Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Ch-ch-ch-changes


So for the past couple of weeks I've been planning on writing some kind of introspective post about all the changes that are about to happen in my life: how I was feeling about moving back home and finishing school and leaving my job and friends and the city I've come to love and then...well, then I looked at my calendar and realized it's already JUNE! When did that happen?

All those changes aren't about to happen, they ARE happening. Two weeks and I'll be moving back to Denver, after four years away. Six more days of work and I'll walk out of this office building for the last time. Three more classes and I'll be done with grad school. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was moving to Chicago, sharing a studio for a month with a friend I'd known forever before finding our own place, sending out school applications and job applications and learning how to ride the el. But it's been two and a half years. A lot has changed.

My cousin was six months old when I first moved here and now she's about to turn three and has a little sister--and I've gotten to see them both grow up. I have a new roommate but she's still someone I've known most my life and we're back to living in a tiny studio as she waits for me to move out. I've fallen in love with writing, with creating stories that hopefully someday someone else will love too. I've written a book.

I don't know what I'll be doing in a month or six (besides revisions, those are a sure thing) but I'm far less worried about it than I should be.

I'm leaving friends and family in Chicago to be closer to friends and family in Denver; I'll still be writing, I'll still be learning, and eventually (hopefully) I'll be working. That's the gist of it. So maybe things aren't changing that much after all--I just get new scenery.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Speed writing (or not)

We all move at our own speed.

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty fast walker--I walk with purpose and I’m endlessly irritated by the people in the city who take up the whole sidewalk then walk like snails--but lately I’ve been having doubts.

There’s a guy who works in my building who happens to also take the same trains as me to and from work every day. In the morning we leave the train stop at the same time and walk the same three blocks to the office. But somehow he always gets there a half block ahead of me. Same thing at the end of the day: we leave at the same time—holding the front door open for each other on our way out—and yet he gets to the train platform first. Most sane people wouldn’t even notice this.

So, of course, it Drives Me Crazy! And yes, I have spent way too much time trying to figure it out.

Does he have longer legs? Nope, I’m tall too. Is he some weirdo speed walker? Nope, I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve tried to take steps in time with his (from a ways back so he doesn’t actually see that I’m a crazy person, duh), and STILL he pulls further and further ahead of me. So either I’ve been completely delusional about my fast-walker status for my entire life, or this guy has trolls in his shoes that make it look like he’s walking on his own personal moving sidewalk everywhere he goes.

I’m hesitant to label myself delusional…so I’m going with the shoe trolls.

All of this is silly and pointless really, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately as I get closer and closer to finishing my first draft. (One.More.Chapter.Ahhh!) It’s been just about a year since I started and though I have my share of excuses for why it took this long* the Me in my head keeps saying, “A year?! That’s a long freakin’ time! What kind of writer could you possibly be if it takes you That Long to finish a crappy first draft. A year is an eternity.”**

And yet, is it?

I’ve learned a lot from this draft. I know it’s far from finished***, but I also know that my next first draft won’t take as long. I know that, though the draft is crappy now, I can make it better. I’m trying to convince myself that my speed is okay and necessary and none of anybody’s business.

So, I’m trying to just breathe and ride out the end of this draft with happy thoughts, because I know a new challenge is waiting in the next round. It’s okay that the guy with shoe trolls gets to the train before I do, because I still always make it in time.

Plus, there’s the woman from two cubes over who asked me earlier this week how I got to the train so gosh-darn fast. At least I’ve got her beat.

*Work, school, family drama, and lately the whole packing-and-getting-ready-to-move-to-a-new-city thing.
**The Me in my head can be really mean. (So I kick her, sir!)
***Oh the revisions, they LOOM!