Dear Future Me...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FUTURE ME! 

I'm writing this to you from 2014 and scheduling it to appear on your 2015 birthday, isn't technology great? 

Hopefully there hasn't been a tragic accident and you get to read this. If not, I love you everyone reading this. 

2014 was a great year, huh? But I'm willing to bet that by your 2015 birthday, things are even greater. 

I hope you're still writing and busting your butt to reach your dreams. Maybe you've landed an agent and a cool book deal by now, but if not, that's alright too. I just hope you're keeping at it and working hard. 

Are you still thinking about getting a pet? Maybe now's the time to just do it and get a furry little friend to have around to keep you company. I hope you're also doing better at taking care of yourself and not just eating mac and cheese all the time (though mac and cheese is awesome). 

Are you still planning to go to San Diego Comic Con? Have you bought a house? 

It's weird to think that so much can change in a year, but I bet a lot has shifted since 2014. You're another year older, (maybe) wiser, and another year closer to your goals! 

Here's to you kicking butt in the future!

Happy birthday! 

2014 Andrea

Hiatus!

In super exciting news... I'm buying a condo! 

So I'm putting my blog on hiatus until I've moved. 

I'll be back in July! Wish me luck with closing and the move! 

Stretch it out Part 2

I've previously put together a list of some of my favorite stretching videos but lately I've been feeling tighter than usual (that whole being a desk all the time thing will get to you) and wanted to share some more stretching videos that I've found. 

What are some stretches that help you when you're getting that tense stiffness from sitting at a desk? 

Stressed out about overworrying about being anxious

I’m an incredibly anxious person. I over worry about everything. For example, I once panicked about what I was going to wear on a flight to interview for a job in Oregon… BEFORE I had even submitted my job application for the position. I’m always thinking 15 steps ahead, and at least 13 of those steps are worst case scenarios and what could go wrong.

I live with the constant thought that people always hate it when I text or email them because I’m bothering them. I worry that I responded too quickly to a message; I worry that I responded too slowly to a message and that either option means I’m a lost cause and this person will no longer respect or like me. I wake up some mornings with a sense of doom that wraps around my neck like a wool scarf suffocating me in the middle of July.

I stress out about what’s going to happen today, tomorrow, in a month, a year, ten years, twenty years. I panic about the imaginary things I haven’t done yet, and I worry that the things I have done, I’ve done all wrong somehow. I worry that every time I mess up even in the slightest, that I’ve doomed myself forever and should just go shove my head in the ground and hide.

It’s an exhausting way to live, and sometimes it flares up in wickeder than usual ways that leave me ill, depressed, and a general mess who just wants to lock myself in my room so I don’t have to interact with anyone.

Sometimes I can write my way through it, and other times I’m so worried that what I’m writing is awful, and therefore I’m awful that I can barely write a sentence. One of the things I struggle with as a writer is building high enough conflicts because tension worries me (yes even fictional tension) and I just want things to go smoothly which doesn’t make for compelling stories exactly.

I write this not because I want coddling or anything like that (and I worry immensely that’s what this post will be taken as), but because I know it’s a problem, and I’m not going to continue to hide from it, instead I’m working on ways to manage it.

• I run, walk, or just jump in circles in my room.

• I send a message to someone I admire and tell them why they’re amazing.

• I look through a folder of all of the things I have accomplished.

• I keep track of what I do every day, and praise myself for finishing things.

• I do yoga or just lay on the floor and listen to the sounds of a thunderstorm.

Sometimes these work, some days it’s like trying to run from a swarm of killer bees that I can already feel digging into my skin. No day is perfect, and I’ve come to accept that and to try to not (hahahaha) worry about it.

I know I spend most of my time on this blog talking about writing, but this is a part of my writing (and every day life) that I don’t mention much, and I feel like it’s time to own it. Writing on some days is like trying to wade through a locust swarm in my gut that’s constantly trying to devour me from the inside out. But the things I want to write help me make it through the storm and to the other side where I can see the non-bug-infested light again.

I wish there were some piece of advice, some great tip from a self-help book that I could pass along, but the truth is, I just sort of throw a dart towards where I want to go and blindly push forward through locust swarms and all. Some days I lay down and let the bugs crawl all over me, and some days I walk through beautiful sunlight. But at the end of the day I try to do the best I can with what I’ve got going on, and to just keep pushing forward. You’re not alone.

Friday Review: Hit by Delilah S. Dawson

I have loved everything Delilah S. Dawson has written. I loved Servants of the Storm and was even more excited about Hit because the story has such an interesting concept

IT starts on day one of a dystopia which is the most interesting thing to me. Most of the people don't realize the world has changed and that everything is different now. Patsy is one of the people who knows things have changed and will never be the same again.

Valor National Bank has saved the US from their own debt and is calling in everything owed. The choices are simple: pay your debt, become an assassin, or die. To save her mother Patsy becomes an assassin hunting collecting debt and delivering ultimatums to 10 people to save her mother's life.

With the current atmosphere and fear of debt, Hit pushed a lot of buttons the entire time I was reading it. Watching the various reasons Patsy's targets were in debt (student loans, YIKES) and the choices she's forced to make as she learns that these ten targets aren't just strangers assigned at random.

Her sidekick, a rich boy named Wyatt, watches Patsy's back even when they both know the last name on Patsy's list is Wyatt's brother. As time runs out, Patsy's faced with an impossible choice, and a bank out for blood money.

Hit was a violent, rough ride. The story doesn't pull away from the violence of what's happening and at times was rough to read. The chapters are longer than average and each chapter is named for one of the ten targets on Patsy's list. I'd suggest only older YA readers enjoy this title since the violence could be very upsetting for younger folks.

The ending opens the way perfectly for the sequel, Strike, which is out in March 2016.

Social Media and Fear

I love social media. I'm embarassed at how much time I spend rolling around Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook, and that's not even looking at time spent on other corners of the web. 

But I can't go play on these social networks without fear tinting the corner of my mind. I triple check my privacy settings (damn you Facebook for making that a constantly changing game) and post then delete things a few seconds later when I panic about something I've said giving away where I am. 

Why is social media so scary?

For anyone whose been stalked or harassed it's a minefield. And there are some days where I can't work up the nerve to even post. The past week or two has been like that. 

When I was in college I made a profile on quiz site. It was basic information and a profile picture. Based on that picture, and me mentioning a local coffee shop, someone on that site found out who I was, where I worked, and where I lived. He found me.

Police were called. 

I spent my Spring Break curled up in the back of a friend's car sobbing and trying to figure out what to do.  

I live in constant fear of it happening again. Of the consequences being physical, not just emotional next time.

But I still love the digital world I live in. I love being able to talk to friends and people I admire from across a distance. Sharing pictures and thoughts makes me feel more connected in a field where the work is done alone. Writing can be a lonely place and social media helps take some of that away, especially for people like me who get all tongue-tied in front of strangers. 

The truth of the matter is: I don't think that fear will ever go away. But I refuse to let it control me. I'm still going to post stupid tweets, and share photos, and reach out into the world. 

Because I don't want fear to stop me from doing the things I love. 

Patience aka WHY CAN'T I HAVE MY BOOK NOW?

Patience is probably one the virtues I wish I was better at. Writing is a slow process THAT TAKES FOREVER AND WHY CAN'T I HAVE MY BOOK NOW?

Depending on how fast you write, finishing the first draft of a single short story can take a month or more, and if you start working on a longer piece... that can drag on for years (just don't be one of those people who is 'working on a novel' without ever writing a word, okay? Get it on paper.). You finally get the story done and stare at your lovely, little word blob and then it just magically becomes a book instantly. That's a new mac attachment clearly, the iPublishnow.

Truth: ALL OF THAT WRITING ISN'T EVEN THE HALF OF IT.

After you finish that first steaming draft full of problems and trouble THEN you have to go back and edit, and sometimes rewrite it. And you do this step over and over and over. Until your eyes sizzle and coffee drizzles from your nose.

After that, you submit it off into the wild blue-green yonder where it either a) goes off to an agent to look for representation b) goes to a publisher (and probably the BUMBUMBUM slush pile) or c) self-pub baby!

(okay, those are not every option ever available for a writer, but let's just stick with those three for simplicity's sake, kay?)

From here, everything requires more steps.

AKA No don't just type THE END and throw it up on Amazon and wait for the money to rain down from the muses that live above your bed.

From here it will try to find a home, contracts will be negotiated, drawn up, yadda yadda, THEN it will go through a series of edits, a title will be decided, descriptions created, covers  made, and formatting fought with. Annnnd probably more that I'm forgetting or just plain don't know about because they haven't happened to me yet.

End of story: There's still a TON of steps from after you type the end to when you hold your precious word vomit baby in your arms and coo over it.

The fastest one has gone for me is a short story that took roughly 6 months from THE END to print version, and that was damn fast because it only had four people in the anthology.

The longest?

Well, let's just say there are some 3+ year projects that haven't moved forward past typing THE END yet.

That's another part of writing you don't learn about until you're there. Projects can and will just freeze for unknown reasons. Sometimes a project falls through the little literary cracks and plops into a whole lot of nope. When that happens you've got to pull your story out of that muck and try to find your baby a new home. Sometimes it doesn't work out and that little sucker lives in a drawer in your desk for forever.

The point is, if you're going to play the game and get your thing out into the world then you've got to have a certain level of patience and know that things move SLLLOOOOWWWW when it comes to publishing.

Finish your projects, send them off, meet your deadlines (please don't be the jerk to hold up everyone else), and then START ON A NEW PROJECT. Don't sit and stare at the screen, waiting for an email of every step of the process, let go of that sent-off darling and start vomiting out a new lovely, word baby. Try to have projects out and about all the time, and remember to just breathe and keep writing: that's your job.

Podcast Excitement!

So the first Monday of a month is usually devoted to Fandom First posts but... I was on a super cool podcast that I am so excited to share! 

I was interviewed on the awesme Less Than Or Equal. What is that you ask? Well, from the website: 

"Welcome to Less Than Or Equal, a podcast dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments and contributions of geeks facing inequality in their industries.

Everyone of every gender, sexual orientation, race, color, physical ability, and physical appearance deserves to be treated equally by the tech industry and other geeky communities. We believe the catalyst for a cultural shift toward equality is continued conversation that drives awareness and understanding."

A pretty awesome goal right?

I am incredibly honored to be a guest on the show and hope you'll give it a listen and support Less Than Or Equal. 

You can find my episode here.