Tag Archives: nanowrimo 2009

It's time to make it happen

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I know I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, but when I saw that publisher PUSH holds novel publishing contests every year, I just had to check it out. I wasn’t even sure if they were still doing it, since I’d found out about it when I finished Cut by Patricia McCormick (it was on the very last page).

Turns out, the contest is only for students in grades 7-12. Even though I look pretty young for my age, I would not be able to pull that off. Or could I? ;)

That’s okay, though, because I already have my eyes on an agent that I am going to send Secondhand Mom to. And I plan on having Secondhand Mom finished and ready for editing by the end of February. Especially since I will be spending the first or second Saturday of the month — can’t remember which — stranded at Southern for about four hours. Southern, if you remember, is the university I sort of went to for a while. I am taking my little sister — who is about to graduate high school and is looking at colleges — up to SCSU so that she can take the essay exam to get into their Honors College. The whole process is going to take about four hours, and since I probably don’t have remote internet access anymore since I’ve withdrawn, I am going to be unable to work on any projects for my clients. Which means I need to take advantage of that by bunkering down in my favorite campus lounge (which is stocked with Starbucks coffee, by the way), cracking open my laptop, and writing (almost1) straight through those four hours.

When I was enrolled at Southern, I enjoyed nothing more than hanging out in that lounge and working on my outlines for this novel. The atmosphere of it was just perfect for writing. I did a little pre-writing, too, and wished that I could spend my time there actually writing my novel as opposed to preparing for NaNoWriMo 2009 or doing homework for class3.

Where was I4?

Anyway, I will finish this novel by the end of February, and then I will forceask one of my writers’ group mates to help edit, and then I will edit this sucker, and then I absofuckinglutely will send it off to said designated agent.

This book is going to see the shelves of Barnes & Noble, and nothing — not depression, not work, not the fear of rejection — is going to stand in my way5.

1 I should probably take bathroom breaks, a lunch break, and maybe a cigarette break if I am still smoking2 at that point.

2 I am now one of those on again, off again smokers I once hatedenvied so much when I was a full-time smoker.

3 I’ve come to realize that I enjoyed the environment of Southern more than I enjoyed the program I was in. That’s not to say that I didn’t love the kids. I loved them so, so much. I think about them all of the time, especially my Conner and my Lola. They were such cool kids. But I’ve discovered that the whole thing was a big spontaneous disaster waiting to happen; I should have thought about it harder before jumping in with both feet (and taking out loans). I’m thoroughly enjoying the consequences of that jump now, as I await my next loan statement and prepare to begin making monthly payments. Hoo-fucking-rah for me. I do miss going to SCSU, but I refuse to re-enroll until I’ve thought about it long and hard — haha, excuse me while I be immature and giggle over that — and before I can even think about it, I need to diagnose my mystery autoimmune disease. This, of course, is a post for another day.

4 I’m trying to keep all of my rambling, ADHD-byproduct thoughts organized here, but instead it’s only making me totally lose focus of what the hell I originally set out to write about.

5 Now if only I could quit talking about it and get writing.

December 2009 Goals

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I’m VERY goal-oriented, but I tend to take on HUGE things and pile myself with too much to do. Recently, I’ve tried to break that habit by setting smaller goals at smaller intervals. Every month I set a few small goals that are more achievable and less stressful.

Last month, I tried to:

  • Write a novel — and FINISH it, dammit!
  • Finish designing Freaking Bookworm.
  • Give Perpetual Smile a face lift with a customized design.

I managed to write about 60% of Secondhand Mom, my NaNoWriMo novel. I also started working on Freaking Bookworm. With a whole lot of life thrown at me all at once (chronic pain/disease getting worse, work, and finding out that my Popi has cancer), I got pretty slowed down on these goals. BUT — and I say “but” very loud and proud — I did accomplish a lot. I got very close to two of my three goals, so I can’t complain.

With everything that is going on, I need something to focus on, WITHOUT OVERWHELMING MYSELF EVEN MORE. I have a hard time not overloading myself. The last thing I need right now is to send myself to the ER for a nervous breakdown. BUT — and I say “but” very loud again — I need goals like a junkie needs heroin. I’m a goal junkie. An overachiever, if you will. So, how to get my fix without overdosing?

There is a LOT that I want to do right now, a LOT that I need to get done, and a LOT going on in my personal life. The wants I need because I need to try to stay as happy as possible. This means satisfying the muse (writing the novel, working on personal side projects, etc). The needs, well, they need to get done because my clients want their shit done, rain or shine, whether my fingers and toes are attached or not. Plus, I’m broke and I need some money. The chaotic, shittiness of my personal life needs to fuck off, but it’s there nonetheless. That part of my life cannot be changed. I’m having a hard time with that, too.

So, goals. Right. Getting back on track.

  • Go to my writers’ group, every week. This will encourage me to keep writing, be it THE NOVEL or other stuff. It’ll also keep me sane.
  • Spend lots of time with Popi. Make him laugh.
  • Buy a camera and start taking tons of pictures of the people I love, because for some reason there are no recent pictures of anyone.

There. Simple enough, right?

Taking it in

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Early this morning, I wrote 700 words before crawling into bed. So far, I’ve written 50,290. Technically, I’ve won NaNoWriMo. But I know I have a lot of work ahead of me; the novel is far from done. Initially my goal was to finish it by the end of November; I knew that getting to 50k wouldn’t be challenging enough for me, and that my real challenge is to actually finish something.

I’m not sure if it’s going to be done by the end of November now. There’s a lot going on. My mind is in seventy-thousand directions right now. I can’t even begin to get it all down into words. I will, but for now I’m just processing.

Writing is keeping me going, but I pretty much feel like a zombie right now. Not a dead tired kind of zombie feeling, but a Stone Sour kind of zombie feeling. I’m like a zombie chewing on brains, trying to swallow it all down, but it just doesn’t taste very good. They’re bad brains. And this is a horrible analogy.

I might not be online too much, but I’m here. And I truly do appreciate all of the tweets and BBMs from everyone. It’s been a tough last twelve hours, but I’m hanging in there. Eating brains.

Busy like a busy bee

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I’m about to be very busy.

Some time ago, I partnered my little (barely started) startup web design company with my aunt’s. I jumped on board as a web designer AND social media consultant since — I say this quite modestly — I am pretty nasty at community building on social networking sites, and in general. More than one comment on this blog certified me for the position. (I’m totally kidding here.)

ANYWAY.

At the moment, we have two HUGE clients who need websites done by January. I’m going to be building a WordPress site (yay) and my aunt is doing a static HTML/CSS site. After the latter is done, I’m going to be doing a huge three month long social media push for the same client.

Goodbye, money worries. Hello, code tinkering. Sigh. I’ll wipe the drool from my face when I’m done thinking about all of the nerdy goodness of this career.

But where, my inner editor asks, does THE NOVEL fit into all of this?

I promised her that it would indeed still get finished. I will indeed still get to 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo (I’m currently at 45k). I’ll even start editing it still. But the going is going to be a little slower now; you try explaining to a client that their website isn’t finished yet because your characters need you. I dare you.

I don’t often write about stuff like this here, but sometimes I just can’t contain myself and have to share. Not that, you know, the design of this blog is any proof to the fact that I am, indeed, a good web/WordPress designer. (I solemnly swearwill try to make it MINE when my big projects are over at the end of January!) Another personal project I’ve been working on, Freaking Bookworm, will have to wait, too. (It’s about halfway done. Oops.) I’d like to think that I’ll still work on it a little at a time, but we’ll see.

Winner, winner, fettuccine dinner

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How can you not wake up in a good mood when, the night before, your team made a comeback in merely seconds to beat their biggest rival? Even though I woke up exhausted from staying up late watching said game and then celebrating afterward, I bounced into work with an energy that no one else had. (Literally; my boss is a Patriots fan and my co-worker is recovering from the flu.)

After work, I dragged Mike with meMike came with me to the rheumatologist, which sucked a little because I ended up being late and I couldn’t pay my copay because I am so horribly broke. I made a promise to bring them a check on Friday (AKA Pay Day; biweekly pay SUCKS), and then sat down to wait. While we waited, he flipped through an old issue of Sports Illustrated with Tom Brady on the cover and I edited some of my novel. We laughed at Tom Brady, especially because the cover said something about how awesome the Patriots are (but really, they lost to the Colts Sunday night, mwahahaha). I kept editing, he occasionally found himself accidentally watching General Hospital (it was on TV in the waiting room), I confessed my childhood crush on both Maurice Bernard (Sonny on GH) and Steve Burton (Jason on GH), traumatizing Michael forever.

Miraculously, even though I was late, I actually got in pretty quickly. Usually I have to wait forever to get in to see Dr. Greco. He did the same routine as always: asked me where the pain is, checked the fibromyalgia points and got nothing, talked about my symptoms, and then we moved on to the different doctors I’ve seen and he also asked me how the Cymbalta worked for me.

“It kept me up. For four days in a row. And I was all jittery and hyper. So I stopped taking it, ’cause I needed some sleep,” I said, afraid that he might tell me I needed to keep taking it. I prepared myself to argue.

Instead, he just said, “okay” and we talked about the other medications I’ve tried. The only one that hasn’t made me crazy and does slightly work is Tramadol — but it makes me HIGH. Like, so totally stoned. I cannot stress enough how HIGH it makes me. (It’s kind of awesome because it’s relaxing, but kinda not awesome because I’m only good for sitting around and watching DVDs or TV, or sleeping. I feel like I’ve said this before.)

Anyway, he asked me to call all of my doctors to get all of my records transferred to him. Then he wrote fibromyalgia on my paperwork for yesterday. “I’m gonna write fibromyalgia here, even though that’s not what you’ve got,” he said. I didn’t argue it, even though I so desperately want a real diagnosis, not a stand in. He said that I’m harder than an episode of House, and that this is going to take some detective work. I said that every doctor I’ve seen has dropped me or handed me off to someone else, and he said that he’s not going to do that, that he’s going to do the detective work.

Mike and I left the office and medical building shortly after. I asked him if he minded going to Southern with me so that I could sell my textbooks, and we went. I ended up getting $198 for them, which is good considering I paid about $300, maybe $400 altogether. I even sold the Praxis workbook I’d bought at Barnes and Noble; their return policy is fourteen days, and it’d been well past two weeks when I dropped out of school. I got $2 back for it, which is better than nothing.

As we got closer to his house on the way back, I asked him what he wanted to do next. Even though we’d spent the afternoon running around, I liked being with him. My novel called, but I also didn’t want to leave his side just yet. It’s rare that we get any kind of alone time together, since we both have big families and live in crowded little houses. We decided to go to Olive Garden, because we both craved pasta and I had the extra cash. We had a funny waiter and got the chance to just relax and hang out. We talked about our grandparents and our favorite childhood memories, and our waiter made fun of me because I couldn’t finish my dinner after soup and bread.

After eating, we were both exhausted so I dropped him off and went home to take a shower and do some writing. I didn’t do a lot of writing. (I forgot to post the daily toll last night, too, so I’ll try to remember to post it later.)

I had a good day, though, and hope today will be another good day (and more productive with my writing)!