Goals, are you there?

It’s one of those nights where I know I need to sleep, but I can’t. My eyes are going to drop out of my head if I don’t close them soon. But hey, that’s why I took Mavis Beacon, I don’t really need to see the screen.

I guess so much — and simultaneously, nothing at all — has been going on lately (reminds me of the quote from MST3K that goes, “it is everything…and nothing!” to which one of the riffers asks, “could you be a little more specific?”…yeah, I’m getting off-track already) that I feel like my mind has either been overloaded or completely devoid of anything to say. So right now I’m staring at a dim screen, listening to the rain tap the ground outside, and wondering what to put here, bcause I haven’t posted anything in a while and the last few posts have been pretty uninspired. I haven’t done much writing lately (aside from journaling of course). So there goes another goal sheet to the trash can. At the prompting of a writing book that I once worked with every day, I sent myself an e-card about a month and a half ago and scheduled it to arrive on June 1 to congratulate me on the completion of my novel. *cough* Come June 1, I won’t be anywhere near my inbox…

I can’t figure out what it is that keeps me from reaching my goals. Yet at the same time, it seems totally obvious: it’s me. I’ve read so many books that deal with writing and creativity and what have you, but ultimately, it’s my choice as to whether I actually sit down and press the words from my mind. A while back I wondered if I was afraid of succeeding. Maybe I am. I don’t know. I think I expect every writing session to go really well and for me to love what I write, and when that doesn’t happen, well, forget that story. (I literally have boxes of unfinished stories, and a slew of their digital cousins on my hard drive.) So it makes me wonder, is getting published really a goal of mine? Because wouldn’t I work harder if it were?

Maybe I should come up with some seemingly unreachable goal and post it here instead of on a piece of paper clipped to a magnet above my desk.

Maybe I’ll go to sleep first.

Please don’t do this.

I just looked out my window and saw this. I can tell my mom drove my car today.


Does it bother anyone else when someone doesn’t stop the wipers before they turn the car off, or is it just me?

Go listen…

Rhapsody is streaming Mat Kearney’s new album. I can’t wait to get the CD…

Sweet

So Kevin, Matt and I recently found out we got an honorable mention for this ad campaign we created last year as part of a class project. Woohoo! All those hours spent reading the impossibly long manual and videoconferencing for maps didn’t go to waste! Since I’m sure you would love to see the creative process, I present to you the Ad Journey.


Behold my lowly first sketches, created after our teacher handed us the twenty-plus-page competition guide (no kidding — these people are serious about their ads). Since the target demographic was young to middle-age women (at least, I think it was), we went for the “have too much stuff? need a bigger closet?” approach, which meant I didn’t really use any of my first drawings.



This was one of three comps I came up with after the sketches proved useless. We chose to go with this approach, and revamped it dramatically to get the following…



Kevin worked long and hard to create some nice maps (no Google Map stealing here), and Matt drew our carefully-targeted woman-in-need-of-a-gigantic-closet. I worked on the layout and copy. This is the full-page ad.


And in case you couldn’t tell…this is the half-page ad.

Last (and probably least) is the Internet banner, which was created near the end after everything else so it didn’t get as much work…thus the semi-confusing tagline. I really like the dots though…

Car wash = rain.

Today I found out that we are in the middle of one of the worst droughts we’ve ever had (well maybe not “ever” as in the history of the state or something, but a bad drought nonetheless). Lo and behold, I helped yesterday without even knowing: I washed my car. See, whenever I wash my car, dark clouds gather in the distance and point at my driveway and say, “hey! Let’s go rain on that freshly washed and waxed car!” It never fails. So when I went out today, I drove through a smattering of thunderstorms, and my tires got to play in the puddles. I would stop washing my car in order to avoid this but then it would probably never rain.

I predict a lot of car-washing this summer. I like thunderstorms.

Quotes

I had some screenshots for this, but Blogger isn’t cooperating.

Anyway, these are some random quotes I found buried in my hard drive that I retrieved from…actually I can’t even remember the site. Somewhere where you inserted a name, and then the generator spewed out a quote with that name in place of an actual word from the quote and you had to guess the missing word. These were my favorites:

Better to be king for a night than Ian for a lifetime.

The King of Comedy (1983)
(the missing word was ‘schmuck’)

I defy you! Come and kneel before Dad!

Superman II (1980)
(the missing word was ‘Zod’)

Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the Rye.

Star Trek: the Wrath of Khan (1982)
(the missing word was ‘few’)

No, Mr. Bond, I expect Hannah to die.

Goldfinger (1964)
(the missing word was ‘you’)

Play it, Sam. Play “As Cole Goes By.”

Casablanca (1942)
(the missing word was ‘time’)

You can expect something more original next time…

I would write a post, if I could think.

But I can’t.

Tomorrow I am going kayaking.

Mayhap (I love that word) I will come back with some really good stories.

(By good stories, I mean ones where I don’t speed over helpless marine life.)