Plans and Maybe some Yoga.

Oh dear blog. I have been driving myself nuts lately contemplating the future. Or rather: THE FUTURE!

And I don’t just mean hover boards and meal pills that taste like an entire Thanksgiving dinner. No. I mean my own future (sadly I do not see myself owning a hover board any time soon).

As you well know, I am a failure at life and school, as I was recently rejected from some of the best writing programs in the country. This has left me wondering what I am going to do with myself when I graduate in May. Thus far I have come up with the brief outlines of a plan. I will discuss this plan with you now.

First! I will keep writing. I have been writing my whole life and almost none of it was for school. I am going to get back to a place where I write for the joy of doing it.

So that being said, here is what I am going to do:

I have a play to finish. It is a cute and charming play and I like it very much and have not gone near it in ages because I have been in short-fiction mode since I went back to school. And believe it or not, the LA theatre scene can be broken into.

I have a half-written screenplay to finish. It is kind of about Jesus and it is also kind of funny and I think I can finish it really fast if I can dedicate a couple of weeks to it. Also, I need to have a script in the hopper because the final edit of 'Strange Angel' is almost done. We hope to finally sent it out to the festivals!

Also, I have a 130,000 word novel that really needs some editing and some tender loving care. I think that if I can get it cleaned up then I can send it out to agents.

Also, I have a half-written novel that I adore but just haven’t had the time to go back to because it is kind of complicated to write. It is basically a love story and I think that I have kept them apart for too long!

Also, I have enough short work to put a collection together, so I’m contemplating going to a print-on-demand publisher and trying to self-promote. I know, that doesn’t sound dignified, but everybody seems to be saying that it’s the way publishing is going to work now. I’m tempted to try it out, if only because it’s an area where nothing is set in stone yet, there is no clear path. It’s all “new media” wild west. I find that intriguing.

Also, I have a bunch of short work laying around and I haven’t really been submitting it out to the world, so I need to get myself a new Writer’s Market book and get my work out there.

But before I get to any of that, I think that I need to re-train myself as a writer. Not a student of writing. I think that as soon as I’m done with this semester I’m going to start work on ONE PROJECT. Just one! I think that I’m going to work on a short novel. Something that will let me purge all of this pretentious writerly crap I have been learning the last two years. I need a project that I can write on every day. Something that lets me stretch the way that writing for workshops can’t. I need to get in the habit of sitting in front of a keyboard everyday.

Oh! That also means that I will be writing to you more, my dear blog. So get ready for more of my life (such as it is). I have not really been a life-blogger up to this point, but what the hell. I have to start doing more then posting links, right?
And that’s just the writing.

There actually is real life stuff to figure out too. Violet and I are contemplating moving to a different part of LA when our lease is up in a few months. We live in Santa Clarita (which isn’t really even LA) and it is nice and easy in a yuppie suburb kind of way, but we are thinking that we can get a cheaper rent if we move south, out of this Starbucks Stepford. And I really do want to live in a place. I would love to be able to walk to dinner or to the grocery store. I would love to be able to walk to the corner and buy a paper. I don’t know if that is practical, but there are some places in LA where it is possible. So who knows, this may turn out to be an interesting year.

No matter what happens I think that I will apply to grad school again in the Fall. I need to put together a different kind of list this time. I need to worry less about the funding (it hurts me just to type that) and more about what will be best for me. I need to worry less about reputation and more about aesthetic.

In other news, I am considering taking up yoga. Yes, yoga. I’ve been on overdrive for three years (working and getting myself educated). I was thinking about the numbers the other day and I average about 36 hours of work a week (that includes my time on the weekends), 12 hours in class each week, 8 hours driving (about 45 minutes each way for school) and (on a good week) about 6 – 10 hours of school work at home. So I think that maybe some yoga would help me down-shift. And maybe I will even be able to detox off these god damn energy drinks.

So dear blog, those are my plans, as far as I have been able to conceive of them so far. It is possible that I’m loading myself up with a lot of expectations because I’m terrified of the possibility of stillness, but hey maybe I should get a therapist. I will add that to the list!

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