goodbye sugargirl

Well that was a depressing blog yesterday considering I finished my book and all. I think I was just having one of those down days and I’m nervous about this book contest.

I really shouldn’t be so “blah”. I just got to see two great people get married in a really cool unique way, I have my family and friends and things really aren’t quite so awful. I just need to cope better when I feel like I have messed something up.

So I’m going to send my book in and be hopeful but realistic. I’m late and only mediocre at best. Miracles aside, I’ll probably hit the reject pile pretty quickly. I’m going to keep trying though and keep writing and life goes on.

The phone drama is over so that is good news. The teenager no longer hates the world, lol. This pleases me. I get twitchy when she is upset about something, same goes for my man. I need harmony.

I’ll try to keep the doom and gloom to a minimum from now on.

My book is done. I just have to take care of the technical stuff, the SASE and such and then get it to the post office and send it out. It’s too bad no one will ever see it unless I win the big contest. I think the dedication is nice and I found a newly revised poem that I decided to add at the last minute that I think made for a strong finish.

I can already tell that my appetite has left me again. I was eating like a normal person again but my stomach wasn’t happy with me, now I’m not feeling hungry again and my stomach is much happier with me.  I’m just a little ball of stress and my bad memory is really starting to get to me. I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my memory in a bad way when old age sets in. I feel bad for my family.

The  extra downside to no appetite is that there is the yummiest coleslaw in my fridge and I want to eat it.

Failed as a photographer the other day. Barely used my camera at all but luckily there was an awesome photographer there who got lots of great shots.

Well if i had more to say I don’t have time to say it.

I’m still working on my book but after my crazy sprint yesterday I decided to break things up a bit today. I swear my brain tried to break yesterday. I should not have tried to prepare 25 pages all in one sitting like that. Too much, too fast! I’ll have to go back over it and double and triple check things for sure. Today I’m taking more time and waiting on some feedback on a couple pieces from a friend. I’m revising some work which I feel really good about. Some of these poems are very old and some were written before I knew anything about poetry at all. I wish I had more time and more access to feedback but this is my book and I need to feel comfortable with what I am submitting. I’m just nervous. It is a very big deal. To me. I’m sending all my little babies out there for some stranger/s to read and judge. Scary!

So I had a girl moment after stepping on the scale and realizing I’d finally broken through my plateau despite the fact that I haven’t actually been dieting (ooops). It got worse when I went to put my jeans on and they were huge on me. I got all “I need to buy jeans that fit!” but realistically when it comes down to it, clothes shopping is a pain. After even more thought I realized I don’t wear my jeans enough to replace them with more jeans I won’t wear.  So I’ve got to hunt down the kind of pants that I actually like to wear and just deal with my jeans as they are and let my belt hold them up. It works, for now. I’m probably full of girl moments. I was recently told I reek of femininity or something like that, but in a good way apparently. I just never thought of myself as being good at being girly. I feel like I’m always “doing it wrong”.

I’m preparing to enter a big contest. If I win I get a big prize and a publishing contract with royalties and such. Could be my first big loss or as my man put it, it could be my first big win. I had been planning to break my book up into chapbooks but this is a great opportunity that I don’t want to pass up. I will know the result in February so in the meantime I can work on breaking up my book for chapbooks and see about other publishing opportunities.

I’m doing a total redo on my book for this. I had it broken up into chapters and I decided I didn’t like that, so I’m mixing things up and I put one of my strongest poems first which I hope is not  some kind of rookie mistake. I suppose I could google this and find out the tips and tricks of the trade. I mean I’ve read through some books and such but they never touched on this aspect of putting together a manuscript, just the technical parts. I’m revising old poems that I’m suddenly overly critical of and even ditching a couple that just don’t make the cut. I have plenty to meet the page requirements for the contest so I hope I can put together a book of my very best work, and if I’m very lucky someone will publish it. I’m trying very hard to be all optimistic and hopeful because if I’m not then there is no point in even trying.

Time to get back to it. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

I had this something that I felt needed to be written but it wasn’t working the way I wanted it to and I realized it wasn’t going to ever be fit for public consumption. It was an interesting idea but it was something I was going at the wrong way. I had something to say.  So I wrote what I needed to say and now, well now I just need to move on I guess. I put it all out there and there it sits. It’s out of my head so now I can start working on other things.

I only have vague ideas about what I want to write so I need to take notes and brainstorm and decide how to tackle these projects and see if they will ever be anything. This is not the way I write but I’m taking a sort of “Challenge Accepted” approach. To me a real writer writes. I admit it normally just comes to me and I can usually just sit and write for hours but I want to write things that are worthy of being published. I think that kind of writing takes research and work, not just dumb luck. I should make room for the truly lucky ones full of ideas who actually have skill. I’m full of ideas at times and I’ve studied and have the skill but I don’t know if the real talent is there. My biggest obstacle in all of this is my own self esteem. I feel that I am seriously lacking in imagination and I dread the thought of not being able to write good original work. I’m also a little afraid of projecting too much of myself onto my work even if I attempt fiction but a friend commented that I should write about the personal stuff saying that is where my best writing will come from. We’ll just have to see. The important thing for me is that I’m definitely writing again.

I did write a new poem the other day. It started to come to me then fell flat then just fell out all at once. I have gotten one review already that was good but I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I think it needs to grow on me or needs some revision. I’ve officially decided to break up my poetry book into chapbooks and try to get my poems published that way. I’m still going to keep submitting them individually when I find the chance but these days chapbooks are the way to go for publishing poetry from everything I’ve read. I figure I’ve got enough for two chapbooks maybe three depending on where I submit them. The new downside is coming up with one or two more titles, which will all depend on how I break them up I suppose.

So that’s my life as a writer. Life as a mom has been interesting ever since the teenage girl accidentally dropped her cell phone into the pool right before school started. OMG! it was the end of the world. She was an absolute wreck without a phone and is still barely satisfied with my old phone as a replacement. The replacement phone was acting up and had to be restored to default settings before it would work right so until that happened it was kind of a living hell around here at times. A couple days felt like a week and it wasn’t even my phone that was broken. she is saving up her money to replace her cool phone.  This is how they learn. sadly, we suffer a little too.

The best time of year is here and I intend to enjoy every minute of it. I might even start having my morning coffee out on the balcony until it gets too cold. That sounds like a stellar idea. I can enjoy this lovely weather and do all kinds of thinking about my writing.

I was inspired to write something and I’ve been writing but I keep hating what I end up with. I just now wrote it all over again and maybe it is not meant to be written for public consumption. I just don’t know and I can’t really get an opinion on it without sharing all three very different drafts, the most recent of which was more like a diary entry or something. I am thinking I could flesh this last one out and make something out of it but I’m really frustrated. Maybe part of the problem is that I’m writing about something too personal.

This is why I stick with poetry. I might not be great at it but at least I get it and I know when I have something that I like. Ok, maybe I’m being too hard on myself. I am going to have a poem published this month so there is a chance I don’t suck at it. The point is, I have little experience or confidence in writing things that are not poetry. The two short stories I once had on writing.com did get decent reviews but I was not impressed with them myself and the better one happened by chance. Do I keep trying to write this piece until it becomes something I like or do I just leave it alone because I’ve gotten it out of my system?

I guess I’ll have to answer that question for myself.

I’ve been inspired to write and it isn’t poetry. I started a rough draft but I already know it needs to be totally re-written. That is fine by me though. I’m just enjoying being inspired to write and I hope it turns out well, whatever it turns out to be when I finally finish it. Being a writer and not writing makes you feel a little empty and just throwing down a poem once in awhile just wasn’t cutting it. I don’t even blog like I used to. So I’m writing, mostly in my head but that is how I write at first. I let it form in my head and then I put it down on paper. Though usually I’m working with a poem and I create an almost finished piece in my head before I put it down. I can’t do that with this so I’m curious about how this is going to go. Much like when a poem comes to me, there is a great sense of purpose when I am inspired to write. I like it but this has me a bit nervous. I really don’t know how it will turn out or what it will be but I can say its about love and not messing it up. That is all I know for sure until I really dig into it.

In addition to writing more I’m finding other ways to be more productive and useful in this weird little existence that is my life. I need this sort of thing more than I realized. I’m still me and my issues are still there and maybe always will be but I’m finding a way to shine a little light where there is so much dark.

My eating is still off but I don’t feel so sick so much of the time. I’ve gotten back to working out. It’s a lame little workout but I’m working on gradually stepping it up to a more normal one but I have to be careful of my wrists and such. I gained 5lbs and it felt like 10 and then I went back to my workout and the 5lbs left me again but I’m kind of stuck at this weight for like a month now. I did try Yoga again but it hurt like hell, which is why I do the lame little workout I do.  I’m 28lbs from my goal weight but I really need to stop stepping on that scale. What I really want is for my clothes to fit better and for my cholesterol to go down. It is true that a lot of my pants are too big for me but I’m not ready to go replacing them yet. I have some dresses that are too tight and I think when those fit better then I might finally be content. Maybe I just won’t be happy until I see that magic number on the scale though. Is that such a bad thing?

While I’m being all vain and shit, I’d also really like it if my hair would grow faster. I miss my long hair. It hasn’t been actually long in many years. I also really hate how long it takes to grow out bangs. Being as moody as I am, every now and then I almost chop them again because I do like really short bangs.

I suddenly feel very much like things are changing. of course things are changing. our favorite season is almost upon us.

I was bad yesterday and bought a dress. An awesome thing happened though. It was a little black dress, and it was a size 8 and it fit. Maybe I just got lucky with the style of the dress and the lack of a zipper because I thought I was more of a size 9/10 but I’m going to count this as a win for the week. I can’t remember the last time I could slide into something with a single digit on the tag.  I might be overdressed for the party tonight but with my anxiety issues I’m already screwed so to hell with it. I fit into a size 8 little back dress and I actually look OK in it because my guy is brutally honest when it comes to me and clothes and I got his seal of approval. What’s interesting is that I haven’t been good about following my diet because I’ve been struggling so much just to eat enough food at all. I think what I need to do aside from working with my doctor to find out why I can’t eat is work on toning up my trouble spots and focus less on just losing fat. Oddly enough I’m fairly happy with the progress I’ve made and just want to take it to that next step and tone those problem areas. I’m thinking of trying Yoga again, at home of course. A friend is doing it and she seems to really like it. Who knows. I sucked at it last time I tried.

On the subject of little black dresses, my teenage daughter doesn’t believe me when I say that every girl eventually needs one. I tried to explain it to her but she is a bit of a tomboy and very rarely wears a dress and is not big on black like her “goth” mom so she just doesn’t understand. even my guy backed me up and he’s a guy! being a computer geek he told her there was a website devoted to the topic if she didn’t believe me. Finally I just told her when the time came that she finally realized she needed a little black dress she could come to me because I currently have at least three.

Teenagers can be fun. School shopping wasn’t a nightmare this year. Tiring but not terrible.

My spam says my blog is awesome. Lol.

I’ve been busy educating myself about the world of publishing poetry. I’m learning quite a bit. I knew going into this that it would be a long process and it turns out I was dead on. I sent out for some publications that I want to check out that I may submit some poems to and if I like them I may subscribe to them. I keep forgetting to get a subscription to “Poets & Writer’s” but maybe today is the day I remember to do that. It has been a great source of information for me.

I will be published in September in an anthology and I believe online as well. I’ll post again about that when the book comes out and when I know where to get it. Part of the proceeds for the book will be going to charity which I think is really awesome considering the nature of the poem I contributed and the cause itself. I don’t know exactly which charities specifically but I’m glad to play my tiny part in helping others.  It’s hard for me to go out into the world and make a difference. Right now my daughter and my writing are my contributions to the world and so far my girl is a shining ray of light that makes me proud everyday and now my writing is finally going to be part of something too.

I would like it if more of my writing was deemed worthy of publishing and that is why I’m on this quest of mine. I fully expect rejection letters aplenty, that’s just the way it goes, but I’m going to do my best to not get discouraged when they start coming in. I have a full book of poetry all finished, finally came up with a title and everything. I also started a second book of poems. It is looking like I might have better luck publishing my poems as smaller chapbooks, but I haven’t gotten that far yet. Still learning the process and working on getting individual poems published to see if I can make a name for myself. Anything is possible.

I don’t plan to make it a habit to post photos here but I’m curious to see how well photos from my Droid show up when downloaded from Facebook then published here. Also I can’t stop being amazed at how 2 dozen roses looks like about a million. Mostly though I’m experimenting and photos without people in them is the way to go.

Last weeks roses

This weeks roses.

So I know it looks like I’m spoiled and all and maybe I am but I just love him back as much as I can. <3