One, remember that video I posted back on the first of the year? I am thrilled to say that my friends and I won second place in the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books video promo contest! WOO! Party arms in honor of the occasion.
Two, also in January, I entered the Radical Arts for Women 2009 short story contest. Earlier this week, I received notice that my story, “Moving Mountains,” received an honorable mention! Party arms again!
Three, the issue of Alaska Dog News containing my article about real-life service dog FAQ is out in newsstands. Grab a copy, or download the pdf here.
So now I’m working on revising “Moving Mountains,” poking at the beginning of a novel ms I’ve been pondering/trying to figure out for months, and generally basking in all this happy news. Life is good!
On a completely unrelated note, go check out ted.com. A lot of interesting people saying interesting things. I’m really enjoying watching all the videos.
Cool news today. I recently submitted an article about service dogs to the Alaska Dog News. This afternoon I came home to a very positive email from the editor, asking whether I would like to be a regular contributor. I now officially have my first paid writing gig. :) I’m excited and proud.
In other writing news, I also submitted a story for the Radical Arts for Women 2009 short story contest. I really wish I’d had more time to polish up my submission, but I’m pleased that I was able to make the deadline. That was sort of a New Year’s goal for me.
Next up I need to work on putting together some really super-awesome writing samples for a couple of workshops to which I plan to apply. And I’m mulling and getting the itch to begin real work on a novel that’s been rolling around my brain in one form or another since the 2007 Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference.
Writing-life feels busy, productive, and really good right now. I feel like I’m headed in a good direction. OH! And! My friend Don fixed the case to my favorite typewriter, so I can now lug it down to my writing group meetings with me instead of using one of my not-so-favorite typewriters. YAY! Three cheers for Don!
And last, but not least: This isn’t writing related, but I want to put it down somewhere for my future self to look back upon. Yesterday was a pretty big, exciting day. Watching President Obama’s inauguration with my mom felt like one of those things you never forget. I don’t know what’s to come - none of us really do. But what a big, big feeling to have hope.
Today was a good writing day. I got five pages of a short story done while at the writing meeting. I wanted to get more done, but I took my smallest/quietest typewriter and I just can’t speed out the words on it the way I can on some of my other machines.
All the same, I’m pretty happy. The last several weeks haven’t given me much (cough, any) time to write. It feels really good to get some words down. Tomorrow I’ll put a big dent in finishing the first draft, and get a start on an article about service dogs.
Another fantastically happy thing - the MSVWA finally returned to its original meeting place today. It’s got new owners, a new menu, and a new name, but our table is still there, and we seem still to be welcome. It felt really good to be “home.” We will miss The Bistro, but Krazy Moose seems like a pretty nice place to be, too.
Colleen Lindsay posted this and it made me happy-cry. Yay friendship! Yay awesome animals! Yay happy moments! I love that Christian acted just like Radar does when he sees one of his favorite people. My dog is a lion.
1. Kick more ass, take more names
This year I’m going to try to be less of a wimp, more adventurous, and less bothered by what people might think of me if I have a spine.
2. Juggle less, focus more (Alternative phrasing: quit saying yes to everything just because cool people ask you/it’s an honor/you can’t figure out how to say no)
3. Read. A bunch.
4. Complete edits on ms, send the damned thing out.
Those of you who read the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog might recall that they’re hosting a contest, asking for folks to make video promo trailers for their upcoming book, Beyond Heaving Bosoms. I, being easily tempted by talk of Kindles (part of the 1st prize package), conned/bribed/tricked my friends into helping me enter.
I’m so glad my friends are gullible. And awesome.
Here’s our entry. I, personally, think it’s the bee’s knees, mostly because we had a massive blast making it. (Even though it was FA-REEZING. We had to run inside between short little outdoor takes to warm up. The wind was crazy. Oh, Alaska.)
In spite of every one of my best intentions, I somehow always manage to just make the bus in the morning on my way to work. I hate the last-second panic as I rush down the stairs of my building, and so I’ve been making a concerted effort to get out the door earlier. And, contrary to my natural inclination toward lateness, I’ve done it! For the last week or so I’ve managed to beat the bus to the bus stop. Success!
So why, then, was I still sitting at the computer five minutes before it was time for my bus to arrive yesterday? Well (she replied sheepishly), I had to find the answer. I had a feeling.
See, Meg Cabot is awesome. And each time I think I’ve reached the ceiling of awesomeness I can attribute to her, I read another of her books, and HOLYMOLY the awesomeness rises! It defies science! (The science of AWESOMENESS.) So of course I subscribe to her blog, for it, too, is awesome. (My favorite so far is the set of posts with pictures from her recent world tour. Neat!)
So yesterday when I got up, I checked my blog reader thingie, and there was an update from Meg. And there was a contest! I love book related contests. Really and truly, I love that part of the whole bookish-blog-realm, that people are always giving away books and arcs and the like to folks with the funniest poem, the 42734th comment, or the best story about how they got their childhood nickname. I. love it. And I’m kind of a sucker for them, even though my lifetime record of contest-winning is exceptionally low. But I love the idea of having a chance, so I enter anyway, even though I usually have the general sense that nothing will come of it.
Except that yesterday, I didn’t have that usual sense. Instead, I had this funny, lurking little feeling that said you can totally do this. And I said PSH. Unlikely. And the voice said try it, you’ll see. Well, I was going to try anyway, so I reread the contesty stuff and the clues and began trying to think which of the folks Meg had mentioned might have something in common with her.
Problem is, I don’t know very much about very many people. BUT HEY. THAT’S OKAY. Wikipedia can be very handy in such situations! And that’s what I was doing five minutes before my bus was supposed to arrive yesterday. And toward the end I was feeling pretty goofy for risking missing my bus over a silly internet contest. But then…
(angelic music)
I looked up Lauren Conrad… and the answer shone at me with the fire of a thousand suns. Or at least a few backlit pixels. February 1st! Lauren and Meg have the SAME BIRTHDAY! GASP!
Well. YAY. YAY! Having found the answer, I felt totally justified in having wasted all my getting-ready-to-go-to-an-appointment time in poking around on the internet. Of course, it had taken me a while. And generally speaking, other people on the internet are way faster at things than I am. (I never figured things out first when I joined in the LonelyGirl15 puzzle solving.) So I almost didn’t email my guess. Because surely somebody had already gotten it, and I was really, really risking missing the bus by that time.
But I did. (And I made my bus.) And then I forgot about it, because nothing was going to come of it. And then I got home. And I checked my email.
AND OMG MEG CABOT EMAILED ME! :D :D And I am probably confirming my complete dorkiness by admitting that I think I was more excited to get an email from Meg than I was over winning. Because I TOTALLY WON! :D And Meg called me a pop culture genius. And later a sleuth. And I’m totally famous on her blog, now. And I’m fielding offers from Lifetime, TNT, and Bravo. Well, okay, not that last part, but that’s just because I haven’t checked my voicemail yet.
So yes. I won! Fame, fortune, and an ARC of Ransom My Heart by Mia Thermopolis (with help from Meg Cabot), which I am TOOOOTALLY excited to read.
Happy dance of joy, people. HAPPY DANCE OF ARC-WINNING JOY!!!
Nanowrimo is over, and the truth is that I feel relieved. This just isn’t a 50,000-words-on-a-schedule kind of time. And I can say that without feeling lazy because at the moment I’m actually feeling some pretty strong tugs toward what I want to work on, writing-development-wise. I kind of feel like a lot of the things I’ve used so far to learn have become ways for me to avoid doing the work. Right now I feel like what I really need to do is read books I love, and make a few hours of writing each day an absolute, not a “try” or a “priority.” I know I can type words. I know enough of the rules to fill my brain for a while. I need to actually write, and to focus on quality, and getting a real story, a whole story, and a truthful story in print and polish.
I don’t know whether this feeling will last. I hope it does, though, this sense of getting-down-to-business. I’m tired of… is it the waiting? Maybe that’s it. I’m not sure that’s right… wherever it is that I’ve been lingering, that’s what I’m tired of. And I’m tired of whatever’s kept me here, whether it’s just necessary time, my own fear of what’s to come, or anything else. I feel like I’ve gotten so wrapped up in reading industry blogs and talking writing with my friends that I’ve fooled myself into thinking I was covering distance, when really I was just shifting around in the same patch of road.
I feel a little lost. I have for a long time. I’m not certain of what sort of writing I should be doing and it’s made me afraid of missing the Thing I’m Best At. I’ve danced around attempts at conquering my fear, but it hasn’t really knocked anything down or made anything clearer. I feel like I’ve walked farther into tangled vines.
I don’t know where I’m going, not at all. And I hate not knowing what direction to go in, not having a map to The Right Place. If anything will conquer me, it will be that.
Only I don’t want to be conquered, and I’m tired of packing down the same tired dirt. I think sometimes about if I were a real adventurer, and how the point is not that you get there safely. Just that you go onward and make decisions and have the experience. Eventually, you wind up somewhere else. Eventually, you learn something and you earn another little mark on your hatband. And then you draw the map.
I am scared. And it feels silly, ridiculous, and COMPLETELY self-indulgent to say that about something as physically safe as writing. But I don’t care, because it is the God’s honest truth. I am scared of being bad at this. I’m scared of not ever living up to my potential.
But I’m also tired of pussyfooting around, and tired of learning how others have done it and industry wisdom and everything else. What I really need to do is to write exceptionally well, and I haven’t been working on that at all.
This is exactly why I want to publish. Very well said, and very much why I feel that books are some of the greatest things in existence. (Thanks to Janet Reid for posting the link.)
I’m far, far behind on NaNoWriMo, with very few windows of potential writing time available in this last week of The Month. Rehearsals for the local production of A Christmas Story have eaten up some pretty decent chunks of my usual writing time. I can’t say I’m too unhappy about it, though. I get to tell Ralphie Parker that he’ll shoot his eye out and cackle like the Wicked Witch of the West. How much better can it get?
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