52 Days of Pain Wrap-Up

My self-imposed NaNo writing and editing binge ended Friday on February 26.



Word count widget provided by writertopia

• I wrote over 12,000 words in that time (if you count my as-I-go outline and notes) for Novel Y, which is a story ten years in the making.
• I edited 3/4 of Novel X, my NaNoWriMo 2009 winner, and found a teen beta reader for it.
• I also joined an online plotting class all February to teach this old pantzer how to outline in advance. For that I worked on a brand new idea, which I'll call Novel C.
• All the while starting a new position at work that took up most of my physical and emotional energy. (Love the job, hate the work politics.)

Though I didn't reach my ideal word count goals, I'm still really happy that I worked on my projects without the external motivator of a critique group, an expensive university course, or an international writing movement.

This experience is the start of my learning something vital for writers: self-discipline on a mundane, daily level. That's going to be our lifeblood.

I'm still working on the job-writing balance. Jifo is going through his company's crunch time right now so we're coming home around 9-10 p.m. (me) or later (him) and working six days a week (both of us). I'm left to do much of the housework by myself if I want it done at all, and we're raising a young, takes-food-off-the-dining-table dog. The writing hasn't exactly happened every day.

In stupendous news, I finally fixed the insomnia that moving to NYC (and back) and starting a grueling graduate program left me with. For the last four or five months, I was unable to go to bed before 6 or 7 a.m., or if I did, unable to sleep past 6 or 7 a.m. when Jifo's alarm would go off. ::shudder:: Dark days, they be.

(Literally.)

Now I'm exercising once a week (goal is 3x) and in a month Jifo should be out of his crunch time and hopefully able to help me around the house more (right, honey? yes please?)

Revising Novel X is now my top priority, as this is the piece I'm going to query agents with.

Now I'm off to a $5 Vietnamese food court lunch with my meetup group!

Dear New York, Where It's 30 Degrees and Snowing

Suckers.

(I've waited all winter to do this.)

Year of the Tiger

Happy Chinese New Year my yellow people! This is my mother's year - she's a tiger and I felt it my whole childhood.

Jifo and I went to his family banquet last night and got red enveloped up the wazoo. We spent the car ride counting our cash and pledging not to marry so we could keep collecting the goods. (That was MY plan at least...)

Oh what? It's some western holiday too? We'll get to that later!

Another Gratitude List

Slow Panic not only cheered me with the admission that other people feel down about their lives too, but she also posted something I know would help: a gratitude list.

Thirteen Things to be Grateful For:

1) DayCrawler, who made me get off my widening butt and go to the gym by reminding me, in his loyal, tough love way, that there's a difference between the deliciousness of physical exhaustion and mental weariness. One makes you sleep like a drunk baby, the other makes you cry like a drunk dude going through a divorce.

2) Jifo, my boyfriend, who has always supported me - including adding me to his gym membership early on so that I could take DayCrawler's advice tonight.

3) Music. Broad I know. But music, because that's what was there for me today when I was sad (see Sade song in playlist) and is there now that I'm lifted again (Temper Trap songs). It's what the young musician I interviewed tonight for Harvard admissions is obsessed with, and what s/he used to help me get over my fear of math. (I am definitely recommending this student for admission.)

4) Terry, who has housebroken us so that we make sure he doesn't poop or pee in the house anymore. Though he needs training and has that shelter dog separation anxiety, he's a good dog. He's with me every day more hours than Daddy (Jifo), who works insane hours right now.

5) The luxury I have to be stressed out by work, which means I have a job with enough hours that I can actually afford to go to Whole Foods once in a while (also thanks to Jifo's job).

6) The luxury I have to be stressed out that I'm not writing enough, which means that I'm pursuing my dream at all. Keep on girlfriend!

7) The luxury I have to be stressed out that I'm getting kind of fat, which means I'm not starving.

8) The luxury I have to rescue dogs, which means I have a backyard, money to buy dog food, and there will always be a smelly, silly thing to hug.

9) The luxury I have to complain about the crappy weather SoCal is experiencing right now - because at least I'm not snowed in like New York - SUCKERS!

10) That big, quick brain of mine after all, because I get to meet the area's smartest kids who are applying to my alma mater, and they restore my faith in teenagers (that my students break every other day :P)

11) That I'm not a lawyer or banker after all, because I'm yet to read an investment banker's blog that's even 1 Dow Jones point as interesting as a poor writer's blog.

12) A manager at work who is so warm and diplomatic you find yourself saying yes to anything she asks. She's good!

13) Finally remembering that work is not my life. And it should never stand in its way.

Mobius Strip of Dysfunction

I'm up. Not because I'm a morning person, but because I'm a basketcase.

I have a crippling case of perfectionism bordering on agoraphobia. (It literally takes me forever to get out of the door and then I end up forgetting things and then hating myself for not having my s*&^ together.)

I have the world's worst critical voice, which used to sound like my parents, but is now seamlessly integrated into my brain.

I was cursed with a big and quick brain at that, which craves constant stimulation, and since I live in the suburbs in southern California (of all mindless places), it has none, so it whiles its time away by obsessively rehashing the same thoughts over and over - and by "same" I mean negative.

So as soon as Jifo's alarm goes off, which is several hours earlier than my own wake-up time needs to be, my brain wakes right up and goes, "Oh boy, time to obsess. Remember that awful thing your boss said to you? I do. It went like this..."

I'm barely getting any writing done because I'm exhausted at night, I can't go to the gym because I'm sleep-deprived, which makes me sleep less well in this wonderfully warming mobius strip of dysfunction.

I've been bitter and angry about pretty much all the major things in my life lately: my friends (lack of), support system (nonexistent), job (am I the only Harvard grad in a job that doesn't appreciate me?), sleep (when I can get it), publishing career (oh that's right, I don't have one).

It's been feeling like I can't excel at anything anymore, nobody likes me, and my body is fat and repulsive. (I don't even look in the mirror anymore, I'm so shocked at what I've done to myself. My former dancer body just stares back in dismay, saying, "Why did you do this to me? How could you betray me like that? And who is this fat girl who ATE me?!?")

I haven't even heard from the Universe or Jesus lately - and that guy's supposed to be friends with everybody!

And I just discovered that a published writer whose blog I follow is only 26 years old and already has: actual books that people can touch on the bookshelves, a husband that she claims is super attractive, and two frickin' kids. She already has a life! If she died tomorrow, she'd be fine. I, however, would probably go to the nursery school of hell for regressing in my development as a contributing citizen to society.

(I think she's Mormon though...so maybe that doesn't count since they all marry early?)

As you can see, I'm a sore loser. (emphasis on the loser part) I thought I could give up achieving, but all it does is make me feel pathetic. I haven't been able to go on facebook for years now without feeling suicidal. All around me fellow Harvard grads are marrying the loves of their lives (who apparently are ALL super attractive, as well as fit and athletic), earning more in one month than I made in the last five years, living in awesome cities (who the hell lives in the burbs before the age of 30???? Shoot me now), getting elected for office, and revolving in a world of smart and famous people. (One of them is a twitter celebrity, I kid you not.)

Even my dog sleeps better than I do.

Some jerk friend of a friend recently asked, "What's a Harvard girl like you doing teaching? If I went to Harvard I would be a lawyer or a doctor."

Don't remind me.

Staying Patient As a Writer

You know those times when you're staring at your WIPs (works-in-progress), or thinking about them, or dreaming about them - so basically all the time - and you ask yourself, "What am I waiting for? Just send the dang thing out already!"

Or when you're having some crappy moments (or weeks) at your money job and your neighbors are hammering on their new $*%&ing deck every morning before you wake up - a deck that now overlooks the nice high wall between your house so that you can no longer keep the curtains open on your first floor, or even take your dog into the backyard to pee without having some guys stare at you - the same neighbors that throw their teenagers floor-shaking parties on work nights until 3 a.m. and the ghetto police in your ghetto neighborhood don't come in a timely fashion when called...

And you just think, "I really really really really really really need to get my publishing career started so I can quit my day job/move out of this ghetto cul-de-sac/stop feeling like the biggest loser compared to my friends who are way richer/more successful/more powerful/and way way more published"?

That's when this post over at Kidlit.com helps. Mary says:

What concerns me...is the tendency for writers to immerse themselves in the publishing end of things and jump into the search when their time might be better spent really solidifying their craft. Publishing will be here (for the foreseeable future, anyway, *gulp*) while you work on your writing. Focus on that and we’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready.

And I turn my nose back to the grindstone, silent and patient as a straight-A Asian student.

Your time will come. Focus on your craft. Don't mess it up for your novel. (Don't be Stephenie Meyer, as Publishers Weekly warns.)

Be as patient as you want your novel to be good.

Jane Austen + Romance + Mallows Giveaway

Stephanie over at Natural/Artificial is having a post-Paris giveaway of books and marshmallows. I want I want! The YA fiction she's handing out sounds awesome!

Hop over to enter...or don't so I can have more chances. Heh.

I Took the 2010 Survey

2010 Survey from Louisiana Bride

Welcome to the new 2010 edition of getting to know your family and friends. Here is what you are supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Have fun and be truthful! I want to see your answers!!

I'm tagging Selena, LS, Novelista Barista, Dette, a.k.a. "Kellan's New BFF", and Slow Panic, and old bloggy friend in a new (old) name

1. What is your occupation right now? English teacher and counselor
2. What color are your socks right now? barefooted
3. What are you listening to right now? Bobby McFerrin's presentation of the pentatonic scale from Selena's blog
4. What was the last thing that you ate? Kurobuta pork chop with mango salsa at my friend's LOST premiere themed dinner
5. Can you drive a stick shift? Jifo wants to teach me
6. Last person you spoke to on the phone: Jifo
7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? I pulled this off a fellow BlogHer's site - but at her behest! :)
8 . How old are you today? in the sunset of my 20's
9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? dodgeball with costumes
10. What is your favorite drink? water
11. Have you ever dyed your hair? I only recently stopped the red streaks
12. Favorite food? toss-up between Real Food Daily and NYC pizza
13. What is the last movie you watched? Sherlock Holmes and loved it
14. Favorite day of the year? My birthday
15. How do you vent anger? I cry
16. What was your favorite toy as a Child? Jumbo Love, the knock off puffalump who is still with me
17. What is your favorite season? summer (see 14)
18. Cherries or Blueberries? cherries
18. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? who says no to this question?
19. Who is the most likely to respond? LS hates memes but can't resist the allure...
20. Who is least likely to respond? Selena is bad at following up on...um...lots of things
21. Living arrangements? house in the burbs with Jifo
22. When was the last time you cried? If I'm not crying right now, just wait a few minutes
23. What is on the floor of your closet? I wish I could say we were organized enough to use closets
24. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are tagging/sending this to? LS
25. What did you do last night? started teaching spring semester and met with a new counseling student
26. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? woah there's spicy? Cheese.
27. What are you most afraid of? not getting over my childhood issues
28. What is your favorite kind of dog? 1) the quiet kind 2) my fox-terrier/doxie 3) pitbulls
29. Favorite day of the week? the day I get off (varies b/w Tues and Fri)
30. Diamonds or Pearls? diamonds of course!
31. What is your favorite flower? lavender or deep-pink bio-engineered roses
32. What is your favorite blog to read and why? The Shelter Chronicles: Doggie Matchmaker because I'm addicted to dog porn

Pizzeria Bianco

ROAD TRIP PART II: the Pizza Pilgrimage Realized

At last! After battling Phoenix traffic, we finally got to our pricelined hotel in Scottsdale, threw on some fancy get-ups, and headed back to downtown Phoenix, where I circled a bit before finding the oddly placed hut of pizza.

We met up with the birthday girl and her pals - all cooks and chefs like Selena.

where the magic happens

They'd ordered everything on the menu. The pizza portion looked like this:

There was a cute picnic table area in between the pizza hut and their adjacent wine bar, over which were strung festive lights. While the cooks chatted up a couple of coworkers with inappropriate chemistry to rival Nathan and Claire season 3, I tore sheets out of Selena's notebook and NaNoWriMo'd. I got 1000 words in that night.

Coming Up...
Topless marines and BACON

Did you miss Part I?