That Time Christine’s Brain Went Missing and Other Odd Tales

This morning I woke up to a note on my pillow—

Gone to Hawaii for the week. Have fun without me.

                                                                Signed,
                                                                         Your Brain

It could have given me a week’s notice or something. Sheesh. So here I am, brainless, trying to write a blog post. It’s obviously not going well.

Or I may have contracted a minor cold and am a little out of it today, but I still think my brain went off on vacation without me. Do you know how trying it is for a writer to be left brainless? I have all these character running willy-nilly in my head and now that I don’t have my own thoughts they’re taking over the place and making a horrid mess. I can’t even keep up.

My calendar tells me we’re halfway through June. Um, excuse me, Calendar, but I did not give you permission to jump that far ahead. But since it’s so insistent on being on that little halfway marker, I suppose I could recap what June has looked like so far.

Hot for one. And stormy, I hear thunder out my window this moment even though the sun in shining. I’m pretty sure the weather has been as confused as I have lately. We’ll step out, everything all bright and sunshiny, and the whoosh! Rain! Thunder! Lightning! “I’m going to kill you allll!” the weather crackles menacingly. “Nah, changed my mind.” Sunshiiiine. Uh, what? Literally moments ago it was raining and THERE WERE NO CLOUDS. Doesn’t that defy the laws of. . .stuff? I don’t even know anymore.

Because the weather is apparently on an emotional rollercoaster, I’ve done my best to avoid it as I do most summers. This involves taking safety precautions by staying safely inside away from the glaring, ominous, deadly ball of light in the sky that laughs maniacally every time it looks upon my pale skin. Then of course I use a protection spell called A/C and crank it up to its ultimate power. Take that ridiculously high temperatures! (I just really hate hot weather, okay? Reeeeally hate.)

But summer has not been so bad thus far. Honestly, I rather like summer as long as sunscreen, A/C, and my laptop are always at hand.

As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I’m doing a JuNoWriMo goal of 30k words this month. I hit 15k words yesterday, so I’m keeping to par. Life keeps laughing at my goal and insisting I fall behind, but I’ve stayed on top. . .for the most part. And writing in general has been going quite well. This week I experienced writing through the point-of-view of a particularly bratty character named Marigold for the first time and giggled to myself through almost the whole chapter. Turns out being inside the head of a brat isn’t as terrible as it sounds. It’s quite entertaining, honestly. And then you thrust one brat with my impish character Larke and. . .well. . .

"That? That's our destination?” Marigold said. “The thing looks like it'll collapse if I breathe on it!"

"So don't breathe, then."

Don’t give me that sassy face, Larke.

Yeah, it’s been interesting.

I’d probably get more written if not for the call of the TV. We’ve been rewatching ABC’s Once Upon a Time (and yes, I used a character from that show as Larke’s face character, do not judge) and enjoying it just as much as the first time through. But I’m totally calling it writing research because if I could weave a tale as well as those writers, book contracts would be exploding through my windows. Yep, definitely writing research. *nods* (Or more like Christine sobbing over all the ridiculously good writing, but research sounds better.)

I’ve also been running on Hobbit feels. For the past couple of weekends my sister and I have rewatched the first two Hobbit movies. And by watching I mostly mean me providing a very lively commentary about allll the things that should or should not have happened. Said informative commentaries involve going as far as pausing the movie to supply very detailed Middle Earth history with the occasional threat to throw rocks at Tauriel’s head.

Thank you, Legolas.

Ahem. Yeeeah, I may not be the most fun person to watch the Hobbit movies with. But my ever patient sister assures me I’m quite entertaining. She agrees with me on my theory that they should have tried petting Smaug before provoking him. A good rub on the tummy may have been all the poor dragon needed. *I* certainly would have tried. Petting a dragon is on my bucket list after all.

Yesterday we watched the last Hobbit movie. It was my first time to see it since theaters, and my sister’s fist time period, so (other than making many gagging sounds during Tauriel/Kili moments *chokes*) I kept quiet and behaved myself. I was very proud. Besides, it’s a bit difficult providing a commentary while gasping back sobs because of certain deaths. But I digress! (Whoa, I almost rhymed.)

The Hobbit movies are fabulous, I simply hold a loyalty as fierce as a dwarf’s to the book.

Yes, your wonderful book that certain movie makers ruined.

IT’S RAINING WITH THE SUN OUT AGAIN, GUYS. So beautiful, but so strange.

Where was I? It’s so hard to know without a brain. June! Right. I believe that covers the highlights. Missing brains, emotionally compromised teenage girl-type weather, lots of writing, long exposure to unfairly good TV, Hobbit feels—yep, it’s been a good month thus far. *nods, nods* Hopefully the second half of June shall bring many more words and adventures Bilbo-style. (Because I really want to find a dragon and pet it, okay??)

And that, children, is why I should never attempt writing a blog post with a cold. I better post it now before my brain comes back and scolds me for even thinking about posting this. (And if you see a lone brain vacationing somewhere could you send it back my way? Thanks.)

What has the first half of June looked like for YOU? Come across any dragons to pet? I firmly believe they’re grumpy all the time because everyone is poking them with sharp objects instead of showing them affection. Don’t you?

I really should delete this.
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*posts*