writing is not easy

by

2021 Round Up-a-Rama

Here is where I am at the end of 2021: down, down, down.

After a year of prolific reading, I find myself unable to lose myself in a book. My comforting morning ritual of drinking tea has deserted me. Carla is about to embark on another round of remote learning – this time, with unknown duration (could be five days! could be more!). Christmas, instead of being a cheery time of fun gifts and family togetherness, was utterly draining. I have been summoned for jury duty; I was able to postpone it, due to remote learning, which is good, but now I have MONTHS to fret about the logistical nightmare of the whole thing, not to mention the idea of being in the giant jury room with dozens of other humans who may or may not be masked or vaccinated. And I am sunk deeper into a pit of self-doubt and -castigation than I ever have been before.

It’s wishful thinking to imagine that a year that held a lot of great things would end on a high note. And it’s naïve to think that a simple shift of the calendar will resolve any of these things. So here is where I am.

There are good things, too, of course. It was lovely to see my parents over Christmas. My husband’s call schedule was light toward the end, so our Christmas festivities were hardly disrupted. He is on vacation this week, so he and Carla and I have been having a quiet, pleasant time doing quiet, homey things like cleaning the basement, playing video games, and eating junk. We got a TON of holiday cards. (I think our card wall looks much fuller than in previous years, but my husband says he thinks we get this many cards every year.) (We received about 45 cards this year, so maybe next year I will remember to count.) While it seems as though everyone in the world currently has Covid, we have still, somehow, by pure luck, managed to avoid it. (SO FAR.) I am aware of my many blessings, I am. But that does not dispel the disconsolate fog that’s clouding everything at the moment.

Be assured that the remainder of this post will (likely) be less dismal. And, as always, I love to read your year-end recaps, so please let me know if you posted one as well.

(If you’re so inclined, you can read past versions of my responses: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009. This yearly recap originated with Linda of All & Sundry.)

As usual, I reserve the right to delete ignore or scoff at any of the questions below.

  • What did you do in 2021 that you’d never done before?
    • Sent my manuscript out for beta reading.
    • Went on a paleontological dig.
    • Rejoiced as each new member of my family received a vaccine against Covid-19.
  • Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

As is my new tradition, I made some very loose aspirations for the year. Out of 19, I accomplished 10, which seems pretty decent, considering some of them were real reaches in terms of potential success.

  • Where did you travel this year? (This is my own recasting of a question I could never answer which was How many countries did you visit this year?)

This year, the only time I left the state was to visit my parents. My husband, daughter, and I also took a trip to a city on the opposite end of our state, which was nice but very hot and sticky. We have some travel planned for 2022, but who knows how that will turn out.

  • What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021?

I mean, last year’s wish still holds true: A return to some sort of pre-pandemic normalcy, for myself and my country, and across the globe. More time alone with my husband. Dinner in a restaurant. The ability to travel without worrying about infection/infecting.

As long as we’re putting out our wishes, I would also like to have an agent in 2022. I know this is… a big ask. And will require a lot of work on my part. And will still probably not happen. And putting it out here makes me feel stupid and exposed. But it is what I want, more than anything unrelated to the pandemic, and I’m going to TRY.

  • What dates from 2021 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Moreso than even in 2020, I think, the days and weeks sort of ran together in 2021. Outside of January 6, I can’t remember a single specific date. A few key moments do stand out – like when I got my vaccinations and when Carla got hers – but I couldn’t tell you the dates.

  • What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting my manuscript out to beta readers.

  • What was your biggest failure?

I am not up to answering this one this year.

  • Did you suffer illness or injury?

No, thank goodness. My family and I have been so remarkably lucky during this pandemic.

  • What was the best thing you bought?

I’d say it’s a three-way tie between my new towels, our bicycles, and the artificial Christmas tree.

  • Whose behavior merited celebration?
  • Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
  • Where did most of your money go?
  • What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I was really excited about going to visit my parents with Carla (and really anxious). I was really excited that Carla got to attend summer camp and that she started third grade on time and made it until January without requiring remote schooling.

  • *Compared to this time last year, are you:
    • a) happier or sadder? 
    • b) thinner or fatter? 
    • c) richer or poorer? 
  • What do you wish you’d done more of?

Writing (evergreen item). Exercising. Reading. Eating vegetables.

  • What do you wish you’d done less of?

Feeling sad. Eating my feelings. Wallowing in regret. Doomscrolling. 

  • How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas included the three of us, plus my parents and it was everything a Christmas should be. We have such thoughtful and generous friends and family members, and there were SO many gifts under the tree. We ate bacon and baked French toast and berries for breakfast and then my husband went into the hospital, but he was able to come home around two which wasn’t terrible. For dinner, my dad made his traditional spice roast, my mom made her traditional blueberry pie, I made goat cheese garlic mashed potatoes, and we all chipped in to make Caesar salad. Carla flitted from new toy to new toy and the adults watched football and cooked and ate and really, what more could you ask for?

  • Did you fall in love in 2021?
  • What was your favorite (new) TV program?

Instead of watching TV this year, I mostly chose to read. But that doesn’t mean I was completely cut off from television! My husband and I finally started watching Succession (and have just started Season 3) – we are OBSESSED with it, as everyone predicted. How can so many people be so completely and thoroughly awful? We also started watching Superstore, which is a very fun, 30-minute humorous diversion type of show. I also loved:

  • The Queen’s Gambit – Neither my husband nor I can remember if we watched this in 2020 or 2021. As he says, it was a long year. While I know nothing of chess, I did love this series about an orphan chess prodigy whose addictions threaten to keep her from achieving her ambition. It was a show where I kept expecting terrible things to happen to the protagonist… but the people who surrounded her were almost universally good, caring humans who wanted to lift her up and help her succeed.
  • Mare of Easttown – This is the show that inspired us to finally get HBO, and it was SO worth it. (Also, Succession.) Such a dark, gritty look at a detective who does everything to solve a case. Kate Winslet was stunning. And the heavy-handedness of the accents was quite amusing.
  • Only Murders in the Building – What a heartwarming little mystery series this was. Selena Gomez, Martin Short, and Steve Martin solving a murder in their luxury apartment building was every bit as goofy and fun as you would expect.
  • Maniac – A science-fiction series about grief and brokenness that took some very weird but always interesting turns. It reminded me a little bit of Palm Springs, so if you liked that movie I bet you would like this series. (I enjoyed the movie very much.)
  • Bodyguard – This was a heart-pounding thriller that stressed me out the way early seasons of 24 used to. It was really good, if you can stand that edge-of-your-seat, something-is-definitely-going-to-explode feeling. Also, it has nothing at all to do with the Whitney Houston film masterpiece of the early ’90s, in case you thought it was a serialized version of the movie as I did.
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events – Carla has been listening to the audiobooks of this novel series, so we started watching the TV show as a family. It’s darling and fun, and I adore Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf.
  • *Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
  • What was the best book you read?

While I haven’t been able to read for most of this past month, which really, really stinks (it’s like being estranged from a dear friend), I had a very good reading year otherwise. In fact, I read 74 books this past year, which is a record for me. And so many of them were so good!!!!! 

  • A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne gets my top marks for this year. It was a beautifully crafted, incredibly chilling depiction of a would-be writer who will do absolutely anything to be successful. I loved the way the structure helped funnel the reader toward an ever-deeper, ever-more-sinister understanding of the main character.
  • The Great Alone was my first (and, so far, only) Kristin Hannah novel, and I loved it so much. The landscape, the isolation of small-town Alaska, the in-depth exploration of the dysfunction in one family were all so well done. I listened to this while out walking, often with tears streaming down my face.
  • Megha Majumdar’s debut A Burning was captivating and horrifying and gave a keen view of the inner-workings of life in Bombay and the lengths people go to achieve their ambitions.
  • Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi was absolutely gorgeous – a series of linked short stories about two strands of a family separated by circumstance and slavery.
  • I finally read the second book in the romance duology by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, and The Heir Affair didn’t disappoint. It’s witty and charming, and the relationship and even the faux-royal setting feel real and relatable.
  • I loved Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir so much that I ended up listening to the audiobook a second time with my daughter. It was fun and exciting and at turns triumphant and devastating.
  • Anxious People by Fredrik Backman started a little slow for me, but turned out to be one of my favorites. The writing style, the juxtaposition of heartbreaking situations and the warmth of strangers, and the humor added up to a deeply satisfying novel.
  • Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro was at once so richly imagined and so startlingly spare in details that it stands out as unique among my reads this year. Themes of ambition and companionship, and the role material “things” have in our lives were explored with the fresh, simplistic-but-insightful eyes of the titular AI. It was gorgeous and left me wanting more.
  • Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman is a book that I found emotionally wracking, but also very hopeful and so well-written/well-characterized that I continue to think of it long after the fact.
  • Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes was such a satisfying and well-written romance. As a person who typically eschews romance novels, I was surprised by how much I loved this story about a relationship that grows between two people who are broken in very different ways.

You know my favorite genre is mystery/thriller, and I read some GREAT ones this year.  

  • Sophie Hannah’s Haven’t They Grown (published as Perfect Little Children in the U.S., which doesn’t seem quite as apt a title) was a close second. She comes up with the most bizarre and fascinating premises (in this one, the protagonist sees a former friend and her two children after many years apart – but the children have not aged a day) and I just love how she unravels a mystery and makes the explanation seem both surprising and inevitable.
  • The third Cat Kinsella mystery, Shed No Tears, by Caz Frear was another favorite. I just love tough, witty, personally-ethical-yet-morally-compromised Cat Kinsella as a character.
  • The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz was really enjoyable, too, although again more for the writing and the slow realization of the main character coming to understand his situation.
  • I loved Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and, even more, its sequel, The Man Who Died Twice. The septuagenarian detectives and their relationships and struggles were lovely and charming and the books are packed with humor, puzzles, and heartbreak in equal measure. I cannot wait for the third installment.
  • What did you want and get?

Part of last year’s answer is true once again: For my family and friends to be safe and healthy this year. So far, so good. We are very, very lucky.

I am also so very glad that the vaccine was approved for kids Carla’s age, so I wanted for all my loved ones to get vaccinated and that has happened. Well. I don’t know that my niece has been vaccinated, but everyone else has.

  • What did you want and not get?

Well, last year’s answer still suffices: A refrigerator that doesn’t leak mysteriously and incessantly. New windows. Unity around a workable, scientifically-backed virus containment strategy. 

Things did NOT get back to “normal.” That was not unexpected and yet still deeply, powerfully disappointing. Disheartening. Dispiriting. Gutting.

  • What was your favorite film of this year?

Did I watch any movies this year? I can’t remember a single one, except Encanto, which we watched over the Christmas weekend, and which was very charming.

Oh, right – my husband reminded me that we watched Dune, which I was resistant to and ended up really enjoying. (Although I am annoyed that it was only PART of the story.)

  • What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
  • What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

A coordinated, followed-by-everyone plan for enduring the latest stages of the pandemic. Finalizing revisions on my manuscript.

  • How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2021?

As in 2020, my fashion choices were all about comfort. Soft bras, soft pants, soft shorts, no makeup, no shoes. Let’s exchange our pajamas for some Daytime Leggings and then switch back in a few hours. That kind of thing. I did go out more. Not like out out, but out in the world, so I ended up buying a few pairs of new jeans. Two of those pairs are in the supposedly-once-again-fashionable straight leg/bootcut style and I kind of hate them, even though I loved that style when it was previously fashionable and resisted skinny jeans for years.

  • What kept you sane?

My husband. Exercise. My terrible, wonderful, unputdownable phone. Books and audiobooks. Carbs. Wine. Reading your blog posts. Long walks. Takeout. Writing here.

  • Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
  • Who did you miss?

My first and perpetual answer to this question will always be my friend who died. But in 2021, I don’t think I spent a lot of time missing anyone else. As an introvert, the forced isolation of the pandemic wasn’t particularly difficult on me, and I think the increased human interaction we’ve been inching toward this year was perfectly fine. Plus, we got to see both sets of parents AND my sister-in-law and niece, so I didn’t feel separated from my family. We are so very, very lucky.

  • Who was the best new person you met?

I cannot think of a single new person I met this past year.

  • Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2021.

The only current “lesson” that I can come up with – the worst things you think about yourself are true, and other people think them too – is a direct reflection of my current mood, which hopefully is not a reflection of reality. So let’s go with last year’s slightly more uplifting offering:

“Despite everything, there is SO MUCH to be grateful for. Even when the big things are uncertain and scary and sad, there are plenty of tiny, wonderful joys to be counted and held up for inspection and treasured. I have made a point to consider all the blessings in my life this year – sometimes just FORCING myself to be grateful dammit – and I feel more aware of them, and of how full my life is even when it seems otherwise. I hope among all the wreckage of this year that you, too, have found some kernel of gratitude. Not because you SHOULD, but because it helps to have even a small glimmer of light to walk toward when everything seems so unbearably dark.”

  • Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

“Go easy on me.” – Adele

Happy New Year, Internet. May 2022 bring us all happiness and health.

by

Friday Randomosity: Feeling Chatty Edition

The exterminator just called and told me one of his other clients has an emergency and would I mind please changing our appointment to next week. Um, no, of course not?! I don’t even want to THINK what might constitute an extermination emergency, so please, go help the poor people who need you. We can live with our silverfish for another few days. Anyway, now that I don’t have to flit fretfully around the exterminator while he does his work, I have an extra free hour or so in which I should be writing to kill, so let’s chat a bit, shall we?

It’s ironic that I should use the word “chat,” because I just left a lengthy complaint on Swistle’s latest post about how my wonderful, beloved child has been extra chatty in the mornings lately. To counteract the bad karma of complaining about my cherished daughter, I will effuse to you a bit because she is just SO FUN to talk to these days. (When it is not six-forty-five in the morning and when we are not trying to get out of the house to be somewhere on time.) She has so many questions and it’s fun to a) discover what’s going through her brain and b) see if I have a reasonable answer, or will have to leave her with the unsatisfying-for-all-of-us response of “we’ll have to look it up.” (My favorite chats take place in the car, so we cannot look it up just then.) She likes to ask about word origins, which can be fun to discuss, especially if I have a little insight into the etymology of whatever she’s got in mind. For instance, she might say that “rhinoceros” is a funny word, and I can point out that “rhin” is from the Greek word for nose and we can marvel over how appropriate a name it is for that particular animal. The other day, she asked me why singers use curse words in their music, I assume because she has been listening to some Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber songs that have lots of bleeped-out words. So I got to teach her a new word (“profanity”) and talk about why some people choose to use profanity, and why it’s not always a good choice, and then she got to say some curse words in the guise of asking me questions about them which is always fun for a seven-year-old to get away with. Our conversations are a delight. And fill me with confidence in her curiosity and intellect that I hold up as a talisman when I overhear her and her friends changing “Old Town Road” to “Old Town Butt” and then every other word of the lyrics is “butt.”

This has been a good week for writing. I was feeling, last week and over the weekend, Extreme Self-Pity (the book is terrible, I’m never going to finish, I’ve wasted my life, I’m a failure and everyone knows it, etc. etc.). Maybe indulging in my own personal pity party spurred an overcorrection because I’ve been writing my little fingers to the bone all week. (This round of revisions still isn’t finished.) (But it’s eking ever closer.) Or maybe it was written in the stars…

Astro Poets is the one true source of all my cosmic guidance.

While this is nearly a decade too late to be an “update,” yes, we still have silverfish. Usually they pop out once or twice a year, springish and fallish, but we’re having a little burst of them right now. Four sightings in the past week, plus a Very Unpleasant Incident in which I went to squish a silverfish that was chillin’ above my daughter’s bed right where the wall meets the ceiling, and instead of squishing obediently, the silverfish JUMPED OUT of my Kleenex and disappeared into my daughter’s bedding. And then, after my husband and I jointly and confidently assured Carla that no self-respecting silverfish – especially one that had recently been the victim of a near-squishing – would stay on the bed near the sight of said squishing, and if by chance it WAS on her bed, it was assuredly DEAD… and after we carefully took apart her bedding, piece by piece, examining each stuffed animal to ensure no silverfish, it was of course under her pillow, very much alive… and then after I attempted to re-squish it, it AGAIN leapt from my Kleenex, causing me – the person trying to be calm and unperturbed about something as harmless as a silverfish – to shriek in front of my daughter. (I did get it, in the end, and squished it and flushed it so it is doubly dead.) Don’t get me wrong – I’d MUCH rather have silverfish than many other creepy crawlies (or whatever constitutes an exterminator emergency; I really can’t stop thinking about what that may be). But I can’t say that we co-exist peacefully: they are so wiggly and have so very many legs. The exterminator – who is the same lovely sixtyish/seventyish-something gentleman who has been coming out to our house two to three times a year for a decade now – blames the silverfish on the number of books we have. I guess they like paper? But I have lived in homes full of books all my life, and this is the only house that has ever featured silverfish, so I’m skeptical and have not done anything to pare down our home library. I am looking forward to seeing the exterminator, for the reason of the silverfish, of course, but also because he is older and has been visiting people’s homes in a pandemic and I’d like to put eyes on him and make sure he’s okay. Aside from the microwave installation people, he is the only non-immediate-family-member who has been inside my house since last March. Which is weird. 

In bragging news, I went to the grocery store today and scored ANOTHER bottle of bleach spray. My supplies were depleted a little because I scrubbed the grout last weekend and used up most of a bottle of bleach. (I also gave myself pretty serious chemical burns on two of my fingers, though they are mostly healed now.) I also picked up (we are back at the grocery store now) a bottle of different new-to-me Lysol (I still can’t find the lemon scent I prefer). This one has more of a typical antiseptic scent to it, with maybe a slight hint of orange, and I bought it because I need an occasional break from the  mango-and-hibiscus Lysol I bought last time. I’m still going to use the tropical one of course; in a pandemic, one shouldn’t look a cleanser horse in the mouth, even if it is very sickly-sweet and gives me a headache. The grocery store seemed to be almost entirely back to pre-pandemic stocking levels. The only aisle that had anything resembling bare shelves was the cleaning products aisle; even the paper products aisle had shelves bursting with paper towels and toilet paper. Of course, no Grape Nuts or bucatini, but we will survive without.

This one gives off real no-nonsense cleaning-expert vibes. Unlike its frivolous, perfume-loving counterpart who would totally blow off work to go get daiquiris.

Most days, I am okay with our pandemic way of life. I mean, I don’t LIKE it, and obviously I would prefer that everyone would wear a mask and vaccines were abundant and distributed quickly and efficiently so we could return to a pre-pandemic way of life. But mostly, I am getting used to it. About time, since it’s been going on for nearly an entire year.

I feel very fortunate that the isolated nature of our lives these days suits my personality and lifestyle. I already worked from home; I’m socially awkward; I’m an introvert. Once in awhile, though, I so start feeling lonely. And I want to figure out some way, any way, to interact with other non-immediate-family humans. I used to go through that cycle in The Before Times, too, where I’d go for long stretches without seeing anyone… and then I’d overcorrect by setting up a coffee date AND a dinner date AND a family get together all in the same week… which would completely exhaust and overwhelm me into swearing off human interaction ever again. Still happens, even now that there is really no such thing as having a social life. Carla and I are going to our outdoor sport tomorrow and will see a bunch of her friends and their parents, which will be good. And then on Sunday, my little family will be doing another outdoor activity with friends we haven’t seen since Halloween. Which will ALSO be good. But I am pre-exhausted and pre-overwhelmed by the thought of all this socializing. At least I’m not the only one.

My husband just got his second-round vaccine. This is such a HUGE relief; in a few weeks, he should be (mostly) protected from Covid-19 and I will worry about him MUCH LESS. Plus, my parents’ state has opened up vaccine registration to their age group, so they are on a list and should get their first round soon. Woo hoo! My brother and sister-in-law already got vaccinated because they are both front-line workers. Which leaves only six near-immediate family members to continue worrying about. I mean, I always worry about ALL my family members, but I can downgrade the threat level for a few of them now.

The asparagus is gone. But not eaten. It looked fine, but at some point I started to notice a faint garbage-y smell emanating from our fridge so I threw them away. Sorry asparagus. Wasn’t meant to be. 

Speaking of vegetables, I am continuing to work on increasing Carla’s vegetable consumption. In the car after school yesterday, she announced, with great conviction, that she HATES vegetables. (She is discouraged from using the word “hate” except in cases where she feels most strongly.) I had to remind her that she likes lettuce and sugar snap peas and green beans and red peppers and tomatoes. (“I only EAT green beans and red peppers, Mommy, I don’t LIKE them,” she informed me. “And bell peppers and tomatoes are FRUIT, not vegetables.”) Getting her to eat veggies, especially NEW ones, requires creative thinking. The other day, I decided to renew my efforts to get her to like broccoli. She only likes the broccoli “floof” (relatable) but claims not to like broccoli at all. (When she was younger, she would eat it frozen OR cooked with cheese sauce! I don’t know when she stopped liking it!) “You just haven’t found a preparation you like,” I said. So we did a taste test. One floret of raw broccoli; one floret of raw broccoli dipped in ranch; one piece of roasted broccoli with salt and olive oil; one piece of roasted broccoli with lemon juice; one piece of roasted broccoli with parmesan. To increase the Fun Factor (wood board my life is sad), I made a survey for her to fill out as she tried each candidate. The results were not promising. 

Carla has her own food priorities.

I think I am in a bit of a book slump. After my gloomy post the other day, I decided the best remedy for Feeling Down was to pick up a good book. I finally, after many, many months, downloaded The Heir Affair to my kindle and read it. I knew it would be exactly what I needed – funny, fast-paced, engrossing, well-written, totally removed from the real world – and indeed it was. Everything I hoped it would be and more! I LOVED IT. But I finished it in two days and am now casting about for what to read next. See? Book slump. And it’s not for want of books! (See above re: silverfish vacation destination.) I have SO MANY books both on my kindle and on my bookshelves/nightstand just waiting for me to read them! I am, in fact, in the middle of three separate books (a trait I get from my mother, apparently), each of which is very good, and each of which is completely not what I’m looking for at this particular moment. Which is The Heir Affair again. Or its prequel, The Royal We. Or The Holdout, which was another book I could not put down. That’s what I want: something completely absorbing and unputdownable. But it also shouldn’t be sad. Or… deal with anything too heavy. What is the most unputdownable, semi-light-subject-wise book you’ve read? Or, if that’s too specific, what is the most absorbing book you’ve read recently? 

A mix of books I have and have not yet read.

Well, it’s not actually SUNNY outside right now, but the clouds are high/thin enough that there is something approximating light streaming through the windows. And I can’t tell you how cheering it is, in all its diffuse dimness. I will take what I can get!

by

Possibly This Is Not the Healthiest Way to Think of One’s Cherished Work

You may have noticed that I have been posting a lot more regularly in the past few weeks. This is because my novel is…

…going horribly.

HORRIBLY. I hate it and everything about it. Every sentence I write is excruciating to craft. Every word is the wrong word. Every character is selfish and one-dimensional and stupid. My metaphors are overwrought. The plot is boring. I know exactly what needs to happen and when and why but it’s NOT HAPPENING and it’s making me mad. I feel like I have zero control over my characters and their whims and their actions and interactions. I feel like new characters pop up out of nowhere and make no sense. I feel like I’d rather sit on needles than open my manuscript. Every time I read something I’ve already written, I roll my eyes. If I try to write fresh, without reading previous pages, I write something I’ve already written. Is it better than what I’d already written? Hard to tell, when they’re both CRAP.

You’re supposed to just WRITE, even when things are bad. So I am pretending that blogging counts as writing, and I am blogging like it’s 2009 all over again. And it’s working! I am getting TONS of ideas and inspiration and desire to write!

But, um, for the blog, not for the novel.

SIIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHH.

People always ask me these two things about my writing, so I will tell you:

How much do you have left to write? I would estimate that I am about 75% of the way done with the novel. Plot-wise, that is. I have about a quarter of the way to go in explaining the plot. But I would also estimate that there’s a LOT more than that: backstory and build up and detail and blahblah that has to go in as well. And I don’t know how to estimate THAT.

How many pages have you written so far? My best guess is that I have around 250 pages. The program I use to draft the novel (Scrivener) lists word count, so that’s how I think about my output: in words. Not necessarily pages.

It sounds like a decent amount, right? Well, it SHOULD BE, after TWO YEARS. But let’s also keep in mind that a lot of the existing words/pages will get cut. And then more will need to be written. And more cutting. So it’s hard for me to say with great confidence WHERE I stand, exactly.

A friend asked me recently how I was doing, and I told him how horrible it was, and how much I hated the stupid novel and everything about it, and he said something along the lines of, “Well, you gave it a shot. Are you going to find a job now?” And I got really mad. (Not really at him; it was a reasonable question.)

No way in HELL am I giving up. So what if the book is shitty? Plenty of books are shitty. So what if no one ever reads a word of it? Plenty of books never see the light of day. So what if I hate every minute of it? That’s not true always. Sometimes I am quite pleased with what I’ve written. Sometimes I can write for hours and it feels like minutes. I am trying to treat the writing of this novel like a job (although, let’s be honest, if my boss weren’t so understanding, I would have been fired LONG ago) and sometimes jobs suck. You go through rough patches. You have projects and tasks you can’t stand. And you do them because it’s your job. This is just a rough patch.

To violently switch metaphors, I am going to see this motherfucker through to the bitter end. It may not be a happy ending, with flowers and beautiful piano music and lots of people standing around saying wistful, loving things, and angels holding out their welcoming hands in a swath of holy light. No. It might not even be a gruesome, bloody end, with stab wounds and a heaving chest and the buzz of adrenaline over ohmygod what did I just do. It might just be me standing over this stupid novel, choking the life out of it, and getting tired, and listening to its weak gasping, and then squeezing the breath out of it again, slowly, painfully, both of us in agony and just wanting it to be over already my GOD. But it will end, dammit! It will end, and when it does I will be there, standing over it, breathless and kind of grossed out, but victorious!