Some videos deserve to be shared...

...and this is one of them.

You're going to start out with some little frogs. Just wait. Because pretty soon you will see a ballerina dancing on a man's head.

That's right. Dancing on a man's head. She also dances on his arm.

This is me, shaking my head, jaw somewhere in the vicinity of my knees.

God bless YouTube.

Script Frenzy

Back in November I participated in NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month. This April I am challenging myself to take part in the screen/stage play counterpart: Script Frenzy. I have always enjoyed the screenplay format, even though I focus mainly on novels.

The ideas are starting to come together, and the characters are starting to speak to me--tentatively, not quite in full thoughts or with full sentences--but most of all, I'm starting to get excited. Starting a new project is always such a thrill. Even when I know the general gist, the possibility of surprise lurks around every corner, and getting to know new characters and new settings and new situations is magical.

I'm going to attempt to set an even more significant challenge for myself this April: blog more often about the process, the ups and downs, the failures and successes. This poor blog has been so neglected of late. Perhaps this is just what it needs to get itself up and running again. We'll see.

Do You Know...

What I hate more than jet lag?

Picking up the flu virus (probably from the plane) and then spending the entire week of your in-laws' visit in an agony of fevers over 100 degrees and exhaustion and guilt about not being a better host and not being able to eat and chills and sweating and ...

You get the picture.

I Hate Jet Lag

Jet lag in the same week as daylight savings is wreaking havoc on my brain. As I write this, the clock says 4:12 pm. Oh no. It is still so totally 1:12 pm in my head (or, even, as per DST 12:12). I'm still in my PJs. I didn't have breakfast until noon. I have a headache from oversleeping (better than under-sleeping) and I have absolutely no idea what day it is.

Jet lag. You are cruel.

Aside from the obvious discomfort, however, it is good to be home. When you leave a place for a month, everything seems unfamiliar when you return to it. When I'm away, I remember my apartment smaller and darker than it actually is. I remember my husband hairier (though the shave and the haircut in my absence probably account for this). It feels good to be sitting at my own desk in my own home with my own tea in my own teacup. Even though vacationing is great, and even though all of my family and friends are miraculously generous in their hospitality, there's nothing so lovely as being back in your own space after so much time spent away.

Not so great? The 20 item To Do list (and counting) propped up next to me. Oops. I suppose I should get on with some of it.

I will be here blogging more frequently now. Promise.

Home is Where the Heart Is?

I've never really had a home town.

I was born in Swift Current. I lived in Olds, Edmonton (two neighborhoods... something and then Castle Downs), Lashburn, Halifax (Fairview Heights and then Clayton Park), Chilliwack (then across the highway in Sardis), and Vancouver (UBC--four different residences--then Kerrisdale, Downtown, Kitsilano, Kerrisdale again, South Granville and finally Yaletown). Now I live in Brooklyn (Park Slope) and will likely be moving elsewhere in Brooklyn come Sept 1st.

The strange thing is this: I don't like moving. I never have. No matter where I am, I put down roots. I hate having those roots disturbed. But when I move, I move. I don't leave pieces of myself behind, not really. Right now I'm back in Vancouver for a visit, and even though I recognize her, the city no longer feels like home. I lived in half a dozen neighborhoods here over the years. I called Vancouver home for nearly ten years. Now it is a place I come to visit. My friends live here. It's a beautiful city. It's not home. I find myself missing New York even though it's not nearly as familiar as Vancouver, even though it's only been 'home' for seven months.

I'm not sure if this ability to put down roots, to love a place passionately and then leave it behind just as quickly, is admirable or pitiable. My moving years are not finished. I'll be in New York for four or five years, and then it will be on to something, some place, else. My husband will do a post-doc somewhere. A university will offer him a job and a tenure-track position. I will keep digging up my roots--digging and replanting; replanting and redigging.

I wonder where I will end up.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been busier these last couple of weeks than any person who makes no money has any right to be. This is a measly excuse for my silence.

I'm on the home stretch--I think--with this novel's first draft. I have the peculiar 'almost-finished' feeling. I want nothing more than to sit and write and write and finish, but I also feel saddened at the thought of writing and writing and finishing.

Still, this draft has eaten my brain. I haven't been reading, I haven't been catching up with the (few) new TV show episodes that have been on (I missed two episodes of House? 3?), and the less said about the dustbunnies under my bed, the better. Still, I am almost finished a rough (oh, so very, very rough) draft!

The sign over my desk tells me I have eight days.

I wonder what will happen if I write all day today?

Not the only one!

Grace is not the only one! I promise! I was on a cruise and away from the means of internet. Granted that was a few weeks ago. Ooops. But I am back now and hooray!

Except right now I don't know what to say. Except that I love honey. I freaking love honey. Honey is the best little food on the face of this planet. I am sort of obsessed about it. I am such a lover that I have friends who bring me honey back from their travels because they know that I love how honey is never the same. I almost stockpiled honey the other day at the grocery store, it was embarrassing. They had all these amazing flavours: fireweed, lavender, okay that's all I can think of. How sweet is the fact that honey flavour changes depending on the flower? YUM-O!

My friend brought me Borneo Honey that is so rich it is almost like a caramel sauce. I have some from a tiny farm in Mexico that comes in a recycled water bottle and you can actually see the dirt in it - actually I don't know if it is dirt but it sure is yummy. I had some from Thailand that I rationed. So if you go somewhere fun remember to bring me back honey!

It tastes great in yogurt, on toast, with peanut butter, and as a yummy sweetener for soups and stir-frys (I have never actually done this but I saw someone do it once).

So I am back and all I can think to write about is my love of honey.

Tricks

It seems wrong, somehow, how many little tricks I need to keep myself motivated. I mean, it's not like I have a job cleaning toilets or something. I get to write. I get to create stories. I mean, it's practically the best job ever. You'd never know, considering how hard it is to stop procrastinating and just get words on paper.

I'm going away for a month. I leave in 15 days. Above my desk is a sign that says: "GRACE STEARNS YOU HAVE 15 DAYS TO FINISH YOUR FIRST DRAFT!!! TAKE YOUR OWN ADVICE AND GET WORDS ON PAPER!" I change the number of days every morning with new sticky notes. It's a small thing, and yet I have put more words on paper in the last week than in the three weeks previous. Whatever works.

The other thing I do is reward myself with little pieces of chocolate. Cadbury Thins break into three pieces. I get to have one piece every time I finish about 400 words. (Only one bar per day though. Ha!!)

I have also, in the past week, become a huge fan of the to-do list. I have a big notebook on my desk and in the morning, while enjoying coffee and breakfast, I scribble down the things I want to accomplish. Today's list reads something like:
write 1000 words
work for C.
yoga
JdV followup
emails
blogs
etc etc.

It's mostly the same list as yesterday's, but damn, it feels good to cross things out.

I am a woman who enjoys the small things, that's for sure. Like the daily line through "Write 1000 words."

Schedules

Okay, I'll admit it: I love routine.

Now, we're not talking 9-5 office job routine. Or even get-up-every-day-at-the-same-time routine. But I am a creature of habit.

An average day looks like this: wake up (usually some time between 8 and 9:30) and stumble to the computer. Check email, drink the coffee so lovingly prepared by my husband, get up and eat a bowl of cereal. Work during the day--writing, reading, catching up with the occasional television show, once a week I have a 'phone call day' where it seems I do a lot of talking on the phone. At some point in there I eat some lunch. About an hour before my husband is due home I think about making dinner. The evenings are spent with him.

Of course, this is only when he's at school. He's been off the past four weeks and my whole schedule has gone off into a wild and wacky course of madness. I still get the sleep and the coffee and the email and the cereal, but the work has been shot to hell. I'm not complaining, per se, because I loved having him home, but... work. Work needs to be done.

Today I am going to get to page 230. (I'm at 228.) And then, hopefully, I will get past 230 to 235 and then perhaps even near 240. I'd like to hit 60,000 words today!

Perhaps tomorrow I will be able to blog that I did so!

Writer on Writing

"If you wish to be a better writer, write."
--Epictetus

But here are a few other things I've found helpful over the years.

1. DON'T EDIT. Not at all, if you can help it. Not until the entire first draft is done. It is always so tempting to fuss and fidget with a sentence instead of getting new words on paper.

2. GET WORDS ON PAPER. 50-100-250-1000... set yourself a doable *daily* goal and then do it. Daily. Writing is a muscle that gets flabby and out of shape faster than anything else. The operative word is doable, though. If you have a day job and a busy social life or a husband and fifteen kids, you may not be able to get 20 pages a day written. But you'll still probably have time to write one. It's like when you start any exercise program---you may want to run a marathon, but if you try running a marathon on your first day of training you will become utterly discouraged and you'll fail completely...and never want to run again. And when you meet your daily goal? (It's good to set weekly/monthly ones too) Do something for yourself. Maybe for your daily goals you buy a box of gold stars and stick them on a calendar every day you make it. Weekly? Maybe a food/drink treat. Monthly? A manicure. Or a new book.

3. Don't worry about what other people think. In later drafts, you can have people read and tell you where the plot holes are, or what needs fixing, or what doesn't make sense. If you ask for any of that too soon in the process, it is easy to become discouraged--or distracted. At the same time, it is great to have another writer friend you trust, who you can talk to about being a writer. The highs, the lows, the great inspiration you had, the day you sat and worked even though you wanted to do something else... it's not about telling them all the details of your story, necessarily, it's about knowing there are other people going through similar things. Writing is a lonely job. It's always good to have friends who know what that feels like. (It's important this writer friend and you are not competitive, though. Support each other, yes, even challenge each other... but don't compete. The second half of my novel was written while I had meetings with another writer friend once a week. She was just starting her first novel at the time. We didn't even read a word of each other's stuff until after our second--maybe third--drafts were done! But we supported each other like CRAZY. I miss that now, having moved so far away.)

4. It's fantastic when inspiration happens, but if every writer waited to be inspired before actually writing their 50-100-250-1000-???? words for the day, no books would ever get written. Writing is a job. You have to do it even if you're having a bad day. You have to do it even if you feel like everything you're writing is absolute garbage. Words on the page. That's what matters. Quantity is for the first draft; quality is for editing. When that first draft is done, done, done.

5. Lastly (I kind of feel like I could go on forever, but I won't! Ha!) here is a tip that works AMAZINGLY WELL for me, especially when I don't feel like working: Set a timer for ten minutes. Pick up your pen or put your fingers on the keyboard, and DO NOT STOP WRITING until that timer goes off. I've written about this before. It still holds amazingly true.

And a book rec: Seven Steps on the Writer's Path: The Journey from Frustration to Fulfillment by Nancy Pickard and Lynn Lott. It is one of the best books on creating art I've ever read.

A list of inappropriate questions:

Most people have little voices in their heads warning them when a topic of conversation is unsuitable. And yet so few people actually listen to that little voice. So, for the edification of those who cannot seem to keep their mouths shut, I present a list of inappropriate questions.

1. Why don't you have a boyfriend? (Alternatively: When are you going to find a boyfriend?)
This seems like the most obvious question not to ask, and yet, it still gets posed to single girls worldwide, making them feel sad, lonely and somehow like lesser-beings-of-the-universe when, in fact, they are merely single. Sometimes happier single then they might be with a boorish boyfriend who cares more about boys' night out than couples' night in. Maybe she's holding out for someone better suited to her, Big Mouth Who Speaks Without Thinking (hereafter: BMWSWT). Maybe she doesn't want a man just for the sake of having a man. Maybe she feels sorrier for you than you do for her.

2. When are you getting married?
The moment you're in a relationship longer than five minutes, this is the de rigueur question. But here's the thing, BMWSWT, if the person (yes, usually the girl) you ask this question of knew when she was getting married? She'd be a fiancee. And the last thing she wants (especially if, God forbid, she's been in the relationship longer than a year... or two... or even ten) is some obnoxiously nosy BMWSWT pointing this out. You may ask this question when she's wearing an engagement ring. (Question 1a: Wow, how big is that diamond? Also always inappropriate!)

3. When are you having babies?
It never fails. As soon as the ring has been acquired, and the aisle has been walked, ten minutes later the same BMWSWT jumps back into the Inappropriate Question Fray with "When are you having babies?" When you KNOW a woman is pregnant, you may politely ask when she is due. If you know her. If you know her well. You may never, ever ask a married (or unmarried for that matter) woman when she plans on getting sprogged up (to steal a term from the Brits). It's so unbearably vulgar. Maybe she's never having children. Maybe she can't have children, and you've just dug a knife even further into her heart. Maybe she's too damn poor to pay for US medical insurance, and the thought of paying thousands upon thousands of dollars to give birth to her own child--let alone buying diapers, cribs, and hell, paying for that baby's health insurance--is enough to send her into agonies of depression. Did you think of that, BMWSBT? Did you? No, you did not, or you would have kept your Big Mouth shut. (Addendum to 2: Yes, she knows she's getting older. Yes, she knows she should have kids soon to prevent birth defects and lower the risk of any number of fetal problems. Yes, she knows everyone around her already has children. Yes, she is aware she only has a finite number of viable eggs. You know what? She is SO not as stupid as you seem to think she is, BMWSWT!)

So, there you have it. A list of inappropriate questions. Others include, but are not limited to: How old are you? Or the always classy How long have you been together? Followed by an expression of shock when it's been longer than, oh, six months and no engagement ring is weighing down the left hand. This exchange inevitably leads to question 1, above. And, as a special note to people talking to writers: please refrain from What's your book about? and When are you getting published? and Writing? Can you even make a living from that?

Please, please... don't be a BMWSWT.

More On Resolutions

I think this blog has become, of late, LadY of letters, alas.

Still, I'll keep plugging away and hoping my compatriots materialize.

I've never been a fan of New Year's resolutions, but I understand why they exist. The changing of the calendar seems to grant a carte blanche. All those mistakes made last year? They're gone! The things you wanted to do but didn't? You can do them now! That five-ten-fifteen pounds you gained? Lose it! (I get a kick out of how the only thing on television on new year's day are endless 'diet/health/weight loss/exercise program shows.) The new year is untarnished, perfect. Still, always the little voice in the head says "This will be just like last year. You'll eat well for two weeks, you'll exercise for one, maybe you'll read more books in the first month, or write more words, but what will really change?"

Perhaps that little voice is mine and mine alone, but such is the lot of the perfectionist.

Experts say if you make a resolution of any kind, at the new year or any time, the key is to make that goal small, realistic and attainable. Have a plan of action built into it. Instead of saying, "I want to lose weight" say "I want to train for and run a 10K in six months" or "I want to practice yoga three times per week." Think about what you gain (fitness, toned arms) rather than focusing on needing to get rid of something (the obnoxious layer of tummy fat/jiggly arms/cellulite).

Change can seem intoxicating, I think, but for me it is also scary as hell. I am not good with change. Oh, I'm as adaptable as the next person (maybe even more so... changing schools half a dozen times in your life will do that to a person) but I don't like it.

Being stagnant never made anyone happy, though.

So, even though I posted a list of things I want in 2008, I know very well I didn't (and still don't) have action plans in place for most of those things. First up?

1. Buy a printer
2. Find five books I like/seem to fit the same genre as mine and find out which agents represented those books.
3. Finish query letter.
4. Send query letter to those five agents.

Rinse and repeat as long as necessary.

At least it will be taking baby steps along a long road that, like most roads, may seem scary when you're standing at the fork, but, hey, it's just a road.

Happy New Year!

Belated Happy Holidays to all, and also, belated happy new year! I've been in Halifax since the 24th, and between all the family get-togethers, internet time has been scarce.

I'm not so big on resolutions, but I do fare well with deadlines, so in 2008 I would like to...

1. Keep my online literary journal on a regular publishing schedule.
2. Drink fewer calories. I don't drink soda, but I do drink alcohol (sometimes as if it's going out of style) and that needs to be cut down on. I realize that I've been slowly gaining weight over the ten years I've been legally allowed to drink booze. (And, unlike just about everyone else, I didn't drink before I turned 19.) and I've also gotten into the bad habit of drinking vanilla lattes again. So. Fewer calories in beverages.
3. Only eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full.
4. New York has been good for my overall fitness level, what with the walking everywhere, but I'd like to take more walks and see more things and try to get back into a yoga/pilates home routine.
(You'll notice all of this isn't exactly the 'lose weight' resolution so many folks make. It's not really about weight loss, though some of that would be nice...it's just about unhealthy choices leading to feeling unhealthy and all that jazz.)
5. Send my finished novel into the Big Bad World.
6. Be more grateful for the things I have without dwelling so much on the things I don't.
7. Participate in Script Frenzy in April and NaNoWriMo again in November.
8. Finish current NaNo manuscript/polish/edit/rinse/repeat.
9. Travel somewhere I've never been.
10. Do a better job of keeping up with blogs/email/phone calls/friends.
11. Keep track of everything I read over at http://movedbyfancies.blogspot.com/

That'll do for now.

Gracesicle

Oh, poor blog. Who will update you when I freeze to death in my own home, abandoned by a landlord who doesn't live on site, doesn't pay the bills, and doesn't seem to care? Alas.

Honestly, though, the standards in New York seem atrocious. At a party on Friday night several of us wandered into the topic of apartments. Here I thought we must just have a terrible landlord, because how, how, HOW can it be normal for people to struggle to stay warm in one of the biggest, most fabulous cities in the world?! But no, it is the norm here to have landlords out to screw you of:
a) heat
b) hot water
c) heat AND hot water
d) your--always astronomically huge, I might add--damage deposit.
(And don't even think about breaking your lease, even if you are freezing to death. The landlord can sue you for the entire amount rent owed to him for the entirety of the remaining lease.) It seems criminal! (Not unlike the rents. And the very existence of cockroaches.)

Some things New York excels at: big-scale musicals, museums, parades, libraries. Other things need such a serious amount of work: acceptable levels of heat, true protection for the tenant and not just the landlord, the price per square foot of rental apartments.

And now what?

So, in spite of a series of major third week setbacks, I managed to finish my 50,000 words--with a day to spare! Of course the immediate rush of pride and accomplishment was followed by a numbing sense of... now what? Rationally I know I need to do several things, not the least of which is finish the manuscript! I even know what happens next, but for some reason the sitting down and doing part is really draining.

I know, I know, I need to take my own advice and at least do the ten minute magical power write.

I also need to finish that query letter, and start trying to get that first book published.

And I need to get the first issue of my online magazine up and running. This weekend.

Mostly I just want to sleep.

Ahh, yes, depression my old friend. You love to hang about when the days are short and dark and cold. You love to creep in when my defenses are down. You love to crawl into the dark space under the stairs of my brain and start whispering. Depression, you are a real asshole, you know?

For now, Depression, screw you. I am going to make myself some tea. I am going to put some slippers on my freezing feet and wrap myself in a cozy cocoon of sweaters and blankets and sweatpants. I am going to write all afternoon, where I will be transported to Paris and my two main characters will continue squabbling, and eventually they'll start to see eye to eye. Maybe I'll even get to write another surprise kiss.

Surprise kisses on Parisian foot-bridges under rose-petal sunsets make it all worthwhile. In the background someone is playing Yann Tiersen music on an accordion, and I will follow their example.

Do I hate the Sun?!?!?!?

I think I hate the sun. At least during the winter time.

I love the sun when the weather is warm, when I can throw on a strapless sun dress and drink beer on a patio in some fabulous place in Europe, when the only thing I have to think about is the present moment: how the cold beer feels against my lips when I take a sip, watching people pass, and engaging in great conversation, and most importantly, knowing that a trip to the art museum or beach is coming up.

But when it's cold....I want clouds and darkness. I want to wear sweaters and jeans, and I want overcast and grayness. And when the sun comes out in the middle of my damp and depressing wonderland, I, like a vampire squint, and get poopy and want my sad weather back to make me feel good. 

Weird? Maybe. According to the weather forecast, this winter will be the coldest one in Vancouver since 15 years ago. Give me until March--I'll be eating the words on this blog and longing for the sundress and beer.

It's funny--I have days where I feel like I'm walking on air, and then there are those days when my feet get stuck in the ground, movement in any direction takes all my energy, and I cannot see beyond the tip of my nose. Those days when you feel like: "There is nothing, NOTHING, to look forward too." Today I realize that this happens when two things lack--clarity and specificity.

Maybe they are pretty much both the same thing. When I look at the big picture of things I want to accomplish, I get overwhelmed and forget about all those little things--the little things that are possible--that I need to do to reach my goals. If  you think of the big picture as a puzzle, you have to pay attention to the small pieces that will help you get to where you need to go. When you have small, specific blocks to work on, it almost becomes easy. Well...almost.....

I'm a dreamer. I like to DO, as opposed to simply dream, but at the same time, trying to finish off a project o a plan can be painful because I will often lose that excitement and curiousity I had earlier. It' the "Crap, I need to get this all done now now NOW!!!" that screws me up. I suppose what I am saying to you all, or more for me than anyone, is that it's all about living one day at a time. Day by day, step by step. It will all get done.

Well, easier said than done, but I vow to try my own advice.

Dogs are Great

I can't sleep. I have no idea why, as I feel ridiculously tired and my bed is really really comfortable. I even called my boyfriend hoping he would come over because I usually fall asleep when he is around. Puke - how icky is that? Oh well.

Anyways, I put my head down on my uber-soft pillow, ready for a long winters nap but my brain WILL NOT SHUT OFF. And for some reason I start thinking about my dog who passed away earlier this year. Her name was Molly and she was a white fluffy dog with long legs. She resembled a muppet. I got her when I was 11, or was it 12? I think it was 12. Anyways, she clearly has been in my life for a really long time and I really really really miss her. How is it possible to miss an animal almost, if not more, than some human beings? Only non-pet people will not understand.

Dogs (or any pet I suppose) are great. Dogs are cute. They do funny things like spoon with you or sit on your lap when you are driving and they clearly need a cuddle. They are there when you are sad (or can't sleep) and are always happy. Their tails will tell you what kind of mood they are in (usually happy) and they are smart. Well sometimes, I have met a few cocker spaniels who are not smart. My dog was smart.

The last time I saw Molly was after Christmas. She was curled up in the backseat of my parent's car on her blanket. As they dropped me off at the airport I made sure to cuddle her one last time and bury by face in her fluffy whiteness and kiss her head. She barely acknowledged me, poor old lady.

Anyways, if you have ever thought about having a pet you really should get one. People who grew up without pets missed out on something great (my bf is one of these - he had no idea what to say when I was weeping over my dead dog.) Therefore, I urge you to go buy a dog. They rock, even though their paw print on your life is brief . . . .

Ease

I thrive on change. I really do. There are things where I love consistency, like good coffee at my favorite cafe, knowing that my favorite movies will make me laugh or cry, and waking up in the morning to know that I won't have a huge blemish somewhere on my face--these things, I like to know what's coming. But with work, travel, the people you meet the people you see, I must say I love the variety. But I am having, more often than not, these days where I have an epiphany, and something will suddenly make sense and make me realize why I am feeling the way I feel.

First off, I'm surprised how the past few days I am not stressing over the things that I have no control over. You know how they say the more you worry about money the less you have? It may be one of the teachings of "The Secret," but I have finally put that to work. I'm not used to 'not worrying.' In fact, those two words do not go together in my mind. Work is another one of those "Hey, don't worry--it will all fall into place" things. Funny, I have absolutely no problem saying that to my friends and believing it on their behalf. When friends come to me with worries, I really think all will be well and do not give it another thought. What if I apply this to myself?

I like my job. Well, the work I do I like. I like the people I work with. But.....what can I say? I double guess myself, do not get paid much, and find myself coasting and having a hard time focusing. Then I rationalize it by saying, well, I do not get paid much. I know that this is felt at work--sometimes it is very hard to hide your energy. And it is scary to think the work I decided I wanted to do is not fulfilling me the way I want. Is it the work? Is it me? Is it the environment? Am I a lazy bag? Or am I just beating myself up? One thing I have discovered is that your job, a job that you truly love, even if it may be stressful at times or high paced, should have some ease in it. Work and ease? Yup. At this point, I am willing to do something completely different. I have to admit I want to change my line of work for more money, but I am okay with that. I just want to find that ease.

I like the change. I have decided to embark on a new city overseas. A new environment. A new job. A new life. Everything will be different and new, from the way the money will look in my wallet to the way people speak and the side of the street they drive on. Instead of filling me will fear it gives me a sense of ease. There is something lovely about the notion of leaving one world behind to enter another. If one world is not working for you, even if you gave it a good shot, then go to the next world. I gave it a good shot here, and want to see how I'll work in another environment.

I the meantime...I look forward to finding out what what will fit in the suitcase and where that suitcase will end up.

Only Popping in for a Moment...

I've disappeared for most of the month while dedicating myself to my National Novel Writing Month challenge. I should probably have kept more careful track of the ups and downs (there have been an abundance of both!) but I rather suspect writing a book is like having a baby--for a long time you get big and fat and unwieldy and uncomfortable. Then you have the insane pain of giving birth. But after it's all over and you're holding that baby (or novel) in your arms, you completely forget all those times in the past year (nine months, whatever) where you said "I AM NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN" and you just think Oh, this is the best feeling in the WORLD!

Writing books is fun, but it is also stressful. It involves this strange blend of cockiness ('Well, of course someone will want to read this! It's brilliant!') and humility ('Will someone want to read this? Do I want to read this?')

In this blog entry, however, I want to share my new favourite thing: the magical ten-minute power-write. The magical ten-minute power-write has changed my life! I'm not kidding. Ten minutes--it's practically nothing. It's a third of a sitcom. Hell, it's the amount of time you spend watching commercials during a sitcom! (Give or take a minute or two.) My point is, everyone has ten minutes here and there. So, in order to plow through the last 10000 words of my 50000 word challenge, I knew I was going to do something drastic. Meandering through my day writing ten words here and there was not going to cut it. So I set the alarm on my cell phone for ten minutes, put my fingers to the keyboard, and did not allow myself to stop typing until the phone beeped at me.

First time out: 424 words. Followed by a second ten minutes: 440 words. Then 400, 477, 439, 404, 483, 505, 486 and 482.

That's right, my friends. 100 minutes and 4140 words. If you wrote an average of 450 words in ten minutes, and only spent ten minutes A DAY (do you realize how many ten minute blocks are in a day??!!) writing... you'd have an 80,000 word novel in less than six months. Imagine what you could do if you spent three ten minute blocks writing every day. Or six. Or ten. That's right, just imagine it. And that, my friends, is the magical ten-minute power-write.

Hey... you got ten minutes?