If you follow this blog, which would be damn near a miracle in and of itself, you are aware that I have begun to print large documents at my day job. Let me say, it is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be as all the peeps I work with are totally stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility for their own stuff, but it’s still not the best thing in the world. I’ve already got some paper cuts and looking down at the microscopic serrations of my skin I had a thought.

Most of my ‘problems’ are paper cuts.

Annoying, sometimes painful, little things that inhibit my day-to-day routine for a week or so and then heal up. Isn’t it funny how those little cuts are all we can think about when they first happen, be it the pain when they come in contact with water when we wash our hair or the funny feeling when we type, but after a while, we forget where they even were. I look around me and see people with downright gashes in their skin, and they don’t whine as much as I do, or complain as much as I do. Shame on me, right. Yeah, shame on me. Like my granny always said, “Well, you can just scratch your tail and get glad.” (I don’t know, I grew up on a dirt road people.)

Things could always be worse. I still have my little sticky that says blessed in my line of sight. I also have 3 things that say believe (4 if you count my wrist) so when I start to get down about my little paper cuts I always have something reminding me to stop feeling sorry for myself. Look around. Are you dealing with paper cuts or gashes? Either way, you’ll find the strength. We always do.

I’ve spent the past few days trying to sneak WriteOnCon into my daily life. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m not all that great with the secrets and lies so pretty much everyone I work with knew what I was doing over here in my corner of the world. I work with a group of technical writers, so I suppose they get it.

I learned a lot. Like, a lot, lot. It’s always nice to mingle with other folks going through the same things you are and remind yourself, hey…maybe this is worth it. This beating your head against a brick wall because you could have sworn you saw a crack and you just know that sucker’s going down any moment now. Okay, maybe it’s not that extreme, though I do feel that way sometimes. I know this for certain: I have never wanted anything more in my entire life. I’ve never had career aspirations, I’ve never been one to try and climb the corporate ladder. You have to write your goals at work and I’m always like, um.. yeah, don’t gouge my eyes out with a pen. That’s my day –to-day goal. LoL I want to be a writer. No, scratch that. I am a writer; I don’t give a shit what you people say. I AM a writer. I want to have a career being an Author. I want to get paid to stay home and immerse myself in this world in my head, and attended classes and conferences. I want to go to charity events and raise money for animal shelters, I want someone to stop me on the street and say, “Hey, didn’t you write that book XYZ?” And the thing about it is, I know I could help people, well, at least teenage girls. I KNOW I CAN. If they could hear me, hear my story, I know it would help someone. One day. I mean it folks, one day I will have this life. But I digress…

WriteOnCon was a great experience! My favorite video was about not giving up. You can watch that here:

I also managed to get a request for 50 pages and a synopsis by the amazingly wonderful Christina Hogrebe (see it was meant to be, we even have the same name!) so that was awesome. Who knows if anything will come of it but she said, and I quote:

“#51. I hope you’ll introduce conflict that will take this fish out of water setup to the next level, but the writing is beautiful. The nostalgic tone promises something heartbreaking. Send me 50 pgs and synop by email.”

Don’t even front like that’s not awesome, cuz you know it is!

I’m going through massive revisions on FireFlys and I am still in edits for True North (out 10/1/11). I love it. Now, if the rest of my life could just catch up. Maybe I’ll be like Ms. Harry Potter and get that deal just in the nick of time – you know, like soon. 😉