Literary Woes, I suppose

I am having a difficult time getting my hands on a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I find this frustrating. I need more than the scant amazon.com preview, which begins with this fascinating line:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. Never was this truth more plain that during the recent attacks at Netherfield Park.

And continues with such gems as:

“What an excellent father you have, girls!” said she, when the door was shut. “Such joys are scarce since the good Lord saw fit to shut the gates of Hell and doom the dead to walk amongst us. Lydia, my love, though you are the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next ball.”


I am also showing a ridiculous lack of progress in my writing goals, for which I can only partially blame a certain friend and co-author (this is meant to be a shout-out, not passive-agressive linkage). I will not have Liar revised by the end of April. I will not have my chapters in Ntn completed. I have started a new novel but that, in itself, seems counterproductive as well.

At least I've figured out Paul Delaney. That's one writing goal out of the way.

The Writer's Almanac posted an interesting poem by June Beisch today, who I've never heard of before. It's called The Titanic. I like the flow, the rhyme scheme, the word play.

"All life, it seems, is the morning after
and love is the most beautiful of absolute disasters."

I'd really like to start writing poetry again. In another poem, Beisch sums up why I can't. Or why I don't.

"And poems are made
of love not made."

I really want to get a copy of this woman's work.

Everything old is new again…

Bedtime.

The ended games and broken rules of childhood versus the sweet sinking of adulthood as you close your eyes and finally, finally sink into your pillows and pull that comforter over your head. As a kid, bedtime always got pushed back, again and again, for one last page, one last page until I was forced to put the book away and turn the light out. Adulthood has followed a similar pattern: one last addition to tomorrow’s syllabus, one last paper to grade, one last dish to clean, blanket to fold and, as always, one last page.

As my mother is no longer standing at the foot of the stairs policing my pre-bed habits, I’ve decided to start doing it myself. And so: bedtime. It’s retro. It’s cool. It’s somewhere between ten o’clock and ten-thirty, depending on whether tomorrow is a school day or a gym day.

I’ve lost a bit from this new procedure. My evenings are much shorter. I am behind on the lives of some of my favorite television characters. I have to balance my school prep time a little better, and dinner has become a far less elaborate affair.

The gains have been more substantial. Since Sunday night, when the new plan was implicated, I have far more energy, I have time for the gym before work (except on school days), my skin is better, and my appetite is smaller. Also, I have this increasing feeling of me time, the idea that work is no longer the exact center of my day (and every time I think this, especially at the gym, I get a vision of CJ on the treadmill during the Pilot, before she falls down…and I hold onto the elliptical machine for dear life).

I know as the semester grows busier and more stressful, it will be harder and harder to stick to this new habit, but I’m going to try. I think it is possibly one of the best decisions I could make for my general health and well-being.

Goals for a new year...

My brain was not too fuzzy at midnight this year (though it became increasinly more so throughout the night, until we stumbled through my front door at 8AM), but the resolution I decided on was wondrously vague. I wanted (want to) "be a better person." This is fine. This is good. But it's not exactly a life plan.

I've since broken it down in my head, a bit: all the different things that "better" entails. It's still not much of a NY resolution-- the best ones are specific and attainable-- but it's an excellent direction.

Last night I came up with a more specific goal. I want to have a book published by the time I'm thirty. Three and a half years. Not a lot of time, really. And since I haven't been using this blog much lately, I think I might chronicle my efforts here. We'll see. But, as demonstrated by the Summer Reading List (which was great, til I was reading too fast to provide summaries), I do better work when I'm holding myself accountable, somewhere. Might as well be here.

So, first mini-goals. I will read the "advice for writers" in "Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents 2009" and will begin to write query letters to agents in February. I will totally revise "Liar" and finish my chapters in "Nice the Novel" by the end of April. I will start a box of all my big, fat rejection letters.

I like having a plan.

Through the Wind and the Sand

Blogging to you from a rainy morning in the Outer Banks...but it looks like the sun is about to come out, so I don't think this post will be too long.

I only have a couple more days at the beach and then I'm back into the rat race of sitting at a desk, pretending to work for my father. It looks like I'll be at the family company slightly longer than anticipated (when doesn't this happen to me?), as I'll be staying on for health insurance purposes while I (drum roll please)...

Work my new job as an Adjunct Professor of English at a local community college! (and the crowd goes wild- go ahead) Everything is official now, I only have to go in next week and fill out the paperwork. I have my textbooks and a sample syllabus to reference as I create my own. I'll be teaching two sections of English Comp for very little money...but it's getting my foot in the door, and it will let me see if this is something I actually want to do with my life.

In other news, I haven't had a single drop of caffeinated beverage since I've been at the beach. I figure lazy days when very little is required for me is the perfect time to attempt to go cold turkey. And since I never actually have to be awake, I've been experiencing very few symptoms of withdraw. The ultimate goal is to get to a place where I'll drink caffeine under certain circumstances of extreme exhaustion, but I won't need it to start my day.

And now I'm going to go lotion up for another day of unnecessary baking on the beach. There's a hurricane (Bertha) heading for Bermuda, so the waves will probably be pretty decent.

What do I want to BE when I grow up?

Yet again, I am faced with the near-existential crisis that accompanies graduation. Or being in your mid-twenties. Or simply being alive.

I strongly feel the question should be "WHO do I want to be?" but it isn't. I have to pick a job, because that's what people do. And I am supposed to pick a job that can turn into a career- that can go somewhere, direct my life, give me purpose for the next forty years or so.

Is it okay if I don't want to?

I don't like to work.

There, I've said it.

More specifically, I don't like having a job. It's not that I'm lazy, per se (I am lazy, just no more lazy than plenty of people who have jobs, careers, etc.), it's just that I don't want that life. Get up, go to work, come home exhausted, go to sleep so you can get up and go to work again. I understand that plenty of people who lead that life don't particularly want it. It's just what you do to be an American adult. But I don't want to do it. So, do I have to?

It's looking like the teaching thing might not happen, at least not this year. For about two weeks, this really freaked me out. I wanted a path, a goal, certain steps that would lead to certain other steps that would lead me down the road to respectability and old age. Then I stepped back and realized that I don't really care that much if I'm not teaching. I mean, I want to teach: if I have to have a career, I want one that I feel is contributing to the world and one that focuses on things I love (reading...books...talking about reading and books). But as I don't actually want a career, the not teaching thing isn't such a great loss.

A friend and I recently discussed my plans and put the "things I want to do with my life" in this order:

- Writer
- Own/Run my own bookstore/cafe
- Teach

And what I want most by far is to be a writer...so doesn't it seem silly to pursue another career in the meantime? Yes, I need to make enough money to live and make my student loan payments...but that's it. I don't need a job to become the center of my life when I would rather center it on friends, family, and writing.

So here's my justification for a possible future of bummin' around: all typed-out and easy to access.


In other news, no Madam President for us in the US. She's been losing for so long that it's not a shock at all, but it's still disappointing. Time to learn how to be an Obama supporter, I suppose.

The Next Five Years...

I was supposed to go see The Last Five Years at the Everyman Theater tonight. That is now being postponed until next Thursday...but, in honor of that show, and whatever else, here is a list...

GOALS FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS (in no particular order)
- finish my master's program in English lit with a focus in creative writing (current favorite school: NYU)
- maintain a healthy, long, romantic relationship with a man...getting engaged would be okay, too
- get published
- teach Darcy not to bite human flesh
- refrain from making mistakes I have already made
- help the world, in some way
- run a marathon
- save money
- go to Greece
*** list is running out of steam...probably because I am tired ***
- go to Preakness
- live in a place without ferrets
- learn to speak a foreign language better than my rudimentary spanish
- get published again
- see The Last Five Years at the Everyman Theater
- sleep more

Better get on that last one.