Day 1101: First Post of the New Year!
Jan. 12th, 2014 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nagi_schwarzWoohoo! So...I've survived 12 days in the new year. So far my goals are progressing thusly:
Meditation: is up. My mother gave me some strange candy-looking candle in a mug, and I discovered Cody had lost my lighters, but I bought a cheap one at a gas station (despite having looked in longing at Dean Winchester's zippo and being horrified when he just drops one into an open grave, because those things aren't cheap) and now I have been making an effort to meditate on a candle for just five minutes at the end of every work shift. And it clears my mind so I can get things done. Rather than dinking around the internet for an hour trying to decompress, I meditate for five minutes and then actually get stuff done.
Novel study: as it turns out, reading an entire book a week may, sadly, be beyond my grasp in a world where I am working, keeping house, taking care of a puppy, am a burgeoning belly dancer, have decided to take up yoga one night a week, and am also trying to start my own ebook publishing house. So...I've decided to just try to read a few pages of one of my library books every night and then do a write up as soon as I can. I'm still working my way through Love in the Time of Cholera, and Veronica Roth's "Divergent" came in, which I'm super excited to get to, so I want to burn through those books as soon as possible.
Writing: I finished a Christmas story I owe my girl BenTen, prettied it up, and sent it off, and all things being equal, despite the super weird twist at the end, I am pretty proud of how well it turned out. I also sent my friend Angela a Christmas story, but I still have other stories I owe kicking around, and I want to get those done. I've started rereading the novel I was writing in hopes of making some sense of where I am in the plot so I can finish it, but now my novella for the publishing house is getting ready to run the gauntlet, so I need to put the finishing touches on it and then send it off to my copy editor. I also need to make some changes to my model contract forms to get those babies up and running.
Also, I have been having many conversations with my elder sister - via text message mostly, but once over Facetime - about writing. I am surprised at how much I know about writing comes not from creative writing classes (I took three in high school and none in college) but from reading so many freakin' books and also doing critical studies of TV shows I love. (It's a bit sad, actually, how many literary examples I gave her came from SPN, but then she loves that show, so it kinda works.) It's been interesting to have these conversations with her. Sometimes I feel like if she'd just read more herself she'd figure it out, but having hung around the Tumblr writing blogs, I reckon a lot of the questions she has other budding writers have, even writers who read a lot, so I am doing my best to be patient and help out. Truth is, my sister has an amazing imagination and sense of what makes for a good story, she just has some trouble in the execution, and most technical writing skills can be learned. On a raw storytelling level, she has much more interesting stories to tell than I do. I'm just better at pulling my ideas off. So it's been fun, working with her and showing her the things I like to do when I write stories.
Publishing house: we finally met on Saturday, met for the first time since possibly...September? Which is not very good, but wedding season turned into holiday season and...urgh. But we met, we set goals, and more importantly we set deadlines, and I think we can make this thing work. It's going to take time and hard work, learning and adjusting on our part, but it's something we can do. We finally set up some semblance of a business account and made a vague effort to get our webspace up and running, so...more news on that soon! And on our Tumblr thingie as well. But we met, and it was good times.
Grown up socializing: Has been good this week. I had my first grown-up dinner party ever. (I have been to many grown-up dinner parties, but this is the first time I've hosted one myself. Feeding hungry missionaries and disheveled nerd boys does not count as a dinner party.) My pie didn't turn out so well, but luckily I had cream puffs as a backup. I made ham and green bean casserole and mashed potatoes from scratch, and Mal and her man Adam came over, and Angela came over as well, and we had a grown-up dinner party. We sat around the table like civilized adults, used real silverware and dishes and glasses, and we talked and had fun. It was part remembrances (I went to high school with Mal and law school with Angela) and part nerding out. After dinner we gathered in our ill-lit den and played music and sang and then were vastly entertained while Cody and Ivy chased each other around the house. Then Saturday I went to BenTen's place and we had a very serious publishing house meeting...followed by pizza from Pie 5 and then Del's arrival, at which point we started building characters for our Harry Potter RPG (yes, we are that nerdy). We shot the breeze with Del, who is due to have a little boy in May and is finally over 20 weeks of terrible morning sickness, and then we started in on our game. The best thing about RPing with this group is Curry makes his own game systems and character sheets and everything, so it's customized to both the specific group of players and the storytellers. BenTen is storytelling, and I did some of my best roleplaying for her back in college, so I am ridiculously excited.
In other news...my girl Corybeth says she's turning in her notice at work, so it will be just me again. Team Unicorn is no more, and I am kind of sad. Work was pretty slow and boring and aggravating this week, but I think if I just focus more and have a better attitude about it I will be all right. One of my more aggravating coworkers kinda redeemed himself, and I felt bad for being mad at him. Also, I will be going to meet a cousin of mine I've never met before. He teaches Mech Engineering at Cody's university, and he has kids who are almost as old as Cody and I, so that's kinda weird, and judging by the Christmas photo collage he sent most of his brood are gingers, so it's going to be interesting. But he seems super nice and said to bring Ivy with us on Sunday, so we will. While I was discussing the possible awkwardness of this social situation with my girl BenTen, a sudden thought struck me...what if this cousin of mine doesn't know I'm not white? So I dug around on my cell phone for a vague holiday photo of me and mine (Cody with hair tousled from sleep, Ivy wearing reindeer antlers on protest, me smiling in the wrong direction) and emailed it off just to be safe.
After spending New Year's at my parents' place, we came home, and then went up to spend the very next weekend with Cody's parents. I bonded with Kip over Clash of Clans, which is pretty much the only way we stay in touch. And then on the way home we stopped and checked in on littlebro Kieran, who just got out of a three-year on-again, off-again relationship. Cody's pretty convinced it could be on again, but Kieran was upset enough he was pretty sauced and broke a nine-year no-cutting streak, so I'm guessing it won't be on again any time soon. Also, all his firearms and other weapons were confiscated, and he was alone and lonely and wanted us to stay the night, so we agreed to, but then his roommates came home and he sent us on our way. I have very un-fond college memories of being on suicide watch, and I don't think Cody or I slept very well that night.
In other good news...I have taught Ivy a new trick! Despite some failure with "roll over", she has now learned "shake a paw", and I am stupidly pleased about it. I even have video.
Meditation: is up. My mother gave me some strange candy-looking candle in a mug, and I discovered Cody had lost my lighters, but I bought a cheap one at a gas station (despite having looked in longing at Dean Winchester's zippo and being horrified when he just drops one into an open grave, because those things aren't cheap) and now I have been making an effort to meditate on a candle for just five minutes at the end of every work shift. And it clears my mind so I can get things done. Rather than dinking around the internet for an hour trying to decompress, I meditate for five minutes and then actually get stuff done.
Novel study: as it turns out, reading an entire book a week may, sadly, be beyond my grasp in a world where I am working, keeping house, taking care of a puppy, am a burgeoning belly dancer, have decided to take up yoga one night a week, and am also trying to start my own ebook publishing house. So...I've decided to just try to read a few pages of one of my library books every night and then do a write up as soon as I can. I'm still working my way through Love in the Time of Cholera, and Veronica Roth's "Divergent" came in, which I'm super excited to get to, so I want to burn through those books as soon as possible.
Writing: I finished a Christmas story I owe my girl BenTen, prettied it up, and sent it off, and all things being equal, despite the super weird twist at the end, I am pretty proud of how well it turned out. I also sent my friend Angela a Christmas story, but I still have other stories I owe kicking around, and I want to get those done. I've started rereading the novel I was writing in hopes of making some sense of where I am in the plot so I can finish it, but now my novella for the publishing house is getting ready to run the gauntlet, so I need to put the finishing touches on it and then send it off to my copy editor. I also need to make some changes to my model contract forms to get those babies up and running.
Also, I have been having many conversations with my elder sister - via text message mostly, but once over Facetime - about writing. I am surprised at how much I know about writing comes not from creative writing classes (I took three in high school and none in college) but from reading so many freakin' books and also doing critical studies of TV shows I love. (It's a bit sad, actually, how many literary examples I gave her came from SPN, but then she loves that show, so it kinda works.) It's been interesting to have these conversations with her. Sometimes I feel like if she'd just read more herself she'd figure it out, but having hung around the Tumblr writing blogs, I reckon a lot of the questions she has other budding writers have, even writers who read a lot, so I am doing my best to be patient and help out. Truth is, my sister has an amazing imagination and sense of what makes for a good story, she just has some trouble in the execution, and most technical writing skills can be learned. On a raw storytelling level, she has much more interesting stories to tell than I do. I'm just better at pulling my ideas off. So it's been fun, working with her and showing her the things I like to do when I write stories.
Publishing house: we finally met on Saturday, met for the first time since possibly...September? Which is not very good, but wedding season turned into holiday season and...urgh. But we met, we set goals, and more importantly we set deadlines, and I think we can make this thing work. It's going to take time and hard work, learning and adjusting on our part, but it's something we can do. We finally set up some semblance of a business account and made a vague effort to get our webspace up and running, so...more news on that soon! And on our Tumblr thingie as well. But we met, and it was good times.
Grown up socializing: Has been good this week. I had my first grown-up dinner party ever. (I have been to many grown-up dinner parties, but this is the first time I've hosted one myself. Feeding hungry missionaries and disheveled nerd boys does not count as a dinner party.) My pie didn't turn out so well, but luckily I had cream puffs as a backup. I made ham and green bean casserole and mashed potatoes from scratch, and Mal and her man Adam came over, and Angela came over as well, and we had a grown-up dinner party. We sat around the table like civilized adults, used real silverware and dishes and glasses, and we talked and had fun. It was part remembrances (I went to high school with Mal and law school with Angela) and part nerding out. After dinner we gathered in our ill-lit den and played music and sang and then were vastly entertained while Cody and Ivy chased each other around the house. Then Saturday I went to BenTen's place and we had a very serious publishing house meeting...followed by pizza from Pie 5 and then Del's arrival, at which point we started building characters for our Harry Potter RPG (yes, we are that nerdy). We shot the breeze with Del, who is due to have a little boy in May and is finally over 20 weeks of terrible morning sickness, and then we started in on our game. The best thing about RPing with this group is Curry makes his own game systems and character sheets and everything, so it's customized to both the specific group of players and the storytellers. BenTen is storytelling, and I did some of my best roleplaying for her back in college, so I am ridiculously excited.
In other news...my girl Corybeth says she's turning in her notice at work, so it will be just me again. Team Unicorn is no more, and I am kind of sad. Work was pretty slow and boring and aggravating this week, but I think if I just focus more and have a better attitude about it I will be all right. One of my more aggravating coworkers kinda redeemed himself, and I felt bad for being mad at him. Also, I will be going to meet a cousin of mine I've never met before. He teaches Mech Engineering at Cody's university, and he has kids who are almost as old as Cody and I, so that's kinda weird, and judging by the Christmas photo collage he sent most of his brood are gingers, so it's going to be interesting. But he seems super nice and said to bring Ivy with us on Sunday, so we will. While I was discussing the possible awkwardness of this social situation with my girl BenTen, a sudden thought struck me...what if this cousin of mine doesn't know I'm not white? So I dug around on my cell phone for a vague holiday photo of me and mine (Cody with hair tousled from sleep, Ivy wearing reindeer antlers on protest, me smiling in the wrong direction) and emailed it off just to be safe.
After spending New Year's at my parents' place, we came home, and then went up to spend the very next weekend with Cody's parents. I bonded with Kip over Clash of Clans, which is pretty much the only way we stay in touch. And then on the way home we stopped and checked in on littlebro Kieran, who just got out of a three-year on-again, off-again relationship. Cody's pretty convinced it could be on again, but Kieran was upset enough he was pretty sauced and broke a nine-year no-cutting streak, so I'm guessing it won't be on again any time soon. Also, all his firearms and other weapons were confiscated, and he was alone and lonely and wanted us to stay the night, so we agreed to, but then his roommates came home and he sent us on our way. I have very un-fond college memories of being on suicide watch, and I don't think Cody or I slept very well that night.
In other good news...I have taught Ivy a new trick! Despite some failure with "roll over", she has now learned "shake a paw", and I am stupidly pleased about it. I even have video.
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Date: 2014-01-13 02:51 pm (UTC)Divergent is super fun -- especially for martial artists like you and I, since the fights are actually pretty realistically written. :P The two sequels didn't quite hit the same sweet spot with me that the first book managed (and a lot of the plot points of the third kind of came out of left field, imho), but it's a solid series, all in all.