School Is Out

School is finally, officially out for summer, and I finally have time to relax and reflect on what a crazy year it's been. My body hasn't quite figured out it's summer yet: I still wake up early, tense and ready to get 1,000 things done. I feel guilty sitting down for ten minutes to have coffee without doing anything else at the same time. So my primary goal for the summer is to let myself unwind, reflect, and just BE sometimes. I miss what it feels like to let my mind wander!

Other goals include: revising my novel, reading for fun, getting back in shape, cooking, adventuring, learning how to use InDesign (properly)...and, you know, writing more interesting and cohesive blog posts. 

Despite my appalling lack of knowledge about design software, it did manage to make this 'favorite quote' collage for my 11th graders. Recognize any of these literary gems?

Despite its intensity, I've had an incredible last nine months: now I'm ready to take some nice, deep breaths. Here's to The Summer of Freedom!

Why I Didn't Watch Even One Second of The Superbowl

Over the course of the past week, I realized something important about setting goals. I can't say that this realization was completely new to me: it's something I've understood for a while now, but haven't been able to really internalize in a meaningful and actionable way.

Every day, I make imposing TO DO lists. And every day, my to-do listing essentially sets me up for failure. Because my lists generally look like this one to the left.

This list represents the things that I feel I need to do in a given day, or cluster of days. Most of the things on this list are not five minute activities; they are complicated and involved.

There are a couple of things to note here. First, that this list sets up completely ridiculous expectations for a given day, at the end of which I will inevitably feel like I've failed. This list does not catalogue the inordinate numbers of things I need to do that I don't feel the need to write down. Before starting in on my to-do list, I have to teach a full day, eat, sleep, converse with colleagues, respond to email, attempt to inspire students to enjoy critical thinking and reading (and sometimes juggling and sonnet writing), get up and stretch, and maybe even exercise (if I get very lucky). Even if I had a full day at home in the quiet, sipping coffee at my desk, I don't know that this list is actionable. Even if I had two personal slaves personal assistants to help me, I don't think I could pull it off.

Second, its' important to note what tasks have remained unchecked. Which ones, you ask?

The personal ones: my writing and personal health goals. The ones that are really important to me.

Not to say that work-related goals aren't important to me. They really are. But are they always and forever the most IMPORTANT goals, the ones that should always get top billing? I'm not convinced.

My students are often lamenting the fact that they are given so much work and that what's expected of them isn't reasonable. They're right: it isn't reasonable to expect that they can give their very best to every class and every assignment on every given day. We only have so many hours in the day and so many iotas of concentration to contribute. That means you have to pick and choose where and how you expend your energy.  It's about making choices about what your priorities are going to be. It's also about knowing that you can't do it all. You can try, but you can't. At least you can't do it all well - and isn't that what we're striving for? Sometimes you have to ease off in certain aspects of your life in order to live the life you really want. It isn't an easy thing to do sometimes, but the alternative is feeling like you're always failing.

Which is why, instead of watching the Superbowl, I worked on revising my novel. Because I have a big goal of revising this novel in the next six weeks, and watching football isn't going to get me there.

Music I'm Writing To: Ben Howard, "Under The Same Sun"

Resolutions, Revisited: The Halfway Mark

So it's June. How did that happen?

I've been thinking about goals today, trying to figure out how much I can squeeze into the few months I have off before I dive into teaching. Let's see how I've done so far with this year's resolutions:

1. Finish Novel #2 and start shopping for agents. I finished edits on TORN in February (sweet triumph!) and started shopping in March. This was something that involved an insane amount of research and meticulous dedication, more so even than I expected. Thanks to that wonderful thing called the Internet I've learned a massive amount and connected with some interesting people. I've entered a few contests and gotten MUCH more comfortable with having people read my work and also with hearing 'no thanks'. I just have to keep this ball rolling through the rest of the year.

2. Write Novel #3. I wrote 12,000 words of novel #3. And then started writing an entirely different Novel #3, one that wouldn't leave me alone. I'm now about 55,000 words into what I'm calling my UndergroundNovel, and I'm loving it. So that's...[computing]...almost 70,000 words in four months? Yowza. That's fast for me. If I keep going at this rate, I'll be done with this draft by mid-July.

3. Make photography a bigger part of my life. I was better about this in the first three months of the year, but I'm coming back around to it. The summer's adventures should yield some interesting new places to point my camera at.

4. Take myself on a writing retreat. I'm going up to a beautiful farm in NY State in a few weeks to finish Novel #3 (and also to paint my aunt's farmhouse living room. And also to eat copious amounts of her cake.) Here's to family-sponsored writing ventures!

5. Learn to play the violin. You know what I don't own? A violin. But I DO own a guitar, one I never play anymore. I think I'm going to try and get better at that so I can serenade my new roommates.

6. Run for a cause. I just ran a half marathon. I did not, sadly, run for a cause. I was afraid that I'd fall on my face halfway through, disappointing my sponsors and feeling silly. Now that I know I can actually run 13.1 miles, I'm on top of this. Are big races only a summer thing, or do they have them in the fall?

7. Get back in touch with Shakespeare. I actually forgot about this one...that's what I get for not hanging them up somewhere visible. I'm off to read me some Macbeth.

My Current Writing Soundtrack: "The Lighthouse Song" by Josh Pyke

Resolutions 2012

It's that time again: time to set some lofty goals for myself to keep me on my toes in 2012. 

I'm pleasantly surprised by how well my goals for 2011 went given the number of mammoth obstacles. I managed to accomplish many of them in spectacular style: I travelled to a several amazing places; I got the opportunity to work with teens; I grew as a writer/editor, and got a lot more comfortable calling myself one.

Hey there, 2012. I've got a good feeling about you.

Resolutions:

1. Finish Novel #2 and start shopping for agents. I'd hoped to have this done by now, but I'm actually glad I didn't. A few extra rounds of editing have made my story so much better than it would have been had I rushed it. I feel confident now that it's the best book it could possibly be, and I'm hoping to be sending letters out by the beginning of March.

2. Write Novel #3. I also thought I'd have this done by now, but major life changes/Novel #2 took up all of my creativity. Last year I still wasn't sure what I wanted this novel to be. But now I do, and I'm really excited to write it.

3. Make photography a bigger part of my life. 2011 showed me how much I love taking photos. So this year I'm going to try and put together one photo collection a month of things that make me feel inspired and share it on the blog.

4. Take myself on a writing retreat. Travel + writing + long walks through beautiful landscapes = my ideal trip. I'd love to go to Ireland or Wales, finish my novel, drink dark beers, and amble along clifftops. Care to join me?

5.  Learn to play the violin. So this is something I always thought I'd do once I retire... I love love love string instruments but have never thought of myself as very musical. But lately I've been wondering why I should wait. My spindly fingers were meant to play something!

6. Run for a cause. I'd like to train for a run this year, particularly to raise funds to help find a cure for diabetes.

7. Get back in touch with Shakespeare. Teaching eighth graders Romeo and Juliet has reminded me how much I love it, and how many of Shakespeare's plays I've yet to get properly acquainted with. I'm hoping to read/see as many of them as I possibly can.

Resolutions, Revised

Ah, resolutions. So easy to make, but they're also easy to lose in the yearly shuffle of other 'things we have to do'. I start my Januarys so full of conviction and intense, goal-oriented feelings, but I start to lose sight of that focus three or four months on. What better way to check in than to go over your New Years' goals and see if they need some tweaking to make them more achievable?

Here are the resolutions I made for 2011:

1. Finish a polished, (hopefully) publishable novel #2 and shop it around to agents.

I think I'm making reasonable progress on this one. I should be done with Torn (first draft) this month (a weekend cat lady-style shut-in may be required), and am hoping to have both Novel #1 and #2 in polished, look-at-me-I'm-pretty status by the second half of the year. As long as I'm not planning to do any agent shopping before Thanksgiving, this should be doable. I think.

2. Develop a professional website and start marketing my freelance writing & editing services.

This is still achievable (theoretically). If only I had the patience for learning WordPress/web design! I would like to be able to draw up my blog on paper and have it magically appear online. Isn't there an app for that?? It would be nice to get this one done this summer. We'll see.

3. Participate in a half-marathon or mini-triathlon.

Umm... I'm working on it? I did a 9km hike up a very steep mountain yesterday. But I suppose that doesn't quite count. Although it really should.

4. Write an adult fiction novel.

10,000 words written (last year), a whole lot left to go. This is going to be an Autumn project.

5. Find a place to nest and make it my own.

This one is not going well and I'm feeling impatient about it. But I'm confident that, if I make it a priority, my time will come for planting things and painting walls. I suppose this goal should read more like 'get a job that pays well enough that I can once again have my own place'.

6. Do some work with kids (maybe coaching or tutoring).

Tutoring is going well, although I wouldn't call my students kids (well, not all of them). Maybe it's time to look into coaching again. Although I've been doing some stellar babysitting these past few months (aka getting drooled on and loving it).

7. Go somewhere I have never been before and write a travel article about it.

I have no idea what kind of travel I'm going to get to do in the rest of this year. I may not make it much farther than the end of the train line... or I could make it halfway round the world. But I think I can certainly make this one happen. Maybe I can even write two articles... too much?

8. Help out wherever I can.*

I feel like I'm letting myself down on this one. I've started tipping at my favorite cafes (Australians don't do a lot of tipping), but that feels like a pretty lame drop in the ocean. Maybe I can combine the marathon running and the contributing to society at large? I love me some two-fers.

So... all in all, I'm still more or less on track. It's going to be a stretch to get all of the bigger writing goals done, but I'm always up for a challenge. I hope your goals and resolutions are still in your sight line!

Resolutions 2011

I've been just a little slow in making new years resolutions this year. I usually start thinking about these things around my birthday, but Christmas heralded some really unfortunate, game-changing events that temporarily took away my will to live, let alone to make resolutions. But now that the Year From Hell is officially behind me, I'm game to start setting some new goals for the road ahead. I'm pretty passionate about that fact that goals are important, no more so than when your life has been turned upside-down and shaken.

So here are my resolutions for 2011:

1. Finish a polished, (hopefully) publishable novel #2 and shop it around to agents.

2. Develop a professional website and start marketing my freelance writing & editing services.

3. Participate in a half-marathon or mini-triathlon.

4. Write an adult fiction novel.

5. Find a place to nest and make it my own.

6. Do some work with kids (maybe coaching or tutoring).

7. Go somewhere I have never been before and write a travel article about it.

8. Help out wherever I can.*

* I was incredibly moved and inspired by my friends and family this year. They extended themselves in a million different ways to help me; their thoughtfulness really blew me away. I was so wrapped up in my own issues during the Brisbane floods that I don't feel like I helped out as much as I could have. I'm making a promise to myself this year that I will help those who need it where and when it is within my power to do so, whether they be family, friends or strangers.

Nanowrimo 2010

I had mixed feelings about Nanowrimo last year. Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month, wherethe goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month) is all about amassing what seems to me to be a coma-inducing, sanity-quashing daily word count. It seems to be more about putting random words on a page than striving for thoughtful writing. I don't like writing a really crappy first draft, because that means having to go back and rewrite most of it. Editing is hard enough without having to work with half-ass material that wasn't well thought out.

That said, Nanowrimo DOES present an ambitious deadline and an infectious collective writing spirit. So I'm doing it again. Except this time (wait, I did this last year, too) I'm working on a manuscript I'm already 20,000 words into AND I'm not aiming for 50,000 words. I just want to double my word count by the end of the month. That means I'll have reached 40,000 words by November 30th. So there, I've said it. Work and social life be damned, I'm going to get to 40,000. That means about 660 words a day.

... I guess I should probably get going on that.

Conquering The Pile

Anyone who calls themselves a Reader will know The Pile. Go look at your bookshelf... what do you see? There are the books you've just finished, stuffed lovingly between the ones you read over and over again. If you're like me, you see books from your childhood; books you're saving for friends; monsters that were a big part of your college education that you can't bring yourself to get rid of. Looking good!

OK, but wait... look closely. What about all those books that you bought/were given many moons ago, but you just haven't gotten around to reading? Are those unread titles, neglected and gathering dust amongst your best-loved classics, burning their images into your retinas? Telling you (as does your partner/roommate/family member who is disgusted by your book-buying problem) that "you HAVE books in your bookshelf you haven't read. Why don't you just read one of those?"

You've been trying to avoid them, haven't you? That's why, for me, they're called The Pile. I've stacked these books (not small in number, I'm afraid) and let them teeter precariously in a conspicuous spot. That way, every time I walk out the door and make a bee-line for Avid or Borders, I am reminded that trees died so that I could use these books as window dressing. Heavy, space-stealing, hard-to-take-with-me-overseas-in-large-quantities window dressing. I can almost hear their tiny voices pleading, "Read us. You'll like us. Promise."

It's not that I don't want to read them. I bought them because I wanted to read them (or was given them by someone who I respect and adore). It's just that I don't want to read them right NOW. A book can be ruined if you read it at the wrong time, squandering my potential for ultimate enjoyment. There just never seems to be a great time to give them the attention they deserve. That's why I stopped making New Years resolutions like "I will read every book that I own that I haven't already read." It's a guaranteed failure, every time. Plus, I have a bookstore addiction... but that's a subject for another post.

Still, a girl's got to put her foot down sometime. Some of my now-favorite books have come from The Pile. My Dad gave me The Time Traveller's Wife one year, and it wasn't until maybe two years later that I actually cracked that sucker open. That sucker then proceeded to rock my world.

This is My List, currently harassing me from the corner of my desk:

Song For Night by Chris Abani

If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

The Moviegoer by Percy

The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville

Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx

Lie Down In Darkness by William Styron

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

Time to get cracking on whittling my List. Who's featuring on yours?

Resolution Time!

I'm a big, big fan of setting goals, writing them down and posting them up where I'll have to stare at them. I come from a long, long line of crazy "list" people. There's nothing more satisfying than taking down that list that you've been staring at and getting to cross something off it with a big, juicy marker.

Usually I do this on my birthday, which is in November, but this year the goal-making sort of slipped on by me. I've thought a lot this week about what I want to focus on this year- what I want my life to look like- and what kinds of goals will help to get me there. I've realized recently that I'm happiest when I have a clear and inspiring sense of purpose. Being a camp counselor made me happy for many reasons, but chief among those was the fact that it gave me a strong and abiding sense of purpose every day. A busy, purpose-filled Kate is a happy Kate.

My problem is that I tend to be a little overambitious. I've tried to make sure that my goals for this year are 1) within my control and 2) not completely outrageous. I wanted goals centered around what mattered to me most and that would pose a good challenge.

So here they are:

1) Outline and write full draft of novel #2.

2) Finish editing Spellbound and seek representation for it.

3) Find a job that satisfies my needs (i.e. contributes to bills, points me towards future career goals, allows time for writing).

4) Learn a new artistic skill (photography, print making... TBA)

5) Revise Alexander P. Dragon AND draw accompanying illustrations.

6) Write 1 letter a week to a friend or family member that I haven't talked to in a while.

7) Travel somewhere with Manfriend that we've never been to before.

8) Write two pieces of travel journalism and attempt to get them published.

Here's to a challenging, goal-filled New Year!

Proclaiming

It's been a week, and I've written all of five measly words.

Most "successful" writers will tell you, that's a very good way to NOT to get published. I've read a lot of pieces of writerly advice over the years, and the one nugget that is forever constant is to write every day. Those much-beloved and envied writers are currently squatting in my brain, wagging writerly fingers and bunching furry eyebrows. I was doing so well with every day. Until this vacation happened.

Because there has been jet lag. And family time. And countless small wonders that seem to fill every day to the brim: my Australian man friend laughing with Mom at her kitchen table. My man friend cooking us complicated dinners over overflowing glasses of red wine. Watching him soak in a place and culture that is still, in so many ways, new to him. Scrabble on the iTouch (What does it mean that I'm only getting 20 words out of a possible 150? That I should know what words like 'gaum' mean?).

Wonders aside, there have been seven days and no words. Hence this aspiring-writerly post. Because of all the things I want to see and achieve in 2010, becoming a better, more dedicated writer tops the list. Hell, it is the list.

I'm a big fan of making resolutions. Give me a challenge and poke me a few times: that's when the magic happens. The thing I've realized about resolutions is they're difficult to remember and to act upon if you don't proclaim them. Usually, proclaiming is reserved for when you get to the top of the mountain and dig that flag into the craggy earth, but I find that proclaiming counts most when you're at the beginning of that arduous climb. There is a power in telling the world what your goal is: it carves itself out in your mind and the minds of others, helping to make you into whoever you're becoming. Of course, proclaiming a goal doesn't ensure that you'll achieve it. You still have to put one foot in front of the other, continuously and with intent. Proclaiming just makes your goal clearer, more tangible- it makes it real.

It also makes you more accountable. If I proclaim a goal in my head and don't meet it, no one will know. No one but me, anyway. I'll be disappointed, but I'll find ways to excuse my falling short. When you let the world in on your goals, then you know that they know that we know. You have people willing to remind you about that thing you said was important to you that you are putting off. You know that if you cheat on your goal, there will be other people to mark your fear or laziness or whatever it is that is keeping that goal from becoming.

So, here is my small, very achievable December goal: I will write every day for at least a half an hour. Not read other people's blogs or scratch around in my notebook pretending to write. I will prove to myself that I can fit writing into my life no matter what else is happening.

But first, breakfast.