I don’t think Phantom has ever really seen me in one of my truly manic phases.  There are these times when everything just seems to FINALLY come together, and I have this insane creative, motivational rush.  

I’ve been in a funk for the past few days.  It’s been a combination of missing Phantom, missing my dad, money troubles, and the fact that a lot of people I know are sick, injured or in the hospital right now.  (The OTHER thing they all have in common is ME, and they all got sick/injured/hospitalized on my birthday.  Do I feel like I have some major bad juju surrounding me right now?  FUCK YEAH.  I’ve mostly been wanting to hide from the world so I don’t bring that shit to anyone else I love.  🙁

But I only really stay down for so long before I do exactly what I need to do and get really selfish and self-involved.  I’m completely consumed with myself right now, and that’s what I needed.  I needed to treat myself well, take a break from everything, and spend some time in my head.  I wallowed, felt a tidal wave of self pity, and now I’m examining what I really want to do with my time while Phantom is away.  I want to write.

So I went to my favorite new age bookstore today, partially as just something fun and light to get me out of the house, but partially to get some supplies for a small creativity altar. When I’m in one of these manic phases, I tend to be pretty spiritual and I ritualize everything.  I bought a purple candle for creativity, inspiration oil, an incense for each of the 5 elements (each section of my book focuses on one element), and a polished fluorite.  

I wish I had also bought a red candle (for motivation and passion), and a blue candle (for knowledge and communication), but that didn’t occur to me until after I left.  I think I have some at home, so I’ll check on that.  

Another good thing about the new age bookstore was that it gave me the good witchy vibe that I’m trying to inject into my story.  I needed that.  Needed to be around some woo-woo witchy folk and assorted spiritual doo-dads.  There was one great woman there that was large, probably my mom’s age, and was a mixture of gypsy/witch/goth.  She had lots of skirts, a shawl, dark eyeliner, bright red hair, and that fabulous pagan-er than though attitude.  Like nobody could challenge her commitment to her spirituality, because just LOOK AT HER!  She also made jingly sounds as she walked, which reminded me of my description of June.

I wish I had been able to snap a pic on the sly, but there was no way to do it without it being obvious as she was just directly across the counter from me.

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Another thing that has occurred to me is that I need to go back down to the road where my story is set once Phantom comes home.  First, I want him to see it.  Second, I need to take some pics of it in the winter, as my story stretches from roughly the autumnal equinox to midsummer.  I’d like to get pics of it in different seasons to see what I can glean in the mood of the place to add some depth to my descriptions.  Plus it’s a fun day trip.

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I mostly finished my keychain for the first part of my story.  I’m just waiting on a frog charm to come in, as frogs figure heavily in that part of the story.  Each part has a spirit animal that represents the element in that part.  Lots of symbolism.  I hope I don’t bash people over the head with it, but I need it to make me love the story too.

I hung the keychain from my computer bag.  🙂

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In following Laurell K Hamilton, I keep seeing her ask her followers about timeline issues.  First, it’s fabulous to see how many responses she gets.  I hope one day to have some dedicated follower(s) that will help me with things like that.  Second, It showed how important it is to keep track of these things.  I need to start keeping a calendar of events in the book.  Because I do have plans for a second book.   If I write more than that, it will just become more and more important.

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That’s all I can think of for now.  I’ll probably come up with more, since, again, I’m in one of THOSE moods.  I’m going to go home and write now.