Friday, August 13, 2010

the restless heart, the promised land

I shall not discuss work today; instead I shall tell you what my horoscope was, and tell you that it was accurate: "You might have a hard time today because you cannot clearly state what you want. Part of the problem is that by the time you do speak up, your feelings have already shifted. Unfortunately, you can be so exacting that you set an unrealistic goal. Keep in mind that you won't need to lower your standards to allow others additional flexibility in how they respond to you."

Because I was prepping all day for a meeting that went completely sideways when I got into it, I didn't get anything else done -- and rather than try to salvage the remaining couple of hours, I bolted. Don't worry, nothing bad happened, and I'm not trying to be dramatic; I'm just fighting my natural tendency to be as honest as possible here with the pragmatic caution of not sharing anything substantive about my day job. The reality is that *nothing* happened because when I went to say what I was about to say in that meeting, I froze and couldn't do it. Luckily, I will have an entire drive to LA tomorrow afternoon to ponder what my inexplicable silence might mean.

So I went to Starbucks and thought about writing, but was too shellshocked by how my tongue had betrayed me to get anything done. Instead, I went to downtown Mountain View, bought a couple of books (I was in the mood for a real, paper book, rather than my Kindle), picked up some takeout sushi, came home, and read all night. The book I read was THE HUNGER GAMES, which turned out to be utterly fantastic; it's a dystopic young adult thriller/romance involving a RUNNING MAN/BATTLE ROYALE-ish fight to the death amongst 24 teenagers, but the writing is gorgeous and the story is haunting. I finished it without taking a single break -- I'm going to have to go back and read it again sometime to analyze the plotting and pacing, but it was really enjoyable. I immediately ordered book two (will arrive Tuesday), and the final book in the trilogy is coming out in ten days, so this is good timing.

And now, I suppose I should go to bed; reading was great, and it was nice to take a break from the writing for a night, but I haven't packed for LA yet, and so I need to pack before work tomorrow. Luckily I don't have to worry about weight restrictions or liquid packing issues (and also, I'm going to be there all of forty-eight hours), so packing shouldn't be too difficult. I should still get some sleep, though -- goodnight!

Daily word count: 0 (0% of goal)
Productive time: 3hr (counting reading THE HUNGER GAMES as research for my eventual foray into writing young adult romances)
RescueTime productivity rating: -- (global average: 0.34)

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