it is finished

The rough draft was complete as of extremely late Tuesday night, so late it was actually Wednesday.

A more creative and thorough update will follow after I complete my reward to myself: reading Terry Pratchett's "THUD!" for the pure enjoyment of it.

bidin' my time

I never know what day it is anymore, and it's starting to bug me. This morning I was sure it was either Friday or Wednesday, but no, it's Thursday. Darn it! Not that there's anything wrong with Thursday, but it's no fun being confused all the time.

I should be writing a chapter right now, or practicing my pit music. Actually, I've already been doing both today. But I can't really concentrate on either one at the moment. I think my brain is clogged, and getting a whole lot of thoughts out of the way might just release the pressure and allow things to run smoothly again. So here we are.

Yesterday was fun. Jesse and I randomly played a game of Scrabble. I broke 300 for the first time, which was absolutely amazing. Then when we finished we were going to dinner at the caf. While I was butting my hoodie on, Jesse randomly decides to whak me in the head, so I chased him out of the pod. And of course, we run out the door and nearly run into an admissions counselor giving a tour to a high school girl. They tried their best to ignore us, but I found it terribly funny.

I can't believe that interim is nearly over. It feels like it barely started last week, even though I've actually had nearly three and a half weeks of almost total freedom. A week form today I'll be back in class, and even though I'm excited for what I'll be taking this semester, I don't want to start those classes quite yet. I've grown to like my writer's life, and I'm not keen on giving it up. Maybe that's why I'm having trouble finding the right words right now. Maybe part of me doesn't want to finish. Well, too bad for that part, because this thing is too close now to stop. It's funny though, the timeline I have written out looks short enough, but everything takes longer than I think it will to write out. And not just timewise, but with the wordcount. Just yesterday one scene turned into four scenes boucing perspectives back and forth, and now may be its own chapter. I thought I would be writing the battle by today, but maybe not. On the other hand, it's really not that much further until the pirates attack, so maybe I could get there by tonight.

Interim break is going to be awkward. The caf isn't open, so I maybe should go home, but I need to be in town on Sunday for my group. Also, it seems a lot easier for me to work at school than at home. There just isn't a good work space for me there. In any case, I wouldn't go home until Sunday night, so it really doesn't matter right now.

You know, I wish I could write this fast on my book. Somehow, I just don't worry so much if I sound like an idiot in my blog, even though I can't edit it again before it's seen. Yet my story, which will undergo quite serious editing before I'm done, I worry about. I edit as I write, not typing anything until I'm sure it's what I want to say. It's really starting to annoy me that it takes all day to write 2000 words this way. (Well, that includes an hour each for lunch and dinner, sometimes longer depending on who all I run into.) But I'm so close now. Maybe I could just buckle down and get it done.

It's weird. Everyone around me is getting so much done for their futures. Tiff got a great internship for spring semester, and Audrey is already assured one for the summer. Adam is done applying for grad school and just needs to hear back from them. Me? I still don't know what I'll be doing this summer or even what I should try for. I talked to Mark the other day about going the library route, and he had lots of good advice, but not very much of it helps me right now. Maybe it's still too early to know where I'm going or how I'm getting there. I feel like I'm driving down an interstate at night (which I hate, by the way), only able to see the road right in front of me, not any farther. It's an exercise in faith, I suppose, to keep moving down a road I can barely see. Is this the point where I set the cruise control and just keep going, or do I need to put on a burst of speed and pass that minivan in the slow lane? I keep hoping the sun will rise so I can see the whole path before me, but it shows no signs of appearing yet. Maybe it's for the best. After all, life would get boring if I could see it all ahead of me. I suppose I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled for those helpful little green signs that are only visible as you zip past them.

-Kim


Quote of the Day from Corinne at lunch:
"We want to learn to live like the Native Americans, using every part of the buffalo. We'll just take the head."

notes from the battlefield

Today I woke up feeling not-so-great. So instead of forcing myself to write another scene that I can't think straight about at the moment, I thought I'd come post an update on my life and work this past week.

I've written several more chapters over the last week. I really am going to reach my most important goal of finishing the draft by the end of the month. Woot! I also learned something rather interesting about myself in the course of the week. Here's what happened: for the first two days I was able to meet my arbitrary goal of 2000 words a day and was feeling pretty good about life. Then on Wednesday I ran errands in the morning and never really got much written. And that evening I had a date to watch LOTR: ROTK EE with Liberty and Nancy Wilcoxson, so of course I wasn't going to be working later. And for a while I felt really bad about it, like I had failed or something. Then I realized that being depressed wasn't going to help any. Besides, one day of little writing does not equal a failed project, or even necessarilly an unmet goal. The only goal I failed to meet was completely arbitrary in the first place, so there was n ogood reason for me to beat myself us over it. So I enjoyed my evening in Middle Earth and wrote another chapter the next day. I think that the reason I've had trouble in the past is that I tend to slip up a little or miss one day in a routine I've planned for myself and then give up because apparently I've already failed. But that's a stupid way to look at things, and I'm not going to do it anymore.

In other news, we had our first read-through for pit orchestra last Friday. Man, is that going to be a lot of work. I'm still the only violin, playing a part that was written for six. It's a good thing I enjoy this, or the next few weeks would be miserable. On the bright side, Jeff said we could take things down an octave whenever we want to. No more sixth position for me! I'm geting really excited for this show--it'll be nice when I finally get to see the plot that goes with the music that keeps running through my head.

I drove to Brookings Saturday night for the Hy-Vee Christmas party. It was at the bowling alley. It was really awkward at first, since I don't know all that many of my co-workers. I ended up spending half the evening with my manager, which was (I'll just be using this word a lot) awkward because of all the alcohol around. Eventually I found someone I knew to bowl with, and I did have a good time.

Yesterday was Mandy's 21st birthday, so we all went to Inca for dinner. It was a good time. Tonight Mandy and I are hanging out again to see the movie Freedom Writers. She needs to see it for her education class, and I just want to see it. Perhaps it will be the topic of my next post.

-Kim


Random fact: one translation of the Latin word "campus" is "battlefield."

another week, another plan

Well, I guess I really can believe that it's winter now. Not only do we have wind chills below zero, there is finally a good layer of snow on the ground. It made for interesting driving going to my writers group on Sunday, but I'm glad to see it nonetheless. After all, now we can maybe go sledding! It's kind of funny to see campus covered in white, because the plowing of sidewalks is rather irregular. And there's already a well-worn path of packed snow from Sully to the caf, because few of us bother to go the long way 'round on the sidewalks. Of course, it's narrow enough that it's currently awkward to pass someone going the other way.

Anyway, back to the activity that is driving my life these days: writing. As I mentioned, my group met this Sunday. It was quite possibly the best meeting we've had. We didn't even get into any specifics on my work, but I think I benefitted more than any other time. We were discussing editing more generally, though I did bring up some specific things in Caleb's work, which led to a lengthy discussion on the design of a musical instrument. We all even seemed to be getting along better, which may have had something do to with the fact that we were sitting closer together than we usually do. Anyway, everything we discussed left me feeling energized and excited to get back to work, and with a new plan for getting it done. I'm still going to keep track of how much time I spend working, but the real measure of success will be the word count. Professional writers (including Caleb from my group) write about 2000 words a day. They can reach that number in only a couple hours, and then they spend the rest of the day editing and experiencing life to get more material. It takes me quite a bit longer to make it to the 2000 word mark, but since I'm free of any other obligations, I'm still determined to reach the daily goal. When spring semester starts everything will change again, but for now this can really work. And it will ensure that I finish in time. Today I wrote an entire chapter, which feels great. Actually, it's parts of two chapters, but that's pretty much the same thing. Now I'm rambling, and I think I've lost track of what I was initially trying to tell you. Oh well. It probably doesn't matter...

-Kim

benchmarks

Well, I've made it to Thursday. What do I have to show for myself? Not nearly as many hours as I had optimistically hoped for, but I'm meeting my content goals. I've already finished the chapters of the middle section that have been holding me back for so long. Now I can move forward to the really fun and complicated stuff at the end. That's going to be even more difficult to write, but I look forward to the challenge. And one big reason that the total hours doesn't measure up is that my class was meeting this week. Going to class and doing the reading effectively eliminated two otherwise prefect writing hours each day. Oh well. After tomorrow I'll be done with that.

Whenever I'm not writing I seem to get sucked into outings. On Tuesday night a bunch of us went hot tubbing at Ian's house, and last night I found myself at the Fryn' Pan at midnight. Apparently Perkins is only open 24 hours on the weekend, which was disappointing to learn. Oh well. At any rate, that meant that today I had breakfast right before going to my 12:00 class, and now I'm completely off-kilter. Whee!

Class has been very interesting. Some of what we've talked about has ben affirmation of things I already do and just don't do often enough. I like to be completely alone, without even music playing when I get serious about prayer. Since words are so important to me, I find it's easier to concentrate on God if I write out my prayer to him in a journal entry. It helps me put my ideas in order, and then in perspective. But looking back through that journal, it's easy for me to see that I don't do it often enough. usually it will be when I'm feeling very strongly about something, good or bad, and just need to talk through it, and that doesn't happen on a regular basis. I guess what I've taken from this class is that prayer--real solid prayer, as in listening to God without distractions--is far too important to only enter into once in a while. Of course it isn't realistic for us all to become desert hermits (that wouldn't be helpful anyway), but taking a few more minutes every day to approach God in reverent silence would make such a difference. That being said, the trip we'll be taking in May will make us all hermits for a little while, so we'll see how that changes things.

-Kim