Life Update: May-June Edition

Usually when I am remiss in posting to this blog it's because I don't think anything interesting is happening in my life.

That is definitely not the case this time.

I haven't been writing much since I finished Grave of the Goddess so maybe that fact alone is why I haven't been keeping up with my blog. But I've also been extraordinarily busy trying to keep up with all of the crazy things suddenly going on in my life.

Just after finishing Grave, I went to stay with my BFF for a few days in Boston. (Psst, the Quilt exhibit at the MFA right now is stellar.) I drove her back to my house and our other BFF from college came up from FL with her boyfriend to visit for a long weekend. We all took a trip to see said college (and town) for a day. Oh happy nostalgia. When she had to leave, I took BFF back to Boston and then came home ready to buckle down on the job hunt before diving into editing Grave.

Yeah right. You know what they say about best laid plans and all that... I spent a WEEK trying to fix unexpected car trouble. And then I found out that my grandparents are trying to sell their house this summer. So now I'm in New Hampshire with them, my dad, and my aunt helping them arrange a gigantic yard sale and generally get ready to move.

I haven't had much time to think, let alone write. We are all also trying to rally around another relative who is struggling with depression. ....and then to top everything off, my boy just found out that he probably won't have a job in the fall.

So... yay. Life.

May Is For Pressing Onward

I pretty much already stated by Write Motivation goals for May in my last post, but I figured I'd do something a little more official. Because, you know, I can.

Writing Goals for May

1. Finish rough draft of Grave of the Goddess
2. Take an honest break from writing Grave after sending it to beta readers
3. Write enough of Holyoak Five that I can start a queue for posting episodes every week
4. After at least a week's break, start revisions of Grave

I think all of that's pretty doable. I just hope I'm done with this rough draft in less than two weeks. My five year college reunion is coming up (I know, don't even talk to me) and one of my best friends in the world is coming to visit! I haven't seen her in... jeez... more than two years? We plan to have a personal reunion with my other best friend forever who is finishing up her first year of grad school as we speak.

I'm so excited!

And all of that aside, I'm also trying to press onward with the overhaul of our yard. Since we moved into the house at the end of last summer, we didn't do much in the way of yard work other than mowing the lawn a couple of time and trimming some of the more gregarious growth on the weeping cherry tree out front. Now every chance I get I'm out there with a rake and clippers, attacking the layers of dead leaves and tangled remnants of whatever someone planted years ago. There were tenants living in this house for a couple of years and I'm pretty positive they did ZERO yard work. I keep finding the strangest bits of plastic and trash in the strangest places... I shudder to think what I'll find when it gets really warm and I attack cleaning the basement.

One more thing before I go. I recently noticed that this little blog of mine turned five about a week and a half ago. I've been pretty terrible about posting here regularly up until this year, but I thought it was interesting that I started this my last semester of college and almost all of my posts have been about writing and reading and trying like hell to mesh my everyday life with love of those activities. There are some fun things in my archives.

That's all from me for now. I'm gonna go read up on other people's goals for the month and hope there are still some crazies like me trying to finish the ends of novels.

He's in the best-selling show.

Okay.

Everyone knows I love David Bowie. And I do. Love him. I mean, he's still number one on my "celebs I'd do" list despite the age difference. It's more than just lust though. I think the man is a genius - even when he's denied it. He KNOWS music. He knows pop before it's pop. He has always had some weird prescient knowledge of what would describe a decade best during that decade.

So I naturally own nearly all of the music he's ever put out under his name. I have several books written about him. Photos of him and his wife and various cohorts over the ages take up a healthy portion of my harddrive.

(I feel the need to add that, no, I am not some addled fan who thinks The Bowie is the be-all end-all of my life. I just worship him for what he is. A brilliant pop-rock musician that figured in a great number of my formative years for figuring out my life.)

This evening, I decided to finally upload all of those wonderful albums to my laptop. (I know, how have I never done this?) In doing so, I was reminded of another great love of my life that I have not paid nearly enough attention to lately - letter-writing.

Believe me, these things are actually related.

When I was a teenager, we moved from Virginia to New York and I left behind a friend who at the time was a very good friend but who managed to become my very best friend. For whatever reason, we started writing letters to each other. Becoming closer and closer as those pieces of paper crawled up and down the east coast to each other. When I discovered David Bowie at fifteen, she was the first person I shared him with. It became a mutual infatuation and only served to strengthen our bond.

So the other thing I've been doing this evening if going through all those letters we used to send each other. And wishing with all my heart that we had never stopped writing them. (Our words petered out - not entirely but mostly - sometime while we were both in college.) And, honestly, is there anything more glorious than two teenagers pouring out their hearts to each other?

The written word has always been my choice way to communicate. (See my first relationship which was based almost entirely on IM conversations.) And letter writing is so personal. The ink and paper and waiting for the postal worker to come... It is glorious. And gloriously ignored these days. And perhaps destined to die entirely seeing as how underfunded the USPS is about to be! All I can say is, there is nothing quite like getting a letter in the mail. Try it and see. You'll make someone's day, if not week or month.

I have other things to report on, but this seems sufficient for now. I leave you with my favorite Bowie song.