Post NaNoWriMo depression

This is that magical time if the year when  I sink into a lovely abyss of depression.  Ok, its not nearly as dramatic as that, but I definitely get.into a funk the first half of December and it is entirely the fault if NaNoWriMo.

When you spend 30 days living and breathing your story, getting to know and love and hate your characters, expending every last extra ounce of energy you have working on your book, you feel almost bereft when it's over.  I can't keep up the frantic pace if NaNoWriMo beyond December.  I don't have the energy and my family would kill me.  At the end of every November I get to relive that exhilarating feeling of my dream of being a working writer dying.

Yes,  I know, I am a ray of sunshine.  I can't help it, I'm suffering from post NaNoWriMo depression.

Who knows, maybe this year will be different. Maybe I'll finish the book this year. Maybe I'll rewrite and  edit and polish until it's ready for publication. This could be the  year.

Bit first I need to get some sleep and finish watching this show.

And just because

I'm feeling a little crazy on a Friday night:

Love.

Daytrotter

Everyone must go here and check out Daytrotter.  It's a kick ass site with awesome music.  In their words, it is a:

place of discovery for music lovers and a hole-in-the-wall-of-the-Heartland haven for passionate and inspiring musicians criss-crossing and cross-crissing the country and the world, hoping to find open and sympathetic ears.

(Disclaimer: it's not free anymore, but they are offering a 7 day free trial.  Use it, you will end up paying the $2 per month to join.)


My favorite session so far is from The Civil Wars.  They are so amazing and if you haven't heard them you must go right now to their website and get a free download of Barton's Hollow.  You will absolutely love them. 


Los Lobos also did a Daytrotter session a while back that I love, especially "Yo Canto" which is one my favorite LL songs.  Check that one out too.  Now.

Foo Fighters in DC

I took my 10 year old to see her first concert on Friday.  Well, it was more like I dragged my 10 year old daughter to see the Foo Fighters with me because I love the Foo Fighters so hard and I wanted to share that with her.  She's more of an Usher kind of girl, which is disturbing since she's 10.  But, you know, R&B, hip hop, it's fun and cool but it's not rock and roll.  We had a killer time even though she wasn't anywhere near as into it as I was.

(Yes, it is a shitty cellphone pic, but it still rocks.)

The concert was awesome.  It sounds lame to say it like that, but I don't have seem to have the words to say how fucking amazing it was to see Foo Fighters in concert.  It was my first time seeing them and my first real concert in almost 12 years.  I saw Chris Cornell on the Euphoria Morning tour the week before I got married.  That was the last concert.  I'm thinking that's grounds for divorce right there.

Anyway, here's the set list.  They played every song I love except Come Alive.  Let's hope they really do come back and play that song at the 9:30 Club.  I will cut someone to get tickets to that concert.  (I wish I were kidding.)

So, I've been sick since Wednesday and called in sick on Thursday and Friday.  I hope my boss is understanding when he finds out I skipped out on work to make sure I had the energy to go to the concert on Friday night.  In my defense, I really was/am sick and I have the snot to prove it if anyone asks.  No one's going to ask, right?

Writing versus work

I've been writing like a demon today.  A sick demon with a snotty nose and a hacking cough, but a demon nonetheless.  I called in sick (and I really was too sick to be in an office - people hate it when you cough and sneeze all over them in a meeting) and stayed home.  I woke up just long enough to push my family out the door, eat something, take some drugs (of the OTC cold variety, c'mon people) and went back to bed.  Until 12:30pm.

Then I did something that makes me almost giddy:  I wrote.  I wrote about zombies attempting to eat teenagers.  And about an alien learning that she has amazing regenerative abilities and can decapitate a zombie with her bare hands. And about a cute boy she finds in the middle of a road.  It was great.  I loved it.  I wish I could do this every day, even if it meant that I had to feel this crappy.

Makes me wonder if what I'm doing with my life is really worth it.  Le sigh.  It's not like I have much of a choice these days.  Gymnastics classes don't pay for themselves, do they?  (No, really, do they?  Because that would totally change my whole outlook on life.)

It was a great day because today I reminded myself of who I really am:  a writer.  Sometimes I get so caught up in all the other titles I hold:  mom, wife, worker bee, laundress, chauffeur, list keeper, data entry drone, chef, etc. that I forget that part of me.

I am a writer.

Go vote today

It's your duty as a citizen.  You've got no right to complain about what's going on in your government or your country if you don't vote.  So do it.

I work in a relatively quiet office full of people busily typing and clicking and printing and copying and all the things we're supposed to do in the real office world.  

I, of course, am not quiet about anything I do.  I can't seem to help making some sort of noise, even if I manage to keep my mouth shut.  When I'm entering data into spreadsheet with my ear buds in, I tap my fingers to the beat of the music on my keys when I'm not actively typing.  I've also been known to sing along, although I may not realize I'm doing it at the time.  I love to talk to people.  They occasionally enjoy listening.  

Over the past few years, I've been working my up to new levels of rage over the idiotic requests people make of me.  I am an administrative assistant.  I also have a BA, went to grad school, speak 3 languages and do an assortment of nerdy things on my own time.  I do this job because it was pretty much the only thing I could find after slowly re-entering the work force after 8 years abroad and kids and crappy economy.  So sometimes I get a little pissy about the things people ask me to do.  Because I'm better than this job.

I sit right next to the mail room.  It's right there.  People still drop off their stuff to mail at my desk.  Apparently they don't know how to address it (and I'm not even talking about US mail kind of stuff; it's inter-freaking-office.)  Or they can't seem to manage to tape their bloody receipts onto a piece of blank paper to attach to their expense reports.  I have to do that.  Why?  I have no idea.

After a particularly rage inducing day, in which one person asked me how to do something while referring to a document that explained in detail how to do that thing, I now bring my knitting to work with me.  It's sort of a last resort to talking me off the ledge, although having a potential weapon (at least according to TSA) might not be the best idea.  I usually pull it out after I realize that I'm furiously whispering to myself, or my computer.  The knitting keeps my rage whispers from becoming rage shouts and therefore, I keep my job and my kids get to do gymnastics.  

I might actually go pull my knitting out now since just remembering that last person who doesn't seem to know how to read has gotten me all hot.  And not in the good way.

Music to write to

I've been struggling lately with which music to listen to while writing.  This is usually only a problem during NaNoWriMo since pretty much the rest of the year I barely get any writing done.  I love allowing myself the freedom to just write, to let the words spew out of my mouth inelegantly, inexpertly.  Editing the result isn't very fun though.


So I've been trolling amazon.com trying to find music.  I resorted to posting a facebook status update begging for music suggestions (and came to the conclusion that most people suck since only 2 or 3 people even responded.  I guess that could mean that nobody really likes me and/or reads my status updates...nah, that couldn't possibly be true.)  I've come up with two things.


I love the new Yo-Yo Ma The Goat Rodeo Sessions.  This album is freaking amazing. I think everyone should buy it.  Right. Now.  


I've also started obsessing over Amanda Palmer.  Not only is she married to the Neil Gaiman, but she kicks all kind of music ass.  Tonight I've been listening to the Amanda Palmer station on Pandora and that seems to working pretty good for my writing.


Well, back to it.  I'm 2210 words behind for the next 15 minutes when that goes up another 1667 words.  Wish me luck!