The MLA job search list doesn't come out for almost another month, and already Brownie has found a position for NEXT August to apply for. Meaning that any possible sense of "yes, we could actually settle in and stay in this city" is already obliterated. I figure this is probably not all bad, in that it's good to remember that we very well could be moving again in 50-ish weeks, but it's also like &^%%%*OKIGDKF_)%^&FUCKING%T^Y&DAMMIT NOT AGAIN.
And so we begin another year of Brownie sending applications off to the void of department application committees, whence they will never be heard from again. Ever. A few years ago, I was pointed by a good friend in the direction of a blog whose author was going through a rhet/comp job search and posting the rejection letters with commentary. The blog was awesome (and even more amusing to me was that the blogwriter had decided not to apply for the opening at the school I was doing my Ph.D. work at because the Humanities Center website was WAYYYY to hippydippy to bother with). Meanwhile, last year, I don't think Brownie got enough rejections from schools that he could have done a blog mocking them - he wouldn't have had more than about 15 entries despite the 70-odd applications he sent out.
So, if you somehow trip over this blog and you're a member of an academic search committee: PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF CEILING CAT SEND OUT REJECTION LETTERS IN A TIMELY MANNER. Many, many lives are depending on the knowledge contained in those letters. It's much nicer to know for sure that one has been rejected than to sit around and wonder.
The above-yelled advice goes for anyone else who is in the position to reject someone from a job: please just send out a rejection letter/email/note/whatever. In the 20-ish applications I've submitted for jobs, I've gotten exactly one rejection. Everything else (so far, anyway) has been abject silence, which makes me feel less worthy of respect than even a rejection would.
My personal job search boils down to a giant quandary (which I'm about to explain poorly - my apologies). As of now, I'm unemployed. I started a beer blog (which I'm not linking to from here because there's a fairly limited number of people that need to know who the author of *this* blog is, given the amount of whining I do here). I'm hoping that I'll eventually be able to use that to start freelancing the occasional beer article. In the meantime, I would like an office-y sort of job with a vaguely respectable paycheck. However, I have no idea how long it will take me to find one. So I run into a problem: there's a chance we could be moving halfway across the bleeding country again next year if Brownie gets a job somewhere. Which would mean I would have to quit any job I were to get.* So I'm not sure how long I want to spend trying to get a "real" job before I decide to put that on hold pending it looks like we will be moving. Meanwhile, I applied to Borders, but I've heard nothing yet even from them. I suppose Starbucks is next. Or a liquor store.
My dissertation is still a douchebag, and my relationship with it is still strained.
The good thing: having nothing else to do, I've been plowing away at novel attempt number 2. There hasn't been tons of writing, but there's been a ton of worldbuilding and storyboarding and at least 2 chapters worth of writing. I'm playing around with point of view stuff right now and having a blast with it. I think the fact that I can at least spend my nearly limitless amounts of free time working on writing has been what's kept me from going nuts during this umemployment phase of life. I feel like I'm doing something productive, even if it ends up being only to amuse myself. I will publish a novel SOMEDAY. It may not be this one (it sure as hell won't be the last one - that was a disaster!), but it will happen. Dammit. :D
Good thing #2: I'm wearing BPAL Sundew today and it smells GORGEOUS.
* Brownie says that if I were to get a kick ass job and love it, that we'd stay no matter what happens on the academic search for him. I think it's sweet of him, but a long shot - I really haven't the foggiest fucking idea what to do with myself, job-wise, so I think it's unlikely that we'd be staying because of me. Not impossible, but definitely unlikely.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
The Rusted Root of my memory
My iTunes Genius threw Rusted Root's "Send Me on My Way" onto a playlist that I had it generated based on Cursive's "the Recluse" (the latter being descriptive of both my physical being and my state of mind lately). I haven't heard "Send Me on My Way" in a few months (it's buried on some playlist on my iPod, so it does pop into my consciousness occasionally). It's one of those songs, though, that has an extremely strong memory association, one that pops briefly into mind every time I hear it. The strange thing (to me, anyway) is that the associated memory isn't one that has any strong emotional pull or any real significance in my life at all.
During the summer in between junior and senior year of high school, I spent three weeks at a Summer Writing Camp at Carleton College. Carleton is a microscopic, highly-regarded liberal arts college in Northfield, MN, a tiny town of about 15,000 roughly an hour southeast of the Twin Cities. The writing camp was, despite years of whining, begging, pleading and arguing, my only summer camp experience. We slept in rooms in the dorms, had a midnight "curfew" (meaning that the RAs walked by and did room checks every night to make sure we were back), spent a few hours most days in a combination of composition and literature type classes, quite a bit of time writing and critiquing each other's writing, and the rest of the time playing Ultimate Frisbee, listening to people play guitar, flirting, swimming, writing more, dancing, jumping through thunderstorm-created puddles, being eaten alive by the omnipresent bird-sized mosquitoes of Minnesota. It was idyllic. I gained a much better sense of how to construct an essay and how to brainstorm in a way that worked with my erratic thought patterns; my poetry remained (as it does to this day) a dismal mess.
And I had a boy breakthrough, as it were, thanks to crushing on this guy Joe-Lastnameforgotten. It was the first time in my life that flirting actually seemed to work (successful flirting was not the breakthrough): I managed to get to cuddle with him while hanging out by campfires and splash with him in the pool, and (exciting for a relatively inexperienced virgin) got a lengthy post-curfew backrub while out by a swingset, flopped in the grass and being eaten alive by bugs. I only managed to avoid getting busted for getting in late because my roommate told the RA I was in the bathroom when she came by for the roomcheck. Yet after the backrub incident, Joe backed way the hell off and stopped talking to me altogether. In normal (i.e., back home) circumstances, I would have wondered and angsted and avoided confrontation like it was my job. However, being that I was 500 miles away from home and knowing that if I made things awkward, I'd never see him again after that week, I cornered him and asked him what the hell his deal was. And it worked: he explained that the girl back home he'd had a thing for forever had let him know she wanted to try dating when he got back, so he'd cut the flirting with me when he'd heard from her. So the breakthrough was this: I figured out that it was a hell of a lot quicker to just ask a guy what the hell than it was to try and figure it out for myself, and that whatever answer I got from the guy was likely to be more accurate than anything I came up with on my own.
None of this, however, has anything to do with the "Send Me on My Way" memory. The picture that comes into my head with absolute clarity nearly every time I hear that song is banal in the most everyday type of way: I had just eaten lunch with some friends and was wandered by the post office in the Student Union on my way back to my room to get my stuff for an afternoon writing critique group. Sitting at the post office desk was a guy with shaggy blond hair, baggy shorts, a ratty tshirt, and Birkenstocks (pretty much the Carleton uniform) - he had to be a work study student, leaning way back in his chair with a dog-eared copy of Neitzsche and talking to some girl that was leaning into a doorframe on the wall opposite where I was standing. There were papers and boxes everywhere, posters of every imaginable band crammed He had "Send Me on My Way" blasting on a boombox. I got my mail (only a note from the camp telling everyone we'd be heading up to the Minneapolis Zoo that Saturday) and wandered off. That's it. Yet for some reason, that's what enters my head when I hear "Send Me on My Way."
I don't know. Maybe I had concocted some idea that college would look like that - easy and relaxed with Rusted Root playing everywhere, long conversations about philosophy in between games of Ultimate. Maybe it was just that I hadn't heard the song in a while and noticed it because I liked it. It could be just that it was a particularly relaxed moment in a happy stretch of summer days. But there it is: "Send Me on My Way" reminds me of the post office in the student union at Carleton College.
During the summer in between junior and senior year of high school, I spent three weeks at a Summer Writing Camp at Carleton College. Carleton is a microscopic, highly-regarded liberal arts college in Northfield, MN, a tiny town of about 15,000 roughly an hour southeast of the Twin Cities. The writing camp was, despite years of whining, begging, pleading and arguing, my only summer camp experience. We slept in rooms in the dorms, had a midnight "curfew" (meaning that the RAs walked by and did room checks every night to make sure we were back), spent a few hours most days in a combination of composition and literature type classes, quite a bit of time writing and critiquing each other's writing, and the rest of the time playing Ultimate Frisbee, listening to people play guitar, flirting, swimming, writing more, dancing, jumping through thunderstorm-created puddles, being eaten alive by the omnipresent bird-sized mosquitoes of Minnesota. It was idyllic. I gained a much better sense of how to construct an essay and how to brainstorm in a way that worked with my erratic thought patterns; my poetry remained (as it does to this day) a dismal mess.
And I had a boy breakthrough, as it were, thanks to crushing on this guy Joe-Lastnameforgotten. It was the first time in my life that flirting actually seemed to work (successful flirting was not the breakthrough): I managed to get to cuddle with him while hanging out by campfires and splash with him in the pool, and (exciting for a relatively inexperienced virgin) got a lengthy post-curfew backrub while out by a swingset, flopped in the grass and being eaten alive by bugs. I only managed to avoid getting busted for getting in late because my roommate told the RA I was in the bathroom when she came by for the roomcheck. Yet after the backrub incident, Joe backed way the hell off and stopped talking to me altogether. In normal (i.e., back home) circumstances, I would have wondered and angsted and avoided confrontation like it was my job. However, being that I was 500 miles away from home and knowing that if I made things awkward, I'd never see him again after that week, I cornered him and asked him what the hell his deal was. And it worked: he explained that the girl back home he'd had a thing for forever had let him know she wanted to try dating when he got back, so he'd cut the flirting with me when he'd heard from her. So the breakthrough was this: I figured out that it was a hell of a lot quicker to just ask a guy what the hell than it was to try and figure it out for myself, and that whatever answer I got from the guy was likely to be more accurate than anything I came up with on my own.
None of this, however, has anything to do with the "Send Me on My Way" memory. The picture that comes into my head with absolute clarity nearly every time I hear that song is banal in the most everyday type of way: I had just eaten lunch with some friends and was wandered by the post office in the Student Union on my way back to my room to get my stuff for an afternoon writing critique group. Sitting at the post office desk was a guy with shaggy blond hair, baggy shorts, a ratty tshirt, and Birkenstocks (pretty much the Carleton uniform) - he had to be a work study student, leaning way back in his chair with a dog-eared copy of Neitzsche and talking to some girl that was leaning into a doorframe on the wall opposite where I was standing. There were papers and boxes everywhere, posters of every imaginable band crammed He had "Send Me on My Way" blasting on a boombox. I got my mail (only a note from the camp telling everyone we'd be heading up to the Minneapolis Zoo that Saturday) and wandered off. That's it. Yet for some reason, that's what enters my head when I hear "Send Me on My Way."
I don't know. Maybe I had concocted some idea that college would look like that - easy and relaxed with Rusted Root playing everywhere, long conversations about philosophy in between games of Ultimate. Maybe it was just that I hadn't heard the song in a while and noticed it because I liked it. It could be just that it was a particularly relaxed moment in a happy stretch of summer days. But there it is: "Send Me on My Way" reminds me of the post office in the student union at Carleton College.
Friday, May 21, 2010
A mini book review and some other thoughts
My main internet forum of choice has been mostly down for days now. It's making me half-nuts having it gone, even though I've lately been making a concerted attempt to keep myself off the internet as much as possible because I feel like it's sucking away my ability to concentrate -- and this coming from someone who's already ADHD.
However, even what with trying to spend less time on the internet, said forum is still very much the backbone of my non-Brownie social life - it's where I get the vast majority of intelligent conversation, lulz, and genuine friendship. I hate having it gone. I hate not knowing if there have been any new datewrecks, any job interviews, wild familyfail stories, or whatever else may be going on. So to those who might be reading: hello, mah h0rs, and my the forumfail be fixed as soon as possible.
Other than that, I've devoured the City of Bones/Ashes/Light over the past few days, which were generally quite awesome. I'd highly recommend them to anyone into YA Fantasy. Highly. Clare does a great job with urban fantasy, melding the fantastic aspects of the story seemlessly with the weird awesomeness of New York City, and she does a particularly good job of getting the teenage mentality down well: the characters are flawed, but not detestably so; they have a tendency to believe their own ideas a little too fervently; they don't always understand themselves or what they're doing, but they're not idiots either. They're teenagers who, despite special abilities, act more like real teenagers than the twenty-somethings that populate teen dramas on tv. I have my gripes with the series (namely that Clary's special ability, once discovered, seems to fix everything a little too easily), but I really enjoyed it.
Thinking about it, that's probably the closest approximation to a book review I've ever had on this blog.
Anyway. On the writing front: the book idea which I've been playing with that I mentioned in the last post is, if I didn't mention it then, YA fantasy. Partially because that's the age of the main characters, partially because the idea itself is firmly fantasy, and partially because YA fantasy has been the vast majority of my reading lately simply because I've had more fun reading it than I've had reading anything in YEARS. I love teenagers-as-chosen-ones: they're already busy trying to understand themselves in normal life, trying to understand where/how they fit into the world and what might begin to form their place therein, so putting them in the position of "chosen one" as it were both gives them a way to frame the identity-angst as well as a way to begin to work their way out of it and toward a better sense of self-understanding. Anyway, between loving the genre and having a hook that fits better there than anywhere else, I'm playing with it. If it ends up going somewhere beyond the roughly 2K words I have now, great. If it doesn't, then that's fine too. When it gets farther along, maybe I'll actually post a sample.
However, even what with trying to spend less time on the internet, said forum is still very much the backbone of my non-Brownie social life - it's where I get the vast majority of intelligent conversation, lulz, and genuine friendship. I hate having it gone. I hate not knowing if there have been any new datewrecks, any job interviews, wild familyfail stories, or whatever else may be going on. So to those who might be reading: hello, mah h0rs, and my the forumfail be fixed as soon as possible.
Other than that, I've devoured the City of Bones/Ashes/Light over the past few days, which were generally quite awesome. I'd highly recommend them to anyone into YA Fantasy. Highly. Clare does a great job with urban fantasy, melding the fantastic aspects of the story seemlessly with the weird awesomeness of New York City, and she does a particularly good job of getting the teenage mentality down well: the characters are flawed, but not detestably so; they have a tendency to believe their own ideas a little too fervently; they don't always understand themselves or what they're doing, but they're not idiots either. They're teenagers who, despite special abilities, act more like real teenagers than the twenty-somethings that populate teen dramas on tv. I have my gripes with the series (namely that Clary's special ability, once discovered, seems to fix everything a little too easily), but I really enjoyed it.
Thinking about it, that's probably the closest approximation to a book review I've ever had on this blog.
Anyway. On the writing front: the book idea which I've been playing with that I mentioned in the last post is, if I didn't mention it then, YA fantasy. Partially because that's the age of the main characters, partially because the idea itself is firmly fantasy, and partially because YA fantasy has been the vast majority of my reading lately simply because I've had more fun reading it than I've had reading anything in YEARS. I love teenagers-as-chosen-ones: they're already busy trying to understand themselves in normal life, trying to understand where/how they fit into the world and what might begin to form their place therein, so putting them in the position of "chosen one" as it were both gives them a way to frame the identity-angst as well as a way to begin to work their way out of it and toward a better sense of self-understanding. Anyway, between loving the genre and having a hook that fits better there than anywhere else, I'm playing with it. If it ends up going somewhere beyond the roughly 2K words I have now, great. If it doesn't, then that's fine too. When it gets farther along, maybe I'll actually post a sample.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Time to move on?
Sign I'm not the dominant one in the relationship: It just took me five solid minutes to get the cat (Pigger rather than Nunkin) to move off of her spot on the couch in the study so that I could sit there. It's the only spot in the office where the internet cord reaches my laptop. I *hate* that we don't have wireless.
Meanwhile, I randomly got an idea for a story of some sort of fantasy type which I'm now playing around with. Somehow I ended up deciding it would be a good (or at least entertaining) idea to make my facebook status a request for ideas on multidimensional MacGuffins. One friend suggested an omnispatial nexus key which, if used, would disrupt the fabric of the space-time continuum. I love the idea but it won't work with the outlines of the story as they're working their way through my mind. Meanwhile, I wrote roughly 1000 words of starting conversational stuff and showed it to Brownie on Friday (who has never actually seen any of my fictional writing before, but then neither has anyone else for that matter, something I badly need to change). He actually liked it (I think - I don't think he was being kind), and we spent most of the afternoon talking through ideas before finding out that a friend was having something of a life crisis and spending the evening with her helping her talk stuff out.
So back to the writing. I don't want to get into the premise yet, and I need to flesh out the plot/world more before I can write too much. But I keep thinking that I could do something with this in a way I couldn't with the story I've been working on - that story is too character/not enough plot to be particularly marketable. I think maybe I could get somewhere worthwhile with the idea I have now. But (again), at the same time I'm swirling with thoughts that I should finish the project I'm already working on (just to prove to myself that I can, maybe?) and more thoughts that I should be finishing the dissertation (but still don't have any motivation). So I feel like I'm half-nuts, like I shouldn't be grabbing onto any idea that comes by and start scribbling. However, I kind of feel at the same time like I very much should grab onto an idea when it presents itself and seems worth working on, because one of these ideas might actually pan out, and I don't think my last project really will. I'm not convinced it's marketable.
So maybe I shouldn't feel bad about abandoning one project in favor of another. I can't really say that anything I've written has been a waste of time, even if I don't think I'll be able to publish it. I've learned from it, and I know I'll learn more from whatever I end up writing that holds my interest. And then maybe someday I'll manage to publish something.
However, I still need a day job.
Meanwhile, I randomly got an idea for a story of some sort of fantasy type which I'm now playing around with. Somehow I ended up deciding it would be a good (or at least entertaining) idea to make my facebook status a request for ideas on multidimensional MacGuffins. One friend suggested an omnispatial nexus key which, if used, would disrupt the fabric of the space-time continuum. I love the idea but it won't work with the outlines of the story as they're working their way through my mind. Meanwhile, I wrote roughly 1000 words of starting conversational stuff and showed it to Brownie on Friday (who has never actually seen any of my fictional writing before, but then neither has anyone else for that matter, something I badly need to change). He actually liked it (I think - I don't think he was being kind), and we spent most of the afternoon talking through ideas before finding out that a friend was having something of a life crisis and spending the evening with her helping her talk stuff out.
So back to the writing. I don't want to get into the premise yet, and I need to flesh out the plot/world more before I can write too much. But I keep thinking that I could do something with this in a way I couldn't with the story I've been working on - that story is too character/not enough plot to be particularly marketable. I think maybe I could get somewhere worthwhile with the idea I have now. But (again), at the same time I'm swirling with thoughts that I should finish the project I'm already working on (just to prove to myself that I can, maybe?) and more thoughts that I should be finishing the dissertation (but still don't have any motivation). So I feel like I'm half-nuts, like I shouldn't be grabbing onto any idea that comes by and start scribbling. However, I kind of feel at the same time like I very much should grab onto an idea when it presents itself and seems worth working on, because one of these ideas might actually pan out, and I don't think my last project really will. I'm not convinced it's marketable.
So maybe I shouldn't feel bad about abandoning one project in favor of another. I can't really say that anything I've written has been a waste of time, even if I don't think I'll be able to publish it. I've learned from it, and I know I'll learn more from whatever I end up writing that holds my interest. And then maybe someday I'll manage to publish something.
However, I still need a day job.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Happy Gurglings about Reading
I flipped the name of the blog again because the most recent name didn't quite sum up anything I felt toward anything anymore. So that's that.
I've been largely offline for the last two weeks or so. I feel like I keep missing things going on in my online life - I have only a vague idea of what's going on in the lives of most of my online friends, I've barely been on facebook, I even managed to forget about farmville long enough to have some crops wilt. I feel bad (mostly about missing stuff in my friends' lives), but.
Instead of being online, I've managed to read more in the last two weeks than I have since my exams. It continues to be awesomesauce. I nabbed the brandspankingnew Philip Pullman novel on Friday and am all kinds of excited to read it. At the moment I'm finishing Alison Croggon's Pellinor series - I think Pullman will go right after that. Maybe I'll throw a review up when I'm finished since it's still so new.
I know I've already posted once about how happy I've been devouring books, but it's exhilarating. I have stories flying through my head all the time now, these incandescent pieces of loveliness that remind me that there really are ways to escape the inside of my own head, or which, conversely, remind me that the inside of my own head has stories of its own that want out too. I need to stop reading long enough to write some more but haven't wanted to.
As I read, I'm ripping apart everything as I go along, examining how authors have gone about dealing with plot, character development, description, all that - all the stuff I never looked at while ripping apart lit for grad school. It continually boggles my mind that after ten years of English (from the three years I worked through the major in college to the two years of my MA and five (so far) years of my Ph.D.), I've never gotten to talk about anything of those things, never really had time to examine the craft of writing for the sake of writing. I can read and interpret ANYTHING at this point, but when it comes to thinking about the writing, this is all still fairly new to me. It occurs to me from time to time that I should look up some books on writing and read those, see what others find important, but I haven't quite wanted to do that yet. I think at the moment that I'm happy with what I'm picking up, and I'll move on to what others have picked up on soonish. This isn't a "my thoughts will be more better and smarter than theirs" type feeling - it's an attempt to get some sort of idea as to what I think about things before I start to get into the prevailing wisdom of the world, much the same way I'd research a text by reading it, developing the beginnings of my own thought patterns about it, and then going off to read articles about it in order to challenge and develop my thinking even further.
AKA, I'm approaching writing now roughly like I'd approach dissertation research. *headdesk* The more things change, as it were.
I've been largely offline for the last two weeks or so. I feel like I keep missing things going on in my online life - I have only a vague idea of what's going on in the lives of most of my online friends, I've barely been on facebook, I even managed to forget about farmville long enough to have some crops wilt. I feel bad (mostly about missing stuff in my friends' lives), but.
Instead of being online, I've managed to read more in the last two weeks than I have since my exams. It continues to be awesomesauce. I nabbed the brandspankingnew Philip Pullman novel on Friday and am all kinds of excited to read it. At the moment I'm finishing Alison Croggon's Pellinor series - I think Pullman will go right after that. Maybe I'll throw a review up when I'm finished since it's still so new.
I know I've already posted once about how happy I've been devouring books, but it's exhilarating. I have stories flying through my head all the time now, these incandescent pieces of loveliness that remind me that there really are ways to escape the inside of my own head, or which, conversely, remind me that the inside of my own head has stories of its own that want out too. I need to stop reading long enough to write some more but haven't wanted to.
As I read, I'm ripping apart everything as I go along, examining how authors have gone about dealing with plot, character development, description, all that - all the stuff I never looked at while ripping apart lit for grad school. It continually boggles my mind that after ten years of English (from the three years I worked through the major in college to the two years of my MA and five (so far) years of my Ph.D.), I've never gotten to talk about anything of those things, never really had time to examine the craft of writing for the sake of writing. I can read and interpret ANYTHING at this point, but when it comes to thinking about the writing, this is all still fairly new to me. It occurs to me from time to time that I should look up some books on writing and read those, see what others find important, but I haven't quite wanted to do that yet. I think at the moment that I'm happy with what I'm picking up, and I'll move on to what others have picked up on soonish. This isn't a "my thoughts will be more better and smarter than theirs" type feeling - it's an attempt to get some sort of idea as to what I think about things before I start to get into the prevailing wisdom of the world, much the same way I'd research a text by reading it, developing the beginnings of my own thought patterns about it, and then going off to read articles about it in order to challenge and develop my thinking even further.
AKA, I'm approaching writing now roughly like I'd approach dissertation research. *headdesk* The more things change, as it were.
Monday, March 29, 2010
On Radiohead and other joys of life
I am boggled by the fact that there has been an In Rainbows Disk 2 for months, MONTHS, now, yet I somehow was unaware of this until about an hour ago. Having discovered the existence of such an album, I now own it (because Ceiling Cat forbid there be Radiohead that I don't own). "Go Slowly" and "Last Flowers" are bleeding excellent songs and my initial favorites. This being Radiohead, my favorite songs on the album a month from now will probably be ones I'm barely paying attention to now.
I am reaching incoherency after a whopping four hours of sleep after last nights' marathon grading session. I love the marathon grading sessions because it gets the pain over in one swell foop, but I'm not a fan of my exhaustion level right now. That said, I don't know that I would have gotten to bed any earlier than 2am anyway simply because my sleep schedule had turned to "weekend," meaning I didn't get out of bed until close to 11 yesterday.
The oddest thing about grading yesterday was that I ended up needing a notebook out for myself so that I could jot down thoughts for noveling. I typically end up with a notebook nearby so I can scribble notes on what sorts of writing instruction I think the class may benefit from. I'm not used to reading potato papers and feeling any sort of inspired thought about my own work - the usual thought process is more along the lines of "____________ OMGWTFBBQ DID YOU SRSLY WRITE THAT ______________________________ I'm bored" and etc. Weirdly, last night, despite the plenty of "WTF" thoughts, I finally managed to figure out how to get the fight between the main characters going - the bit that was giving me problems a few days ago. So YAY.
I can't wait to have a draft of the whole novel done so that I can completely rip it apart and reorganize it.
Anyway, I'm back to "I need to write my stupid resume for to attempt to find some sort of gainful employment." And consequently back to "I should probably take some Adderall" (which, despite my last post, I still haven't done). And back to feeling guilty about my distinct lack of progress in dissertationland, compounded by having run into Hosebeast Advisor in the hall today and her being completely friendly. So I feel like I'm being lazy and wasting time, which basically means I'm wasting my life.
Barista friend from a few posts ago bought herself a plane ticket yesterday so she can move to LA at the end of the semester to be with a guy she met and spent about a week with over Spring Break. She's over the moon happy. I think it's... well, I think it's awesome. I feel like I should be thinking that it's not a smart idea, that she shouldn't be tossing grad school in the basket just to try out a relationship etc etc etc., but I can't make myself do it. She's looking for jobs and I have no idea if she's planning on finishing her MA. And I think it's awesome because she's doing something instead of locking herself up in the academy. I think I'm kinda jealous. I'm not jealous that she's running of to pursue a relationship - I think I'm jealous because she's doing something wild and wonderful and crazy that sounds a lot more like living than my 7 years of doing time in the academy. And I wish that when I'd found it stifling, I'd done something wild and crazy too.
None of that is fueling my desire to work on my dissertation. It does, however, fuel my desire to novel more.
I am reaching incoherency after a whopping four hours of sleep after last nights' marathon grading session. I love the marathon grading sessions because it gets the pain over in one swell foop, but I'm not a fan of my exhaustion level right now. That said, I don't know that I would have gotten to bed any earlier than 2am anyway simply because my sleep schedule had turned to "weekend," meaning I didn't get out of bed until close to 11 yesterday.
The oddest thing about grading yesterday was that I ended up needing a notebook out for myself so that I could jot down thoughts for noveling. I typically end up with a notebook nearby so I can scribble notes on what sorts of writing instruction I think the class may benefit from. I'm not used to reading potato papers and feeling any sort of inspired thought about my own work - the usual thought process is more along the lines of "____________ OMGWTFBBQ DID YOU SRSLY WRITE THAT ______________________________ I'm bored" and etc. Weirdly, last night, despite the plenty of "WTF" thoughts, I finally managed to figure out how to get the fight between the main characters going - the bit that was giving me problems a few days ago. So YAY.
I can't wait to have a draft of the whole novel done so that I can completely rip it apart and reorganize it.
Anyway, I'm back to "I need to write my stupid resume for to attempt to find some sort of gainful employment." And consequently back to "I should probably take some Adderall" (which, despite my last post, I still haven't done). And back to feeling guilty about my distinct lack of progress in dissertationland, compounded by having run into Hosebeast Advisor in the hall today and her being completely friendly. So I feel like I'm being lazy and wasting time, which basically means I'm wasting my life.
Barista friend from a few posts ago bought herself a plane ticket yesterday so she can move to LA at the end of the semester to be with a guy she met and spent about a week with over Spring Break. She's over the moon happy. I think it's... well, I think it's awesome. I feel like I should be thinking that it's not a smart idea, that she shouldn't be tossing grad school in the basket just to try out a relationship etc etc etc., but I can't make myself do it. She's looking for jobs and I have no idea if she's planning on finishing her MA. And I think it's awesome because she's doing something instead of locking herself up in the academy. I think I'm kinda jealous. I'm not jealous that she's running of to pursue a relationship - I think I'm jealous because she's doing something wild and wonderful and crazy that sounds a lot more like living than my 7 years of doing time in the academy. And I wish that when I'd found it stifling, I'd done something wild and crazy too.
None of that is fueling my desire to work on my dissertation. It does, however, fuel my desire to novel more.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Back to the Adderall
Job-type update:
I now have a profile on linkedin. It has, well, very little information on it. Why? Because I still haven't finished my resume. It's... extremely strange trying to figure out how to word things in a way that "sells" me as a good job candidate (or indeed good at much of anything). I'm also not sure if I should be putting as my field the one which currently employs me or the one in which I think I might be tolerably happy in (i.e., I think I'm giving HR a try). Also not sure whether I should be listing my zipcode as the one in which I'm currently stuck or the one in which I'd prefer to be living in, say, 3 months. I'm open to suggestions.
Frustration update:
I think the resume will be finished with Adderall. I'm too scattered lately for my brain to function correctly. I'm frustrated to all hell with my class (seriously, potatoes, it's Twilight - please drum up some interest to pick it apart or bash it or whatever - even bashing it would bring up some kind of conversation that I could work with!), I'm behind on grading papers (it's been a week and a half now - I usually never take this long), I still have to finish that wretched book to finish teaching on Friday, I need to get my financial aid stuff taken care of for the summer/fall as I will still technically be a student, I REALLY need to finish a draft of the resume so I can get it out there, I need to help plan one of my best friend's bridal showers (I'm matron of honor and bride's mom is refusing to help with anything - long story, not mine), and I'm still trying to get some writing done on the novel.
Unfortunately, I've been feeling so pulled around that very little actually got done today (um, this week so far). Class was awful (I feel like I'm not doing a great job with the text, but I also feel like the fact that one person in the room actually did their homework (i.e., play on the google to find out some idea of the real extent of Twifandom) had something to do with it as well). (I'm apparently parenthetical happy right now - sorry for that!) I didn't get much sleep last night either. The upshot is that I got home, ate something, complained at mah forum ladies about my stupid morning, pixel farmed, and then stared at umpteen word docs to no effect whatsoever while listening to Doves' "Some Cities" album on repeat. I can't keep doing this, so it's back to the Adderall after the funeral.
Family/Life update:
We spent the evening at Brownie's uncle's house with his family, mostly listening to aunts and uncles and cousins compare eulogies for Brownie's grandpop's memorial. The family writ large has been inundated with food this week - apparently the main reason we all got together was that there was suddenly enough food from neighbors and other family members that help was rather desperately needed to eat some of it. I had no idea people still brought food to neighbors after a death in the family. I think it's awesome that it really does happen. The memorial service is tomorrow morning. Brownie's momthreatened us with promised that we'd be the recipients of any fruit baskets she gets, but that she's keeping all the chocolate (her preferred stress reliever). She planned pretty much the entire service, so I'd say she earned it. Brownie and I are taking Nutella cookies to her on Saturday.
I should be sleepy by this point. I'm exhausted, but I always seem to get something of a second wind along about 9:30/10. I *hate* the timing on this, because I need to go to sleep. The service tomorrow is at 8:30 way the hell at the other end of town. I love when I can use this time for noveling, but that's been like pulling teeth out of a pissed off yak the past couple of days. There's a fight that needs to happen that the characters don't seem ready to have yet, but that I need them to have within the next 12 or so hours of plot. I can't figure out if I'm forcing the fight when the characters aren't quite ready for it or if I just haven't hit the right head space to write it. I just can't hear it yet. I can hear the aftermath loud and clear, but not the fight. I'll have to backburner it for a few days and see what my brain dreams up while I'm working on other things. I don't exactly have time to novel at the moment anyway, sadly.
I now have a profile on linkedin. It has, well, very little information on it. Why? Because I still haven't finished my resume. It's... extremely strange trying to figure out how to word things in a way that "sells" me as a good job candidate (or indeed good at much of anything). I'm also not sure if I should be putting as my field the one which currently employs me or the one in which I think I might be tolerably happy in (i.e., I think I'm giving HR a try). Also not sure whether I should be listing my zipcode as the one in which I'm currently stuck or the one in which I'd prefer to be living in, say, 3 months. I'm open to suggestions.
Frustration update:
I think the resume will be finished with Adderall. I'm too scattered lately for my brain to function correctly. I'm frustrated to all hell with my class (seriously, potatoes, it's Twilight - please drum up some interest to pick it apart or bash it or whatever - even bashing it would bring up some kind of conversation that I could work with!), I'm behind on grading papers (it's been a week and a half now - I usually never take this long), I still have to finish that wretched book to finish teaching on Friday, I need to get my financial aid stuff taken care of for the summer/fall as I will still technically be a student, I REALLY need to finish a draft of the resume so I can get it out there, I need to help plan one of my best friend's bridal showers (I'm matron of honor and bride's mom is refusing to help with anything - long story, not mine), and I'm still trying to get some writing done on the novel.
Unfortunately, I've been feeling so pulled around that very little actually got done today (um, this week so far). Class was awful (I feel like I'm not doing a great job with the text, but I also feel like the fact that one person in the room actually did their homework (i.e., play on the google to find out some idea of the real extent of Twifandom) had something to do with it as well). (I'm apparently parenthetical happy right now - sorry for that!) I didn't get much sleep last night either. The upshot is that I got home, ate something, complained at mah forum ladies about my stupid morning, pixel farmed, and then stared at umpteen word docs to no effect whatsoever while listening to Doves' "Some Cities" album on repeat. I can't keep doing this, so it's back to the Adderall after the funeral.
Family/Life update:
We spent the evening at Brownie's uncle's house with his family, mostly listening to aunts and uncles and cousins compare eulogies for Brownie's grandpop's memorial. The family writ large has been inundated with food this week - apparently the main reason we all got together was that there was suddenly enough food from neighbors and other family members that help was rather desperately needed to eat some of it. I had no idea people still brought food to neighbors after a death in the family. I think it's awesome that it really does happen. The memorial service is tomorrow morning. Brownie's mom
I should be sleepy by this point. I'm exhausted, but I always seem to get something of a second wind along about 9:30/10. I *hate* the timing on this, because I need to go to sleep. The service tomorrow is at 8:30 way the hell at the other end of town. I love when I can use this time for noveling, but that's been like pulling teeth out of a pissed off yak the past couple of days. There's a fight that needs to happen that the characters don't seem ready to have yet, but that I need them to have within the next 12 or so hours of plot. I can't figure out if I'm forcing the fight when the characters aren't quite ready for it or if I just haven't hit the right head space to write it. I just can't hear it yet. I can hear the aftermath loud and clear, but not the fight. I'll have to backburner it for a few days and see what my brain dreams up while I'm working on other things. I don't exactly have time to novel at the moment anyway, sadly.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
some non-sequiturs on life, death and writer's block
Lots of thoughts swirling in my head right now.
Brownie's grandfather finally died late Saturday evening after having a massive stroke on Thursday night. There's a memorial service on Thursday morning. I feel funny calling it a funeral or anything else because, although knowing he'll be missed, Brownie and family seem to be having a difficult time going through the "mourning" process. There isn't really anything to "mourn" - he suffered a catastrophic stroke a few minutes after bowling a turkey. He was mentally and physically in very good form, and lived a long and very happy life. Like if anything it's actually something to aspire to. Live happy and die on a high note.
Meanwhile, the death and surrounding activities have come with the sort of family reunion that these sorts of things tend to have. Brownie's sister and brother-in-law just got into town today. She's six months pregnant with their first kid (whom they've nicknamed something utterly unspellable)(and I'm not a bad speller!). We had dinner at Brownie's parents with them. The dinner was punctuated by Brownie's sister grabbing the hand of the nearest person and clutching it to her belly, hoping we'd be able to feel the babbybump kick. It was really fun.
And somewhere in the back of my head I get this horrible thought about "wow, circle of life, how very twee is all of this." Yes. It's twee. Life is actually like that sometimes. So I'll leave that in its twee-ness and move on to this morning.
One of my sacred rules of life is that I will always treat and tip well the person who serves me a drink, be it caffeinated or alcoholic. (Obviously the same thing goes for waiters and anyone else in a service type of job - the rule in my head specifically refers to drink-related people as they're who I see most often.) So maybe a month and a half ago, I had gone in on a Monday morning for my usual coffee run before heading off to tutor. The barista, whom I'd never met before, was playing Bloc Party on the stereo. I commented on it, she commented that she didn't know a lot of people who knew the band, we got into a discussion about music we liked to run to (Bloc Party being high on my list). The next time she was working when I wandered in, we established that we're both in grad school (albeit different disciplines). Since then we've been really chatty every time I've gone in that she's been working.
Anyway. I was working in the Writing Center this morning, and she turned out to be my appointment for the first half hour. The appointment ended up going an hour and a half. It turns out she's ADHD as well and has a bunch of the same sorts of organizational difficulties I struggle with. I ended up sharing every writing strategy I could think of as we worked through sections of her paper, things that have worked for me that might help her as well; we compared Adderall experiences, work habits and patterns. The writing stuff is what interests me most: I'm hoping I run into her soon so I can hear if anything that works for me also works for her. That said, I'm going to throw the ideas out here in the hopes that, as they've helped me, maybe they'll help another ADHD-type brain.
Without further ado (and possibly to be reposted, later, with additions and without the huge run up):
- BRAINSTORM. Start by mapping/webbing. This is something that a lot of us (in the 80's, anyway) were trained to do in elementary school. Take a piece of paper. Write your main topic in the middle and draw a circle around it. Then write one of the large supporting ideas that you'll be discussing somewhere else on the paper - say in the upper right corner. Draw a slightly smaller circle around that. Connect the circles. As you have large supporting ideas, do the same with those. Supporting ideas need support too, so as you come up with smaller supporting ideas, figure out which of the larger supporting ideas the smaller ones fit with, and place the smaller ideas in groupings around the larger ones. If a smaller idea fits more than one of the larger ideas, connect it with more lines, etc. What you'll end up with is a series of clusters that are linked together. You can then transform the giant clusters into a workable outline, and write a paper from there.
For an ADHD brain, the beauty of the mapping/webbing style of brainstorming is that it allows the flow of thoughts to come in random, scattered, oddly-connected ways rather than in linear ways. I know lots of people who can think linearly, form linear arguments easily, who see things in very cause/effect-type ways. Outlining tends to work well for them. However, for those of us for whom linear thinking is difficult at best and an utterly foreign concept at worst, mapping allows space to write the thoughts wherever they seem to belong whenever they come up (so that there needs be no attempt to force thoughts to stay only on one of the supporting ideas at any given time), and allows, through drawing lines to connect the ideas, a way to "see" the connections more strongly.
- When writing at a computer and stuck with writer's block, take out some paper and a pen (or crayon or pencil or whatever) and start writing by hand. Write anything until you get going on a new idea. N. Katherine Hayles and Sherri Turkle (among others, but these are the two who come to mind right now) have both argued that the technology we work with affects the way we think. I've found that, for me at least, this is very much true. This means that I can, to a degree, manipulate how I think through the material I work with. Through writing ideas out by hand, I'm forced to slow down significantly from the speed that I'm typing at - this seems to force my thoughts to slow down and settle a bit more than they do on the computer. I wonder if there's more to it - if the way I'm working with my hands somehow changes my thinking, or if the fact that I can doodle in the margins when I'm using a pen - something that obviously doesn't happen with computers - somehow changes what my brain is doing. I doodle a lot when I'm writing by hand. Computers are great because they allow for thoughts to be recorded extremely quickly (and edited just as fast), but they don't allow for some of the right brain-type action that can come out when doodling. Anyway, if you're at a computer and stuck, take out the pen.
- (This one more super-specifically for ADHD than for any other type of brain) Plan on a rough draft that is roughly half the length of what you actually need to churn out. One of the problems that I've seen with many ADHD writers is the tendency to skim along the surface of thinking rather than explain the depth of each thought. Instructors get really frustrated with this (understandably, I think, coming from the side of the student who has turned in very "surface-y" work and from the instructor who has received it from her students). The problem with ADHD writing isn't that the depth of thinking isn't there (though this is often what's perceived): the problem is that the depth of thinking often isn't explained fully (if at all). When pressed on a point, the writer can nearly always explain layers upon layers of thought that went into the final point (the final point being the only part that actually made it into the paper). When asked why all that thinking wasn't put into the paper as well, the answer is often that either the thought process itself didn't seem all that important or that the connections seemed so obvious to the writer that writer assumed everyone else would see them as well.
This is why I suggest starting with a rough draft that is only half of the required length. Once the main ideas have been spelled out, stop writing and start asking questions (or better yet, find someone else to ask the questions - writing is best as a group effort). The goal is to resemble an eager, why-asking five-year-old as much as possible. Five-year-olds, when asking "why" about ANYTHING, are inexhaustible: they're trying to understand everything as fully as they possibly can. In adopting this tactic, the ultimate point is to make sure that the thinking behind every point, every conclusion, every sentence is explained as fully as possible. (This is another reason why mapping is so helpful - it gives a diagram of the thoughts that went into each major point so that nothing is left out.) Explain EVERYTHING, even the seemingly most unimportant points and digressions. Then and only then, go back and edit out the truly extraneous sentences.
That's the short version of paper writing for the ADHD brain. Like I said, I'll probably repost and expand it later (like, say, when it's not 1am, I haven't been up since 7, am on more than 4 hours of sleep...) - I have no idea how clear any of that is at this point because I can't see straight for yawning. But I'll work with it soon - I'm not the only person with ADHD who's found themselves needing to write a paper. If this has worked for me, then it will work for someone else.
I'd try to come up with some bizarro way to link back to the beginning of this post, to bring it all full circle (again?), but it isn't happening naturally and I don't feel like forcing it. This should be two posts, really. However, I've typed it all out and I'm not changing it now. Enjoy!
(Really, Pandora? You're advertising CLUB MED to me in between songs? Heh.)
Brownie's grandfather finally died late Saturday evening after having a massive stroke on Thursday night. There's a memorial service on Thursday morning. I feel funny calling it a funeral or anything else because, although knowing he'll be missed, Brownie and family seem to be having a difficult time going through the "mourning" process. There isn't really anything to "mourn" - he suffered a catastrophic stroke a few minutes after bowling a turkey. He was mentally and physically in very good form, and lived a long and very happy life. Like if anything it's actually something to aspire to. Live happy and die on a high note.
Meanwhile, the death and surrounding activities have come with the sort of family reunion that these sorts of things tend to have. Brownie's sister and brother-in-law just got into town today. She's six months pregnant with their first kid (whom they've nicknamed something utterly unspellable)(and I'm not a bad speller!). We had dinner at Brownie's parents with them. The dinner was punctuated by Brownie's sister grabbing the hand of the nearest person and clutching it to her belly, hoping we'd be able to feel the babbybump kick. It was really fun.
And somewhere in the back of my head I get this horrible thought about "wow, circle of life, how very twee is all of this." Yes. It's twee. Life is actually like that sometimes. So I'll leave that in its twee-ness and move on to this morning.
One of my sacred rules of life is that I will always treat and tip well the person who serves me a drink, be it caffeinated or alcoholic. (Obviously the same thing goes for waiters and anyone else in a service type of job - the rule in my head specifically refers to drink-related people as they're who I see most often.) So maybe a month and a half ago, I had gone in on a Monday morning for my usual coffee run before heading off to tutor. The barista, whom I'd never met before, was playing Bloc Party on the stereo. I commented on it, she commented that she didn't know a lot of people who knew the band, we got into a discussion about music we liked to run to (Bloc Party being high on my list). The next time she was working when I wandered in, we established that we're both in grad school (albeit different disciplines). Since then we've been really chatty every time I've gone in that she's been working.
Anyway. I was working in the Writing Center this morning, and she turned out to be my appointment for the first half hour. The appointment ended up going an hour and a half. It turns out she's ADHD as well and has a bunch of the same sorts of organizational difficulties I struggle with. I ended up sharing every writing strategy I could think of as we worked through sections of her paper, things that have worked for me that might help her as well; we compared Adderall experiences, work habits and patterns. The writing stuff is what interests me most: I'm hoping I run into her soon so I can hear if anything that works for me also works for her. That said, I'm going to throw the ideas out here in the hopes that, as they've helped me, maybe they'll help another ADHD-type brain.
Without further ado (and possibly to be reposted, later, with additions and without the huge run up):
- BRAINSTORM. Start by mapping/webbing. This is something that a lot of us (in the 80's, anyway) were trained to do in elementary school. Take a piece of paper. Write your main topic in the middle and draw a circle around it. Then write one of the large supporting ideas that you'll be discussing somewhere else on the paper - say in the upper right corner. Draw a slightly smaller circle around that. Connect the circles. As you have large supporting ideas, do the same with those. Supporting ideas need support too, so as you come up with smaller supporting ideas, figure out which of the larger supporting ideas the smaller ones fit with, and place the smaller ideas in groupings around the larger ones. If a smaller idea fits more than one of the larger ideas, connect it with more lines, etc. What you'll end up with is a series of clusters that are linked together. You can then transform the giant clusters into a workable outline, and write a paper from there.
For an ADHD brain, the beauty of the mapping/webbing style of brainstorming is that it allows the flow of thoughts to come in random, scattered, oddly-connected ways rather than in linear ways. I know lots of people who can think linearly, form linear arguments easily, who see things in very cause/effect-type ways. Outlining tends to work well for them. However, for those of us for whom linear thinking is difficult at best and an utterly foreign concept at worst, mapping allows space to write the thoughts wherever they seem to belong whenever they come up (so that there needs be no attempt to force thoughts to stay only on one of the supporting ideas at any given time), and allows, through drawing lines to connect the ideas, a way to "see" the connections more strongly.
- When writing at a computer and stuck with writer's block, take out some paper and a pen (or crayon or pencil or whatever) and start writing by hand. Write anything until you get going on a new idea. N. Katherine Hayles and Sherri Turkle (among others, but these are the two who come to mind right now) have both argued that the technology we work with affects the way we think. I've found that, for me at least, this is very much true. This means that I can, to a degree, manipulate how I think through the material I work with. Through writing ideas out by hand, I'm forced to slow down significantly from the speed that I'm typing at - this seems to force my thoughts to slow down and settle a bit more than they do on the computer. I wonder if there's more to it - if the way I'm working with my hands somehow changes my thinking, or if the fact that I can doodle in the margins when I'm using a pen - something that obviously doesn't happen with computers - somehow changes what my brain is doing. I doodle a lot when I'm writing by hand. Computers are great because they allow for thoughts to be recorded extremely quickly (and edited just as fast), but they don't allow for some of the right brain-type action that can come out when doodling. Anyway, if you're at a computer and stuck, take out the pen.
- (This one more super-specifically for ADHD than for any other type of brain) Plan on a rough draft that is roughly half the length of what you actually need to churn out. One of the problems that I've seen with many ADHD writers is the tendency to skim along the surface of thinking rather than explain the depth of each thought. Instructors get really frustrated with this (understandably, I think, coming from the side of the student who has turned in very "surface-y" work and from the instructor who has received it from her students). The problem with ADHD writing isn't that the depth of thinking isn't there (though this is often what's perceived): the problem is that the depth of thinking often isn't explained fully (if at all). When pressed on a point, the writer can nearly always explain layers upon layers of thought that went into the final point (the final point being the only part that actually made it into the paper). When asked why all that thinking wasn't put into the paper as well, the answer is often that either the thought process itself didn't seem all that important or that the connections seemed so obvious to the writer that writer assumed everyone else would see them as well.
This is why I suggest starting with a rough draft that is only half of the required length. Once the main ideas have been spelled out, stop writing and start asking questions (or better yet, find someone else to ask the questions - writing is best as a group effort). The goal is to resemble an eager, why-asking five-year-old as much as possible. Five-year-olds, when asking "why" about ANYTHING, are inexhaustible: they're trying to understand everything as fully as they possibly can. In adopting this tactic, the ultimate point is to make sure that the thinking behind every point, every conclusion, every sentence is explained as fully as possible. (This is another reason why mapping is so helpful - it gives a diagram of the thoughts that went into each major point so that nothing is left out.) Explain EVERYTHING, even the seemingly most unimportant points and digressions. Then and only then, go back and edit out the truly extraneous sentences.
That's the short version of paper writing for the ADHD brain. Like I said, I'll probably repost and expand it later (like, say, when it's not 1am, I haven't been up since 7, am on more than 4 hours of sleep...) - I have no idea how clear any of that is at this point because I can't see straight for yawning. But I'll work with it soon - I'm not the only person with ADHD who's found themselves needing to write a paper. If this has worked for me, then it will work for someone else.
I'd try to come up with some bizarro way to link back to the beginning of this post, to bring it all full circle (again?), but it isn't happening naturally and I don't feel like forcing it. This should be two posts, really. However, I've typed it all out and I'm not changing it now. Enjoy!
(Really, Pandora? You're advertising CLUB MED to me in between songs? Heh.)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Spring Break: A Panegyric
This being the last of my years in academe, this is the last of my Spring Breaks. Younger me would think that I should be marking the occasion by going on a trip. Grad school paychecks being what they are, however, there won't be any major trip.
Honestly, though, I'm okay with that, or perhaps even sort of happy. This break is going beautifully (albeit way too quickly, as per usual). I'm working out every morning (still doing the Jillian Michaels 30 Days of Hell dvd, which is toning me up something fierce), I'm ACTUALLY EATING BREAKFAST (this is a new and very unusual thing), I've been crocheting (the stupid scarf I've been working on since January is finally almost done), and I've been noveling again (FINALLY). I've gotten a couple thousand words so far this week. Nowhere near my November pace, but it's good, and I'm back to the characters having conversations I wasn't planning on them having and having those conversations drift off in directions I hadn't seen before they happened and I've re-planned out how the novel will begin and things are generally going swimmingly. It feels really good to be writing again. It's also really nice to have the week to write and think and write some more without the nagging constant guilty feeling that I'm supposed to be focusing on my teaching and trying to force some work on the damned dissertation and work on the job hunt and everything else.
Even better: it's been in the 50s all week. After the snowiest winter I have ever lived through, the concept of the 50s is near-tropical. We even saw the sun here for a couple of days!
Tonight, Brownie and I are going to attempt to make duck. Why? We have the time, and I have some Wegmans gift certificates from my birthday to play with. On Saturday, we're taking our tax returns on a day trip to NYC. We're hitting the Strand for books (I refuse on principle to look for dissertation books), and I will finally (!) get to go play at the CB I Hate Perfume gallery. I mean, Cloudburst Accord. Wet Lawn Accord. And then we're going to go get some food somewhere. And maybe hit the Brooklyn Brewery while we're in Brooklyn.
What I'm saying is that I'm happier right now than I have been in months, if not longer. I think it's because I've given myself permission to spend a week not in academics, not surrounded by thoughts of the Ivory Tower, not wallowing in the overabundance of guilt and feelings of abject failure that I associate with my dissertation. I'm just taking care of myself and working on things that I find interesting and fun and productive. It feels awesome.
I know that when I get out of academics in May, I will be surrounded by the stress of a job hunt and then (preferably soon!) the stress of a brand new job in a brand new field and that leaving the academy does not mean that I'm leaving stress behind forever. To get this week, however, to devote to putting my emotional health back into some semblance of tolerability has been an absolute godsend.
So fare thee well, Spring Break. You've been good to me and I will miss you when you're gone. And I will probably try my level best to take a week off when possible in the Spring, just to see if I can recreate the sense of calm I feel right now.
Honestly, though, I'm okay with that, or perhaps even sort of happy. This break is going beautifully (albeit way too quickly, as per usual). I'm working out every morning (still doing the Jillian Michaels 30 Days of Hell dvd, which is toning me up something fierce), I'm ACTUALLY EATING BREAKFAST (this is a new and very unusual thing), I've been crocheting (the stupid scarf I've been working on since January is finally almost done), and I've been noveling again (FINALLY). I've gotten a couple thousand words so far this week. Nowhere near my November pace, but it's good, and I'm back to the characters having conversations I wasn't planning on them having and having those conversations drift off in directions I hadn't seen before they happened and I've re-planned out how the novel will begin and things are generally going swimmingly. It feels really good to be writing again. It's also really nice to have the week to write and think and write some more without the nagging constant guilty feeling that I'm supposed to be focusing on my teaching and trying to force some work on the damned dissertation and work on the job hunt and everything else.
Even better: it's been in the 50s all week. After the snowiest winter I have ever lived through, the concept of the 50s is near-tropical. We even saw the sun here for a couple of days!
Tonight, Brownie and I are going to attempt to make duck. Why? We have the time, and I have some Wegmans gift certificates from my birthday to play with. On Saturday, we're taking our tax returns on a day trip to NYC. We're hitting the Strand for books (I refuse on principle to look for dissertation books), and I will finally (!) get to go play at the CB I Hate Perfume gallery. I mean, Cloudburst Accord. Wet Lawn Accord. And then we're going to go get some food somewhere. And maybe hit the Brooklyn Brewery while we're in Brooklyn.
What I'm saying is that I'm happier right now than I have been in months, if not longer. I think it's because I've given myself permission to spend a week not in academics, not surrounded by thoughts of the Ivory Tower, not wallowing in the overabundance of guilt and feelings of abject failure that I associate with my dissertation. I'm just taking care of myself and working on things that I find interesting and fun and productive. It feels awesome.
I know that when I get out of academics in May, I will be surrounded by the stress of a job hunt and then (preferably soon!) the stress of a brand new job in a brand new field and that leaving the academy does not mean that I'm leaving stress behind forever. To get this week, however, to devote to putting my emotional health back into some semblance of tolerability has been an absolute godsend.
So fare thee well, Spring Break. You've been good to me and I will miss you when you're gone. And I will probably try my level best to take a week off when possible in the Spring, just to see if I can recreate the sense of calm I feel right now.
Friday, March 5, 2010
events and memories
I went to the career counselor yesterday...
... and I'd rather talk about something else right now. To sum up: I don't think I learned anything I didn't already know except that my institution of some sort of learning has a database of companies to play with. Also that there's a "career library" which I'm going to raid tomorrow. Books along the lines of "what do I do with my BA in English," to borrow a line from Avenue Q.
Anyway. I could write more about it, but there's no point and my brain is being eaten alive by Baudrillard, which I'd much rather talk about.
This scenario occurred in two parts:
1) I decided that, for writing purposes, it would be an intelligent idea to have a little mini notebook with me to scribble ideas down.
2) I spent my lunchtime before the career counseling appointment reading Baudrillard, flipping through the The Illusion of the End after having taught an excerpt of it recently.
The essential thing here is that I tripped over a few lines that made me pause, ponder, rip out the notebook, scribble illegibly for a while, relate everything back to the novel-in-progress (the general setting and characters of which have formed the backbone of most of my daydreams for months now - i.e., how would MC deal with these thoughts? what about main romantic interest? friends? etc.), and then just mulled everything over in my brain for a while. At this point it's probably far too late, and I too tired, to get through everything I'm thinking; I may very well revisit this all later. However, I thought I'd get the quotes out there anyway. These are from Jean Baudrillard's The Illusion of the End, trans. Christopher Butler (Stanford UP) 1994.
"If there is something distinctive about an event - about what constitutes an event and thus has historical value - it is the fact that it is irreversible, that there is always something in it which exceeds meaning and interpretation." (13)
Baudrillard here is talking about events in the sense of global history (in the midst of a discussion wherein he asserts that we've lost history altogether). I find the quote to have tremendous meaning on an individual level, however, and have been dealing with it on that plane. I suppose that when it comes to memories, there are narratives and then there are events. Narratives would be the bits and pieces that are understood, readily placed within a larger overall arc of our lives, bits and pieces that accumulate like so much flotsam but which can be generally comprehended as continuous or flowing in some sort of storyline. Events, then, would rare, and probably often (I'd like to think not always) traumatic: those moments that defy interpretation, that can't be fit into an overall life narrative, that are just too BIG. I haven't figured out exactly what I think would qualify as an event in a person's life - I suppose that would be left to the individual (though I may have more thoughts when I'm more conscious).
"We have reached the point of seeking in water a memory without traces, of hoping... that something still remains when even molecular traces have disappeared." (31)
I'm not entirely sure why I latched onto this so strongly. Molecules in the body entirely replaced every seven years, so that on a molecular level we are entirely renewed, replaced, changed. I'm struck by the idea that I'm filled with memories of which my body has no molecular memory, that people who touched me, situations that affected me and that still live with me in my mind are, to the molecules of my body, utterly foreign. Seven years and the molecular traces vanish.
The seven year molecular replacement is an interesting way to conceive of time, to mark the distance from an event. If most memories are bits of narrative which flow through our minds, would the impact of an event be worn down over time as tiny, insignificant pieces shifted themselves bit by bit outside of our consciousness, or would an event stay true despite that shifting? Would an event be the one memory that time couldn't affect, that no amount of living could erase?
... and I'd rather talk about something else right now. To sum up: I don't think I learned anything I didn't already know except that my institution of some sort of learning has a database of companies to play with. Also that there's a "career library" which I'm going to raid tomorrow. Books along the lines of "what do I do with my BA in English," to borrow a line from Avenue Q.
Anyway. I could write more about it, but there's no point and my brain is being eaten alive by Baudrillard, which I'd much rather talk about.
This scenario occurred in two parts:
1) I decided that, for writing purposes, it would be an intelligent idea to have a little mini notebook with me to scribble ideas down.
2) I spent my lunchtime before the career counseling appointment reading Baudrillard, flipping through the The Illusion of the End after having taught an excerpt of it recently.
The essential thing here is that I tripped over a few lines that made me pause, ponder, rip out the notebook, scribble illegibly for a while, relate everything back to the novel-in-progress (the general setting and characters of which have formed the backbone of most of my daydreams for months now - i.e., how would MC deal with these thoughts? what about main romantic interest? friends? etc.), and then just mulled everything over in my brain for a while. At this point it's probably far too late, and I too tired, to get through everything I'm thinking; I may very well revisit this all later. However, I thought I'd get the quotes out there anyway. These are from Jean Baudrillard's The Illusion of the End, trans. Christopher Butler (Stanford UP) 1994.
"If there is something distinctive about an event - about what constitutes an event and thus has historical value - it is the fact that it is irreversible, that there is always something in it which exceeds meaning and interpretation." (13)
Baudrillard here is talking about events in the sense of global history (in the midst of a discussion wherein he asserts that we've lost history altogether). I find the quote to have tremendous meaning on an individual level, however, and have been dealing with it on that plane. I suppose that when it comes to memories, there are narratives and then there are events. Narratives would be the bits and pieces that are understood, readily placed within a larger overall arc of our lives, bits and pieces that accumulate like so much flotsam but which can be generally comprehended as continuous or flowing in some sort of storyline. Events, then, would rare, and probably often (I'd like to think not always) traumatic: those moments that defy interpretation, that can't be fit into an overall life narrative, that are just too BIG. I haven't figured out exactly what I think would qualify as an event in a person's life - I suppose that would be left to the individual (though I may have more thoughts when I'm more conscious).
"We have reached the point of seeking in water a memory without traces, of hoping... that something still remains when even molecular traces have disappeared." (31)
I'm not entirely sure why I latched onto this so strongly. Molecules in the body entirely replaced every seven years, so that on a molecular level we are entirely renewed, replaced, changed. I'm struck by the idea that I'm filled with memories of which my body has no molecular memory, that people who touched me, situations that affected me and that still live with me in my mind are, to the molecules of my body, utterly foreign. Seven years and the molecular traces vanish.
The seven year molecular replacement is an interesting way to conceive of time, to mark the distance from an event. If most memories are bits of narrative which flow through our minds, would the impact of an event be worn down over time as tiny, insignificant pieces shifted themselves bit by bit outside of our consciousness, or would an event stay true despite that shifting? Would an event be the one memory that time couldn't affect, that no amount of living could erase?
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
In which I emo some
So the dissertation is still frozen in time, although this is not the fault of playing Farmville of facebook. It's just me and my performance anxiety/self-fulfilling-prophecy-fear-of-failure type thing. I probably can do this damn thing. So I should get on that so that it's done. So that I can stop grinding my teeth at night - my jaw hurts all the damn time. So does my back.
The novel is fairly well frozen in time at the moment as well, but not quite for the same reason as the dissertation. I've spent a fair bit of time with the novel docs open on my computer. I've mentally rehashed a particular character, and need to do the rewrites on that. Mostly I'm just stuck, however: like I've gotten it to a certain place and I know the other really major event that needs to be worked through, and then it needs to end... but I'm not entirely sure exactly how it ends and so have spent a lot of time mulling it over. A LOT of time mulling it over. Often while playing endless games of 4 suite Spider Solitaire (w00t 8% won!) and listening to whatever music seems helpful for whatever chunk of writing I'm trying to think about. There are so many ways this whole novel fits together in my head, but they feel blocked right now. We're supposed to get a Snowpocalypse this weekend, so mayhaps I'll spend probably-snowed-in-Caturday slathered in BPAL Block Buster and see if that has any discernable effect.
I'm having a hard time believing it's February already - I know I spent half of January out in KS but it still feels to me like it should be January. Or really, last October maybe. I know that I'm in mid-SAD for the year and that this is probably contributing to my general sense of nothing (nothing in the sense that nothing really affects me anymore, in that I'm already feeling just down and blank and whatever). I don't feel like I can think at all right now, like my brain knows it has a job (several, really) to do but isn't up to the task(s). This round of SAD is less self-involved and introspective than usual. I assume this is due to Brownie's ongoing job/dissertation stress, which has so overtaken his life that I feel mostly unable to live my own; keeping him even half-functional lately has been above and beyond my emotional capabilities. I don't blame him for this, really - I do think it's 99% how obnoxious and awful the whole academic job search thing is. I'm hoping he hears something soon so that we can even attempt to make some sort of near-future life plans. He did finally say (and seemed truly to mean it) that if the job stuff doesn't work out this year, we can pick a city, move there, and see what happens. I kind of adore this idea, but I'm not holding my breath.
So I do think that most of the lack of introspection during my current depressive funk is due to everything I just mentioned, but I also wonder if part of it is just that I've basically figured most of my shit out for the moment, but lack the energy or motivation to actually DO anything about any of those issues (i.e., classic depressive problem). I just wish I could get excited about something again, anything really, because I don't remember the last time I actually was excited. My basic range of emotions is this: genuine concern/care for family/friends, and blah. Like I'm turning 30 in 2.5 weeks. My thoughts on this are not OMGFREAKOUT, nor are they YAY (which is actually what I was expecting - my 20's are something I'm glad to leave behind me), nor are they anything at all other than "oh, I have to teach that day." Brownie has something big planned, but I haven't been able to get excited about that either. I've told him I am, and I very much want to mean it. It's just that finding the energy to be excited seems beyond me right now.
I think the depression is bigger than seasonal affective, because it's been going on way too long (erm, for at least the last two years). I've never had any luck with antidepressants, so I'm really resistant to going on them again. I hope to Ceiling Cat that leaving grad school behind will help - I've pinned my hopes for my sanity on that event.
I'll sign off for now. If I get really ambitious, I'll try and post every day until I turn 30 so as to chronicle the last few weeks of my 20's.
The novel is fairly well frozen in time at the moment as well, but not quite for the same reason as the dissertation. I've spent a fair bit of time with the novel docs open on my computer. I've mentally rehashed a particular character, and need to do the rewrites on that. Mostly I'm just stuck, however: like I've gotten it to a certain place and I know the other really major event that needs to be worked through, and then it needs to end... but I'm not entirely sure exactly how it ends and so have spent a lot of time mulling it over. A LOT of time mulling it over. Often while playing endless games of 4 suite Spider Solitaire (w00t 8% won!) and listening to whatever music seems helpful for whatever chunk of writing I'm trying to think about. There are so many ways this whole novel fits together in my head, but they feel blocked right now. We're supposed to get a Snowpocalypse this weekend, so mayhaps I'll spend probably-snowed-in-Caturday slathered in BPAL Block Buster and see if that has any discernable effect.
I'm having a hard time believing it's February already - I know I spent half of January out in KS but it still feels to me like it should be January. Or really, last October maybe. I know that I'm in mid-SAD for the year and that this is probably contributing to my general sense of nothing (nothing in the sense that nothing really affects me anymore, in that I'm already feeling just down and blank and whatever). I don't feel like I can think at all right now, like my brain knows it has a job (several, really) to do but isn't up to the task(s). This round of SAD is less self-involved and introspective than usual. I assume this is due to Brownie's ongoing job/dissertation stress, which has so overtaken his life that I feel mostly unable to live my own; keeping him even half-functional lately has been above and beyond my emotional capabilities. I don't blame him for this, really - I do think it's 99% how obnoxious and awful the whole academic job search thing is. I'm hoping he hears something soon so that we can even attempt to make some sort of near-future life plans. He did finally say (and seemed truly to mean it) that if the job stuff doesn't work out this year, we can pick a city, move there, and see what happens. I kind of adore this idea, but I'm not holding my breath.
So I do think that most of the lack of introspection during my current depressive funk is due to everything I just mentioned, but I also wonder if part of it is just that I've basically figured most of my shit out for the moment, but lack the energy or motivation to actually DO anything about any of those issues (i.e., classic depressive problem). I just wish I could get excited about something again, anything really, because I don't remember the last time I actually was excited. My basic range of emotions is this: genuine concern/care for family/friends, and blah. Like I'm turning 30 in 2.5 weeks. My thoughts on this are not OMGFREAKOUT, nor are they YAY (which is actually what I was expecting - my 20's are something I'm glad to leave behind me), nor are they anything at all other than "oh, I have to teach that day." Brownie has something big planned, but I haven't been able to get excited about that either. I've told him I am, and I very much want to mean it. It's just that finding the energy to be excited seems beyond me right now.
I think the depression is bigger than seasonal affective, because it's been going on way too long (erm, for at least the last two years). I've never had any luck with antidepressants, so I'm really resistant to going on them again. I hope to Ceiling Cat that leaving grad school behind will help - I've pinned my hopes for my sanity on that event.
I'll sign off for now. If I get really ambitious, I'll try and post every day until I turn 30 so as to chronicle the last few weeks of my 20's.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Getting out of bed
Getting out of bed in the morning has taken to posing something of a problem for me (er, moreso than usual). I can't decide how much of this is January/February-standard SAD and how much of it is the general "where is my life going"-type angst that I've been feeling for the past year. Admittedly, part of the problem this morning is that it's gray and raining (boo, January, it's supposed to be snowing now, not raining!), and rain is guaranteed to keep me in bed as long as possible.
So by this point it's 1pm. This morning I have managed the following:
- finally pull my butt out of bed around 10:45-11
- eat a bowl of oatmeal (breakfast is a new thing I'm trying as of this morning, so we'll see how that goes)
- drink my coffee
- check my email, facebook and forum
- sit and contemplate blogging for a while before deciding to attempt to get a post out
I was going to blog last night because I was in sort of the right mood (i.e., contemplative or whatever), but then it occurred to me that I had pot de creme in the fridge (leftover from Brownie's birthday on Thursday) and an unwatched Vampire Diaries on the DVR. I went for the easier option. I didn't even feel guilty about it, which I figure is a good step for me. But then, Saturday night at midnight shouldn't be a time to feel guilty about wanting to relax.
At this point I'm trying to convince myself to go to the gym. I really should: the running is good for me mentally and emotionally (well, and physically, but I never seem to think about that as much this time of year - it's all about trying to keep my mood at a supportable level).
It's idiotic the things I contemplate when I'm sitting here at 1 o'clock on a Sunday and trying desperately to get myself to do something about which I might actually feel good. I've spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what BPAL I have that is appropriate for a miserably cold and rainy winter day. I have a few that work for miserably cold and rainy autumn and spring days, but for some reason none of those seem right for winter, as though winter were to need something with that extra level of "well, it really should be snowing but it's not." In the grand scheme of things, this entire line of thinking is insane, and I know this, and I also know that chances are extremely high that I'll throw on something woodsy and be done with it. And none of this matters.
What I probably should do is get my ass off the futon, go to the gym so I can run and lift weights for a while, come home, shower, and work on the novel for a while. I had a lengthy conversation on Friday night which ended at 3 and kept me up until after 5 thinking about how guilt can be used as a subtle, awful weapon in a relationship. Nothing about the conversation itself need be said, as it's not my current issues that were being explored, meaning that this isn't a space for any of that to be discussed, but it did occur to me at some point as I was lying in bed reeling from some nasty memories which I wish would just die already that a problem with the novel in current form is that I was nowhere near hitting exactly how guilt can be used as a mechanism of control, but that this is something I can fix in revisions. Therefore I think I ought to be revising while all of this is fresh in my head (or, really, sort of fresh - I've been turning this over and over and over for about a day and a half now so that everything's shifted a few times by now).
I think I am going to go to the gym. It's probably the best thing I can do for the blahs at the moment.
So by this point it's 1pm. This morning I have managed the following:
- finally pull my butt out of bed around 10:45-11
- eat a bowl of oatmeal (breakfast is a new thing I'm trying as of this morning, so we'll see how that goes)
- drink my coffee
- check my email, facebook and forum
- sit and contemplate blogging for a while before deciding to attempt to get a post out
I was going to blog last night because I was in sort of the right mood (i.e., contemplative or whatever), but then it occurred to me that I had pot de creme in the fridge (leftover from Brownie's birthday on Thursday) and an unwatched Vampire Diaries on the DVR. I went for the easier option. I didn't even feel guilty about it, which I figure is a good step for me. But then, Saturday night at midnight shouldn't be a time to feel guilty about wanting to relax.
At this point I'm trying to convince myself to go to the gym. I really should: the running is good for me mentally and emotionally (well, and physically, but I never seem to think about that as much this time of year - it's all about trying to keep my mood at a supportable level).
It's idiotic the things I contemplate when I'm sitting here at 1 o'clock on a Sunday and trying desperately to get myself to do something about which I might actually feel good. I've spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what BPAL I have that is appropriate for a miserably cold and rainy winter day. I have a few that work for miserably cold and rainy autumn and spring days, but for some reason none of those seem right for winter, as though winter were to need something with that extra level of "well, it really should be snowing but it's not." In the grand scheme of things, this entire line of thinking is insane, and I know this, and I also know that chances are extremely high that I'll throw on something woodsy and be done with it. And none of this matters.
What I probably should do is get my ass off the futon, go to the gym so I can run and lift weights for a while, come home, shower, and work on the novel for a while. I had a lengthy conversation on Friday night which ended at 3 and kept me up until after 5 thinking about how guilt can be used as a subtle, awful weapon in a relationship. Nothing about the conversation itself need be said, as it's not my current issues that were being explored, meaning that this isn't a space for any of that to be discussed, but it did occur to me at some point as I was lying in bed reeling from some nasty memories which I wish would just die already that a problem with the novel in current form is that I was nowhere near hitting exactly how guilt can be used as a mechanism of control, but that this is something I can fix in revisions. Therefore I think I ought to be revising while all of this is fresh in my head (or, really, sort of fresh - I've been turning this over and over and over for about a day and a half now so that everything's shifted a few times by now).
I think I am going to go to the gym. It's probably the best thing I can do for the blahs at the moment.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Some random thoughts
I went with Brownie and his parents to see 'Invictus' this afternoon. It was okay. I wasn't hugely impressed. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great. I'm mostly glad I wasn't the one funding the tickets. I think my next film will be 'the Lovely Bones.' I hope it's better.
I read what's written so far of the last third of the novel last night. It wasn't as bad as I feared. It's not quite to the standard of being willing to show other people, but I didn't think it reeked of pointless sentimentality either, so that's a bonus. Part of my goal with the novel is to deal with some extremely emotional situations - i.e., situations that have to be dealt with emotionally because the logical counterpoint isn't/can't be there - without making them seem mawkish or insulin-inducing. However, at the moment my MC is in the middle of making out with her romantic interest, and it's still going to be a while before I allow them into a real relationship, so I'm going to have to break that up and I feel sorta bad about it.
Two passionfruit martinis do not make for easy typing. I've corrected roughly every fourth word I've typed. I might be better off getting off the internet and hitting the yarn/crochet hook for the evening.
Job things for Brownie aren't going well. I had a daydream that I sold my novel for way more money than anyone could possibly expect and managed to keep us afloat (and my bpal habit going strong) for a year until he got a job, but that, like I said, is pretty clearly a daydream. I think one of the things that seems hardest about the possibility of being a writer is not knowing exactly when the next paycheck will come. Like you could sell a book, get a huge paycheck, know you could live off of it for a while and all that and yet still be insecure because really, where does the next one come from? Will it be soon? How much will it be? How can one budget?
I read what's written so far of the last third of the novel last night. It wasn't as bad as I feared. It's not quite to the standard of being willing to show other people, but I didn't think it reeked of pointless sentimentality either, so that's a bonus. Part of my goal with the novel is to deal with some extremely emotional situations - i.e., situations that have to be dealt with emotionally because the logical counterpoint isn't/can't be there - without making them seem mawkish or insulin-inducing. However, at the moment my MC is in the middle of making out with her romantic interest, and it's still going to be a while before I allow them into a real relationship, so I'm going to have to break that up and I feel sorta bad about it.
Two passionfruit martinis do not make for easy typing. I've corrected roughly every fourth word I've typed. I might be better off getting off the internet and hitting the yarn/crochet hook for the evening.
Job things for Brownie aren't going well. I had a daydream that I sold my novel for way more money than anyone could possibly expect and managed to keep us afloat (and my bpal habit going strong) for a year until he got a job, but that, like I said, is pretty clearly a daydream. I think one of the things that seems hardest about the possibility of being a writer is not knowing exactly when the next paycheck will come. Like you could sell a book, get a huge paycheck, know you could live off of it for a while and all that and yet still be insecure because really, where does the next one come from? Will it be soon? How much will it be? How can one budget?
Thursday, December 10, 2009
After a morning of facebook stalking
The facebook privacy changes have been fun. I've gotten to see much of the profiles of various mythical figures which has been all kinds of good fun. Probably a little creepy, but definitely good fun. I'm a bad person. However, I've also found some fantastic bad poetry, figured out that one guy is creepier and weirder than my wildest imaginings, that a friend has a crush on a damn hot guy and so on, so it's been fun.
I'm also up to three students friend requesting me on facebook, which is some kind of record for me. All three were awesome, so I've actually accepted them.
Beyond that, the semester got me into some really bad food habits - I got up at 10:30, had coffee, and after playing around have realized that it's almost 2 and that I haven't actually eaten anything. It's been like this most of the semester. I've been getting up, having coffee, and then mentally pretending that the coffee (which I take black) is food until some point after normal people have eaten lunch, when I realize that I'm starving. And then I have a huge dinner and don't eat again until the next day. So I'm eating what amounts to probably three meals worth of food, just lumped together twice and mostly at dinner. And I wonder why (stress aside) my stomach has been so ripped apart painful ouch lately. I've got to cut this shit out and start eating on a more normal schedule again. It'll help me feel better when I exercise too.
Bad news on the academicjobsearchfront - the one school that had so far requested more info from Brownie apparently called everyone yesterday to set up MLA interviews and he didn't get a call. So that's out. That was also the only one in an honest-to-god city, so we're off to podunks now. I'm hating this, but more I'm hating what it's doing to Brownie - he's having a hard time not taking all the rejection personally (which is understandable even if it is a bad thing to do) and I just want to give him a really big hug, but really big hugs don't help anything (I'm doing it anyway). I'm scared to fucking death neither one of us will have a job come June first and won't know where our next paychecks are coming from. The current paychecks are already too small to be able to save anything as it is.
The noveling is going relatively well. I've got one conversation that I've already re-written twice to try and get it closer to right - I know I'll have to revise it again later, but it has to end in the right place and have gone in the right directions or it'll screw a bunch of things up. But I'm still plugging away (often til 3am or so), and really am enjoying it. I'm hoping I can have near a draft ready by Christmas so I can take some time away to do the dissertation and then return to it and see if I can make it shiny.
Now to eat before I hose my blood sugar levels or something.
I'm also up to three students friend requesting me on facebook, which is some kind of record for me. All three were awesome, so I've actually accepted them.
Beyond that, the semester got me into some really bad food habits - I got up at 10:30, had coffee, and after playing around have realized that it's almost 2 and that I haven't actually eaten anything. It's been like this most of the semester. I've been getting up, having coffee, and then mentally pretending that the coffee (which I take black) is food until some point after normal people have eaten lunch, when I realize that I'm starving. And then I have a huge dinner and don't eat again until the next day. So I'm eating what amounts to probably three meals worth of food, just lumped together twice and mostly at dinner. And I wonder why (stress aside) my stomach has been so ripped apart painful ouch lately. I've got to cut this shit out and start eating on a more normal schedule again. It'll help me feel better when I exercise too.
Bad news on the academicjobsearchfront - the one school that had so far requested more info from Brownie apparently called everyone yesterday to set up MLA interviews and he didn't get a call. So that's out. That was also the only one in an honest-to-god city, so we're off to podunks now. I'm hating this, but more I'm hating what it's doing to Brownie - he's having a hard time not taking all the rejection personally (which is understandable even if it is a bad thing to do) and I just want to give him a really big hug, but really big hugs don't help anything (I'm doing it anyway). I'm scared to fucking death neither one of us will have a job come June first and won't know where our next paychecks are coming from. The current paychecks are already too small to be able to save anything as it is.
The noveling is going relatively well. I've got one conversation that I've already re-written twice to try and get it closer to right - I know I'll have to revise it again later, but it has to end in the right place and have gone in the right directions or it'll screw a bunch of things up. But I'm still plugging away (often til 3am or so), and really am enjoying it. I'm hoping I can have near a draft ready by Christmas so I can take some time away to do the dissertation and then return to it and see if I can make it shiny.
Now to eat before I hose my blood sugar levels or something.
Friday, December 4, 2009
In which I post for the sake of posting
I just realized it's already December 4th and I haven't posted in this thing once so far this month. So I am posting now, with no idea what to write about.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY H0RS!! :)
We're forecast to get snow tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers. I'm usually well into my "SNOW DAMMIT NOW NOW NOW" phase by now, but I sort of missed November - as in, I still keep trying to write October on things and have yet to come to terms with the fact that it's already (as mentioned) December 4th. In missing November - mostly from NaNo but also from the warm temperatures (my region just had the warmed November on record) - I didn't get going on the snow crazies quite as early. This is good. It would be awesome to get some snow before I really started looking for it. It honestly looks like it could snow right now - the sky has that flat light gray that tends to happen right before the flakes start falling, but it's still about 10 degrees too warm.
And lo, it will be beer o'clock shortly, I've yet to even begin my final pile of grading for the semester, I need to clean the litter box and I've yet to have the beginnings of a clue as to what would make an interesting blog post for right now. So I'll give this up for the moment and hope to be interesting later. Or tomorrow. Or maybe I'll shove my nose back in my NaNo project - I figured out that the reason one of the scenes felt stilted is because at least one of the characters is not at all acting like herself and I need to fix that.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY H0RS!! :)
We're forecast to get snow tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers. I'm usually well into my "SNOW DAMMIT NOW NOW NOW" phase by now, but I sort of missed November - as in, I still keep trying to write October on things and have yet to come to terms with the fact that it's already (as mentioned) December 4th. In missing November - mostly from NaNo but also from the warm temperatures (my region just had the warmed November on record) - I didn't get going on the snow crazies quite as early. This is good. It would be awesome to get some snow before I really started looking for it. It honestly looks like it could snow right now - the sky has that flat light gray that tends to happen right before the flakes start falling, but it's still about 10 degrees too warm.
And lo, it will be beer o'clock shortly, I've yet to even begin my final pile of grading for the semester, I need to clean the litter box and I've yet to have the beginnings of a clue as to what would make an interesting blog post for right now. So I'll give this up for the moment and hope to be interesting later. Or tomorrow. Or maybe I'll shove my nose back in my NaNo project - I figured out that the reason one of the scenes felt stilted is because at least one of the characters is not at all acting like herself and I need to fix that.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Buh?
The NaNo verification thing came up with something like 300 more words than I thought I had. Strange. Not complaining, just mildly confused. I still can't believe I have 50k - all I can think about is all the stuff that still needs to happen (like introducing the MC's cat, which does need to happen, or, um, any sort of denouement which is still realistically 15K away at least). Also, I almost don't even want to think about revisions except that I want to keep writing to get the draft done so that I can take some time away from it (er, um - write my dissertation) so that I ca get back to it with better, fresher eyes and revise and revise and revise. And then if my ego has gone insane, see what I can do with it.
Realistically, the story isn't done yet. Not really even all that close. If I keep the word count for the fourth part of the book in the same area as the other three, it should be about 15K or so, but I've already got 5K and it feels like there's more than 10K left to do. We'll see.
Thank goodness for low-key Thanksgiving breaks - that's the only way this thing is as far as it is right now. If I could only have another 3 months of this, I'd be golden. Unfortunately, the emails from students are starting to pile up as they stress out about the last week of classes, and at some point I really do need to remember that I'm *supposed* to be a graduate student.
Real life blows. November has been a fun fake life month.
Realistically, the story isn't done yet. Not really even all that close. If I keep the word count for the fourth part of the book in the same area as the other three, it should be about 15K or so, but I've already got 5K and it feels like there's more than 10K left to do. We'll see.
Thank goodness for low-key Thanksgiving breaks - that's the only way this thing is as far as it is right now. If I could only have another 3 months of this, I'd be golden. Unfortunately, the emails from students are starting to pile up as they stress out about the last week of classes, and at some point I really do need to remember that I'm *supposed* to be a graduate student.
Real life blows. November has been a fun fake life month.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
a propos of some great romantic tale
I've hit the point with the NaNo that it's been going along blisteringly quickly (well, sort of - I haven't had to be on campus since Monday afternoon and so I've been glued to my computer transcribing the conversations in my head) until late last night. Thursday night was particularly awesome. Something about turkey nomming and staying up until 3am writing was awesome - there's actually some sort of a chance that I'll hit 50K by the end of the month. Weirdness. I really didn't think I'd get anywhere near that.
Anyway, so I finally hit the point where I could reintroduce the romantic interest to the MC and I've realized that what I'm attempting to do is more or less a combination of Jane Austen's Persuasion and the film Before Sunset (the Before Sunrise part, as long as I'm thinking of it in those terms, is mixed in via flashbacks to the first part of the book. I think. It's all written out separately and waiting for me to figure out how to order it in). Part of me is amused by this since I'm roughly the age of the protagonists of Before Sunset and only a year older that Miss Anne Eliot - I find myself wondering if there's something about hitting almost-30 that makes one prone to reexamining those first loves (recognizing at the same time that Austen herself was well beyond 30 when she actually wrote Persuasion, but, you know, details or whatever). Maybe there really aren't any new ideas at all anymore (not that I ever thought I was covering anything new).
The other thing that I think is sort of strange about all of this is that I didn't have one of those grandly all-encompassing loves when I was in my very early 20s that I could then reflect back on now. I've certainly spent time rethinking the old romances, but part of that has happened in realizing that I never had one of the really big crazy "I'm devoting my whole soul to you" type romances at a young age. I was prone to the occasional life-threatening crush, especially on one particular guy in college with these ridiculously blue eyes who was kind enough to be friends with me but never take me to bed. He treated the women he dated really badly (he was hot, knew he was hot, and responded to this by cheating on his girlfriends all the time), and so I think I was really lucky that I never got mixed up in any of that. The way things were, he just got to be a crush. We used to walk to class together when we both lived in the dorms, just talking about whatever, and I remember really specifically one hangover where I ran into him in the cafeteria right before it closed as I was attempting, in my pajamas, to convince myself that if I were to eat some scrambled eggs that they'd stay down. He took pity on me, sat with me while I ate (erm, attempted to eat) and regaled me with a few of his choicer hangover stories. He knew I thought he was gorgeous (I told him so at the bus stop one day after an English class) - he probably just enjoyed having an ardent (if nauseous) audience for his stories. We managed to overlap at parties all the way through college, and through some weird accident he ended up seated directly behind me at graduation (a good feat, given there were something like 6,000 people graduating that day and we weren't the same major). For all that, I don't think we ever even hugged. I have no clue what happened to him, and no desire to find out. It's interesting to me though that when I think through this, he's the one that comes to mind - not any of the guys I actually dated or loved or anything else - what I think of is the almost- but ultimately un-attainable crush.
Brownie forever says that I'm not a romantic. I can't decide if I think he's right or not. I know romance as such is something that I tend to keep very much internalized - it's there, but no one, often even my husband, really experiences it - and Brownie's experienced more of it than anyone else. I'm nervous to death to let anyone else read the NaNo writings because so much of the internalized romance is out there, even if in the muted, disillusioned way that I usually externalize it - that sort of mode that is captured so masterfully in the texts mentioned above (and which I would dearly love to kid myself I'd be someday capable of imitating). I don't know what it says about me that I was in love with Persuasion by the end of junior high but didn't discover cheesy high school romance novels until late in grad school (although who am I kidding - it's partially to figure that shit out that I'm scribbling this all down now).
Dammit. I feel like I had it for a moment, but lost it as I was typing out that last parenthetical. Keep thinking.
Maybe what I really like is the idea of being able to (re)gain a sense of romance after severe disillusionment or disappointment - the idea that love doesn't end with high school or college, that love stories are just as potent (if not moreso, more honest) when we've experienced enough to have a better sense of what's out there and how great and terrible it can be. That when we're smarter and jaded about everything, there can still be that magic. It may be harder to find, but that might make it all the more wonderful.
Anyway, so I finally hit the point where I could reintroduce the romantic interest to the MC and I've realized that what I'm attempting to do is more or less a combination of Jane Austen's Persuasion and the film Before Sunset (the Before Sunrise part, as long as I'm thinking of it in those terms, is mixed in via flashbacks to the first part of the book. I think. It's all written out separately and waiting for me to figure out how to order it in). Part of me is amused by this since I'm roughly the age of the protagonists of Before Sunset and only a year older that Miss Anne Eliot - I find myself wondering if there's something about hitting almost-30 that makes one prone to reexamining those first loves (recognizing at the same time that Austen herself was well beyond 30 when she actually wrote Persuasion, but, you know, details or whatever). Maybe there really aren't any new ideas at all anymore (not that I ever thought I was covering anything new).
The other thing that I think is sort of strange about all of this is that I didn't have one of those grandly all-encompassing loves when I was in my very early 20s that I could then reflect back on now. I've certainly spent time rethinking the old romances, but part of that has happened in realizing that I never had one of the really big crazy "I'm devoting my whole soul to you" type romances at a young age. I was prone to the occasional life-threatening crush, especially on one particular guy in college with these ridiculously blue eyes who was kind enough to be friends with me but never take me to bed. He treated the women he dated really badly (he was hot, knew he was hot, and responded to this by cheating on his girlfriends all the time), and so I think I was really lucky that I never got mixed up in any of that. The way things were, he just got to be a crush. We used to walk to class together when we both lived in the dorms, just talking about whatever, and I remember really specifically one hangover where I ran into him in the cafeteria right before it closed as I was attempting, in my pajamas, to convince myself that if I were to eat some scrambled eggs that they'd stay down. He took pity on me, sat with me while I ate (erm, attempted to eat) and regaled me with a few of his choicer hangover stories. He knew I thought he was gorgeous (I told him so at the bus stop one day after an English class) - he probably just enjoyed having an ardent (if nauseous) audience for his stories. We managed to overlap at parties all the way through college, and through some weird accident he ended up seated directly behind me at graduation (a good feat, given there were something like 6,000 people graduating that day and we weren't the same major). For all that, I don't think we ever even hugged. I have no clue what happened to him, and no desire to find out. It's interesting to me though that when I think through this, he's the one that comes to mind - not any of the guys I actually dated or loved or anything else - what I think of is the almost- but ultimately un-attainable crush.
Brownie forever says that I'm not a romantic. I can't decide if I think he's right or not. I know romance as such is something that I tend to keep very much internalized - it's there, but no one, often even my husband, really experiences it - and Brownie's experienced more of it than anyone else. I'm nervous to death to let anyone else read the NaNo writings because so much of the internalized romance is out there, even if in the muted, disillusioned way that I usually externalize it - that sort of mode that is captured so masterfully in the texts mentioned above (and which I would dearly love to kid myself I'd be someday capable of imitating). I don't know what it says about me that I was in love with Persuasion by the end of junior high but didn't discover cheesy high school romance novels until late in grad school (although who am I kidding - it's partially to figure that shit out that I'm scribbling this all down now).
Dammit. I feel like I had it for a moment, but lost it as I was typing out that last parenthetical. Keep thinking.
Maybe what I really like is the idea of being able to (re)gain a sense of romance after severe disillusionment or disappointment - the idea that love doesn't end with high school or college, that love stories are just as potent (if not moreso, more honest) when we've experienced enough to have a better sense of what's out there and how great and terrible it can be. That when we're smarter and jaded about everything, there can still be that magic. It may be harder to find, but that might make it all the more wonderful.
Monday, November 16, 2009
But it was going so well...
I need a little writer's blocked smiley icon to put here or something. I haven't written much of anything since Friday. I *tried* to write last night, but managed something like 350 words of utter shit that will be deleted and gave up. I haven't counted those words toward the word count. I've got 2 different storylines going that need to be wrapped up to a certain point before I can launch into the last major plot arch. One of the storylines doesn't seem like it should be too difficult but for some reason I'm having issues with just getting writing down. The other storyline needs to incorporate the MC's new cat, new apartment, new job, new friends and new etc before I can introduce the love interest. I've gotten the friends about halfway in (insofar as they're introduced) and I've seen the cat once. She's gotten the job but hasn't started it. She's met her soon-to-be landlord's German Shepherd but doesn't know where she'll be living at the moment. It's like I know what I need to have happen but actually writing it all is just NOT. WORKING. I guess I'll go back to trying to slam through the rest of the other storyline first so that I can catch everything up to where I am now in storyline 2 and then go from there.
I doubt most of that will make any real sense. I'm just trying to get a bit of the frustration out so that maybe I can get something more written in an attempt to catch back up. I kinda feel like once I get the love interest involved it'll get easier to write, but I don't feel like I should start his section until I've gotten through the rest of it so that I know exactly what sort of mental/emotional state the MC is in when she meets him.
Also, kitty went to the vet on Friday due to continued UTI-type stuff. They took a urine sample and an earwax sample and I'm currently sitting around and waiting for a phone call from the vet to tell me what's going on. I hate waiting. I hope she's okay. She's not dealing with the antibiotics well - she keeps puking.
I doubt most of that will make any real sense. I'm just trying to get a bit of the frustration out so that maybe I can get something more written in an attempt to catch back up. I kinda feel like once I get the love interest involved it'll get easier to write, but I don't feel like I should start his section until I've gotten through the rest of it so that I know exactly what sort of mental/emotional state the MC is in when she meets him.
Also, kitty went to the vet on Friday due to continued UTI-type stuff. They took a urine sample and an earwax sample and I'm currently sitting around and waiting for a phone call from the vet to tell me what's going on. I hate waiting. I hope she's okay. She's not dealing with the antibiotics well - she keeps puking.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Scribbling away
I've hit a pretty good stride with the NaNo. I have a hard time writing during the day (or even really during hours I should even be awake). However, I end up thinking a lot about where I am in the novel so that I have a lot to write when I'm feeling writerly, and consequently have hit the just over 10,000 word mark. YAY! I can't believe I've made it so far already. Also, I have a tentative possible title that will change 800 more times because I'm terrible at titles. Terrible. Horrible.
And I perused the NaNo forums long enough to realize that I'm writing LitFic, which probably shouldn't be a surprise. I seem to fall under the category of "by the time you take out all the SRS BZNS themes, it's about a girl who does stuff." I hope I don't come across as a wanker. Or even if I do, I hope it's readable wanking instead of hyper-pretentious wanking.
Taking a brief noveling break this afternoon to make dinner for Brownie's parents. I've dismembered a pumpkin, roasted it, roasted the seeds, and turned part of the pumpkin into ravioli filling. The rest will probably be fed via teaspoons to the cats or turned into pumpkin bread. Brownie's starting the pasta dough now. Then we'll roll out the dough, slap the filling in, cut the ravioli up, cook it and serve it in a brown-butter sage sauce. With pumpkin seed garnish.
And typing that out and realizing that the only thing I've had to eat today is a raisin bran muffin with my coffee, I'm thinking I should go eat. Or at least demolish half the pumpkin seeds.
And I perused the NaNo forums long enough to realize that I'm writing LitFic, which probably shouldn't be a surprise. I seem to fall under the category of "by the time you take out all the SRS BZNS themes, it's about a girl who does stuff." I hope I don't come across as a wanker. Or even if I do, I hope it's readable wanking instead of hyper-pretentious wanking.
Taking a brief noveling break this afternoon to make dinner for Brownie's parents. I've dismembered a pumpkin, roasted it, roasted the seeds, and turned part of the pumpkin into ravioli filling. The rest will probably be fed via teaspoons to the cats or turned into pumpkin bread. Brownie's starting the pasta dough now. Then we'll roll out the dough, slap the filling in, cut the ravioli up, cook it and serve it in a brown-butter sage sauce. With pumpkin seed garnish.
And typing that out and realizing that the only thing I've had to eat today is a raisin bran muffin with my coffee, I'm thinking I should go eat. Or at least demolish half the pumpkin seeds.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
This Whole Noveling Thing
I can't work on it while Brownie's in the room. I almost can't work on it when he's in the apartment unless he's asleep. He's completely supportive about this whole idea, but I'm petrified to show him anything. I don't get myself on this one. I can't decide if I'm afraid that he won't like it or afraid that he actually will. Not that there's way too much to show him yet. Or that I'm writing in order, or have written enough of anything that it would make sense to anyone else.
I do like how the characters are only sort of paying attention to the personality traits I had listed for them. Certain things will work but as I get them in dialogue, they suddenly do something else and I find myself thinking 'okay, that made sense, but that wasn't what I was expecting.'
Finally, I wish I could get it out of my head that I'm just pretending to do this, or that I'm somehow pretending to write fiction just because I've never had a class in creative writing or really done all that much of it (see: failed attempts at bad poetry in high school). As I know from cooking, I don't need a class to become good at something. Maybe I have a block on this because it involves writing - like after all the college classes and grad school classes I don't feel like I should write anything that I haven't had lengthy discussions about beforehand.
So I lack self-confidence. Fuck it. That hasn't stopped me from doing things before, and I almost always lack self-confidence. Ergo, lacking self-confidence here shouldn't stop me from scribbling more. So what if I think I sound like an eighth-grader sometimes. That's what revisions are for, right?
I do like how the characters are only sort of paying attention to the personality traits I had listed for them. Certain things will work but as I get them in dialogue, they suddenly do something else and I find myself thinking 'okay, that made sense, but that wasn't what I was expecting.'
Finally, I wish I could get it out of my head that I'm just pretending to do this, or that I'm somehow pretending to write fiction just because I've never had a class in creative writing or really done all that much of it (see: failed attempts at bad poetry in high school). As I know from cooking, I don't need a class to become good at something. Maybe I have a block on this because it involves writing - like after all the college classes and grad school classes I don't feel like I should write anything that I haven't had lengthy discussions about beforehand.
So I lack self-confidence. Fuck it. That hasn't stopped me from doing things before, and I almost always lack self-confidence. Ergo, lacking self-confidence here shouldn't stop me from scribbling more. So what if I think I sound like an eighth-grader sometimes. That's what revisions are for, right?
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