scatterbrained nattering-on
Sep. 24th, 2008 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zanzjanBeen trying to pull together the time and energy to post this since I got back late Monday night.
Woods Hole to my driveway: 175 miles, 3 hours 5 minutes.
Babies slept the whole way, and so were Very Awake after we got home. I played hookey from work on Tuesday so I could sleep; two hours was just not going to get me through my usual workday.
It felt really good seeing everyone at VP, and really awful leaving just as things were starting to get into full swing. At least I managed to get the manuscripts and schedules to folks in some reasonably organized fashion. I did one student pickup, fetched and carried a few things, but otherwise mostly hung around. I'm afraid I'm sufficiently exhausted almost all the time that my ability to come up with ways of helping was sorely limited.
It turns out that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala and I both know, and hung around with, the same crazy guy at nearly the same time period, but never managed to intersect ourselves. It truly *is* a small world.
It was good catching up withavocadovpx, at least in those brief moments when he slowed down long enough to talk to. I apparently need to dredge through his LJ to find a very cool meme he did and shamelessly steal it. Hey, it's a meme, after all.
tnh and I both pinky-swore we'd be healthier by this time next year. Easier said than done, but worth the effort. At any rate, now I need to make some vaguely confession-like sounds about health.
Yes, I know I am overweight. Right now I weigh about 50 lbs more than I would like. I am telling you this publicly so that I feel obligated now to fix it so that none of you think the poorer of me. I have also been having a Weird Thing happening that I've kinda been ignoring, but which is either related to my thyroid or to the gestational diabetes which is supposed to have gone away once the babies were born but which I haven't retested for. I get these little spikes which feel an awful lot like some sort of blood sugar thing. I get uncontrollably shaky, anxious, and slightly disoriented, all with a great whopping-huge manic adrenalin rush on top of it all. The net result: I act like a spastic, hyperactive chihuahua for an hour or so until it fades off. I had a few of these during my pregnancy, but not many and only early on. However, I've been having them more and more frequently in the last few months, lately every few days. They don't seem to be related to what, if anything, I've eaten or not eaten beforehand, although it does tend to happen roughly at the same part of the day (mid to late afternoon.)
In any event, I was having one of these little episodes as I arrived at the Inn, and I strongly suspect I inadvertantly irritated the holy hell out of one of the other staffers in the process. Which is regrettable, because she's someone I've admired over LJ for some time and I can't shake the (hopefully imaginary) feeling that she dislikes me now. )-:
Anyhow, the point is that I need to figure out just what the fuck is causing these "attacks" and fix it, especially since they are getting more frequent. My current doctor is all manner of useless, so part of this process is going to have to be finding a new doc. All in my copious spare time...
I've been hoping it would just go away, drat it. So:
Task list #1 (deadline: october 2009): Lose weight. Fix shaky mania.
We move on now to the contemplation of the state of health of my writing. I did work up the courage to have a short conversation withpnh about my novel on his desk (Farewell to Io) and I feel fairly confident I didn't come across as nagging. I'm going to leave the rest of that subject be for now.
The thing is, looking back at Io, I just have questions about it that I don't know how to address (or if I even should). I worry that it's too long. I wonder if I should've broken it up into two novels -- and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I could do that and make the whole better as a result. I wonder if that's something I should do now, in case I eventually have to send it somewhere else, or something an editor will tell me to do (or not do.)
Mostly though I think about the two novels I'm sort of alternating between working on right now. Both are intended to stand alone, but are set in the same universe as the first novel. One, Miledrop, is set in roughly the same place a short time after the events of Io, so there's a tendency for reference to events in the earlier book to creep in to the new one. I don't want the new one dependent upon the old in case Io never sees the light of day, but there are things I could do that would be seriously nifty if I knew it would. Arcx has more separation and is less problematic that way, but also not quite as much fun a novel.
Still, I'm not getting a lot of writing done at the moment. Everyone keeps telling me I have a good excuse for that, but I don't want excuses for myself. Part of being a student at VP back in 2005 (and part of the reason I volunteer to help out) was the realization that writing is really important to me. More important than my job, or my art. I want to succeed at it. And I'm not going to do that if I'm not writing.
Further, I've come to realize that I pretty much wing it with my writing. That's okay -- if the instinct is good, there's no shame in relying on it -- but I've known for a little while now that improvement had slowed down and that I need something to push me on to the next level. And I think that's understanding more about the process of writing, the theories and the structures, and developing a more formal vocabulary for understanding my own frameworks.matociquala gave a lecture about plot that was probably fairly rudimentary but also not a way I'd thought about writing. I admit it, I'm not big on self-analysis (at least not when it comes to the things I create.)
Task list #2 (deadline: december 2008): finish draft of Miledrop or Arcx. Finish either the mountain story or the aztec story. Send more things out. Try to find resources that will discuss writing theory on a more formal level (pester Bear?) and read. Hopefully, see movement on situation with Farewell to Io.
And yeah, I expect I'll be adding a few more essays to my book of autobiographical anecdotes, Rocks and Boots, along the way.
Meanwhile, I need to get a handle on my older daughter's Aspergers and find ways of helping her function and be organized. It looks like I'm going to be getting some physical therapy for my younger daughter, who is lagging a bit behind in large motor skills. Work is likely to be insane this semester, as the new building we've been working on for years now is expected to be finished and ready for occupation around January and I'll have to get a LOT of stuff up and running before that can happen. And I need to figure out how I'm going to afford my life, since right now the extra $350/week expense of daycare is more than I can handle and still pay bills, and in less than a month I'm going to need to decide if I'm coming back to work 5 days a week (right now I'm doing 4) and see daycare costs go up and my time with the sprogs go way down, or take the 20% paycut to keep my Fridays free. I'm strongly leaning towards the latter, but I don't know if I can afford it. I'm not sure if my sanity can afford NOT to do it.
Task list #3: survive.
And on top of all that, I need to get out more. I need more friends. I need to spend more time with people that I can relate to. I need to learn more about rock-climbing for Miledrop, and about the Vatican for Fifth Sun. I need to walk the dog more often so I can stargaze in the peace and quiet of night. And it would be extremely wonderful if I could get enough of my garage cleared out before winter truly sets in to fit my car in there (anyone need a giant griffin sculpture?)
I truly feel rotten for not staying to help for the rest of VP, and I hope I haven't let folks down too badly. Next year the sprogs will be mobile (gods help us all) but I still want to find a way to be there for the full week and make it work. Anyone want to spend a week on the Vineyard with me, watch some babies, play on the beach, listen to some great guitar out on the deck after nightfall, etcetera? There's jellyfish!
Okay, I think I'm nattered out.
Woods Hole to my driveway: 175 miles, 3 hours 5 minutes.
Babies slept the whole way, and so were Very Awake after we got home. I played hookey from work on Tuesday so I could sleep; two hours was just not going to get me through my usual workday.
It felt really good seeing everyone at VP, and really awful leaving just as things were starting to get into full swing. At least I managed to get the manuscripts and schedules to folks in some reasonably organized fashion. I did one student pickup, fetched and carried a few things, but otherwise mostly hung around. I'm afraid I'm sufficiently exhausted almost all the time that my ability to come up with ways of helping was sorely limited.
It turns out that
matociquala and I both know, and hung around with, the same crazy guy at nearly the same time period, but never managed to intersect ourselves. It truly *is* a small world. It was good catching up with
avocadovpx, at least in those brief moments when he slowed down long enough to talk to. I apparently need to dredge through his LJ to find a very cool meme he did and shamelessly steal it. Hey, it's a meme, after all.tnh and I both pinky-swore we'd be healthier by this time next year. Easier said than done, but worth the effort. At any rate, now I need to make some vaguely confession-like sounds about health. Yes, I know I am overweight. Right now I weigh about 50 lbs more than I would like. I am telling you this publicly so that I feel obligated now to fix it so that none of you think the poorer of me. I have also been having a Weird Thing happening that I've kinda been ignoring, but which is either related to my thyroid or to the gestational diabetes which is supposed to have gone away once the babies were born but which I haven't retested for. I get these little spikes which feel an awful lot like some sort of blood sugar thing. I get uncontrollably shaky, anxious, and slightly disoriented, all with a great whopping-huge manic adrenalin rush on top of it all. The net result: I act like a spastic, hyperactive chihuahua for an hour or so until it fades off. I had a few of these during my pregnancy, but not many and only early on. However, I've been having them more and more frequently in the last few months, lately every few days. They don't seem to be related to what, if anything, I've eaten or not eaten beforehand, although it does tend to happen roughly at the same part of the day (mid to late afternoon.)
In any event, I was having one of these little episodes as I arrived at the Inn, and I strongly suspect I inadvertantly irritated the holy hell out of one of the other staffers in the process. Which is regrettable, because she's someone I've admired over LJ for some time and I can't shake the (hopefully imaginary) feeling that she dislikes me now. )-:
Anyhow, the point is that I need to figure out just what the fuck is causing these "attacks" and fix it, especially since they are getting more frequent. My current doctor is all manner of useless, so part of this process is going to have to be finding a new doc. All in my copious spare time...
I've been hoping it would just go away, drat it. So:
Task list #1 (deadline: october 2009): Lose weight. Fix shaky mania.
We move on now to the contemplation of the state of health of my writing. I did work up the courage to have a short conversation with
pnh about my novel on his desk (Farewell to Io) and I feel fairly confident I didn't come across as nagging. I'm going to leave the rest of that subject be for now.The thing is, looking back at Io, I just have questions about it that I don't know how to address (or if I even should). I worry that it's too long. I wonder if I should've broken it up into two novels -- and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I could do that and make the whole better as a result. I wonder if that's something I should do now, in case I eventually have to send it somewhere else, or something an editor will tell me to do (or not do.)
Mostly though I think about the two novels I'm sort of alternating between working on right now. Both are intended to stand alone, but are set in the same universe as the first novel. One, Miledrop, is set in roughly the same place a short time after the events of Io, so there's a tendency for reference to events in the earlier book to creep in to the new one. I don't want the new one dependent upon the old in case Io never sees the light of day, but there are things I could do that would be seriously nifty if I knew it would. Arcx has more separation and is less problematic that way, but also not quite as much fun a novel.
Still, I'm not getting a lot of writing done at the moment. Everyone keeps telling me I have a good excuse for that, but I don't want excuses for myself. Part of being a student at VP back in 2005 (and part of the reason I volunteer to help out) was the realization that writing is really important to me. More important than my job, or my art. I want to succeed at it. And I'm not going to do that if I'm not writing.
Further, I've come to realize that I pretty much wing it with my writing. That's okay -- if the instinct is good, there's no shame in relying on it -- but I've known for a little while now that improvement had slowed down and that I need something to push me on to the next level. And I think that's understanding more about the process of writing, the theories and the structures, and developing a more formal vocabulary for understanding my own frameworks.
matociquala gave a lecture about plot that was probably fairly rudimentary but also not a way I'd thought about writing. I admit it, I'm not big on self-analysis (at least not when it comes to the things I create.) Task list #2 (deadline: december 2008): finish draft of Miledrop or Arcx. Finish either the mountain story or the aztec story. Send more things out. Try to find resources that will discuss writing theory on a more formal level (pester Bear?) and read. Hopefully, see movement on situation with Farewell to Io.
And yeah, I expect I'll be adding a few more essays to my book of autobiographical anecdotes, Rocks and Boots, along the way.
Meanwhile, I need to get a handle on my older daughter's Aspergers and find ways of helping her function and be organized. It looks like I'm going to be getting some physical therapy for my younger daughter, who is lagging a bit behind in large motor skills. Work is likely to be insane this semester, as the new building we've been working on for years now is expected to be finished and ready for occupation around January and I'll have to get a LOT of stuff up and running before that can happen. And I need to figure out how I'm going to afford my life, since right now the extra $350/week expense of daycare is more than I can handle and still pay bills, and in less than a month I'm going to need to decide if I'm coming back to work 5 days a week (right now I'm doing 4) and see daycare costs go up and my time with the sprogs go way down, or take the 20% paycut to keep my Fridays free. I'm strongly leaning towards the latter, but I don't know if I can afford it. I'm not sure if my sanity can afford NOT to do it.
Task list #3: survive.
And on top of all that, I need to get out more. I need more friends. I need to spend more time with people that I can relate to. I need to learn more about rock-climbing for Miledrop, and about the Vatican for Fifth Sun. I need to walk the dog more often so I can stargaze in the peace and quiet of night. And it would be extremely wonderful if I could get enough of my garage cleared out before winter truly sets in to fit my car in there (anyone need a giant griffin sculpture?)
I truly feel rotten for not staying to help for the rest of VP, and I hope I haven't let folks down too badly. Next year the sprogs will be mobile (gods help us all) but I still want to find a way to be there for the full week and make it work. Anyone want to spend a week on the Vineyard with me, watch some babies, play on the beach, listen to some great guitar out on the deck after nightfall, etcetera? There's jellyfish!
Okay, I think I'm nattered out.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:35 pm (UTC){{{hugs}}}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:54 pm (UTC)Like
BTW, I rock climb. If there are any questions you need answered or whatever, let me know.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-25 12:31 pm (UTC)And I'm still jealous you got to go to VP this year, even if your time there was so short. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-25 05:00 pm (UTC)Urchin _still_ talks about it.
By all means, do what's important to take care of yourself NOW. It's far too easy to put things off until tomorrow, or next week, or next month, and then you're worn away to nothing with no recourse for anything.