I started this thing way back in June, but then I moved, and I no longer had internet. After several long months of an internetless existence, subsisting on the internet and apps available on my Droid, the boyfriend and I finally splurged and purchased internet. It is a glorious thing indeed.
So, what did I do during that time of no distractions? I worked. I did the retail drudgery for a few months, then I hopped jobs to a bank and I've been loving it. This, however, leaves no time for writing at work. When I worked at Safeway, it was one of my bad habits. I would hide in my little booth, blasting Elvis Costello and William Control and scribble ideas on the backs of scratch paper and superfluous reports. Many great ideas and pieces came out of that! But I can no longer get away with this, not on the teller line. Oh well, such is life, I wasn't really doing it much when I was cashiering either.
I did, however, do NaNoWriMo again, with a whole new challenge! I managed to spit out my first novel in around 12 days, realizing about halfway through that said novel is not really novel material. It's really more of a short story, or a long short story, kind of idea. Oh well, at least I learned that before pouring months of my life into it. Then I did a second novel! This one I loved. I have to do all kinds of research on the Russian mafia before I go forward with it, or if I go forward with it, but I loved the story, and I loved my characters and I was just so very happy with it. I felt the same way about my Camp NaNoWriMo story, so yay! Good things are coming out of NaNo!
Oh, but! Back in August, while I was in the process of moving and crashing at my mother's place for a couple weeks, the boyfriend encouraged me to finally submit one of my stories. I wouldn't feel like a real writer until I got my first official rejection, and I needed to just suck it up and start putting some things out in the universe. I chose a story I wrote for a creative writing class a couple years back, polished it up a little more, then shot it off to a magazine with both a physical and web version. The web version doesn't pay anything, the physical version pays $5. I said I'd be game for either, since I would just be happy to see my work put in something. Well, they accepted it for the web version! Come March, I will finally have something published online! Hell to the yes. Technically this means I have a 100% success rate, but I'm pretty sure I should have a success rate of, like, 10% because I should be submitting my stories much more frequently. Whatever, Buzzkill Alex, don't spoil this special moment for me.
SO, there, I am going to try and get back to this because my registration for this school semester got messed up and I should take this opportunity to work like a motherfucker and write. Maybe I will actually finish a NaNo novel OUTSIDE of November (or the month that was set aside for writing a novel). Maybe I'll win a million dollars. Anything could happen.
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