Nonfiction

I have a LiveJournal tradition of posting every year on my birthday. That seems to be my only remaining LJ tradition (well, no, that's not true, I do read LJ on a daily basis, which surely counts as a tradition) because I've only made one other post since my last birthday.

I'd like to post here more often about both the interesting and mundane things in my life, because I enjoy seeing updates from the lives of my friends. But there are a whole lot of things I'd like to do, and it turns out this one doesn't land high enough on the list.

If you want to know all about my writing and reading life, please subscribe to my blog (lisaecksteincom). If you have a desire for glimpses into my thoughts and adventures through a 140-character filter, follow me on Twitter. If you're interested in the parts of my life not covered by the above, get in touch.

I'm having a wonderful birthday. I always do. Life is good.

I got a haircut. Since this is the first time in 12 years that scissors have been applied to my hair, it's a big enough deal that I'm posting about it all over social media.

( photographic evidenceCollapse )

I think basically all I've done since Thursday night is eat really good food. Oh yeah, I did go swimming on Friday, so there's that. It's been a wonderful weekend, and now I have family visiting, so I'm looking forward to a week of more fun. As always, it's good to be the birthday girl!

Well, my plan to post a monthly update didn't quite work out, but two-plus months later, here I am again. ( This is what's been going on.Collapse )

Hello, friends. Yes, it's true, I haven't posted here on LiveJournal in a very long time, and while my entries were never exactly regular, I certainly didn't intend to go this long without writing. I still like LiveJournal, I look at it almost every day, and I read everything my friends post here. I'm glad that so many of you are still posting, whether it's frequently or only occasionally, because I like to know what's going on in your lives. ( Here's what's been up in mineCollapse )

This is no longer news for many of you, but for those who haven't heard: I have a new nephew! His name is Owen, he was born on July 24, and I can't wait to meet him.

My brother and sister-in-law are having a great time being parents, and they're even finding time to maintain the blog they kept through their attempts at conception and then during pregnancy. The latest entry has many adorable photos of Owen. My brother, who is a talented cinematographer, also made an amazing video of Owen's first day. If you like reading birth stories, look through the other recent entries for detailed accounts.

I'll be in Boston in two weeks to visit Owen. It's possible I'll have time to get together with some people, but mostly I'm going to be busy being Auntie Lisa. Before that is a week in Michigan to visit another branch of the family. And before that, I have to finalize my contest entry for the East of Eden Writers Conference. And finish knitting Owen's present!

I've started a blog to talk about writing. It's called "Reading, Writing, Revising", and that's what it's all about.

http://www.lisaeckstein.com/

This is something I've been planning to do for years now. I have plenty of things I want to say, and I enjoy writing about them, but one reason I didn't started earlier is that I'm worried blogging will use up time when I would otherwise be noveling. We'll see how it goes.

I spent a long time (far too long) designing and setting up the site. It uses a Blogger template, but I modified most of the CSS to make it look the way I want. Please let me know if anything doesn't seem to be working right or if you have suggestions.

Nobody should feel any pressure to read or subscribe to the blog. It has a particular focus that won't interest everybody. If you do choose to read, I hope you'll enjoy it, and if you know other people who might enjoy it, I hope you'll let them know.

For those who use LJ as a feed reader, I've set up lisaecksteincom

I expect I'll continue to update this LiveJournal as often as I have been lately, which is to say, almost never. Don't worry, if something really exciting happens like I get a book deal, I'll be sure to let you all know.

I'm going to blatantly steal from DadHacker and open this post with "Yeah, yeah, M-X standard-blog-apology." And now on to content in the form of a random list of stuff I am bothering to report on:

( what's up in my lifeCollapse )

The bad news: Remember in January when my MacBook Air hinge broke? It would appear the hinges have a lifespan of 11 months. Yes, the same exact thing happened again a few days ago.

The good news: Apple now treats this problem as a product defect. While I wasn't at all happy to have to get the same issue repaired again, I was relieved to know that this time I wouldn't have to worry about convincing anyone that I shouldn't have to pay for it.

The best news: The Valley Fair Apple Store fixed my computer in two hours. This was a couple of days after I first presented my broken hinge to them, because they had to order the replacement display, but once the part was in and I brought my Air back, they turned it around in two hours, rather than the 24-48 hours they told me to expect. So I avoided the hassle of trying to get anything accomplished on my old laptop (though not the hassle of unnecessarily getting set up to work on my old laptop).

I no longer think the hinge problem has anything to do with lifting and carrying the laptop with one hand, because I've avoided doing that since the first time it broke. This time, I'd noticed the hinge becoming looser for the past month or so, which is something I've come to expect from all laptops. I believe the issue is that they didn't design to accommodate eventual looseness, so the display starts to catch on parts that it didn't previously make contact with, and that leads to the breakage.

Well, December's half over, so I guess it's about time to discuss November.

My NaNoWriMo novel this year failed to amount to a novel in that there was nothing resembling a story arc. Some characters did some things and reflected on some stuff, but there was no plot to speak of. I realize that I'm describing a large percentage of NaNo novels, but after writing several actual novels, 50,000 words of nothing is kind of a letdown. In previous years, I've always had some vision of the ending to aim for, even if I didn't get there during November, but this time I just declared the end when I got to 50k.

My latest Writecraft column (PDF, page 5) is a reasonably truthful account of my writing experience for the first half of the month. My excitement over the new direction of the story didn't last very long, and while I wrote a couple scenes that might possibly get transplanted into a different novel someday, the overall novel was a bust. Oh well. Learning experience. I'm not that broken up about it.

I was more disappointed that it just didn't work out to continue writing The Extent of the Damage during November. I only worked on it two days during the beginning of the month. There was too else much going on, between write-ins, ML duties, house stuff, and other life stuff. I'm not that good at focusing when my routine is disrupted.

So let's move on to the happier news: November ended, I got back to my routine, and I've been making good progress on The Extent of the Damage. The end of this novel is in sight on the horizon.

Today I finished another Writecraft column for next month's issue. I'm getting not bad at writing about writing, though unfortunately I'm not yet getting faster at it. It's tough to keep thinking of something new to say month after month. Any suggestions for topics about the craft of writing? The audience is not just fiction writers, but also memoirists, poets, and nonfictioners, and I'm trying to convey advice that's relevant to everyone. Any ideas are appreciated!

You know when your life is really hectic, and you keep thinking, "Okay, as soon as X happens, then everything is going to calm down, and I'll have time to do those other things," but you're completely deluding yourself, because life never really does become less hectic, because that's just how life is when you're a grownup? Possibly I'm currently in such a busy period that life will in fact be calmer soon. But I'm wary of talking myself into believing that.

( mid-November brain dumpCollapse )

Has it really been more than two months since I've posted here? Insert usual round of excuses, apologies, and what-have-you.

I've been spending all my time on a rewrite of my 2007 NaNo novel, The Extent of the Damage. It's going wonderfully, and as mentioned, taking up all my time. For approximately two months now, I've been intending to write up a nice long post here about exactly what's going on with this project, but see note re: time.

Instead, you get some subdued bragging about the new column I'm writing for the newsletter of the writers club I belong to. The column is called Writecraft, it's my (brilliant) observations on the craft of writing, and it will appear monthly. You can get the PDF of the newsletter and find my first column on page 7.

I also have a brief article in this issue about National Novel Writing Month. It's just one month away, and NaNoWriMo.org is scheduled to relaunch for the year tomorrow-ish. Get stoked.

As long as I'm handing out links, you may as well see photos from our trip to Las Vegas earlier this month.

Michigan: swimming, ladderball, cornhole, backyard fireworks, Crystal Mountain, alpine slide (with boo-boos), ice cream, water playground, sunset over Lake Michigan, euchre, giant sand dunes, more ice cream, cherry festival, (drunken) euchre tournament, Guitar Hero World Tour, internet afternoon, another sunset, yet more ice cream and euchre, and lots and lots of family fun and kid hilarity.

Photo time! Two weekends ago we went to Sausalito and stayed in a floating house. I've finally uploaded photos from that trip, just in time for us to leave for another trip.

Over the past month or so, we had our yard and patio completely redone and beautified. Louise documented the process with daily photos. And now it's all finished, just in time for us to go out of town.

Yes, we're taking a vacation. We're heading to Michigan for a week of family fun, sunsets by the lake, and more family fun. So now I have to get back to trip preparation.

I have joined Facebook. The breaking point came after I'd remarked that I was okay as long as my mother didn't join before me, and a few hours later I was talking to my brother and learned that Mom signed up last month.

Greetings, people of the internet! Contrary to appearances, I have not in fact vanished into a cave/black hole/Bermuda Triangle/other location without a wifi connection these past two months. I have simply been busy. Not truly so busy as to not have any time at all to post an update, but let's just pretend, shall we? After all, here's a long list illustrating merely some of the many things I've been occupied with:

( class, revising, copyediting, and even moreCollapse )

Today I celebrated my birthday on Martha's Vineyard. Despite growing up in Massachusetts, this is my first trip to the island. It's lovely here, quaint and peaceful and sunny and not too cold.

My birthday included:
- chocolate pancakes
- alpacas!
- houses like candy-colored gingerbread
- a clam roll
- ice cream
- a lighthouse
- drinkies
- video chat hilarity
- delicious French food
- more drinkies
- family togetherness fun
- many wonderful birthday wishes

We have a couple more days here at the Vineyard, and then we're off to New Hampshire. No real Boston time on this trip, except for coming and going from the airport.

ETA: As always, Louise has awesome photos.

Where have I been for the past 6 weeks, since I last posted? I've been in my writing room, cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Not every day, but about half of the days, sometimes for just an hour, sometimes for most of the day. It was a damn big project, but I am very happy to announce that it is mostly done. If you haven't already been following along, check out the Flickr photo set to see how far I've come. (Again, photos are friendslocked, I can send a guest pass if you're not on Flickr.)

The cleanup isn't done-done because I still have to sort and file a ton of paperwork (currently in boxes atop the filing cabinets where it belongs), and I have some plans for decor. I'll post more photos (maybe even public) when the room is really finished, probably at the end of the month.

And now I can sit at my clean desk in my beautiful writing room and write! One of my writing projects for the next 10 weeks will be the assignments for an online fiction class I'm taking through Stanford Continuing Studies. The course overview and first week information has just been posted, and the curriculum and format look great. I'm excited to be taking this class, and I'm looking forward to trying a different approach to writing for a little while. Maybe I'll even produce some (gasp) short stories. Yes, I am actually aware that fiction can be less than 100,000 words, thank you very much!