Affirmations

I'm trying to fight one of those funks where I keep thinking to myself, "Geez, I'm not really that great at anything." Part of the rumination that keeps bothering me has to do with the role of difficulty of a task, or perceived subjective difficulty, and whether and how that relates to ability, aptitude, potential, success, etc. That is: if I feel like something is difficult, does that mean I'm not really that good at it--that I don't have a noteworthy ability or aptitude for it? Or does it mean that I am actually good at it because I'm trying to struggle through problems that others aren't willing or able to tackle? Or are the two completely independent, nothing to do with one another at all? [Something is difficult] AND/OR [I'm good at it or not good at it] but there is no causal relationship.

Mostly, though, instead of tackling the why and the self-analysis, I end up going through this list of things I like to do (or even things I don't like, just things I have to do or could do) and sort of checking them off, like, "Nope, I'm not all that great at that; oh, playing the ukulele? not so good at that; singing is fun but I'm really not that great at it; I could go back to working in a corporate environment but I'm not so great at stuff like meetings and getting to work on time and grown-up shit like that; I used to be pretty good at picking up languages but I don't think I am any more and hardly ever have time to practice;" and on and on.

So I decided to try to list a few things I am good at, to make myself feel a little better.

• I'm really amazingly good at sitting on the couch with a purring cat on my lap. Making the cats happy is something I can do.
• I can kick ass at cleaning out the refrigerator. In fact, I did that just yesterday. Now it's cleaner than it's been in many moons. (Of course, I don't know if this counts, since I was also at least partly responsible for failing to clean it for many moons...) 
• I'm generally pretty good at things related to our household food management: grocery shopping, putting the shopping away, cooking or otherwise assembling the food into yummy form.
• I am amazing at filing. You wouldn't really know this from the current state of *my* office, but while working as a temp, I once reorganized an entire file system for the City of Modesto Wastewater Treatment Facility--at least a half dozen large filing cabinets that had last been sorted sometime in the 1980s. In fact, that's how I met Joe Barretta, although he probably doesn't remember me. We had a long conversation about how he was taking his son to a Green Day concert.
• I am good at consuming mass quantities. 
• I am good at fading into the background (except in India, where I apparently stick out like a sore thumb--hence the many photo-ops people insisted on having with us).
• I am good at being quiet. Too good, sometimes. In fact, sometimes that quietness extends to this blog, for which I apologize, because I do go through vast epochs of silence from time to time.

 I will try to be less silent. Bust out of the box! We'll see how well I do...and whether "busting out of the box" is one of the things I'm good at, or one of the other things...

Official Cover Reveal for UNDERNEATH!!

Look! Look at it and glory in its awesomeness! Soon I'll be updating my author website with more details and information about the book, but for now, I'll tell you all I know, which is that it's scheduled for release in June 2013. The story: A girl develops the power to hear thoughts in the wake of a family tragedy.

I'm pleased with this for SO many reasons, but reason #1 is that the girl definitely looks South Asian--important because the story again has a mixed-race protagonist.

So today I'll be happy-dancing and probably peeking at the cover repeatedly instead of working.

My Jerk Boss

Over the past few days, I've come to an important realization. I've been thinking a lot about how burned out and exhausted I've been feeling, and it occurred to me that what I need is a mental health day. A MASSIVE mental health day.

This is something I wouldn't think twice about at a more everyday-type job with a regular employer. My boss wouldn't even have to know I wasn't really sick. Or, if your boss was cool, you could just tell them you need a personal day. But I work at home--self-employed--and apparently I am a really mean boss. I don't think twice about giving myself weekend work to do; I often force myself to work late into the night until it's time to go to bed; when Boss Me says "jump," Beleaguered Employee Me says "how high?"

And I'm a pretty good employee. Sure, I goof off now and then. Twitter appears on my monitor more often than it probably should. But I work hard. So I think I deserve a mental health day. I haven't had one in ages. So I started making a list of things I want to do on my mental health day: not a to-do list, because mental health days and to-do lists don't mix. Just a list of things I haven't really allowed myself to do in a long time--months, in many cases. And on my mental health day, if I'm wondering what I want to do--if, that is, I want to do anything other than being a TV-sated couch potato--I'll just consult the list. So far, I've got:

• play the Wii
• play the piano
• bake cookies
• read in the bathtub
• do a craft of some sort (perhaps going back to that knitting project I'm destined never to finish)

Anything remotely relating to or resembling work of any kind does not belong on the list. Even working on my new linoleum block print is not on the list (keyword there: "working"). Now comes the tricky part, though: figuring out when to "allow" myself the mental health day. I almost feel like if you have to schedule the mental health day more than a day or two in advance, it loses some of its power. But I do know it'll have to be soon--and I know I'll be happier (and probably more productive) in the long run because of it.

How about you? Had a mental health day recently? If not, why not? If so, what did you do with it?

Yes, I *AM* Here! Somewhere.

Well, hello there. Long time no bloggie. What can I say? I blame it on a combination of extreme busy-ness and I-ain't-got-nothin'-to-say-itis. Finally, though, I worked my way through some major swaths of the to-do list and I actually feel like I can justify making a post regardless of whether I have anything to say or not. Maybe I don't! We'll find out.

What have I been up to? Lots of traveling, which most of you are already aware of. I went to the Welsh course for the first time in a couple of years, and celebrated finally stepping down from the Board of Directors. (You can see me on the lower left, a few people in, in the picture on this page.) A couple of weeks later, I went to Seattle to give a teen writing workshop at the Lynnwood Library and visit friends. Just a few days prior to that, I had gone deep-sea fishing for the first time, on a boat that left from the Berkeley Marina and went out past the Golden Gate and into the ocean off the coast. I left with one salmon (see photo) and a wicked sunburn that I still had, slightly, when I gave my presentation, much to my chagrin. Also to my chagrin, I got seasick and barfed over the side of the boat. Twice. But then I felt better and was actually able to eat my lunch and keep it down. Maybe that means I'd eventually get used to the bobbing on a boat thing, although the jury is still out on when and whether I plan to do it again.

And, this past weekend, I went out of town again, on a short visit to my mom and a trip to Las Vegas for my cousin's bachelorette party. She's getting married in November. I feel extremely adult because we're serving as immigration sponsors for the husband-to-be. It's kind of weird to be a financially responsible party, not that we haven't been homeowners for the past 9 years (!) and therefore, theoretically, fairly responsible.

Between all of those outings and happenings, I mostly was just scrambling to keep up with everything else: work, housework, e-mail, whatever. So if I owe you an e-mail, I can confidently tell you that I'm finally getting caught up. FINALLY. I suppose it's helped that my ongoing freelance job of the past two years, that has been keeping me in steady part-time work on a regular basis, has gone away. Bad for the pocketbook, but good for getting caught up on everything else. Currently, the tentative plan is to start teaching a class in the spring semester, assuming something else more appealing doesn't come up in the next month, after which I have to decide for sure. It would be an online humanities class, taking it over from my mom, who is starting to think about retiring in a few years. At her college, which is very small, there won't be anyone to teach that particular class after she retires, so she's offered me the opportunity to try teaching it. (Assuming, that is, that I'm able to get hired.) So basically, I'd be able to make use of the humanities classes I've already taken to get equivalency ASAP--which sure makes those classes seem like a good idea, despite the fact that they made my life insanely busy this summer.

Oh. Oh, yeah. Did I forget to mention Rob and I are enrolled in a second master's program? In humanities? Yeah. We took two 2-unit classes online this summer. The Defining the Humanities: Music class was excellent, though it was basically a correspondence course rather than a true online course. The Defining the Humanities: Literature class was, surprisingly, a pain in my ass. I'm convinced that I got suboptimal grades on my first three papers because (cue MASSIVE EGO) the professor couldn't believe that I actually wrote the papers without somehow plagiarizing or cheating. When I wrote the final paper as straightforwardly and unoriginally as I could, making everything as dull and obvious and BASIC as possible...why, there was my only A paper of the semester. SIGH.

But it's over. And now, I can actually prove equivalency to teach humanities, so I suppose no matter what happens I'll most likely have a new source of regular income by spring. Yay for that!

On Confidence

Sometimes, when I stop to think about it, I'm staggered by the amount of things I don't do because, on some level, I lack the confidence. I'm not talking about risk taking in the traditional sense--I'm not overly worried about the fact that I will most likely never voluntarily go skydiving, for example.

I'm talking about day-to-day things, work or creative projects or bright ideas that go unrealized because I've decided I just can't. Sure, some projects are inherently unfeasible, or impossible given time or money constraints, or just not great ideas from a practical standpoint. But so many others--even some of the ones that allegedly are impractical--fall into the category of stuff that I don't have the confidence to tackle. It even applies to blog posts: I get paralyzed because I convince myself nobody's going to care about what I have to say. Maybe they won't--that's not really the point. But it still has the power to scare me away.

Other things I haven't had the confidence to do: Write and draw a graphic novel. Be in a band (except for imaginary ones). Get over the idea that if I'm not constantly contributing directly and equitably to household income, that I'm somehow failing. Get over the idea that all work-related activities must earn income to be considered "real work." These last two are more substantial problems. (Some might call them actual problems as opposed to minor complaints.)

I feel ridiculous about this sometimes, because I know there's a lot of stuff I have done. But then I think about the things I tried to do and failed, or the ideas I started on and abandoned, muttering "What was I thinking?" And I balk. Again.

I'm in a serious "What was I thinking?" rut right now, which prompted this rather grim train of thought. Here's hoping I claw my way out soon and get some shit done.

My Virgin Ears

Strangely, I have not listened to an actual audiobook yet. Nope, not once. There's no one particular reason I can point to. I tend to prefer listening to music on my iPod, but I'm not anti-podcast, for instance. I like books. (That's obviously not the problem.) It's just that I have an uncanny ability to forget about the possibility of audiobooks when I'm planning for a long car trip. I'm not in the habit, so I don't think about it until it's too late.

Well, NO MORE! I have officially checked out my very first audiobook from the library: White Cat by Holly Black, narrated by none other than Jesse Eisenberg of The Social Network movie fame. It's a book I was interested in reading, so I'm hoping I get just as much enjoyment out of the audio version. And it's just a slight bit longer than my drive down to SoCal is likely to take, I think, so it should be perfect. It was a pretty exciting day for library pickings, actually: Magic Thief Book 3, Northlander Book 2, POD by Stephen Wallenfels, Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus (YAY YAY YAY), and the first book in a new series by Herbie Brennan (author of the very funny Faerie Wars books) called The Shadow Project.

Not that I'll have a huge amount of leisure reading time for the next few days, buried as I am under articles to write, art appreciation essays to grade, and a big revision I foolishly thought I could get done much more quickly. I don't even want to THINK about Christmas shopping yet, although I did get a little of it done already. There's not even any time to shop online. My so-called free time is generally devoted to cooking ('cause you gotta eat) and cleaning (just enough to not feel like we're living in a pigsty) and sleeping (because that is non-negotiable). Every time I check something off the list, I want to celebrate with great jubilation.

Oh yeah. No celebrating for at least 5 days.

And You May Ask Yourself, How Did I Get Here?

Every so often, when I think about the fact that my first novel is about to be published, I get this feeling of surreality. I think to myself, this is not how I would have pictured my life if you'd asked me fifteen years ago, when I was an undergraduate in college, or even ten years ago, when I was working at my first (hmm, and last) full-time salaried job.

It's not like I suddenly woke up one morning as a Type-A, high-powered stockbroker, or a doctor or a trial lawyer, and wondered to myself, "Who am I? WHO AM I??" It's just that it didn't even cross my radar that I might pursue a writing career—at least, not until that job ten years ago at IGN.com when I started doing some on-the-side freelance humor writing and thought to myself, "Remember how you always loved writing? Yeah. Maybe I could do this every day. Perhaps I should think about looking into this further."

In retrospect, this logic seems flawed, as I ended up transitioning from one unlikely, competitive, low-paying career goal (art) to another equally competitive, difficult and low-paying career goal (writing). But you have to understand—in 2001, when I quit my job at IGN and decided to go back to graduate school for creative writing, I was still coming off a massively career-shifting and aggravation-inducing year of post-baccalaureate study at the San Francisco Art Institute. After spending all my spare cash applying to 13 art MFA programs (in those dark days of 1998, you had to send most places slide carousels of your work), I was offered only one option—a year of post-bac study—so I took it.

Moving even further back in my career planning, when I started undergraduate school as an Art Practice (and Psychology—but that's a story for another time) major at Berkeley, I had this general idea that I'd end up in illustration or design. But then I was confronted with the dichotomy that is High Art vs. Low Art, or Fine Art vs. Commercial Art, or whatever you want to call it (great post on this at Yat-Yee's blog). I learned, in my fine-art-oriented program, that words like "commercial" and "illustration" were bad things when applied to fine art, so I did what I needed to in order to succeed in the milieu I was thrust into—or I tried, anyway. I didn't exactly banish my entire aesthetic; I just focused on art for art's sake.

In further retrospect, I think my idea was that I'd enter grad school, get my MFA, and then go on to work in illustration or design or whatever other art-related job I could find. I didn't really have a clear idea of what that might be, but I knew I wasn't interested in teaching, which is what most MFAs end up doing. (Or they end up in a mindless day job so they can make art at night.) But since I didn't get into an MFA program--after tons of effort, I might add—I was a little lost after finishing my post-bac year. I was like, now what? I don't feel ready to plunge into the art world. I was traumatized by various unpleasant experiences in my graduate department. Rob was still struggling with the politics of the MFA program there. I was also feeling embittered by the fact that I'd finished my BA summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, etc. etc. and it hadn't seemed to do me much good career-wise.

So I ignored the dilemma and applied for work. It seemed like a good time. The internet boom was…well…booming, and we lived in the Bay Area. Entry-level positions abounded. I got one marketing job, didn't like it, and quit after two weeks, when I was offered the IGN job.

Which brings me back to the writing. Inspired by my manager Mike, who also wrote articles for the site and was going to transition to a full-time content writing job, I offered myself as a freelance writer. Sadly, the internet boom stopped booming, I got a new set of bosses, and I wasn't able to make the transition to full-time writer. But it got me thinking. Why put up with the constant fear of layoffs, the excruciatingly dull morning marketing meetings and the recurring chastisement for my occasional lateness to said meetings when I could REALLY be doing something with this desire to write?

Not having any formal creative writing training beyond some childhood enrichment classes had never stopped me from writing before, but I figured I needed some more learnin' before I tried to actually get published, or get a job as a content writer, or whatever. I applied to MFA programs, and lo and behold, I got into one this time. (A much better acceptance rate, too—one out of two. …What was I thinking?)

By that time I was starting to think about being a freelancer full-time—writing, design, illustration, whatever. And that's a pretty good description of what I do now. That's how I got here. So I guess that answers that question.

C'mon...You Know You Want to Read It

My litany of excuses for not blogging, that is. I was supposed to follow up on my last post and everything. I fully intended to for a few days there, too. Then I got busy. It's not as though I haven't been blogging--after all, I've put up close to twenty posts over the past two weeks on the Cybils blog, and I did manage a post or two over at the YA blog recently. I did some other webmastering duties at other sites. And I even worked on a couple of major (to me) web design projects--namely a new personal/professional site and a Latte Rebellion site to accompany/pimp my book.

Speaking of the book, that's been keeping me busy, too...I got an advance review copy of it at the end of last month, which got me excited, just in time to receive my next (and final) round of edits. Not long after I finished those edits, I got a phone call from a member of the publicity staff at my publisher, and had a discussion about things like going to ALA and doing a book launch and contacting media and other stuff that left me flabbergasted yet excited. I talked to a couple of friends here in town, who have teacherly and librarianly connections, about talking to classes or holding a library reading when the book is launched in January.  Today I got my galley proofs, and my next task is to review them and e-mail my publisher with any changes. It's a whirlwind that comes in gusts--lots of stuff at once, alternating with periods of waiting.

Oh, and I've been doing lots of writing, mainly articles interspersed with a little work on another fiction project. So lately it's seemed like every spare second has been taken up, because of course there's other stuff happening in my life besides work. Nothing particularly notable, except Rob's return to teaching classes after being on sabbatical for a year. That's been a smack upside the head for both of us. So if I seem to be a bit dry and dull at the moment...I guess I am.

I did have two odd conversations today, though. One was remarkable because it's highly possible the exchange consisted entirely of lies, and the one person I could guarantee was lying, was me. Packing up my car after shopping at Trader Joe's:

Random Large Dude: (paraphrased) Excuse me, I was wondering if you could help out, I can give you my address, my phone number and everything, but me and my family are trying to get to Vallejo.

Me: What, like on the train or...?

RLD: No, we've got a car, but it's (broken down/ran out of gas/something I can't remember).

Me: I'm sorry, I don't have any cash on me.

Now, that latter was, sadly, a lie. I didn't have any cash I wanted to GIVE him. I only had a twenty. And pennies, which would be rude. But I still felt bad. And then, as I got in my car and drove away, I told myself, he could well have been pulling a scam and just lying about the family, about Vallejo, about the car, about everything. He looked normal enough, if startlingly obese, but who knows? All I know is, he could have been lying. I was definitely lying. And that felt weird.

***

The other strange conversation I had was with my sister-in-law. I think she's in New York this week, visiting friends, but I wasn't thinking about that when she called earlier today. I picked up my cell phone.

Me:  Hello?

Sis-in-Law: Hey, It's [REDACTED].

Me: Hey, how's it going?

SIL: Good! Listen, what do we push, D or F? We're here!

Me: ...[long silence]...Wha?

SIL: What button do we push, D or F?

Me: Um...what do you mean?

SIL: What? I'm outside!

Me: Outside MY house? Right now? [I look out the front window. Nobody's there.]

SIL: Yeah, we're coming up the front stairs and don't know if we should push D or F.

Me: ...Uh...you do realize you're talking to Sarah, your sister-in-law?

SIL: Oh no! Oh! How funny. Gotta go.

This struck me as highly comical afterward because I had been so INCREDIBLY confused by what she was saying to me. It didn't make any sense to me whatsoever until she started saying she was outside the house, and referred to front stairs, which I don't have. Only then did it occur to me that she was probably talking about apartment buzzers and thought she was talking to someone else.

It was very surreal, but also funny.

The Creative Person's List of Laments

….Because we creative people have the amazing magical power to create neuroses out of thin air!

I may not be as helpful or clever as Merlin Mann, but hopefully this is reasonably entertaining. I enjoyed writing it, although I'm vaguely embarrassed at how many of these neuroses—er, laments—I have personally indulged in on repeated occasions.

So You've Got a Bouncing Baby...Whatever That Is 

1. I'm not even sure this is a very good idea in the first place. Perhaps I: am getting old / killed too many brain cells in [insert college name here] / should have been a [insert more lucrative career here]. (select all that apply)

2. I'm never possibly going to finish [project title].

3. I'm never going to finish revising / perfecting [project title].

Once Your Project Is Done. Or IS it? 

4. Is it really done? Maybe I should just tweak this word / sentence / line / stray pencil mark.

5. It's not done. I never should have sent it off to that literary magazine / editor / agent / contest / juried show.

6. Another rejection? I'll never find an agent / a gallery / a publisher. (See #1. Repeat as needed.)

Break Glass In Case of Unexpected Non-Rejection 

7. They're never going to like it as is. They're going to ask me to completely recreate my drawing / painting / sculpture / main character / plot. 

8. Nobody's going to read / notice / like my book / poetry / artwork.

9. My work will never be as good as [insert name of more talented and accomplished colleague] or [name of ridiculously successful professional in prime of career].

10. The reviews and sales figures will only prove my unsuitability for this career / lack of creative ability / mediocrity / insanity.

When It's All Over...Lather, Rinse, Repeat. And thank your lucky stars you're doing this instead of anything else in the world.

I'm Totally Normal. Abby Normal.

The more time I spend pursuing a career, a life's work, that's in the creative arts (visual or written), the more I realize that another major task for me is reconciling myself to the idea of living life in a not entirely linear fashion. What I mean by that is, creative pursuits don't always lend themselves to a straight road. It's not uncommon, I'm finding, for people to meander a bit.

Perhaps this will be a bit clearer if I provide some contrast. Take my parents. Though they are very different from one another in a myriad of other ways, they are both a bit linear, especially when it comes to how they see working life. This is not necessarily a bad thing, not at all. In fact, I envy them. For them, this is how life generally works: Kid is bright and shows potential. Kid goes to college and majors in chosen field. Kid becomes knowledgeable in said field. Knowledge leads to degree or series of degrees; degree leads directly and immediately to reliable and long-term employment in field of study. Success and stability are achieved in all acceptable societal measures of such.

In the arts, this just isn't always the case. But it's taken me a while to come to terms with that fact that it's not a sign of wrongness or failure, but simply NORMAL. The more I look at authors' book jacket or website bios, though, the more I recognize kindred spirits, the more weird jobs I find, the more--not flitting about, but doing a lot of other things to earn money so that you can pursue your art. And I realize that it isn't necessarily dilettantism that has caused my longest-held salaried position to be less than two years in duration. I look with a sense of relief at the biographies of other YA writers, like Jessica Day George or Jennifer Allison, both of whose bios I recently read. I look at my stepdad, one of the smartest and most creative people I know, and the fact that within his working career he's been a carpenter, an adult ESL teacher, an optician, a high school biology teacher, and a bit of an artist, too--in his retirement, he's making pottery using molds and a homemade kiln. I have to remind myself that it shouldn't be a source of embarrassment or shame to not hold the same job my entire life, to not have a "real job" in the same way that others see it. I AM doing my "real job." Every second that I live.

A Brief Emergence

I'm here. More or less. I spent the past month basically just working my ass off--grading essays for Rob's online classes, plowing into a new freelance project (which was awesome but made me very busy) and working on my novel revision. The novel revision is now largely done, I'm pleased to report. I did the first big pass through the whole thing, moving major scenes, rewriting some new ones, tightening things up, and generally being attentive to those items that the editor suggested I look at. Now I'm at the point where I'm re-drawing the two cartoons which appear at the beginning of one of the chapters, and I'm planning to do two more.

I just wanted to be sure that they're as well-done as possible--I felt like they were a tiny bit untidy, that I could draw them better. And, should the novel get published, I'd really like to see them make it into the final version, rather than having someone else redraw them. As an artist that idea makes me feel pretty squicky, though I realize it's pretty much par for the course to have little or no visual input into one's published work.

Still, I hold out a vain hope that I might have SOME input someday. I used to want to be a book cover artist, actually, for quite a while when I was in high school. If I'd ended up in a different type of art program, I might have, but the Berkeley program was very fine-arts oriented, which means that if someone uses the word "illustration" to describe your work, it is actually an insult. Conversely, if your work is both a) monumentally large and b) incomprehensible to anyone but you, you will thrive. Just kidding. Kinda.

Anyway, I finished that bulky part of the revision, and have one more pass to do wherein I will try to look for anything I missed, and judge how well it's flowing now that I screwed around with the timeline of the story. And after that, I will reward myself by playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii, which has been waiting patiently for me for several months. Though I've also heard rumors that we may be purchasing Rock Band 2, as though I need any more irresistibly fun time wasters in my environment. Oh well. I should learn to say yes to more fun things now and then, anyway.

Buried in a Dung Heap--er, Rubbish Pile--of Words

I have been writing like CRAZY lately, and not just because of my revision. Thanks to Beth I have a new freelance job doing some work-for-hire writing, and it's been good so far, but it's been keeping me super busy. Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of people say you should avoid work-for-hire, but a) I need money, and b) I'm not sure I'd necessarily want my name attached to some of these for posterity so I'm not concerned about my future "ownership" of it. Oh, and did I mention I need money? Going to Italy and Spain for a month this fall is not going to come cheap, even though I was an Expedia ninja and we're getting a good deal. Can hardly wait for October now, though.

In the meantime, I have been working on the revision and have also been experiencing quite a bit of revision-related fear. Certainly nothing insurmountable, but definitely annoying. Here are a few choice fears that have come up lately, as I find myself recasting several subplots and majorly revising the timeline:

• Fear that I won't be able to do it well enough, despite all my efforts. That I won't put enough into it, or that I'm just not good enough to begin with. This I can generally deal with, because I tend to have an inferiority complex about most things in my life, so this is nothing new. I guess it's probably why I've had a corresponding tendency to try to be an overachiever. (That, and my dad periodically telling me about various more-successful relatives and/or children of family friends, most of whom are evidently either getting multiple graduate degrees or amassing wealth and fame in practical and worthwhile careers like medicine, law, and engineering. Sigh.)
• Fear that even though I'm putting my all into this revision, and even though it's going to be a very different (and hopefully better) piece in the end, all the changes and all the differences will only lead to new and interesting types of suckage. I have a lot of trouble overcoming this one, but there's not a lot I can do about it at the moment other than keep plugging away.
• Fear that, even if it all works out at this stage and I end up with a published book, at the end of it all people will read it and think, "THIS is the kind of thing that's running through your head?" while looking at me very warily, slowly backing away; or perhaps laughing derisively, or stifling a yawn, depending on the doom scenario of the day. However, this is one of those "fears" that I should be so lucky to have materialize, right? Err....

At the end of the day, though, I'm still incredibly excited about it, and the majority of the time, that helps me overcome the fear and actually get down to work. That, I guess, and my inability to stifle my inner overachiever.

I'm the Shizz, Yo

Periodically I find myself pondering the elusive notion of "coolness." It perplexes and awes me that some people seem to attain the heights of cool—or, at least, a reasonable amount thereof—seemingly without any effort. And then there's the idea of the relevance of coolness. At some point, one would think, perceived cool would be a sort of high-school notion, something to be left behind, more or less, in favor of judging people by more easily definable attributes like kindness or achievement or intelligence or generosity.

BUT NOOOO, to quote a rather crusty old episode of SNL. The adult world is riddled with a lot of the same posturing and social stratification as adolescence. Now, I've never really been one to worry about gaining approval from the "cool kids," then OR now, but then, I've also never had to worry about being mistaken for cool. Nerdy? Yes. Artistic? Sure. Weird? Very probably. Incomprehensible? On occasion. But cool? That's debatable. And I can't help but wondering what cool is, and how people get there, and why there is a sudden increase in exclusionary behavior—deliberate or not—when they do. Of course, I'm also guilty of creating coolness distinctions where there may be none, so I think it's a two-way street.

I should point out that this sort of cool/uncool distinction isn't always paranoia on my part—I don't usually go around grumping to myself about how such-and-such a cool person won't give me the time of day, so they must think I'm a total loser. Oh, I might joke about it. And I might be paranoid in other ways. But I do find myself just a bit pouty at times about others' coolness, even about the social standing granted by particular forms of success but not by other forms of achievement. (Success has to be measurable by appropriate and easily understood standards, after all.)

And you'd never mistake ME for cool. I don't dress well enough, for a start. In fact, I'm kind of unkempt in general, especially if you expand your view to include items like my house and car. My career is neither exciting nor lucrative at the moment, so I don't have any good small talk for parties, not that I'm very good at small talk anyway.

I've decided the best thing I have going for me is mysteriousness. If I don't say much about what I'm doing, then for all you know, I could be working on something super secret and totally awesome. I could be the world's coolest person, so cool that I'm saving everyone from being blinded by my awesomeness by pretending to be a dork. Uh, yeah, that must be it.

*****

Thanks, everyone, for all the positive vibes. I've been a little better since my last post, though I'm still feeling a bit crisis-y as far as my career is concerned. And I can't help thinking I'm a little old to be wondering what I want to do when I grow up. It's not normal, is it? Then again, I'm not sure normality suits me...

Behind on Life.

Ever feel like you're falling behind on life? That's me, right now. I just managed to post something on the YA blog and realized that was only the tip of the iceberg as far as blogging is concerned--I've been neglecting this one, my Welsh blog, and the reviews blog, mostly through the flimsiest of excuses. Too much work? Ah, c'mon. That's never stopped me before.

I do have too much work, though. I'm caught in another downward spiral of inferiority feelings and self-recrimination for a) failing to publish any fiction this year, b) failing to garner enough paid work to feel like I'm contributing adequately to the household, c) actually losing some paid work for various reasons, and d) still managing to have way too much on my plate to reasonably accomplish in the time available to me. How does this happen??!!?

Anyway, wallowing makes me even less likely to blog, as does the fact that at any given moment I'm actually either working or attempting to force relaxation upon myself by reading or watching TV (and I'm usually not able to do these very well when I'm worrying about what I'm not getting done). But for you, my wonderful and loyal posse of readers (all five of you), I will stop wallowing. I will get to work. And when I finish working, I will blog you into oblivion. (Whatever that means.)

It's About Time, Eh?

Yep, I finally put up some new blog graphics. I don't quite want to say I "redesigned" the blog, since all I did was replace the preset template graphics with my own (taken from a segment of a painting I did a while ago, which I then fiddled with in Photoshop). But it has a new look, put it that way. Not new enough to have to change all the text colors--I didn't have THAT much time on my hands.

Wanna know why I didn't have that time? Because I signed up for Twitter. Hooray for yet another goofy time-wasting activity! Hooray for yet more bombardment of the interwebs with my daily trivialities! MY MANY YAWN-INDUCING MINUTIAE WILL BE THE DOWNFALL OF SOCIETY! BWAHAHAHAHA!!! PREPARE TO BE BORED! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

By the way, if you want to read any of the yawn-inducing minutiae, I put a widget in the sidebar. Why am I so unproductive today? One reason is I'm unmotivated and bummed because I lost a design client a few days ago--evidently it just wasn't working out and I wasn't giving Client X what they wanted, though I was a) doing exactly what they asked for and b) doing it for a much lower price than I normally charge. Oh well. So I decided I should spend time on non-work-related activity, though I did put up a few book reviews, which I guess is technically work-related.

Oh. I'm also bummed because I gained five pounds for no apparent reason, and they haven't gone away yet. I'm hoping it's five pounds of muscle, but in case it's not, I'm going to go hop on the exercise bike now. Okay. Now I'm considering worst-case scenarios and hoping I don't have a five-pound tapeworm.

A Tiny Rant

Okay, I know this isn't a real blog entry...I'll get to that later.

I just needed to have a teeny-tiny rant about EMBEDDING FILES INTO WORD DOCUMENTS. That rant is: FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON'T DO IT. If you're sending me graphics, send me the original graphics files, pleeeeaaaaazzzzeeee. Same goes for sound files. ESPECIALLY sound files, which I can't cut and paste out of the .doc and into an empty Photoshop file.

That is all. For now.

Oh yeah...I'm almost done with this site. Don't laugh. I does what the customers wants.

Head Above Water...Just Barely

I've been doing a lot of work on the Guys Lit Wire website, and that finally tapered off; but now I'm trying to finish up a site that's giving me some trouble because the clients want a very colorful design and I'm trying to keep it somewhat reasonable to my sensibilities (draft here). I'm rather proud of the image gallery, though...

I also had a flurry of potential new jobs (if two can be counted as a flurry), both of which did not pan out, but then I got an article assignment for a local magazine that's affiliated with the Stockton Record newspaper. I feel like it's fairly high-profile, and they've been great about communicating with me compared to the Modesto Bee and all the times I tried unsuccessfully to submit queries to them.

Anyway, there's that, and the poster design for the next play, and a bachelorette party this weekend in Portland, OR, and somehow Rob and I got comp tickets to this fundraising dinner for History San Jose on Thursday night, and my mom is coming up on Monday for a night, and I think we're supposed to go rafting on Sunday afternoon literally right after I get off the plane coming back from Portland. What the hell happened this week?? Did I mention that article above is due on Wednesday? How does this happen?

Hangin' on the Telephone

I may have mentioned this before. I'm pretty sure I have, since I have an existing tag called "I Hate the Phone." But yeah, I hate the phone. Specifically, I really hate making phone calls. My feelings about making phone calls vary, but they range from mild annoyance to sheer terror.

I had one of the (thankfully rare) sheer terror moments today. I have to admit, I worked myself up into it over a period of a few days. Here's the story: I responded to a notice on my grad school's alumni e-mail list--a fellow alum was looking for an editor to tidy up a novel manuscript for a friend. She was moving out of the area, and he was looking for someone who could help with grammar, syntax, and formatting, since English is not his first language (he's Italian) and he's also elderly (in his 80s).

I thought it sounded like an interesting project--a semi-autobiographical WWII novel called I Due Villaggi that's already been published in Italian. I called the alumna and she was very nice and encouraged me to give him a call. She said the guy is very sweet but a bit hard of hearing and difficult to understand over the phone due to his accent, so he'd probably want to meet in person to talk about it. He lives in Oakland. Fine. Whatever. I can go to Oakland.

But then the anxiety started. At first it was just the usual mild stress at having to make a phone call to a stranger about a job. Not that big a deal. As a freelancer, I have to do that periodically, and I find it stressful, but...working is good. Then I kept thinking and ruminating about the fact that he's in his 80s, and hard of hearing, and possibly difficult to understand; and I started having these horrible visions of not being able to make myself understood if I called, or not being able to understand anything he said, or having my brain freeze up and not being able to communicate clearly.

Normally, when I have to make a phone call and I'm anxious about it, I have to just eventually decide to DO it--and by the time I hit that "dial" button it's too late to NOT do it, if that makes sense. At that point I just have to suck it up and get it over with. But if I've managed to get myself overly anxious about it, I start to feel like the worst possible scenario I can think of will in fact pan out, or at the very least, my brain will implode. Today, I could hardly manage to convince myself to make that call. ONE phone call to a person I don't know for a job that I want, okay. TWO phone calls to people I don't know, one of whom might not understand me and I might not understand them--well, that's just panic-inducing.

Part of me almost would have preferred to call the alumna back and tell her I couldn't do the job after all, but the other part of me realized how utterly ridiculous that would be. I did manage to make the call. It took me a few hours to work up to it, and some considerable self-bribery with coffee and a long reading break and the promise of having gotten it over with.

As it turned out, I could understand the guy just fine 98% of the time. I mean, my mom taught college-aged ESL students for 15-plus years. I'm used to deciphering accents. Hell, a good portion of my family and stepfamily are from different countries and have accents. Evidently, in my anxiety, I had forgotten these important facts. Also, he seemed to be able to hear me OK, for someone in his 80s, for cripes' sake. I'm still anxious because I'm supposed to call him back in a couple of days to arrange an in-person meeting, but for some reason that stresses me out less than a phone call. Go figure.

"It's about 300 pages," he said, when we were talking about the project. "Does that scare you?" "No," I said, laughing. And no, it doesn't--it doesn't scare me nearly as much as having had to make that stupid phone call.

My Life in Bullet Points: Mid-March Edition

It's absolutely disgraceful, this lack of blogging. Go ahead. Excoriate away. While you're busy ripping me a new one, I'll just go through a few of my excuses--I mean reasons--for recent quietude. In other words, this is another List O' Crap I Did. In other, other words, it's an overview of my personal minutiae (as one NPR commentator described most blogs).

• Happy Early Arbor Day! We've been planting lots of foliage. When the weather dried up a bit, we were finally able to call the concrete guys to pour the other half of our driveway and the sidewalk around the addition. We had them leave space for a planter box in one corner and a strip of dirt between us and the neighbors' driveway. We put in several Waxleaf Privet shrubs and another purple plum tree (amusingly named "Krauter Vesuvius"). We also put four rosebushes underneath the studio window to maul intruders, though right now they're only at ankle-mauling height.
• Earning Some Dough. I'm designing a logo, flier, program, and schedule for an early childhood education conference. It's another non-profit, so I'm not making all that much, but a commission's a commission. Plus I'll likely be getting another commission in a month or two, to design a poster for a local school play. Again, tiny dribbles of income, but it's all good.
• Rob's Work Drama. Rob had some drama at work for a couple of weeks during which he had to chastise several colleagues (including a couple of friends), give speeches, talk to the college president, and other fun activities. This was because it was approved--without consulting the art department--to build a new building on campus right in front of the art building. Moreover, it would have been right in front of the window side of the building with all the northern light. And it's the ONLY side of the building with windows. Blocking off all the light to the art classrooms? Also restricting ventilation in some very potentially fume-ridden areas? Not a great plan. Rob had to bring in da noise.
• DOH! I also got another very disconcerting novel rejection, this one actually somewhat personalized but still not particularly informative in terms of exactly what would make the work better. I had to mope for a while and then start a seven-cartoon series on the subject.

So that's about it for the moment. The fun never stops!