Two Years, Chopped Hair, Urgent Care, SCBWI, Shelving M3 = Roller Coaster Week

Hi friends,

I have so much to catch you up on. This week has been a stressful roller coaster ride. It started off on a good note. I celebrated my 2 year anniversary with Michael by recreating our first date (it's now become a tradition of ours).

To see how it unfolded last year and how our relationship began, click here.

He surprised me greatly by getting me a guitar and I, him, with a symbolic ring he's always wanted.

I don't have a good singing voice, nor am I skilled in music, but growing up music became a part of my life. I played flute for three years, piano for two, and learned some chords on the guitar by my ex-boyfriend in high school and it stuck through college. I was never really that good though, but I enjoyed putting simple melodies together and writing lyrics, but when I moved to Seattle, I literally gave away all my belongings, including my guitar and put it in the past. So it was very thoughtful that Michael had thought to give me a piece of California, and a creative part of me back.

What a wonderful way to start the week!

But unfortunately, work has been pretty busy, and I found myself pretty stressed with all that I needed to do, not just in my work life, but personal and writing life as well. I was overwhelmed by all the stuff I had to do and the non-progress in M3. It drove me insane. Why couldn't I get this story out as I did M2? Was life really so busy and chaotic that I couldn't handle it all? Would I have to give something up?

This overwhelming feeling festered within me, and I had hoped that maybe the SCBWI conference this weekend would give me some sort of direction in my writing life. As for the work and personal, I would just have to trudge through it. So I rush ordered my business cards and put on my can-do attitude.

But my attitude about work didn't change. I'm the kind of person that likes to get my stuff done so when software issues or last minute changes come my way, it ruffles my feathers a bit. But I had planned it out and I would finish my project by Friday.

On Thursday I had a haircut scheduled during my lunch break. I was long overdue for one, and had planned to keep my length and get my split ends trimmed, but when I sat in the salon chair, that overwhelming feeling came over me again. The reflection in the mirror looked so haggard, so sloppy, so stressed. "Just chop it all off," I told my stylist, not wanting another worry, no how matter infinitesimal it was.

And so she did.

With the weight from my hair off me, I was starting to feel better. More refreshed. I could handle the three facets of my life. Surely I could. I was a new woman now!

And then that night I got sick. A severe allergy attack. I couldn't sleep all night. And come morning, I wasn't any better. I was worse. I called in sick to work. I would not finish my project. That devastated me. Like I said, I pride myself in getting my work done, especially when I made promises to meet certain deadlines. Then I broke out into a fever. I started crying. Whatever this illness was, it didn't seem likely that I would be able to make it out to dinner that night with a friend and to a writer's networking cocktail hour like I had planned. Would I even be well enough to make it to the SCBWI conference the next day?

When Michael got home from work he took me to urgent care. Turns out my severe allergy attack turned into a sinus infection. I'd never had a sinus infection before so this pain was new to me and unbearable. The doctor prescribed me a nasal spray along with some other suggested OTC drugs. I went home, followed the directions, but didn't feel any better. I tossed and turned all night, getting snippets of sleep, and improved enough that I could rally myself and go to the conference.

I'll make another lengthier post about my experience as a first time conference attendee, but long story short, it made me realize that M3 needed to be put on pause. Perhaps I was overthinking it which stunted my progress. Or maybe I had fallen out of love with it after taking too many breaks with traveling and moving. Or maybe, M3 wasn't ready to be written and wasn't fully yet realized. Maybe it's one of those stories that takes years to cook, a story that I'll come back to, adding some spice, adjusting the taste, until I get it just right.

For now, M3 will be shelved, and I'm moving onto my next idea. 

It's been a roller coaster week filled with many ups and downs, twists, and turns. I was never one for roller coasters so I'm kind of glad to be off the ride now. I think it's time to leave the amusement park and get back to the steady humdrum of life.

Have you ever had a roller coaster kind of week? Comment below!

Yours truly,

Michelle

All Time Low

With the onslaught of rain, and the darkened days, I've felt myself drift away for awhile. In it's place I felt discontent, confusion, and a lonely longing that's hard to put into words.

On the surface, I'm seen as very bubbly, polite, and quiet, but those that know me on a more personal level has seen the other side I'm not proud of: destructive and highly emotional.

I write this, not as a confession, but a remembrance to the person I don't want to be. We all have those right? A shadow, lurking at the edge of our mind that comes out when we aren't looking. No, I'm not saying I have a split personality or something like that, but rather when things get tough it's easy to be taken over by negativity. Your mind then becomes so cloudy with negativity, so unlike you, that you don't want to feel it at all. Which leads to bad decisions.

Too put it plainly, I had too much to drink, said some hurtful things, and behaved dangerously and unladylike on Halloween. I was mortified and sickened with my behavior the next day. To feel so out of control of myself made me feel so ashamed.

Luckily, I had people who cared, took care of me, and tried to reassure me that night's like the one I had inevitably happen, but the only thing you can do is move forward. Those people in my life know who they are, and I am eternally grateful for them.

But it was an all time low for me and not one that I'll likely forget or ever repeat.

So, I write this to anyone who's feeling a little blue: the feeling will pass, but hopefully you don't need to make a mess of yourself like I did to pull yourself out of it. But if you do make a mess, remember, that we're all human. We make mistakes. And all we can do is learn from them.

Writing Hiatus

So I'm drawing near the time I first started writing M2. M2 was my most serious committed project. I was committed to M1, but as I drew near the last quarter of M1 I knew it just wouldn't work out. Though I loved the story, my writing capabilities lacked the skill to push that manuscript to its full potential.

Now, I'm about halfway through M3. It has been extremely slow going and difficult to write. I have a lot of ideas about where I want M3 to go, but it's hard for me to organize my thoughts clearly. M3 is loosely inspired by my time in high school in college and the friends that have come and gone and the issues we had dealt with. Thus, M3 is more of an issues/coming-of-age story which I've come to learn is harder to write than paranormal or fantasy. At least, for me it is.

Thus I am starting to miss M2 like crazy. I love this story to pieces and I want so much to go on and write the next book and the next to M2. But I know I shouldn't. If M2 ever gets picked up (and I hope it does), there would probably be major editorial changes that may change the course of the series.

So inbetween projects and wants and desires, I've found myself in a writing hiatus. Since I haven't been getting much progress on M3, I've been journaling, binge tv watching, and reading whatever I can get my hands on.

 

Despite my distractions, I feel disociated, like I've lost something. A part of me is itching to go back to M2 and tweak some more and add some scenes, but I can't decide if it would be more damaging then helpful. Alas, I will ponder on this some more and will continue to be positive about writing.

 

This will just be a small bump in the long and windy road.

The past is just a story.

Those who know me, know that I am a very nostalgic person. I could sit for hours just delving into my past memories or read old journals and still be captivated by what happened to the young girl I used to be. But sometimes there are things I don't ever want to remember, things I want to sweep under the rug and pretend they never existed. But the thing is, they did, and I shouldn't hide from it because the past is just a story, it doesn't define me. Though it may shape the present, it has no control over me.

Truth time?

I am overly self-conscious and very insecure about myself.

In my college years it took a toll on me, mentally and physically, to the point of obsession and self-harm. It absorbed me inside and out, and dictated how I lived my life. It was torture, yet it gave me some sort of sick control. I kept it in like a secret, or rather a morbid promise to myself.

I'm not sure what fueled it. Perhaps it was rejection, the fear of being disliked, or maybe self isolation. Or a combination of everything. Every time a pair of eyes fell on me, I felt like they were judging, analyzing, and critisizing. It didn't matter if I was kind, intelligent, or passionate. The superficial eyes wouldn't see those things. They could only see the image painted and etched into my skin.

I'll admit it. I fell prey to the media's standards of beauty instead of recognizing my own inner beauty. It was only until the promise had been too much and was unsustainable that I gave up. But the failure only propelled me in a different direction of self punishment.

And this whole time, I never thought I had a problem. It seemed like nothing compared to other cases that were more dire and severe, but I was wrong. I thought that it would run its course and I could simply sweep it under the rug as life went on, but now I know I can't.

So when life started to get better, the more I buried the problem. I edited my life, cutting myself off from negativity, breaking up with the boyfriend who wanted to 'fix me',  threw away others expectations and pursued what made me happy, and peeled off the person I was trying to be and stepped into myself.

That year, the only thing I wanted more in the world was to love myself.

At the end of my junior year in college, my sister took me to Paris. I've idolized Paris since I was a child. To me the city was a fairytale come true, and the Eiffel Tower my prince charming. I am a hopeless romantic. I believe love is everything. Love for family. Love for friends. Love for others. Love for the things you do. It makes the world go round. So when I saw the Eiffel Tower, this icon of love, for the first time, I realized that I did love myself. It was just so hard to get there because I was listening to everyone else and their opinions instead of listening to myself.

Flash forward to now. Life has been great to me. But a few nights ago Michael said something so normal, so harmless, yet the choice of words triggered the problem that I buried long ago. Like a tidal wave it crashed into me. All of a sudden I burst into tears and all of the horrible emotions I once felt bombarded me as I was suddenly brought back to the young girl in college hiding the morbid promise. It was a side of me I never wanted Michael to see.

But he did. He was there for me. And he still loves me nonetheless, just as I am. Nothing more and nothing less. And I too love myself just as I am.

To this day, I am still self-conscious and insecure, but I will never let it dictate how I live my life anymore. I had buried this for a long while, but I know I can't just sweep this under the rug anymore if it can still effect me now.

I wrote this more for my benefit than for your reading pleasure, because it's time I finally own up to it and realize that the past is just a story. It may shape my future, but it certainly doesn't define my present.

On a final note, I would also like to reshare a poem I wrote in my last quarter of college, called Vanity's Downfall.