unemployed and it feels so... awkward.

I quit my retail job in May.
I spent the summer volunteering at Loucon.
Husband and I moved to Chattanooga.
Husband and I went on a cross-country adventure.
I participated in the Writer's Platform-Building Campaign.
My best friend was diagnosed with a grade II astrocytoma* in her left frontal lobe.
Husband and I went to New York.
I won NaNoWriMo.
I was in a play.
Christmas happened.
New Year's happened.
Several friends have come to visit.

Yesterday:
My mom turned 61 {I'm not afraid to share, because she owns it}.
Katie's surgery didn't go exactly as planned, but she's okay.
She starts chemo and radiation in about a month.

And last night at small group, a friend asked how my job search was going.

What job search?

Ah, crap, I haven't worked in eight months. What a loser.

Well, okay. I've worked, but I haven't had a job. I haven't been paid for anything. And if this is what full-time writing looks like? It's a wonder anyone gets anything done {I am not a very productive being}.

I wouldn't mind getting a job. I really wouldn't {it might happen soon, actually}. But I'm not exactly chomping at the bit for one. It's a blessing, for sure, that I don't need to have a job right now. A luxury that makes me blush to admit. My husband works his tail off doing something he half-loves so that I can do what I full-love. If only I didn't fail at it, or dance around it, or gape at it, drooling and terrified.

It's true that I've accomplished far less, writing-wise, than I'd hoped to by now {and, no, I'm not counting NaNo}. Life, of course, has been crazy. But I'm not blaming life. I'm actually... thanking life? Or, to be more accurate, thanking the Lord for giving me this life. As jumbly and hectic and painful as it's been, there have also been great moments. Especially during the play. Things I wouldn't trade for the world, let alone a paycheck.

And so today?
I will clean the kitchen.
I will disconnect myself from the internet.
I will write.
I will inquire about a nannying job.
I *might* even go on a walk in the woods behind our house {oh yes, this one first, please}.

And I will practice telling people that I do have a job. One I love so much, I don't need to be compensated to justify it.

It's called being a stay-at-home writer wife. And if I can really do that with intent {hey-oh, there's my word}, won't it be so much better than throwing in the towel and jumping back into retail?

OH MY GOOD GOLLY, YES.

*I didn't link to any information about this because Katie has asked/trained me not look up stuff about her condition on the internet {or at least, not to tell her about it}. She wants her info to come from doctors, and I wholly respect that. Feel free to google it if you want, but you never know what you might find.

new year, new thoughts, and news in general.

Greetings!

Ack, I never know how to start a blog post.
I mean, it comes around eventually, but it tends to take me a while.
Honestly. How does one START a blog post, without constantly alluding to starting a blog post?

Like, hey, it's January. Hello, January. You're looking rather... blustery. I'm glad for that, though. You are January, after all, and not... June.

Oh my gosh, I'm talking to the months.

Moving on.

So, I guess this is my proverbial, hey-it's-a-new-year post, wherein I talk about goals and resolutions and such. There's really no way around it.

{Hm. I could have just started there. Holy pants, I need to blog more. Then maybe I won't get stuck with the start quite so much. Because, you know, I will already be going. Smart.}

I have too many things to say, in general. Shall we continue in list form?

a} My new favorite writerly thing: 750 words! I wasn't going to make any cut and dry resolutions this year, but this is SO fun. Handy how I found it at this time of year, no? It's like a NaNo, but instead of shooting for 50k words in a month, it's just--you know--750 words a day. And if I write {at least} 750 words a day all year, that's almost 300k words written in 2012. If I limit those words to fiction, that's a LOT of raw material. Plus, when you hit 750, you get points and a breakdown of what you wrote, from mood to theme to most-often-used words. How could this not be awesome?

b} Shameless confession that you either already knew or probably saw coming: I watch a lot of anime. I just... had to make that known, again. For some reason.

c} It is high time to find a clearer direction for this blog. I'm thinking, like, planned, weekly posts, and everything. But not across the board. Because that would be very much against my floofy-headed nature. We'll start small, yeah? And, hey, if there's something you want to see more of, please let me know. Like, more pictures of my cats. I could probably swing that.*

*Please don't actually want this, because then I will have to comply, thus becoming
that girl who blogs about her cats and talks to the months.

d} In 2011, I read 50 books. Success! It was going to be a hundred, for, like, a second, and then it was 60, then I trimmed it to 50 in September when I saw how maddening the rest of the year was going to be, and then... I did it! So, kind of a success. And I thought, maybe this year I'll do the backwards of that and start with a laughably attainable goal, like... 17. I will undoubtedly read at least 17 books in 2012. But hopefully more. We'll find out when I get there. So far, I'm still chomping on the first one. Not because I don't love it, because I do, I'm just... worn out from cramming in the last two or three of last year. Ha.

e} Have you all heard of this One Little Word thing? I am intrigued. And thinking very much about a word to shape my year. Well, really, I'm fairly torn between two. I may just have to use both.

GRACE. As in, gracefulness, elegance, dignity. Because I tend to be sour when few others are looking, and it's time to change that.

INTENT. As in, with purpose, determination {but not in a competitive way} and focus. To go along with my sourness, I have a major lazy streak in me. After NaNo, when I realized that I had blanked on how to write with intent, the phrase really glued itself to my brain. As fun as that 30-day spree was, I don't want my whole life to become a blitz of unusable, sub-par days, no matter how many I accrue.

So, GRACEFUL INTENT, INTENTIONAL GRACE, or, just GRACE and INTENT. I think I need both. Is that cheating? Meh. No one's gonna lock me up for it. Yay for Two Little Words!

*end of the list*

Well, that was fun. OH! Some might remember a NaNo myth I once bragged to have unraveled. It wasn't that awesome. I had heard people talking about how they wouldn't be able to read at all that month, but I read a ton, and it helped my writing more than hindered it.

Huh.

Kind of like real life, NaNo.

Kind of like real life.

spark #2: things i read in school.

Hop on over to Christine Tyler's The Writer Coaster if you want to join in the Sparkfest fun. It's not over yet, my friends!

I have a confession to make: I was never a very strong student. Even with reading. I could devour books at home, but what about school? What about being "forced" to read? I had a hard time getting things done, but I did find myself... kind of not hating everything we read as much as my classmates. Like how I inexplicably loved Moby Dick at age 10.

Of all the books I read in school, though, there are three that really stick out as sparks of the writer I would eventually become.

The first was Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I read it in fifth grade (same year as Moby Dick... weird). I loved that dog (we had a beagle, too).

Reading Shiloh truly spurned me to add "author" to the List of Things I Wanted to be When I Grew Up. Other notable contenders: veterinarian (short lived once I realized what it would involve), actor (still working on that one), doctor or nurse (see vet, above), and, "anything but a teacher" (but perhaps I was just being rebellious).

The summer between my eighth and ninth grade years, I read To Kill a Mockingbird. It changed my life. What fascinated me even more than the voice and the story and the world and Boo Radley, though, was learning about Harper Lee. The fact that she published only one book, that it was the only story she felt she had to tell, exhilarated me.* I knew then that I, too, had at least one story inside me I would have to tell, even if I didn't know what it was yet (I do now, though--and I just got cold chills). And if it was only one story, just one book? All the more beautiful, in my fourteen-year-old eyes.

*(Of course, that's the romanticized version.)

The best English class I ever had was my junior year in high school. I could devote an entire post to this one class. The teacher, Mrs. S, was one of the best of my entire education. She was devoted to making us passionate about literature, and it worked. Because of her, I did not hate The Scarlet Letter as much as I would have, otherwise. Ha. But Mrs. S didn't just teach us the state curriculum. She had a way of sneaking in her personal favorites, and books she deemed important. One of these was The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Oh my gosh, talk about changing my life. This was the first book I ever thought of as "grabbing me and not letting me go." (It also kick-started a fascination/slight obsession with the Vietnam War that lasted well into college.) And, in the vein of Harper Lee, Tim O'Brien fascinated me. Hearing his story made me think of writing in a whole new way--again. I saw the healing it could bring, the connections it could make. And I wanted to be able to do that, too.


Tune in next time for the sparks that finally--and officially--got me to write my first novel.

Oh, that first novel.

hm. that was quick.

Surprise of the week: When I sat down to write yesterday, I realized... it was probably going to be the last day for my (very) rough draft. And it was. I had not expected such. I'd announced a hiatus and everything! Well... so much for that, huh?

I can now say that I've written a novel. Is it a mess? You betcha. But, as I told a friend on facebook, "at least it's a complete mess... huh." Want to know some stats? I've always wanted to write a post like this. Happy day for me.

Working title: Aurelia

Thoughts? It's a character's name, but not the main character. Is that allowed? Definitely just a working title. 

Original idea: summer 2007, whilst lifeguarding at Loucon.

Draft started: early September, 2010

Finished: May 25, 2011

Between 2007 and 2010: a lot of thinking and doubting myself.

Number of false starts: At least three.

Software: OpenOffice, thanks to a computer crash last January (I left my Word in ol' Kentucky).

Font/Spacing: Gentium Basic, 11 point, 1.5 spaces. Just because.

Pages: (only three breaks) 172

Final word count: approx. 90,900

Thoughts? Not as long as I feared it would be, but a lot longer than it needs to be.

Chapters: approx. 32

Thoughts? Another surprise! I wasn't too particular about chapter breaks while writing. I just put CH. and started a new line wherever I felt it appropriate. I figured I'd end up with 40 or 50, but apparently I like me chapters long. (that's pirate speak, for ye)

Number of major characters: 8

Number of characters I'll likely cut: Too many. I don't want to think about it.

A quick love list for this story:

  ghost towns

  family

  curses

  moths

  adventure

  mystery

  dark histories

  the spines of books

  clouded windows

  suffering

  archery

  marionettes

  insanity

  fog

  unpredictability

  raven hair and honey eyes

  horses

  sibling relationships

  bonfires

  yellow flowers

  pumpkins

Thoughts: the love list is more interesting than the story its based on. Oops. Give me a break, though. It's a draft.

 

My ability to write in the last eight months brought to you by:

  The Blount County Public Library (of course),

  fancy coffee drinks, usually involving chocolate,

  long drives with mood music, such as:
    Abigail Washburn (and the Sparrow Quartet);

    Horse Feathers;

    The Greencards;

    Carolina Chocolate Drops;

    Black Prairie,

  A dang good husband,

  Plain Kate,

  supportive friends,

  blogging (hey-oh!),

  listening to audio books,

  and Plants vs. Zombies.

Whew! Now, all I have to do is... fix the dang thing.  HA!

 

the most inspired i've ever been while surrounded by sponges and listening to the cupid shuffle. or, city museum, part two!

Part one found here.

Oh, yes, the Cupid Shuffle blared from the next room as the Hoboken Duschene* prom drew to a close. Without my contacts, it took me several steps before I saw that these were sponges, not blocks, and I knew we would be here for a while. A minute later, I heard this mysterious child:

(hereafter referred to as Future Architect)

   say these incredible things to his dad (and I paraphrase):

Future Architect: I've never felt this way before about anything.

Dad: What's that buddy?

Future Architect: I can make whatever I want. There are so many possibilities!

I melted. There was joy involved. 

Joshua started building his tower.

I went over to revel.

Infinite!

I was so excited about what the kid had said, I asked Joshua to take a picture of me with the sponges.**

He obliged.

Oh, the possibilities!

I was really, really happy.

Joshua's tower turned out pretty cool, too.

Note the Future Architect's masterpiece in the background,

and his little sister, actin' a fool.

And I took an artsy-fartsy picture of myself:

All in all, it was one of my better Cupid Shuffle experiences.

*not the real high school's name, but close enough.

** I actually flubbed and said, "Will you take my picture with the possibilities?" And he looked at me like I was nuts and said, "What?" before I clarified that I meant the sponges.

P.s. I am so sorry if I got the Cupid Shuffle stuck in your head. If it's any consolation, I did it to myself, too.

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