Not What I Had Imagined...

This weekend I am going to be wedding dress shopping in Atlanta. I think it's a girl thing--that from childhood we dream about what that special day of shopping is going to be like. The sun will be shining. The racks of dresses will literally sparkle, beckoning me to try them on, and when I do, the sun will shine extra brighter, and the birds will burst into song, and I'll twirl around the store while the sales lady and my family and friends look on with clasped hands and smiles.

This is what's really going to happen:

The sun is not shining. It is overcast and cold.
I'm going to stumble in with a box of kleenexes pressed to my chest. The dresses will still sparkle, but they'll make my already swollen eyes water, which will then set off a sneezing attack. I'll reach for a tissue, but not be able to grab one in time, and accidentally send mucous flying onto one of the pristine dresses. The store owner will get upset and kick me out.

Oh, and one of the bridesmaids is pretty pregnant, so I'm going to maintain a twenty five foot distance from her the entire weekend, because she and baby do not need this cold. So we'll be at the store, and I'll be modeling the latest dress, and I'll have to yell across the store, "So what do you think?" And she'll just have to give me a thumbs up or thumbs down because if she tried to comment I probably wouldn't be able to hear because I'm so congested and my ears are stopped up.

Yup, that's what's going to happen.

You're probably asking why must I go shopping this weekend?

Well, it's been planned for months. Bridesmaids are flying and driving in. Parents are coming. And this is literally the only weekend between now and the end of the year that I actually have time to do this--what with the ice show and work stuff.

So...yeah...wish me luck!

Up and Down. Up and Down.

Sometimes I'm so excited to be on the Writer Emotional Roller Coaster and sometimes it's so draining. I'll reach a milestone or a goal and get all excited and then the next day it's like it never happened because I'm on to the next great, or not so great, thing.

Oh, I can't wait until I finish researching for my new shiny, exciting novel.

When I finish this first draft, it's going to be epic.

First Draft sucks.

Second draft smells.

Third draft is it.

No. No. Fourth draft is it.

Fifth?

If I could just get this query right I'm going to be in the home stretch. I know it.

Oh my God. Oh my God. I just got picked to be in the top 50 for a pitch contest. Man, if my pitch gets requests. I'll be beyond ecstatic.

Only one agent liked my pitch. I suck.

Holy freaking cow, I have an agent. Agent. I HAVE an agent.

Agent wants exponentially increasing number of revisions.

Revisions are done. Party time!

My book sucks no publisher is ever going to buy it.

OMG. My book sold to Super Duper Publishing House. It can't get better than this.

Sigh. What if no one reads it? What if my books just gather dust at all the stores? What if there's some mega electronic glitch and people can't download it onto their Kindles and Nooks?

What if? What if?

What if I can't write another book? What if I do and it's worse than the first? What if I do and it's better than the first and then nobody will but the first?

Looking forward to seeing what this next week has in store for the Writer Emotional Roller Coaster.

To NaNoWriMo or NOT to NaNoWriMo, that is the question....

These past few weeks I've been thinking long and hard about participating in NaNoWriMo. I came quite close to plunging in, but then decided, that for me, for this year at least, it may not be the best fit.

I'm already working on a new novel that I'm a good 75 pages into. Technically, if you participate in NaNo you should be starting on a brand new novel. I do have a new fledgling idea I'd like to get cracking at, but it would require a lot of research (which I haven't done), will probably need to be more than 50k words (the NaNo goal), and I probably can't humanly get anywhere near that word count by the end of November because I'm preparing to perform in this:

I am so excited and honored and thankful to be given the opportunity to perform as a soloist, playing the role of Pocahontas. When I tore my ACL back in March 2010 I honestly though my years of solos and skating shows were over. So because I want to skate hard and put out a great come back solo performance, I've decided to pass on NaNoWriMo...for now.