Being real vs. Being professional.

I've been having an issue for the last couple of years regarding The World of Publishing and How I Want to Present Myself Online.

Starting in 2003, I kept an online journal (not on LJ) that chronicled tidbits from my daily life as well as certain memories from my childhood and beyond.  It was a full-on confessional with all sorts of highly personal things out there for the public to read.  Updating that journal was a huge part of my life for a long time, and I made some of my closest friends as a direct result of it. 

But in 2007, when I was close to finishing Seth's story and preparing for the query process, I started getting concerned.  I read industry blogs, of course.  Writers, agents, editors, etc.   And I kept finding remarks about how if a blog makes a writer look unprofessional, s/he will never succeed in publishing, life or, you know, anything.  Ever.  (Okay, so maybe I took the comments too far!)

My paranoia hit high levels.  It isn't that I thought there was anything wrong or inappropriate in what I'd written online.  But I hated the idea that if someone else felt that there was something wrong with it, my future career might suffer.  (Also, there had been a few Incidents over the years in my personal life where people whom I didn't necessarily want to read my journal had stumbled upon it.  Those were some hard lessons!)

I decided that the time had come to lock all those years' worth of journal entries. 

My husband thought it was a bad idea.  He said, "Look, someday when you're published, you're going to have fans.  And what would be cooler for them than doing a search for an author they like and finding this journal out there that was kept for many years before you even started writing books!  Don't worry about what people think and just leave your journal alone."

I didn't listen to him.  The stakes seemed too high.  So, I spent hours upon hours -- probably three days total -- manually locking over 3,000 entries.

I don't regret doing it.  Not really.  But what I do regret is that I've never quite found my voice or my place online ever since.  I feel like there are fragments of me eveywhere now -- LJ, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter -- but those collected fragments don't make up a whole.  There is something missing, and I don't know how I want to resolve it.  

The recent  Ask a Tenner thread was a lot of fun for me.  I loved interacting with the questioners!  I was keeping it real and so were they.  That experience reminded me that communicating with readers has always been a big part of this writing thing for me.  Even when what I was writing was a public journal and I had no thoughts of writing fiction and getting published, it was validating that someone was listening and responding to my words.

I want to be -- and am -- more than my fiction. But everything is tangled together in a way that I don't know how to unravel it.  I don't know if I should even try.

Fitness update.

Oh my gosh, you guys! Look at this:

You see that? That jar with its lid sitting next to it?

I did that! All by myself!

I'd run out of creamy peanut butter, so I pulled out the new jar and just, like, opened it.

Earlier this year, when I was becoming all decrepit, I had a heck of a time with jars. In fact, on more than one occasion, I waited to finish making dinner until my husband came home because I didn't want to deal with all the trauma and frustration.

But today? Today, there was no cursing, crying, sore hands, or other nonsense!

And look:

Now I'm eating a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

I would like to thank yoga and water aerobics, without which none of this would have been possible. xoxoxo

Getting a groove thing going.

I have made a goal to finish a first draft of something before the end of July.  (Actually, the original goal was June 30th, but it sounds like I'll have most of July free, too.)

Now, those of you who have known me a while know that this goal is insane.  In the past year (or four), I've gotten myself into this pattern of ridiculousness where I can't/won't start writing a new scene until I've polished the current one so that it's good enough to show people.  Then, moving forward, if I discover that I have to cut one of the scenes that I've spent those 20+ hours writing and polishing, I get kind of depressed about it and lose my motivation.  I waste even more time pondering, researching, and reworking my outline to make sure scenes are "worth" writing. 

I know this approach is bad.  I know it only holds me back.  And this is why I've decided to do something about it.

For now, I'm not allowing myself to type anything.  All of my scenes are being handwritten and LEFT ALONE.  I'm planning to write scene after scene in whatever order I think of them.  (Yes, this means no real outlining is allowed, either.  But I do have a good idea in my head for the progression of the story.)  When I've finally written all the scenes I think I'll need for the draft, then--and only then--will I let myself start typing them up.

Now, I know that with the typing will come revision a.k.a. my obsession.  That's okay, though.  Because by the time it gets to that point, I should have at least a couple of dozen scenes in rough form already completed.   

So, I'm doing sort of a variation of YAMGWriMo.  I'm not aiming for the 30,000 words specifically, and I will let myself go longer than June 30th, if necessary, without considering myself a failure.  I'm aiming to hand write a beginning, middle, and end along with as many other scenes as I can think to include so that I can say, "I've finished a first draft!"

I've put two days into this experiment so far.  I can see that it's going to be very, very difficult for me to keep plowing forward without getting to rewrite and polish these scenes.  All day today, I kept coming up with ideas of what I want to do with the scene I wrote on the bus this morning.  Those ideas will have to wait! 

Yikes.  It makes me feel panicky and almost itchy to leave things alone.

PubMarketplace.

Hey, if my deal ends up there, can someone, like, send me a screen cap or something? I don't have a subscription, but I'd really like to know what it says! 

Thanks so much!

And then... it hits me!

Back in January, it took six days after I got the offer of representation from my agent for it to hit me that it had happened. 

The day I accepted his offer was one of my long days at the office (a twelve hour shift). I called him first thing upon my arrival, squeed a little with my coworkers, and went about my day (mostly) like normal. It was only when I was driving home that night that it actually hit me: I did it. I've been trying to get an agent for so long, and now I have one!  

At that point, I burst into tears and sobbed the rest of the way home. (In a good way, though.)

But after receiving news of the offer from Pulse in early May and later accepting that offer, I did not have a similar reaction. Sure, I teared up when I walked into my surprise party and saw that so many people had gathered together on such short notice for me. And I've been excited and pleased and all those good things when I've thought about this whole my-book-is-getting-published concept.  But I didn't actually cry.  I didn't experience that release of emotion and that total realization that I'm getting something that I've wanted most of my life.  It's felt distant.  Like, I do believe it's real with the logical part of my brain, but the emotional part was holding back on celebrating.  With tomorrow officially being three weeks into things, I honestly thought I wasn't going to make the switch in my head.

I'm glad to say that I was wrong in that prediction. 

So, this is couch in my upstairs office (and, yes, that is a broken Darth Vader light sabre on the ottoman):

This is similar to the way I sit on the couch in my upstairs office (except, I am not generally wearing such short shorts or posing for a camera):

Most often, I sit on the armrest for one of three reasons: 1) I've received a phone call and want to give the caller my full attention (which I might not do if I stay at my desk), 2) I'm taking time to think through something I'm writing and want to get away from my desk to clear my head, or 3) I've heard a car pull into the driveway and I'm checking to see if it's my husband.

This is the view from my office window looking one certain way (which could be northeast. Or not. I'm bad with directions):

If I am on the phone, I am looking in this direction and staring at the two tall trees most clearly in focus left of center. (Those are the trees, in fact, that I stared at while my agent was talking to me for the first time and I responded by saying, "I'm sorry. Can you please repeat that?")

Still with me?

Okay, so I joined the   group, which is a very cool place for YA writers whose books are debuting in 2010.  (And anyone can add the group to watch it, just so you know!)   This afternoon, I was scanning through entries from the weekend and happened upon this post by  in which she lists Ten Things [She] Learned from Teen Bloggers. 

I saw "Seth" mentioned in the post and thought for the briefest of moments that the reference was to my Seth character (which wouldn't have made sense in context and wouldn't have been possible anyway.  But you know how it is when you're reading something and a name you're used to seeing sticks out at you?  Yeah.  It was like that).  I left a comment and mentioned my temporary shock before it clicked that it was an entirely different "Seth" being discussed.  Trish responded with:  Not your Seth, but, Mindi... they're looking forward to your book!

I saw her comment, smiled, and got up from my desk to head downstairs to make dinner.  I thought to myself, That's so cool.  I'll have to remember to tell Dwayne [my husband] about that.

But before I'd even gotten to the stairs, what I'd just read actually HIT ME.  Tears started to fall as I detoured and made my way to the couch.  I watched the trees out the window while my crying continued for the next few minutes.  It was such an amazing and unbelievable thing.  The realization that there are readers out there -- from my target audience even! -- who have heard about my book.  And they are looking forward to it!  

I mean, wow.  How freaking awesome is that? 

Truly, if there's anything better, I sure don't know what it is right about now.