Milestones and Setback for 2013, Goals for 2014

Here's a really fun experiment. 

This was my post last year, Milestones and Setbacks for 2012, Goals for 2013 

All I can think of it wow. Wow wow. The places I am now, the places I thought I would be...looking back on the year and figuring out what you could have done better, different, and what you want to never changed. It's a strange feeling, like the room is spinning even though you're standing still. 

I thought I would make a comment on my goals for this year and see what happened. I'm not going to say failed, because that's just too negative and I put enough stress on myself as it is. 

My goals for this year, and how I stacked up:

*Finish writing Zombie Road Trip before the end of January 

I did it! By the skin of my teeth, but I finished sometime around the second week of January *is too lazy to look up the exact date*
 
*Edit the pants off Zombie Road Trip
 
This sort of happened. I edited the crap out Zombie Road Trip. And then some more. And it's still off and wrong, and I can't figure out what direction to take the book it. It's just so personal and hard to read that I wind up needing long breaks away to get the distance I need to be able to actually edit it. Which sounds like bullshit, but it's the truth I am having a hard time admitting to.
 
*Query Zombie Road Trip

This so did not happen, and I need another good edit before it's ready for the betas. So yeah. 
 
*Get website attached to blog soon
 
I didn't do that, but I did revamp my blog and add the pages I wanted. It's not nearly what I wanted it to be, but in the midst of moving and packing, something had to slide.
 
*Do more active things with blog--contests, give aways, guest posts etc
 
See above.
 
*Learn how to manage time better for everything--writing, life, friends and family
 
This actually happened. I manged to get into a routinue of when to do the dishes, to sweep and mop, to write and spend time with my husband. It's not perfect, and it falls apart when something happens, but it's there.
 
*Exercise regularly
 
Not quite as regular as I want, but for awhile before we moved I was doing a really good job of going out for a walk after dinner with the kid, and stretching in the morning. It's harder to do here, since we're inside an apartment complex, not a neighborhood, but there's places for it and I need to make the effort.
 
*Attend James Scott Bell's Next Level fiction writing seminar
 
Didn't happened; no money for it.
 
*Attend RWA that's being held in Atlanta next year (2013)
 
Also didn't happen.
 
*Attend Dragon*Con and spend lots of time with Rena. 
 
Happened and it was so much fun!
 
*Make more time for reading
 
Done! I am reading like a mofo! Go me!
 
*Attend cousin's wedding in hometown of upstate New York
 
I went with Connor and my family. It was...surreal returning to my childhood home I'd hadn't seen in over a decade. I had a lot of fun. 
 
*Plan meals better, and experiment more

Dinner is also happening, and I feel more in control. Not that I wasn't cooking before, but I only knew how to make a handful of meals that turned out well. Out of desperation and boredom, I'm trying recipes and making things yummy. I cooked Thanksgiving by myself this year after all!
 
*Maybe start a bento blog? Or post on here about bento adventures?
 
Not happening in the near future. Just, no.
 
*Finish ripping giant collection of cds into iTunes and finish music library once and for all

I also made some progress on this, hoping to not have to pack the hundreds of jewel cases I have, and made half way progress before we moved. So I compromised, and bought a giant CD holder where my CDs now live.

Okay so. That was last year.

Milestones, Events, Accomplishments:

*Moved to Puerto Rico
*Finished rewriting Zombie Road Trip 
*Kept self and family alive (this counts! Don't laugh!)
*Read a lot of books this year
*Went to several author events 
*Went to Dragon Con and it was AMAZING!
*Wrote 50K and 20K on two different manuscripts only to have my hard drive wipe and cut that in half.

Set Backs:

*Moved to Puerto Rico. Don't get me wrong, it's gorgeous here. But it was so not part of our five year plan. Sold my car, traded in my husband's Jeep and wound up having to get a more expensive one, sold most of our big furniture. Moved to a new country and had to start over with a lot of things we already had taken care of.
*Realized Zombie Road Trip still needs lots of edits. *weeps quietly*
*Hard drive wiped itself and took the knees out of both of my rough drafts. Much pitying and weeping and gnashing of the teeth happened.

Goals:

*FINISH UNPACKING THE HOUSE OH GOD THE BOXES
*Self publish a novella. Details to come
*Really seriously get this closer to what I want out of website. It's coming. I've got things in the works.
*Edit! Edit! Edit! Lots of editing in my future!
*Query. I'm thinking about revising Ghosts Between Us before tackling ZRT again, so we're leaving this open ended. 
*Finish the two rough drafts I have started.

I feel like this list should be a lot longer, but I'm drawing blanks here. This is a good at-a-glance in any case. It's not like I don't have several major projects on the to-do list here.

So what are your plans? Any goals? Do you make lists like these, or do you prefer to live in bliss?
 

Our Stuff Came

Our stuff came on Saturday at ten o'clock. I am so very happy to finally have our stuff. 

Some of the boxes are nearly broken, but mostly everything is okay. And it's here, thank goodness. I've been unpacking like a fiend, put up the Christmas tree, and doing ungodly amounts of laundry.

We're all done Christmas shopping and the presents are mostly wrapped. So progress is being made.

What about you? How are your holidays shaping up?

So Very Angry

http://www.troll.me

Right now, I am so angry I could set something on fire. 

Rather than commit a felony, I'm going to blog instead.

Most of you know my husband, toddler, and I moved to Puerto Rico at the end of September, beginning of October (my husband went first, hence the range of dates). We decided that it was worth the cost of shipping some of the big stuff across the ocean to Puerto Rico rather than buy all new stuff. So we decided to ship our bed, mattress, my son's crib and dresser, the kitchen table. My son's toys. You know, the big, important stuff.

We hired a well reviewed moving company to do this, but it's been nothing but a nightmare since. 

The first came when they called to resheduled the moving date. I had very carefully planned on when we would move our stuff out, and stay with my in laws so I could get the last bit of business taken care of. The walk through for the house we rented. Shutting off utilities. Stuff like that.

The movers called the day they were supposed to come and get our stuff--ie, EVERYTHING in the house was packed--to reschedule to Monday.  

Skip ahead to six weeks later, when they said our stuff should arrive. I called and they it's still not here, check back in two weeks. 

This is the pattern of the next two months. I call every two weeks, and am told to call back in two weeks.  They blow past their eight week maximum time stated, and move into three months. 

The week before Thanksgiving, we get told our stuff is caught in customs. So we call customs, with our lot number, to find out what the hell. Customs has no idea what we're talking about--they don't deal with household goods. We raise cane, talk to two different managers who say two different things.  One office tells us the cargo isn't even in Puerto Rico. The other office says the boat is sailing and it will be there in two weeks.  He assures us it will be there in two weeks.

So we wait. I called them last week and they said someone will call us on Tuesday or Wednesday to schedule a delivery date. 

Guess what? Yesterday was Wednesday and no one called. I called them, and once again, the manager in Puerto Rico says it's not here, and the office in Florida tells us that they will call us on Friday or Monday for a delivery date. I'm currently waiting on the manager to call me back. 

And I'm livid. I am so angry I am spitting angry hornets, who are also spitting angry hornets.

And the worst part, aside from them CONSTANTLY lying to us about where our stuff is and when it will get there, is the anger. I was nice and polite and understanding and that did nothing.

Nothing. Just more lies.

I get angry and tell them this is unacceptable and I need to talk to a manager, and suddenly we're getting answers. Still the run around apparently, but they're making an effort to call us back and appease us.

Why?

I just don't get it. Why? Why is it only when I get angry and yell when things get done? I hate yelling. I know most people are just trying to do their job, and it's not their fault. But when it is their fault? When they are just lazy or incompetent, and don't give a crap about your or what you need? They won't lift a finger until you show them you're not a push-over and that only happens when you become the "angry customer". You can hear the sigh and annoyance in their voice.

How simple would it be, just to, I don't know, do their job? 

I had the same thing happen to me when we were renting apartments and our air conditioner broke. My son was four months old, and this was the heat of Georgia and it was 85 degrees in our apartment at night. We tried to get them to fix it, but for three weeks they did nothing. It wasn't until we were in the front office, in their face and angry, did they bother to fix it. 

I say again, WHY?

This makes no sense and just makes me angrier because I don't like being the angry customer. I hate it when I'm forced to be rude and mean to get something to happen, and then I'm the asshole. I'm the jerky, bitchy customer just ruining people's day. 

They lie and jerk me around, and I'm supposed to be okay with that. I'm supposed to be okay that they've had our stuff a whole month longer than their maximum time stated, a month and a half longer than they said it would take, and have to sleep on an air mattress with a hole it in and type on a lap top that's on it's way out, and have no TV, or DVDs, or any of my books, or my cookware, or kitchen table, or any of my son's toys, and I'm supposed to just accept it when they put me off two weeks at a time. 

I'm not supposed to get upset and angry and want to talk to people who know what the hell is going on. I'm supposed to smile while they screw me over.

Because the minute I yell? The minute I tell them I want my stuff and I want it now, and I've been more than understanding, I'm the jerk. 

And I just don't get it. I really don't. I don't like people who go right to angry in stores. You know the ones. They ring you up twice for something at the check out, and this person goes straight to screaming and yelling. You watch in horror, thinking "What a crazy person!". 

But I'm starting to think there would be a lot less crazy people in the world if people would just do their jobs. If they just did what they were supposed to, to the best of their ability, the first time. Without needing the extra incentive of Angry Customer. 

Back Up Your Stuff--Right Now!

Yesterday I suffered a devastating loss.

I've been using my lap top's hard drive to save my work because my desk top is on the boat with the rest of our stuff (still not here) and the casing on my external hard drive has popped open, and I was worried it would stop working. 

But when I booted up the lap top yesterday, the computer had reset itself to it's settings from almost two years ago. I knew it right away when I saw the wallpaper I was using at the time. I've run scans and rebooted it in hopes that all of my hard work would come back, but I don't think that's going to happen.

Luckily, I saved my work on my husband's computer about two weeks ago, so I'm only a little behind. And by a little, I mean I lost 20K words on both of the manuscripts I've been working on. Not to mention the notes, the brainstorming, the novels I've been critiquing. It's all gone. 

I'm getting a new external hard drive for Christmas, and I'm looking into a Carbonite subscription. If not for Christmas, then definitely after. I cannot think of how much worse I would feel if I lost EVERYTHING instead of just two weeks worth of stuff. 

There's also services like DropBox and the iCloud, depending on what you want to pay (or not) and how much space you need. I want more space because I have family photos to save in addition to writing. 

The point is, you need to save your stuff. Right now. If you're broke, sign up for DropBox and use the free space for the most important stuff. Email yourself your manuscripts. Print everything out and put them in a safe deposit box. Make sure that if God forbid, your computer gets stolen by a pack of rabid chimps, sets itself on fire, or disappears into an alternate universe, you don't lose everything.

I've lost work before. When I was in high school and we were still using floppy disks (the hard kind, not the actual floppy ones) I lost some disks of poetry and stories. It was just gone. No idea where it is. It always feels like a sucker punch to the gut, like something deep and important is gone and there's nothing you can do but mourn. 

There's a lot of so called negatives to living in the computer era we do. We're growing up with completely different experiences than our parents and parent's parents. One of the best things, though, is the ability to inexpensively store information. So take advantage of that, and make sure your work is safe.

If anyone needs me in the meantime, I'm going to be laying on the couch eating chocolate for breakfast.

The Winner is...!

Me!

And you, for supporting me. With your pageviews and comments, and allowing me to quack into the void that is the Internet.

As I do every year, I'm going to keep writing until this draft is DONE. DONE DONE DONE.

I feel a little bit like a failure because I only won by the skin on my teeth. My final word count was 50,005. I know that's still winning, but my greedy brain was used to almost having an entire full length novel finished by now. Such is life and the things that happen to your word count when you move and your new apartment floods and you have to cook Thanksgiving by yourself so you spend two whole days in the kitchen. 

In other news, my husband and I lost our minds temporarily and went shopping on Black Friday. Yeah, I know. I know. It was CRAZY. We did get some awesome deals and some Christmas shopping for the kiddo done, so it was not all in vain.  Amazon has a lot of books on sale and it's really tempting just to go in an click "BUY" on all the books. Because books. I'll restrain myself, but only just barely. 

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you venture forth on Black Friday or did you stay home like a sane person?

Happy Thankgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for all my blog followers this year, for sticking through moving and babies and all kinds of life stuff. You guys are seriously awesome. *wipes a tear*

I'm going to be wrist deep in turkey for the rest of the day (don't ask), so I'll leave this post short and sweet. 

Enjoy your holidays and we'll talk next week!

*kisses*

*eats some pie for breakfast*

*stick hand inside turkey*
 

Hooray for the Internet! Also, NaNo Updates.

Gather round children, as I tell you a tale of woe.

The house we were renting blew up. Not literally, but figuratively. The hot water heater stopped working and the circuit breaker was so old the electrician couldn't find replacement fuses in the three weeks between it stopping and us moving out. The dishwasher was broken before we moved in, so hand washing dishes in cold water was fun, let me tell you.

The fridge stopped working, the electricity bill was atrocious due to the aforementioned old circuit breakers, and none of the windows sealed up (very common for old houses in Puerto Rico, I must mention) so while we ran the AC at night the cold air went out the cracks and cervices. 

It was also a much longer commute than my husband was expecting and gas is way more expensive than in the States.

We decided it was time to move and gave notice. Our stuff STILL hasn't arrived from the States, so we tried to hurry up before it arrived, so we wouldn't have to move it twice. We found a place, signed the paperwork and called the electricity and water companies to get things switched over to the new town.

This took all day of being on hold. We had to enlist the help of one of my husband's coworkers because most of the people we talked to over the phone aren't fluent in English. 

Side note: you really should be fluent in Spanish to live in Puerto Rico. A lot of people made it out like we would have no issues speaking only basic Spanish, but that is so not true. Most people speak some English. You can go out to eat, go to public buildings, go to the grocery store, and get by. But there will be a time when you need to be fluent in Spanish, like say the security guard who opens the gate to your neighborhood, or the realtor who is showing the apartment you want, and you'll be completely screwed. 

This is not to say that the entire island has to cater to English speakers. They don't. It's our job to be able to communicate in the dominate language of the country we're living in, and that language is Spanish. English is more ubiquitous than in other foreign countries, but it's still an issue. An issue I hope won’t exist too much longer, as I am studying Spanish diligently, but unfortunately the people I’ve run into need me to understand what they’re saying beyond greetings.

Anyway, back to the horror story that has been the last few weeks. We get the utilities switched over and are told it will be 3-5 business days to turn them on, and Monday was a holiday. This was a Friday. We find a cute little vacation home to stay in for a few days while we wait for them to turn the stuff on.

Tuesday night we drive to the new place to check. We open the door only to step in a two inch puddle of water. The lights are on, and so is the water. In fact, the former tenant left the beday running in the upstairs master bathroom, and it’s flooded the top floor, and flowing over the balcony to the entire downstairs. 

Two hours later, we managed to squeegee all the water from the upstairs, to the downstairs, onto our balcony where it’s draining. Thank God this was Puerto Rico, and everything is tile floors. The next few days we spend cleaning the condo from top to bottom. It’s laid out like a townhouse, with the bedrooms upstairs and the living room, kitchen, and sunroom downstairs. We also have a penthouse level on the roof. It’s more spacious than the townhouses I’ve seen in the States though, hence it being more like a condo. 

After we finished cleaning all the things, including the kitchen from top to bottom, we went shopping for food, and necessary items we had been using at the other house. We also set up to have the Internet installed on Tuesday.

On top of that, I’ve been fielding calls to the moving company, trying to figure out where the heck our stuff is. It’s been a month and a half longer than they said it would be, and they told us it was “customs” holding things up. Every time I call for an update, they say it will be another week or two. We called customs and they have no idea what the moving company is talking about,  since they don’t deal with household goods. Let’s remember, Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. They have customs, but it’s not as rigorous as if we were moving to Germany. So I asked for the landing number and the cargo company they were using. I am currently waiting for them to get back to me on that.

It’s been good times, I tell you what.

Somehow, despite missing many days of writing, I’m about on track with NaNo. The good news was I managed to get really, really ahead in the first week, and that managed to make a nice buffer for me. Adding to that, when I have a writing session I can usually blow the bare minimum daily word count out of the park. 

Of course, the “this book totally sucks and I am a sucky, sucky loser” feeling hasn’t gone away. That’s a special part of the process that just keeps giving. :D
It’s a weird balance though…when real life is blowing up around me, I crave the escape that writing provides. The extra stress and anxiety makes drafting harder, but it’s also a welcome retreat. 

I’m not going to blow the NaNo word count out of the water like I have in the past, finishing with ridiculously high word counts like 70, 90, or even 150K like I did that first year, but I feel confident that I will win NaNo this year, and then keep going. This draft shouldn’t take as long to write as ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP did, mostly thanks to a) regular naptimes for the toddler, and b) said toddler sleeping through the night, so I am not in turn, exhausted every day.

There’s the updates and why this NaNo have been distinctly lacking in me frantically posting about how it’s all going sideways, and DOOM!

But don’t worry. Now that I have Internet again, I should be able to fill your days with regular updates of terror and distress. 

How’s your NaNo coming along? How’s your Turkey day plans?