Status update: Getting so close!

I am on my last run through my book, doing line edits and little tweaks here and there and also hacking away at it to make it shorter. I only have 22 pages left. I've been doing this round of edits on paper, so when I'm done I have to enter the changes into the computer, and then OMG and then........I'll be done. It's already been two and a half years since I started this project, and soon I will be ready to close the book forever (unless of course an editor suggests some changes, but that would be assuming that I find an agent, and that my agent finds a publisher, and that I'm the luckiest girl in the world).

I honestly don't entertain any hope that this book will be published. I mean, hello its only my first. I know I have so much more to learn and improve on. Which is why....

I've started researching for my next book! It is a stand alone book about a character that I made up five years ago. I'm so excited to get started on it. And the best part is that the research is absolutely fascinating because I am enthralled with the subject (which I cannot state at this time. This is my big secret project).

Anyways, just wanted to let you all know that I'm still fighting/still pushing/still moving forward with my goals and dreams.

I'm not saying I'm back, just wanting to say hello

Hello, Blogging world.

What the heck is going on? It would seem that my second to last post was a year ago, but that is not true. In my manic state, I deleted three months of blog posts. Oh well.

Starting clean.

I have not been writing very much. My wrorgan has not been very hungry. I have been developing a new side of myself, one that is not so obsessed with the dream of getting published. A side of me that cares more about grounding from my heart, being supportive and responsible, and most of all....SLEEPING!

Maybe I'll post now and then to get my brain flowing and satiate the small appetite that my wrorgan now has.

Love love love you guys, because love is a state of consciousness.

Goodbye Blogger For Now

Oh my.  I realize I need a psychological and spiritual retreat.  So I'm closing my blog and doing my inner work.  Wish you all the best on your own journeys. 

And the dedication goes to...

Growing up, only one person encouraged me to be a writer and that's my tenth and twelfth grade English teacher, Mrs. Markovich, who was Japanese and born in the internment camp in Fresno, CA. She would work creative writing into our essays in any way she could. One red ink comment on an essay said, "Either quit talking to Erin or loose the nose ring. You're pushing it." The comment on the next essay said, "You should pursue a career in creative writing." I was 15, so at the time I paid more attention to the bossy comments. For the record, I neither took out the nose ring nor stopped talking to Erin. Not then. Not now.

It amazes me that someone told me what I should do at such a young age. I tried to fit myself into other boxes and didn't really internalize my "destiny" until I was 20, but those words are part of what got me to accepting my novel-writing fate. I can still picture her loopy handwriting in the margin of my essay about the difference between my mom's antique porcelain cows and the new funky clay ones, about the story each cow in the collection had to tell.

The next person to heavily influence my decision to be a novelist, and not just a journaler (because I've always Always kept journals on my own), is my husband. He takes the starving out of artist. He oversees all of my plot decisions. Sometimes he overrides me and sometimes I override him. Together, we keep my books from falling to their death off of cloud 9.

In Mrs. Markovich's class during senior year, I wrote an essay about my (at the time) fatherless state of being. I worked at Macy's and helped a man pick out clothes for his fifteen year old daughter. I watched on with something like envy, bittersweet and wistful. I wasn't the only one. All the worker girls were looking on in awe. It wasn't the shopping that got us. It was the sweetness. How comfortable they were together. I wrote about that moment and how boys didn't like me as much as other girls because my father wasn't around. I was a seed that got stepped on and I needed a man to water me, to make me grow into a beautiful flower that others would notice. I was a very odd sixteen year old, I know.

From all this, stems what I once thought would be the dedication in my first book:

To Mrs. Markovich, for planting the seed
and to Gabriel, the one who watered me.

As you can see, it means a lot and it makes perfect sense. But now I'm not so sure. Shouldn't the first dedication go to your mom? Shouldn't everything go to your mom? She has encouraged me to be whatever I wanted to be, but always jokingly pushed me to be a journalist and be on TV.

Now I have a slew of people who encourage me.

All this is to say is that I'm not sure what my first dedication would be. It is obviously not something to dwell on. Don't worry folks, I actually do write. But its the little things that make up a big dream, and I know I'm not the only unpubbed writer to wonder what that mostly blank page will say.

Have you given thought to your first dedication? If you're already pubbed, was the dedication important to you or something to make light of? Who did you dedicate to and how did you choose that person?

P.S. No matter who I dedicate my books to, rest assured that I will track down Mrs. Markovich and send her a signed copy of each one.

P.P.S. I blogged about a teacher on Monday. Maybe its Teacher Appreciation Week in some other universe and this is the first sign in what will be the sci fi novel of my life that I am actually an alien.

Animal Writes Blogfest

I'm organizing a blogfest! Yay! It goes a little something like this...

Pick any animal.
Write a scene from the viewpoint of that animal. (First person, I should think. Green light on fantastical creatures, so long as they're not usually sentient. So boo hoo hoo for me--no mermaids)
Less than 1000 words.
To be posted on or before Wednesday October 13th.

In my first creative writing class, the teacher (a native American man who went by the name Brightrope and had many names, the rest of which he would not tells us because when someone calls him a certain name then he knows how that person knows him and if he were to go around telling everyone all of his names then the system would be broken) shared a scene he wrote through the viewpoint of a horse. I remember the sweat, the muscles, the flies, the obscured vision. It was a beautiful descriptive scene, and reading I felt like...a horse.

So have fun with this! How does your animal see and hear and feel? It would be cool to get a variety of animals, so I suggest commenting here on what animal you intend to do. But by all means, feel free to duplicate!

I haven't decided my animal yet, but when I do, I'll comment it. I'm thinking maybe a gecko since I have about fifty in my backyard, but I kind of want to try a lion. Cats are always tempting. Decisions. Decisions.

Sign up bellow and leave a comment :)

Also, use the blogfest badge to let your readers know you'll be participating, and hopefully to get a few more writers playing along. The more animals the better!

My least favorite words

Everyone has their least favorite words. My sister's least fave is "delicious," which is so effing funny because people say it ALL THE TIME and every single time, she cringes. Its awesome. Best sister revenge ever. All I have to do is say, "This is delicious" and its pay back for whatever youngest-one-injustice I was suffering.

As a side, my mom's barfs when anyone else does. Actually, she barfs when anyone pretends to be barfing. I only used that twice. I distinctly recall some carrot coming up in a planter box. Sorry Mom.

What makes me gag? Two words that I really don't want to type. I don't want to think them. I don't want to write them. OH NO!! OMG OH NO!! I DON'T WANNA....ohhh here they are..."for me" and "personally."

Achk! aheuyck blfoopflpfl ghg ghgh uhhhh OMG I did it. Now you know. Sure its not as bad as barfing on cue, but it sucks cause people say them ALL THE TIME.

That phrase and that word are totally unnecessary. I remember when I was thirteen in line at a sandwich shop and the girl in front of me said "personally" at the beginning of every other sentence. I almost died.

And "for me" is just as bad. I don't care who you were talking about before, but if you say the word "I" you don't need to put "Me" in front of it!!! Oh and I am talking about the phrase coming at the beginning of a sentence. If you say "none for me" I won't slap you.

What's your least favorite word?

I promise not to use it as revenge. *crosses fingers under desk*

I was watching a TV show and the mom character's least favorite word was "moist." The daughter said it whenever she could, of course. Can you choose the least favorite words of your characters?

Umm...I sorta...can't.

I sympathize with you, Justine. Owwy.

Hiya!! I finished reading Liar by Justine Larbalastier last night. It was a fantastic read. YA. Unique. Hilarious. Witty. Shocking. Just darn good. I've never read anything like it. It was one of those books that makes you smile every other page and has you thinking how clever! how fun! A dynamic family history. An intriguing mix of country and city settings. Plus, where you end up is nowhere near where you think you might at the start...So you know, I recommend it. Just don't let anyone ruin the "truth" behind the lies for you before you read it.

Like a good fangirl, I went on over to Justine Larbalastier's blog. Her newest post says this:

The RSI in my hands and forearms got worse.
I took four weeks off from the computer entirely. I have reorganised my computer setup. I’ve been doing a vast amount of physical therapy. I’m improving. Slowly and frustratingly but surely.

Dang girl. Four weeks! That kind of freaks me out...a lot. As you know, I rewrote my book on paper. Now I'm typing it in. (I'm at 82 computer doc pages btw). Lemme tell ya that it hurts. Typing this much sucks. Writing hurts no matter what I do though. Type. Write on paper. Its just straight up painful. And I haven't been doing this all that long. So I wonder, will I have to take four weeks off someday? Go to physical therapy?

It wouldn't surprise me, but its not something to worry about, since its probably inevitable. In an effort to slow down the process, I always:

1) Put pot butter on my wrists before and after writing (before you get all offended, its pot cocoa butter, like a massage oil and does not have any...mental side effects). It calms my wrists down quite nicely.
2) Wear supportive wrist bands/guards. I wear both when I'm typing. Just the right one when I'm working by hand.
3) Use an ergonomic keyboard.
4) Keep my chair at the right height so that my arms are mostly bent at a ninety degree angle.

It just doesn't seem to be enough though. I'm on the computer probably...eight hours a day, and that is being pretty conservative. At night, I'm still in pain.

Are you plagued by wrist pain? What do you do to prevent it and heal it?

And, don't you just love Liar? I totally can't wait to read the anthology of YA short stories that she and Holly Black (author of Spiderwick) edited called Zombies v Unicorns. Plus, did you know that Justine is married to Scott Westerfield, author of the Uglies trilogy? Oh yes, what a good fangirl I am. Indeed.