Coda

The past three and a half years have been a very interesting journey for me. I've learned a lot about myself, my career goals (both for writing and clinical research), my family, and people in general. I learned what were acceptable sacrifices and what weren't. Part of all that knowledge led to me leaving my previous job without the safety net of another job already lined up. Mark's got the finances all worked out so we'll be fine, and I did have two possibilities in the works when we made the decision that it was time for me to resign.

The other part of that knowledge is a better understanding of what I want for myself and how I need to manage all the interesting times that life arranges. So this is me signing off from this blog. My personal social media presence will be on Facebook, so you're welcome to send a Friend request. My writing social medial presence will be dormant for a while as I get my writing legs back underneath me. And when it resumes, it will be under my pseudonym.

If I'm going to joke about being a Gemini and think about myself in terms of duality, I might as well fully embrace the concept to better maintain the most appropriate work/life balance.

I have so many possibilities stretching out before me, and I have Mark and Drew standing beside me, ready to step in sync with whichever patchwork of opportunities I put in place that make me happiest. That's really all that matters, and I think that's the perfect final note for this blog.

The Dental Drama Continues

So, what was supposed to be a crown fitting turned into a root canal on a different tooth. That's right, folks: two root canals in three weeks. And they weren't even decayed to the point of needing a canal. They were just in so much pain and the nerves constantly agititating that the only way to get out of pain was to hollow them out. Bastard teeth. I've now maxed out my dental insurance for the year. Which means, as long as it stays stable and out of pain, the failed root canal from five years ago is going to have to wait until 2011 to get fixed, when we can afford our still ridiculous co-pay and have our insurance reset.

Meanwhile, my mouth is not a happy place as it recovers from yet another root canal. It took ten days to be able to chew on that side of my mouth after the last one. And, because Murphy is just having a blast with my teeth at the moment, a new tooth is starting to get twitchy. My dentist and I are being quite stern with the sucker and telling it there's no reason to be in pain, that everything's fine. I think it's freaking out because it's next to two dead teeth and is feeling the pressure of having to pull the sensation weight of them.

I suppose now might be a good time to mention that I need to see an eye doctor this weekend because I've had an increase in the incidence of flashing lights and floaters in my right eye, the one the eye doc said six months ago was showing evidence of the retina getting thin as my eye continues its myopic distortion. And I had a real swell joint pain flare up last weekend.

Where's my clone? And a perfected consciousness transfer process?

Dental Drama

So the Sekrit Projekt has taken a hit because, for the past six weeks, my teeth have been excessively problematic. I'll put it this way: Vicodin and Valium have become close friends. Makes it hard to be coherent to write, though I've been trying. My original goals are, of course, hanging out with Satan along with a few other good intentions from the past few weeks.

I get fit for a crown on Tuesday and then get the crown placed 2-3 weeks after that. Keep your fingers crossed that this keeps my mouth a mostly agreeable place until October when I have to get the failed root canal from five years ago (you know, the one I got while 14weeks pregnant?) fixed. That will require a trip to the endodondist. Stupid teeth. I asked my dentist if he could just yank them all. He said it probably wouldn't be the best idea. Sigh.

Announcing a Sekrit Projekt

Let's just ignore the three months of silence, shall we?

I am now 15% of the way through a Sekrit Projekt. It's not actually so secret. You've read about my ups and downs with this particular piece of work several times over the past five years or so. But I feel like being cryptic. Well, I do have good reasons to be coy about this project, the most important of them being to avoid the All Powerful Jinx.

I will say this much: I've had a nibble, and I intend to hook this fish and then reel it in. I'll know by mid to late May if the hook has caught. It might not be until July or August if I can claim a successful reel in.

So I'll be posting progress reports on this secretive thing I am doing. I won't be so bold as to assume this will get me posting regularly again, but it hope springs eternal.

Getting Punchy

As I reach the quarter mark on a second read-through of my novelette for HTRYN, I've noticed a trend in my revision notes. I'm mocking myself rather mercilessly. Everytime I get sick of a particularly melodramatic plot point or character, I start sassing off about mustache-twirling and EBILness. It's fun and twisted. I mean, it's good not to take yourself too seriously, but I seem to be having a snarkfest at my own expense. At least it's keeping things entertaning, which is more than I can say for my novelette. (See what I mean?)

HTRYN: Lesson 1 Accomplished

Because I haven't done too great a job working a consistent writing schedule into my life what with making the DDJ into a career, I decided to sign up for Holly Lisle's "How to Revise Your Novel" course. It's a six-month-long intense look at a finished draft and weekly lessons to take that steaming pile o' crap to the manuscript you wanted and that you can submit for publication without infinite tweaking. I've got three drafts that are truly good stories but are atrocities in their current condition and need significant work to get them out the door. I wanted a structure to accomplish that work and some help in pulling together all the various skills I've acquired and advice I've heard over the past decade of writing.

I just finished Lesson One. Seeing as how this class started Turkey Day weekend and, as I mentioned, the lessons are weekly...well, you can do the math. It was hard but good work (a line-by-line reading of the draft, without changing a damn thing and only noting where everything falls to pieces in several different areas). And I just started in to Lesson Two, which requires yet another line-by-line reading of the draft. I'm very very glad I chose to do this course on the 85-page novellette that I want to turn into a long novella or short novel instead of the 100,000-word novel I finished last year before I started my job. Mind you, I want to fix that novel, but I think I might've abandoned the course with the enormity of that task with this sort of intensity.

Tomorrow is really the last day of my vacation I have to make significant progress on the rest of the course lessons to date. Here's hoping I can complete Lesson Two.

The Obligatory 2009 Retrospective

For the half-dozen stubborn souls still regularly reading this blog after a very sparse year, I thank you and look forward to a fresh start in 2010.

As for 2009, I have a nice long list of excuses to take me off the hook for writing so little, for taking poor care of my bod, for going long stretches of time not hanging with my family, and for not giving as much of my skills and talents to my writing group in the position I was in this year. Thing is, all those excuses stem from a choice I made rather unwittingly at first but then continued to make without planning much beyond said choice. That choice? My day job became a career. I'm not very upset about that choice. I love what I do during the work week. It's very satisfying and it keeps the anal-retentive perfectionist control-freak side of my personality extremely busy and happily so.

If I could go back to the beginning of 2009, I would still make this choice, but I would be smarter about it. I wouldn't just assume that my life could fall into place around my career choice without effort on my part. I wouldn't assume that choosing something as a career means the career naturally progresses according to my effort and abilities without reference to the careers and attitudes of others around me. I didn't make these assumptions consciously, but I realized I had made them sometime in the fall and didn't take steps to correct them or work around them. That's what my journey since Thanksgiving has been about.

So for 2010, I will not accept exhaustion at the end of the work day or the weekend as an excuse not to write for at least an hour or not to do something active with the family for at least three hours on the weekend. I know my body's limits and a little fatigue is not going to deter me. No more wuss-fest after a long day and week. I think most of the exhaustion I felt was more mental and focused on my logic-slave side anyway than the parts of me I employ writing and being with Drew and Mark. I can compartmentalize better. My body has been in the habit of not falling asleep until 11PM and waking up at 5AM. Rather than toss and turn in bed for an hour or two every night and doze through the last half-hour before the alarm goes off every morning, I'm going to use those times for writing and exercising, respectively.

All of that being said, however, I did submit a short story twice this year, once to a contest, once to an on-line zine. Got rejected and earned the ability to write-off my writing expenses for tax purposes. I did bring in many amazing speakers to my writing group and contributed to another fabulous year for our little volunteer-run chapter of RWA. I also had three writing retreats this year (the first of which was spent sick and huddled under the covers afer about 2K of crap-tastic words; the second was spent playing solitaire after about 2K of pure schlock; and the third produced 3K of great stuff that launched a project I'm using for a revision course that will keep me on a good schedule for the first half of 2010 and should seque right into fixing THUMB for the second half). While it was mostly stress-induced, I also lost 30 pounds this year and am now a size 8 (there's some residual flab that needs toning, and I'd like to maintain this weight without the negativity of severe stress). And we did spend a good deal of time together as a family, also getting Drew in the habit of brushing his teeth every day and practicing writing his letters regularly. And the career is coming along quite well.

So 2009 wasn't a bust though it kind of feels like it. Mostly because I know I can do better.