Dear Internet,
My beloveds, I am deeply apologetic about the timing of today’s post. There were rumors around campus yesterday if the snow fell as much as the forecast was predicting, the college may be closing on Friday. Today was to be a short day for me, my two major appointments concerning food, so I decided instead of wrestling with fates on who was to be the victor, I stole the show and took the day off as an early vacation day.
On my first full day of freedom, I woke fairly early considering no alarm had been set and read in bed for awhile before the dog started getting antsy about going outside. TheHusband, whose been home on his holiday since Tuesday, snored gently to the tune of the whirring of the stand fan by his side of the bed.
I had told my office mates, well anyone who would listen, I was not planning on leaving the house for at least a week. One of them thought I was crazy — “I would go nuts,” she declared melodramatically, “If I stayed inside longer than two days!” No, not me. I even bought new yoga pants to celebrate. Not having to deal with asshole Michigan drivers swerving on rivers of snow, not having to beat feet around campus making meetings, not getting my pant leg tugged by staff and patrons on fixing something. The semester had been rough leading up to this point, I am desperate for a recharge and relaxation. And the opportunity to wear yoga pants and sports bras until they shred.
Today marks the 43rd day of a daily post from me, something I’m still a bit of a peacock about. I’m hovering at about 40K words during that period, or roughly about 1K words a day which is pretty close to NaNoWriMo lengths. I have been most excellent in keeping myself steady on this writing business, last week I had finished a few short stories and a few poems in addition to my daily writing here. I’m finding I am scribbling everywhere about everything, thus I decided during my holiday break to finally take a serious stab at writing a novel.
I have attempted, drunkenly stabbed at, stumbled towards writing a fiction novel since my early ’20s. I have outlines, characters fleshed out, half chapters finished of chaos and mess. Some of it is quite good, some of it also quite terrible. But I could never really get over that hump about getting my shit together and finishing the damn thing. Any of them. Ever.
If you’ve perused my writing page, you’ll see a couple of ideas I had been toying with at the time when I had thrown up the page in the summer of 2012. Of course I did not plan to spend most of that summer drugged on pain killers, which lead to spending most of early spring in the same situation, coupled with being on/off my bipolar and ADHD meds. While I am not trying to judge myself too harshly for my overly ambitious state of mind then, well, forgive me. It’s hard.
I came to the conclusion a few weeks ago I am coming at this finishing a novel business from the wrong angle. Once I started sorting out my technique, things as they tend to do, started to flow. The fruits of putting myself into a small challenge, writing and posting everyday, has been the catalyst for many minor and major life changes. I’m prioritizing my time better, I’m finishing work projects not at the last second but more often than not with time to spare. I feel more confident about myself, which is both a weird feeling and vaguely hysterical. I always knew I would be good at this, I just had to prove it to myself. I now have something tangible to look at and go yes, this is true. I can do this.
Where were we? Oh yes, so I was thinking the time is finally ripe to take one of my ideas and inseminate it with coffee, tea, spice cupcakes, and pug sweat. Last year I opened the door to people to preview my work as I go and I am going to do it again for this project. If you’re interested in joining, here are the details.
It should also go without saying that I’ll be writing about the whole process, etc etc here so be prepared for that onslaught in the upcoming weeks.
Also be prepared for a lot of food posts as well in the next few weeks. TheHusband and I are huge, HUGE fans of Mark Bittman and to deter the habit of always going out for food, we’re going to be cooking / baking all of our food from Bittman’s cookbooks while we’re home for the holidays. Since I’m handling a lot of the baking and breads, I wanted to document the process. Plus who doesn’t like good food and recipes to share?
I have also not forgotten the Making Happy project, but now that the semester is finally over and I can breathe, it should be easy to start up.
Good night and don’t hog the bed!
x0x0,
Lisa
This day in Lisa-Universe: