Hey guys and gals. What month are we in? October? The END of October? I kind of dropped off for awhile there, huh? A long while, sweet jeebus. And somehow, my most favorite month has been slipping by me, too. I love October and all its scary bits and spooky goodness, and you know how many scary movies I’ve watched? One.
ONE.
Movies on television don’t count. Yeah, I watched the Tim Burton Show this past week – Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, but they hardly count. Every year I manage to indulge myself and devote at least one evening to a horror movie fest – sometimes themed – but I haven’t been able to do so this year. I know I could do this any time of the year, but guys, it’s the Halloween month! I haven’t even been to a haunted house! I KNOW!!
I have been watching my favorite show ever, which is American Horror Story, and that counts towards the horror quota, methinks. This week’s episode was SO creepy and unsettling. Not even so much for the exorcism (which was extremely well done) but for that creepy doctor. Ugh, he makes my skin crawl, and I can’t even deal with this crazy town doctor’s connection to this guy:
That’s James Cromwell! Dr. Arden is Farmer Hoggett from Babe! What happened to you?! There is something not right about watching Farmer Hoggett terrorize a prostitute and perform experiments on mental patients. Something has gone awry. Did you lose the farm? At what point did you decide to forego sheepherding for medical school and total insanity with zero accountability? You make me very nervous, sir.
I must say, though, the beauty among the dismal hopelessness and despair of this season is Zachary Quinto wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He was made to wear glasses like these.
Bless you for being so handsome, Mr. Quinto. And possessing the smoothest and most soothing voice I’ve ever heard.
Back on track. If there ever was a track. This post derailed before it even started. I’ve been so out of it, y’all. Want to hear how this month (few months) got out of control? Well if you don’t, I don’t care, I’m telling you anyways. School started. I’m finishing up the last little bit of electives I need in order to transfer to a university in the spring, to start the upper level courses for my English degree (!). The biggest change out of that is, due to class work taking over my life, I had to step down from my duties as administrative assistant for the publishing company. I was really sad to have to do that, but I just couldn’t devote the time to helping the authors like I used to. I felt like I was doing them a disservice by trying when I really didn’t have the time, and I was afraid stretching myself so thin would mean I’d be giving two poor performances, so I had to let go of one. Finishing my degree is really important to me, so it’s taking precedence at the moment. So, sad thing, but necessary for the time being. I still, however, do a little manuscript critiquing for Weaving Dreams, which is a lot less demanding and still very fun.
Between my regular full time job and classes, I’ve also been finishing the last big edits for a completed novel, the project I have with coauthor. Those three things have taken over my life completely, and I don’t quite know how sane I am at this point. Let’s go with not at all. That feels accurate.
I’ve also been sick for about two weeks, and let me tell you how fun THAT’S been. I finally went to the doctor a few days ago, since my symptoms started pointing to a sinus infection. I had this one alarming development where my teeth started to hurt – like the nerves were fraying, and every time I would descend steps or even eat, this curious ache would grip my upper teeth, like they were loose and one bite of something hard would just knock my teeth right out of my skull. The only reason this freaked me out was because Huffington Post put up an article this month about these archeologists that found the skull of a young man from Egypt around two thousand years ago who DIED from a sinus infection. His teeth were jacked up, you guys – gnarly and rotted, littered with abscesses and cavities, and all the scientists could talk about was how much PAIN that poor guy had to have been in, and how finding him gave them insight into how dentists of the time may have tried to treat patients like him. Naturally, I read this article days before I got sick. So whenever I’d do something to make my teeth really hurt, and then my face would be hurting and I’d have a horrible sinus headache, my brain would immediately flash an image of that guy’s teeth to remind me that PEOPLE DIE OF SINUS INFECTIONS, IT’S BEEN TEN DAYS GO TO THE DOCTOR. YOU DON’T WANT TO BE THIS GUY.
I had terrible visions of waking up one morning with THOSE TEETH, all because I didn’t go to the doctor to treat the sinus infection. Yes, I’m this melodramatic every time I’m sick. I’m a total wimp. And that article was poorly timed.
SO. Now that I’m feeling better, I’m going to make a conscious effort to update periodically, get back to talking about writing. There’s also one eensy weensy little thing happening next month, starting next week, that’ll keep me on my toes which I’ll be posting about.
It’s almost NaNoWrimo time!!!
For those who don’t know, NaNoWrimo is National Novel Writing Month. For the entire month of November, authors are challenged to write 50,000 words and attempt to complete a novel, or at least get a good chunk of it written. The goal of Nano is to write continuously, without editing yourself, and to get in the habit of writing consistently for a stretch of time every day. Setting a writing goal for yourself and sticking to it is the name of the game, and if you reach 50,000 by November 30th, there’s some pretty sweet prizes and deals. Yes, I am attempting something that will probably boost my stress level up like whoa, but I am determined to make this a fun project for the month of November, in between homework and that pesky job. So throughout November, expect a lot of rambling, all over the place posts (kinda like this one) about writing, being sick of writing, occasional manic bursts of euphoria when I’m having a good spell, and all kinds of nonsense. Enjoy that.
All right, kids! I need to sign off to write a paper about Charlemagne, do some editing, and keep prepping the outline for Nano next week. It’s good to be back!
Miskadoodle Writes 
Hello Melissa. I some how stumbled across your blog while I was trying to see if a press release was out for my children’s book, A Coyote Who Wished He Lived In A Zoo. Brookfield zoo popped up and led me to your blog about the day we went to see if we could schedule a book launch there for my book.
We miss you at WDP. We had a author fest at Naperville library. It was nice. Sure wish you were still with us. You had some great ideas.
I have my first author visit to a school next week. Very exciting. 🙂
Take care.
Anna
Hi, Anna! Nice to hear from you! I miss everyone, too – I wish my schedule permitted me to continue to do work for Weaving Dreams in the capacity that I used to, but I’m afraid it just hasn’t been feasible with the start of my classes. I absolutely cherish the time I was able to be involved, learn, and interact with amazing authors like you. My work schedule has been hectic, too, which factored into missing the author fest. I’m so pleased I had the opportunity to work with you for a bit, as well as other WDP authors, and I’ll be closely following your careers as you keep publishing. And yay for your author visit!! That’ll be such a good time, congratulations.
Take care, Anna, and keep writing and illustrating amazing picture books! I love your illustrations like no other 🙂
Thanks Melissa. Good luck with your career and classes.
Anna