I AM A WINNER!!!

I am now the proud owner of 100 pages of sheer drivel.

(You see, I say that... out loud. But, inside my head, I like what I wrote. Most of it. And I think it could go somewhere. After some editing... or something.)

Woot for me!

Adendum to Calls for #agentfail, and other thoughts

(Yes, I do like to kick dead horses. Why do you ask?)

Alright, so the whining bugs me. The "helplessness" bugs me, too.

The other day Marcy Tweeted that she was teaching little D problem-solving skills: if you walk around the chair, you can reach your toy. It's amazing how many adults cannot follow this same thought process.

The #agentfail martyrs fall into this category.

Look, dude, if you really want a venue for your venting, then walk around the chair. Uh... ever heard of an anonymous blog? Create and "agentFAIL" blog, remain anonymous, and ask people to email you their stories, which will be posted anonymously. They can send their stories to agentfail@hotmail.com; nobody will know who you are, no agents will deploy their flying monkeys to get you. If it REALLY bugs you that much, do something about it. Don't just whine about how you can't whine the way you want to.


In other news, Spring Break Cleaning is going not so well. Because of sickness in the form of nausea. Not enough to be sick-sick, just enough to be annoying because I can't really stand up.

"I'm Sick During Spring Break." I should add that song to No Child Left Behind: The Musical! In the style of "It's Raining on Prom Night," if you were wondering.

Script Frenzy is less than two weeks away. Guess who has not done A THING to get ready? Need to figure out a Kick-Off location...

The Writer v. The Editor

These two posts from The Golden Pencil* made me realize how much NaNoWriMo has changed the way I write.

I used to agonize over every word. I used to not write, because I was forever waiting for The Perfect Opening. If I did write, every sentence took forever because I wanted The Perfect Word. Even for stuff that didn't matter, like school assignments.

Now, after five years of NaNo, I just write. I don't even read my blog posts before hitting the orange button -- which is bad, because I'm a terrible typist. (Seriously. It took me 17 keystrokes to type "typist." But that's also because I got my nails done yesterday, and it always takes me a while to get used to typing with my fingers instead of my claws.)

The good thing is I'm writing. The words are moving from my head onto the paper. I'm more confident about my writing; when I go back and re-read that stuff, I like what I've written (I used to HATE re-reading my stuff, which is why I never proofread my papers for school. Now I don't proofread my blogs because I'm lazy; I like what I've written, but my ADD-brain is just ready to move on to something else.)

The bad thing is... well, I can't say "I don't proofread" because I didn't do that before either. There is no bad thing! NANOWRIMO IS THE GREATEST WRITING EXERCISE EVER!!!

(Okay, there is one bad thing. My husband is not too fond of November.)

While watching the Oscars, I was thinking about what I would say in my acceptance speech.** (This was, coincidentally, right before Kate Winslet told us about her rehearsals with Shampoo-bottle Oscar.) In my speech, I decided I would have to thank Chris Baty and the rest of the NaNoWriMo/Office of Letters and Light team.

I have a half-finished novel that is still in the half-finished stage that I started my first year teaching (when my Guardian Angel had me stumble into the Borders Books on Westheimer in Houston, AT THE EXACT SAME MOMENT a critique group was meeting. The dude working the info desk took me to the deep, dark corner where they met, and those amazing, lovely people invited me to join them. And write with them. And SENIOR YEAR went from a long-forgotten file on a floppy disk to A NOVEL). This was 8 years ago, people. And it's still half-finished. It has not yet been NaNoed.

Since that first November of 2004, I have written three novels (one of them took two Novembers) and one stack of drivel (which might could perhaps someday be salvaged into something resembling A NOVEL. Actually, UNA NOVELA, since that was my NaNo-in-Spanish year). I don't think of myself as someone who wants to write, because I do write. I am a writer. Thanks to Chris Baty.

Now I just need to work on the other little carp that keeps getting in the way, and edit all those beautiful, completed novels into something worth submitting. So I can start earning my millions.

PS: November's a long way away, but April is just around the corner! Have you signed up for Script Frenzy yet???

*Who used to have her own blog, but now is part of this Bizzia thing? Don't ask me, the posts arrive in my Google Reader and I don't question from where. Until I have to link to them.

**which used to be for Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress; now it'll be for Best Screenplay or Best Adapted Screenplay

Ask, and you shall receive

After writing the post this weekend looking for cold-drink travel mugs, the baseketball team at my school begins selling them on Tuesday. One of my students walks into my 2nd-period class holding a 32-oz. travel mug (for cold stuff, with a straw - okay, the straw was not included, but Sonic straws fit perfectly), shaped like large to-go cups ("tapered" at the bottom so it fits in car cup-holders), in the school's colors, all shrink-wrapped and ready to move. I was giddy.

I bought it off him right there and then, even though I think that might have been his sample mug, to show everyone else how nice they are, don't you want to buy one? And because I only had a $20 on me and he didn't have change, I bought a Dallas Cowboys one for Freddy. I'm slowly converting him to the Green Side. (Don't give me too much credit - it's not because I want to save the planet; I'm going to offer him my Script Frenzy hot-drink travel mug so I can buy this year's NaNoWriMo hot-drink travel mug.)

I even got to use the mug that very afternoon, when one of the science teachers went on a Sonic run and brought me back a cherry limeade. I didn't need to use the plastic mug, since the drink already came in a styrofoam cup (therefore defeating the green purpose), but the Sonic cup was sticky and a pretty blatant violation of the no-food-or-drink policy... at least with a HighSchool mug I'm breaking the rules while showing school spirit.

Blogosphere, I need your help on a dire, pressing matter.

Chillin' out at Panera Bread, enjoying an Asiago cheese bagel and free WiFi. About to get started on FINALLY finishing my bloody Master's dissertation.

But first, allow me to procrastinate just a bit:

I own two or three travel mugs, for hot drinks, one that I keep in the car so I have it whenever I stop at Starbucks or Borders and allow myself the indulgence of a Chai Latte, without generating more trash for our sad, abused environment (and, at the same time, promoting Script Frenzy in a hip and trend way).

However, I want an environmentally-friendly way to enjoy cold drinks (sodas and slushies). There's just something odd about filling a travel mug with Cherry Coke. I want to enjoy my Rockin' Red Raspberry slushie from QT without feeling like a louse for drinking it out of a #6 (non-recyclable in my area) plastic cup.

Yeah, QT has huge-o, 44 oz. clear plastic tanks (with a straw), but those are fugly. 7-11 has more reasonably-sized reusable cups (at least they can be reused once or twice), but those are rather fugly as well (so far they've had Hulk designs, and now football). Where can I find something cute and trendy (that fits in my car's cupholder)?

Have cold-drink travel mugs/cups disappeared from the market, or am I just blind? Please help! (Does Etsy have anything that can help my predicament? Because that would be quite rad.)

Okay, done procrastinating. Off to finish my Master's.