Day #8623 - Here Goes Nothing...

Just sent a query letter to a literary agent for the first time!!! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Day #8621 - Life Under Construction

I believe I am experiencing what the experts like to refer to as a "rebuilding phase" in a variety of areas of my life at the moment, but there's been a special amount movement in my writing life in particular.

For one, look at this blog. I'm playing around with my limited Photoshop skills to make a new banner that I don't hate. This one, while clearly off center and kind of ridiculous, is at least a step in the right direction. Construction is rarely pretty while it's going on, but as with writing, I'm just remembering that when it's all finished, it will be worth it. Trial and error is sometimes exactly what is needed.

But more about the writing life! Words cannot express how grateful I am that I finally seem to have found a critique partner that things will work out with. I wish I could fully express what a big deal it is. Sharing my manuscript with people is a big deal for me, and trying to find someone who can give me honest feedback on my work and allow me to return the favor with theirs is huge. The notes I've gotten have been hugely helpful and have helped me look over my story again with fresh eyes.

It has also boosted my confidence quite a bit. While life often hands us things we weren't expecting and it's easy to get downtrodden, I've decided that enough is enough. I could easily keep playing around with the intricacies of my manuscript for a very very  long time. It's not perfect yet. Even if it does end up published and on bookshelves around the country someday, chances are that it still won't be quite perfect. But I'm finally able to look at it and say that I'm ready to try the next step: querying for an agent.

I know I've been saying that for a while now, but trust me when I say that due to other events that have been taking place in my life as of late, I'm adopting a carpe diem attitude. The worst thing that happens is getting rejection letters, and I've reached a point where I can accept that they can (and, let's be honest, the probably will) come. Because it won't deter me from trying to make this the best story I can. And it won't stop me from working on my next Story Idea (nickname to be determined) and the idea after that and the idea after that. So I'll let you all know here when I dot my i's, cross my t's, and finally send out the incredibly terrifying First Query Letter EVER.

I hope you hang in there with me, readers. Hopefully this will be the start of a very big adventure. =)

Day #8607 - Happy Unniversary

First off, Happy Saint Patrick's Day! My Irish ancestors would be remissed if I didn't start right off the back with that. I'm sporting green and my pale skin with pride today. Corned beef will be coming later.

Anyway, I've actually been looking forward to today for another reason. March 17th in my mind has been a date one year in the making. It was, to me, the date that I could start calling myself a writer because it was the day I started writing in my journal and have written an entry every day since.

Now this was not my first time in my life trying to keep a journal. I have quite a nice collection of carefully selected notebooks that, if all goes to plan, NO ONE WILL EVER READ.

My first ever journal is not among these. It was from junior high and upon reading it a few years later in high school, I was so mortified by my former self that I ripped all the pages out and threw them away. Not to say that some of the thoughts in the ones I've kept are gems either. The earliest on the far left has sporadic entries from my freshman year of high school, then the pink one has random acts of high school and college. Next, the brown one was specifically for my summer studying abroad in Italy. Then the green one, a college graduation gift from my aunt, was one the one that got me in the habit of writing at least once a week again. That is, until March 17, 2011 when I then managed to start writing every single day, even if just a sentence proclaiming that I'm not dead yet.

So today was supposed to be my anniversary and a cause for celebration. Except for one tiny detail.

Upon double checking, I learned it was actually March 7th, not the 17th.  Oops!

Honestly, I'm a little bummed I missed it, but at the same I think it's a good thing that I did. I think it shows that writing has become such a part of me that it goes without saying, that it is as much a part of me as eating and breathing and all those other things we need to do to live. And now I really feel like a writer because I have done A LOT of writing in the past year in a lot of ways and forms, and my only wish is that I'd found this wonderful thing sooner.

In other writing news, I think Summer Project from last year is finally in a position where I'm comfortable with sending out query letters about it to agents and whatnot. So if you happen to be reading this, keep your fingers crossed for me, eh?

So there's a lot to be thinking about on this sunny Saturday in March. Happy Saint Patrick's Day, Happy Unniversary, and just think happy thoughts!

Day #8590 - Taking a Leap of Faith

Hey there, original blog of mine! Did you miss me? I know I've been incredibly neglectful as of late (and that's putting it lightly), so allow me to fill in some of the gaps as far as my writing adventures are concerned.

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.... yeah....

It's been going that well. Or really, there's been that little time. I know, it's a poor excuse, but there it is. Between work, two grad school courses (one of which ends next week - hallelujah! My degree will be all done come May), and starting up my book review/ramblings blog last fall, I kept finding new reasons not to work on my own writing when I did manage to have a little time here and there.

In a word it comes down to one thing: fear.

Grappling with this manuscript of mine and all of my many hopes and dreams for it are the closest thing I know so far for what it must have been like when my parents sent me off to college. This story is my child, my baby, and I want nothing but good things for it. I've painstakingly worked it, given it to a few others I trust along the way to help me shape and mold it, and now it's time for me to find it a place where it can continue to thrive and become the best possible version of itself before going out officially into the world. I need to find an agent who loves it as much as I do and wants to see it succeed.

But then come the doubts. What if it's not ready? What if I'm not ready? What if I'm blinded by my love for it but it is actually a festering pile of crap that no one has had the courage to admit to my face because they know I've worked so long and tried so hard? These thoughts plague my mind as I work on query draft after query draft, trying to find the right words, but the thought that I should be focusing on is the one that always manages to get smaller and meeker: what if it's great?

To query and take that next step requires a tremendous leap of faith, not just in your story but in yourself. I'm not a glass half empty person, but I have accepted that there's a very real chance that I'll get nothing but rejections. It happens. In the meantime, I have started work on a new story in the last week that has been growing and growing in my mind and in the margins of my notebooks for quite a while now. And I also have my NaNoWriMo draft from last year that I could revisit if I so choose. There are plenty more stories to be told and to try my hand at; I just have to believe in myself and that things will work out in the way they are meant to.

So happy leap day, blog readers of mine. I hope your February 29th has been a memorable one and I can't wait to see what life is like the next time this mystical, wonderful date comes around again.

Day #8551 - In the Still of the Night

Being a life-long resident of the midwest, I have a complicated relationship with snow. Now I love winter. I love getting to wear layers and hats and scarves, it's hockey season, and it's the one time of year where people don't give me funny looks for being cold (unlike in the summer when I usually wear jeans until temperatures get above 75). Yet I must admit there are things about the snow that I'm less than in love with, mostly automobile related. Nothing says "fun" quite like having a long day at work and then having to scrape off my car and driving five miles per hour to get home, knowing full well I'll be doing the same thing the next morning.

However, at this time of night, I just like to forget that part. The wind and snowfall have stopped, and as I look out my window onto my street, it's bathed in the yellow glow of the streetlights and several inches of powder. The only sounds are my fingers hitting the keys - there aren't any snowblowers or plows out right now and the sky is a beautiful color that my eyes can't get enough of. It's as if the night sky is a deep blue silk and someone has laid a sheer gray tule over it. Regal is the word that comes to mind. The tree out front has looked so sad and barren since it lost its leaves a few months ago, but the branches now feel like they have a purpose again as they are gently covered in a white dusting, bright against the bark.

I like to remember moments like this when I think I hate winter because I couldn't hate this part if I tried.

It gets the creative juices flowing, that's for sure. Summer Novel continues to be a project I love and I've been having fun working with the characters and story in a post-first draft way. Slightly more exciting though is that I spent time this afternoon sketching out a new idea that's been slowly growing in my brain for the last few months. I find that every story I write has come to me in a slightly different fashion. With Summer Novel, the first thing I knew was the setting but it was years before I knew who was in it. With my NaNoWriMo story from last year, I built it around a character who I already knew wasn't the protagonist, but had a huge impact on the protagonist. And now with this one, I've known the characters for quite some time, bits and pieces of information about them have been accumulating in my brain inspired by many different things, but I'm still learning how these people's lives intersect and what their story is. But for the first time, I was able to get a rough sense of where they're taking me, and it's an exciting feeling.

And so, I remember another perk of being overwhelmed by snow on the weekends. No work means no having to scrape my car, which means more time for playing and writing. Keep warm and best wishes!

Day #8535 - My Other Life

Sometimes, being a writer makes me feel like I have multiple personalities or like I'm leading a double life, except that both of my lives are perfectly aware of the other, yet they still fight for my time and attention.

My days are like this: I wake up, go to work, come home, grad school it up, read, blog, write, sleep, repeat. By day, I'm a library teaching assistant, an "adult" in the eyes of the high school students I work with as I help them find books, figure out how to print things, and remind them that it's a library and not a gym. I love working with this age group and I really enjoy the amazing feeling that comes with talking to a teen about the amazing book they just read and seeing their eyes light up when they find something new on the shelves to enjoy.

Then when I come home, I'm the student as I'm about to enter my final semester of graduate school before completing my M.S. in library and information science this May. I have homework of my own. I also have a mile high stack of books I want to read for fun, the blogs I enjoy reading to find out what else is out there and what fellow bibliophiles like me are up to, and then, last but far from least, is my own writing.

I'll admit, Summer Novel (code name as such because I wrote it last summer) is in pretty good shape. I'm afraid of reopening November Novel for the time being, but I do have this brand new, shiny, fabulous idea that's been floating around in my head ever since last fall that I'm itching to start working out. Plus, on top of all of that, I really want to start making something happen with Summer Novel and putting it out into the world, even if it means the plethora of rejection letters that the blogs of published authors have warned me will probably come (but they warn me in the nicest possible way!) The only problem with this fabulous plan is that there aren't always are never enough hours in a day.

Long story short, it comes down to prioritizing and choices. I'm lucky that I've become pretty good at juggling these various personas, and I just remind myself that all of them are vitally important to making me, me. Grad school will end in May. I have nights and weekends. And even if nothing happens with Summer Novel or any of my other stories, it's okay. Despite the fact that I think it would be awesome, wanting to be published isn't the reason I write, nor should it be. I write because it's something I simply need to do, there's no other way to put it.

So to my peers out there, remember, whether or not we have an agent or a contract, we still ARE writers. I have to believe that if it's meant to be, with a lot of hard work and a whole lot of luck, our time will come.

Day #8530 - Reading and Writing Resolutions

It all comes down to this day. Literally. Every year, full of highs and lows, smiles and tears, without fail comes back to December 31st. Some people love this day, or more specifically, this night. New Year's Eve with it's promise of something new and fresh in the middle of a long winter.

If I'm honest, I've never been huge into the NYE hype. My birthday is at the end August, usually coinciding with the first day of school, so that's always been my personal time for new beginnings and a clean slate.

But this year, I find that the buzz about resolutions and goals for 2012 hits me in a way that it normally doesn't. So, in no particular order, these are my reading and writing resolutions for the next 12 months:

• Read at least 50 novels in the next year and make a more conscious effort to read outside my comfort zone (aka more 'boy books,' sci-fi, mystery, non-YA, etc.)
• Make something happen with Summer Novel - keep reworking, start querying, anything - I'm ready to start sharing this thing with the world. Even if nothing ends up coming of it and I get rejections from every agent ever, that's okay. At least I'll be able to say I tried.
• Keep writing! While the crazy pace of NaNoWriMo just about made me want to throw my computer against the wall and never write ever again, I know that a part of my soul would die if I actually gave it up. My goal is to continue writing in my journal every day, blogging here and at The Fuma Files, and working on my own stories.
• Finish grad school! I am six beautiful credit hours away from being done with my M.S. in Library and Information Science and words cannot express how excited I am about that. Library school is one of the best things to ever happen to me because a) it's the reason I have a job right now, b) it's what re-introduced YA lit to me in a way that I love so much that I've started to write it myself and c) my classmates and professors have been awesome about challenging me to read and write critically.
• Don't loose sight of the reason I fell in love with all of this in the first place.

It's been a long and interesting 365 days to be sure. A lot has happened, some of it planned and a lot of it not so much. I could rant and rave about the unpleasantries, but I really don't see a point in doing that. I finished my first full year of grad school. I grew my hair out the longest it's been in 10 years and donated it to charity. I got a "grown up" job working in a high school library, leading to other grown up things like learning about insurance. According to Goodreads, I read 43 books (but I know the number is higher than that). I started and completed two first drafts of novels. I came back to this blog and started another one, too. 

And, bonus!, someone else told me last night that I look like Anne Hathaway - I've officially lost track of how often I've heard that this year. I still don't see it, but I'll happily take the compliment.

It would be easy to focus on the fact that on the surface, my year isn't ending so great (I have a cold and a zit), but that couldn't be further from the truth. 2011 had it's ups and downs, but overall it was a good year to me.

May all of you celebrate safely and find much happiness and blessings in 2012. I have a hunch it's going to be a good one.