updating my dear readers

Friday Updating


It’s been hard to focus this week because I’ve been fighting a sinus infection,both Rob and BabyD have had spiritual encounters*, the Steelers won the AFC, and controversy in the form of assumptions and projections found me again.

In spite of all this I can pretty safely say the memoir is done. I am adding and revising things in the last two chapters still but – until the true revising starts in a couple of weeks – it’s complete at just under 87,000 words. A bit  short of my estimations. Likely to be shorter still because I think I am going to dump at least one of the opening three chapters and use the other two in abbreviated forms in later chapters. The chapter breaks too are still open to reinterpretation but again, that is for  later. 

So how many pages is 87,000ish words? 

357 pages. Double spaced with a 12pt font in New Times Roman. 

I am neither thrilled nor displeased with what I am calling a first draft despite the fact that some of it was revised a bit – more than once – as I wrote. I tried to just write without stopping but not having an outline other than the years and months, I had to reread on occasion and that always leads to revision.

I didn’t include as much of the correspondence between Rob and I via email and IM in the first draft as I thought I would, but this was mostly due to the volume of it. I will need to shore up chapters and this means going back through more of the “documentation” which is time consuming. I didn’t take into account when I began this that reading email, IM sessions and old blog posts would eat up a lot of writing time. I will have to factor “research” into the revision process.

On the quest for physical improvement front, I did not feel like puking or need a nap after spin this week. The women who have been talking the class since October assured me that Tuesday’s session was the hardest one yet and I held my own. Good on me. 

My new yoga instructor is awesome and I am finally getting into a more serious pose oriented yoga. I keep trying to talk Rob into yoga, but he still raises his eyebrow and looks at me as if I have never met him when I bring it up.

Rob has agreed to help me with my spin homework however. Yes, the spin instructor assigns homework. Abs and lunges daily. I can do the abs but lunges don’t work for my right knee, so I am to do plies instead. Rob gave me the look when I suggested plies for him. He will do lunges. And start lifting weights again, for which I am so pysched. He has the most awesome biceps and shoulders and pecs as it is  and more of that would be … well … more better.**

Finally, I am struggling with the book I am reviewing next Tuesday, Ingrid Cummings’ The Vigorous Mind. It’s not that I don’t agree with her theory or that the book isn’t useful. It is a bit repetitious however and very grounded in non-fic/self-help formula presentation. It doesn’t make for sustained scintillating reading. It’s something you tackle in stages and is not bedtime reading. So between not feeling well and being dog-tired from my new work-out routine, I am behind. I will be done on time, I think.

 

*BabyD was under the table playing on Tuesday night when she said, “Who called me?” Rob and I were reading the newspaper and hadn’t spoken and told her so. “Well, someone whispered my name,” she informed us. “I wonder who it was?” Who indeed. If it was that damn dead husband of mine, he knows better than to be playing games like that when I am having a tense week already.

**My motivation for motivating Rob to exercise is grounded in more than my concern for his health.

Vote For Me and other things


Daily Writing Tips is sponsoring another short story competition for all genres at a 1000 words or less. Round one of the voting began yesterday and my story was among them. If you have a moment could you take a look and vote for me if you like the story? I don’t want any mindless voting, and yes, I know that this is how people win contests on the web, but I would prefer you voted only if you thought my story was good.

Generally, I don’t do well in contests, but I thought I would give this a try. I have been so swamped between the memoir, book reviewing and 50 something Moms that I haven’t been working on any short fiction for submissions. I plan to do that next month while I take a breather from the memoir (which is 80,000-ish words and I have just two months left of the time period I am chronicling – so maybe another 4 chapters to go).

Also, I have two pieces up this week at 50 something Moms, and if you don’t have the site on a reader yet, you can find them here and here. They are light-hearted and not at all creepy and I even mention that I have kids. All firsts for me apparently.*

My review of Breathing the Ghost Out will be up on Friday, and I am hard at work on The Vigorous Mind for a review at the end of the month. I also got my copy of Matrimony and couldn’t resist reading a few chapters, but I am not sure what I think about it yet. It’s woman fiction written by a guy, so I guess that makes it man fiction. 

I also got Midori by Moonlight, which is the giveaway this week, and had to read some right away. I flew through the first four chapters and find it quite engaging. There is a distinct feminist undertow but it’s not preachy. The main character, Midori, is left stranded on a fiancée visa after her American husband-to-be brings her to San Francisco and promptly dumps her for an old girlfriend. Midori is 29 and an old maid by Japanese standards but isn’t at all interested in her culture’s view of women, marriage and the way things should be if a person wants to “fit in”. Fascinating look into Japanese culture too. So, you still have until Friday to get in on the giveaway.

Went to my first spin class in quite a while today. I tried spin when I joined my first health center back in Iowa in 2003. I dislike spin because you don’t move. There is all this effort and absolutely nothing by way of going anywhere, so different from running. Even on a treadmill, I feel like I am moving.

But I didn’t fall off the bike, faint or throw up. All good things. On the down side women in their sixties were kicking my ass without mercy. I can only improve, right?

New yoga instructor at the new studio in town this morning. She studied with my old instructor whose Monday class I am still taking. I am finally past the inertia feeling of yoga. At first it seems as though it is all new age mumbling and nothing at all is going on in your body. Not true. My massage therapist is quite impressed with the progress yoga has made in me. My shoulders and neck are finally free despite still being prone to tension knotting, and I am able to really let time pass during the more still exercises now.

So, this is the weekly update a bit early. Tomorrow’s song lyric is the last. I am thinking I need to experiment with vidcasting and perhaps Thursday is a nice day. Opinions?

Let’s jump the hump and get on with the week, shall we?

*I was rolling my eyes as I typed that just so you know.

The Friday Update


I answered the phone yesterday and when the young woman asked for Robert I was fairly certain I was dealing with a telemarketer.

“He’s not available. Can I take a message?”

“Well is this Shelley?”

Now I am certain she’s a telemarketer.

“Shelley died.”

“Oh, I am so sorry. Perhaps you could help? I am calling on behalf of Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party.”

I refrained from asking her why that nob thinks the party is his alone and interrupt with,

“I’m an American. I don’t vote here.”

“Oh, I am terribly sorry. Have a good evening.”

It wasn’t quite three in the afternoon, so she must have been out East and I wondered if she knew something I didn’t, but a quick scan of the headlines at MSNBC revealed that the U.S. hadn’t completed its slow implosion, nor had the solar winds ripped away the atmosphere hovering above it so it was indeed still there.

An interesting punctuation mark at the end of my work day. I’d just gotten back from town where I set up my own checking account to deal with business expenses and hopefully payment someday soon. I felt like a 50’s sitcom wife, setting up her little hobby business. Except I am my business and I am not a hobby. It was odd, however, because I have had my own banking accounts since I was 15 or 16 years old and I still have accounts back in the old country.

Reminded me a bit of getting the credit account at the furniture store a few weeks ago, stepping back and seeing how different I am. I had refused to merge my accounts with my late husband’s because I was so worried about losing my identity to that of Mrs. My mother had beat it into our heads as young women that we should never be without money or credit in our names alone.  It was too dangerous in a world where women are still not quite equal.

With the continuing collapse of the financial world, I should be more militant but I have a feeling that in the end, things like credit histories and the like aren’t going to matter all that much.  I hope I am being too much of a pessimist, but American currency seems a dubious bet right now and joint or separate – it’s all the same, heading toward worthless.

On a brighter note, I will hit 70,000 words today or tomorrow and be done by Christmas. That is two weeks later than my original goal but I got tangled up a bit on my timeline and needed to go back and read some email and the like for clarification.

I was reminded by a woman in my Fort writing group about the Writer in Residence at the U of A only being available to critique manuscripts until the beginning of April, so I will have to get on reading and revision quickly in the New Year. Can’t let a free service like her go to waste.

Rob is chomping at the bit to read. Usually I let him read and edit things as I work, but I have been selfish with the memoir. I did read him a bit the other night and he liked it. Good sign.

My thwarted columnist ambitions are still on the hunt for other opportunities. I hesitate to seek out another blog contributer position because even with the exposure, it’s still working for free. I am keeping my eyes open. At this point anything I find is at least good practice. I plan to sign up for a course or two via Writer Mama. Perhaps define my area of expertise and work on short creative non-fiction?  Still deciding.  Kind of like the business cards.  I think I need one but haven’t decided on the wording or look. I am a WIP just like my memoir it seems.

BabyD’s Christmas concert was last evening. They call it “Christmas” here. None of that “winter holiday” stuff. Typical elementary performance. Mercifully short. I am a terrible person who really would prefer not to watch other people’s children sing badly, so I was fine with the abbreviated length.

Last day of freedom for me today, so Rob and I are eating in town. Our usual sub joint.

It’s cold. An old high school friend’s FaceBook update indicated that a woman knows it’s cold when she has cl*tcicles hanging from her lady cave*. It’s not that cold.  But the hairs in my nose freeze or thaw depending on the direction of the air flow and fingers are sandpaper from dishwashing these days. -31C yesterday morning and worse is to come for the new year.

And that’s the week, dear readers. Do stop by Monday. I’m having a book giveaway! Joshua Henkin will personally autograph and send a copy of his novel, Matrimony, to one of you – wherever you are in the world – and all you have to do is drop by and comment.

*I am paraphrasing somewhat. Disturbing vision though, eh?