2013: The Best of My Worst, The Worst of My Best

I'm in my pajamas on New Year's Eve.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.  Say what you will, but pajamas make nearly almost everything better.  Even Wal-Mart.  Pretend you don't agree--I won't believe you.  

My stomach is protesting for the fourth day in a row.  I'm afraid to eat the salad with Italian dressing I'm craving knowing salad is never awesome the second time around, knowing I hold no interest in becoming a human Salad Shooter.

A pain throbs between my eye sockets and the base of my skull.  I've seen movies like this, where a person's head splits in two, revealing the sparking, beeping innards of the robot menace within.  I'm hoping there's a robot menace within, at least, because I have a busy weekend ahead and the human menace (me) doesn't want to deal with the holiday clean-up that this dumb virus has delayed.

It's probably dehydration.  Darn.

Two Advil and a lot of water later and the headache's not getting better, so I pull on my sleep mask while Mr. Ohboy watches Moonshiners.  Seriously, Moonshiners.  I can't get behind this show, even with a main character, a full-grown adult named Tickle.  No.  With the twangy lullaby of sweaty gentlemen wearing overalls and no t-shirts, I'm asleep by 8:30p.m.

An hour later and the unofficial neighborhood fireworks wake me up.  I proceed to text my friend Allison, who always seems to get the "Seriously?  Fireworks?" texts from me and I don't know why, other than to also stress her out because now she owns a horse who may or may not appreciate said fireworks.  We quickly established that my age bracket is sliding closer to that of a Medicare recipient than its rightful place of 35.  (The fireworks and random machine gun firing awoke me again just after midnight.  Happy New Year!  Huzzah!)

On New Year's Eve I like to write a blog post reflecting on the past year.  It's not happening tonight. The pressure of my pillows against my head and my back make me feel nauseated and sore.  I'm in a bad mood.  I'm uncomfortable from the tippy-top of my head to the ends of my toes.  I feel sorry for myself, which makes me cry.  Sad me is sad.

My guitar hangs from a peg on my bedroom wall.  I'm mediocre at so many things, but I especially struggle with the guitar.  While my youngest was still in the womb, I took lessons with a little old Irish guy at a local music shop that has since gone out of business.  In the hands of my teacher, my guitar sang like a heartbroken lover or a carefree dancer.  In my stuttering hands, my guitar hesitates and falters.  Practice makes things perfect, usually, but I haven't been able to bring myself to practice in a couple of years.  Last night, so lost for something to do, I pulled the guitar down and tuned it.  I thumbed through a few easy melodies, single notes, no chords.  As I pick away at a phrase, my baby boy, now four years old, walks in and watched me.

"What are you doing?"  He asked, sucking in his lower lip beneath his front teeth.

"Do you remember when I used to play guitar when you were in my tummy?"

"Yes."  He says.  I don't know if he really remembers, but I want to believe it's true.  That even my imperfection means something to him.  Even the best of my worst (or the worst of my best) tickles his memory of a time before.

I've managed a lot of good things in 2013.  I've written two novels and a short story, all of which I hope to edit and do something with in 2014.  I've randomly become a runner and completed my first race, a 10K (6.2 miles) in December.  All good things, but I feel guilty.  In pursuit of any of my goals I've been more withdrawn from friends and family and lately I've been feeling like I'm the reason why certain of my kids struggle in school or my house isn't very clean.  

At the moment, all that I accomplished in 2013 matters little to anyone else, even my family.  My kids don't care that I can run a mile in 11 minutes or that I'd like to try to run the equivalent of a half marathon in one outing before 2014 is through.  They don't care what happens to Claire or Liam, or if Lucy figures out why she's in Mitte.  They don't care if my horse gets ridden every couple of days or if there's manure in the pastures.  Maybe they will care someday, but right now I don't see it.

2013 was kind to me, but I want 2014 to be kind to my entire family.  For the blessings that surround me to surround them, as well.  I want the best of my worst and the worst of my best to mean more to everyone I love.  That's what I want for 2014, not just riding and publishing and miles.  

To mean.  To matter.  To make a difference.

Back to the Drawing Board

And, in case you were wondering, I decided to pass on the opportunity to publish with the company that I mentioned a couple blog posts back.  The individuals I spoke with at the company seemed nice enough, and I enjoyed our conversations, but the contract left a bad impression--like a crimson handprint radiating on my cheek.

Could it have worked?  Maybe.  I'd been speaking with another of their signed authors for a week or so prior to receiving the contract, and I guess he negotiated a lot of the things I took issue with to work in his favor.  Probably I could have, too, but I didn't even wait for them to reply with a counter before I bid them adieu.  In the end, I decided it was a divine hint that it was not the right timing or maybe not the right opportunity.  I haven't even really tried to land an agent yet, so, in a sense, everything is a possibility.  Well, except for that publishing company.

There'll be more doors to open and look inside, more lessons to be learned.  This I know for sure, though:  I will be published, one way or another.  Mark my words.

We Meet Again. Now What?

Tonight I did it.  I finally completed--in 2-1/2 months--what I was hoping would only take me one.  But who's counting, anyway?

Book 2 Draft 1 is complete at 50,004 words.  It is not perfect, but I never expected it would be.  Show me someone who writes the perfect first draft, and I'll point out that it probably took them 20 years to do it.

There is a lot of smoothing to be done, details to be added, and probably I will end up with a completely different story when I eventually go through and do a second draft of the thing.....  Kind of like when I did a second draft of my FIRST book.  But right now I feel better about this one.  I think that's just denial.  Time and space will reveal how horrible it actually is.  For the moment, I am proud.

Thank you to the hundreds of people who endured my word count posts on Facebook.  I know it is one of the many reasons you hide me in your newsfeed, and I love you still.  Don't expect me to like the accomplishments you are proud of, but we're still okay.  Haha.  But, seriously, thank you for your encouragement--especially those who have no idea what I'm talking about most of the time.  Yes, I realize that's most of you.

(Is it weird that I still get surprised when people say, "You're writing a book?"  I've kept it this big secret and all.... ;-)  )

And even though I'm not 100% he deserves it, I'd like to say thank you to my amazing husband.  He's my biggest fan, always, and yet he gives me so much grief about my starting on a second book when I haven't published the first.  There's a method to my madness this time, dude.  Take a chill pill.  Just for your impatience, maybe I'll start writing installment three.

The flu has made me testy, my bad.

Tomorrow--today, officially--I will rest and do whatever it is when I'm not worried about self-imposed deadlines.  It likely involves mountains of laundry and even bigger mountains of pet fur lurking in every corner of the house.  Exotic, I know.

Unless I decide to do something really crazy like enter this contest, in which case I would have to forego said piles of things and figure out stuff I've never done before (pitch and picking an excerpt).

Tonight, I sleep.

I'm Still Here and You're Still Here. You Know What That Means....

Dance-Off!

Okay, not really.  It just sounded exciting.  I'm still in my pajamas weighing the pros and cons of doing anything else besides nursing my current mug o' joe.  So far, nothing has been so important that I've moved.

The ringing in of 2013 was anti-climactic.  Some tummy issue sidelined me from my family's annual karaoke/card game party, so I curled up in bed with my laptop, a tall glass of water (I'm a lush), and a couple of Twilight movies I haven't seen in ages but try to avoid watching when Mr. Ohboy is around.  My husband is my biggest fan and would sit through a Twilight marathon if I begged him to--and secretly, he would like it just a little bit.  That's the kind of thing he holds over my head, though.  Eventually I pay a price for such injustices to his manhood.

But, getting back to New Year's Eve...  The house was mine.  Empty.  Friends, I have never lived alone.  Never.  Maybe someday my own voice will echo back to me and I will miss the sheer chaos.  For now, the solitude is as close as I will come to straight-up magic.  My family's party could have gone for a week solid, and it would have been the next best thing to laying on a beach somewhere with a fruity drink in my hand.  Sadly, the boys returned at about 11:30p.m., and we flipped on the t.v. ten minutes before midnight only to see Carson Daly and his female co-host holding a conversation they wouldn't shut up about until 10 seconds before midnight.  Horrible--I want Dick Clark back.

Anyway...

Uninterrupted, I managed to plunk out a little over 1900 words, reaching my re-re-revised goal of 38k by the end of 2012.  Shortly after the ball dropped, bringing in 2012, I was snuggled up with my laptop.  A year later, I am in the same place, same characters, different story.  My eyes opened this morning, and my first thoughts were, "Now what happens with my characters?"

Well, no.  My first thoughts were, "Coffee.  Where's my coffee?"  But, the two kind of go hand-in-hand, so it's almost the same thing.  The point is, clearly I am where I am supposed to be.

The end of the world didn't happen, not yet, unless we're already smack dab in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and we just haven't noticed.  So what are you going to do to bring yourself to the place you want to be?  I'm not talking resolutions, because there is something about a resolution that screams "You know I'm too hard.  Quit already."  It has to be something else--something you go for with fire, because failing isn't an option if you ever want things to change for the better.      

Maybe you're stuck on a big picture, when focusing on a single baby step is enough to begin.  Every journey starts with a single footstep... or keystroke... or glass of water.  Take that single footstep every day and by this time next year, you're at least 365 paces closer.  But I bet you're closer than that because momentum in one area of our lives tends to push us to take a step or two (maybe more!) along the way.

So tell me what your journey is, and one baby step you'd like to take to get there.  Can I help you, even if it's just cheering from the sidelines as you baby-step your way through a year?