From Sarah, With Joy

*Poet * Author * Wanderluster*

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Stuff I Do While I Wait to Hear Back From Graduate Schools

I look at this. I try and fail and try and keep trying to flesh out a new outline for Novel #2.

I watch this:
And this:
I eat cereal and watch Chopped with mom and think about pirates and the Iditarod and check out the website for the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico and text my friends in Utah and Arizona and Thailand (Well, with her its usually online chat). I work and stress about money, but not too much. I check my email AGAIN to see if any more agents have gotten back to me. I think about short story collections and screenplays and songs I want to write and ideas for projects on Tumblr and YouTube that may have to wait until I am even less stressed about money but are still fun to think about. I think about walking to the library but then decide its too cold. I eat the chocolate covered raisins my mom always buys from Costco DANG HER.

I read Jeffery Eugenides with the same mixture of awe and wonder and jealousy and disgust that I feel towards many writers working in literary fiction (Though with Eugenides its heavy on the awe and wonder and jealousy and a little lighter on the disgust.)

I think about what to blog about and my fun Tumblr and short story ideas and then think I should be focusing much more on getting this next novel going and so I go back to that and try and fail and try again and...

Back to my outline.

Sarah Allen

9 comments:

  1. Ahhh the art of distraction. You have it down. Send me some of those chocolate covered raisins so you don't feel so guilty. I am your online friend; let me share this burden. Hang in there!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Waiting can be so frustrating. You want to stay productive while you wait, but at the same time, you're just so eager to get your life started!
    the-creationofbeauty.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm really perfecting the art of distraction and procrastination, now that I'm in college :D

    I had Chopped on for like four hours last night while I "wrote" my paper.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just write. I don't worry about outlining anything at first. I jsut write and wait to see how I'm going to connect the dots.

    Good luck.

    Hugs and chocolate,
    Shelly

    ReplyDelete
  5. hey, I just found your blog through facebook and I have a policy of letting people know when I blog stalk them, so hi! From now on I will be blog stalking you. You know me in real life from long ago British Lit 20something w/seigfried and possibly other English classes? I'm an aspiring writer as well, though I feel ridiculous saying that since my efforts as of late in that area have consisted of much more dreaming than action. But there you go, I want to be a writer. I'm impressed with your dedication in following that dream! and now I've written a far too long comment. how embarrassing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Such a frustrating game, waiting. But you do have it down very well. :-) And I LOVE your character ideas Pinterest page, Sare!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I just attended a writers forum and one published author (of over 10 best selling books) said she has a huge file of rejection letters and that Shannon Hale has laminated her letters into a big roll and when she speaks she throws the roll out so it unrolls all the way down the aisle. Their top advice was 1- patience 2- keep writing 3- learn to love and embrace criticism because it will help you improve 4- get a thick skin and 5- read a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  8. All awesome stuff.

    ALL of it.

    Waiting is a KILLER - no matter what you're waiting on...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ah, sweetie... I'm right there with you :) In my case I'm procrastinating on the final phases of editing that first novel. *Sigh*

    ReplyDelete

I absolutely love hearing from you! Thank you so, so much for your thoughts and comments, they really do make my day. Consider yourself awesome. Also, I do my best to respond to every comment within 24 hours, so I invite you to come back and continue the conversation :)

To have weekly posts delivered to your inbox, just sign up here!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...