Ore-oh, no.

Drum roll, please.

Okay, that might sound misleading since I've been talking about publishing a book.

What I meant to say was:  I'm excited!  And here's why.  I'm finally getting back into a gym.  When I was in college, I worked out somewhat regularly and maintained a pretty decent physique (not great, not good, but decent).  Did you catch the use of the vague qualifiers there?  Anyways, I am officially the heaviest that I've ever weighed.  Ouch.  It's not really that bad since it's distributed on a fairly tall 5'9" frame, but still.  It's not cool.  I'm not saying that I want to be super skinny or look emaciated or fit into a size 2.  I'd just like to get back into my comfort range.  I know you're probably glaring at me through the screen right now, but it's important to me.  I'm tired of feeling self-conscious.

So what brought on this change in plan?  Several things, but primarily:  July.  July itself isn't bad, it's what takes place in July.  Cookouts, Independence Day, my grandmother's birthday, my birthday, my husband's birthday, my mother-in-law's birthday, my brother's birthday, our anniversary, etc., etc., etc.... To top it off, last night I threw my husband a surprise "Mustache Bash" birthday party.  It worked, and he was definitely surprised (to the borderline of scared, actually).  But the theme was... I'm a little ashamed... milk and cookies.  Milk mustaches, get it?  Even though a lot of people showed up, we were left with oh, only about 52lbs. of cookies.  Chocolate chip cookies (soft AND chewy), caramel cookies, double stuffed oreos, coconut cake, coconut cupcakes, and one lone smores cupcake.  Not to mention the gallon of chocolate milk left in our refrigerator.  (cringe)  For someone who LOVES sugar, this is a problem.  When put in front of a pile of delicious, sugary treats, my self control runs away like my dog from, well, other dogs.  She's special.  But seriously, I'd have major consumer guilt if I just threw them away (not to mention my husband might freak out), so I'm choosing to find pleasure in my long lost love of working out.

Okay, okay, the word "love" might be an overestimation, but... pleasure?  Enjoyment?  Satisfaction.  It's satisfying to exercise, so that's what I'm going to do right now.  God bless the teacher discount, by the way.  I do love that.  So here I go, off to the YMCA in my dusty Nikes.  If you don't hear from me in a few days, just assume that I've pulled my back out again or just keeled over in the middle of the gym.

As for now, enjoy a few Mustache Bash photographs.

Some of our friends.  I love them. 

Brie, my sister-in-law, and her fiancee Derek (along with our spazzy pups).  I love them, too.

My husband and me.  He's beardalicious.

The Skinny

Okay, well, as you can see, the blogging thing didn't really take off immediately as I had hoped.   I've been busy in my own little world, and I've been meaning to start this thing for real, but life happened and so, yeah.

Since October, I have managed to quit the previously mentioned physical therapy aide job, start subsitute teaching again, buy a HOUSE, turn 25 years old (today, actually), and.... I wrote a book.  Well, sorta... Here's the skinny.  Back in November or December (not sure), I had a very vivid dream of a chase scene while asleep one night.  I mean - it was awesome.  High leaps, cool weapons, great characters... even the name of the man character came to me in the dream.  I woke up the next morning and immediatley wrote it down, and then I left it alone for a couple of months.  I knew I liked it, and I knew a plot was formulating in my head, but I didn't really know what to do with it.  After the holiday rush had finished, I picked it up again and somehow managed to squeeze out an entire novel surrounding this particular scene.  It's actually a rather long (and somewhat painful) story...

I had just quit my job as a therapy aide, and I had not received many requests to substitute teach yet, so I literally spent anywhere from 6-10 hours per day writing this story.  It all just started falling into place in my head, so I wrote it as fast as I possibly could.  Well, within two months, I had completed this novel.  It was a first-person account of a science fiction mix of David and Goliath, 1984, and The Hunger Games, and I was proud of it.  So what does any naive author do upon writing his or her first novel?  Why, they try to sell it.  After a mere 30 or so rejections (buuuurn), a few bouts of hyperventilation, and a couple of finger cramps, I decided that it was in my best interest to set it aside.  I didn't even look at it for several months, which was partially because I mentally needed a break from it and partially because I got super busy with work... that is, until May 26 came around and school ended.

After staring at the notebook filled with my manuscript and a stack of rejection letters on my desk for a few days, I finally cracked it open and began reading it.  I hated it.  Okay, I didn't hate it, but it wasn't good.  I felt pretty embarassed, actually, that I had even asked anybody to read it.  Immediately, I decided that I wasn't finished with this book.  I sat down with a red pen and started to make corrections.  Turned out, the red pen wasn't enough, so I sat down with an open word document and started rewriting it from the beginning... even that wasn't enough.  Don't get me wront - the basic storyline is good (or at least that's what I believe).  But it was hollow in parts, redundent in others, and overall pretty weak.  I started completely rewriting it.  It's now in third person (phew - so much easier), and I've upped the stakes and am in the process of trying to turn my characters into believable human beings.  And it's hard work... much harder than the first version.  But it's also much better... not GREAT, but better.  So that's where I am right now.  I have approximatley 25,000 words completed, including a new title, new character names, new plot twists, and new overall direction.  Only 50k more to go!

I'm not going to lie - I'm excited about this project.  I love it, actually.  I've always loved writing, even when I was a child, and I feel like it's something that I can do well.  My problem (as I've realized over the past 6 months) is not that I lack passion or creativity, it's that I turn my writing into an idol.  I think endlessly about it, get my heart broken by it, and find myself retreating back into my house to write when I should be enjoying the world about which I'm writing.  It's an interesting conundrum, and I'm trying to juggle working on the novel with well... the rest of my life.  Cheese alert:  I truly feel like it has been a gift from God.  Without His inspiration, I could never have thought of something like this, and I'll stand by that statement, even if it makes me look a little goofy.  That's okay.  It's just one more thing to add to the list of self-improvement, including not being embarassed that I write.  Seems like a silly thing to be ashamed of, but I choke whenever someone asks me about it.  I want to get over that.  I want to finish my novel, revise it, probably throw it out and rewrite it again, and eventually get it as perfect as I can and then have the confidence to walk up to any agent in the country and explain my story without mumbling or turning red.  There are worse problems to have in the world, I know... I'm actually trying to write about them.  I just hope that 1) I can finish the novel and produce something that I'm proud of, and 2) that I would be happy with whatever the outcome: whether it gets published or not.

So those are my goals:  finish it and be content with the outcome.  I hope to share some more information about what I'm working on as time progreses.  As for now, since I have only 40 minutes left of my 25th birthday, I'm going to go snuggle with my husband and my puppies.  It's a hard life, I know.