Coming Back Down

After the four-day SCBWI conference that ended Monday, I'm getting back to my usual routine. Or rather a new routine. It's hard to come home from the conference and not be changed, at least a little, and it's been hard to get back to a routine of any sort for the past two days. Writing is--for the most part--a solitary endeavor, despite critique groups and writer friends and even an editor or agent. The writer is the one who does the job getting the thoughts from brain to paper. So now, after four solid days of being immersed in the children's writing business and all the people associated with it, I have to get back to work...by myself. After my first conference several years ago, I came home and said to Mr. GJ, "Now I know how doctors feel when they go to medical conventions, being surrounded by other people who do what they do." That doesn't happen often for writers, which is why I always feel I've reached a higher floor when I go to a conference. And then I come home, and feel like I'm back in the lobby again.

At this year's conference, I ended up talking to a few highly-esteemed and well-published authors, which I'd never done before (I'm soooo not good at the schmoozing professionals thing at which some other people seem to be naturals), I met new people, and I got to talk shop with and get encouragement from fellow writers. Now I'm back home, not talking to authors or meeting people or talking shop on a daily basis; it's just me and my keyboard. And as excited as I am to apply some of the things I learned about and thought about over those four days, I'm also feeling a bit deflated. And somewhat terrified. I mean, can I do this on my own? I sort of compare it to being in the hospital and getting constant attention and care (even though the nurses come to take your vitals in the middle of the night, but that's another story), and then you go home to recuperate, and you're on your own. In your own familiar surroundings, yes, but without the safety net of having others around who can help and support you (and give you pain medication when you need it).

I know Mr. GJ (and possibly my cats) are rooting for me, but after a few days at the conference of feeling like "yes, I can do this thing called writing a book, because I have ideas and people are encouraging me and as soon as I get home I'm going to apply all this info and energy!", I'm now home and without the constant support and energy of others around me, and can feel the familiar self doubt of "can I REALLY write a book...and have it be good?" starting to creep back in. Well, in a couple of days I'll be having coffee with a writer friend of mine who I haven't seen in a couple of years, and though she doesn't write children's books, it'll still be nice to talk shop with someone. It may not inflate me as much as the conference did, but it may be just enough helium to get my confidence floating again...

Back to the Storyboard...

Well, in case it isn't obvious by now, I'm no longer sticking to my self-imposed rule of only blogging when I've done some work on my book. It wasn't working for me, mostly because when I didn't write, I got frustrated when I felt I couldn't blog (especially during the height of my morning sickness for a few months), and when I didn't blog, I felt guilty that it was due to my not writing. So, though I was well-intentioned in thinking that each would provide incentive for the other, mostly what the whole thing was providing was guilt. So, I've given myself the freedom again to write and blog independently of each other--I think it'll be much more productive for me on both counts.

Today I did something with my writing that I haven't done in a while, and I've never done it with my current manuscript: I put it in storyboard form. Well, what I call a storyboard, anyway (it's far from an illustrative one, considering I can't draw much beyond stick figures). I have a large tri-fold display board that I used to set on an easel at pet adoption events when I was attempting to do pet photography for a while, and while I don't do the photography anymore, I figured I could at least get another use out of the board (the funny thing is, there are still animal photos affixed to the inside folds of the board). With my previous manuscript, I wrote out each chapter on a large Post-It note, then stuck them in numerical order on the board. Using different colored pens, I wrote out what happened (or was going to happen, for the ones I hadn't written yet) in each chapter, using a different color for each plot thread. In this way, I could really see how things arced or when I'd dropped a certain thread for too long, and it made me focus on meeting the goal for one chapter at a time, rather than worry about the entire book as a whole (at least initially). So, today I got as far as writing out the Post-Its for the chapters I've already written, but didn't get to block out the chapters I haven't written yet. I have a general idea of what I want to happen in the next few chapters, but I think it was a daunting task to figure out the rest of the book at the moment. It's okay, though; right now, one step, one chapter or one Post-It at a time is good enough for me. After all, after not writing at all for a few months, maybe it's better for me to try a lap or two rather than attempt to swim the English Channel my first time back in the water.

Reading, Writing, and Being Overwhelmed

I am now officially in pre-conference (that would be the SCBWI Summer Conference) overdrive. Now only 10 days away, each day, it seems, I wake up trying to decide if I should read a novel from the stack I've assembled (either written by authors who will be at the conference, or edited by editors who will be there), try to revise at least another chapter or two of my novel, or spend more time doing internet research on the agents and editors who will be there so I can focus on which workshops would be most appropriate for me--not just by subject matter, but also who would be the best fit editor or agent for my current manuscript. I already discovered publishing houses that I wouldn't submit to, either because they focus on picture books or "upper YA" (read: older than my intended audience), so now I can concentrate on other workshops. I think I've done more research this year than I ever have, I'm trying to read as many books as I can (in years past, I've bought books to have them signed by authors at the conference, then had them sit on my shelf until I had time to read them, but this year they will be read before they're signed), so the thing that seems to be suffering, if one can call it that, is the writing. You know, the whole reason I'm going to this conference in the first place...?

I'm trying not to beat myself up too much over this, but considering that one of the benefits of the conference is being able to submit to editors who at any other time are closed to unsolicited manuscripts, it would obviously behoove me to have a manuscript that's relatively close to being ready to send by the time I attend the conference. I would venture to guess that there are some people who wouldn't even consider going there with anything short of a completed manuscript, but fortunately or unfortunately, I'm not in that category myself. Thus far, there's only one year I attended the conference with a completed manuscript under my belt--and I got the worst, most devastating critique ever (that it was at least from an editor did not soften the blow). So, maybe that's a sign?? We shall see.

There are two more books I'd like to finish reading in the next 10 days, after reading two in the past two days, and then I hope to focus on my writing. I just read Tithe by Holly Black (my first Holly Black book), and my new current favorite book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I absolutely fell in love with this book, starting it last night and finishing it late this morning, and I cannot wait to hear him speak at the conference. I've heard him speak before, at the L.A. Times Book Festival a couple of years ago, and he was very funny (and very nice when I met him). He's delivering the first speech of the conference, which will definitely start things off with a bang. The funny thing about the conference this year, though, is although I'm absolutely excited about it, I've been experiencing some anxiety, too. Mostly about my critique, I think: who will it be with? Will it be on the first day, or will I have to wait until the last? Will he or she like it? I've had critiques before, but this is the first one with this manuscript since I got the devastating critque with it four years ago, before throwing (hiding?) it into a drawer and starting a major overhaul on it last year. Well, it's out of my hands at the moment, so all I can do right now is take a deep breath and wait. I wish I practiced yoga and/or meditation...is it too late to start in the next ten days?

What's In a Name?

I have vowed (to myself, anyway) that this blog will not become one about pregnancy, babies, and motherhood. After all, that's not the only thing going on in my life, and that's not why I started this blog in the first place. That doesn't mean that I'll never mention any of those subjects (kind of hard not to right now, especially when they have an effect on other things in my life), but I don't want to follow in the footsteps that people sometimes do, traipsing down the path to Babyville, never to be heard from again. Being pregnant and a mom is part of who I am and who I'll be, but it doesn't singularly define me. On the other hand, I once heard a popular YA author speak about her writing process, and she told the audience that one of the best things she ever did was hire a sitter outside of her home, so once she dropped her baby off she had her apartment to herself and could work in quiet without distractions. That really turned me off to her, and (maybe not so coincidentally) I haven't read any of her books since. I'd like to think that I'll find a happy medium between baby time and writing time--or am I being too idealistic??

Anyway, people have been asking me lately if my husband and I have chosen a name for our baby yet. We haven't (though even if we have, we already decided we're not telling anyone beforehand--more to avoid prejudgement ("eww, you're naming your baby THAT?") than superstition), but sometimes it can feel a bit daunting. Yes, I know it seems I'm contradicting what I said in the previous paragraph, as all this is about babies and has not much to do with writing. Well, I'm getting to that. See, while picking a name for a character isn't always easy, it seems much simpler than choosing a name for a real, live person. I have a list of potential character names on index cards that I've had for years, and whenever I hear or think of an interesting name, onto the card it goes. When I create a new character, sometimes names come first, and sometimes I have to try a few out before it seems "right" to me. I can make the name fit the character, or vice-versa. I can give a school nerd a cringe-worthy name, I can give the hunky captain of the swim team a sigh-worthy name, or I can give the villain of the book the name of someone who was mean to me in school. And I can match it up with any last name I want. Then, if it doesn't work, I can change it in the next draft (especially thanks to Ctrl + f!). However, it's a bit more complicated for a real person. First of all, the last name is already set, so I have to pick a first name that fits nicely with it. Then, I want to pick a name that's hopefully going to fit as a baby as well as an older person (someday, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to have a generation of seniors named Tiffani--no offense to any Tiffanis out there, btw). Then, it should be a name that both my husband and I like and will not get tired of saying, and on top of all that, it can't be one that is associated with anyone in my or my husband's life whom we don't like. Oh yeah, and it can't be the name of anyone's pet we know (there's a name I like, but someone we know has a cat with that name--it would be a bit awkward when that person asked us what our child's name was and we said "the same as your cat"), and we're trying to give the baby a name that no one in either of our families already has (as opposed to purposely naming a child after a relative, which right now we're not planning to do except in Hebrew after my mother, and how often would our kid be called by the Hebrew name?). Whew!

Compared to all this, picking a name for a character is kind of fun. Now, picking a book title is a whole other matter altogether...

Reunited...And It Feels So Good

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in some time--I sat and wrote! The last time I did a blog entry was April, and I think the last time I worked on my book was March, when I was also dealing with a wrist splint. The time gap this time, I'm happy to say, wasn't purely due to simple procrastination or even (not-so-simple) writer's block. Nope, this delay in large part can be attributed to the fact that I am, as they say, in the family way! Being pregnant in itself can be somewhat distracting (I've been reading waaaay too much about pregnancy on the internet as well as researching baby products), but I am only now coming out from under the cloud of morning sickness. There were some days during the past two months that I could barely move from the couch, where I lay curled up and nauseous, and was hardly thinking about writing, let alone actually doing it. Now, although I'm not entirely nausea-free, I'm feeling much better than I had been, and have recently been anxious to get back to my writing.

I'd bought a laptop prior to my trip back East about 2 1/2 months ago, hoping that during my trip I'd be so inclined to work on my story. Nope. Another reason I'd bought it was because Mr. GJ had been working at home a lot, and loud action movies on the TV in the living room were not conducive to my writing in the office (doors only helped so much--the living room and office share a wall), so the thought was that I'd be able to take a laptop anywhere I wanted to outside of the house. Then Mr. GJ wasn't working at home so often, and I wasn't much up to writing, anyway, so yesterday was the first time since I got the laptop that I was able to use it for the situation I'd bought it for. We're fortunate to have a room connected to our garage in the backyard, which we've set up as a sort of music room, complete with piano and futon, so I went out there, armed with some instrumental music (Aaron Copland and Tal Farlow, in case anyone's wondering), a big glass of water and my laptop, and aside from a couple of brief internet interruptions (for better or worse, we have internet access out there), I was able to revise/flesh out the chapter I'd most recently written, for a total of almost four new pages, almost doubling the previous length of that chapter.

Important things that came out of yesterday: I was happy with what I wrote (though we'll see if I feel the same way after my critique group reads it...), I realized once again how much I enjoy writing, I also realized that I'd missed my characters, and the whole laptop situation worked out beautifully (especially after I came inside at one point to be audibly accosted by some very loud metal music from the soundtrack of the project Mr. GJ was working on). For the first time in several months, I can say with much enthusiasm that I can't wait to get to my next chapter!

Reunions, Reunions

Lately there's been a mini-flurry of activity in my life associated with reunions. The first, in a few weeks, is actually one that I instigated. Thanks to Facebook (again!), I found a couple of people I'd worked with at UCLA at the pizza place (which apparently doesn't exist anymore--now I'm sad...), and a couple of them were in touch with other people we'd worked with, so I suggested we get together in Westwood for dinner (and Diddy Riese cookies, of course). One friend and I agreed to bring photos (which will either be hilarious or cringe-inducing), and I'm really looking forward to catching up with everyone. The next one is in about a month, and it involves a bit of travel, as it's a school reunion at a fundraiser for the small private school I attended from kindergarten through 6th grade. I have no idea who or how many people will be there, some of whom I haven't seen in maybe 30 years. There's a little more at stake emotionally with the second one, since it involves going back to my hometown (which I miss dearly from time to time), seeing parents of students who knew my mom but who might not know she died and having to talk about that a lot, and possibly seeing people who weren't necessarily nice to me during that time and wondering if we're both past that (I surely hope so, but I don't know).

I'm not as much of a nerd now as I was during my elementary school years (but I'm always afraid in situations like this that I'll still be thought of as one by some people), but I do weigh more and have a few more facial lines (at least I still have all my hair, which is probably not true for at least a few guys from my class). I'm more excited to possibly see some of these people (including my favorite teacher ever, who's getting a retirement tribute at this reunion) than I am my college friends, only because going to that school was such a profound experience for me, it's linked to my hometown, and I haven't seen a lot of them for sooooo long, but it also makes me a little more anxious. I mean, when the inevitable question "What do you do for a living?" comes up, I feel like I should have more to say than "I'm an as-yet unpublished children's author." (If I say "I'm a children's author," the next question is invariably "Oh, anything published?" This way I head off that question at the pass...) I'll be traveling without Mr. GJ, so I won't have him to lean on during this event or decompress with after it. I'll also be seeing some family during this trip, which can be fun but a bit nerve-wracking (depending upon exactly which relatives are there). I want to take a side trip into New York while I'm there, but am trying to figure out if it'll be logistically possible with my schedule. All of which adds to extra potential stress that I won't have with a simple jaunt over to Westwood for dinner.

Even if there is some anxiety attached with either reunion, though, the positive aspects still outweigh the negative ones. I can't wait to trade war stories of pizza ovens with my college co-workers, and when I go to the other reunion, I bet I'll manage to get some fun out of it even if a mean girl from 4th grade still sees me as someone to whom she can make nasty comments. After all, how often do you get to see your favorite teacher and see how people turned out after 30 years, all in the same place? It'll be a first for me!

To Read or to Write?

I'm taking my wrist for a test run at the keyboard right now. I took the splint off, but my wrist is a ghastly shade of purple-yellow bruising, and my mobility is limited. I really should go back for a follow-up with my doctor, but I've been putting it off. I'll give it another day or two sans splint and see how it feels.

Anyway, part of the reason I'm blogging is so I can put off making a decision about what to do at the moment. I've been kind of anxious to get back to writing, but have been hesitant to do so. I want to move forward in the revision, though I feel I need to address some issues in a previous chapter that were raised (rightfully so) by my critique group. (I haven't been able to quite convince myself that trying to solve a writing problem is a much better solution than avoidance--but I'm working on it...) I also want to do some reading, especially finishing up a book I'm currently in the middle of so I can start the new one by Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls. Besides that, I haven't been reading much lately, and I miss it. My favorite reading time is in bed before I go to sleep, either when Mr. GJ is on the computer or he's watching a movie in which I have no interest. It's also the time when I feel the least guilty about reading--I never seem to read in the middle of the day, because it seems like I should be doing any number of other things besides reading (like writing!), whereas at night, the only other thing I should necessarily be doing is sleeping.

On Friday night, I went to a book signing for Laurie Halse Anderson, which was great. She's very personable, and had some interesting things to say about teaching classic literature to kids (basically, that many books with fancy language aimed at adults--she used The Scarlet Letter as an example--make kids not like to read). As someone with a B.A. in English who had to read many a classic, I can attest that even in college, reading some of those books (or not reading them, as was sometimes the case with me) made me wonder why they were "classics" (though I still loved--and still do!--to read). Anyway, being at the signing made me want to go home and read as much as I could, maybe like continuing to work my way through the unread books on the shelves near my desk. However, it also made me want to go home and work on my manuscript ASAP, so I can finally move into the next phase of this whole process, which would hopefully be submissions to agents and/or editors.

Back in a bookstore yesterday to look for a particular non-fiction book, I found myself in the Children's area (as I invariably do). Once again, I found myself equally torn between wanting to go home and write my heart out, or wanting to curl up on the couch and quietly read for a couple of hours (never mind other things that have been calling out to me, like the dishes in the kitchen or the almost-overflowing hamper). I wish I could solve the problem by writing for a while, then reading a chapter or two until I'm ready to write a bit more, but I don't think my brain shifts gears that easily between the active and passive modes. Maybe I'll try it, anyway. I'll post back if it works...

Trying to Work Despite Distractions

I've heard a lot of writers, both published and un-, talk about all the ways they can become distracted from writing. Some distractions are unavoidable, such as children needing attention (if I was a kid who had a parent-writer at home, I'm sure I'd want attention, too, since the parent is right there), while others are sought out as a method of procrastination (reading blogs, perhaps?). I don't have children, but I have a husband who sometimes needs to know where something is (a fairly common occurance among husbands, I understand), and cats that waver between being completely independent (aloof? a cat??) and needing to be petted NOW, even if that means head-butting my hand while I'm trying to use the computer mouse or lying down on the desk between my hands and the keyboard. Shutting the office door doesn't do much, because then I get curious paws poking underneath (the cats', not the husband's), which serves as its own distraction. I read other writer's blogs, I check email, and now I have the greater distraction of Facebook (though I am trying to limit my daily dose of that).

Sometimes I have to look things up on the Internet for my story, but then I remember something else I want to look up, and the next thing I know I'm surfing way too much. However, I discovered something today: certain things can only distract you if you let them.

I was revising a chapter from the critique group comments I'd gotten, which was easier to deal with than I'd been afraid it would be (maybe the idea of revision in small pieces is generally better for me than being freaked out that I HAVE TO REVISE MY ENTIRE BOOK). While I was doing that, our 16-pound cat decided he needed some love, planting himself firmly on the desk and rolling a bit onto the keyboard (he can't help it--he's large). I swiftly transferred him to my lap, where he purred contentedly (and I ended up with a better-than-a-blanket lap warmer). I'd forgotten to close my email (I try not to keep it open while I'm working), so I heard the telltale "ding-dong" as I was typing, and somehow managed to resist the urge to click over and read it. I didn't feel like going on Facebook until I was done with the revision, because I didn't think that responding to a Mardi Gras "poke" would be as fulfilling as getting my chapter done. And I was right.

So, today's productivity--rounding out some things in my most recently-completed chapter that needed to be tweaked before I started the next chapter, for a total of one page. Extremely productive? No. But extremely unproductive? No. And that's the important thing. If I want to be working on my book, then I guess not much can distract me if I don't want it to, and I realized that I'd been pretty stuck lately, hence welcoming the distractions. I have a full day tomorrow with a tour at the Museum of Tolerance, but I'm already anxious to get back to my book as soon as I get home. Usually I'm too distracted after a tour (adrenaline after a good tour, frustration after a bad one) to even think about sitting down and writing, but I already want to tomorrow. And that's a nice change.

Feeling (Kinda) Groovy

I can be superstitious sometimes. Not with black cats, or walking under ladders (that just seems like a safety issue, anyway), but when it's Friday the 13th, I almost expect to have a bad day. Or maybe I'm just not surprised if I do. Today, however, was actually pretty good. I met my sister-in-law and her husband for lunch at a local hamburger institution that they'd never been to before, and it's always fun to introduce people to a place you love and have them enjoy it as well (and good food doesn't hurt, either). I knew it was supposed to rain today, so when I emerged from lunch and it had begun, I was prepared with my umbrella. When it really started to pour, I was already at home. There was lots of wildlife activity in the yard today (always seems to happen when it rains), and both the kitties and I were getting much enjoyment watching the scramble at the feeders through the window. I wrote a page before I left for lunch, and despaired that I wouldn't be able to finish the chapter by this afternoon, which wouldn't leave much for my critique group to read on Monday. Until now, I'd been giving them two chapters at a time, so having less than one full chapter was leaving me feeling under-accomplished. Until...

I got back from lunch, plopped myself down in front of the computer (having to move a very heavy and attention-needing cat off to the side of the desk), and started to type. Still without an outline, I was in slightly different territory from my previous draft (and not really able to use much at this point in the story from that previous draft), so in a way I was writing fresh. But not completely, and therein was the problem. Because I've been working on this novel on and off for a few years now, I'd write something that made me question whether it maintained proper continuity from something else, and then I'd try to remember if I was comparing it to something that happened earlier in the story, or simply in a previous draft. I was enjoying the actual writing! Then, the next thing I knew, I'd added in a section I hadn't planned on writing at all, and instead of dragging myself to the end of the chapter to get it done, I wrote two more pages than I'd been hoping for, and it didn't feel like I'd quickly wrapped up the chapter just to finish. Today's productivity--all new writing (which, I know, is part of the revision process), for a total of 5 pages.

And the best part is, it didn't suck! (Which for me, when I'm hurrying to try to meet a deadline--self-imposed or otherwise--is a big deal.) If I could get that total every day (or at least average that for the week), I'd be a happy camper right now, and hopefully put me at my goal of being done with this draft by mid-spring.

Not bad for a rainy Friday the 13th!

Feeling Overwhelmed...

To jump right into things, I wrote 2 1/2 pages today (so far). Am I feeling glad or even satisfied? Nope. I'm feeling, perhaps overexpectantly, that I should have 5, 10, even 15 pages a day. After all, this is what I'm supposed to be doing every day in lieu of a job at the moment. And it's not like I'm writing from scratch, I'm revising, right? Well, sort of.

The last 2 chapters I brought to my critique group were well-received, even though I felt like I rushed to finish the last few pages. I felt like I ended a chapter on a kind of cliffhanger, but more just to end it, rather than knowing where I was going with it. I had a month until my next critique meeting, so I figured I'd take care of it. One week went by, then two. Now, suddenly, I'm supposed to send my work via email sometime this week and meet next week. And I feel like I've got nothing real to read right now. I kept telling myself I needed a new outline, and then I'd know where I was going, and then I'd have fun on the ride, like the first time I wrote a draft of this story. Well, as of this morning, I still had no outline. I tried, surely, but staring at a blank screen that said "OUTLINE" at the top completely intimidated me, so I saved the document without actually entering anything else on the page. I decided I'd just write, NaNoWriMo style, and see what came out, figuring once I got going, my fingers would just fly across the keyboard and I'd have a great output, even if it wasn't great writing.

Not quite.

I guess a large part of the problem is that I feel like I should be beyond that stage, now, that I'm not supposed to be working on the "butt in chair" draft, where I just get something down on paper to get started. Right now I'm supposed to be working on the revision of that, where I hone and fine-tune and re-work what I already wrote. Well, there's a reason I haven't worked on this novel in a few years, and it's mainly that I knew it needed revision, but I didn't know what revision. And there are some things about my book that I've changed so drastically recently, I might as well be starting from scratch with some plotlines.

Some of this is impatience (I've heard that many authors-in-progress experience this); I'm tired of working on this and want to move on to the next step (for me, submission, either to an agency or publisher), and some of it is my feeling badly that it's taken me so long to put out what I feel is so little. Sure, there are authors that work on a book for 10 years, but those are sometimes 800-page historical novels, not under-200 page Young Adult books. I think I need to let go of the guilt and concentrate on the work, and enjoy the writing itself. After all, enjoying the writing is why I wanted to be doing this in the first place...

Biting the Bullet

Today, I did something that I had been putting off for a while now. It was something I thought maybe I'd do one day, but didn't know if I was quite ready to make the commitment. No, it wasn't redoing the outline for my novel (which has been screaming to me for the past few days). No, it wasn't rearranging my closet (which, believe me, also reeeeeaaaalllly needs to be done sooner than later). So, what was it?

I joined Facebook.

Now, to most people, this very well may seem like an insignificant thing, like cleaning out the lint trap each time you use the clothes dryer, or buckling your seat belt when you get into your car--a no-brainer--but for me, this was taking a plunge. There were decisions to be made: what photo to put up, how much info to include in my profile, things like that. As for the photo, well, I haven't liked photos of myself lately (I'm in the middle of a struggle to get in better shape--the word "diet" is off-limits), so how to decide to visually represent myself to people coming across my profile who may not have seen me for 20-plus years? I finally settled on one that I'm okay with, but still wish it was better. I haven't put any detailed info on there yet (how to decide what I want to convey will take a while, I'm sure), but what has sent me into a tizzy is trying to find people and "friending" them. So, I may want to see what the person who used to fall asleep in ninth-grade Earth Science is up to these days, but I can't view their profile unless I make a request to be added to their "Friends" list. Which means I can be rejected. Which is not good for my ego (there's a reason I write books for teenagers).

Also, I am the kind of person who, only when I got to college, did I grudgingly give up on the idea of trying to keep in touch with everyone I'd ever tried to keep in touch with, including people from summer camp and elementary school. Only, now I can try to find them again. Which means hours ahead of me trying to look up every name from my past that pops into my head. Which is a lot of names. A lot. I'm not trying to brag, I'm simply stating a fact that tons of names get stored in my brain and stay there (ask Mr. GJ), often much to my dismay. So there I was on Facebook this afternoon, finding such people as a guy I had a crush on in middle school, a guy I was inadvertently mean to in middle school (can't give any details, since I know I'll use it in a future book!), a girl I sat behind in chemistry, and people I did indeed go to summer camp with (none of my bunkmates, though--darn!). And then I typed in the name a girl whose name popped into my head because it was so distinctive, and though I think I only went to school with her for a year (maybe her family moved?) and she probably wouldn't remember me, suddenly her photo was onscreen. There she was, the same face I remembered from 30 years ago only older, and my brain almost exploded. Even as I'm typing this entry I've been intermittently checking names as I think of them.

Add to this fun-but-sometimes-mind-blowing activity the fact that decisions must be made, and I think by tomorrow I'll be on full overload. Here's the thing--my brother encouraged me to join, but he's the kind of person who would probably try to "friend" pretty much everyone he knows and not even think twice about it. I, on the other hand, find a name and mull it over, wanting to contact people I knew in high school, hoping they're over the high school "thing" and would be more tickled and curious to hear from me than repulsed. Not people I wasn't friends with at all (like people who were mean to me--yes, there were a few), but maybe people who were on the fringes of the "in" crowd (you know, that crowd I wasn't in), who I sat with in Spanish and were chatty with me in class if not outside of it. Or a few people who weren't necessarily friendly with me while we were in high school, but when I'd see them while I was home on break from college, we'd at least smile and say "hi" in recognition. If I tried to "friend" them, would they be past all the high school crap, or would they go running to their other friends and say "can you believe who just wanted to 'friend' me? Hahahahaha!" As if I wasn't anxious enough checking my email to see if the agency responded, now I get to also anxiously check to see if people have accepted my friend requests. Great.

Am I overthinking this? Probably. Am I thinking in this sort of detail about social relationships based on high school behavior even though we've hopefully all grown up from that because I'm a children's writer? I don't know...am I?

What I Love About Today

I love that it's 75 degrees today. In January.

I love that I didn't have to be home in front of my TV today to watch the inauguration (and that when I did watch it, I could shorten the 5 hours of coverage if I wanted to--though not by much, since I was fascinated by a large part of it, including the Carters' snub of the Clintons...cool!).

I LOOOOOOVE my DVR (or, the generic name for TiVo). LOVE IT.

I love that not only did I get goosebumps when I watched Obama get sworn in, but also when they showed Hillary Clinton getting seated. Say what you will about her, but think about it: this is a former First Lady who is about to be our Secretary of State. I may not love all her politics, but GO HILLARY! I really hope I get to see a woman elected as President in my lifetime...

I love that when I led a tour at the Museum of Tolerance this morning that I had an exceptionally diverse group of kids--Native Amerian, Russian, Korean, African-American, to name a few--and got to teach them about the importance of heritage and family stories in the "Finding Our Families, Finding Ourselves" exhibit. And that the teacher was telling me the things they were doing in class to further those studies and discussions. We have such a wonderfully rich tapestry of cultures in America...

I love that I could walk to the Post Office..because I wanted to, not because I had to. Not only do I live in a suburban area that allows a proximity to things like the post office and the grocery store, but I also get exercise while I drop off my Netflix envelopes.

I love that my car is 15 years old and has less than 96,000 miles on it.

I love being able to walk into different rooms of the house today and finding sleeping kitties spread out (you'd never know how much trouble they can get into when they're awake by looking at their adorableness when they're sleeping!).

I love that thanks to the Internet, I've been in touch with someone I went to elementary school with who is planning a reunion of sorts for the small private school we went to...and that I actually want to go! None of the insecurities (I feel old, I feel fat, I haven't done anything exciting with my life...) that made me NOT want to go to my high school reunion.

I love knowing that my husband is in the next room working from home today (even if he's watching a James Bond movie REALLY loudly!) and that I can just poke my head in there and smile and make him wonder why I'm poking my head in and just looking at him...

I love that despite a couple of things about my current critique group that I would love to be a litttle different (it takes me almost an hour to get there with no traffic, and we meet once a month, which is not great for deadline-needing me--see previous post about my Goldfish Theory), but they are incredibly intuitive, honest, and supportive. One person whose opinion I really value wrote a note that I didn't see until I got home which said "I think you've got a publishable manuscript here." Editors may not agree, but at least I'm feeling more confident about where things are going with my writing and with the writing itself. The manuscript isn't perfect yet, but it sure feels closer to being ready to send out than it ever has.

Hooray for today!

Three Things...

57 days...

When I look at the time gone by since I last wrote an entry, I cringe, so I'm not even going to discuss it. Well, maybe for a second. I mean, there are people who don't blog for even longer periods of time than that, but because I wanted to be able to write a blog entry every time I worked on my book, then that number represents the amount of time that I've neglected my revision (changing a word or two and adding a comma notwithstanding). And that's when the guilt sets in. In the meantime, though, I've made some forward progress, so it's time to blog--yay!

First things first: Recent productivity--combination of new stuff and reinsertion of old stuff, for a total of six pages. This was done yesterday, as I scrambled to submit to my critique group, which concretely proved why I need a critique group--because I need deadlines!! For me, time management has sort of been like a goldfish; the more room you give a goldfish, the bigger it supposedly grows, and the more time I have to do something, the more time I take (Mr. GJ was recently amazed when on vacation I took less than half the time to get ready that I usually do at home--which seems like it should be the other way around). If the only commitment I have is to myself, I don't seem to get things done. There's a lack of accountability that would be there if someone else was involved. Which I'm sure was the idea behind a little exercise we did at the Schmooze the other night, which was to break into small groups of three people or so and tell each other the writing goals we'd like to meet by the next Schmooze. This way, even if you don't end up in a group the next time with the same people, at least your goal is out there for someone (including yourself) to know about. My goal? To revise at least two chapters a month. With the mode I've been in lately, I really think that's do-able.

Which leads me to my second thing: the Schmooze. I am a recovering shy person, so at first it was extremely difficult for me to go to an event full of strangers where sometimes it seemed like everyone in the room but me was engaged in conversation. Now that I've been going to them on a fairly regular basis, there are people I recognize and say "hi" to but are not sure of their names (it's mutual), and there are a few people I know by name now, too. Sometimes even when I don't feel like the topic directly applies to me, I go anyway, if not for the social part of it than at least because maybe I'll find out about a great new website that someone mentions or something like that. If nothing else, it makes me continue to feel connected to the writing world and other writers even when I'm not particularly writing, and goodness knows I at least need that. Repeat after me: I am a writer even if I'm not published yet. I need to keep reminding myself...

My third thing: I sent a submission two days ago--WOO HOO!! Thanks to the encouragement of a couple of people at the Schmooze (see, this is why I continue to go to Schmoozes!), I submitted to an agency. A small step, but a big one for me, especially considering I've been working on novels for over 5 years now and have never sent anything out (I sent out a couple of picture books before I started novels, but I try not to think about those... *shudder*). Now I have to really get my butt in gear and crank up those revisions!

I told Mr. GJ that I felt like I wasn't quite back into the swing of things, that I felt like I was on the onramp about to get onto the freeway, but I wasn't at full speed just yet. I sure hope my car accelerates steadily--and soon!