A Random List

This is what my day has looked like:

1. Woke up at 5:30AM (Motivation: Don’t want to be a cow, I’m pretty happy being human, would like to continue looking like one)

2. Spinning (Instructor tried to kill us with hills)

3. Realized my wallet was missing (Awesome)

4. Destroyed car and apartment looking for wallet (no luck)

5. Called the only place I went to about wallet (no luck)

6. Checked my bank account a thousand times to see if there was activity (nope)

7. Where the F*!& is my wallet?

8. Lunch

9. Phone Call that went like this:

Lady: May I speak with One Mean MFA?

ME: This is she.

Lady:  A resident found your wallet, we’re holding it for you.

ME: Oh Thank GOD! What a relief.

Her tone was monotone and she didn’t even sound happy that I was happy. A true testament to the human spirit.

10. Picked up wallet.

11. Cancelled cards even though none of them were missing.

Man on the other line at bank was overly talkative, and told me a lot about his life–which was not so interesting. He then ended the phone call saying something about how I knew more about him than his coworkers. Now sure how to react to something like that.

12. Watched House Hunters

13. Finished Syllabus for one of 3 preps

14. Procrastinated by checking twitter, facebook, and my email about a million times and didn’t write a single sentence of fiction

15. Wrote this post.

 

 

The Four Day Rut

I have literally been in a foul mood for four days straight. I can’t explain why, it’s just been one of those weeks where I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. While I am prone to ruts, I have been since senior year of high school, this rut is one of the worst. It is reminiscent of my pre-depression days during undergrad.

Yes I do stress over things that I shouldn’t, but I don’t think this rut is being fueled by stress. My best friend and I have decided it’s a planetary issue. My rising sign is Virgo, and well I don’t think the planetary alignment and full moon are helping out. Although, if the planets aren’t to blame, I really don’t know what is.

The following are things that are bothering me:

1. I might have to move because the apartment complex I live in is raising its rates. That’s right in this economy where jobs are low, and prices are high the place that I live is raising its rate. How F#$@ed up is that? There is an upside to this, however. There is a neighborhood in the city that I live that I absolutely adore and it has affordable housing which is old and charming. Still moving is a pain in the ass and I’m not stoked about it.

2. No matter how hard I try I can’t get myself caught up in my grading. Currently, I have my phone on silent and I still managed to kill three hours in my car driving around to blow off some steam and consequentially wasted gas. Because I feel like I can’t get caught up I may give up a relaxing Saturday evening and grade. May being the key word in the previous sentence.

3. Because of my foul mood, the boyfriend and I got into a bit of a tif this morning and I feel terribly about it because it was my completely my fault. I’m an ass. No–and asshole.

4. The MLA job list has me worried about the future, which I cannot control and has me paranoid that I’m not good enough to be a professor and may need to invest more time and money into my education.

5. I miss my family so terribly. I want to visit them during my fall break but am not sure if I’ll be able to. Every Sunday when I’m alone in my apartment, I think about how I used to join them for mass and we’d have a traditional Italian meal. I miss it a lot. While I will acknowledge that being around them too much does bring on panic attacks–I have legitimate medical data to prove this–I still miss them.

As I write this list, I see how foolish it is that I’m upset and maybe a nice long jog or iPod dance party might help lift my spirits. More importantly, I need to stop procrastinating because that is what is causing all of this suffering. I love list making it always helps.

In It to Win It

Well, we’re slowly moving towards the middle of the semester.  My students have turned in their first papers and we are trucking through to the next. It is all happening so fast.

As you faithful readers know, I suck at making a schedule for myself. Well, nothing has changed so far. The only schedule I have been sticking to is my workout schedule. While I feel like this is a good start, I still need to get my teaching stuff in order–not having an office at work really blows–and desperately need a writing schedule.

I am thinking because I don’t have to be at work so early on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that I will get my writing done in the mornings. This will enable me to start my day off completely focused on my career.

For those of you future MFA graduates, the time has come to start applying for professor jobs. As much as I hate job hunting it is so important that the cover letters and all that business gets done soon. I only have to update my CV and write a bunch of cover letters, but I’m ready. Nothing, besides myself, can stop me from getting a kick ass professor job for next fall. I’m so ready.

I think all the yoga I’ve been doing has really gotten me focused and has cleared my head of all the BS.

Well, I hope all of you out there are writing your little hearts out. Between this blog, my blogging project, and my own fiction, nonfiction and novel work I know I’m about saturated.

First Week of Classes Down–15 More to Go!

So this week began my journey as an adjunct instructor. So far, I’m liking it. I’m not digging the psuedo-office with two desks that I’m sure will aways be occupied–although the shared office at the other school I work for is a bit bigger I am sure it’s going to be a lot of the same. I’ll probably hold my office hours in a gazebos outdoors when the weather turns.

My second teaching job starts on Tuesday. I’m pretty stoked to be getting into the grove of it all.  On the first day, when I began my introductions and introduced myself as Ms. OneMean MFA, I realized how much I really love teaching. Even writing the syllabus, though tedious, felt good. Much better than answering the phone at the salon.

I’m so over that job and am quitting this week. I will NOT work three jobs, also my time is precious and I refuse to sit in a mall every evening when I could be getting my teacher work done and cooking delicious semi-gourmet meals for the boyfriend. I also really need to polish my thesis into a best seller novel and I can’t do that at the salon either.

As of now, I’m working 6 days a week, with only Sunday to get my teaching stuff done. That is just insane. I did not bust my ass in school, write a freakin’ novel, and get a master’s degree so I could work a minimum wage job. Although, I will miss the free hair services. Oh well.

This week I’ll be introducing a blogging project to my class which I have been brewing up for about a month. I so desperately want it to be a success. I also want my students to leave my class really digging the idea of having their own blog. I’m nervous about the logistics. I have about 90 students and I’ll need to monitor all of their blogs every week–hence why I need to quit the salon. Well, I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Now instead of procrastinating, I need to be getting my teacher stuff done so that I get the semester started on the right foot. Right now, I’m already behind and dreading this last week at the salon. I so hope I don’t burn any bridges by quitting. I just don’t want to over stretch myself, plus I can’t network in the academic world if I’m at the mall. Plus, yesterday while I was on break I made a ridiculous impulse purchase–which I’m not really one to do but have on occasion brought home shoes, dresses, and jewelery that I don’t need–I am not returning it, though I debated. I’ve decided it will be a fantastic addition to my new professional wardrobe. I do after all have to look great.

Well, I’m going to focus.

Oh man I love this time of year!

Goals Goals GOOOOOOOALLLLLLS!

Sitting next to me is my revised thesis which still needs revising. While I’m sure I will feel it needs perpetual revision, this weekend I found myself unable to get anything writing related done. My final final final draft is due to my committee on the 7th. So I basically have about 10 days to get it done.  This weekend I instead starting making big plans for the up and coming months.

Because of my brilliant planning, I am done teaching any new literature to my high schoolers, and have actually made copies of just about everything I’m going to need for the rest of the year. There are a few things here and there that will need copying, but there is hardly any homework to grade, because most of it will be drafts of their final paper. I’m looking forward to summer, because these past few months of teaching have taken it out of me.

I will say that I think teaching this past semester, at the high school, has forced me to be productive. Last night while watching whatever was on TBS and then later North by Northwest, I reorganized all my previous teaching materials into psychotically organized binders. I still have to do the same with my teaching stuff at work, but once it’s done I’ll be good to go.

Spending this past semester working on my thesis and teaching high school, I have learned a lot about what direction I’d like to take and teaching high school is not it.  It could be that I’ve had  a rough experience, but I do find that I’m too invested in writing and this is why teaching at the secondary level is not for me.

I’ve been so eager to get out of the high school that I decided sometime this past week that I needed to start packing up my classroom.  While it may be premature, because they may ask me back, I have found myself thinking about what papers I’ll be recycling and which papers I will be organizing into binders. Also, some of the old teacher’s things are still in my classroom and frankly I would like to have the whole room packed up and ready to go by the 8th.

My writing goals to be completed by August:

1)  To write another food essay

2) To write two to three short stories (in the first person) my thesis is in the third and I’ve been itching to write in a character’s voice

3) To publish some more work (at least one)

4) To get a job at the college or university level (this will mostly depend on the market but I have faith that my CV is pretty good and will land me a job)

5) To be halfway done with major revisions to my thesis as I work towards having it ready to send to publishers.

Some reading goals:

I’d like to finish reading some books I started and didn’t finish including:

-The Time Traveler’s Wife

-The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao

-The Road

I’d also like to finally read:

-Jane Eyre ( I know how I have not read it yet)

-Love in the Time of Cholera

-Dante’s Inferno

Goals that have nothing to do with writing or reading

1) I’d like to get back into my running routine. My sprained ankle and laziness has gotten me into a running rut.

2) Finally get my apartment decorated–this will require funding and right now the money situation doesn’t look good.

Well, I feel good having written down some goals. It always makes them more official when you know some people will be reading them and you have to live up to them. I’m thinking I’ll update you guys on my progress after my thesis defense.

Holy crap I’m so close.

 

Teaching, Writing, and Thesising: Oh My!

In One Mean MFA fashion I’m writing a blog post instead of just banging out the last ten–really 8 pages of my thesis essay. The essay is a discussion of my influences, my process, and why I write. As with everything related to my thesis, I’ve waited until the last minute to complete it. I know what I want to write, but as is the case with any of the writing I do, it’s not the conception, or the characters, or plot, or whatever that troubles me, it’s simply sitting down to do it.

As you know I’ve been teaching high school English since March, and while I’ve been surprising more productive despite being busy, I find myself entering my apartment after a long day of teaching teenagers and being unable to do anything intellectual. I would wake up earlier to get some writing done, but my only qualm with this is that I already wake up at 5:30.  How much earlier can I wake up? 4:30? I mean I would be able to get a good hour in of writing a day, but I’d have to hit the sack around 9ish and that is not going to happen.

Teaching wears me and while I know it’s going to sound terrible, I refuse to bring home any teacher stuff. All my grading and planning I do at school, at my desk, in my classroom. My first year teaching I used to lug around textbooks, papers, homework, and tests. Back and forth, I’d carry it into my house and work on it at the kitchen table; the same place I did homework in high school. Because I’ve been trying to stay focused on my thesis, I’ve decided that it’s more important to devote my kitchen table space to my work. Not my students’ work.

Still, even though I’m not grading or planning at home I can’t seem to get myself to be motivated enough to do anything when I finish teaching. I know I started teaching in the middle of a semester, but I”m looking forward to summer when I can have my days off to continue looking for an instructor or adjunct position in the area and get some writing done that doesn’t have anything to do with my thesis. Teaching high school again has really helped me decide what my priorities are and writing is definitely on top.

Making money is great; I’m not going to lie, but I can’t honestly say that when I wake up to go teach those high school kids that I’m truly content and satisfied. I found so much more happiness teaching college students how to write papers and got paid peanuts to do it. I got to see them grow as writers and thinkers. At the high school,I mostly witness new cheating techniques and different levels of complaints about how I chose the most horrible literature for them to read. I will say, on a positive note, that they are really enjoying the novel I’ve chosen for them; this is a refreshing change from all the complaining.

While I know everything will work itself out–I’ll get that essay done, finish those last-minute touches, and manage to be super teacher–right now I wish I had a little more motivation to finish the measly 2500 words I have left to write.

I will add, in an effort to be positive, I have been enjoying thinking about my process and what I learned about myself as I wrote my very first novel. It’s also quite awesome that I get to write about myself for 10 pages. Can’t complain about that.

Now that I’m feeling more focused and ready to work, I think I’ll get to it. Who knows I might get it all done tonight.

Revisions: CHECK!

Well, I’m now one step closer to graduation in August.

This afternoon I finally finished revising my thesis. While I know I’m not completely finished (there are some minor additions and subtractions that I need to do) I’m really close to being done.

When I got to my last ten pages I broke down in tears. I couldn’t breathe, but I was smiling. It’s crazy to be able to see the light at the end of an oh-so-dark tunnel.

I’m super excited to be inching close to a goal that I’ve had for so many years. I’m also stoked because once I’m completely done I can start working on some new projects that have been marinating in my brain. I have a ton of short stories I’d like to write, and I’m cooking up a nonfiction piece that I’m eager to get into.

Even though it’s very exciting I still have a twenty page essay that I need to write and I have to get all the formatting on point. I know I’m really close to getting it done and don’t want to forget about my end goal.

In the meantime, I’ll be working on this essay and working with the graduate college on my formatting. I’ll be defending some time in June and then holy crap I’ll really be One Mean MFA!

God-willing I’ll find a job that doesn’t require parents calling me to tell me I’m too mean. More on the high school teaching later.

For now I think I’ll celebrate with a much-needed workout!

Later tonight, I actually get to have my boyfriend back because the past two weeks we’ve both been so busy that we have barely seen each other. It’s been a lot of phone calls that go something like this…

HIM: Am I coming over for dinner tonight?

ME: Sorry, I’m not quite done with this project.

HIM: No worries.

or

ME: Sorry I was going to make dinner for us but this is taking longer than expected.

HIM: No worries.

or

HIM: I’m not going to be coming over.

ME: Why?

HIM: I don’t want to be a distraction.

ME: Oh, fine….

This has been life for the past two weeks. I’m glad I’ll be able to start cooking for someone other than myself.

REVISIONS CHECK!

End of Project Blues

I can’t quite figure out what the hell is wrong with me. While I am tempted to say a lot of things, I’m really more concerned with one thing. Why the hell did I waste today and not finally just finish revising my last forty pages?

I woke up this morning and thought, “Make some breakfast, have your coffee, then get to work.”

Well, before I knew it I realized I had a hair appointment and then when I got back from that I decided I needed to get a tomato plant and other plants. I then returned from the garden center and got to work repotting some plants and well now it’s late, I’m tired, and I haven’t revised a gosh darn page.

The thing is, these final pages are due on Monday. If don’t turn them I can say good-bye to summer graduation. Shouldn’t that be enough of an incentive to force myself to focus? I mean really, hasn’t this project gone on enough?! Why do I torture myself like this?

Why?

Well, I’ve been wondering about this all day, as I worked on things other than my thesis. Instead of enjoying the gardening and hair appointment the whole time I kept thinking, “I should be writing.” This is no way to live. Instead of just getting it done I’m procrastinating. I’m like my students. GAH!

Could it be that I’m afraid to finish? I mean there is something scary about being done with this degree and not having any clue what the future will bring. While I’m well aware that regardless of if I finish I don’t know what my future will be like, it’s like when I finish this novel a large chapter of my own life will be ending and that is always frightening.

As my graduation day approaches, I have been applying for jobs that an MFA is more than qualified for, and as I receive rejection letters up the ying-yang, and my bank account quickly dwindles to nothing, I feel like starting in August life is going to be tough. Real tough. Not grad student budget tough, like I-can’t-get-student-loans-because-I-graduated tough and I can’t find a job because the market sucks. Which is scary because there are no jobs and while NPR reports the economy is getting better I can’t say I’m even close to being able to live comfortably. I basically spend my money on food and gas, both of which are expensive, especially when you love to eat fresh produce.

My most recent paycheck didn’t even cover my rent this month and once my bills get paid, I’m done. I don’t have any money. NOTHING. I’m not quite sure how I’ll be gassing up my car to get to a job that doesn’t pay me enough to even get there.

I think about all these things, as I procrastinate and I just hope that when I do finally sit down and focus, that I end up writing something so brilliant that Clint Eastwood decides he wants to turn it into his next masterpiece and I can retire early and just write forever.

While this is a dream, I’m quite sure it will remain a dream and not become a reality. In the meantime, I’ve got forty pages–that’s it just forty sitting next to me that need to revised by Monday.

It’s going to be a long night.

Okay I lied…

I thought I wasn’t going to write but I really needed a warm up this morning. I started to write and I have a page of crossed out sentences, which will end up in the recycling bin. Yesterday was a very productive day and today needs to be as well. Still, I’m getting a bit nervous about this thesis. While, I’m confident that with some long nights and days I’ll be able to bang out the pages, I’m super worried that it sucks.

Is this normal? To hate such a massive work. I’ve never worked on anything this big before, and as I was opening up the first chunk I realized, it’s not as big as I thought it was. I don’t know if this means I’m going to be doing a lot of revision (which is highly likely) or if I need add some more significant sub-plots.

I’ve been thinking a lot about subplots lately. I’m trying to do a lot of novel-reading since I’m writing one. I look very closely at structure since I think this is one of my weaknesses. I know what I want the major story to be about, but I never realized how important subplots were until I started to really focus on the structure of published novels. Successful novels both critically and commercially.

While, right now, my major focus is getting that main plot out, I know I’m going to have to add some more.

Every morning, when I open up the pages of this thesis on my computer I think about it the project and how much time I’ve devoted to it, and it freaks me out. I need to get over this because I’m making this project bigger than it actually is. I need to look at it for what it is: a story that needs to be told. I also need to just tell it. The rest of it will come. It will come.

Well, I feel warmed up. Happy writing!

A Talk Out/Write Out Session: Issues with the Novel

Yesterday’s warm up post felt really good. I ended up writing an hour more than I had planned because I was so focused. I figured I’d give it a try today. 

Since, I’m about to dive back into my thesis work I figured I’d try to write out/talk out some of the obstacles I’ve come across this past week. I don’t mean the challenges of writing at home and dealing a family in crisis. I’m talking about the literal issues with the novel.

First of all, I find myself  kind of bored with my characters. My professor and thesis chair has a philosophy that if you’re not sure what to do with a scene or character or story add a character. My concern with this is that if I add a character here and there the novel is going to go on forever. Though for todays’ section it is vital that I add the character that I’ve created.  While I don’t want this novel to be five hundred pages long, I do want readers to follow these characters for about fifty or sixty years. Also, my professor/thesis chair  constantly enforces the idea that all characters must be employed. I too feel strongly about this, though I don’t really practice it. I am mostly working on banging out the rough draft. I’ll employ all my characters during the revision.

The story centers around three characters who are related. The first character is, for lack of a better word, the protagonist. While the novel does center around this character, the other two characters that follow are important as well. The other two characters are primarily being utilized to reinforce themes and motifs that I feel are vital to the depth of the novel.

The biggest problem I’m having, and have always had as a writer is knowing when to show  moments in scene and when to show them in exposition. While I’m fully aware of the overused, “show not tell” rule when dealing with a large number of years I don’t see how exposition can be avoided.

I also think that I may have over outlined my novel. I’m considering revising my outline since it’s way too detailed and I’ve decided to move away from a good portion of it. I love having a reference document that can keep me focused, but what I’ve noticed is happening is that my writing as turned into a very detailed outline that has scenes.

So maybe my biggest problem isn’t knowing when to show scenes but developing a voice for my narrator. The novel is told in the third person, which is a bit uncomfortable for me since I love writing in the first person.  The thing is, I tried writing the novel in the first person and it didn’t feel right, so I changed it.  I think I need to really think about who is telling the story. Maybe if I understood my narrator at a deeper level I’d be able to give him/her a voice.

Just writing “him/her” is a problem. Shouldn’t I at least know the sex of my narrator? I do know the narrator isn’t in the novel, but an observer.  I haven’t (was going to write can’t but can’t isn’t in my vernacular these days) decided if the narrator lives in the town the novel takes place, or if the narrator is like an all-seeing eye, the way I teach my students the omniscient third person voice looks. The thing is, the narrator is a pinch complicated because while I know the narrator knows everyone’s thoughts and actions, I have chosen for the narrator to only disclose the thoughts of very specific characters, consistently of course.

So that’s that. I feel like I have a stronger handle on the issues that I’ve been battling. I’m about 120 pages in, and I think I have about 200 left to write, maybe even less. I had a girlfriend who also wrote a novel for her thesis, who told me that it’s the first 150 pages that are the worst, once you know where it’s going and how to end it, writing those last 100-200 pages is like rolling downhill. I believe her. She’s given me sound advice the entire time I’ve been in grad school, and is currently enrolled in a prestigious  program for a PhD in Creative Writing.

I will do some steady climbing today. Thanks for listening.