Still feel the sting

Daily Stats:
Words: more than 2, less than 5000
Caffeine: morning cup + lunchtime cappuccino
Evil Calories: none due to alarming size of bottom
Reality TV: Biggest Loser

It's been one year since I began querying the daylights out of my first book. One year since I received that request for a partial from my dream agent, sending me on jaunts into la-la land. I'd been following his/her blog for what seemed like forever, now he/she wanted a partial. It was fate! All my hard work had paid off, and I finally stumbled into some decent karma. Soon we would be meeting to discuss the wonder that is my writing, and how for sure, without question, my book would go into auction, sell millions and I would end up on the cover of Vogue (not sure how, but we'd work that out later).

Of course, I quickly watched that karma flip me off, grab a cab and go screaming away down the street. A rejection from him/her quickly followed, as well as a truckload of rejections from every other agent I'd queried. For three months, I walked around with same expression, that if manifested into a verbal reflection, would have sounded something like, "But...but...but...I thought it was good...".

Oh, silly little naive self. How you keep me endlessly entertained.

But, in my defense of my little naive self, I'd already gone through something quite harsh by the time I received these rejections, and it wasn't that I was just thoroughly disappointed, but I was really confused and slightly disillusioned. I had taken a writing class, and the instructor, who had been published before, was very complimentary of my work. When the time came for the class to end, he/she asked for me to keep in contact. I did, and when my book was finished, he/she offered to read it and give me some feedback, as well as help me with my query. I must emphasize the word "offered". I never asked or even hinted that I wanted he/she to do such a generous thing. I was so excited, had serious delusions of grandeur, got everything polished, and when time came to send it...he/she flaked. I don't mean, "oh, sorry, I changed my mind". I mean, he/she never responded to any of my emails. Ever. Even the emails I sent months later trying to be the bigger person and thanking he/she for offering to help, but saying that I knew he/she was very busy and that I'd just go forward on my own. Nada. Zippo. Zilch. There I was again, "But...but...but...??"

It sucked and to this day my stomach still turns icy when I think about it. In some ways, I think it gave he/she a little thrill to perk my hopes and then dump me into a puddle of worms. A published writer squashing the hopes of their pathetic little students to feed his/her ego. Of course, I took what I could from the situation and decided very early on that I would never, ever be that way to another writer. But, honestly, we could have skipped the whole shitty experience altogether because I already knew I didn't want to be that way. Last I checked, I have a soul.

Anyway, onward and upward. Take what you can, chuck the rest and move skyward.

Sticking to The Daily Prophet

Daily Stats:
Words: laundry
Caffeine: morning cup, midmorning cappuccino and laundry
Evil Calories: McDonald's at 10:00 last night. And laundry
Reality TV: laundry

That’s it. I can no longer read the news without wanting to crawl into the closet and hide. I realize that it’s good to stay “informed”, but what the crap am I supposed to do with all this f*cked up information? The only story in the past week that hasn’t made me want to seek out low cost “panic room” installation is the story about how researchers discovered that the stink in farts controls blood pressure. That’s nice kids…now, how are we coming on that cure for cancer?

(By the way, I'm not kidding. It was one of Yahoo's top stories yesterday. Read it here.)

I have no doubt the world has been full of wackadoodles since the dawn of man, but it just seems like you can’t swing a dead cat these days without hitting a total narcissistic, sociopathic loon. I’ve had this conversation many times with my pal Shannon. We often try and figure out if A) the world is more of a sick and messed up place now, or if B) the world has always been a sick and messed up place but, thanks to the media machine, you just hear about it more now. I can't quite make up my mind. All I know is that in some ways I think we were better behaved as a society when we thought thunder was caused by the gods being all pissed off at us.

Earth shattering decisions

Daily Stats:
Words: gobs and gobs
Caffeine: morning cup, midmorning cappuccino and late afternoon cup of coffee
Evil Calories: had lunch at a Coney Island...hospital please...
Reality TV: Tim Gunn's Guide to Style

Up until yesterday, I had my feeble little mind made up about my piece for NaNoWriMo this year. However, it dawned on me this morning that the back story of said piece is very loosely based on actual events involving my dad. And, as fate would have it, my parental units will be invading camp Alden come the second week of November. Now I'm a little concerned that my dad sitting three feet from me in my living room may monkey with my creative mojo.

Now, I should clarify that this back story involving my dad isn't really that scandalous of a morsel. In a nutshell, my dad was engaged to another girl when he met my mom. He was attending engineering school in Minnesota, and he ended up marrying my mom without even letting this poor girl know that he'd met someone else. And the weirdest thing is that, in one of our family photo albums, there's a picture of my dad and this girl, from prom or homecoming or something. When my sister and I would ask about it, we'd always get this light and airy response, like "oh, hahaha, that's you're dad's old fiance. Goofy, ain't it?" It wasn't until earlier this year that I really began to think about it. This poor girl's fiance goes off to engineering school and marries someone else. In fact, I think that my grandmother had to actually tell her that he'd married someone else. Nothin' but love for you dad, but...you were kind of an ass.

Anyway, from this little crumb of an incident spewed forth a loaf of a story, about a girl, a strange box of letters, a woman named Pepper Ann and a quirky little town in Washington State. Aside from the back story, there are vague elements in my book that echo my own issues with my dad, and I'm a little worried I might drum up some repressed feelings while he's here. What if, right in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, I spring up, throw the green bean casserole at him and scream, "WHY DID YOU LAUGH AT ME WHEN I SAID I WANTED TO GROW UP TO BE PRINCESS LEIA????" (hmmm...now, that would be a good story...girl confronts parents at family gathering about dismissing her hopes of being a super hero when she was young. They laugh at her again and call her silly. She wakes up next morning, sews stylish suit out of super-hero themed halloween costumes and becomes vigilante...saves Han Solo-ish guy from evil gangsters...joins secret society of super hero wanna-be vigilantes...)

Ehem...anyway....(sorry)

My point (I have one, I swear) is that I'm now thinking I should do something else for NaNo. Perhaps jump to my back burner idea, The Grim Life of Kat Clark, a little light-hearted tale about a girl with a shitty (I mean really shitty) job (and you always assumed the grim reaper was a creepy dude in a cloak wielding a scythe. Ha!)

So, that's what I'm thinking.

I'm also thinking about having waffles for dinner.

(my intellect is dizzying, no?)

(ps...i still want to be princess Leia when I grow up)

Ah, nostalgia...

Daily Stats:
Words: enough
Caffeine: morning cup so far
Evil Calories: chocolate chip cookies
Reality TV: Top Design

Remember Mad Libs? Possibly one of my all time favorite childhood games. Though, I proudly admit to partaking in the game well into my 20's. Gather a few possibly not fully sober people with a less-than-average grasp of the English language, and it can become "laugh-so-hard-you-pee-a-little-bit" funny. In fact, one of my daily mottos is based on a Mad Lib from the days of yore. When things in life are going pear shaped, I will often utter, "save me from this terrible yellow". I can't remember what the Mad Lib was about or to whom I threw that clever adjective, but it stuck.

So, I was being geeky (read: my normal self) and found myself cavorting in strange corners of the web when I found the official Mad Libs website. After shrieking, "holy balls!" and waking my poor husband out of a post-chocolate chip cookie binge coma, I did something that I never dreamed possible. I PLAYED MAD LIBS ONLINE! I somehow feel changed now. Mad Libs online, you complete me.

Behold...(i'm having formatting issues, so I hope you can read this. If not, go to Mad Libs online and do you own! Also, I would like to point out that "Al Roker" and "bald" showing up in the same sentence is a total fluke, and is an example of the glory that is Mad Libs.)

The artist formerly known as my son

Daily Stats:
Words: a few
Caffeine: morning cup so far
Evil Calories: Scary large bowl of badness at Mongolian BBQ yesterday
Reality TV: DVR'd Chef Jeff Project

My son is possibly the coolest child ever in the history of time. Even people who don't normally like children seem to recognize his awesomeness. I attribute his coolness to all the caffeine I drank when I was pregnant (which, I suppose, could also be responsible for his strong aversion to sleep, but never mind.)

So, the other day I was pulling all the various pictures from our digital camera, when I stumbled upon these:

They're quite exquisite, aren't they? Great angles. Impressive lighting. I love the one with his feet. I have no clue when the child got his hands on the camera. Which makes this one a little alarming:
Clearly I was in the room when this was happening. Though the bed frame is blocking it, I'm obviously sucked into my computer and missing all the action (and from the mound of laundry at the foot of the bed, my son's artistic expression wasn't the only thing I was ignoring).

I'm a good mom, I swear!!!

Something wicked this way comes...

Daily Stats:
Words: many
Caffeine: morning cup + mid-morning cappuccino
Evil Calories: Going out to dinner tonight. Will have super meaty steak and a vat of Guinness. Will feel like tranquilized bear tomorrow.
Reality TV: DVR'd Tim Gunn's Guide to Style

Creepy. This photo was taken by my hubby. It's a tree in a graveyard just up the street from our house. Could there possibly be a better graveyard tree? It's all gnarled and twisted...plus the graveyard is like a gazillion years old, which ups the creep factor. And...while he was there, he said the temperature felt about 10 degrees colder right in front of the tree. AHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Speaking of AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! ...with Halloween just around the corner, I though I would share a list of my top 10 favorite Halloween flicks that I must enjoy at least once during the holiday, or the rest of my year is all wonky.

1. The Omen (the original, mind you)
2. Rocky Horror Picture Show
3. Night of the Living Dead (they're coming to get you, Barbara....ah, love it, love it, love it!!!!)
4. Nightmare before Christmas
5. The original Disney Legend of Sleepy Hollow. (Shut up, it's freaky as hell! When Ichabod Crane is riding home from the party through the graveyard. It's totally creepy! You know, Disney used to make scary stuff. When we were little, we had the Disney Halloween sounds album. OMG, the haunted house one still gives me chills.)
6. Beetlejuice
7. Dawn of the Dead - the 2004 remake (the end of this movie is one of the best I've ever seen in any zombie/undead flick ever!)
8. American Werewolf in London
9. Evil Dead II
10. The Addiction (This is the best vampire flick ever! It's intelligent and awesomely bloody.)

And the following are the movies that I CANNOT watch:

1. The Shining
2. The Exorcist
3. The Thing

I'm sorry, I just can't. I sometimes make it to the "hot chick in bathtub" scene in The Shining, but I usually burrow into my couch after that. And don't even get me started on The Exorcist. Nope. Nope. Nope.

What are your favorite Halloween movies?

Nano-Nano!

Daily Stats:
Words: some
Caffeine: morning cup + mid-morning cappuccino
Evil Calories: chocolate croissants
Reality TV: Rachel Zoe Project

Only two and a half weeks until the insanity that is NaNoWriMo. I wish I could talk everyone I know into partaking - even my non-writery friends. It's crazy (and I do mean crazy) fun, and the more people around you participating in the utter madness, the less you feel like you're going to have a total brown out. (Plus, you can do nifty things, like create and post your own book cover that your super-talented husband made for you.)

For those who are interested (or haven't a clue what I'm talking about)...

National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

I'll admit that my NaNo piece from last year is collecting dust bunnies in my "poo lives" folder on my computer. But, it was my first venture after completing my book and I needed to simply think about something else. And if anything, NaNo is just a bust-ass creative brainiac work out. Will you want to tear your own arm off and beat yourself to death with it? Oh, yes. Will there be weeping, whimpering and several bad hair days due to lack of time to shower? Without a doubt. So, follow the link and sign up! It's free (though I highly recommend making a contribution. Insanity like this can't be completely free.). And then once you sign up, you'll get hooked on the forums immediately. Don't try and fight it. It happens to everyone. But before you get sucked into a NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul thread, add me as a buddy here!

(My NaNo secret? I'm all about the word sprints, baby! There's truly nothing like convoluted crap spewing from you at break neck speed.)