i just unpacked my last bag from scotland that has been sitting on my floor for, quite literally, five months.  five months exactly on wednesday.

i'm so frustrated with my life right now; i feel stuck in so many ways, waiting for a change.  i've been applying for so many jobs, trying so many things, attempting to move my life in so many directions only to have doors slam down in front of me for almost everything.  the remainder, for things like the health issues i'm attempting to deal with and my writing, i've been strung along, forced to wait, keep going, hold steady; holding the line without forward motion or advancement. 

so i decided maybe i need to literally get rid of some baggage; maybe i can't move forward until i get over the past. 

but i'll tell you, a year ago i didn't think i'd be here.  five months ago when i came home, i hoped i wouldn't be here; i hoped i'd be further along, more settled, feeling like i have more of a future and more success. 

it's just hard for me to believe with all the constant energy i've been broadcasting into the universe that nothing has come back to me.  but then again, it was hard for me to believe that living in scotland wasn't going to work out; i feel like the world has something in mind for me, but the universe isn't giving me any hints yet. 

guess i'll just keep waiting, and keep applying, and keep trying. 

with one less piece of baggage. 

        

i'm shutting off my TV and canceling my subscription to People. 

i lied about both of those things.  the people subscription isn't even mine. 

but i want to do it. i'm sick of hearing about michael jackson, of NOT hearing about farrah fawcett, and jon and kate are making my heart break.  i just read in people that one of their daughters was just sobbing when they told her they were separating; my parents divorced, and i certainly get how awful that first announcement can be.  and i think it's horrible that ten years from now they can go back and see a sensationalist account of the whole affair.  but then again, sometimes i wish that i could talk to someone objective, on the outside of the whole thing, and see the whole divorce through their eyes with a kind of morbid curiosity, so maybe it will give them some answers. 

i just don't want to hear about it anymore.  so instead i went to see The Proposal (so cute!  Ryan Reynolds is looking gooood) and wrote 4000 words and ate a lobster roll.  it doesn't get much better than that!  i feel a big weekend of writing coming on, and i'm looking forward to reconnecting with the part that really makes me happy—writing the fun stuff and really FEELING my writing.  it wasn't jiving for a while there, but its smooth sailing from here!

especially since i still haven't gotten so much as a Roger, Roger, from the agent to say that she received the revisions.  :sigh:.  and :wait:. 

        

i'll be honest, i've kind of felt down on my luck lately, like the world hasn't been doing me many favors.  i'm struggling to find a job, my health is a constant struggle for various reasons, and it's just been tough.  and now i've been doing the training for a job that frankly, I don't like.  I don't like the way they treat their employees, their approach, or their general philosophy.  and in considering this job, i realized something:

i'm not that desperate, and i'm not that poorly off.  i'm also not ready to take on a job that i know from the outset that i really don't like for the money.  that's something that i never wanted to do, and right now i'm not quite strapped enough to necessitate that.  for right now, at least, i can afford to stand (cheaply) on my principles. 

i also realized that despite the fact that i've been veering away from freelance writing (i've just gotten really sick of the crap work and crap pay) as long as i'm not getting paid for what i want to be doing (WRITING FICTION!) then it's actually a pretty decent gig. 

so hey, let's just hope i can keep this whirligig turning a little bit longer, keep the faith, and believe that i'm right where i'm supposed to be. 

        

so i sent the revisions off to the interested agent on friday, and now i'm just waiting.  and waiting.  and waiting.  I know it hasn't been long at all (I'm anticipating waiting anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months), I still feel like, "Okay, I'm done, so...now what?"

I suppose i do have to take the SAT's again before wednesday. 

and i have to really light a fire under arianna, because i've got the next story brewing and i want to get back in the habit of writing a lot of quantity AND quality. 

and i should find a job.  with healthcare.  or one that pays enough to finance healthcare.  one or the other....

yeah, i guess i do have enough to do.  but still, c'mon let's get a move on!!     

        

today let's hope for some positive energy! i'm signing up for a new gym membership at a fancy gym because my own (a wicked budget, crappy gym) is just not holding my attention or motivation.  it's obviously more expensive, but i need to reach some health goals (diabetes management) and i think it's really going to be worth it—provided i keep the fire and motivation going! 

then later, in an effort to REALLY be proactive reaching those health goals, I'm going to the nutritionist to work out a better approach to eating with diabetes; its really easy to get caught up in all these food goals that other people promote while forgetting about the fact that i'm a diabetic, first and foremost. 

and then DUN DUN DUN, i'm going to send off the revisions for my novel.  very scary, but this is the date i've set for myself.  I've only had one other set of eyes on it at this point and while i would feel better getting a second opinion, at some point i just have to trust myself and jump off the proverbial cliff.  so bring on the positive energy, people!  I need it!

        

so the past two weeks have been chock full of everything.  a little family drama, a lot of work, a lack of writing time, and some fun stuff too, like cracking open the first bottles of my brother's new home brewed beer and going to the red sox game and hitting pizzeria regina afterward. 

but now the fifteenth has come and my work has hit a lull, and i finally have time to do some writing and hit some job applications again, and also hit the writing track again as well.  i've had a forced three week vacation from looking at arianna because i've been so busy, but it turns out the time was really worth while, because i've been looking over arianna and it's not working.  it doesn't feel like it can move forward, and that means there's a snag that i haven't caught yet, kind of like pulling a thread through the eye of a needle. 

and now i'm back in the mode of looking forward (ie, job apps) without anything to really look forward too.  i have all these balls in the air but nothing really seems to be materializing (in fact, many things seem to be evaporating) and i'm starting to feel a little downtrodden, a little lost.  it's so exhausting to put so many job apps out there and get nothing but rejections back.  especially since, having sent out hundreds of queries, i know that blanket rejections tend to mean you're doing something obviously wrong, whether its your writing, your synopsis, or maybe you're contacting the wrong agents/editors.  which leaves me to wonder, am i applying for the wrong jobs?  am i leaving out something obvious in my cover letter?  am i simply not qualified for *anything*? 

I don't know.  I do feel like there's just some piece of the puzzle that i'm missing, and when i find it, hopefully everything else will snap into place.  more so because i keep having these moments that should get me to a decisive place, but instead everything is right on the line and the situation drags out longer.

i just want answers, results, something solid. 

        

The Wall Street Journal ran an article titled, "It was like, all dark and stormy", and I can't even agree with the title. 

First of all, to reduce young adult fiction to such stereotypical idiocy as "it was like, all dark and stormy" is insulting, patronizing, and frankly, obnoxious. 

Second of all, the article takes the standpoint that YA fiction is suddenly grimmer than it ever was before. 

Are you kidding?  Young people have always been gravitated to the dark and the gloomy, particularly the grim and graphic.  First off, have you ever READ a fairy tale?  In Snow White, a young girl's stepmother demands her beating, bloody heart as evidence of her brutal murder.  What about Where the Red Fern Grows, a book that struck me with the graphic death at the end but what I remember most about it is the intense sadness? 

The article mention's Laurie Halse Anderson's work Speak about a girl who was raped at a party.  That book was a national book award finalist.  Books like that draw focus to the issue: not only have books with "dark" problems been around for a very long time, but they have far and away been some of the most laudable books the YA genre produces because they take big risks and address big issues in the YA community. 

When it comes down to it, no matter how much you want to believe it as adults, kids lives when they are adolescents are insane.  They are dark, grim, funny, reassuring, terrifying, and exciting all at once.  They are intense—that's the nature of adolescence.  You can't fault kids for wanting to feel that intensity reflected back to them on the page. 

That said, Meg Cabot wrote an excellent defense of fluffy literature which is actually closely tied to my point; despite the fact that most kids gravitate towards books that reflect the intensity of their lives, she wanted escapism from her childhood, and that's valid too.

Basically, I think the only time you do a disservice to young adults and the fiction written for them is that when you assume that their tastes are about fads, that books featuring "nubile midriffs" are what, romance novels for the young? and that the fluffy stuff is "morally bereft" and therefore "depressing".  Seriously?  Give the kids some credit and instead appreciate the incredible diversity that is making YA fiction one of the best selling genres in the industry. 

Huff.  Rant over. 

        

I'm going through teacher training with Kaplan test prep, and it's kind of brutal.  Well, it wouldn't be so brutal if the timing didn't happen to be terrible—all the work I have to do this month is due during the training, which itself requires a lot of prep and coursework. 

and i have to take the SATs again!  TWICE, so far.  I didn't do well enough the first time, so I'm trying again.  And I get the feeling that if i don't get high enough again I won't get another retest.  Sigh.  I'm not an amazing test taker, but I think I'd make a good teacher—I suppose that if, by the end of this, if I can get the necessary score on the test, I really can teach anyone to do it, eh?

So forgive me if it's all quiet on the blogging front for the next few days!  I think after tonight it will be a little bit easier (provided I don't have to take the test again!) so maybe i'll be decompressing tomorrow.
x

        

So, a la oprah, here's what i know for sure:

1.  money is stupid.  the things we do to make it is stupider.
2.  i like being busy.
3.  I like being busy doing my own things. 

Basically, I'm quite busy right now, to the point that i'm feeling stressed and crunched for time, and for at least this week and next week, my writing day is totally called off, all the research i was in the middle of is pushed to the side, and i'm grumpy about it. 

my life is all about ebbs and flows; i'm a water sign, so i guess that works, but it can be both exciting and obnoxious.  For example, the whole month of May I was kind of sitting at my computer, literally praying for something to happen.  Now I got into research, and all of the sudden i'm crazy busy.

Primarily because I'm training to teach the SAT at the moment, and to do this i have to both study and ace the SATs themselves; and then on top of that, prepare for the class. which seems to be a TON of work. 

but on the other hand, i like the work; i like the teacher training, i like being challenged and learning a new skill.  it's a little intense, but i'm a fan of intense. 

however, it's also coinciding with my only current cash flow, writing assignments from vertical that are doled out monthly to be done in a 10 day period.  and of course, the ten day period coincides with the 14 day teacher training. 

and then there's that pesky personal life stuff, like the fact that i'm going to a red sox game on sunday (HECK YES!) and made plans to hang out with my papa tomorrow. 

deep breaths.  just feelin' the pressure is all. 

also, check out the article i wrote for WTF this week, because it freaked me out:  Bloggers can be sued big time!

        

This is the Amazon description:
"Emma Healy has never fit in with the rest of her family. She's grown used to being the only ordinary one among her rather extraordinary parents and siblings. But when she finds a birth certificate for a twin brother she never knew she had, along with a death certificate dated just two days later, she feels like a part of her has been justified in never feeling quite whole. Suddenly it seems important to visit his grave, to set off in search of her missing half. When her next-door neighbor Peter Finnegan — who has a quiet affinity for maps and a desperate wish to escape their small town — ends up coming along for the ride, Emma thinks they can't possibly have anything in common. But as they head from upstate New York toward North Carolina, driving a beat-up and technically stolen car and picking up a stray dog along the way, they find themselves learning more and more about each other. Neither is exactly sure what they're looking for, but with each passing mile, each new day of this journey, they seem to be getting much closer to finding it."

Things I Loved About this book:

1. Factoids. Like do you know where we get "OK" from? The book is littered with easily digestible and INTERESTING factoids about the Civil War, history, maps and geography. 
2. I loved Emma, the female protagonist. She's spunky, fun, adventurous, and unapologetically moody, which, really, is pretty much as good as it gets in young adult fiction.  She was ready to go on a journey and she was open and willing to taking me with her, which rocks. 
3. Peter really won me over! At first I, much like Emma, kind of dismissed Peter, the map-loving male protagonist, but he wormed his way into my heart!
4. The Maps. I've always loved to travel, but for some reason I never considered the maps, and what they represent, and how interesting they really can be.
5.  The cover.  An author should be so lucky!  I think this was a really perfect cover for this book.
6.  It's a perfect summer read, because it's got an easy, lazy quality to it, like lying by a pool or riding in a convertible
7.  The accessibility.  Honestly, part of me feels like I've had this experience.  It just felt so real to me, so genuine, so legitimate.  There's nothing forced about it, but it's beautiful, true and surprising, just like families and fiction often are. 
8.  The dog.  Oh, my lord, the dog.  When I read about the dog on the description  "picking up a stray dog along the way", I really thought he'd be a bit of an obvious device, but actually, I kind of think the dog was one of the most special parts of the book.  It was another element that just made it effortless and exceptional in my eyes. 
9.  The fact that I now want to spend the summer going to historical battlefields.
10. There's no big twist, no crazy surprise, but the ending really snuck up on me and made a huge impression. I keep thinking about it, and inevitably rereading it, not because it's shocking or unexpected, but because its so heartfelt and true.

This book really struck a chord with me; all throughout, I kept thinking that not all who wander are lost and that despite the fact that I can't always find my way, this book reminded me that it's really ok; the important thing is to keep your life in motion and see what happens.  Keep feeling, keep experiencing, keep living your life, and you'll never believe the amazing journey it will become.