Jennifer Freitag's Blog, page 16

There Isn't a Moral At the End of This

via moiI have now been at Clickitting for a week (give or take a few hours).  I'm not going to lie, moving at six-and-a-half months pregnant is a wearying, emotional experience, but some people have put up with worse.  After only seven days, a few of which were interrupted by workers at the house and the general unboxing late into the night, I have not cobbled together any semblance of a routine.  Poor Talldogs, which had really begun to roll during my last days staying at my parents' house, is once more sullenly waiting for me to cease feeling like an ant whose anthill has been kicked over.  Clickitting is very long: I spend a lot of time walking, walking and complaining that my back aches.  And when I do sit down at the computer, I have a roomful of unpacked boxes behind me, silently judging my immobility.  It puts a damper on creativity.

They gave me this huge kitchen, which is awesome, but I'm the member of the family which is all, "IS FLOUR THE STUFF THAT EXPLODES I CAN'T REMEMBER."

Constructively, I have been answering some very lovely questions by a handful of bloggers, which will be posted along with their participating posts in Plenilune's cover reveal (October 6th), and I have been throwing pertinent information (including my edited manuscript) at my formatters.  I've been monitoring readers' progress on Goodreads, and I must say, the enthusiasm is wonderful!  October 20th will be here before we know it!

panic

The Writer Is a Social Construct

first of all, we don't all get pretty desks like thisRachel covered some of the typical author stereotypes and how she thoroughly fails to conform to them, which was all very relieving and hilarious.  Since I am continually baffled by the elusive creature Pinterest purports the writer to be (a writer which seems to have little time between one bout of brooding and the next to get any writing done), I have yoinked Rachel's blog post and will address these stereotypes as I, also, fail to conform without really trying...

writers never sleep
This one is hilarious.  Sure, my husband and I tend to stay up late.  For now.  But we like our sleep, and while I have the luxury of sleeping in of a morning (for now), we like to be together in bed at night.  Only rarely does a literary whimsy carry me past bedtime.  When I do come up with a pithy one-liner or a sparkling scene while I am awake in bed at night, as one is wont to do, I lie to myself, as one is wont to do: "That was awesome.  I will remember it.  It is too awesome to forget.  I don't need to get up.  Bed is so comfortable.  I will remember it in the morning."  And I never do.

writers are exotic creatures
I don't know about you, but when I'm in a social setting (already awkward, especially if I don't know the people present), one of the last things that will make me relax at once is to parade me around as a "writer," a curio of tea-temples and castles in the sky.  Being treated as a wild animal from another planet is just the sort of reception a shy personality wishes to receive.

Actually, writers are typically pretty normal.  I may get odd looks (these are generally due to my literary and historical references, not in reference to my writing), but I am in desperate demand of the comforts of life: security, love, acceptance, warm food, hot showers, caffeine in the morning, an opening in traffic so I can make the damned left turn.  All in all, I'm pretty normal.

writing is depressing, grueling work, full of angst and inner turmoil and an imbalance of the humours and an overabundance of alcoholic beverages
Contrary to what people may think of writers, I am not constantly on the edge of losing my sanity.  I am definitely an emotional, sensitive personality, but honestly, I am most sane and stable when I am comfortably following the plot of a novel.  Contrary to what people may think, writing a novel can be no more difficult than any other form of work.  I certainly find the maplessness of it trying, and I have plenty of fears and concerns, but I'm not a blithering alcoholic with a jaded view of the world, stared out at from beneath the shabby remains of a half-burnt writing-desk.  I like writing.  Writing is awesome.
(I'm also pregnant, so I avoid alcohol for the sake of la petite renarde.)
writers are obsessed with death and pain and killing characters
Thanks, G.R.R. Martin.  Thanks for perpetuating this twisted view of ordinary, sane, well-adjusted writers.  We all appreciate that. 

Once upon a Sunday, very recently, we were discussing true Christianity and the sad fact that true Christianity and merely outward Christianity often, to the casual observer, look identical.  How does one tell if the mint is true?  One tests it.  And the testing (as James points out) is very rarely pleasant.  It looks like trials and temptations.  It looks like forty years in a wilderness and sounds like God's silence.  It burns like fire.  But at the end, when the foundations are shaken and the chaff is threshed out, the true and the false will be clear.  In my opinion, this is the greater point of trials and temptations in my writing.  Unpleasantness and hard providences are equally reflective of actual human experience, and I do not put any of these things in the way of my characters because I get a sadistic thrill out of it.  All things have their purpose - although the characters, like ourselves, cannot and may not ever know why their author has done these things to them. 

writers spend all their time at Starbucks
How - how - how you can sit in a noisy coffee shop full of people babbling and yelling broken snatches of a foreign, coffee-related language, appended by the names of people who are not actually present, and write anything cohesive, is beyond me.   I need calm, I need pattern.  Inconveniently, I need them badly, which means any upset is liable to make it hard for me to write anything.  

writers obsess over the mechanics of making up character names
Nope.  My characters come quickly with names, and only rarely do I test-run one name only to give it up for another, better one.  Something - my characters or my subconsciousness - usually knows what it is about when it assigns names.  I almost never look names up: I wait until a name comes to me.  And they do just come, like Little Bo Peep's lambs.  Sometimes I don't like them, but they suit.  Trivia: I actually hated the names "Margaret" and "Simon" prior to working with characters by those names, I was indifferent to "Philip," and I had a grudge against "Skander."  True beans.

writers consider their characters to be their babies
As a writer who has made characters whom she loves, and as a human being who is making a baby which she loves, I can tell you this mental mix-up is not appreciated.  There is no comparison between characters and babies.

writers spend all their time on Pinterest
(Okay, that one is true.)

"Watchword & Battle-Cry, They're Both the Same"

pinterestdid they tell you stories about the saints of oldstories about their faiththey say stories like that make a boy grow boldstories like that make a man walk straightrich mullins // boy like me, man like you
Like most novels, Plenilune needed an author biography.  I had been putting off writing it: how am I supposed to distil myself into a few pertinent (or impertinent) lines for the reader?  But I finally got the thing written to my satisfaction, all in one take.  It is equal parts bare fact and myself (I am rarely fact).  It is the effect of cumulative causes arising from my pitched wrestle with Plenilune & Co.

If you are a writer, you know how intricately entwined you can be with your writing.  I have long since got past the self-insert stage of scribbling, thank goodness, but I am the giant, great and still, which sits upon the pillow-hill, and sees before her, dale and plain, that pleasant land of Counterpane.  I am still all over and through my novels like lightning across a summer sky and gold in the rock.  Like any writer, I wonder what my readers will do when they wander through the stories and find me there.  I wonder if they will recognize me.  I wonder if they will hear whatever it is my subconsciousness is saying between the lines.  I wonder if they will wake up.

"You show me how splendid I could be and you awaken my aches.""Good. I think somewhere beneath all the chaos of creating, that is one thing I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to wake up the kettle-drum sound of blood in your ears and put the sunset in your eyes and teach people how to be brave - or foolish - or faithful. Sometimes those things are all rolled up into one."
I am five feet tall and six months pregnant.  I have a voice which no one can hear because it is so small.  I have big brown doe-eyes and I have to make myself not look away shyly when I am trying to communicate verbally.  When you look at me, you do not see the snippets you read on The Penslayer.  But when you read the snippets - and Plenilune - you will be seeing me.  You will hear crack-backed knuckles and the sizzle and rip-tide of lightning; you might see what it is like to have every nerve traced with fire, or feel with it is like trying to hold an atom together and release it at just the right moment.  You might feel what it is like to breathe stardust and feel like you could pick up a mountain and hurl it end-down into the ocean.  You might feel what it is like to be desolate and brave and lost and triumphant all at once, because when I turn myself into whatever energy the written genius is, that is how I feel.

"The gods and demons in their palaces. Lewis writes that you never meet a mere human, and I know that is true. In light of The Princess and Curdie, one meets monsters and deities. Only, one can't always tell which, and people do not realize how splendid they might be, or should be, and don't wear their heritage like tattered gold cloaks. So I do not see the gods and demons of them, only the shabbiness, and I write the palaces in my novels to console my aches."
They say everything hums with the movement of sheer existence, and if you have the right mechanics, you can hear that music.  Whatever I am composed of, it hums inside me like the throat-snarl of a wildcat.  I want others to hear that hum too.  I want them to wake up and grow spines.  I want to patch together the old Gammage Cup cloaks and polish the light in the old Gammage Cup swords, and make us brave, because life wears us down and looks thin and shabby.  I want to light up the rim of the reader's world with apocalyptic fire and feel what I feel when the words come roaring and the wind picks up, and the deceptive shabbiness of the weary soul is scrubbed off like verdigris off precious metal. 

I want to make us bold and brave and steadfast, and not lie to ourselves and say we are not tremendous even while we are small.  That is why Plenilune catches you in the teeth.  I'm not hitting you with my little five-foot frame at the end of a small fist.  Whatever they mean by the halo in the old iconic paintings, whatever Lionel Royer painted into Julius Caesar's face, whatever the heart means when it is torn to shreds by a vicious joy, that is what I hit you with when I write.

man, walk at large out of thy prison

The Now Familiar Feeling of Walking On Glass

pinterestI will be moving tomorrow.  I've written a list of last-minute things which need doing, but even with that I feel a little dazed and detached from it all.  I think I am immune to caffeine now...  There are still some crucial aspects to our house which need finishing before we can procure a certificate of occupancy, and those things aren't scheduled to happen until next week, so for a few days Abigail will be returning the favour and bunking us.  Because of that, and because I am not sure of the internet status at our new home, I have decided to post a handful of snippets early.  It gives me something pleasant to do, and you something sensational to read.

snippets

With the now familiar feeling of walking on glass, Raymond remarked passively, “I only saw him that one moment, but I thought you kept him well in hand.”talldogs
I wonder that he chose to come out at all. Beside him, Raymond was dimly aware of the little iron gate swinging toward his arm and he put out his hand, mechanically, to stay it. He is not wanted and would not be missed. He is not Talldogs. He need not have come.talldogs
Avery said softly, “Don’t lie. Everyone knows girls are dying to talk punt-horses. I have a very good story about one particular river-pony and a slight misunderstanding with a Nonpareil. The pony was just a common farm teaser, you see.”talldogs
Jasper de Lacey was in the armchair, sitting it as if it were a throne, and he was watching me steadfastly as I watched him—for the instant I entered the room I took in all its large particulars as one takes them in a dream: my gaze did not leave my employer from the outset.dondonné
I chuffed, amused. "My dear Philip, you know I do not remember monetary transactions."ampersand
"Well, not quite all," the sleepy Devil purred. "I am at the top: I have no one to envy. The other points—you could make a case for them.""An imperfect devil, then," she sneered.He looked away, his mouth twitching. "I know. A craftsman's integrity is a thing of the past."cruxgang
Her hand flashed out, one finger yelling with the light of a golden ring. “No, let you be quiet,” she snapped impatiently, and turned at once upon the surgeon again. “Let me be level with you,” she said in the tone of one shoving her heel across a slug. “Do you or do you not wish to keep your precious Commander inside his precious skin?”drakeshelm
"It was not her womb which bore me, nor her breast which nursed me, but she has been ever a mother to me. And I love her," he turned from the casing, eyes smouldering and defiant in his face, "as ever Goddgofang or Badger or Bruin have loved her."cruxgang
She dropped her hands soundlessly onto the arms of the chair and pushed herself upright, coming to her feet. She was not tall, but she looked down on him with a crushing height, almost as if she enjoyed herself. “On a scale of one to ten,” she murmured honeyily, “how much more will you hate me for this?”drakeshelm
Let it be quick. Merciful God, let it be quick.drakeshelm

Plenilune // Gingerune // Adamantine

i get the impression that everyone is now stalking my plenilune pinterest boardDue to life, I have been unable to make another video for you.  That being said, I do want to address some of the questions you asked in my last video post. 

are plenilune, gingerune, and adamantine related?

Short answer: yes.  The long answer ought to be similarly uncomplicated, but somehow it never works out that way when I try to explain.  In brief, the three stories are separate plots linked only by one or two characters who happen to make cameo appearances in the other novels.  One character manages to make an appearance in all three; two other characters are only mentioned or seen briefly in the other's novel.  You can see how the explanation begins to grow confusing.  I like to think I'm doing rather well... 

gingerune

A lot of people ask me what happened to this novel, as I was working on it so well this time last year.  (Actually, I was freaking out and going to Scotland this time last year.  Damnation.  That was a year ago?)  There is nothing wrong with Gingerune.  On the contrary, I'm very pleased with the plot.  But because Plenilune has exploded into so many satellite novels, I feel compelled to follow the Plenilunar system while the motions of the heavenly bodies are yet young in my sky.  I will return to Gingerune when the time is right.  I also have a lot of varying aspects to study and research for Gingerune, so I am in no hurry. 

adamantine

People who know me from my pre-Penslayer days ask me what happened to Adamantine.  Whenever I answer this question, I am invariably met with passive-aggressive to aggressive disagreement, which has made me reticent to bring up the topic.  The fact of the matter is, Adamantine was my first serious novel.  Not my first full-Jenny-length novel, but my first serious novel which I could entertain the thought of publishing.  However, looking back across several novels now, I can easily see so many aspects of Adamantine which want improvement that at this point I don't believe I can simply patch it up through revision and editing.  It needs rewriting.  And about this point in the conversation is when I am met with disagreement.  I am also in no hurry to begin the rewrite, since I am knee-deep in my Plenilunar novels, so this is not a disagreement which has been stoked to hammers and tongs.  But I like to think that I know what is best for the story, and for the story I feel a total rewrite would be best.  Some time when I am a billion years old, look for a release announcement here on The Penslayer for Adamantine.  Meanwhile I keep an open mind (by dint of my mind being a complete untutored wash of latent energy) and occasionally bits and pieces of the rewrite come washing up to shore. 

plenilune

Who needs no introduction.  I have been thoroughly impressed and encouraged by the enthusiasm of my advance readers and by everyone else who has been waiting for this novel seemingly forever.  I know it has been a long time, but one thing I have learned along the way is that I love how confident I feel in this novel, and I want to take all the time I need to make sure I can feel this confident for each one of my novels when I go to release them.  I want to do my best and give you my best.  It might take a lot of time, but you will thank me in the end.

ethandune board ("why do we get the impression that the main character is a girl?")talldogs board ("is this a book about dogs in the country?")lamblight board ("crap and half! this looks dark!")maresgate board ("dude. the beach. and dresses.")cruxgang board ("are we in arabia?")drakeshelm board ("oh my lands, what is this novel rated?")ampersand board ("what does jenny have with horses and red-heads?")

Make

life doesn't get simpler - that's just a fact
Compared to other people's lives, my life is pretty simple.  For me, however, it's a bit and a half to handle, not least because I don't handle it well.  One always seems to have a billion and one things to do, and one can never seem to finish half of them, let alone get to the other half at all.  There are a couple of points, however, which I have picked up that do help when one is tackling life.

do eat breakfast

Yes, everyone says it.  Yes, everyone is right.  For the better part of forever I didn't do the breakfast thing on a regular basis.  I'm just lazy, and once I get going, I don't want to stop to make myself food.  So breakfast (and I) would suffer.  Now?  Well, now I have a baby to feed as well, and the baby is teaching me a lot about staying on schedule and taking care of myself.  As soon as I get up, it's into the kitchen (which I have to pass through to get to my computer), straight to the oatmeal and the milk.  While the oatmeal is heating, I'll make myself a cup of coffee (French press kept conveniently on the counter).  Usually, by the time I am done scarfing my oatmeal, the coffee is through brewing and I've got myself a nice cup to drink while I peruse the interwebs.

there is such a thing as zen

I don't know about you, but I have a nagging, emotional discomfort if I have not put myself together.  While I'm writing this, I have a cat-eye going, but no curled or mascara'd eyelashes, and it's kind of annoying.  I need to fix that, finish my face, and yank a brush through my hair.  Then I know I am ready for the day.  This is an important thing to do.

I have not finished my face, but I have cleaned my desk.  My two favourite friends are a bottle of 409 and a roll of paper towels.  When I move, I'm going to get myself a huge jug of the stuff and distribute it in little spray bottles strategically throughout the house.  Because I'm lazy, and if I have to go get the 409, it won't happen: if the cleaner is on hand, I'm going to have a polished desk, a clean kitchen counter, and a vanity that isn't powdered in loose eyeshadow with remarkably little inconvenience to myself.  Zen is real.  Do what you must to cheat your inner couch-potato to achieve a tidy life!

make a list, prioritize, and stick to it

Have a billion things to do, it seems like you're always trying to do them all at once, and nothing ever gets done?  You can't do everything all at once, no matter how important everything seems to be.   If you try to pack too much into a day, and do everything, always jumping from one task to the next without ever accomplishing anything, you are in for a world of frustration.

Make a master list.  I use a monthly calendar and put everything on that calender.  (Baby hormones literally make me forget things, so I must write things down.  It's a life-saver.)  This is my big list of "all the stuff that has to get done" which you guys keep hearing about.  Life is real, people.

Make daily lists.  Based off of your master list, write out a list of things you can do in a day.  Inasmuch as you can, do those things.  Don't add to them, try not to subtract from them.  Just do them. 

You can also make weekly lists, such asMONDAY: find the counter area around the sink againTUESDAY: work on Plenilune line-editsWEDNESDAY: sit and stare at Talldogs manuscript, pretending to write
THURSDAY: plan wedding
FRIDAY: murder wife
SATURDAY: frame Guilder for it
Very few things are as much of an emergency as you might think.  The older you get, the more responsibility you are going to have, and if you don't front fate's blows with a steady attitude, they are going to send you spinning.  Things like a plumbing fiasco on a job we thought we had closed two months ago, a total lack of clean underwear in any land under heaven, and the existence and attributes of supper, are big deals.  These things need to be taken care of. Other things are allowed to wait.

Finish the job.  Even if a bunch of things come at you, sporting relatively equal value, you cannot freak out with each new thing and leave off whatever you were doing, leaving the last task undone.  If you want to NOT get stuff done, this is the perfect method to employ.  Got emails to reply to?  Finish them.  Got a block of time marked out in which to revise a story?  Go to the end of the time limit.  Whatever you do, finish the job.

Stay healthy.  I don't mean just exercise and drinking water and juice.  (Juice is good.  Good sugars.)  I mean, say, an example from my own life: I spent about thirty minutes on Pinterest just browsing for inspiration.  I haven't really wanted to write, much less had anything to write about.  With a little visual stimulation, I now feel like pulling out Talldogs and typing away again. 

but, you know, don't overdo it, because you do have to get off Pinterest eventually and go do the work
Make it a habit.  Unless you are already like this, this sort of regularity will take time to implement.  Give yourself a month at minimum to make a habit of eating breakfast consistently, making to-do lists, accomplishing the items on the lists, staying inspired and productive.  Do a bad job?  Try again tomorrow, with a little more oomph if you must.  Sometimes you just have to push yourself a little harder, but the pushing isn't going to get you anywhere if you don't have a road-map.  Make sure you have both.  It's totally worth it.

good luck!

Half Baked

pinterestnot surprisingly, i have the ill
I do not think it is a very bad ill, but there are flutterings in my throat and sneezings in my nose, and I am definitely in no condition to accept an invitation from the Coles.  One of my cats is also a little under the weather, so since my husband has to work (like anyone would and should), it is up to my most skittish feline to take care of the sick stay-at-homes.  Poor 'Quila.  He had the perfect expression of a teenager who has been shoved off with more responsibility than usual when we informed him.

a new little blog debut
The real purpose of this post is to inform you of a new blog opening up on the block.  Anne-girl of Scribblings of My Pen & Tappings of My Keyboard will be starting up a new blog venture on September 1st. 

HALF BAKED is a blog dedicated to the art of writing and exploring what goes into a solid story. The blog operates on the principal that most stories are like cake, delicious and scrumptious and all the other cake words that are out there. But just like cake, a story can come out gooey and shaky in the middle, half baked. This blog is meant to help turn awesome ideas into solid, fully baked novels. Stop by ahalfbakedplot.blogspot.com on September 1st to join in the release party. There will be contests and a giveaway and of course virtual cake. 

Anne-girl has been following the progress of Plenilune for some time, and she posed a question about the magic of my novels in an email a few weeks ago.  I highly recommend reading her post with my answer and her critique.  Meanwhile, mark September 1st on your calendars for the launch of her new writing blog, Half Baked.

Jester-Eyed & Mocking

it is august and i am ready for autumnI seem to be less of a presence here on Blogger now that I am so busy with...everything.  Moving, self-publishing, babying.  When my mind is not totally shattered by stuff that has to be done, I write a little.  Talldogs is at 90,496 words (for whatever that is worth), and my line-edits for Plenilune are over halfway completed. 

info-dump done, now for some snippets
Watching him, Raymond noticed for the first time that the crown of the man’s head was beginning to thin like the flanks of an old toy buckskin horse.talldogs
The tarot card of the conversation flashed up brilliantly in the morning light, jester-eyed and mocking...talldogs
Raymond watched her sob as she had learned to sob: wretchedly, soundlessly, her body shaking. Something in his chest felt heavy and dead. “Go to the washroom and wash your face,” he said when a hollow silence had glanced from face to face between them for some time, “and then come down to supper.”talldogs
Avery flashed him a quick smile, half apologetic, half in angry earnest. “I learned that trick, oh, long ago. It takes only a moment for a man to wrap a woman around his finger, if he knows his business. I have her under my thumb now."talldogs
“If they let you into heaven—” he began, fighting the strained thickness in his throat.She brushed his words aside. “You will be surprised, I know.”drakeshelm
"Sensationalism has always fascinated the vulgar."lamblight
"The graves of my people were old among the Lakes," said the Scandinavian, "when the foot of William the Bastard was young upon our thresholds."adamantine
"Did you think he was not serious when he said 'Rend the heavens and come down'?" cruxgang

Plenilune Cover Reveal Date Announcement

The long-anticipated cover of Plenilune now has a reveal date!  October 6th

If you would like to participate in the blog-wide cover reveal, and you have not already received an email from me asking as much, please email me at sprigofbroom293@gmail.com! 
Feel free to share this button on any and all social media outlets you enjoy.

Drinking Tea & Eating Granola

pinterestTea is soothing.  It combats early morning sadness with a small dose of caffeine, and for the short space of time that I have not sucked the warmth out of it, the mug is lovely to hold.  Granola: chunky, full of fiber, doesn't settle unpleasantly in a stomach which has been dormant during the night.  Happy things.

what have i been up to

First of all, Plenilune.  I forgot to tell my formatter to set up the Goodreads page for me, so I was thrilled to discover that she went ahead and did it.  I want to say right out that I can write - I'm good at that - but in technicalities and planning, someone has to hold my hand all the way.   But there are already some advance reviews of Plenilune up, so please take a moment to check those out!  Thanks!

I've also been line-editing for Plenilune: you know, grammar, consistency, that sort of last-minute polish which is invaluable.  I don't know what I would do without my line-editor.  My readers owe a lot to her!

Baby kicks.  Yes, I can finally feel my baby kicking!  I am approximately twenty-two weeks along, and currently the kicks are not uncomfortable: if anything, they are a relief just to know that my little girl is moving about and growing.  I am now very obviously pregnant, which makes

packing a tricky business.  Between the natural weariness of making a human being inside me, and the cumulative stresses on my body of doing so, taking down my house and putting it into boxes is tiring.  My husband and I are aiming to be out of our rental home by the end of August (although our new home may not be ready for us), so I am slowly putting our life into cardboard containers.  After a long day of moving about and being on my feet, my lower back gives strident notice.  I am immensely thankful for heating pads and shower stools.  They are lifesavers.

My father and Talldogs.  We pulled through the disaster.  My father has been home, he has begun to work again, and he has even asked that I reinstate my Talldogs installments for him to read.  Between the exhaustion, pain, and disorientation, it took him some time to regain his concentration: picking up a copy of "Foreign Affairs" and reading through an article was a big deal.  The Godfather voice is gone, although people who greeted him at church last Sunday noted that he hadn't quite got his voice back.  He is regaining his strength, and his weight (the ordeal stripped thirty pounds off his frame), and though there are still many milestones ahead of us to make sure everything heals properly, we are immensely grateful and relieved.

Painting.  I'm not a domestic, manual-labour type of person.  While I like good food, I don't actually enjoy making it.  I don't really like housework - especially folding laundry and washing bathtubs - and I know for a fact that I hate sewing.  I am good at making messes and writing stories.  That is about it.  But because Tim and I will be moving into a blank slate of a house, we have made (cheerful) efforts to make our furniture into what we want it to be.  We own a number of huge wooden objects - dresser sets, china cabinets, a piano - which are all dark and stained and old, and we have no qualms about taking a chain to them and repainting them in a distressed, white style (except the piano: we're not taking a chain to the piano).  So I have actually been doing manual labour.  I've always rather despised plastic, so working with wood and pale, neutral tones is soothing to me. 

and that is the story of my life