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thebratqueenTonight is take 3 of me attempting to go to belly dance class in the new year. Take 1 was a cancelled class due to weather, take 2 was me crawling my way home before I got totally lost and/or killed in the fog, and take 3 is tonight. I remain hopeful. According to my teacher there were 7 people in the class last week total, so we may actually have a little tribe going for ourselves. At least assuming they keep showing up.
BTW, did you notice how if you write today's date out in numbers you make the year? 1/20/05. See? It's like a little Easter egg.
Looks like I'll definitely be moving my website to a new domain and location, so won't all of you who have links to me be thrilled? Since the website itself is geting an overhaul and that probably won't be done until I have a week of more or less free time next month (why yes, my boss is going on vacation then, how could you tell?) what I've decided to do is get the new space set up now, but keep the old one for a month longer so I can use that time to point people to the new location. After that I figure people can be on their own.
New year, new starts, new resolutions has me pondering various things about being an adult and getting things done.
As those who read my OMGsekrit posts over on JournalFen during the great LJ blackout (hint: my username there isn't exactly making use of the Enigma code) know, one of my resolutions this year is to start collecting rejection slips. In other words, get back to into the mindset of writing things for publication in addition to writing for myself.
The rejection slip goal is basically me avoiding the get a round to it habit I've fallen into in the past few years (being defined as the time between the last time somebody paid me for my writing or that I got a rejection slip for something) where I keep thinking "I should send stuff in for publication one of these days" with the immediate thought of "Yeah, but there's stuff to do so I'll get around to it later." The rejection slip goal thus motivates me to get off my ass, because it requires tangible proof that I did what I was supposed to. Plus I can't control whether or not people publish anything of mine, but I can control whether or not I send it in.
Anyway, as the saying goes, I told you that so I could tell you this, which is that the goal of collecting rejection slips has me being more active about finding places to send stuff, and the act of doing that has proven to be a bit of an epiphany for me.
You see, in the past I've basically Forrest Gumped my way through being published, which is that anything that ever happened to me in that area was a great deal of being in the right place at the right time and with the ability to say "Yes" when somebody said "Would you like to accept money and/or other good things for putting your fingers to the keyboard and creating the type of stuff that we're looking for?" So while that was nice and all, it's no where near the blood, sweat, and tears that most people normally put into writing.
So in my head I hadn't really yet "done writing" and thus my picture of it was more or less the same one I had in my head since I was a kid, or at least in high school. You know the one. Fevered author, tapping away at Their Great Novel [tm] on the keyboard for months if not years at a time (to say nothing of the devotion and time required to then sell and market the thing). Which is nice and all, but dear God nothing I want to do.
I don't think in novels, I think in short stories. Yet for some odd reason I always thought to myself that when I finally Got Serious About Writing [tm] it would involve doing a novel. I don't know why, that's just the thought that I had. It never occured to me that short stories are fine too, particularly since my goal is not to be the next JK Rowling, but rather to scribble down these ideas that keep appearing in my head and if somebody ever wants to give me money in exchange for them then hey, cool.
So the realization that I was being an idiot and aiming for the wrong goal got me to thinking about life in general, and how there's a few myths that I think we sell ourselves about what it means to get older and more serious about life.
I'm definitely rambling here, but the point (and I'm fairly certain I have one) is that it's a happy thing to realize that in life sometimes the rules are that there are no rules. You don't have to go to the stereotype. Not that there aren't certain things you don't still have to do (eg if you want to be published it's at least a rule that you need to be able to write well), but there are some constraints that don't have to be followed.
As for example, being an adult. Growing up I think we picture adulthood as this serious matter where serious things are done and it's all paying bills and jobs and proper furniture and minivans. And, yes, there are bills and jobs and the need for furniture more advanced than used pizza cartons on top of plastic milk crates, but the great thing about adulthood is that there can be more than that. You can still play with the PS2 if you want to. You can eat the cookie dough right out of the tube.
And, okay this is getting a little more Dead Poets Society than I ever intended, but what I'm trying to say is that it's funny how when we're young we can often picture what we do later as being very dry and boring, when in fact it's as interesting and fun as we want it to be.
So yeah, that.
BTW, did you notice how if you write today's date out in numbers you make the year? 1/20/05. See? It's like a little Easter egg.
Looks like I'll definitely be moving my website to a new domain and location, so won't all of you who have links to me be thrilled? Since the website itself is geting an overhaul and that probably won't be done until I have a week of more or less free time next month (why yes, my boss is going on vacation then, how could you tell?) what I've decided to do is get the new space set up now, but keep the old one for a month longer so I can use that time to point people to the new location. After that I figure people can be on their own.
New year, new starts, new resolutions has me pondering various things about being an adult and getting things done.
As those who read my OMGsekrit posts over on JournalFen during the great LJ blackout (hint: my username there isn't exactly making use of the Enigma code) know, one of my resolutions this year is to start collecting rejection slips. In other words, get back to into the mindset of writing things for publication in addition to writing for myself.
The rejection slip goal is basically me avoiding the get a round to it habit I've fallen into in the past few years (being defined as the time between the last time somebody paid me for my writing or that I got a rejection slip for something) where I keep thinking "I should send stuff in for publication one of these days" with the immediate thought of "Yeah, but there's stuff to do so I'll get around to it later." The rejection slip goal thus motivates me to get off my ass, because it requires tangible proof that I did what I was supposed to. Plus I can't control whether or not people publish anything of mine, but I can control whether or not I send it in.
Anyway, as the saying goes, I told you that so I could tell you this, which is that the goal of collecting rejection slips has me being more active about finding places to send stuff, and the act of doing that has proven to be a bit of an epiphany for me.
You see, in the past I've basically Forrest Gumped my way through being published, which is that anything that ever happened to me in that area was a great deal of being in the right place at the right time and with the ability to say "Yes" when somebody said "Would you like to accept money and/or other good things for putting your fingers to the keyboard and creating the type of stuff that we're looking for?" So while that was nice and all, it's no where near the blood, sweat, and tears that most people normally put into writing.
So in my head I hadn't really yet "done writing" and thus my picture of it was more or less the same one I had in my head since I was a kid, or at least in high school. You know the one. Fevered author, tapping away at Their Great Novel [tm] on the keyboard for months if not years at a time (to say nothing of the devotion and time required to then sell and market the thing). Which is nice and all, but dear God nothing I want to do.
I don't think in novels, I think in short stories. Yet for some odd reason I always thought to myself that when I finally Got Serious About Writing [tm] it would involve doing a novel. I don't know why, that's just the thought that I had. It never occured to me that short stories are fine too, particularly since my goal is not to be the next JK Rowling, but rather to scribble down these ideas that keep appearing in my head and if somebody ever wants to give me money in exchange for them then hey, cool.
So the realization that I was being an idiot and aiming for the wrong goal got me to thinking about life in general, and how there's a few myths that I think we sell ourselves about what it means to get older and more serious about life.
I'm definitely rambling here, but the point (and I'm fairly certain I have one) is that it's a happy thing to realize that in life sometimes the rules are that there are no rules. You don't have to go to the stereotype. Not that there aren't certain things you don't still have to do (eg if you want to be published it's at least a rule that you need to be able to write well), but there are some constraints that don't have to be followed.
As for example, being an adult. Growing up I think we picture adulthood as this serious matter where serious things are done and it's all paying bills and jobs and proper furniture and minivans. And, yes, there are bills and jobs and the need for furniture more advanced than used pizza cartons on top of plastic milk crates, but the great thing about adulthood is that there can be more than that. You can still play with the PS2 if you want to. You can eat the cookie dough right out of the tube.
And, okay this is getting a little more Dead Poets Society than I ever intended, but what I'm trying to say is that it's funny how when we're young we can often picture what we do later as being very dry and boring, when in fact it's as interesting and fun as we want it to be.
So yeah, that.
