I got work! Yay! They originally asked me to come in as a backup today at 10, but then they called back and said that the client would rather have me come in for a full day tomorrow. Just tomorrow, alas, but at this point every little bit helps, and it's already making me feel ever so much better about life in general.

I suppose I should give an update on the novel, since that's what this blog is here for and all. I'm still transcribing/revising what I've got so far, and I'm up to chapter 6, which is not quite halfway there. The pacing of the Pooka's arc really wasn't working for me, but I've outlined it and I think it's going to work now. What I've got typed so far stands at just over 12,000 words. I think that's less than I thought I had at this point, but I've also trimmed a lot, so really, that's as it should be. I'm really pleased with how it's coming. I'm showing it to beta readers as I go, and what responses I've gotten back so far have been positive. One even said she thinks it's better than my fanfic, which made me go squee.

Once this phase is done, I'm thinking about typing up a formal outline and putting together a book proposal to shop around to agents. I've always been adamant about trying to make my first sell by myself, but I so obviously don't know what I'm doing when it comes to marketing my own work, so I think it would be rather stupid of me not to try to get some help. I'm ready to have some people in my corner, dammit. I need to do some more research in that area before I decide for certain, though.

In other news, Jim Butcher has been pimping OU's School of Professional Writing, which I had no clue existed, which I probably should have considering I started out there as a journalism major. Oh well. I wouldn't have made it that far back then anyway. Now, it sounds like it just might be my ticket, especially if they offer classes at their Tulsa campus. But then again there's the fact that if I did decide to go to grad school it was going to be somewhere far away so that I could finally get out of this town and broaden my horizons. Supposedly, however, this is one of the best professional writing programs in the country, and just think of all the money I'd save if I could do that while still living here. At any rate, I'll research other schools and programs elsewhere and then decide. But at the very least, once my novel is done I'm going to go ahead and start prepping to take the GRE so that I'll have all of my admission criteria ready and waiting when I do decide.

I haven't been out of the house in over a week, and I'm feeling all cooped up and like I might need to kill some people. Yesterday I scoured the classifieds for job possibilities, and the results were, once again, thoroughly depressing. There's nothing out there. Nothing. However, I just remembered that my credit card has a cash incentive program, so I checked that out, and they're now sending me a check that's large enough to give me a wee bit of breathing room. Therefore I am going to go to town, buy myself a yummy-delicious coffee treat, and work on outlines whilst attempting to restore my sanity. Then I'll come home and get to work on a liner for a purse I just knitted so I can try to hawk it on eBay and get myself a little more breathing room. So the impending nervous breakdown just might have been staved off for another month. Yay?

I'm in pain. It starts in the small of my back and wraps around my left hip and shoots down the back of my left leg, which screams to me "pinched nerve!" which in turn screams to me "get thee to a chiropractor!" which only adds to my money woes. Le sigh. So far, it's constant and distracting, but it's not debilitating. Hopefully things will work out so that I'll be able to get it taken care of before it becomes debilitating. Not really looking forward to the prospect of walking with a cane and needing my mom to help me dress like I did the last time I had this problem and let it go unchecked.

I've kind of been in denial about my financial and employment situations, telling myself that temping is plenty. Which it would be if I were actually receiving temp assignments (and I realize the irony of whining this whine after my last post about turning down that temp-to-hire job). But a lot of that was just fronting for the fact that the fruitlessness of my job search was depressing the shit out of me and I just couldn't deal with it anymore. However, I think it's time to wake up and smell the emptying checking account and impending loan bills and start dealing. I've got to get back on the job search train. I'm still thinking maybe I should just get myself a mindless retail job while I finish up the novel. That wouldn't make me rich, but it would cover my bills and still let me make writing my main priority. And I could probably finish the book before the job started to suck my soul. Then again, there are always call center jobs, which would require as much customer service as retail but at least I'd get to sit down. Plus they pay better. Yes, I think that would probably be the smart thing to do. Either way, once I finish my book I can start looking for a real job. If the book sells, yay, all of my problems are solved! If it doesn't, then it's time to for me to hightail it to grad school. So, yes. I think I'm having a plan.

I just turned down a temp-to-hire assignment from my temp agency, and the part of me that's freaked out about money is really berating myself for it. But I gave myself until December to finish the novel and then try to get long-term, full time work, and I'm going to stick to that. And with the job description she gave me, there's just no way I could do that job all day and then come home and write. It didn't really pay enough to make it worthwhile, anyway. Actually, there are a lot of good reasons to have refused that particular job (such as that it's exactly the kind of job I went back to college to not have to do). I just hate turning down work right now when my budget's so tight and my funds are dwindling away, you know? Anyway, I told the rep that I'm wide open for short-term and part-time assignments, so hopefully something will turn up soon.

I started typing my second draft (of what I've got so far) today. The first chapter, after some revisions, comes out to ten pages and 2,577 words. It was actually much more than that originally, but I think that's plenty long for one chapter so I'm dividing it up into two. It'll be a few chapters before I get into the major rewrites, so initially this part of the process should go pretty fast. And I think I'm about ready to start showing it to people (now that it's becoming legible), which is both scary and exciting. I feel like this is about a million times better than my first novel attempt, though, so I'm really kind of eager to start getting feedback on it. Nervous as hell, but eager.

Finished another chapter this morning, yay. But I think I really am up against a wall now until I go back and rework some things. And one of the things I'm thinking of reworking will require a major overhaul. Not quite an entire rewrite, but close. That's discouraging. But also kind of exciting, as I think this other way of doing things will be more interesting. At any rate, I think I need a day or two for things to stew in my brain before I tackle the revisions. I think I'm really close to knowing just exactly how everything will come together, though. *crosses fingers*

I ended up crashing hard around dinner time last night and gave up and crawled into bed around 8. I slept hard and heavy and, if I had any dreams, I don't remember them. It was v. v. good. It also made it pretty easy to get up this morning and get to work on the chapter, which I finished, so go me!

I think I need to revise my plan and timeline a bit, though. I know I can proceed and write at least two more chapters of Michael's arc (after which the separate plot threads should all start to tie together), but I think I need to go back and revise the Pooka's arc a little before I can move ahead there. So I'll go ahead and write the two Michael chapters next week, but after that I guess it's really, truly time to start typing and revising. Which is really very exciting, and not a little daunting.

Speaking of daunting, I pulled up an old short story I wrote to just go ahead and post it here, but I've managed to convince myself that I should keep trying to get it published (after all, it's only had one rejection, and how pathetic am I if I let that convince me to quit?); but reading through the market listings and trying to decide where to submit it is making my head hurt. And also making me fantasize about having an agent. I suck so hard at this part of the process. I also let myself get way too intimidated by snotty-sounding submission guidelines. And then there's the dreaded cover letter to write... now I'm back to just wanting to throw the story up here and be done with it. Sigh.

And speaking of story submissions: still no word from iHero, beyond their assurance that they received my story and intend to read it ASAP. Seeing as how they just told the mailing list that they had to evacuate because of the hurricanes, I'm guessing the S isn't very P. S'okay, though. Since I wrote it specifically for them it's not like I have a whole lot of other markets to try.

Now is the time on Sprockets when we get off our ass and go work out.

I finally managed to doze a little. And while I did I dreamed of being thrown on topsy-turvy rides. Not roller coasters, but more like those Super Round-Up and Enterprise things that go upside down in a circle and mainly hold you in by centrifugal force. And instead of just me being strapped into a seat I was thrown in big compartments with a bunch of my stuff and I tried to keep working while holding on for dear life. And a couple of times I fell asleep on the rides.

Analyze that!

Did I ever mention my Pop-Up Book of Nightmares? It's sitting on my coffee table and it's quite a lot of fun. It lists several of the most common-place nightmares along with pop-up illustrations (hence the title) and mostly Freudian explanations for each. The only ones that are in there that I ever have are apocalyptic dreams and dreams of being chased (by tornadoes). I don't really buy the explanation it gives for the tornadoes, but then I don't generally buy Freudian explanations of anything, because, while dear old Sigmund might have made some incredible contributions to the advancement of psychology, let's face it: the man was a coke-head.

And now I'm going to go get cleaned up and then I think the rest of the day is going to be about catching up on e-mail and comments and maybe about redesigning my journals. So don't be surprised if you stop by and see weirdness happening.

But first I must coax this kitty out of my lap.

I think I'm going to be completely useless today. I didn't sleep a wink last night, and finally around 7 a.m. I gave up and tried to write. After two hours and nothing on the page and lots of spacing out I'm giving up on that, too. I'm not feeling too horrible about it, though. Yesterday I wrote all day long and well into last night, and even though it was on fanfic instead of the novel (bad Jean!), I feel I deserve a break.

Of course, this means that tomorrow I'll have to step on it and probably write all day again if I want to finish chapter 13. Which I do. I really need to step the drafting stage back up to two chapters a week, especially if I want to finish the first draft by November, which I also do. The story's starting to feel about half-way told, so I think that deadline is pretty doable. If I can stick to two chapters a week, that is.

Yesterday I needed to get out of the house (and also buy some groceries, drop off my vacation film and ship my last eBay shipment), so I drove into Borders. I actually just wanted to drive somewhere. It was a beautiful day, perfect for rolling down the windows and turning up the radio (or the CD player, as the case may be). I went late enough that I ran into some pretty nasty rush hour traffic, but that just meant getting off the expressway and detouring through one of my favorite Tulsa neighborhoods and gawking at the big houses. I love to gawk at pretty houses. It was a good drive.

I almost broke down and bought some Batman TPBs at Borders, but I was good. If they had the second volume of Hush, I'd have bought it. I went ahead and picked up the first volume before my trip to read on the way (but, thanks to my flight being delayed, ended up reading the entire thing in the airport before I even boarded the plane), and I'm jonesing for more. But I'm not even sure the second volume is out yet, which is probably a good thing for my budget. I also stopped to pet the Jonathan Strange... display and ponder whether the black cover or white cover appealed to me more. But I left the store empty-handed, save for a sugar-free mocha and a free sample of chocolate and a few more lines written down for a story I'm working on.

I came home and started lining up new knitting projects to get me through the first leg of the new TV season (because I don't feel like such a useless couch potato if I knit while I watch). I have the stuff to make a few more purses. The last one I made turned out really cute, but it has some problems as far as functionality goes. I think I've figured out how fix the design, though. I'll make another practice one, and if it turns out well I think I might try hawking some on eBay. I also really want to make this scarf, but not until I can afford quailty yarn. Right now, though, I'm knitting tiny hats for Newborns In Need, a volunteer organization that donates knitted clothing to families with sick and needy babies, mainly preemies. Once I've conquered hats I might try some booties. They also have a call (and a pattern) for burial buntings, but I don't think I can bring myself to make those right now. Anybody out there with knitting skills and more emotional fortitude than I have might consider it, though. Anyway, that should keep my hands sufficiently occupied for a while.

Now it's time to quit procrastinating and go force myself to write. And that's pretty much my entire plan for the day.

My arms and legs are still not tan, but they're much more freckled than they were before I went to California. And there's your random observation for the day.

I thought about treating today like the holiday that it is and goofing off all day, but I figured that would only make it that much harder to get started tomorrow, so I didn't. Which is a good thing, because as it is I finished my twelfth chapter before noon and now I get to ride this accomplishy feeling all day. It's been almost a full two weeks since I last visited Michael, Alathea, Leila and the Pooka, and it was like I never left them. That was also a good feeling.

I also started what will hopefully become a new workout routine today. My brother loaned me his elliptical trainer, and I love it so. It's downstairs in my mother's sun room. I moved my small TV and old VCR from my bedroom to down there and watched "Serenity" (the original Firefly pilot) while I worked out, and the time flew by. Yay to good TV that distracts from the painful exercise.

Now I'm pondering where to go next to make a dent in the Big Organization Project of 2004. I'm thinking I need to go through my books and box up all the ones that I bought years ago but have never gotten around to reading. I'll probably forego eBay this time and pawn them off at a used book store. That shelf is pretty cluttered, though.

Yesterday I cleaned up and rearranged the opposite bookcase where all the trappings of my biggest fangirl obsessions are displayed openly for the mocking. While I did that I listened to a copy of The War of the Worlds remake performed by several Star Trek cast members that I keep forgetting I own. And you know, I can see how the original broadcast would have freaked everybody the hell out. Even so, I had to laugh when Leonard Nimoy broke character at the end to assure the audience that they were only funnin' us. Listening to it last night brought back memories, though. I remember listening to the original broadcast of this version on NPR many Halloween Eves ago as I drove from Norman to Stillwater to hang out and watch scary movies with my friend Tess. ...or maybe I was just driving home for the weekend. Okay, so it didn't bring back vivid memories. But I do know I was driving, and wherever I was destined it was far enough away to allow me to hear the entire play. And also that it was Halloween Eve.

I've been pretty nostalgic about Halloween lately, and that sure didn't help (how's that for a segway, suckers? [/mrmonkeybottoms]). Between the bookstore and Tommy the other night we killed time in the mall's new Halloween store, and that really made me jones for the entire month of October. But it also made me want to do something more this year than watch horror movies while waiting for the occasional trick-or-treater. I even designed myself a costume. Well, in my head I did. But it's a simple costume that will require little preparation. Now I just need to come up with some place to wear it to that night. It might be a good night to finally go check out some pubs that have opened in Tulsa fairly recently. I know I don't want to go to any of the clubs, those are too crowded and hectic. Heck, maybe my friends and I will just go out to a movie instead of staying in. But I'm dressing up for Halloween this year, dammit! It's too bad all of my friends I know who throw parties all live two or three states away.

I was going to ramble a bit about knitting, too, but this post is already pretty long so I think I'll spare you... for now. So I'm off to organize, and while I do I think I'll listen to my tape of Anthony Head's convention Q&A ('cause with the singing! *swoon*). Later, hopefully I'll be able to get focused enough to work on some fic. Cheers!

I'm trying to stop letting my hang-ups hang me up. When I decide I want to do something I'm trying to just do it before I can think of everything else I could or should be doing instead and end up doing nothing because I'm paralyzed with indecision. I don't mean big things, things that cost money or could cause others inconvenience, the kind of things that responsible people are supposed to think through. I'm talking about stupid little distractions that cost nothing but time that I never let myself have because I tell myself I don't have time for it. I'm trying really hard to knock that shit off. My life won't fall apart if I miss or even, God forbid, ignore a deadline that I set for myself, that I'm not getting graded on or paid to keep. In short, I'm trying to lighten the hell up on myself.

And maybe once I conquer this I'll get to work on the phone phobia.

I just got back from seeing a local production of The Who's Tommy. It was really good, all things considered. I've been to musicals produced by this company before where some of the voice talent was lacking, but all of the vocals tonight were pretty solid. The lead, Christopher Crawford (who was also in Batboy: The Musical) was fabulous. For some reason they cast the chick who played Batboy's girlfriend as Cousin Kevin, which was confusing, but she also has a great voice, so okay. Uncle Ernie was especially good, and just the right amount of skeevy. There were some changes to the story from the film version that sure make Tommy's parents a lot more sympathetic. At any rate, good show, good music, good times.

I'm proud of myself because I refrained from spending money I don't have. And I was sorely tempted to get myself a copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Putting it back on the shelf and leaving it behind hurt me. But I'll live. I reminded myself that I don't have time to read it right now anyway, and even if I do get time to read, I'm still slogging my way through The Once and Future King, plus I've got several other books in my queue, including Return of the King which I swore I'd read this year. And I also still want to reread A Storm of Swords before Martin finally releases the next book in that series (but something tells me that there's no need to hurry there). So, yes. Messrs. Strange and Norrel, I've waited for you this long; I can wait a while longer.

So, I'm back, and I'm feeling a bit better about life, the universe, and everything. Vacations are good for what ails ya. If you want details, I've got a whole report in my LJ. Be prepared for much fangirlishness before you click on that link.

The trip really inspired me to make a hard and fast decision about where I want to go from here and what I'm going to do about getting there. So while walking the dog today, I came up with a short-term plan, and that is this: finish the novel.

I never said it was a complex plan.

Seriously, though, I'm just going to temp as much as I can and stop worrying about the job hunt or getting freelance gigs or selling shorter pieces, and just finish the damn book. This is priority one. It'll take a few months and it's going to mean leading a very boring and low-income lifestyle in the meantime (which in turn will, alas, mean a boring blog... but y'all are used to that by now ;-) but hopefully it will all be worth it. I'm probably pinning too much on this novel, but it's pretty much sink or swim here. Major decisions that I need to hurry up and make, such as should I continue on to grad school, will depend on what happens with the book. So I'm just going to stop worrying about other writing avenues for the time being and simply write the book (no worries, those of you waiting for fic updates, somehow I'll still get those done). And hopefully rack up enough temp hours to cover the bills while I'm at it.

Meanwhile, I've still got a couple of lines in the water, and I'm still waiting to see how those pan out. So there's still time to cross your fingers for me!