And Another One Draws To A Close...

2011 was sort of a big year for me.

1.) In February, I finally decided to follow my dreams and focus on becoming a published author, and I changed my major in college (for the fifth time) to the one I TRULY wanted to pursue: Creative Writing.

2.) In March, I had my first experience with critique partners (there are some MEAN people out there. But I found my writing soul mate after many trial and error critiques. Here's looking at you, Amy!). And thank you, thank you, Natalie Parker, who was gentle but tough, and helped me fix all kinds of things this year. But I also realized that my novel kinda sucked, thanks to those mean people. So thank you mean girl who told me that "people don't talk in contractions". You were... right about some things.

3.) I then spent April through September re-writing my novel for the fourth time.

4.) On September 18th,  I finished my first full-length novel. 

5.) From September to October, I edited my first full-length novel.

6.) On October 4th, I freaking submitted my first full-length novel to agents.

7.) In October and November, I got TWO manuscript requests (with one rejection and still waiting for a response on the other)

8.) January-December, I LEARNED SO MUCH ABOUT THE PUBLISHING BUSINESS!  And I definitely learned things about myself as a writer along the way. For example, I write my best scenes when there's good music playing in my ears. Or that I can only plot with a paper and pen and can only write scenes by typing. Or that I CANNOT write on the couch (the words REFUSE to come to me there for some reason. Embarrassingly, I've written my best stuff in the bathtub)

So, I must say, 2011 was a very, very productive year for me. I learned that rejection is inevitable, and that it HURTS. I learned writing a novel with a beginning, middle, end, and all the stuff in between is HARD. But in 2011, I learned that I CAN write a novel, and I plan to do it again and again and again.

 I want to thank Jackson Pearce, Maggie Stiefvater, and Mary Kole for the infinite amounts of knowledge on their blogs!!!

And as for 2012??????? I have HUGE plans. :-D

What about you?

The New Pain Scale

I usually use my blog to post about my writing-related adventures, but there is something in my life that takes up a good part of my day every day lately - KIDNEY STONES.

Kidney stones are tiny-little-demon-filled-clusters-made-with-spikes-of-doom and I would wish them on no one. Except maybe Hitler. And the spider that lives in my house and keeps cleverly disappearing before I can smash it.

But kidney stones seem to just LOVE living in my right kidney. They love to reproduce and call all their friends and say, "HEY THIS GIRL HAS A ROCKING KIDNEY, COME ON OVER AND PAR-TAY WITH US!"

(Yes, the kidney stones are drinking out of red Solo cups)

 Only... I don't like having parties in my kidney. It kinda hurts.  But nonetheless, no matter what doctor-given tips I religiously follow, they keep fracking appearing inside my kidney.


So during my many trips to the emergency room in the past two years (plus 11 get-rid-of-the-giant-kidney-stone-procedures in the operating room), I have paid thousands of dollars to a certain hospital and kick-ass urologist, and I feel that I have the right to illicit one small piece of advice to all the hospitals in America:

The little smiley/frowny face charts that hang on your walls for the purpose of helping the patient to diagnose his or her pain scale is BOGUS. No one looks like this when they come to the hospital for extreme pain (as your #10 on your poster suggests):

(# 6 looks like he just ate some peanut butter)

So if you ever find yourself in the ER for something like a kidney stone, when the nurse asks you to rate your pain from one to ten-- and you want to yell that it feels like tiny monsters are trying to eat their way out of your body and that it's much worse than a FRACKING TEN-- you should pull out this handy little pain chart and desperately point to the last one:

Because if something the size of a peanut M&M is trying to force its way through a tube the size of a coffee stirrer, you will most likely be clawing out your eyeballs by the time you get to said nurse. Or rolling around on the germ-ridden hospital floor, bargaining with God in a language you didn't even know you spoke. Then you should do that hospital a favor and give the nurse your handy little pain chart so that the next patient can accurately diagnose their pain level. 

And then YOU have just saved the world! (or... you know... maybe not. But it's worth a try.) Hopefully you won't ever have a need for this pain chart ((unless your kidney is a breeding ground like mine is)) Either way, print it and put it in your wallet, right next to your insurance card!

You're Welcome.