where have we been?

Of course I mean the royal "we". Since it's been nigh on 4 years since my last post, I thought it might be something to resurrect the ol' girl. After all, I finally "finished" my BIP (Book in Progress, for those not in the know) and have been lackadaisically submitting it to literary agents with the encouragement of the excellent Ms. Reisman. A couple months ago I also started a YA novel, which I unfortunately put on hold to do more tweaking and revisions of Ambrose's story. Not much time to write a full post now, but I swear I'll be back! And soon!

yippee skippy!

so to go along with my excitement for blogher next week, apparently i won a gift certificate to p&g. suh-weet! i'm already thrilled about seeing all my peoples and meeting some new ones, reconnecting with the folks i met last year, the parties, the swag, the sessions! only one week from today & i'll be there. only 2 more full work days, too.
speaking of work days, i'll only be working a half day on friday because s asked me to come with him to the sending off ceremony of his old battalion. the 832nd are being deployed to afghanistan and i'm glad to be able to take the morning off to wish them a safe journey. it also happens to be the largest deployment of iowa soldiers since wwii. both s & my brother were in iraq with combat engineer battalions and i am so glad that neither of them will be sent back again. s was out as of january this year and my brother decided not to re-up after my sil found out she was pregnant.
here's to the brave soldiers: we support you!

wow, that devolved into a pretty serious and sappy post. i'll be sure to keep it more peppy the next time.

suck it!

man, do i suck at this! going to blogher in 3 weeks and i haven't put up more than 2 posts in the last 2, oh, make that 3 months. yeesh!
i'd like to say that work (boss has been mia off and on since the beginning of the year & we've had 3 new people to train. guess who most of that responsibility falls on?), the (town)house (so many more places to get messy that need picking up!), the puppy (stop sleeping on our bed! 2 goodly-proportioned adults & a 25lb dog do not fit well on a full-size bed) and my health (after 9-ish years, my gi doctor no longer knows what to do with me & wants to either pass me on to mayo clinic or another large hospital because he's exhausted all treatment options for me with my gi-induced excruciating joint pain) are all to blame.
weee! what an interesting life i/we lead. thought i would be able to get back into the swing of things and work more on my bip, revising and whatnot. possibly even working on the 2nd book in the series that i started just after finishing up with the draft of the first one. or maybe even getting down to the nitty-gritty and submitting to publishers. yeah, right!
but that doesn't mean things aren't going swimmingly here in i-o-way. in fact, despite the work stress, house stress, health stress i feel in a good place. life really truly is good and i can't wait to see my ladies in nyc! so excited!
more again soon; i promise.

in the saddle

this is yet another (hopefully not in vain as it's been over a month since my last blog post) attempt to rejoin the blogosphere. work has been more than a pain lately (case in point, i received a text message from my boss on thursday at 5 to 8am that she was on her way to california & wouldn't be back until unofficially leaving me in charge. also friday was supposed to be the last day for a coworker who started in february, but then was poached by one of the clinic doctors as a research assistant; she only committed to working as a scheduler for a year when she started because she was eventually going to grad school. not cool.)
despite the pressures of the 'real world' and not winning the lottery (how many times must a i hear 'you have to play to win!), i would like to resume working on my bip and possibly getting back into the swing of blogging. the new house seems to have drained any ambition from me once i get home from the daily grind, but i don't consider that to be too much of a bad thing. we've now lived here for over 2 months and it was such a good decision! i barely remember the apartment i spent 8 years in; this feels so much like home. we still have yet to put anything on the walls, but we now have grown-up living room furniture (an awesome entertainment console, new couch, chair-and-a-half and a beautiful matching ottoman). next step is to clean up the 2nd bedroom, which has become the catch-all room. and we're saving our change and recycling money to buy an actual bed/headboard set. whee! we're grown-ups. sortof.

5 years

today is grover's first birthday. can't believe my baby puppy is a whole year old and that we've had him for almost 10 months. (at the moment, he's hanging over the arm of the couch and digging through his toy box for something else to play with.)
i also realized that i missed my 5 year blogiversary. apparently i started blogging in january of 2005. whoa! that's kindof unbelievable. and it makes me think i'd better get back on this blogging horse for the umpteenth time. perhaps i'll have something of a portfolio or theme by the time blogher rolls around. or at least get back to work on my book i haven't touched in over a year. yowza! bad mar!

the air up here

we're on the 30th floor here at the sheraton & about 9 times out of ten when we step on the elevator to get to our room, my ears pop. apparently the altitude is too high for me.
blogher has both surprised and disappointed me. along with bringing me to tears, making me laugh until my sides hurt (& tears run down my face), intimdated and inspired me. writing is such a tortuous experience for me. this probably explains why i haven't so much as touched my book since december even though it needs major tweaks and editing.
yesterday was great fun and the keynote speakers, every last one, were incredible. i'm still feeling a bit squiffy about handing out my cards to people, be they 'famous' or completely unknown to me. there's the idea that has wormed its way into my subconscious after years of inferiority complex that i am not worthy (ala wayne's world) & i don't know if i want anyone reading/judging my whinging. this was part of the discussion in the lifeblogging session yesterday afternoon: basically why do you have to justify your posts when they are addressing your life? and yet, i feel the need to do it. it's probably a large part of the self-deprecating humor that i've used as a protective shield for as long as i can remember. (not that there's anything wrong with things like sarcasm; i enjoy it in other people but there's a fine line you can cross so easily with a slip of the tongue.)
i honestly need to get over this and i also need to be more diligent in writing either on the first book or even get back to doing the researching/writing on the second one. we shall see how this goes once i get home tomorrow. life has changed immensely with s moving in so maybe i can dedicate more time to other important aspects of my life that i've neglected lately.

on my way!

i've now ordered some cards for blogher to pass out in case anyone wants my details. guess i'd better get to it and start blogging some more substance.



i'm extremely excited and anxious at the same time! for now, i'll just anticipate the long holiday weekend, so i don't worry myself sick.

1st rejection

just over 2 hours turnaround time for my 1st rejection (e-mail).

"So sorry your submission isn’t one for me. Interesting, but I’m afraid I don’t love its premise quite enough to feel I can represent it successfully for you."

ack!

i just hit 'send' on the first (e-)submission of my manuscript. omigosh! omigosh! now i sit & wait for a response/rejection. okay, well i'm in the thick of it now. after procrastinating for months about making the first submission-this to a literary agent- here we go.
i certainly don't expect a positive offer on my first go-around, but i feel a little dizzy that i actually did it. took nearly 4 years to write the thing & now it's mostly out of my hands until someone picks it up & then i'll have to start the editing process.
*sigh*
can i go home now? i'm exhausted. and more than a little nauseous.


greenhouse literary

i'm ever so cumorous

apparently this fantastic new word is an amalgamation of cute and humorous. on his way out from my apartment last night, s ended up combining those words. we had lasagna at my place while watching little britain: live, then he took me downtown to coldstone. i tried & decided on the blueberry muffin batter with pecans (like banana-nut or cranberry walnut muffins-it was tasty!) and he had cake batter with brownie & cookie dough mix-ins. it was a fun night. and my friend h agrees that cumorous is the word for me, now that she knows that word.
tomorrow i start my online class in medical coding. it's only 6 weeks-twelve lessons, but i wonder how difficult it’s actually going to be. people spend 18 months, at least to get a degree in coding. this will only be for a “certificate”, but i'm hoping that it’ll be a nice bump on my résumé since i'm in the market for a job in the insurance claims/billing department. is it so wrong that i want to work closer to home? (yeah, yeah, my 30 minute walking commute would be cut in half, poor baby) there’s not much option besides staying in the university system because i cannot give up a job with benefits this good. (my every <2 month infusions cost around $5000 a pop, so i can’t exactly lose or risk changing my insurance. i only have to make a $10 co-pay on them & i know people who have to pay $400 or more each session.) if i went to the business office, i'd be taking a slight pay cut to start because of a change in job titles, but if it was something i liked better & stayed in that position would end up with a higher salary in the long run. maybe the pros outweigh the cons. i need to get out of here before i get a lateral promotion with no recognition & more stress/responsibility that i have no desire to take on when my coworker graduates from nursing school next spring.
the problem is, i just don’t know what i want to do when i grow up. even on the off chance i get this book published & start writing the second one, i don’t see it as a full-time occupation. partly because of the insurance thing & also because i can’t see it as a ‘steady’ income.
wait, what happened to me being cute & humorous? when did this turn into a whinging session? i had a pretty fantastic & relaxing weekend, besides devouring a teen vampire novel, working overtime, hitting the farmer’s market, got to spend plenty of time with s when he was home in the evenings after drill. we even went to a concert on saturday. and on friday night before falling asleep we talked for about an hour & he wanted to know if he treated me okay. he should have asked that after covering me in silly string on sunday night when i walked in the door to his apartment. it's getting there. after all, how can he resist someone as cumorous as i am?

meet ambrose

hi, i'm ambrose dossel! read about my accidental trip through time when maren publishes her first book. coming soon!

don't get your hopes up

that statement seems so apropos for quite a few things right now. the whole situation with s (he came over for dinner at my place last night & we had dinner on thursday, friday & saturday-leftovers from friday. fri/sat were at his suggestion & he's started to initiate a friendly kiss, not just on the cheek. i don't want to hold out any hope for what that means; i'm just going to enjoy & not question it).
whew! that was a long parenthetical!
other things not to get too high of hopes: the wedding this weekend. not that i don't think it'll be a great event, but the only people i care about seeing that much are the bride & groom & my mom. no offense to everyone else, but it's a lot of stress to put on a brave face for people who are bound to ask me about my status. that's what wedding's are for, right? making people uncomfortable? i'm so eloping if it ever comes to it.
and speaking of my status, i guess i could just segue into my book when people ask me what i'm doing. then again, if i do that, they'll ask if i have a publisher. i know i do have a captive, age-appropriate audience (a coworker's 2 daughters) eager to read it, but the whole process of getting this (as yet untitled) book published is going to drag out, if it ever happens at all.
really, this isn't a moody post, even if the ending felt like it. i'm pretty content. things could always be better, but i'm fairly solid where i am right now.

task list

a coupla things i've gotta do in the semi-near future, in no particular order:

revise 25k words
set up chapter breaks
chapter titles
research relevant publishers
find a critique group
request submission requirements
format manuscript
query letters

oh, and maybe come up with a title for the d@mn thing!

25k pyramid

i'm done! i finished writing my bip!
at least the story part is finished. i still have mucho revision to do, but i can't believe i did it. i wrote a book. whoa!
now comes the hard part, as suzanne pointed out.

so tgif

i am so incredibly relieved that it's friday. it's been yet another long week. i still find myself exhausted from the all-day infusion on wednesday. doesn't help that i bashed my head into a metal shelf in the bathroom while i was there infusing. derrr...
long, long weekend with no plans. other than to write, that is. hopefully i can manage to get a big chunk done on these three days. over two thousand words written this past week. now if only this headache would go away...

um

er, i've got nothing. my focus for the past 10 days has been on writing more. i've definitely surpassed my daily hundred words, which is encouraging to me, but i want to finish it so badly! i mean, i want to know what happens! i don't know exactly how this is going to turn out, plotwise. i don't know if i can last the 10-12weeks i think it's going to take to finish it.
then there's the revision & the rejection from shopping it around, all after i've researched the market. gah!

3 down, 3 to go

today it's been 3 months since the breakup. my friend chris promised me (when he was drunk, mind you) that it'd all be okay in 6 months. halfway through, i guess. the friendship part is going okay, but the physical attraction is practically killing me!
on the other hand, i've written more than 800 words this week, easily fulfilling my 100 word/day minimum. to the writers out there, 800 is nothing, but my friends seem to think that's an insanely unreachable goal. lots of the 'writing' thus far has been mere tweaks and twitches of the stuff i'd already written. this is good because i think it's actually making it better. i've never been a fan of the editing & proofreading process of my own work. soon i'll have to get back to the main meat of the story to move it along. halfway through that part too, i suppose.
best get back to it & do a bit more tonight. then maybe an early evening for a drink with a friend or two. have a lovely friday, all!

appreciation

so in very few posts on her new blog, sullivan has shown that she's wise beyond her 24 years. her comment about losing s's 'conditional affection' versus having his unconditional love sortof struck a chord. everyone has given me such good, thoughtful advice & i appreciate it so much.
thank you suz, des, amo, jackie, suebob, mdog & everyone else, lurking or otherwise in my life. despite this whinging getting me more comments than i've ever had, i really am doing my best to move beyond this & focus on other things. get my life in order, as much as anyone really can. s has to do that too & perhaps we'll be friends once we get to the other side. my new philosophy, & don't take this as a negative, is 'maybe, maybe not'.

long time comin'

i just opened up a file on my zip drive and it said i had last accessed it on 5.3.2007. i can hardly believe that because it means i haven't worked on my bip (book-in-progress) in a whole year. how is that even possible? definitely a sign that the past year has passed me by. that doesn't mean that it wasn't a really excellent year (or at least the 9 months before the past three break-up months), but like suebob commented 'keep moving forward'
i'll try.

and without further ado here's the first paragraph of my bip for your consideration.

"Ambrose Dossel hurtled back against the wall from the force of the explosion. His headphones dangled precariously from around his neck, and he felt a little singed around the edges. Not really burnt, the way he liked his hotdogs. It was more of a warm tingly sensation, similar to standing too long in front of an open oven or campfire. Shaking his head to clear his ringing ears, Ambrose cautiously opened his eyes to seek the source of the blast. And then he rubbed them with the back of his hand in disbelief. Before him, in his very own bedroom, sat a strangely glowing object roughly the size and shape of a large soda bottle. It hovered in the midst of scattered books, CDs and the dirty laundry he had neglected to pick up the night before. The glowing shape bobbed a bit as it radiated a wide array of changing colors. Blues and greens, pinks and reds, turquoise and heliotrope flashed on the walls."

btw, if you hadn't noticed, this isn't the great american novel. it's a children's book.