I think I'm coming down with something...

Happy Tuesday! Glad you came back, because I'm going to need your help with something.

Over the past month or so I've been having some strange symptoms that I've never felt before. They are unpredictable and can strike at any moment, and when they do, there's no telling how long they'll last. They vary in intensity, but on the whole they are becoming worse by the day. There never seems to be any correlation with the time of day, my diet or anything else (well, maybe caffeine consumption, that could be contributive).

Here are some of my symptoms. Hopefully they can aid in a diagnosis:

Lack of motivation to complete homework. 

Lack of motivation to attend regular classes. 

Lack of motivation to do anything but craft and watch Criminal Minds to the point of paranoia.

Sudden boredom and subsequent anger while driving the same route to school and work 12 times a week. 

Desperately daydreaming of everything I will do once my student loans are paid off/when my net worth is above one hundred dollars. 

Buying business casual clothing and enjoying it. 

Daydreaming to the point of tears about how having a dog would fix all of my problems. 

Scoffing at in-class busy work.

Ranting inconsequently to my fellow classmates about the ways that I could more effectively run a capstone. 

Imaginatively outlining the main points of a complaint letter to the dean about said capstone, during said capstone. 

Becoming tired to the point of ineptitude at 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday. 

Winging it. All of it. And feeling little remorse. 

Calling my boyfriend to complain about how people always call me to complain. 

Crying after looking at freshman Facebook pages and realizing they were all born after 1992. 

Impulsively blogging about my symptoms while under severe duress most likely cause by the same symptoms. 

I'm deeply concerned that this ailment has no immediate cure and that this is the silent-killer type. So it goes without saying that the need for assistance is urgent. If anyone has any prior experience with these feelings or any suggestions for possible remedies, I would be beyond appreciative.

:)

I'm like Meryl Streep and blogs are my Oscars.

My name is Frances, but I'm guessing if you're reading this premiere post, you somehow knew that already.

First of all, welcome to my blog, On the Limb. I'm so glad you're here. 

Secondly, congratulations to you if you understand my Meryl reference. If not, you'll understand soon. 

This is my third blog. I know. How millennial of me.

Originally, I was going to delve into a lot of my blogging history and vast amount of experience I have with it (cough) in order to make myself appear more credible than the average blog-ess, but that gave me writer's block and I walked away from the keyboard again.

And anyway, what's the point of looking back when this blog is all about moving forward?

So, I erased that stuff and have since decided that you, curious reader, can judge whether this is worth your time (I sound like I don't care, but really I'm crossing all of my appendages in hopes that you'll stick around).

I'm here because I like to write. You'll probably never catch me saying I'm a writer, because I don't understand what qualifies a person to be a "writer". If you string words together to form a sentence, you're writing, right? Or typing. What if there was an official "Typer" profession? I digress.

Over the past year I've stepped away from blogging because the world of fiction and the fire under my arse that was getting-an-A on said fiction assignments drove me to the point of wanting to pour gasoline on my keyboard, walk away, and never look back. I didn't go through with that because this Mac was a gift and my mom would murder me.

I discovered pretty long ago that fiction was far from my forte. It was about the time I finished my first short story when I realized I had a problem.

But at that point I was a junior already, so it wasn't in my best interest to change majors, mainly because as an idiot freshman I walked under the clock tower and I have since been de-ter-mined to graduated in four years and prove the legend wrong. Serious motivation.

So on with fiction I went. Still bruised and bloodied from short stories and clad in newly prescribed reading glasses, I entered hopefully into novel where I thought the proverbial lightbulb would illuminate over my head and fiction would flow from my brain like.... blood or ooze or something...

It didn't. Ever. At all. If you made eye contact with me even once from August until December of last year, you knew that it didn't.

So there I was, short a lightbulb and just a semester away from graduating. Allow me to offer you insight into my thought process for the vast majority of last fall with this illustration inspired by this blog:

Terrifying. Yeesh. 

But, just as the fear of the unknown and joblessness was about to overcome everything happy, it happened.

I got the lightbulb. And a plan. Well, as much of a plan as I can manage. 

I hate to leave it at a cliff hanger, but we're still getting to know each other and it's been awhile since I've over-shared on the web. Rest assured it's a good plan and that you'll know as I fine tune details, because I have a blog and that's what bloggers do. Over-share. 

Even though my adventures in fiction didn't turn out the way I had expected (ha, understatement), my love for words and writing haven't faltered. I'm still a storyteller at heart and always will be. 

So with the novel done and time to kill, I'm back to the type of writing that I do. Real stuff. Life stuff. The good, bad, and ugly stuff. The pretty stuff and the sissy stuff. Stuff that will hopefully make you laugh, maybe stuff that will make you think, and if I'm lucky, stuff that will inspire you to create stuff.

To close, I'll explain my Meryl reference. She's won three Oscars, and this is my third blog. In her most recent acceptance speech, she joked about how the viewers at home were probably rolling their eyes and thinking, "Oh, it's her again." I can relate with Meryl in that I imagine some people will probably have the same reaction when they hear about this. 

Or maybe it could be that those little gold statues Meryl has on her shelf are an affirmation. They're the world's (or, you know, those old men that make up the academy) way of telling her, "Way to go! You're good at what you do." By no means do I expect to receive any sort or recognition from anyone ever for my rants about the mundane. But the process of putting my thoughts down, reading them, and feeling satisfied with what I put out there, that's where the affirmation is. 

Either way, it just makes me giddy to kind of be like Meryl Streep. 

So here I am. Out on a limb, writing how I feel, and hoping that you'll join me in my adventures.