers Forum.  It’s got a few of us craving more ink.  Three weeks from today, and my half-sleeve will be finished.  How long will I be able to wait for the next one?  Not sure.  The funds will likely make that decision for me.

I have ideas for my next five.  

#1: Inside the right upper arm—all my kids names end in the letter “n.”  I want a lower case N done in the story book fashion like the picture below, with all the kids names leading up to it, like a fairy tale story, only backwards.

     (Image above taken from a search of Google images)
   Daga
       Ia
Bronwe
With their names stacked up (above), the tattoo will loosely resemble the number three, which I like for some reason.

#2:  Left shoulder/back—Black and grey portrait of my maternal grandfather, using a picture taken of him shortly after returning from WW2 (1943ish) angled so that he looks at …

#3:  Back—a black and grey portrait of my maternal grandmother, from her “Beauty” portrait done her freshman year in college.

#4:  Right shoulder/back—black and grey portrait of my paternal grandparents, if I can find the picture I have in mind.  Pop (6’4’’)  holding up Grandmom (not quite 5’) around her waist, or her standing on a stool next to him.

#5:  Back of neck—black sketch of an open book.  I picture it with blank pages, literally like someone doodled it on my skin.  Wispy strokes, a few pages curled up.  

Once I find the actual pictures of 2 and 4 I’ll scan them and post them here with a link to this original blog entry.

Writing Again, and again, and again...

Today I started writing again, after fifty-three days of Zero Words on the page (excluding blog entries).  There’s only 163 of them today, and they aren’t great ones.  But they’re present in all their black-on-white-background glory.

Every time I’m out of the writing routine, for any length of time, I’m amazed at how hard it is to get back into the groove.  Each time I tell myself, “This time, I won’t stop.  I won’t get out of the routine.  I’ll write everyday.  Every Single Day.  Even if it’s only a handful of words.”  

Sadly, life happens.  It happens in little ways, like chasing three kids down with a Kleenex when we all get the latest cold.  It happens in big ways, like when you look at things too hard and let self-doubt take over your mind.  

 Well, life has been happening to me… A Lot.  I had lost interest in reading and writing.  It has been taking me [on average] a week or more to finish a book.  Completely unheard of before the winter brought on my scapegoat, Seasonal Affect Disorder.  I found myself posting less and less on the Writer’s Forum.  What did I have to post since I wasn’t writing?

Kids, work, bills, S.A.D., self-doubt….more excuses for me to be lazy.  What I need is a word counter I can post here on my blog, maybe Facebook as well (which seems to be my biggest distraction of late), so that I have some sort of public accountability.  Not that my mere twenty followers even check this page daily, but they might.  And someone just might call me out for not writing.  *Cough*  This means you Compuserve Ladies who have blogs I follow—Zan Marie, Tara, Spesh, Claire and Susan, and Laura.

I’ll state my goals here, as well as the Forum, for the month.

1. Write every day on my WIP

2. Read at least one book per week

3. Post on this blog at least weekly