Presents! Many presents! All for me! My Secret Santa gift arrived on Christmas Eve! Best timing ever! And it was filled with ALL KINDS OF THINGS FOR ME. Soap! And red licorice (my favourite!) and key rings, and toys for the cats (because also ALL KIND OF THINGS FOR THE KITTIES) and chocolates and other things, but best of all, caramel squares and TWO KINDS OF FUDGE. And while I have to say that the caramel squares and the mint fudhe were good, like ridiculously good, the amaretto fudge mad me have a little party in my pants.
So thank you so so much Secret Santa Nicole for the many things! We actually cracked out the fudge and caramel squares while we decorated the tree on Christmas Eve and 'twas altogether very Christmassy. And thank you again for all the thought and effort that went into my gift, it was so very much appreciated.
And to my own Santee, apologies as though I thought I could send it before Christmas, and spend slightly less on the postage by sending it while I'm in the States, my own cheapness got the better of me and I grabbed the wrong bag of stuff to bring over, so your gift is sitting in Ireland right now, just waiting to fulfil its Christmas destiny, which hopefully will happen early in the new year.
Oh yes. Beatrice is arguably the best female role Shakespeare ever wrote, and i'd love to play her, too.
I think Beatrice is the best on the page, but I can't recall seeing any performances that I liked better than Olivia de Havilland's Hermia. It took me years to forgive Callista Flockhart for sullying the poppet speech with her completely unthreatening reading. (Wheras de Havilland's was a thing of beauty, and brilliantly complemented by all the other actors in that scene looking more and more worried and stepping backwards as she got her rant on...)
Last night I enjoyed Christmas dinner with the folks (Mom's ham was SO good!) and cleaned up with a fluffy bathrobe and the Pushing Daisies DVD. Tonight, for Boxing Day/Kwanzaa, I go to celebrate Christmas with the Jewish branch of my family.
2008 was a mixed bag for me. I made some real progress, I took more risks, and made an effort to go on dates and go out more often. Yet still, real change eludes me. At the end of 2008 I find myself in the same position I was in at the beginning. I am still prone to panic attacks, and I still have moments of crippling low self-esteem.
It has become more and more clear to me that real change can't happen until I deal with the problems from my childhood. I need to dredge up all the memories and repressed emotions I have towards my father and mother so that I can move on. This realization in itself is a sign of progress, but I still at times feel overwhelmed by the work that needs to be done. As always, I am grateful for the Buffistas for their ongoing support, and for showing that a better life for me is possible.
Oh, and I met a cute woman the other night who gave me her email address. Wish me luck.
Tom, good luck to you - I think it's so indicative of all the hard work you've done that you are in a place where you can even consider these very difficult next steps.
Wish me luck.
I hope she gets lucky with you!
That's the same thing, right?
Ya know, I have to admit that I'd been working so hard to figure out what to get my giftee that I kinda forgot that I'd be on the receiving end too.
Ha! I totally understand this.
Presents! Many presents! All for me!
Awww. Yay! I'm glad the box arrived safely, Jars, and that the items were enjoyed.
Tom, so much ~ma to you. Knowing what you have to conquer is half the battle, yes? I wish you all the best.
Yet still, real change eludes me.
This realization in itself is a sign of progress,
Tom, I think that even as recently as a year ago, you wouldn't have been able to articulate your realization about the hard work ahead of you. And the fact that you're able to do so NOW is, in fact, real change.
Don't sell yourself short. I'm proud of you and amazed at your tenacity, and you should be, too.
And -- cute woman, yay!!!
Well, I think Scola is cute, too. He should get a cute woman, if he wants.
Still trying to come up with something to say re '08.
Well, it's the last weekend of 08, so I'll go ahead and do my goodbye and good riddance.
It's been a year of extremes for me. Both in terms of the roller coaster ride and the fact that one aspect of my life is really, really good and I have to do my best to keep that in perspective as the other aspect completely falls to shit.
Professionally, I started 08 with a book I was really proud of that had a release date of summer 09. I had high hopes that I'd sell an adult manuscript this year, since I'd garnered some attention within adult circles with my young adult novels.
However, the reality was that I got caught in a massive web of miscommunication that came from having an extremely baby editor. An agent who wasn't assertive enough for me to get the answers I needed on several fronts, including communications with other editors with whom there might have been some hope for the adult manuscripts. And then communication with her fell through as well, with her putting me off whenever I tried to ask about different tactics or approaches. And when I tried to ask about my adult manuscripts, she kept putting me off with "Well, after we sell your next YA, which gave me the uncomfortable feeling that she a) was slotting me in her mind as her designated YA author and/or b) thought there was little to no hope for me to sell an adult manuscript any time in the near future.
Given that I literally couldn't sell a young adult manuscript until after the one in progress was accepted by the publisher, the fact that she kept putting me off on the adult work with that excuse felt like a brush off of the worst sort and began chipping away at my confidence. After she refused to submit or even look at a romance partial I was working on, claiming that she'd want me to write the whole manuscript before she'd submit it, that kind of put the nail in the coffin.
By May, I was sans agent (after a bitter breakup where she told me that editors were saying I was difficult to work with-- utter bullshit, but still hurtful) and beginning that search again, taking more hits to my confidence as I received a lot of "you're a wonderful writer, but..." rejections. By July, I signed with Agent Kate, who's wonderful, but the other shoe was about to drop. After sixteen months, four revisions, and many "I LOVE it" emails from my baby editor and her immediate supervising editor, the publisher decided that the manuscript wasn't to her satisfaction and they were pushing me off the summer 09 schedule. At this point, it was going to go from 23 months between releases (a lifetime in publishing unless you're Stephen King) to who knows how long. However, both Agent Kate and I suspected there was more to it than that and that they were merely buying time.
By September, they'd canceled my contract outright and for the most part, I'd gone since May without writing.
I began 08 as a published, award-winning author and I end it essentially unpublished, having to start over in a market that's tighter and if not more discriminating, more cautious, than ever before. My young adult novels will count for very little since so much time has elapsed and in terms of adult fiction, I blur so many lines, it's going to take nothing short of an act of some deity (or plural) to make it happen. Because in publishing, talent counts for squat. My confidence is shot, I'm not sure I should even think about publishing in the immediate sense.
However-- all that said. Personally, my life is as good as I could hope it to be. I have, in my husband, the best person. He's supportive, he's funny, he does his best to keep me grounded, yet at the same time allows me the time and space to rage at the heavens. He understands (after a few years of, "publishing can't possibly that stupid") that publishing really IS that stupid. If I quit publishing tomorrow, he'd support me, but if I tried to quit writing, he'd just laugh. He understands I can't quit that.
I've got two kids who are incredibly bright, funny, independent, and miraculously, are still actual (continued...)
