Random thoughts

La Shark says it best, as she often does: “1. A query letter is a business letter.“

The novel is finished. It took longer than I expected, but the next one will be easier, if only because I’m a hell of a lot more aware of the stuff that shouldn’t been included in the first place and had to be removed at great cost.

Nothing to remind you you’re writing for the public than the blog hits shooting skyward, and finding that an ex-co-worker seems to have linked to you on her Facebook page.

Writing workshops are immensely helpful. Today’s reality check: “Great images, but I have no idea what the narrative is.”

I never used to listen to music while working. Maybe a CD or two, but always stuff I knew so well that it could just exist in the background. And I never bought a lot of new music. Then I got iTunes and started developing a writing playlist, which expanded to ‘anything not involving a heavy beat and/or wailing’ (which, given that I tend towards female singer/songwriters, isn’t much of the collection anyway). Then last month I got an iPod shuffle – yeah, I know, I can finally join the rest of the universe – and suddenly it’s my constant companion. The interior narrative now has a soundtrack, and I’m not sure if that’s entirely a good thing.

Given that I want to carry more upon my person than the iPod and a bottle of eyedrops, I am resigned to making most of my future clothing purchases in the men’s department, for one simple reason: pockets. Seriously, my corduroy jackets have dinky little pockets that I consider myself lucky to have, whereas if I could actually find a men’s jacket in my size, I’d be able to travel to London for the weekend without worrying about an overnight bag. A fishing vest, now, there’s something useful – I once fit in four paperback books….

Random things

Oh, let’s see. For a start, one of the main reasons I don’t bother with social networking sites is because I figure anyone who wants to track me down can punch my name into a search engine and find me. While I’m not the only person of my name on the internet, there aren’t heaps o’ others, and narrowing down the list doesn’t take long. This presumably becomes even less difficult if you run across my name in a location that makes sense with what you knew about me in the past. I’ve been writing since age 13 and an avid reader since I taught myself at age 3 or something like that [poss. family legend, but it sounds good]; if you find someone with my name on any halfway literate forum, that’s likely to be me.

And someone found me! – a woman I knew in college who changed her name so I couldn’t find her myself. I always had the horrible feeling that the only people who would bother to say hello would be people I never wanted to hear from again – I have a couple of ex-boyfriends who fit quite snugly into THAT particular category (I hasten to add, these relationships were brief to barely existent) – so it was great to hear from someone I liked and wondered what had happened to.

In other random news, one of my Evil Editor writing exercises got picked up by a website which did one of those ping thingies. Unfortunately, being the self-proclaimed industry leader for fitness products & advice should rightly mean not merely picking up every blog entry with ‘exercise’ in the title. Admittedly, I did work out for half an hour today. Mens sana and all that.

I feel that an entry of random things should have at least three things, but I can’t think of a third. Thundercat finding the soles of my shoes intriguing? That I got a search engine hit for ‘books about iowa “thundercat”‘ and I have no idea what that means? Next time I write a random entry, I will try to be a little more random. But few people come round on the weekend anyway, so maybe two random things is sufficient.

Maybe I peaked in junior high

So, was Tracey always a literary geek? Let’s look at some of her report cards from 7th and 8th grade (newly unearthed from a storage box)!

Ooh, apparently I passed my constitution tests. This explains, er, nothing at all.

7th grade. Language Arts I has subgroups of writing/literature/grammar/spelling (sadly, in no case is a subgroup given any mark), and Language Arts II focuses more on creative writing, oral communication, and reading development.

Notes from the teachers over the course of three marking periods (some are too faint to read; it’s one of those forms where I get the carbon copy):

• Term 1: Tracey has done very well this term!
• Term 2: Talented writer! – Mrs. G.
• Term 2: Tracey slid to a 90%. I hope she moves back to an A!
• Term 3: Tracey did well during the poetry unit. She has been a pleasure to teach.
• Term 3: Terrific reader! [NB I was reading at least five grade levels ahead of myself while in kindergarten. I'm totally special.]

Keep that comment from Mrs. G. in mind. We’ll be hearing more from her later.

Surprisingly, I got straight As in mathematics that year, but elsewhere received a smattering of the usual ‘could do better’ and ‘a little more effort’. Yeah, yeah.

8th grade: same categories, but with the addition of ‘completed required outside reading’. No mark in either the yes or the no column, though, so we remain forever mystified. This could be the start of one of those sitcom episodes where the character finds they are lacking 4 credits and have to go back to high school. Wacky hijincks ahoy!

• Term 1: alas, my A in LAI is balanced out by a B in LAII (which seems to have focused on ‘writing’). I gave a ’super effort’ in the former and in the latter I seem still to be working on my exposition skills though I have ‘excellent style’.
• Term 2: Flip-flop! B in LAI, but an A in LAII – creative writing/oral communication. Oh dear, I missed an A by two points. I bet that’s on my permanent record. (Scraped an A in mathematics, though.)
• Term 3: More ’super effort’ but I got an A this time! But only an A- in reading development. And my mathematics dropped to a B, with the tart note ‘math wasn’t always a priority during class for Tracey.’ Yes, I think this was my ‘reading under the desk’ term. The words ‘a cap b’ and ‘a cup b’ are dimly wafting out of memory, but I’m pretty sure I was reading Tolkien at this stage, so who cares?

The best comment, though, was from my cheerleader Mrs. G. in the second term of LAII (that A in creative writing); maybe this is why she wrote no comment in term 3, having said it all already:

Sterling writer! She should become a professional writer! I love her papers! A joy to teach! Mrs. G.

Ah, Mrs. G, whoever and wherever you are: thanks for the vote of confidence.