Gravity and momentum

A brief review of 2008, wherein I look back to see how far I've come in order to inspire myself to continue plodding forward:

The boys finished their first year of "regular" school, after having been homeschooled for three years. They both rounded out the year on the high honor roll, and Joey was voted in for the WWJD (What would Jesus do?) award for his class. Joey won the school-wide geography bee, and Michael was a semi-finalist in the school-wide spelling bee. Both have adjusted well and completely to their new life structure and are well-liked by fellow students and teachers alike. No major discipline issues, socializing issues, or academic issues. I am proud and vindicated and relieved. I still kinda miss teaching them myself, but the time we had previously spent struggling with the basics of grammar and math and spelling, we now spend on lively discussions about music, books, philosophy, and even politics. Joey has gone from being uncertain how cool last year's Christmas gift of Guitar Hero really is to demolishing every Rock Band drum part on Expert mode and whaling like a pro on a real drum kit while searching the 'net avidly for information on how to read music and learn new songs via drum tabs. Michael has gone from wandering in the shadows of Joey's musical tastes to picking out HIS favorite songs for HIS mp3 player, and regularly sneaks peeks at Joey's pre-algebra text to learn cool new math things, which he then asks me to explain more thoroughly to him, because he loves math no matter what kind of faces Joey makes on the subject.

They are both fine and blossoming young men, and I am proud of them and pleased to know them. You know, in case you hadn't already gotten that impression from me.

I did a lot of looking hard at how I spend the hours of my days last year. I made good changes to my eating and exercise habits, which I stuck to more or less until the last month or two. I found a routine for my days and weeks that is structured enough to make me feel secure and flexible enough that I don't go completely crazy when unplanned things happen. (Like field trips and sick kids and doctor appointments.) I have done an awesome job of balancing the time I want and need to give to my family with the hours I want to spend on building a writing career and the hours I need to take care of me with exercise and meditation and just plain play time. Writing-wise, I finished three brand new short stories, all of which I have submitted to someplace or another, and one of which earned an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future contest. I fiddled with the rough drafts of a couple of additional children's stories which are still on hold. I finished a really rough and incomplete first draft of a novel, which still needs a good amount of work but about which I still have a really good feeling. My word count for the year (not including blog entries or word count which I have since cut from finished or first drafts) is roughly 74,000 words. Including the cut scenes, that's well over 100,000 words, and that was starting right around April 1. Not shabby, I think.

Plans and resolutions for 2009, because that's what the first day of the new year is for:

I have in my life a personal situation which has, in the past, caused me to feel a great deal of anger and resentment. That situation has changed/is changing, but I find I still have a kneejerk anger response even when that anger is quite likely no longer justified. My big resolution for the year is to make a conscious effort to look past the kneejerk anger in an attempt to untrain myself from that response. I'm blocking my own path, and I need to get the hell out of my way.

I was doing really well with eating intelligently and exercising regularly for most of the year. As with a large percentage of the rest of the population, I didn't do so hot over the holidays. I'll be trying to get that part of my routine back into shape now that the holidays are over. Even if I don't lose weight (and I had hit that plateau, which was a contributing factor to the falling-off-the-wagon), I'll do it because it makes me feel better.

In the same category of "because it makes me feel better," I'll be trying to remember to leave time for at least a little meditation every day.

I will also get my feet under me again and get going on the writing once more. Actually, I've already done a few hours of that while the guys were out of town Tues. and part of Wed., so I'm feeling pretty good about that. After much soul-searching, I've decided that a lot of my current difficulty with Crowmaker has to do with being too emotionally close to the story and unable to make important plot decisions because of it. Much as I'd love to charge ahead and finish it, it is just not going to happen right now. And if it did, I wouldn't do the story full justice. In the meantime, a story idea I've been itching to write for a long time bumped into a genre I've been researching, with the result that I may have finally found the right vehicle for that particular idea. So instead of a break for a short story this time, I'll be taking a break from Crowmaker in order to explore and plan and start the rough draft for this other novel. Part of me is afraid I'm just being undisciplined, but another part of me thinks of the many other writers I've seen offer the advice to have more than one project going at a time, so that you have something to work on when one project needs stewing time. As with so many things, I suppose I'll just take the plunge and find out if there's a riptide once I get in the water.

My tentative writing to-do list for 2009, then:

• Start the new novel.
• Finish Crowmaker.
• Possibly finish an existing short story or two.
• Possibly find potential markets for the two finished shorts I have sitting around and get them into the submission pond again.

The key word for 2009, I think, will be "balance." I will continue to hold a good balance between time for family and time for writing and time for just me. In my writing, I will continue to seek that elusive balance between doing the smart things I need to do to pursue a career, and doing what I want to do because I love it.

Online hiatus

I think we have pinned our internet woes on our ancient router. ("We" being myself and the children with whom I share an internet addiction.) We have reduced ourselves to one computer in the house being hard-connected to the modem, and that happens to be not-my-computer, since my computer does not have the modem nearby. In other words, I'll still be checking in here and peeking at my email until the new router arrives, but my online presence will be much reduced. Also, my parents will be here over the weekend, so I'll be busy enjoying their company as well.

I'm sure I'll be back soon enough, certainly once the break is over and I am once again in front of my computer wavering between actual word count production and writing a blog entry.

Even a miracle needs a hand

My internets are the poopz today, but in theory this should work.



Merry Christmas!

A stillness of the sun

This is, I suppose, where I'm supposed to write something profound and moving in regards to Christmas. Honestly, I've always found Christmas to be a bit overwhelming--even seen as a time in which to introspect on the "true" meaning of the season. Because, being me, I find plenty of time to introspect about all things spiritual (and everything else) throughout the year.

There are things I still love about Christmas, but they are small things and possibly not so much about Christmas in specific as about my need to stop and listen for the divine on a semi-regular basis: I like to sit quietly in a darkened room and gaze at the tree lights. I like to watch the Christmas specials--the old ones, like Rudolph and Frosty and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, or the one with the mice who save Christmas by making, breaking, and fixing a clock--and let myself get caught up in the magic so deeply that I still tear up in all the right places. I like the pristine cold air at midnight, and the hymns belted out with more enthusiasm than accuracy at midnight mass. There is something in the air at moments like those, something I probably can't explain no matter how many words I throw around. It has nothing to do with religion or even with Christmas, and everything to do with feeling, with no proof and absolute certainty, in spite of my constant struggle with depressive tendencies and the always-nagging question "why?", that there is somewhere, somehow, an answer, even if I don't know it yet. That there is some kind of divine spark inside each of us. That there is light, and on my best days maybe I even manage to help spread it around.

On a recent trip to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis with my boys and some friends, we watched a planetarium show called "Season of Light." I learned that the word "solstice" means "still sun," and chills went down my spine as they went on to talk about how the earliest solstice rituals were meant to welcome or even attract the sun to return to us. There were images of druids building bonfires during the darkest, coldest nights--despite the dark and the cold, with certainty that the sun was still there and would return.

Happy holidays to everyone.

Wiped. Out.

I spent the day herding fifth graders through the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. Cool place. Good kids. I had five in my van. One of them rode in the front seat with me and regaled me with everything from how he's going to be an engineer if the NFL doesn't work out to his opinions on the economy, all the while fiddling with the radio to find his favorite classic rock station so we could jam out.

Amusing, but exhausting.

One more day to Christmas break.

Nail on the head

Via one of my new favorite blogs, Shrinking Violet Promotions:

Online Jung Typology Test

Typology Test for your blog

(And let me just add that these are but two of the many wonderful bits I've found on that blog. The tidbit on the sidebar which begins with "Introversion is NOT a social disease"? Yeah. I knew I'd be visiting these people a lot as soon as I saw that.)

There are various places to find detailed descriptions and information regarding your type, once you find it, including the Human Metrics page the first test is on and The Personality Page. Being me, I find it all pretty fascinating, and most of it seems pretty on the mark for me.

My personal type comes back as INFJ, with REALLY high scores under Introverted and Intuitive and low to moderate under the Feeling and Judging. The type is described as The Protector or The Counselor, depending on which site you use to look it up. I found this one seems to describe me the best.

However, I answered all those questions as they apply in face to face situations; when I went back for curiosity's sake and took it again, answering any social-related questions as if they applied to online only, my high Introverted score became a low Extroverted score. Which probably explains at least in part how my blog scored ESFP--The Performer. And, I would imagine, also explains how so many of my closest friends are those I meet and hang out with online. I'm guessing that has a lot to do with the fact that there is a clear if invisible wall around me when I'm online--if I'm available for socializing, then it's only because I have put myself out there, and I only do that when I am in the frame of mind for it. In other words, I guess, I am definitely an introvert, because I much prefer my quiet alone time. But when I do put myself out there into the world, I am capable of and even enjoy behaving like an extrovert.

Hmm.

In the blog post at SVP where I found the blog typing link, a LOT of people commenting noted that they are INFJ's--almost exclusively, actually. And INFJ is supposedly the rarest type. Coincidence, or are INFJ's simply found in larger percentages in the writing/blogging/artistic circles the blog is geared toward?

If you feel like sharing your results or thoughts, you know where to find the comments section!

In the meantime, I have to cover a classroom during the teachers' Christmas luncheon tomorrow, followed by driving and chaperoning for a 5th grade field trip on Thursday. Start sending any excess extroverted vibes you don't need my direction now, please.

Monday morning geekery

I'm still working on a rewrite plan for Crowmaker. It has thus far involved a lot of scribbling notes and diagrams in OneNote and a whole bunch of deep thinking, but it is also resulting in a rough outline which accumulates the important bits I discover during the scribbling and thinking. It's in what I usually liken to a birthing stage--painful and slow, but I can feel that what I'm struggling for is close to coming out where I can see it more clearly. I'm trying to not force anything much this week, with two weeks of Christmas break right around the corner. But I am working!

The aforementioned geekery comes to you courtesy the Joe-Bear, who spotted this on my computer screen over the weekend. "You're making a soundtrack for your novel?" (Said in the "huh" tone of voice that could be interpreted as "That's cool" or "My mother is kinda weird." You decide.) Mostly I just use it to prod the Muse when she's sleepy, but here's a list you can do with what you will. (I'm too lazy to collect links this morning, so you're on your own this time.)

"Best of You," Foo Fighters
"To Be a Man," Boston
"The Pretender," Foo Fighters
"No Way Back," Foo Fighters
"Saints and Angels," Sara Evans
"One Blue Sky," Sugarland