I’m writing this upside down.
Jun 07, 2010 
Time to end the radio silence, hooray! This is just a post catching up on what I’ve been doing the past week. As some of you may know, I’ve been traveling lately, from the Friday before last on. For a while I was in Santa Barbara with savannahjfoley and bee245 to see sjmaas get married, and I was having way too much fun to post here. The ceremony was beautiful, Santa Barbara was beautiful, and, of course, sjmaas was beyond beautiful.
Then, on Tuesday, I headed for LAX and then on to Melbourne, Australia, which is where I’ll be hanging my hat for the next year. lilykaufman and her long-suffering husband met me at the airport and ushered me home to the sweetest little room they’ve made up for me, and now I’m finally unpacked and all set up. The PC is still in pieces, but I have my netbook and my big keyboard plugged into it, which is all I need to do a ton of writing.
As savannahjfoley and bee245 can vouch, I managed to keep up my writing even in the midst of festivities in Santa Barbara, despite travel, etc. I left for Australia on a Tuesday (U.S. time) and arrived in Australia on Thursday (Oz time) and actually wrote on the plane, during this weird middle time when I had no idea what time or even what day it was, just that I knew I was losing Wednesday at some point so I had better stick 500 words in there at some point.
I’m completely psyched to be back in Australia–as some of you know, I lived there before for about eight months a couple of years ago. It’s full of absolutely fantastic people, friends who have greeted me so enthusiastically that it’s like I’ve lived here my whole life. My house is walking distance to the beach, and even though it’s winter now I plan to head down there today with my laptop and sit in the cold and write, because right now, my protagonist is wet and cold, and it seems appropriate. I have fingerless gloves created for just this purpose. There’s a very charming dog indeed, doing his best to cure me of my lifelong cat-lovingness, and of course, bakeries full of caramel slice waiting to remind me of what I’ve been missing. Best of all, I’m back living with some of my best friends in the world, and I’m way excited. My vowels are already starting to slip, and I’m finding myself saying “heeya” instead of “here,” and asking my housemates if they want some brekky.
It’s a little bittersweet too, though. This is the place where I’m going to finish my WIP, once and for all, and start it on queries. I have a loose timetable that I’m following to that end, and somehow it seems much more final and huge when you know it’s going to be within the next year. I’m excited about it, but also quite frightened, too. As anyone who’s submitted anything, be it a short story or a novel, knows, submitting is this terrible and wonderful flutter in your chest and twist in your stomach. I’m just trying not to think about it. Cart before the horse, etc. I have a long way to go before then, so best just to alt+tab back over to chapter fifteen and get back to work.
But maybe down at the beach.
PS: My word count today is only a loose estimate. My actual running tally is on my PC, which is inaccessible at the moment, and I’m way too lazy to go total it up all over again on the netbook.
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Wow, I’m so jealous! Australia sounds amazing.
I don’t know how you managed to keep up with your writing with so much stuff going on. It’s too easy for me to just put it to the side while I have other stuff to focus on.
For me it’s about momentum. I sit here and babble endlessly about my 500 words per day minimum for a reason–the more people who know about this mission, the more people who will be disappointed in me if I stop. (Yeah, I know most people wouldn’t exactly hate me forever if I skip a day, but this is where the obsessive personality is actually a benefit!) At this point, I know that if I miss a day I’ll have to own up to all the people cheering me on. So on the days where I’m just like “I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE” I imagine telling my best friend that I gave up. And trust me, she would kick my -ass-. And so I keep going.
It took me far too long to realise what you meant by “I’m writing this upside down.” I feel pretty silly now.
Well done for writing 500 words every day for so long! I don’t think I could do it, there are some days where I want to throw my computer out of the window. Most days, in fact 🙂
Unfortunately, I do too. And double unfortunately, until my PC is set up, my netbook is my computer–and tiny/light enough that I could quite easily chuck it out a window without requiring too much forethought or effort. Sigh.
Wow, Australia. 😀 That sounds like so much fun. Even though it SHOULD be warm in Canada, I haven’t got any writing done outside since it’s been rainy for the past, oh, two weeks or so. Heh. Gotta love our unreliable weather. One day we’re stripping off our clothes to escape the suffocating heat and the next we’re buttoning up against the cold.
Also, I’m joining you in the 500-words-a-day-or-DIE (last word said in a dramatic voice) minimum goal. Writing lots in sporadic amounts is definitely not a good idea, and not conductive to finishing WIPs. I like the idea of momentum and writing everyday. So I’m joing you on that. 😀
If it’s any consolation, I left sunny, beautiful Santa Barbara for cold, rainy, miserable Melbourne. And the weather’s pretty unreliable here, too.
And oh wow, that’s awesome! I’m so excited for you. I’m really of the opinion that no one can MAKE you get cracking on consistent writing but you, and so you deserve mega kudos for trying out the daily goal thing. Definitely keep me posted on how it’s working for you, and hit me up if you ever need some commiseration or emotional support. 😉 I’ve been there. In fact, sitting pretty on 342 words today and feeling sorry for myself about the last 158. Wah!