desperate times call for desperate measures

Today was utterly unproductive, and I'm so annoyed at myself for that that I'm going to take some drastic measures to get back on track.

But first, the good stuff. I woke up early enough to clean up around the kitchen and get myself dolled up before Chandlord arrived for a 'tea party', which oddly enough consisted mostly of ordering vegetarian Chinese food. We had been discussing a tea party for awhile, but I almost cancelled on her yesterday because I didn't want to cook or have to buy groceries for a tea party, so we compromised and said we would still hang out but that we would order food instead. This turned out to be ideal, even if I did feel a little old at the beginning when Chandlord showed up and we sat at my kitchen table drinking tea like my mom and her friend Carol used to do when I was little (although they were drinking endless cups of black coffee instead). It's a little surreal that I'm now only a year or two younger than my mother was when that started. Also, fun fact: Carol and I share a birthday.

And now that you have your dose of my childhood reminisces and my endless moaning about impending old age in one short paragraph, I'll continue to the rest of the day. Vidya's friend Kathy came over too, which was fun; I would probably try to poach Kathy and make her my friend instead of Vidya's if I wasn't so lazy and hermit-y. We picked up the food, ate, and watched the first half of a 4hr miniseries version of "North and South", which is like a more ridiculous "Pride and Prejudice" set in a mill town during the Industrial Revolution. The hero has the brooding stare down to a science -- so much so that it just made me want to find a guy who is really good at staring intently, even if in real life it would probably be super creepy and not at all attractive. Also, it may be harder to have a brooding stare when one is wearing the ubiquitous Northern California hoodie instead of a top hat. Sigh.

After they left at 3pm, I should have written, intended to write, was just on the verge of writing -- and then I completely, utterly, irrevocably failed. I spent the first hour reading about a lot of aspects of the Industrial Revolution on Wikipedia (no surprise there), then took a long nap, then had a snack, then spent some time on the internet, then made dinner (and actually cooked - chicken, green beans, sweet potato fries), then cleaned the kitchen, then wasted a whole boatload of time while watching the Stanford/Wake Forest game (complete blowout, so rather uninteresting). I finally ended up writing in my journal in an attempt to root out the source of my procrastination, and didn't really come up with much (other than that I sometimes get scared of my own potential success, which is nonsensical).

But I did make a decision to go on an internet crash diet: no internet usage for a week. There are some exceptions, as there have to be since my entire life is tied to the internet (starting with the job that currently pays me, but extending to the management of all my assets and debts, as well as some writing/planning stuff that I keep "in the cloud" on Google Docs).

But the plan is:

1) banned activities:
- no Twitter/Facebook (I already removed the apps from my phone - this has to apply to my beautiful soul-sucking Android device as well)
- no online news sites/gossip blogs (so if something truly momentous in the world happens, call me; I removed my headline news widget from my phone too)

2) restricted activities:
- <30mins of personal email time per day (which should be more than sufficient, since I don't respond to any of the email I get anyway)
- no Wikipedia unless *directly* related to a research question for my writing

3) unlimited activities:
- online financial tracking/bill pay
- any required assignments for my freelance magazine class (starts on Wednesday!)
- online calendar (which is where I keep all details about what I'm doing and when)
- anything I have to do for the day job (but don't just use work as a time to cheat on all this)
- writing this blog - I won't leave you hanging, since I'm sure you're eager to see what kind of nervous breakdown I have around Day 3

There are probably things I'm forgetting that I'll have to figure out as I go along. But considering that I almost didn't do this because the thought of disconnecting from Twitter sent me into a cold sweat, I realized that I *needed* to do this before I get assimilated any deeper into the hive and lose all hope of ever being steadily productive.

And on that mindblowing decision, I'm going to bed. Let's see how tomorrow goes. I'm predicting 5000 words minimum (or at least one book read) in the absence of all distraction. Goodnight!

Daily word count: -576 (-28.8% of goal)
Productive time: 2hrs
RescueTime productivity rating: 0.01 (global average: 0.29)

caught in a bad romance

Today was another fabulous day, although I'm more pensive about my writing than I was yesterday. I had lunch with Eloisa James today, and it was utterly fantastic -- but it left me really questioning where I'm going with this plot, because she cut through to all the issues that I've been having with it and sort of covering up in my head. Mainly, Ferguson is not alpha enough. Oh, he's wonderful, and I adore him, but he's got a father who is still inconveniently alive, which means that his father has all the power, which means that he is kind of useless. I'm grossly generalizing here, but I see her point -- she actually suggested making Ferguson and his father younger and making his *father* the hero, because the father sounded more interesting. I'm not sure I could do that...but then again, who knows.

But, all in all she was fantastic to meet -- super friendly, super smart, and I respect and admire her greatly. So, I have a lot to think about. I also have a lot of work to do; I met with my agent later in the day, and promised her a book by October 1, which is only two months away -- so I need to get cracking. That means spending all of the next week writing as much as possible, then writing steadily and prolifically through to the end of September so that I can meet my deadline. I also desperately need to go to bed; I'm meeting with an editor tomorrow morning around 9am, and since I haven't woken up before nine a.m. since Wednesday, that's going to be a challenge.

You can read the recap of the day on zee romance novel (linking to another blog I wrote for my romance group today, since I couldn't bear to write three full blog posts about the same thing). Just one more day to go, and then I return to California and my enforced hermitage on Sunday. Goodnight!

pick up the receiver i'll make you a believer

Ah, drama, how I have missed you...and yet now that you have returned to my life, how I wish that you had stayed away. I'm currently grappling with a visa issue that will likely turn out to be nothing, but is just annoying enough to have me the slightest bit concerned. The matter at hand is that the application for an Indian visa requires proof of residence in the form of a driver's license or major utility bill. And the unfortunate truth is that while I changed my address with the DMV several months ago, they do not issue new licenses for change-of-address changes, and so I can't use my driver's license. And, since I moved in with Adit, absolutely none of the utilities are in my name. Theoretically they deal with this issue all the time since there are plenty of roommates, recently-moved people, etc. who apply for visas, and I do have three previous Indian visas with no history of bad behavior, so I'm hopeful that I can throw a whole bunch of other documents at them and they will have mercy upon me. The only other option is to lie about my address, which is fine in theory until I get caught and banned, so mercy will have to do.

I wasn't going to tell this story because my parents read this blog and if I were to not get an Indian visa it would spell disaster for the trip my dad and I are taking -- but, I have had drama before previous trips to India (the liquids plot was discovered the day before I left in 2006, which meant we had no liquids at all on the whole 24hr trip; when I moved to India in 2005, I lost my passport the week before I was supposed to go and had to run all over the whole city to replace it and get a visa), so I am relatively confident that this will all resolve itself. Luckily I can drop it off in San Francisco myself rather than mailing it in and hoping for the best, so it should be fine.

Beyond that, today was a busy day; I had a few meetings in the morning, and a checkup with my doctor regarding my crazy reaction to the tetanus shot. She was clearly annoyed at the nurse who gave me the vaccine, since the woman gave me tetanus and pneumonia less than half an inch apart, which is a) a no-no and b) means they don't know which shot I reacted to. But, she didn't think the arm was infected and determined that it will be fine if I keep applying heat to it (yum, cooked tetanus), so despite the 3+" knot in my arm, I am now cleared to start taking my typhoid vaccine ;)

I spent the rest of the day and night slogging; I have a lot to do before I go to India, and so it's going to be a busy couple of weeks. Now, though, I should really get some sleep so that I can start it all again tomorrow -- goodnight!