An Odyssey of Dreams

Four (just four, no scores) years ago, when I graduated from college, I spent a good three months applying for lab tech jobs, watching Stargate (SG-1 and Atlantis), and Firefly on my sister's computer, and otherwise emphatically vegging in her house. I think I may have been what is known as "burned out" - I still remember the feeling of being utterly emptied of any creativity I had at the time.

That feeling is a lot like where I was two weeks ago - utterly exhausted by life and not interested in anything save escaping the constant work, the constant pressure. I was late to get home for Shabbat that week and as I was pulling out of the university the driver in front of me was chatting on with her car full of girlfriends. I honked at her so she would turn onto the only road that leads out of this badly-constructed place, and she decided that flipping me off the rest of the time we shared the road was the way to go. I got home to light candles - late - and as I did so I saw how messy our dining room was. I was hit with such a wave of despair and anger and irrational desire to hit things that I could only manage one thing: I went to bed.

Doyle woke me up a few hours later and we went out for dinner to a mall that has two things that cheer me up immensely - a Borders and a Cheesecake Factory. We didn't really get to explore the Borders before closing, so we went back the next day so I could indulge in some escapism. And that's when, after wandering around and not having anything catch my eye for 15 minutes, I picked up blackholly's Ironside, and started reading. I bought the book and finished it at home, a few hours later, curled up in the new reading nook I'd made for myself several months ago but hadn't actually used before. And then I went to the stack of books I've bought and not read, and I picked up libba_bray's The Sweet Far Thing. It'd been waiting for some attention for almost a year now, and I felt like I was going back in time - like I was back at my sister's house in August/September 2004, flying through Tithe and A Great and Terrible Beauty and thinking "I could do this. I have a story to tell."

It's weird how a one-two punch can happen twice. It took me longer to finish TSFT than AGaTB, and I still have many thoughts on it - and it actually makes me want to write fanfic, which is not an event that happens very often. I'll save that for another post (gotta have a reason). But last night I opened the file I keep Glamour in and started scanning it. I read through the notes lodessa and hamsterwoman left on my journal last summer. And I started thinking about how I could fix it.

I'm still too far from "there yet." I worked another 12 hour day on Tuesday, I've not really had much success in waking up and going into work earlier so I can leave earlier (though I've now moved it back about 30 minutes). I have yet to write a single word. But today I picked up another book from my overwhelmingly large "to read" pile and put it in my backpack. Gotta start somewhere.

I should be working, but people are frustrating me by being unclear as to how many resources I have to finish my experiments, so I'll just update instead.

Life continues, and I'm still in love with grad school to an unholy degree, despite surviving a rather unpleasant two weeks work-wise, all things considered. I did well on my exam, and general well in my other class, so life's not too shabby.

lodessa was here last week, so we did typical New England things like apple picking, typical girlie things like watching the second part of Pride and Prejudice (the BBC version) when I had a really bad day, and typical fandom things like writing Veronica Mars meta. We might even get our act together enough to post it when she gets back to her coast. The P&P had the unexpected side-effect that Doyle's interested in going as Mr. Darcy for Halloween, which I'm totally all for.

lodessa also read the current (let's say 1.3ish) draft of Glamour and gave me feedback I'd not heard before - like how the chapter I think sucks rocks is actually fairly suspenseful, and how I need to make Our Heroine more accessible in the latter parts of the novel. (To be fair to my other editors - I'd not heard that yet 'cause they hadn't gotten that far.) Also, she said the pacing was good, and that's possibly the best thing I'd heard on the subject. We spent the car ride to the train station dissecting, and I'm really excited to go and edit things more... when I have the time. Thanksgiving, maybe?

( TV Watching - VM, Dr. Who, BSG, B5, and why Buffy isn't the best thing since sliced bread - why is sliced bread so cool, anyway? )

So. There has been a recent "meme" of sorts about the all the cool people's blogs about "how to write a novel." (In case you don't read, it can be found here, here, here, here, and here, at the very least and in the order I saw them.) And really, that's great.

I've already (technically) written a novel, though. And while I don't think I'm cool enough to share the process, I will say that my brain did conjure something very similar to the spreadsheet idea as a cookie for me (it was a notepad file, started off by keeping wordcount, and then evolved to keeping the names of the chapters - Glamour's not the sort of book where I need to keep track of the POV). In any case, I have a fairly "set" method for writing novels that is differently-evolved from my method of writing short stories or essays, and I'm pretty happy with it. It works for me.

What I don't have is a way to actually get myself to look at the book again. I can think about it, make a list of all the things that are broken and need to be fixed - even, on occasion, how I can fix them, but I can't bring myself to open that bloody file labelled "Glamour Draft 2.doc" and get to work. I dread it. I'm absolutely sure it'll be horrible, and I'll hate it and won't stand to even edit it and will destroy my own creation in a blaze of madness.

Rationally, I know it's not that bad. I know where it's broken, but I also know where the strong points are. It is fixable, but I actually need to be willing to fix it. I'm willing to bet that it'd be nice work if I could get it. And if you can get it, please won't you tell me how?

I lack discipline. Every time I make plans, they get sidelined and I wind up reading Jane Austen instead. Not that reading Austen is bad, by any means, but I do have a book I need to rewrite in large chunks. And so, a meme stolen shamelessly borrowed from truepenny.

A List of First Sentences of Works in Various Stages of Progress:

( Cut because I care, and you may not. )

*sigh* Combining the first two chapters isn't so difficult, but it largely involves sync-ing several people's edits to something reasonable. As a result, fuyu_no_fuhei has convinced me to wait until lareinenoire arrives here tomorrow before deleting/rebuilding/polishing. They're going to take it all apart while I'm off stuffing Readercon packets.

May they have no mercy on my poor book. :-)

In other news, much SQUEE!! regarding today's semi-final, and I'm off to resume my reading of Blood and Iron, which won the battle of the books.

*sigh* I just wish my sore throat would go the hell away.

So far this month I've gotten into grad schools and chosen the one I shall be attending next year. But if that wasn't enough, I just wrote the final word of the first draft of my novel!

I have totally earned my Caribbean vacation, oh yes.

( Wherein I talk more about the book. )

C'est tout, as some French-speakers may say. Possibly with the proper accents and everything. I shall be departing tomorrow later today for the sunny Caribbean, where I shall celebrate my new-found freedom by gorging myself on as much sci-fi and fantasy one can squeeze into hours of lying on a beach and explaining to my family that vacation means moving as little as possible.

See you on the other side!