Bre Faucheux's Blog, page 48

October 2015 Wrap Up

The Day That Bre Lost It!!!

I hit something today that I like to refer to as “maximum capacity.” I had to leave the house. Just get out and escape. Then every single small and minor thing outside the house was driving me equally crazy.

Inside the house I had barking dogs, people disrupting me every few minutes, care taker responsibilities that are slowly breaking my heart and ripping up my insides, doctors refusing to return my calls, a small urticaria outbreak that is making me itch like crazy, and lawn mowers outside. Then the family friend who sometimes comes over that likes to tell me all the things I’m doing wrong (even though to her it’s just her being nice and giving advice) OVER LOAD OVER LOAD OVER LOAD!

THERE COMES A TIME WHEN YOU JUST DON’T WANT ANY MORE HELPFUL ADVICE!!!

Then I left and got some idiot in a cafe dissing American intelligence as being inferior, a massive traffic jam, some guy in another cafe who clearly didn’t know he couldn’t play the guitar, and regulars that I knew trying to stop me from working in order to talk. To top all that off, I was supposed to meet a friend and she cancelled.

GAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But…with all that going on… I managed to write my 2,000 words and get my marketing done. I might not get to editing today (boo hoo…we all know I’m just avoiding it. Not gonna deny it), but I did get my words done.

2,000 words a day. Regardless! Unless there is something catastrophic or the moon crashes into the Earth, I plan on writing 2,000 words a day for the whole month. And maybe beyond if it turns out to work for me.

Just goes to show you, you have to show up on the bad days and the good. I think what I wrote today (once revised) won’t look any different or worse than the stuff I wrote on the good days. Readers can’t tell once the pages are revised and edited. Remember that. Show up. Write the damn thing. Worry about quality later.

Day 1 – 3 Vlogs | NaNoWriMo 2015 | Getting to Work!

My Temporary Break-up with Facebook

Seriously now, why are people so fucking temperamental about Facebook?

I ran into my first Facebook debacle over the summer. I was dating a guy who actually managed to get upset and worked up over the fact that I “LIKED” a few posts from one of my guy friends. A guy who at the time was helping me a bit with my business. I told him about this friend and how he was helping me as a way of sharing what I did that day. Nothing more. And the insecurities came out really fast. My ex was concerned with who this guy was, why did he want to help me out, and why I actually had guy friends outside of him. And to my great amusement, he said he might unfollow me on Facebook for a while so he wouldn’t see that I LIKED this guy’s posts.

My eye were like pinwheels.

I’ve never been a jealous type. Maybe there will come a time when I am, but the only time I ever got jealous was when I was dating someone that I knew would, and eventually did, cheat on me. I looked at every girl he looked at oddly because I knew he had the capability of having a wondering eye. But other than that, I don’t get worked up about the relationship stuff that others tend to. Especially not over Facebook. Facebook has always meant one thing to me. A way to keep in touch with my friends and show an interest in their every day lives. And NOT a means of flirting or anything of that nature. In all honesty, Facebook isn’t even on my radar. If it disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn’t give a shit. There’s still Skype and Instagram (which I like a lot better).

Then a few weeks ago, someone I unfriended on Facebook (because I already followed her on all other platforms and I was seeing the same posts more than once from them) got seriously mad at me for unfriended them. Keep in mind that I hadn’t seen or spoken to this person in nearly four years and this was before I learned about the ‘unfollow’ feature. Which I love now…

Facebook to me is the equivalent of a high school year book. I look at it once in a while for entertainment when I’m absolutely desperate. Nothing more. Nothing less. Yet for some reason, people get very ‘high school’ over it. The drama ensues when someone posts something that I would consider to be a personal diary entry (which drives me crazy…I don’t need to know about your abusive upbringing via Facebook) and sometimes I just don’t want to know too much about a person. It spoils them for me. There was someone on there a while back that I used to think a very cool person. Then the political anti-feminist posts started popping up and I nearly gagged.

SO…… I’ve removed Facebook from my phone and I check it maybe every two days now (but I kept messenger because…stickers). Which is only necessary because of my fan pages and how I really should be posting on them more regularly. Other than that, I don’t give two flying fucks about Facebook. Lately it has done nothing but start up drama and I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent away from it.

This breakup probably won’t last forever. I’ve already had a few friends say to me, “didn’t you see my recent post?” and I have to sheepishly admit that I hadn’t. Which I hate sometimes because I want them to know I take an interest in their life. On the other hand, many of them already post on Instagram as well. So it’s no big deal.

Good bye Facebook, for now. I can’t say that I’ll miss you all that much.

My NaNoWriMo | Day 1

15. Writing Out Loud

Today was the first day of my anti-corporate experiment. I didn’t work 9-5, and I didn’t feel guilty about it. But the real test will be to see if I can maintain.

6:00 am: Woke up.

6:30 am: Worked out with my dad. Today we did Cardio X. We decided fuck the order Tony says to do things in because we just don’t like some of the workouts. We figure as long as we mixed it up to maintain muscle confusion, we’re doing good. I was planning on going to zumba tonight, but after that, I decide never mind. It was intense since I haven’t worked out much lately.

8:00 am: Breakfast/Shower

10:30 am: Finished 2,000 words for the day. In under an hour. Weird as fuck to be done so early with that.

11:00 am: Filmed two videos, one of which I edited. The other I will probably upload on Sunday for the start of NaNoWriMo. Editing both of them too.

12:30 pm: Went to lunch for some Chinese soup at a local place I love.

1:30 pm: Applied revisions to book one in my series. 15 pages in total.

2:00 pm: More video editing and planning for tomorrow’s writing session.

And that’s it. That’s all I did. And all from home. I started around 9:30 am and finished around 2 pm. About 4-5 hours of work. And I tried my hardest to not feel guilty about not killing myself to make a 9-5 work day out of it. I finished what I set out to do and I did with efficiency.

Small manageable tasks, Bre. Small manageable tasks. *wipes nervous sweat from face*

Friday Reads | October 30th

Small Manageable Tasks

I’m trying a new approach to my writing/editing/everything I’m try to do.

I heard someone say (I don’t remember where and I don’t remember who), that you actually get MORE done when you do things in small manageable tasks. I asked myself, what does that mean? Is that true, and how can I apply that to what I’m doing?

Once in a long while, I can write 5,000+ words in a day. Sometimes two or three days in a row. The following few days my brain feels completely drained. I find that when I write 2K-3K a day, I can function much better. But then again, there’s that part of me that likes to guilt trip myself. I always think about Amanda Hocking and how she wrote a whole book in fourteen days. Holy shit batman, how does anyone do that without hitting massive, and I mean MAJOR, burnout? And that’s what I’m afraid of.

So we have NaNoWriMo coming up soon. Many people will be writing the standard 1,667 words or so a day. I can do that in an hour. And quite frankly, it fills me with guilt to do just that. Especially when I’m trying to treat my writing as a job. Then on the other hand, I am trying to go totally anti-corporate. I hate corporate America with a passion and I don’t think the whole 9-5 motif is particularly effective as far as creating a good and accomplished work day. People are taking breaks and checking Facebook and yada yada. I usually focus for about 4-6 hours a day, then my brain shuts down. So I like that break that time up into a 2-3 hour morning session and the same for the afternoon given what I need to accomplish. Then I try not to feel guilty as hours of the day go on by and I finished what I did for that day. And I start thinking to myself, ‘you lazy bitch…get to work. You have more time and you should be doing. Maybe you don’t want this as much as you think you do.’ But I’m trying to stop that and amend my ways. Because let’s face it, I want this. And I might not want it as much if I kill myself to try and accomplish it. It has to keep being something that interests me even on the days when everything feels like work and I’m slogging through it.

So yes, small manageable tasks. I’m committed to trying to write 2K Monday-Friday for NaNoWriMo. That’s my plan. As least for now. Anything else I will have to make up as I go along.

Minimalism…What is enough?

The guilt. Oh the guilt.

I recently read a fantastic book called ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo. If really helped me to get rid of a lot of stuff I’ve been wanting to rid my life of for a long time. My space feels more like me and less stressful.

Then yesterday, I caught myself watching some minimalism videos on YouTube. I find minimalism fascinating, intriguing, and completely condescending. I love it. I hate it. I want it. I repel it. For so many reasons. I made a video about minimalism a long time ago on my channel ‘TribalFaerie’ on YouTube. And I still feel the same way I did back then. I’m not the kind of person who can live off 10 items of clothing. I mean, yes I could. But I would prefer not to.

I love fashion. I love makeup. I love books. I love house trinkets. So many things. And I try to be practical in nearly everything I buy, even though I think we all occasionally bring something home and think, ‘the fuck was going through my head when I picked this up?’

Anyway, while I was watching these minimalism videos, I started getting that classic feeling that courses through me. Guilt. Guilt for having things. Guilt for being fortunate in certain aspects of my life. Guilt for holding onto certain things and not others. Guilt for being in a position to buy cardigans in several different colors and having the nerve to enjoy them. GUILT GUILT GUILT.

So I pose the question, is it really necessary to feel that guilt? I saw a video with my one true girl crush of all time for ever and ever and always…Florence Welch. It featured her walking around her house talking about all her things. She said one thing that I completely resonated with me so much. A house is like a living organism. You take things in and out and it breathes with you. Or something to that effect. And I feel that. I know that. I truly believe that items have energy. Whether we give them energy or it possesses it beforehand, I don’t know. But having certain things in my life cheers the spirit. It adds to my moments of happiness. And anyone who doesn’t like the fact that I can gain enjoyment from an article of clothing I feel expresses a certain facet to my personality can quite frankly fuck off.

With this being said, I admire minimalism. So much! I like watching videos about it. And yet at the same time, I look at the homes of minimalist people and I think to myself, “it looks so bare.” Not because I’m attached to ‘stuff,’ but because I feel like walking into someone’s home helps me to learn about them as a soul and a spirit. The home is where you spend so much of your time. It envelops you in warmth and keeps you during the good and bad times. It (for the most part granted finances and all the crap) is a haven. A place to reflect. And I want my home to reflect who I am and what I feel.

I have a friend that I go see on weekends. And I love her home. The first time I stepped into her living room, I felt like I learned a few things about her. From her portraits on the wall, the books on her bookshelf, the wolf sculpture, the glass coffee table, her daughter’s Frozen themed toys on the floor, it all helped me to learn a few things that I didn’t know before. And I love that about the artifacts in our lives. If she had been minimalist, I feel like I might have missed out on a few things.

I admire people who can live a minimalist lifestyle. I commend them. But I feel like I have come to a place of balance recently. I know what I love about my belongings. I know what I can get rid of in the future. I know that I can bring in new things and take others out…because a home is very much like humans. It sheds skins. It gets new owners and keeps old ones for the longest of times. But it changes. The very energy inside it shifts. And the things inside it should as well. Everything in moderation. Everything in balance. And if it makes you happy, keep it. No two people have the same amount of stuff nor should they be defined by the enjoyment they receive from them.

Just my two cents…but I still love my jewelry chest, my makeup cabinet, my dozen winter coats, my fifty+ nail polishes, my old belly dance trousers that I might never get the chance to use again but love having. And I don’t think looking at them and feeling joy makes me a vain or overly indulgent person.

My two cents. There you go.

Behold…Florence…in all her glory. I freaking love her home.

14. Writing Out Loud

So some may have noticed that I haven’t posted on this series of blog posts much lately. Yes, I am working, and no, I don’t have an excuse for not posting. All I can say is that I have had some pressures around me that made me deviate from blogging a little.

So here’s what I’ve been up to.

The week before last I finished writing the final book in a boxed set series of romances I was working on. A total of approximately 11K. The following week I edited it and compiled the final book as well as the boxed set. Today I sent out the final newsletters announcing its release. Yay! That’s done. And I honestly don’t know when I will revisit that pen name. It’s not performing like I hoped it would. And I would much rather work on for stories for the Bre Faucheux pen name than my romances right now. Especially since my income isn’t any different as a result of having branched out to another genre.

The last three days I have been revising the first book in the fantasy I have been working on for over a year. I’m 130 pages into this process. Next week I hope to finish and read over the drafts I wrote for the second book. At first I thought I was going to scrap most of what I wrote for the second one. Now, I’m not so sure. Certain parts may need to be redone, but not all. The first book is now at around 75k. The second is currently unfinished at 53K. With the plans I have for Nanowrimo and possibly finishing the second book in that time, it might over 100K by the time I’m done.

And that’s the state of the union. I want to finish reading over and editing the first book (at least to some degree) by next Tuesday, and then have what I wrote for the second book at least revised in some form by next Friday. With that being done, I might be ready for Nanowrimo.

Technically speaking for Nanowrimo, we are supposed to start something completely new. Excuse me while I burst into hysterical laughter. The thought of starting something new right now makes me want to rip out my own heart and gauge out my eyes. So…nope. Not gonna happen. Finishing the sequel to my trilogy it is. At least for the time being.