Monday Morning

It's Monday, another work week lays ahead and like most of the world I'm not exactly looking forward to it. It's not that I don't like my job, I do. It's that I don't like the ten hours of daily obligation that my job entails. When I would rather be finishing the book or reading or staring into space or getting sucked into a totally unproductive 80's movie fest. But in any case I will go because as attractive as the starving writer is to me, a starving writer with collectors pounding on the door, cats screeching from hunger, and the power turned off just as I hit The End is rather depressing. And today my kitties are getting fixed, so I'm really excited to spend the next half hour wrestling them into a cardboard box while they hiss and scratch and then driving 40 minutes while they pummel themselves against the box until they get free and then wedge themselves under the brake pedal.

But the writing is going well. I deleted my previous ending and am working on the re-write which is running smoothly along, and is much improved. I had intended to spend the weekend writing, but instead ended up with Audra and John, my friends from Lansing. I sacrificed writing to have long thoughtful conversations about how real life sucks and we spend our youth preparing for a fantasy that doesn't exist. I have a girlfriend who recently entered the nursing profession that is facing this harsh reality also. She says she worked so hard during school because she knew that when she became a nurse, she'd be on easy street. But au contraire, her three twelve hour days are packed with cleanings, dying patients, delirious visitors, and a nursing staff that is anything, but welcoming. She described her first month as humiliation training. At the end of each night she would sign off with the new nurses and have to give a quick re-cap of her day. Not only did they grill her about every decision, but they went on to stare t her as if she were, not a recently graduated nurse, but a space alien with tentacles sticking from her scrubs. She is not exactly living the fairy tale she had imagined when she heard "only three days a week."  So I begin again today with my own "not so fairy tale adult life" but at least I have writing, oh and my husband to.

Yield - Amateur Blogging

This is my first ever blog. Started on a whim after reading through my backdated issues of writers digest and discovering an article about Julia Powell, a blogger turned author. Every writer's dream come true, you let the public read your journal and someone turns it into a book. But really I've decided to enter, the much discussed world of blogging, because I am in the process of writing my first novel. I've been writing my entire life, sadly fear of failure and a delete happy finger has prevented much progress. But several months ago I got over it. I just got over it. Instead of deleting my first twenty thousand words, an overly critical habit of mine, I continued on. Yesterday I hit the 65,000 mark!!! I eat, drink, and sleep writing, well that along with working full time and paying attention to my cats and husband. But this has truly been a profound breakthrough for me. I have only just began to delve into the hours of revisions, agent searches, and rejections that I know are sure to come. But I refuse to get discouraged, in fact, I've begun to filter any new writer information to block out words like 1 in million chance, almost impossible, and you're more likely to get killed by a serial killer than get published. Because I am going to do this, if my fingers bleed and my husband screams at me for staining our white lap top, I'm going to finish and publish this book. Even if the only copies I ever sell are to those close personal people that I can bully into purchasing a copy.