I was tagged by Bri to give you Eight Random Things About Me.
Here are the rules:
1. I must post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each participant posts eight random facts about themselves....that's right. Eight.
3. Tagees should write a blog post of eight random facts about themselves.
4. At the end of the post, eight more bloggers are tagged ruthlessly.
5. Go to their blog, leave a comment telling them they’re tagged and run for cover!

Well...here goes it. I am choosing not just random, but some that are unknown and maybe a little embarrassing.

1. I scrapbook. Yep..I have been sucked into the mania of tiny replicas of memories and all the machines to make it happen. I am now a big fan of ribbon.

2. I learned to role play in AOL chat rooms when I was nine. It was that which ignited the writer in me, and to this day I still play when I can. My general character is molded a bit like myself, strong willed (in other words, stubborn as hell), outgoing, a little rough around the edges...and just rough for that matter....what can I say? It is harder to play yourself than it is to play your imagination, for in yourself you must see real faults.

3. I think I am rather witty at times. Yet, all that really comes forth are cheesy little quirks that only find laughter in me. Again, I think I am rather witty.

3 1/2. I hate having to hold the shift key down while jabbing the return/enter button. I'm not used to having to use shift, and it is really pissing me off, stupid post box.

4. I have a mannequin in my room. The headless body is dressed in a Kimono complete with obi bought on my trip to Okinawa Japan. Another, this a wedding kimono, hangs in folds of white patterned silk from a rod attached to my wall. The red inner lining is breathtaking. The rest of my room is decorated in Asian antiques, modern pieces, and collections picked up from my travels. Several wall hangings stand hidden, waiting to be displayed in their full honor. It is my pride and joy.

5. I eat through book series like they were the juicy fibers of a cold watermelon on a hot summer day. One series, my favorite, produced a letter to and then from the author. His letter, the book mark and the note he scrawled to me are already in a frame. I'm so nerdy!

6. Shhhh! I still sleep with a stuffed animal! Me, 21 in a month, and I still cuddle the black and white bunny from a childhood Easter. I think I will sleep with it until another fills its place.

7. I have two rings that I cherish. They belonged to my grandfather and great grandfather on my father's side. One used to hold a large diamond in the center(that is now in my mother's ring) and the tiny diamonds that surrounded it now circle a sparkly cubic zirconium. My favorite is the one that belong to my great grandfather. It used to hold a large ruby. He sold it during hard times and replaced it with a very real looking fake. The designs in the white gold are simplistic yet beautiful.

8. I have a rare...condition/disease. It is called erythromelalgia, but I don't tend to tell people about it. It makes things a bit difficult now, especially as a writer. But, things could be much worse. I am thankful to only have a mild case.

Well, my soul is laid bare before you. Devour at will.

I am tagging....Brent.

And I am adding a re-tagging section. Bri, I in the name of this devilish game, re-tag you.

P.S. I call no tag backs!! (How third grade is that! I love it.)

~Annie

Sorry, but this post won't be written as well as the last.

The wall broke and I've been a terrible mess ever sense. My emotions are sky rocketing and then plunging back down deep into the earth. I don't know how I feel. Miserable of course because I can't really function in this state.

I cave myself into a room in the house only venturing out for the morning dose of medicine and a savage battle with a tooth brush. This time around it's the bonus room. An upstairs den with a big screen TV that I never turn on. A tread mill that stares at me over the back of the couch taunting my swollen hurting limbs and the fragile mind attached to them. A DVD player that won't play burned Cd's. A CD player that won't play burned Cd's. And a stack of f'ing burned Cd's. The fan, that glorious fan that hums away some of the stress. Crowded coffee tables stacked with half filled and empty glasses. Sweet tea, water, ginger ale.

The series of books I just devoured in four days. A wonderful little trilogy with passion and anger to match my own emotional maelstrom. A fluffy couch that sucks my body into its own cradling arms, a heavy blanket to protect what's still exposed. A large leather recliner that does more harm than good. And yet still finds a visit every few hours when the large room begins to grow too small.

My computer. The safe connection to the outside world. A power under my command that won't break under the emotional barrage. The small release that drains a little more of the tension with each passing hour.

In this time I am insane. I am wild and more than a little dangerous. I am confusing. I am weak, and I am strong. I am angry and I am terrified.

I am so lonely.

So very very lonely.

The wall is finally breaking.

This wall...the one now sporting cracks that leak what it was once meant to hold...that one. Its stones were made of twisted logic and heart felt denial. The morter to hold it all together? A faint image of the normal life I could have had and still wanted to have.

I threw behind it all the emotions that threatened that image. Truth was the first I sent sailing over the wall. But not all truth went over. Some seaped into other parts of my life. When I encountered one, I threw it over. Again and again truth thwarted the idea of a normal life. My great wall, once so solid and safe, was not enough to hold back truth. No defense of mine could tame it. Truth is hard like diamonds and I could not carve my image into it.

Now that wall is falling, breaking under the strain of truth and the emotions wrapped around it. My hands are shaking over the keyboard as I fight to retain some sense of balance in the onslaught about to be unleashed. Writing release isn't enough for this one. No release can blunt what is to come.

All that is left is acceptance. You can't contain truth, you can't fight truth.

I'm not ready.

The truth hurts too much.

I don't know who may stop by and read this, so let me tell you about a new blog!!

(R)evolutions is a blog for fantasy/scifi/horror writers who have an interest in honing their craft! If you need help with any area of your writing, (R)evolutions will be the place to turn. With authors hitting every genre stuck under the fantasy heading you are sure to find exactly what you need. Your writing can't afford to miss such a great opportunity!

There are several authors who will be posting on tons of themes in writing such as characters, plot, setting, scenes, page turners, etc...It is going to be great. The first posts are going up Monday, June 18th and continue every monday and thursday! So Check It Out!!


On to my normal ramblings!

Well for the next two weeks I'm not going to have my normal hour or so at night to devote to writing. And I'm Peeved!! Majorly peeved! Just thought you should know.

Ok...so maybe I'm a dork...but I love magic systems. You know what I'm talking about right? I love the way they work, can work, have worked....My favorite is Terry Goodkind's magic system in his Sword of Truth series. My all time favorite series by the way. Additive and subtractive magic...such a great idea...and so SIMPLE! Ok..yeah I'm a dork.

~Annie

I know I say this a few times each year...but I truly think I have found a story line that I am in love with, and is not so extravagant as my other hour thought out epics. If that even makes sense. I'm excited...Title something along the lines of The Gate Key, such a great fantasy with some of the elements I've clung to in other stories.----And since the blogger thing is acting like a retard and not letting me form a new paragraph!!-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------On a great note!!!! I have finally figured out my magic system! I wanted something unique but reminiscent of one of my favorite magic systems...without looking like I copied. This is different, it is perfect and I am in love with the simplistic and complex workings of it!

The Key

Some recent events have sparked an idea for a story. I think it will be the first non-fiction story I've truly written. I'm not a fan of non-fiction, not at all...but I think this story is interesting.

So, here is the idea. For generations a family has had some health issues, some have called it the onset of arthritis and some just poor circulation. For some reason, no one has ever linked it to the next generation....that their problems might be the same or even related. In the fifth known generation a child has taken on a harsh and painful version of what the rest of the family line has experienced. The symptoms are a little off and very extreme, but no one links it to what they themselves have. Eight years pass and no doctors can diagnose it. It is too closly linked to three or four diseases without being a single one. She is unique, or so they think. Finally her symptoms abate and slowly she returns to general health. But that is not the end of the story, no, that is where it begins. The child's older sister starts to have symptoms of this disease, though it varies and is an at first mild case. A trip to her normal doctor leads to a referral and a trip to a doctor at a leading hospital only gains another referral but this time to a neurology clilnic. It is there that she is actually diagnosed. She has a rare disease. None of the doctors had seen or even heard of it until her symptoms provoked questions and research.

Erythromyalgia, a rare form of nerve pain caused by a mutation in gene Nav1.7 that produces swelling in the extremities and hot burning pain. Episodes are generally caused by an elevation in body temperature and only slow and mild cooling will help without harming or further provoking the mutation.

It is this diagnosis and the description that then sparks the memories and consciouses of the living generations. A great grandmother, the one the diagnosed was named after, had swelling and hot burning pain in her hands and feet. No longer alive they can not confirm it, but the great grandmother's sister still lives and attests to the memory. Slowly the pieces slide into place and variations of the disease appear in each generation. None had been given a diagnosis before this child. She was the Key to unlocking each family mystery. A dominant mutated gene passed to each generation. The current generation is now faced with the weight of passing such a burden on......

Anyway...heavy as that is, I think it would turn out to be an interesting story once I throw in details of the eight years the younger had to go through before her pain subsided. What think you?

An excerpt.

The weight was crushing overhead and the ripped arrow hole in his shoulder trickled dark blood. It dripped deep down into the folds of oil treated leather armor like red wine into fine rugs, staining despite their hours of special treatment. The steady beating of war drums had died long ago and only the sound of his harsh breathing accompanied what seemed like an agonizing eternity in the still darkness of a moonless night. Thousands of cuts some large enough to still ooze thick blood and some too small to scratch more than the surface mingled with the steaming sweat of another day in hell and smartly stung with the reassuring pain of the living.
The tomb of bodies around him shuddered every once in a while feeding rotten air to his parched lungs or closing in around him with a terrible weight. They moved again now but this time from above. The weight atop his twisted form lessened substantially but not enough to afford him any movement. His hope died when the stillness came again.
Visions of the men who might incase him now and their dying screams that had tormented his first hours beneath this mess seemed more than just distant. He could no longer pick his own voice out of the cacophony or even remember screaming along with the rest of the dying and terror-stricken but when he tried to call out his voice was no longer his, just a weak-rasping imitation no louder than his breathing. Other memories dared to rise but he fought them back not wishing to tarnish their beauty with the foul circumstances, but they could not be kept back for long. His heart ached for a last moment with them and the comfort they promised as they fought to return. When his defenses fell and he succumbed to those cherished memories of home one such memory pulsed with a fiery intensity. Now welcoming the distraction he let it flood over his senses and pull him into a familiar darkness.

The first.

So, I'm new to blogger. I wonder what ideas this site will pull from my imagination. We all shall see.