Virtue

For the past few years - ever since right after I graduated college, actually - I've been working on a novel. It was slow going, but I wrote chapters here and there as opportunities arose (or as I got more and more desperate to have a creative outlet.)

This past summer, I finished it. And by "finished" I really just mean that my narrative arrived at a place that seemed like a natural conclusion, at least enough for one book. I went back and started revising the entire thing, and convinced myself that this month, November - and to be specific, this week - was going to be THE week to start soliciting for an agent or publisher.

I've been working on query letters and a synopsis. I've been double checking grammar and working out minor inconsistencies (hey, when a project spans years, there are bound to be a couple.) I started making statements like, "If I find out that this really takes off, maybe eventually I can be a writer full time."

Then today I admitted to myself that the book isn't my best work. Not by a long shot. I'm not saying that to be mean to myself, I'm saying it because it's actually true and over the past few weeks I've realized how much writing matters to me and how much I'd love to make a career out of word craft.

It matters so much that I don't want to even try to approach agents until I've gone back and majorly reworked a bunch of the draft. I don't want to risk losing future opportunities, or end up with the wrong publisher, or make the wrong kind of name for myself, as a result of deciding to rush ahead with trying to get published before it's truly ready the way I want it to be.

I know myself. I know my work. I've read a lot of books in my life, and I have a very good sense of what constitutes good writing. I know my capabilities. I'm frustrated because by spreading out the novel writing over a few years, I really spread out the thought and energy that went into it, and so the work as a whole is very inconsistent.

I deeply wish I could say that it's great as it is, because I've already spent years on it, and because I'm so excited about the story and ideas contained therein. Even worse, I know I'm typically a great writer but there are honestly a whole bunch of really uninspired, monotonous, unnecessary sections in the draft that I wrote when I was too tired, too distracted, too unmotivated, and honestly probably too overwhelmed by what I was trying to do.

Before this starts sounding too depressing, let me be clear: coming to this realization was the best thing that could have happened. I'm finally being honest with myself about what I want (to be a writer), and I'm finally being realistic about what it's going to take to get there. This means I'm actually closer to achieving my goal that I would have been otherwise.

Even better, I know I can do it, and best of all, I finally have the motivation that it's going to take. I'm in the home stretch - every day I get a better sense of agents and what they want, and every day I find myself thinking more coherently and expressively about the novel and the impact it's going to have. I'm going to be able to go back and change my draft into the version of the novel that it's begging to be, that I know is still inside me clamoring to get out.

It stinks that it's not going to tumble out to the wide world as readily or soon as I'd hoped, BUT I'm incredibly excited about how awesome this is going to be once I do finish it up the way it deserves to be finished. Normally I'm so impatient with anything I start or get excited about that I end up shooting myself in the foot in the long run.

Not this time. By God, not this time.

...In the world

Last week I ended up taking a day off from work to try and catch up on everything I've let slide around the house. I'm not the most habitual house-cleaner but it gets to me when I've got messes all over the place that have been building up for weeks or months. While I was straightening up, I decided I wanted to start doing better with time management. (Like most of us, I feel like I have a ton of other goals too, but this one seems to be at the root of most of the others.)

So, I decided to try a trick that I've used at work for years now. I started using a journal to keep track of how I'm spending all my time. (Literally: "7:00-8:00 - Woke up. Got ready for work.") It sounds kind of ... obsessive ... right? But the thing is, it works.

At work, I use it to stay focused and prioritize my daily tasks - I'll usually start out with a to-do list and then as I accomplish tasks I'll also note what times I was working on them. I'm not militant about it and when I get side tracked or pulled into random conversations I'll usually just go with it, but it helps me keep a sense of what needs to be accomplished. And, it helps me have conversations with my peers and co-workers about where I'm spending my efforts and whether I'm prioritizing tasks correctly.

At home, it's been pretty effective in doing the same. It's helping me evaluate how much time I *want* to spend on certain tasks, and helping me evaluate whether I'm putting the kind of time into my priorities that I want to (or need to.) I made a conscious decision not to try and schedule my tasks, because not only do I abhor feeling like I'm on a schedule, but also because it's hard for me to estimate how long some tasks will end up taking. It's been enough so far to decide that I don't want to look back at a day and feel like I wasted time. And, I wouldn't say that it's motivated me to be "productive" 100% of the time - to the contrary, in some cases it's helped me see how much I've earned some down time, which has been extremely reassuring and has let me enjoy my down time all the more. If any of you try something similar, let me know how it goes.

Retro Tarot

I spent a little time today playing around with tarot cards. A few months ago I had quite a bit of success doing purely predictive readings for some clients, and it got me curious about how/whether tarot can actually be used for prediction. (The working assumption is, "I sincerely doubt it but that would be pretty cool if it could...") In any case, I broke today into a bunch of little chunks. At the beginning of each chunk I pulled a card and set it aside without looking at it; at the end of each chunk I tried to characterize the time in my mind and pick out the card I thought would best represent it. Then, I looked at the card I had set aside to see if the card matched my expectation.

I feel like, if nothing else, the exercise gave me some new ideas for how to apply different card meanings.

For example, during one chunk I was working on some homework and not getting anywhere with it. I was trying lots of different ideas, Googling around for help, and re-reading lecture materials. However...no progress. At the end of my chunk, I was just plain annoyed. I felt like the two of coins reversed, or five of wands, would have been a good representation of my feelings. However, I got Temperance.

Shortly into my next chunk, I made some good progress - and I realized it was mostly due to pulling together all the resources and ideas during the previous chunk. One interpretation of Temperance relies on the "mixing" of thoughts allegorically illustrated in the card. However, I was uncomfortable that the tarot and I were still coming from pretty different directions about the situation.

During another chunk I was hungry and cranky. I expected more cards about conflict or discomfort, but got Judgment. Judgment is all about seeing a situation for what it really is - I knew I was hungry and cranky, so I avoided getting into any confrontations or negative interactions - so again, it made sense in context but it went a couple levels deeper than my original thinking.

During another chunk I got the six of cups, which lined up well with that chunk's events.

So...I feel like it's hard to make any definitive statements after just one day, especially because it's so easy to rationalize cards and perspectives in hindsight. I certainly learned a little more about Temperance and Judgment, and have more examples I can pull on in readings when the cards come up - but I'd be happier if I had actually been able to guess the card that got pulled! (Of course, that would actually also be pretty creepy...)

Back

This is probably the longest break I've taken from blogging ever since I started blogging back in High School. That's kind of sad, because I've always enjoyed writing - not only that, but writing used to help me think through issues and ideas; I felt like I perceived more of the world; in turn, I felt like I had more fodder for creative ideas and thoughts that poured out seemingly a dime a dozen.

In short: I felt like I was brilliantly insightful and could lay down insight and witticism with careless ease. A few months ago I was talking with a friend of mine about how both us of used to write a lot "back in the day" and no longer did. We shared the sentiment of "ahhh, crap, I no longer have anything interesting to say...I'm getting old and boring!"

I went back and read some of my old blog and diary entries. Yes, I used to be quite expressive, and yes, I used to be pretty insightful. However, it turns out I wasn't nearly the master wordsmith nor cutting-edge intellectual I thought I was. Writing seems harder now because I understand more about what it takes to construct and convey ideas.

Regardless, I think I'm ready to start blogging again. Starting with later on today: I'm playing a tarot game with myself on Twitter, and I'm going to post the results and some thoughts here. Yay.

Optimisticality

Over the past couple years or so, I've started to look for ways to apply Christian scripture and thought to everyday life. In doing so, I've started to identify what I think are some really useful messages present in the Bible - to try and distill out the wisdom that speaks to me, that seems to get lost sometimes behind layers and layers of doctrine and legalism.

I think that Easter embodies quite a bit of this wisdom. I think Easter is one of the the strongest arguments for hope that we can come up with - or at least it's one of the clearest ways of expressing the idea that there's no need to give up when things get rough, even if we seem to have been stripped of every bit of our dignity or power in a situation. In the rising of Christ I see a message that the jealous and insecure actions of others - like the deeds of those who clamored for and carried out the crucifixion - ultimately do not prevail. Most of us have an innate desire to see things turn out right, to see the "good guy win." To me, Easter is a day to celebrate and embrace that sentiment.

My favorite part of the Easter story is that the empty tomb was discovered by 2 women who simply went to visit it. It seems to refer to a theme that I've noticed throughout scripture, which is that those who are focused on living in the moment and acting according to the moment tend to end up with some of the most special roles in those moments. These two women got to discover the empty tomb first not because they had asserted themselves as somehow more deserving than others, but because they had an earnest desire to visit it. From the account, they were driven by genuine concern and mourning for their friend, and not by a desire to seek out what glory they could.

I think that in day to day life it can be hard to really let go of that drive for glory and to just stay in the moment, which is kind of ironic given how draining it really is to maintain and act from the "always have to get ahead" mindset. I think the magic of Easter is that can allow people to make that leap of faith - the one that says that it's really going to be okay and that nothing is hopeless - to just settle down, stay in the moment, live life genuinely, and enjoy the benefits of doing so.

In The Dark

Found an interesting article today about potential correlations between "light pollution" (exposure to artificial light at night when we're supposed to be sleeping) and risk of cancer. Apparently the light pollution exposure affects the body's natural rhythms and production of hormones which can then exacerbate cancer risks. I'd like to see more studies before I buy into that all the way (though it sounds somewhat plausible)...but I was also intrigued by:

"The blue/green light is what is emitted from TVs , computers, clock radios and other gadgets (cell phones, Blackberry's, etc) or from what Roberts calls “light trespass,” which comes in from the outside, through your windows. 'Light from the blue region stimulates a ‘wake up’ circadian response in the body and blocks the production of melatonin in the brain.'

The same thing happens if you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and turn the light on. Stevens recommends using a red night light instead, because red light does not suppress melatonin production. "

I'm not convinced that a few seconds of bright bathroom light is going to make all that much of a difference to the amount of sleep I get...but, I've also never liked blinding myself in the middle of the night, however briefly. So, I think they might be on to something with the whole red light thing anyhow.

Boo-Kay-Ess

When I was really young and was still learning how to read, that's how I mentally pronounced the word "books"

I came across this article this morning. That one is derived from another, longer one at Salon.com but I linked the one here because of the question it raises at the end about the impact of e-books replacing physical books.

I know pretty much nothing about DRM for e-books, but even if they have policies similar to Apple's 5-pieces-of-hardware policy, I think that e-books will be able to have just as much of an impact on kids as physical books as long as a family e-book collection is browse-able. I'm kind of thinking along the lines of a family data center - maybe there aren't physical bookshelves anymore, but a family could still set up a repository for books (and other media I suppose) to be shared.

I do think that having access to my parents' book collection had a huge impact on me growing up - sometimes when we just couldn't get to the library or we were in the middle of a move or I was just plain curious about what went on in Mom and Dad's heads I'd pull down something to read, something I probably wouldn't have otherwise chosen, and ended up finding myself very pleasantly surprised.

One More Little Floor

Alicia leaned back in her chair and kicked her feet up on the desk in front of her, just out of the way of her computer monitor. She flipped her head back as part of her massive stretch and out of the periphery of her vision she saw Janice walking into their dorm room.

"What's new, boss?" The robot spoke casually as she moved over to Alicia, but Alicia detected subtle tension in her posture and the timbre of her voice.

Alicia gestured towards the blinking terminal on her desk. "I'm still trying to track down the source of those new nanocarbons we found in your blood. And...I still don't understand where it came from, but I finished some calculations on its properties. Maybe we can start to isolate it that way."

Janice leaned over Alicia to study the luminescent graphic blinking in and out of existence millions of times per second on the screen in front of them. The robot blinked several times to adjust her optical filters such that they eliminated the distraction, realized that her lack of understanding had nothing to do with her lack of ability to physically process the images (mostly it due to Alicia's distaste for labeling anything), and directed said sensing devices quizzically at Alicia.

Alicia dropped her feet back down onto the floor and pointed at the leftmost chart on the screen. "This one shows the ability of the nanocarbons to withstand various toxins, compared to the rest of the synthetic materials that make up your equivalent of blood. You'll notice that in nearly all cases, the nanocarbon is remarkably resilient. That might be bad if the nanocarbon also seemed likely not to play well with the rest of your inner makeup, but so far our simulations seem to show that your body will benefit from its presence - it should boost your physical abilities and endurance in most circumstances."

While Alicia finished her explanation, Janice paced over to the full length mirror Alicia had haphazardly attached to the foot of the bunkbed, puffed out her chest, and flexed her arm in a mock imitation of a bodybuilder.

Alicia started to chuckle, but stopped as the robot tensed again. Janice took a deep breath.

"In spite of your optimistic assessment, I see a problem here. I was programmed to want to be human. However, this new compound in me - whatever it is, wherever it came from - you're saying it's going to make me better, stronger, faster than was intended. What now? Do you find a way to remove it? Do you change my programming so I don't know I'm more than you wanted? What if I like it, and want to keep it, and want to keep liking it?" The robot looked from her reflection to Alicia and back again. A glimmer of defiance surfaced in her eyes, then dove otter-like back under the surface.

Alicia started to respond, and then thought better of it. Instead, she jumped to her feet, grabbing a sweater from the back of her chair and shrugging into it as she stood.

"Come with me." She led Janice out of her room, down the two flights of stairs to the ground level, and outside into the cool humidity of the evening. The robot knew Alicia well enough not to question her, and so simply strode beside the girl as they crossed Main street and headed towards the south end of campus. Just as Janice's respiratory system leveled out at a rate that would accommodate her movement, Alicia slowed and stopped.

"Classrooms?" Janice raised an arm toward the brick behemoth facing them. The two were standing in front of the building where they'd attended their required "Colonization History and Challenges" class as freshmen, and where Alicia currently suffered weekly through four agonizing hours of mathematical smoke and mirrors otherwise known as linear algebra.

"Yeah, classrooms, but also don't forget all those displays about the famous dead people inside." Alicia shrugged. "I dunno. I think my point is just that people - human people and I guess maybe now other people - have been exceeding the expectations and intentions of others pretty much since the beginning of time. I hate to burst your bubble, but you're still not so different." She paused for the appropriate length of time to elevate her final statement. "And so, no, we're not changing a damn thing about you."

Janice nodded. She stretched and folded her hands behind her head. "Cool. That does make me feel better." Feeling Alicia's eyes on her, she accessed and executed the "insert shit-eating grin here" code that she kept cached exactly for situations like this. "But on that note, wanna race back to the dorms?"

With that, the two took off running into the night.

Taking Care

This past week started out amazingly. Sunday I got up and went to the gym, and had a great workout. I cleaned the house, did my homework, had a great dinner, and watched the Super Bowl. (The Steelers losing WAS NOT amazing, alas.) Monday I went to work, worked out again, made dinner, relaxed. Tuesday: went to work, saw The King's Speech and went to dinner with friends, came home, relaxed and went to bed.

Wednesday it started to fall apart. Even though Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were great days, I just wasn't sleeping well. Hard to say why, exactly. I think I was preoccupied thinking about work, and trying to figure out how best to get along with a co-worker. On Sunday I might actually just have been *too* relaxed to get sleepy.

In any case, by Wednesday I was exhausted. Not good. I woke up feeling pretty off, and assumed it was entirely because of the sleep. I had a dentist appointment midafternoon, so I ended up working half a day, coming home and trying to nap (to no avail), went to the dentist, went to a happy hour, came home, and tried to sleep for real. I slept better Wednesday night, so on Thursday morning I bounded out of bed and ran off to work and accidentally got wrapped up in what I was doing and worked a 10 hour day. I came home coughing and exhausted and within an hour of getting home was running a fever.

Since then I've been playing the "rest up and let the sickness take its course" game. It is aggravating as all ungodly hell. I keep thinking back longingly to how perfectly the week started, and how my plans for the rest of the week (more workouts, staying on top of homework, etc) just fell apart. I'm antsy just laying around here and more than eager to dive back in.

I'm actually taking that as a good thing, though. The past few months have been incredibly stressful: my grandfather died, the holidays happened (don't get me wrong, I love the holiday season, but...), things with my brother went pretty much to rock bottom, I started a new position, and I had another experience recently that made a lot of things related to the previous list hit way too close to home.

Because of all of that, I've kind of been "hiding out." Until this past week, I hadn't been doing much with myself besides going to work - I let a lot of things slide. I got sick in early January, and when that happened it was kind of a relief. I didn't mind being forced to lay around for a few days because I needed the decompression time. The fact that now I'm chomping at the bit to get over this monster cold and start working out and work full days and get back into my school work and start writing again (and maybe even doing tarot readings again!) tells me that I'm through the bulk of those stresses and that I'm ready to take my life back on, with gusto. That's a huge relief.

However, the fact that I'm knocked-flat-on-my-butt-sick for the second time in six weeks tells me I probably need to be taking better care of myself. Two things that might have made this week go a bit better: figuring out how to sleep, and calling time out before I was full-blown sick. The sleep thing has always been a challenge for me in some form but I'm going to have to figure out a solution. And - I usually push myself too hard. I bet that if I'd taken the whole day off Wednesday, the rest of the week might have been more pleasant.

So, lessons learned, I suppose. It's still good to be back. And, I will start taking better care of myself.