Where does the time go?

Not only has it been two months (ok, 2 days shy...) since I've posted on here, but it's already almost the SEVENTH month of 2009!! I can't believe how quickly time has FLOWN.

I still have a gazillion things to do before winter hits. Namely, finish the Christmas stockings, teach Austin to ride a bike, work my ass off in school so I only have 3 classes left by the time 2010 starts, lose some weight, and get a job. That's a lot of big things, and I can't do a lot of the little things on my list until some of the bigger ones are taken care of. So, I guess I'd better get crackin'.

A couple other MUCHO IMPORTANTE things to add to my list: finish the 2nd draft/total revision of IE!!!! Finish the first draft of Vaampyr/A&G. Finish the first draft of Sawyer (untitled works tend to take on the heroine's name, in this case, Sawyer Jackson, Ph.D.).

Speaking of Sawyer, SuNoMriMos is not going too well. School is CraZy and I only have about 6K done so far; my goal is 60K by July 31. This could get ugly. Luckily, finals are tomorrow (woot!) so I will have almost 3 whole weeks of peace, where I'll only have one online class to deal with. I plan on getting LOTS of writing done, LOTS of working out in, and even working on my Christmas stockings ☺ Then, July 20, I'm going to be in class M-F from 1:30-5:45pm. Could be worse, but 4 hours a day sucks big-time. Oh, well. I'll get the class over with and be ready to apply for graduation!!

In other news.... no, that's about it. Life is dull. I'm watching my high school classmates post pictures from around the world, where they're living the single life or having a blast with their spouses, many of them having children, most of them loving their jobs (or at least having one)... and I feel left out. Gotta get on that, but not quite sure how. My bro is in jail, so I haven't been able to see Lillie in a while, which makes me SOOOOOO sad. I miss her so much :( She's getting huge, walking, and her hair is so curly it makes me want to just play with it all day. Hopefully I'll get to spend more time with her soon. That alone would make up for the left-out-edness.

That's it. Life is boring. Not much to say. If I get around to it, I may post an excerpt or two from my revisions. That could be fun.

Curls and More

So I got a perm yesterday. I can’t decide if I like it or not, but for the money I spent on it, I want to force myself to like it. My hope had been that my in-between hair (not curly, not straight, but mostly messy-wavy) would finally have a purpose if I permed it. My hairstylist is really nice and I love her (so, of course, Friday’s her last day!) but I’m not as happy with my curls as I would like. I feel like my hair is flat, possibly even flatter than when it was straight. Sad day.

Here are the first pictures of said perm. Look at them now, because they’re probably the only one’s you’ll see unless I learn to love it. Of course, I’m giving it a few days because right now, I can’t even wash it or put product in it. So we’ll see.

BEFORE:

AFTER (in bad lighting, ugg):

In other news… well, not much is going on. I’m getting DSL today so my Internet connection will finally be stable (fingers crossed!). School starts on Monday and I’m SO excited!!! But, my financial aid is still being a pain in the ass, so there’s a chance I won’t be able to go L I’m stuck on chapter 5 of IE in the 2nd draft. It’s more tedious than I thought it would be, and my first 4 chapters aren’t as polished as I thought they would be, given the amount of time I spent on them. I still don’t have a job, but I won’t feel quite so bad about it once school starts. Though I really need to get one so I can continue to pay bills. Arg.

That’s about it. 2009 seems just like any other year, so far. Hopefully it turns out to be a good year!!

Hello, 2009!!

I thought I’d start the year with a note.


The end




OK, no, I’m joking. Kind of. I don’t have much to say, but I have a Boyz 2 Men song in my head, “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.” It’s so true. 2008 flew by, and I feel like I didn’t get much accomplished during the 366 days (it was a leap year remember?) past.

That’s not totally true, since I did finish the first draft of IE and write 60K on the first draft of another novel (Vaampyr). And I passed statistics in the summer and got another semester and summer term under my belt. And got out of the old house and into … well, another one I don’t like too much but is “ok for now.” Oh, but at 9pm last night we got satellite, so I can now watch TV!

What didn’t I do in 2008? I didn’t get any closer, really, to publishing anything I’ve written. All the shorts I sent out got rejected big-time. I expected it, so I’m not too bummed. Just stating a fact. I didn’t graduate like I had hoped. I didn’t end the year with a job. I didn’t have a baby like I wanted (although, since I didn’t have a job for a third of the year, that might not be a bad thing). I didn’t learn anything new, like I always want to do – a language, a sport, a workout. I didn’t travel anywhere new – I’ve been to Miami before. And I didn’t lose any weight. Actually, I gained back 25 pounds I had lost in 2007 and THEN SOME.

So, what does 2009 mean to me? It means working hard on my writing. Novels, shorts, whatever I can do. I am determined to finish the 2nd drafts of both IE and Vaampyr, and write at least one polished short a month. Plus, I’d really like to get started on my next novel. And finish the first drafts of my two Unfinisheds. So – 5 novels, 12 shorts; 365 days. Well, 364, cuz I had a lot to drink last night and probably won’t be writing today ☺

What else does 2009 mean to me? I SHOULD be graduating this year, as long as my financial aid works out like it should And if I graduate, then I SHOULD be moving to Florida. That’ll be awesome! I would love to get pregnant, but who knows if that’ll happen. Some of my best friends are pregnant or are trying to get pregnant, again leaving me in the dust L It’s all good though. I have my kitties and puppy for now. And Lillie, who possibly will be spending more time with us in 2009 (yay!!!).

And I’m going to learn something new. A few years ago I crossed Pilates off my list, and another year yoga. I own a guitar and a keyboard but can’t play either – maybe I’ll make one of those my New Thing for 2009? I’ll let you know how that works out!

Well, I’m off to finish the first day of the new year. So that exactly one year from today, I can blog about all the stuff I DIDN’T cross off my 2009 list. It’ll probably include most of 5 novels, 12 shorts, guitar/piano… you get the picture.

NaNo's Over -- Now what??

Well, I did it. I wrote over 50,000 words in 30 short days. It was tough, but I loved it. But now I have this nagging question.... What do I do now?

I picked IE back up and made some drastic decisions about it. Instead of 3rd person, past tense, which has ALWAYS been my preferred writing style, I've decided to switch to 1st person, present tense. I feel like the whole thing flows more smoothly, and readers can connect with the MC much better this way. My opinion was backed up by my loyal reader, Mandy... and I *will* make her pay for the 80,000+ words I now have to revise!!!

So, here's my goal. I want to have IE finished by the new year, the rough draft that is. Then, I'm going to spend January revising her. And revising her. And revising still. And Mandy's going to help. And then I'll revise again.

THEN... my goal, as crazy as it sounds, is to have it revised to the point where I'm not ashamed to show it to people... and submit it on February 2, 2009, to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, found here: http://www.amazon.com/abna . I know it's a really long shot that I'll have anything actually finished by then, and this contest was part of the reason I wanted the first draft done by Halloween. But it's at least a goal that will keep me moving towards finishing the first draft by 12/31. Even if she doesn't get polished enough to submit by 2/2/09, she'll still be pretty damn close. Case in point: Since NaNo ended, I've already written 5,038 words on IE and done some revision on the tenses that I mentioned earlier. That's pretty good, considering I took the first two days of the month off from writing.

So, there are my writing goals for the forseeable future. I'd love to including finishing Vaampyr in there, but I want to focus on IE first. I WILL work on Vaampyr whenever possible, like when I get burnt out on IE for the day. But IE is much closer to being done than Vaampyr, so it's my main concentration right now.

In the new year, I'd like to finish IE (totally), finish Vaampyr totally and give her a name, start my next novel (hopefully to be a series of novels), and complete at least one polished short story per month. Plus, shop those shorts around. Oh, and I'd like to revise the small stack of shorts I have ready right now, and shop them. AND, I'd like to get the rough drafts of my two Unfinisheds done.... it'll be a busy year, but I'm really getting into writing mojo lately so I think I can do it. Especially since I can't afford to be in school right now, so I have a lot more free time than I have in the last several years.

Nothing new besides all that. Still job-less, still school-less, still Lillie-less... and still pretty upset about all of that. But I'm writing, and that's really important to me right now.