Posts Tagged ‘life’

An Update!

Posted by Grá Linnaea ON in Dear Diary

larmSo, it’s been forever since I’ve written an update. I wanted anybody still around to know that I am still alive, having a great time in Portland, still writing, etc etc etc …

I also have some exciting updates to report:

First and foremost is my serial novel “The Curious Investigations of Miranda McGee” which will be coming out at the end of this month. In the next few days I should have art and banners up, so watch this space. It’s going to rule!

In other news, I’m still doing my best to find balance in my life between money work and writing and social time. It’s a challenge sometimes, but generally things are great.

And, as usual, I’m biting off too much. I have two novels currently in the works, and am trying to finish a number of short stories. I keep saying that music is coming soon too. We’ll see. More about that later …

Anyway, nice to see you again. Expect more regular updates from here on out!

Grá

A few quick notes to myself

Posted by Grá Linnaea ON in Dear Diary

Nephilim!Erg. I’ve been meaning to do a New Years post, etc, but I’ve been SO BUSY. *whine* *whine* *whine*

Maybe later this week.

Anyway, I wanna close a few tabs, so here’s some notes to self.

.

Four writing things:

Bibliotheca Fantastica (My friend Claude is editing this. I owe him a story. Phew.)

Predictions of what 2011 would be, from a paper in 1911. (I saw this just as I was thinking about writing more stories in the world of my WotF winning story, “Life in Steam.”)

Chuck Palahniuk’s “Big Voice, Little Voice.”

400 Free Online Courses from Top Universities. (AWESOME!)

And three random life/house things:

WordPress Contractors (I’m thinking about hiring someone for my site redesign.)

Electrical Conduit Raceways (To tidy my video projector setup.)

craigslist > services offered > household services (I’m *cough* thinking about getting a little help around the house.)

More later …

An Update:

Yeah, It’s been awhile and I’d promised regular updates about the novel and stuff, so …

A CHECK-IN!

Me!The novel’s going well. It’s still not done (and probably won’t be done in time for the highly esteemed writing workshop I’m attending in June.) A few weeks ago I was really stressing about being behind on the book, but the coordinator, Bradley said that it wasn’t uncommon for folks to bring incomplete work. So … whew.

But, I’m extremely happy with it. It’s easily the best novel I’ve written so far. Not that it hasn’t had its challenges; I had to break up the original outline and the story’s gone in a different direction than I’d originally thought. Most importantly, it’s moving much faster than I’d plotted for, and … well, a faster moving book sounds a lot better anyway.

My initial readers have been incredibly helpful with the first fifty pages. I’ve rewritten based on their notes and sent the first fifty pages to secondary readers and the workshop. Last week I received everyone else’s first 50. Which means:

  1. I have 110,000 words of other people’s fiction to read … and soon!
  2. I’m having that same feeling I had when I first went to Clarion. “How Did I Get in Here?” Everyone’s stuff is so good and it makes mine look … well, not so good. I’m overwhelmed with all the talent in Wellspring. Whew.

….

I’ve also been rewriting tons of short stories from my to-be-rewritten folder and sending them out. I’m back up to thirteen stories in the mail, which … I know generally people think is pretty good. It’s low for how many I used to keep in the mail, but I’m working my way up again.

My brain has been an idea machine lately. To keep myself focused, I’ve basically been just jotting the ideas down for later and going back to the novel. It’s important to me to find a balance between the novel and shorter work. I didn’t like the feeling of spending all of 2009 with the novel swallowing my life while not producing anything else. I feel confident that I’m doing a better job now.

Other aspects of my life

My moving date kept getting pushed back, but I have a truck and a date and people helping. I and all my stuff will be in Portland on Saturday, May 14th. I’m still geeked about my new space and the people and Portland and and and … *squee*

My money-work life is also going well. I feel blessed that my work is challenging, interesting and creative without sucking up so much of my brain that I don’t have space for writing, art and music. I’ll be commuting from Portland to Eugene twice a week, basically spending half my time in Eugene and half in Portland. The train ride feels like a perfect time for writing and reflection.

Other details I’m geeked about: Biking around Portland, joining a gym near my house, maybe joining the Independent Publishing Resource Center and learning how to letterpress. (!!!) And I’m looking forward to connecting with more Portland writers.

I have some exciting news about my work at Shimmer Magazine, but I’ll save that for the next post. I’ve also been thinking about reposting my shimmer writing articles here when I get around to it.

Hmmm … I guess that’s everything lately …

Hmmm … But, once again I’d like to use this blog to keep a fire under my butt. So, I’m committing to a new blog post sometime in the next week and I plan to have another five stories in the mail and at least another 5000 words done on the novel by then. See you later this week.

Onward!

Birthdays

Posted by Grá Linnaea ON in Dear Diary

I get a little sick of hearing myself say how much life has changed. I swear I’ve said it like three times in the last two years. I mean, okay, it’s true, but then again it’s probably true for everyone. Maybe it’s more that we all learn new things and then move on to new things.

My birthday’s in a few days, which brings to mind last year’s birthday. Everything had changed then too. I started my huge journey around the world and everything was different, stuff with Jai, my life in Eugene, everything. I’d thought I had a path, and I did, maybe with some bad information and some bad choices, but with a lot of possibilities and dreams.

There was awesome stuff on the trip. In the last year I discovered I love Istanbul and London and Edinburgh and Paris. I learned a lot about myself and what I want from life.

And sure, it was confusing and hard at times. Part of me wants to say it was a distraction from the important things, but I don’t think I could have gotten here if I hadn’t done it all.

On my birthday last year, I had specific ideas about my money-making life, my love life, ideas of living in another country. It was a possible path, none of it turned out the way I thought it would. Some of it sucked, but whatever, it was kinda perfect.

I went through a painful transition a couple days ago. It’s not worth going into, but there are a couple of points worth remarking on: One is that I’d been through nearly this exact same … well, drama a bunch of times. Every time it had torn me up for weeks, sometimes months.

This time I was down for a day or two, but have mostly moved on. The other thing I realized is that — and this sounds like a cliche — I’d been living in a fantasy, waiting for potential and possibility and ignoring what was in front of me. I’ll take clarity any day.

Anyway, yeah, not exactly fun stuff, but it’s weird, I expected to feel more depressed, and for longer …

… but I don’t. I think getting out of a bad situation, and realizing that whatever happens in the next year, (or five, or ten) largely depends on me and my decisions … it sorta forces me to realize that all I really need to do is pay attention and keep at it.

Anyway, I’m excited about this birthday, and cautiously excited about this new stage of my life. I’m sure I still have stuff to work out, emotions to feel, but I come into this birthday feeling unencumbered and hopeful.

Anyway, thanks for reading. If you have a second, wish me a happy birthday!

$#!% to do …

Posted by Grá Linnaea ON in Dear Diary

Last night i wrote and read a story at the Wordos holiday reading, which went pretty well.

I mean, i think it did.

People seemed to like it at least. In general the process reminded me of how i used to write. Think of an idea in the morning, poke at it a few times in the afternoon, throw everything away and write something else all at once.

This system works pretty well for flash, but has been trickier for longer stuff. I kinda wonder about writing scenes this way, if i could lay out the larger story, maybe i could knock out chunks in inspired flashes.

Hmmm …

Anyway, thinking about what and who is important to me these days.

A lot of money work, mostly. I love my job, and i work with really cool people, but i’m still getting used to the time commitment. Sometimes i’ve been able to write in the mornings, or take short breaks in the afternoon, but mostly i’ve been writing at night again. That works, but i’ve been hanging out with folks a lot and i keep feeling the draw between being social and getting my words for the day done. I think trying to balance my writing life with social time is also making me feel pretty picky about who i hang out with. My tolerance for BS and games is pretty thin at the moment.

Anyway, the thing i’m most excited about is my new motivational system / game i’ve invented out. It’s kind of ridiculous, but i’ll post it here in a few days and see what people think of it. It has charts, goals … and poker chips …

Anyway, you’ll see.

But, yeah, that seems to be most of my life these days: Work, writing, exercise, friends.

I still have long term goals i’m thinking about: Portland, MFA, writing stuff, but i think as long as i’m writing, sending stuff out and hanging out with worthwhile people, i feel pretty satisfied with my life … short term.

Onward.