The Typos Of Death

You write a book. You polish said book. You read said book 1003 times. Then, you make your best friend, mother, the cute guy at Starbucks, your fluffy white dog, and anyone else you can find also read the book.

So, it's perfect, right? Obviously, those passes took care of every little missed word or typo. That's why we do these passes, so everything is shiny, new, and error-free.

Or so you hope. If you're like me, this is the actual series of events:

1. Write your manuscript.
2. Obsessively edit it for months and months, not even letting your little sister or best friend take a peak.
3. Edit some more.
4. Finally let people read the book! Or, pieces of the book, anyway.
5. Edit a bit more.
6. Decide to enter a prestigious contest that you've always dreamed of winning!
7. Edit the book some more.
8. Read the book out loud to yourself, just in case the ridiculous editing didn't work.
   
9. Enter the contest, smug in the knowledge that after your crazed, excessive amounts of editing your pages are perfect.
10. Send the manuscript off to an agent whom you respect & admire. An agent who you would absolutely kill to work with, as long as the person whom you did in were really, really bad. An agent who has, miraculously, shown an interest in your work and whom you are very nervous about disillusioning.
    
11. Twiddle your fingers.
12. Decide to look over the manuscript one last time.
13. Find out that you: Forgot to change the name of a Very Important Thing in Chapter One, were fooled by automatic word replacement into committing a typo (Are, instead of at? Really Word?), Forgot to change the name of Another Very Important Thing in Chapter Three.

*watch dreams of contest win go up in smoke*
*try to resist e-mailing amazing agent with slightly revised copy, w/o the errors*
*die in fiery explosion of embarrassment*


So, typos happen to everyone, right? ...Right?

Maybe This Time

[NaNoWriMo 2010: Day Three]

I haven't been completely open about my NaNo motivations for this year. You see, they're a bit tawdry. I'm not doing NaNo for the pure, starry-eyed exhilaration of writing a novel in a month. I'm doing it for the Golden Heart.

For those of you who aren't members of the Romance Writers of America, the Golden Heart is a contest - the contest, really - for unpublished writers. Details can be found here, but suffice it to say I want to enter the GH. Madly. For the last three years, Stephanie and I have attended RWA Nationals and stared with poorly disguised envy at the lovely little ribbons adorning the GH finalists' nametags. We've watched as talented writer after talented writer has received that little pendant and thanked their husbands and agents and well-behaved dogs.

Sitting in the audience of the awards ceremony feels like five year-old me watching UT basketball games all over again. I used to look at the cheerleaders on the sidelines, gorgeous and acrobatic, with a mixture of awe and anticipation. Someday, I would think with absolute certainty, I'm going to be just like them! After a few years of teenage cheerleading, that dream fizzled (about the same time I realized I was 5'8'', not 5'2'' and had more fun cheering for myself than boys), but that yearning still feels remarkably fresh when I think back on it. My yearning for a GH nomination is 50 times as strong. It's never going to go away if I don't learn how to backflip enter the damn contest!

So, I'll come right out and say it: I want to win a Golden Heart. I almost want it as much as I want to get published. I'm not doing NaNo for NaNo, I'm doing it because I've almost run out of time to get my GH entries polished. NaNo just happens to have very good timing.

In light of all this truthiness, tonight's song is another one of my personal themes. A perfectly fervent, angsty song to express this pie-in-the-sky hope. And - surprise, surprise - it's from another Broadway show! This is going to be a pattern, obviously.





[I've provided both the wonderful, original Liza Minelli version, as well as the great cover by Kristen Chenoweth and Lia Michele. Full disclosure, though? In my mind, my dear, devestatingly talented friend Rachael is always the one singing this. Too many Broadway belting car rides, perhaps?]

This Is War

[NaNoWriMo 2010: Day Two]

It's the second day of NaNoWriMo and I sincerely hope your word count is faring better than mine. After a few weeks of not writing, I'm finding it really difficult to get back into the groove.

But it's only the second day. Remember that hell or high water resolution? That's the spirit of today's soundtrack pick. Also, I just love any excuse to listen to fellow Austinite, Ben Kweller.



[As you've no doubt realized, this is not the official video for "This is War," but how could I pass up a mix of Ben Kweller AND Harry Potter? I couldn't, obviously.]

Don't Rain On My Parade

[NaNoWriMo Day One]

Happy November, everyone!

Okay, obviously what I really mean here is: HAPPY NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH, EVERYONE! Are you participating in the madness of NaNo this year?

I am. Again. Only, this time? I'm winning - come Hell, high water, or turkey-induced comas. To that effect, I have a secret weapon: a NaNo soundtrack.

Why I've never done this with NaNo is anyone's guess. For years, I've made soundtracks for everything from novels to major tests to sitting in traffic. Music is exceptionally helpful for getting inspired or letting loose emotions. Writing a book in a month calls for aid with both of those things. So, day by day, I'm picking one song that most sums up the particular joys or stresses NaNo is throwing at us.

Today's song is cheating a bit, I must admit. It's my general theme song for life - writing or otherwise. I dare you to find a more inspiring get-up-and-do-something-amazing song. 50,000 words in one month? Pretty damn amazing.

[I know it's heresy, but I do slightly prefer Lea Michele's version to Barbra's.]

Quarter Life Resolutions

I'm not a big resolution person. When the New Year comes around and everyone debates over diet plans and saving money, I'm usually in the corner eating bonbons and buying shoes. Even worse, I'm also not a fan of the resolution's younger, plainer sister - the goal. Sure, I have goals and strive to achieve them, but the writing them down, keeping track, planning them bit-by-bit part of things? Not happening.

To me, goals have always been less bullet points on a list and more the mantras that keep me moving forward. When I question what the heck made me step on that treadmill, I repeat: Mary, you want to age like Sophia Loren, not Marlon Brando. The endless hours of reworking a book's first page are suffered through with a constant refrain of: Mary, if you want to be the next J.K. Rowling, you actually have to write the damn book. This is my relationship with goals. They are the carrot to my panting, tired, let's-just-stop-right-here-please donkey. And yet...

This isn't working as well as I'd hoped. My twenty-fifth birthday rolled around last week, ushering out a whole quarter-century of my life. I'm not one of those girls who thinks life ends at 30. However, despite most assuredly not feeling old, I also don't feel terribly complete. I'm in my mid-twenties. Halfway to 50! When I was younger, I imagined that such an age would mean all manner of wonderful accomplishments: speaking five languages, working for the F.B.I., traveling to Antarctica, knowing how to spell Antarctica so that spell check does not always underline it in red. You know, important grown-up things.

Obviously, my goals have changed. (Except for the Antartica Antarctica bit. I'm still dying to take the cruise down from Chile that lets you chip ice off of a glacier.) They're the goals of an actual adult - the things that I know will help turn me into the woman I want to be. But on my birthday, I had a horrifying realization: not even these have come to fruition yet! Yes, I have some shiny accomplishments on my life report card, but there are also quite a few incompletes. So, I'm taking the plunge and making my relationship with goals a bit more serious. I'm writing the blasted things down and planning them out bit-by-bit. Oh, the horror. I refuse celebrate my 50th birthday, while still bemoaning my poor French.

So, here they are: my quarter-life resolutions.

1. Become a full-time published author.
   
2. Become fluent in French and Spanish, instead of my current conversational hodgepodge approach.
3. Master sewing - be able to design, drape, and produce an impeccably tailored wardrobe.
4. Train Remy well, so she does not become one of those horrid, ill-behaved dogs everyone hates. (Closely related to number 2, as I would like to take her to France with me, when I'm perfecting the language. They're nicer about dogs in cafes.)
5. Become a fantastic golfer. Subsequently, play St. Andrews and Torrey Pines.
   
6. Find an intelligent, interesting, adorable guy whom I love. Live happily ever after.
7. Read every book on my 100 Books I Am Ashamed To Have Not Read list.
   
8. Visit all the continents. Including Antarctica.
   

There they are - in incriminating black font, even. Tomorrow I'm figuring out a game plan on every single one of these. Anyone up for a trip to the South Pole? Or, anyone else currently making September resolutions?