Deborah Woehr

As you all know, the bird flu has swept from China into Europe. It’s one of the hot topics for the talking heads of the media. The debate going on right now is whether or not the H5N1 virus will cause a major pandemic similar (or worse) than the 1918 Flu Pandemic. Here’s an article that may bring some of you a bit of comfort, as it illustrates how pandemics evolve.

Sure, it kills birds, but it won’t kill you

I just got back from the office supply store, where I bought two packs of paper and a pen with plenty of refills especially for this project. Can any of you believe how fast 2005 is slipping by, that we’re already approaching November?

At any rate, I’m no longer sure which angle I want to approach this story. Already, I’m getting images/thoughts of little Walt searching for his dog and dad after they crashed.

On the way home, I was thinking about what it would be like to be stuck on a plane with a bounty hunter (marshall?) who is salivating over your demise. I’ll have to research where Kate was from.

The ideas are coming, which is a good thing. I plan on writing this entire story out in longhand. The reason doesn’t involve cigarettes or writer’s block, but my tendency to be a perfectionist. When I’m using the computer to write my stories, I tend to backtrack and rewrite a lot. That’s what kept me from making the deadline last year.

I figure that if this story turns out to be any good, I’ll have plenty of time in the coming months to slice and dice it. Now, I’m off to my outlining.

I caught the sight of this book while trowling the grocery store and picked it up, thinking that this might be better than the TV show. Ninety-nine percent of the time, books are better than movies or TV. Perhaps this would help shed some light on what’s going to happen in the mini-series, I thought. Another thought: Maybe I’ll get some ideas for my NaNoWri novel, which is (unless I can come up with a better idea) a spoof about Lost.

I paid for the book, took it home, and actually read 18 pages before I became distracted by the characters of my own story. The writing is pretty good, but I am disappointed to see that half of the book (195 pages) deals with the main character’s pre-crash life.

Come on people! I don’t give a rat’s ass about the character’s life history. I really don’t.

Does that make me shallow and unfeeling? Excuse me if I don’t care about that, either. Just give me the damned story–the REAL story!

Okay, I’m done ranting. Not surprisingly, Amazon reviewers gave this book a 1-star review.

Well . . . almost. Travis and Amanda have returned home from an errand to get her a new mattress so she could move into that old house. His house is virtually destroyed from the fire, which I’ve decided will remain mysterious to them. Bud thinks he knows what caused it, which I will illustrate in Chapter 11 or 12.

At the moment, Amanda is sitting with Travis in front of his ruined house, trying to comfort him and not succeeding. She has her own issues that stem from an abusive marriage. These issues will play themselves out as her friendship with Travis deepens. Both of them will move into that house by tonight.

As for the story, this is the beginning of the terrifying aspects of the hauntings. So far, she knows of two ghosts that she has met in Prosperity. She’s met others, but won’t realize that until the end.

The first two posts covered my desire to quit smoking and my fears in relation to doing so. I feel like I’m getting closer to the quitting mindset because I didn’t race to the convenience store for a new pack when I ran out yesterday.

Perhaps it was exhaustion from my youngest’s sleepover party. As they lay there giggling and talking boy-stuff, I researched hypnosis as an alernative to going cold turkey. The best hypnotist I found online offers a CD program that costs $129.00.

I also found a laser remedy company that uses a form of accupuncture to help ease the withdrawal symptoms. That costs $300 (rounding up). Last but not least, I found that book that Lee Carlon suggested, which I’ve put in my Amazon shopping cart. Thanks, Lee!

When I do set a date, I’m going to try the cold turkey method. If I can save money, I will.

Writing the old-fashioned way has worked for me this week. Last night, I counted twenty handwritten pages, which completes the first scene for Chapter 10 of Prosperity. I’ve been wondering if I’ve taken too long to get Amanda into that house but have decided to ponder that issue later.

Right now, I have Bud sweating bullets over a ghost who promises to hurt him. He doesn’t remember who the who is, but the realization will dawn on him in later chapters. At same time Bud is dealing with the ghost, Travis’s house catches on fire.

Did the ghost do it, or was it one of those accidents? I haven’t quite decided which it will be.

I think the hardest part of breaking any habit/addiction is to overcome the fears that keep you addicted. The old saying, “It’s all in your head.” is quite true. Quitting smoking is 95% psychological.

I started for psychological reasons. First it was peer pressure (which didn’t get me started right away). Boredom and my desire to keep my father off of me about my weight were the biggest factors of why I started. As a teenager in the 80’s, I had the pressure coming from him and from society.

Looking back, I was the thinnest I’d ever been in my adult life–5′5/115 lbs. He still thought that I was too fat. I took up smoking to replace eating. Eventually, I got down to 108 pounds. I hadn’t been that light since I was in the fifth grade. My hips jutted through my jeans, but I was so happy that I could fit into a Size 7.

Smoking seemed to be the perfect diet remedy. Two years later, I was smoking almost two packs a day and was 20 lbs overweight. Just like every diet fad, smoking failed to keep my weight under control.

Today, I’m down to under one pack per day. Having to smoke outside helps a great deal. Not having to commute to work everyday also helps.

Once I decide to go for this, I’ll need to exercise regularly, which is something I’ve neglected over the past 20 years. I won’t be just quitting smoking, but changing a lifestyle that hasn’t been good for me.

I’m on my last pack of cigarettes and am seriously thinking about quitting again. I tried around four years ago with the patch and managed to stay clean (god, I sound like a junkie) for a solid week. At the time, I was having my husband proofread my chapters. One night, he came to me, smiled, and said, “Maybe you should set aside your writing until you feel better. All of your characters are attacking each other.”

My house smelled better, and my meals seemed to have more flavor. But I was in a bad funk–what’s termed a biological depression. I finally caved when I went out to dinner with my sister and her family. Actually, I caved the following day, when she couldn’t see me.

I started smoking about two months before my eighteenth birthday and have been a heavy smoker ever since. I come from a family of heavy smokers. Ironically, alcoholism has gotten the men in my family and not cigarettes. Surprisingly, I went the other way on that (a very good thing).

My husband also smokes. He set the nonsmoking rule in our new house. When I went to our rental to collect the rest of our belongings, I was appalled at the smell in that house. It wasn’t as bad as the pet smell that we had to get rid of before we moved in, but it was still bad. I was very surprised when our landlord gave us our full deposit back because I thought we’d get dinged for the smoke damage.

Backtracking a bit: I was one of the tens of thousands of people who came down with that nasty recurring flu last year. While most people shrugged it off within a couple of months, I had it for six. It finally developed into a nasty case of bronchitis, which kept me home from work for a solid week.

I’m still sick with the cold I came down with on Sunday, although I’m up and about and able to do my normal routine. My husband is fighting a sinus infection, which has become chronic due to his smoking. The kids have bounced back and are doing fine. Doesn’t that say something?

We’ve been talking about quitting for several months now. I dread the withdrawals and the subsequent depression. I’ve voiced this concern to my doctor when I had the bronchitis. She prescribed me some Welbutrin, but I’ve yet to fill it. I don’t know if I can anymore because it’s been months since she wrote that prescription.

I think the patch and the pills are just bandaids. The patch did nothing to cure the craving. So I’ll have to devise my own plan.

Just as I walked through the door, I heard the beeping of my answering machine. It was the corporate office of my former employer, who had a question about a task I’d done before I left. We had a good conversation, which surprised me given the fact that my boss had spent the last two years trashing the hell out of me. She joked with me about how I should stay away from companies like theirs.

After we hung up, I continued my search for a CMS/portal program. I’m at the point now where I’m thinking about paying for one, so long as it works. Again, I’m finding nothing that meets my needs. I wound up setting that aside for writing.

I forgot to count how many pages I wrote, but suppose it doesn’t matter. Chapter 10 is getting written, and that’s all that counts. I came upon a post in another writer’s blog about NaNoWri. That starts in two weeks, and I haven’t even started my outline.

Do outlines do anyone any good? They rarely work for me. I’m thinking about writing a spoof on Lost, since I’m so frustrated with the show. Perhaps I’ll get that outline written on Sunday. If not, then I’ll do what I always do–wing it.

Last night, I found a cool picture of an exotic cat and am in the process of etching a drawing. I had started another picture of a cactus flower, but screwed it up by adding a highlight where I shouldn’t have, thus ruining the whole design. That happens sometimes.

Today is all about preparing for my son’s party tomorrow.

I’ve been trying to post everyday on this blog, regardless of whether or not I have anything interesting to say. Today is one of those sluggish days where I’m trying to jumpstart my brain into producing something coherent. Perhaps it’s the cold I’m still trying to fight off, or the overcast sky and the chilly weather that is doing its best to lull me to sleep.

Its days like this when I have to use my alternative plan. Whenever I find myself blocked (for whatever reason), I grab a pad of paper and a pen. Somehow the physical act of writing words on a piece of paper helps spark my motivation. What methods do you use when you feel like you have nothing left?

Update: I’ve handwritten 10 pages! Of course, I’ll hack them up when I type them into Word, but for now I’m satisfied.