2009 In Review

Alrighty, here's another recap continuing and catching up what's happened over the last year.

All through New Years Eve and the last week leading up to and following the start of the year, there has been an overflowing amount of cynicism and anger to the end of the decade. And I'd be lying if I didn't mention that I joined in with the choruses berating 2009 as being a terrible year. Then I sat down to write this blog, figuring I'd be talking about the strife of my mom's job hunt, or the exhaustingly long semesters, maybe the summer internship that was unpaid, and how I owe my dad for floating me through it with cash, maybe about how my car is sinking very slowly (the trunk wont open, the door had to get welded back on, the wheels have been replaced as well as other stuff underneath that I can't even remember), but the more I started making lists of stuff during the past year, the more and more awesome 2009 turned out to be.

Here's something for each month.

In January I got a random girl's number, and was featured in Neil Gaiman's blog about a library issues post.

In February I flew out to LA. (it was a quiet month (as far as I can remember with my blog) but that's ok). I also had a date at some point during this month (first in a long while).

In March I was in LA, and Chicago, and Kalamazoo, and East Lansing, and Ann Arbor, and just generally living the travel heavy life that I love.

In April I finished up school for the summer and moved back home.

In May I moved back home and officially became a single unemployed 23 year old living in my parent's basement (not good, not bad, but at least there's a deadline at the end).

In June I started training for the Detroit Marathon. I started my internship at the Capital Area District Library in Lansing. But the real whopper of the month was the fact that after 2 years of diligent (that should be surrounded by wacky finger quotations) work on the novel, I finished it with a whopping 117,000 words.

In July I helped protest the closing of the Michigan Department of History Arts and Libraries (MHAL) that was closed by the governor I voted for, Jennifer Granholm... I also went and saw Dave Matthews down in Indiana, and stayed at my friend's, Nate and Justine Bell's.

In August my internship (a massively successful one if I might say so myself) came to a close, and with it was published CADL's teen literary magazine. You can get an issue of it online here, but just please respect the copyright of these kids' hard work.

September honestly just sort of blurs by. It's amazing what school will do to you.

October was the other big month. I ran my first marathon in Detroit, and managed to finish with an admirable 3:55:28.

November was another all school all the time month. As was December.

So all in all it was a pretty good, and very busy year.

Now to look forward: 2010 is going to be even better. I've got graduation in April, which means moving somewhere and getting a real job. I want to be published this year. I also want to get the Rider out in the hands of publishers, and be finished with at least the first draft of a second novel. I've got the Madison Wisconsin Marathon in May, and another sometime at the end of the year. Maybe something in California, maybe the Vegas marathon. We'll see.

Marathon Training Day 8

So I'd been intending to update this sooner after the first day of marathon training, and do a sort of day to day update of "this is how much I ran," "this is how much Ihurt," "this is how far I have to go." But that clearly is not the case as it's been a week since my last update. But you know what? I have a great excuse this time! I finished the novel!

Yes, that's right, you read it here, and you read it clear. I finished writing my first novel on Sunday after a really good 6 hour session of sitting at Starbucks that resulted in about 8,000 words getting written (that's not including the 5,ooo that were added the day before at the same Starbucks). This marathon weekend of writing ended me with a completed book. The Rider (as it's being called for now) is about 117,000 words long (which is about 520 typed pages for those who need a better reference). There are still two scenes (roughly) that need to get added in, but in order to do that properly I need to rewrite about 50 pages of the book, so I figure I'll be getting on that here in the next week or so.

This is the part that I was very excited to get to. Gone (at least as far as The Rider is concerned) is the day to day "the writing was good!" or "the writing was shit...why am I even doing this?" sorts of posts. Putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard as it were, is interesting only so far. It's something that we all know how to do. And Stephen King said it best in his book, On Writing (an absolute masterwork of the craft, and a must read):

"A radio talk-show host asked me how I wrote. My reply--"one word at a time"

(King, 151)

That's all writing really comes down to. Just putting one word after another. Story on the other hand takes editing, and a story that really works takes the fine-tuning and discerning eye. Examination under a microscope. And above all else, editing takes time.

The first question I was asked when I finished the novel (other than my friend James who called shotgun in my post-published private jet, to which I told him he clearly didn't know any authors, and could gladly call basket seat in my post-published private bicycle) was when's it going to be published, now that it's done?

"It's not done," I tell them, and they look at me perplexed (especially my dad).

"I thought you said you finished it," they say.

"I did," I say. "Now begins the editing process."

"How long is that going to take?"

"I dunno," I say, "six months?"

"You're crazy," they say.

And irregardless of my sanity, it is this part of the writing process which I find more exciting than anything else. I've mounded up all the clay into a very rough, vaguely elephant-shaped statue. But really it doesn't look like an elephant yet. Now I get to work the clay, chipping away the parts I don't need. Detailing the finer points. Refining the story down until that mound of clay I've piled up looks like a damn realistic elephant. It's here where the real craft begins, and I have the feeling that it is here where I'm going to learn the most about writing.

While that's happening of course, I'm getting started on my next project(s). I'm taking a couple days to oggle stories that I've started and left unfinished. I've got a project with my friend Duke, where we're writing each other stories, and challenging each other to push a cohesive narrative forward. It's steeped in the New Weird (think China Mielville) genre, and it's a very interesting exercise in world-building, and thinking on the fly. I'm also looking at a story of which I have about 100 pages done (most of which are in serious need of a reexamination) called Bombed! I think I've talked about it here before. It's Harold and Kumar meets the Road. Superbad meets Fallout. A post-apocalyptic-stoner-buddy-roadtrip-comedy. Something far lighter than The Rider, which sounds nice after dealing with such a heavy, heavy topic as The Rider was. We'll see what piques my interest.

And on to the Marathon training for the end of this exorbitantly long post.

It's day 8 of training (see the blogpost title). My current mileage is 15 miles. They've been far more grueling than I'd thought they would be (especially the 6 miler on Saturday). I also have rediscovered the importance of hydrating (something I seem to rediscover every time I start running regularly).

Tonight was supposed to be a night off, but because I took yesterday off to finish the novel, tonight is an hour of crosstraining (walking the dog, riding my bike, punching bag, or whatever). Tomorrow is another three miler.

And on that note i need to attempt some more productivity at my internship. More to come later!