Darren Endymion's Blog, page 19

Editing Fiascoes and Treasures

To those close to me, I was totally clear. To those here, I was less clear for the sake of prudence and tact. However, I will now be honest: the editing portion of my first novel was absolutely awful. It was my first, so I was green and wide-eyed. The whole experience left me drained and disillusioned.

One thing I was glad for was the guidance I had from others. My friends were invaluable. I also had several words of wisdom from an acquaintance, the writer JL Langley, who has been there several times over in this genre and was both generous and kind when I was first going through the editing portions. One thing she said stuck with me, and I have a feeling it always will, no matter what I publish or who I publish through. She told me that with her first novel a lot of her “voice” was trimmed out and watered down by the editor, but she was so green and so thrilled to be getting published that she accepted almost all the editor’s changes without questioning them too much — something she would never do now and regrets doing ever since. She warned me against letting this happen and said that I need to be pleased with and proud of the final product. Wise words, right?

I don’t think I did that, and I think it was in large part to JL’s advice. However, it was a frustrating experience from beginning to end. First, my indents were all wrong (I put them in; they wanted none, as they get automatically formatted later in the process). It was part of not knowing what their guidelines or style formats were, and not researching beforehand. I had to go through a 180k word novel and delete every single indent. Second, there was little comment on the content, just the grammar. Little guidance. Third, the time schedule was ridiculous. I was given one month to go through this 180k word behemoth twice for the editing stage. No allowance was made for the length of the novel. Fourth, sometimes the communication styles between the editor and myself were not what they should have been. I was sometimes attacked and made to feel like the green newbie idiot I probably was. (For instance, instead of saying I was using a word too often, I was asked if I even knew what it meant). However, this is publishing. Suck it up, put on your big boy pants, and get over it, right? Right.

All that I could deal with. Probably. But I was told that there was one “rule” (which is nowhere in any of the publisher’s style guides) that really tripped me up. I think it’s a blanket provision made for lazy editing and that no publisher in its right mind would insist on such an idiotic thing. It involves all the pronouns in a paragraph always pointing back to the same person. (For example, had I used “he” or “his” to refer to Elliot in a paragraph, I could not in the same paragraph say, “Hector, his bald head shining in the glaring light, turned to Tim and whispered…” Even though it’s obvious with the structure of the sentence and basic rules of commas and sentences that I was referring to Hector with that “his”, I would have been told to change it by rearranging the sentence, using Hector’s name again, starting a new paragraph, or something similarly ridiculous).

I understand, if a pronoun is unclear, the editor needs to point it out. But this “one ‘he’ per paragraph” rule is bizarre. Read your average book. Nobody else adheres to this absurdity. People don’t think, talk, read, or write this way. When you try, it comes off to the reader is wooden and a involves lot of unnecessary name dropping. Trying to find out how other publishers do it, I brought this up to my aforementioned writer acquaintance and she commented only that it would drive her crazy to have to rewrite so many sentences, and that her publisher has no such rule.

It’s a stilted way of writing and makes sentences frustrating. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go through that again, knowing there was at least one comparable publisher without that rule. So, I wrote and stopped and stalled. I considered writing my next wolf book, but remembered that I was told that this publisher prefers to pair up the same writer and editor through a series. I didn’t want to let the series die, but neither did I want to go back to that awful situation. It also dampened my desire to publish further through them. (I’m being tactful. There were other things which brought me to this feeling. Lots more.)

I wrote one short story, “The Snow Queen”, with this publisher. It went well, the (different) editor was in and out, and it was an easy, pleasant process. I just finished the edits on another short story, “Threads of Discord”, with yet a different editor and finally decided to ask about this pronoun rule. I’m paraphrasing and making things bitchier then they were ever intended, but the answer I got essentially told me that it was a stupid rule, that it may not even be a publisher’s rule, and that it was likely to be ignored by a good editor (100% my words, not hers). I was also told that I can request a specific editor. Um, done!

I now wouldn’t put up with the bullshit I took on my first novel. I can accept when I’m wrong, and I enjoy the learning process (this recent editor showed me a predisposition to the dreaded passive voice that wasn’t easy to face, but makes me a better writer in the long run. That’s good editing.) Editing is like being told the ten thousand different ways you’re wrong — you learn, you wonder how you ever let that embarrassing mistake pass you by, and you end it by being thankful, but wrung out. There’s no need to deal with draconian, pointless rules and a sometimes insulting attitude. I’m glad for it now, and I learned a great deal, but not about things I would have wanted nor during that unsteady, unsure time.

And it makes the future brighter for remaining with an otherwise nice publisher with a definite sense of family and approachable, kind, professional staff. I’m not saying I won’t branch out eventually, but it takes away some of the dread of writing, even though I had since decided not to let that get me down. It’s just nice to know that it’s not all bad, that you have a good editor, and that you have options…and nerves of steel forged by an unpleasant situation and then tempered with the kindness and good sense of someone new.

I Really Can’t Believe It

Full disclosure before we get any further: this is another gay marriage post to add to the billions already out there. I’ll try to tell what it’s been like from a personal standpoint.

I graduated from high school…more than a couple years ago. In high school, particularly in my sophomore year, I was bullied quite a bit for my supposed sexuality. I never corrected the assumptions, so it was seen as a clear fact. Being short, smart, and funny, and not at all into the popularity crap, I was a target for anything. Whatever. The hypocrisy of high school was in full effect — there was one jock who had issue with me and all his friends would jump in. Alone, about three-fourths of them were decent, usually pleasant to me.

I…am a little mouthy. I’m also not tall by any stretch of the imagination. I was often referred to as a pocket-gay…until my victims recovered from their chewed throats and spread the word not to call me such stupid shit anymore. To this day I have NO idea why I haven’t had my ass kicked regularly, especially in high school. They yelled at me; I yelled back. They insulted me; I insulted them back, but I was funnier. I called them out by name, reminding them of their decency when alone and calling out their pack mentality. I got out alive, tougher, a bit bitterer, awfully salty, and ultimately able to handle myself in most verbal tussles.

This tainted my view of the entire gay rights movement. I soon found gay friends and discovered myself more, even as the apologies from high school bullies came in throughout college and the years after. Gratifying, but ultimately pointless.

With those gay friends I was discussing my views on people and the prejudice against gays. We all came from different backgrounds — we had the sheltered religious type, the huge nerds, a jock, a spoiled princess, the pretty boy, a no-holds-barred flaming homo, the goth kids — and we talked about how we knew that gay marriage would eventually be legal, but we didn’t know that it would happen in our lifetimes. I personally said that I didn’t think we would see the day, largely because of my high school experiences (which included a beloved chemistry teacher making fun of a neighboring school because of their new gay/straight alliance club).

Not so long after that, Prop 8 was passed in California. I figured it would be much longer before any substantial progress would be made. I was shocked, because even though I lived in a conservative section of Southern California, I expected more of this supposedly progressive state. With a dramatic Eeyoreesque sigh of long-standing world weariness, I repeated my mantra. “Eventually.”

Prop 8 was eventually repealed, but I knew that it was a long journey, and one I might never see the end of. Then, it all exploded. Everything. Huge leaps and bounds were made in so short of a time span that my bitchy pessimism couldn’t sustain the onslaught of progress. “Eventually” turned into “Maybe” and that even changed to “Possibly.”

“Possibly” isn’t the word anymore, is it? It’s real. It’s here. In my life time. While I’m still young, even. In a time frame I never thought possible.

I’ve been thinking about this recently, and about time travel. If I could go back in time and tell that little pocket-gay, not even 5’5”, literally surrounded by a circle of taunting, yelling, impossibly tall jocks…if I told him that in a few short years several of them would be apologizing, that I would use that moment as a scene in my first novel, and that in a few years I would have the legal right to marry the man of my dreams, I wouldn’t have believed it. I couldn’t have believed it. I had cast aside hope as part of my defense. But now…it’s all different. All those things have and can happen.

I only need to find that man to marry now. But when I do…I can. And I never thought it would happen. That’s an amazing feeling.

Little Failures, Big Successes

So, I hit a wall. I was moving along, kicking ass and doing all the preliminary work for my new project, editing my short story…when I just pooped out. And you know what? I didn’t get on myself about it. I was working harder than I have in a very, very long time, and going at it like a madman. I’m simply not used to that type of schedule, and it wore on me.

The good thing is that I’m not sitting around and letting that brief inactivity get to me, but rather jumping back on the proverbial horse. I have my edits to turn in tonight or early tomorrow, and I have two (maybe three) more things to do to get to the end of my prep work (which I’m still thinking may be over prepared and overdone…but I guess that depends on how deep I’m willing and prepared to go, right?). I did work on some of this preparatory work over the weekend, but not as much as I would have liked, as I would have liked to be done. My deadlines were pretty aggressive, but I mostly stuck to them.

I’m proud of myself and my accomplishments while simultaneously seeing where I have room to improve. And isn’t that what growth is all about?

One thing I did do, which took up some time yet furthered my cause, was get a desk. Remember that mini, wobbly, portable, roll-away desk I mentioned? Well, with all the health issues I was having, when the billion doctors informed me that I was fine and did not, in fact, have leukemia or anything terrible, I decided that I would rearrange my tiny room and get a little desk. I did so, ordering it from Amazon. It arrived on Sunday.

Having been so inactive for so long because of all the pain I was in, my muscles have weakened considerably. The box the desk was in was heavy, yet I managed to single-handedly shimmy it up the stairs, past two curious dogs, up a few more stairs, and into my room. From there, I let it sit for a while, and eventually built it while in the middle of an awful Leprechaun binge on Netflix. (Don’t judge me). Well, the kneeling, stooping, dragging, and building all beat my body up. I was really sore, but I’m currently at said desk, burning a DVD and typing this. After this, I’m going to reread and proofread my anthology short story, send it away, and then get to the prep work I have for my new stuff.

I’m excited. I accept my failure to stick with the schedule I set myself (though I still have one day to work within my original deadlines), but I am happy with the progress I have made and will continue to make.

Deadline Madness!

Life intruded on the editor of the anthology I’m going to be a part of, and she was a week late getting our edits back to us. We were supposed to have two weeks to edit our portions and get back to her, and that has been shortened to one. My story is (as usual) probably the longest at about 10,500 words, and I finished them the first day I had them back. I want to go over it at least one more time, maybe another, but those lofty goals may have to take a backseat because…

I have been babbling (for some time) like a rabid baboon about my issues with procrastination and deadlines and how to reach them (convert time from weeks to days or hours in order to freak yourself out and get to work). I have induced this with myself, and it’s actually working. Like for real. I started out slow, like an old, rusty locomotive going uphill with no noticeable source of fuel. Yet, in the past week, I have made leaps and bounds toward my goals on my new fantasy writing project, and I’m trying to go big (and I plan to use this information elsewhere). The family tree I lamented about is finished enough to know where people go and all their allegiances (and is nearly done entirely), the character sketches are done, I’ve taken care of the naming of places and ancillary characters, I have a map of the continent, I want to make one of the area the story will take place in, there are even points of religion that I’ve figured out. I’ve probably overdone the preparation in the name of world-building, but I’ve never done it on this scale and I’m looking forward to continuing.

However, I want to be done with it all by the end of this month. I have one more thing about the kingdom in question I want to do (and as I was typing this, I of COURSE thought about something else I could, nay, SHOULD do) and then get to the synopsis (which shouldn’t be TOO difficult. The story forms itself as I think about the characters and their interactions). But, I still want to go over my soon-to-be-published story at least once. It’s not long, but…

I have personal deadlines sprinkled through the remainder of this month, plus my manuscript due this weekend. I’m moving SO well on my new stuff, that I don’t want to stop that momentum. The train is still moving, and this isn’t Stand By Me, I’m not trying to dodge it, stop it, or get killed by it. I’m staying on it.

But, the deadlines! *swoon* They are murder. It’s a good thing, too. I used to think that I had to let things come as they would, that doggedly working at a writing project like I would something given to me at work would…I don’t know…interrupt the creative work flow (or something horribly pretentious like that). I would wait until the mood struck me, thinking that it was the creative flow at work and not my determination. It turns out that’s not so true. I’m turning out good stuff. So, I’m producing a lot and learning a lot. Hopefully I don’t drop dead and never want to write another sentence…

Biopsy Results

My appointment was on Friday the 19th to find out what, if anything, they found through the bone marrow biopsy and the blood tests. Leukemia or no leukemia? It was a rough day.

My roommate has been kind enough to cart me around to my various appointments since I don’t drive and with my leg, getting off the bus can be perilous and painful. Unfortunately, he had a banquet that day and wouldn’t be able to take me. I found this out on Tuesday. Luckily, another friend had nothing on his work calendar for that time and could take me.

He picked me up from work and we went right to the doctor’s office. I thought, “Oh good, we’re a little early. Maybe I can be seen early and I won’t have to wait as long as I did before.”

Wrong.

I got taken into the little room fairly quickly, leaving my friend outside in the waiting room. That’s when the nerves hit. I tried deep breathing and it didn’t work. I tried distracting myself and THAT didn’t work. I was a mess. The nurse came in and took my blood pressure while I warned her that I was horribly nervous and it would be high.

She said, “It’s nerves. Nobody wants to go into oncology.” Then her eyes widened a little. My blood pressure was about 140/105. Yeah. That high. She offered to come and take my blood pressure after, claiming that once people get good news, their blood pressure drops right away. I said that would be fine while thinking that when my appointment was over, I just wanted the fuck out of there.

I waited in that room for an hour. No exaggeration.

I heard the doctor in the room next to me, speaking gravely with an older-sounding woman. I heard another doctor making a call to one of her patients saying that they wanted to run more tests. My anxiety got worse. I could feel it in my throat, which was a weird feeling. The nurse came by, started, all but shoved an old woman into her room and said, “You’re still HERE?!” to me. She told the old woman, “I have to go get the doctor. This patient has been waiting a really long time.”

Eventually the doctor made his way into my room. His demeanor, his tone, his body language were all different. He was chipper. Gone was the solemn tone from the room next to me. He was in there for 10 minutes.

I’m fine. They found nothing. No leukemia, no signs of mutation, no anomalies in my blood, nothing. My liver enzymes are a little high, but they always are. That’s about it. I was so relieved that it seemed as though someone had taken out my skeleton and most of my muscles. I think I have been powered by nerves and tension for the last 5-6 months. I felt weak. I thought I had a better handle on it (I’m sure my friends would say otherwise), but as much as I let outside, there was infinitely more worry on the inside. Logically, you can know that there’s little chance of something terrible happening, but there’s always that fear.

I took my friend out to dinner and to coffee after. I could feel the physical aftermath of my blood pressure spike. I went home, watched Jurassic Park, and went to bed. I text my supervisor and asked if I could take Monday off. He said yes, so I return to work tomorrow after a day of relaxation.

I have no desk. (Stick with me; it’s related). I tossed my old one out when I moved into a small room. I realized that sitting at a desk is a lot easier than using a laptop on my actual lap when I write. My dramatic, fatalist sentiments told me that there was no point in getting even a roll away desk if I was going to have to undergo chemotherapy or something equally exhausting that would prevent me from writing much. I promised myself that if everything turned out okay from my tests, I would get a small, compact, mobile computer cart that would fit in my tiny ass room. I already have it picked out.

And now it’s time to order it.

 

Reverse Seasonal Depression

Everyone has heard of seasonal depression. Generically speaking, this refers to people who see a cloudy, rainy day and get a feeling of malaise and depression. (Yes, that’s a gross oversimplification) This is pretty common, apparently. It’s called seasonal affective disorder (appropriately abbreviated as SAD) and affects about 4% to 6% of the U.S. population.

It sounds totally absurd to most, but some people, about 10% of those with SAD (so, 10% of 4%-5%), get the reverse. The onset of summer triggers the depression symptoms that most experience during the darker, rainier months. I’m unlucky enough to be one of those people.

With the summer solstice happening this weekend, the longest day of the year, I’m filled with anxiety. Part of me is saying that after that day, the darkness gets stronger and we have longer and longer nights. However, the other part of me chirps up and says, “Sure, assbutt! But the days will be long, excruciatingly hot ones. And your room is like a tiny microwave on the second floor. Bwahahaha!”

Some of the environmental reasons people have SAD are financial worries and disrupted schedules (for those with kids, I suppose), as well as body image issues and just the goddamned heat. The former two don’t apply to me at all, but the latter ones definitely do. I won’t go too much into gay men and body image issues. A friend of mine wrote her thesis on it and found that the body image issues of gay men were equal to those of women (probably teenage girls, honestly). I believe part of it is that gay people are in the unique position of often having jealousy and lust coincide within the same person. For instance, I recently watched Guardians of the Galaxy again. I adore Chris Pratt in that role — he’s funny, charismatic, daring, and sexy as hell. I was just lusting after his cute face when it got to the shirtless scene. Part of me was thrown back by how much I wanted to lick him, but at the same moment I was hit with a nearly palpable, dark wave of jealousy. It’s a strange place to be, and for gay men it adds to the body image issues of the have nots and the inconceivable, sweltering, consuming egos of the haves.

I was in a desert resort town last September for a friend’s big birthday. It was too hot to care, so I stripped down and got in the pool. (Seeing pictures of this event will still send me into a shame spiral, but it was over 100 degrees and I didn’t care). Our other friend would NOT get into the pool. I swear he must have showered with his shirt on. To quote one of my less kind friends, he had sweat under his tits and still refused to get in the pool. And I thought my issues were bad.

Enough of that crap.

Then there’s just the heat. It’s oppressive. It’s everywhere. You can’t get away from it. Even in the privacy of your own room, you can only strip down to nothing. If that doesn’t cool you off, you’re not getting any colder without fans, air conditioning, water, spit, or less sanitary methods. If the house cooks all day and the heat rises to your room like it does with mine, the nights are little better. The sun and the light are blinding. It’s like an overexposed picture of raw flesh. It’s too hot to cook, so I eat out a lot and gain a lot of weight, or I’m just too hot to eat.

So, Game of Thrones fans say that winter is coming with the appropriate amount of dread and drama in their voices. I welcome the winter. Rainy days and long nights are my happy times. It’s summer that scares me. And in California, we have about 4-5 months (or more) of summer-like weather. Why do I live here again?

For more info, see: http://www.webmd.com/depression/summer-depression

Old and New: Edits and Progress

Now comes the real balancing act. I should at some point today get the edits on the short story I have coming out in August. I am slowly working on the new stuff as well. Since the edits are probably going to be minor (my story isn’t even 16,000 words), and I’m pretty determined to get them done within a week or so. The editor is very sweet, though she has said some things that made me a little nervous, but the power is in my hands. I can argue them down and, in this rare case, I have permission from the owner of the publishing house to go over the allotted word count. So, I don’t have to get it back in line. I like that. The owner is very open to her writers and very available and, though it’s obviously a smaller publisher, I like that personal touch.

Still, I take it seriously, so I will be doing that as a top priority.

I don’t want the current stuff to suffer any more than it already has. It’s slow, slower than I would like. My heart wasn’t in it. I have had a lot going on, and my mind has been on all that and not on the writing. Not even as an escape from what’s bothering me. However, in the past week I have been building momentum and, with a few words of encouragement from people I admire and trust, I have been spurred onward a little.

Sometimes I think I act like a pompous pro. I’m not. I don’t have a schedule, I don’t have a program of output, I don’t have discipline, I only have one novel out and one short story. I do acclimate rather quickly, though. I get flustered my first time and then it’s all in my brain. I tell myself, “You’ve been through this before. You survived. You learned a lot. You will be fine. You will get through it.” And it’s true. The editing phase for my novel was difficult. Very difficult. I learned SO much, and I read all the really bad reviews (all two of them, though it seemed like seventy-five THOUSAND) and saw all the negative star ratings on Goodreads and felt stabbed in the heart with each evil sentence and each star rating under 3…or 4, if I’m to be honest. Yet, every good review, every word of kindness or appreciation (one of which I recently received on my barren Twitter account), every expression of love for my characters, every good thing makes me feel better and makes me want to continue.

I’ve got all that. What I need to work on is getting a schedule, plowing forward, not letting my fears stop me. I say that so often. It’s like a song you never liked but hear on the radio so much that you hate it with the burning passion of 1,000 suns.

So, I have the momentum now — slow, creeping, and weak though it may be. My new procrastination aversion techniques are actually working. Editing won’t stop me because I won’t let it. I won’t let myself stop this time or I will never grow. Creation is like that. Sometimes it’s scary and it hurts and you want to run away and hide in something that’s comfortable. But you don’t grow then. If I hadn’t suffered through the first novel process, then I would be totally unprepared, frightened, lost, and easily wounded. I got tougher. I have plenty of room to grow, and I hope to do it and do it to a point where plowing forward, juggling two or more projects, and always having fun are all common and comfortable. Of course, at that time, it will be time to push forward even more, I suppose.

Mythical Rationalization

When I was a kid, I went to private religious schools. Without going into the issue of religion, I struggled to believe everything they told me, but other kids were not so resilient. I have mentioned this before, but a friend of mine and I were about 10 or 11 and were talking about dinosaurs and he suddenly became melancholy. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he wished dinosaurs had actually existed. I referenced the found bones, the age of the Earth, and other information my fragile young mind had retained. He said that the Bible says that Earth is only about 10,000 years old and that God must have put the bones in the ground to trick us. Like all of paleontology was some great cosmic comedy routine for a giggling deity.

Even at that young age, I knew to let it go. I told him that I still believed in dinosaurs and that it was fun to think about them anyway. My mind refused to let it go, and so I applied my fantasy-loving brain to EVERYthing. I was an avid lover of the Narnia and Oz books, so I started thinking…if dinosaurs weren’t real, then what of unicorns, dragons, faeries, dryads, trolls, gorgons, mer people, and the like? If we could have evidence right in front of us for dinosaurs and still not believe in them, then what else was a lie?

My mind just doesn’t work right. Rather than doubt the existence of these things (as I’m sure the church elders would have preferred), I went the other way. I tried to think of how ALL those things could exist and fool the fossil records. There were huge forests out there where anything could be hiding. The rain forests have large swaths of them where new creatures are found all the time. The ocean is still so unexplored that anything could be under there. What if all these creatures changed themselves on purpose to avoid detection? (I know. I went to religious school and was essentially thinking about evolution. Imagine the horrors that would have ensued had I told anyone these thoughts!)

What of the skeletons, then? Where were the unicorn and mer people skeletons? Well, shark fossils are rare because of the composition of their anatomy. What if mer people were the same way? Or, because these things were, you know, MAGIC, what if they died differently and left no trace? I saw Legend with Tom Cruise when I was very young, and thought it explained everything. (How much glitter did they use in that movie, anyway?)

For instance, since unicorn horns held so much magic power, what if the horns dissolved into pure magic (and silver glitter?) or were made into swords which then were used against impossible medieval odds and won? When dryads died, did they just leave a hollow, sad, dead tree? Hans Christian Anderson solved the mer people conundrum for me…bubbles…because they were part of the sea. Obviously, right? I imagined that dragons molted and lost their wings when near death, looking like dinosaurs or snakes or lizards…but I didn’t like that. I finally decided that dragons knew their time was coming and burned themselves up in volcanoes, or in the heat of their own flames. They returned home just like mer people. As I think about it now, I imagined all these fantasy beings to return to their essential elements—water, fire, magic, wood, earth, etc.

Yes, this is how my mind worked when I was a kid. It still works that way. I’m good at finding loopholes, ways out of things. I can think of the origins and demise of almost any fantastical creature. Those times, those considerations (because I thought about them often), helped to shape my imagination. I still think about those basic concepts and may even use some of them.

I’m currently reading The Last Unicorn, and though I never read the book until now, I loved the movie as a kid. The book is lyrical, fantastical, and is steeped in its own myth and beauty. The writing is poetic and visceral, and the history behind the unicorn and all the denizens of the land stir me in a place I had all but forgotten. It brought all these memories and rationalizations back to my mind and made me think. It’s amazing how a child’s mind can work when forced against something he doesn’t want to believe or when faced with something he can’t believe.

Personal Deadlines

There’s nothing like a billion doctor’s appointments to make you think about life. Through that, I have come to think about personal deadlines and procrastination. Now, I know (and have been assured) that I’m as healthy as can be and all the tests are essentially to confirm that my body is weird and there’s nothing wrong with me. But, when you have to go as far as having a bone marrow biopsy, you tend to think about life, and this is what I have come up with.

1) Don’t judge yourself using others as a basis. One of my best friends is a lawyer and he doesn’t like his job. He spent all that money to go through law school and doesn’t hate it, but neither does he like it. Prince Scientist is about 30 and is doing amazingly well. I…am not in as stable of a place as one, and I am in a much better financial place than the other, yet my job is definitely inferior to both. Everyone is different. My gay friend laments that he is 40 and not married, while all his straight friends are (and many of the gay ones now). I tell him that he shouldn’t judge himself by their relationships, that straight people don’t have to come out and shift their perceptions of everything, and that it’s better to be single than to attach to yourself to someone who isn’t good for you and doesn’t help you grow (mirroring the advice he gave me at…ironically…a gay couple’s wedding).

2) Set deadlines without restraint, and then work backwards. If you want to buy a house in five years, you need to get a job that will allow reasonable payments and look in an appropriate area. Dream big, play make believe for a bit, and don’t limit yourself. If you want to finish a novel by the end of the year, set deadlines for the planning, research, character sketches, synopsis, first draft, second draft, beta readers, etc. and work backward to that. If you want to be married and own your own house in 5-10 years, then get out of your apartment, meet people, don’t be desperate, and start thinking about where you want to live.

3) Once the dreams are dreamed, be realistic. Don’t say you want to get in shape for this summer when you’re 3,500 pounds and it’s May 14th. Unless you’re a rhinoceros. With the home owning goal, don’t look in Beverly Hills if you have a ghetto Compton budget. If, for instance, living in a decent part of Southern California is too expensive, think about moving locations/states and/or jobs…or gather fifteen of your closest friends and run a hostel in which you may be granted a room. If you don’t want to move to Tennessee where cost of living is cheap — but you’re in Tennessee, so life sucks anyway — find a place that offers a good cost of living balance, and consider moving there. If you want to finish that epic fantasy novel by the end of December and you haven’t started by mid-November…you may not make it. Be realistic.

4) Make 1, 5, and 10 year plans. Things change. Life changes and sometimes the goals we set don’t come to us or we are forced down a different path. But how can you know what path to go down if you don’t know your goal? If you prefer a unfettered life, where you wish to change on a whim, then choose wisely. Know that you want a house and a career in 10 years. Time to work your butt off at those unfettered jobs until you get there.

5) Be flexible, but don’t allow yourself to give up. I have a very dear friend who had a hard and fast date to be out of her abysmal living situation. Things totally beyond her control — several things — got in her way and obliterated those well-laid plans. However, her tenacity is absolutely inspiring. Rather than give up or think that it’s not meant to be, she adjusted her time line, realized there are things beyond her control, and worked to fix those she could. While her ultimate goal and drive may still land her in the place she desired, she made a Plan B, otherwise known as Plan: Get the Fuck Out. She wouldn’t give up on Plan A unless Plan GTFO ended up being better overall.

It’s easier said than done, but the alternative is to stumble blindly in the general direction you want without ever knowing if you’ll end up there…or thinking you have 10 years to get there when you really have only 2.

 

Biopsies Suck (and Other Obvious Observations)

I had the dreaded biopsy today. It wasn’t pleasant, but neither was it a heinous, terrible affair. It isn’t something I would do for fun, but I’ve experienced worse. They checked me in (after I roamed around the hospital for some time looking for the radiology place). I was the youngest person in the waiting room and got a look of sympathy from the nice old woman in a wheelchair. I returned it.

They made me strip, put me into bed, took my vitals, and mentioned that my heart rate was high. The wonderful nurses attending to me figured it out in about a second. “You’re probably nervous, huh?” Thank you. The nurses at my doctor’s office can’t seem to figure that out. “Why is your heart rate so high? Why is your blood pressure up?” Because I’m nervous and in pain, bitches! Happily, my doctor knows what’s up, and that’s what’s important.

I laid there reading for about an hour until the doctor came in to see me. In that time, as is the way of my life, something made me glad to be who I am and where I was and dealing with what I am rather than something else. A man was wheeled into the bed next to me, and we were separated by a curtain. He couldn’t speak. His voice was a raspy whisper which sounded as though it cost him effort and pain. The doctor came to see him and was talking about stomach and esophageal linings and scar tissue and mild sedation because of his vital signs and how organs are cleaving to each other…and I silently wished him well and tuned out.

Some volunteer (whose supremely sexy voice unfortunately did not match his face) asked if he could watch my procedure. He could have been maintenance. All he was doing was bringing people blankets. I didn’t know, but I said sure because I have no shame and I didn’t care. His gratitude was a little off-putting, like, “Nobody ever says yes! I’m just a receptionist! Woo hoo!”

He wheeled me to the room where they used a CT scan to find where they were supposed to mangle me. My heart rate started going up and up and up. I remembered that place, you see.

Several years ago I almost died. You know what killed Heather O’Rourke, the little girl from Poltergeist? Yeah, I pretty much had that. My intestines were inexplicably narrowed in one spot (they think I was born that way), things were backed up, and I was near death. I went to the ER of that same hospital and after hours of being in there (because the goddamned triage nurses thought I had a stomach flu), they took me, still in the worst agony I have ever, ever been in…to that very CT scan room. Now, there’s a chance that they are all decorated the same way, but the ceiling and the glass panels were painted with these lovely blue and green swirls. It was a detail I hadn’t remembered until I saw it again.

The nurses and the doctors sedated me like they were supposed to, and I found myself grateful. I wasn’t in the same pain or the dire straits that I had been in the last time I was in one of those rooms. I was glad.

They told me to flip over on the bed like they would a much, much older person, and my nurse laughed at them. “He’s young and mobile. He’s fine. Get over there.” Laughing, I flipped over. The CT scan nurse exposed my ass (I wonder if the volunteer with the sexy voice expected THAT glimpse of perky, glaringly white buttocks), stuck stickers all over me, and covered me up a bit.

I wasn’t feeling any different, so they gave me more medication. Woooo! They stuck me and it was just like getting a shot. Then they took out the drill. I shit you not. The doctor said, “Now you’ll hear a drill…” Why are you putting a goddamned drill in my ass?! Mutha needed to take me out on a date before that shit. Fine, it wasn’t my ass, it was my hip, but the principal remains.

I got the drill twice (not as sexy as it sounds), they patched me up, and I was on my way. I was a babbling, drugged up mess. The nurse called my friend/roommate/ride and told me that if I was driving and got pulled over on that medication, it was an automatic DUI.

I ate Jack in the Box, took two naps, and now my hip feels like someone kicked me in it. It’s a deep pain, like someone punched my bones and then put my flesh back on it. It’s very unpleasant, but nothing terrible. That part is over. Now I get to wait two weeks for the results. *sigh*