When Life Gets in the Way

Some of you may have noticed my lack of blogging and even lack of social media use recently. And that is in large part because of the crazy going on in my life right now. If you read my post on Inflection Points, you know I’m selling two condos, house hunting, and planning a wedding. Well the last two weeks have added to the fun. In the matter of a week I’ve been in eight, yes EIGHT different airports. And that doesn’t count the multiple trips to the St. Louis airport (there were four of those).

In addition to all the crazy life has thrown me, I visited the future in-laws in Florida, followed immediately by a weeklong work trip to Connecticut. To say I am unsure what day it is, is an extreme understatement. I think by about the third trip to the St. Louis airport I didn’t know which end was up. There’s something about all the up and down, and not sleeping in your own bed that really messes with your head and your sleep patterns.

And while all the exhaustion was a lot to handle, the thing buzzing through my head the most was the fact that I wasn’t writing and didn’t have time for it. Even worse if I was writing, I’m not sure which of the many projects I’ve started I’d actually be working on. I’m at a crossroads in all senses of the word. The only thing I’m managing to work on at the moment is edits on the manuscript I’m getting ready to query and enter into pitchwars. At least I’m being a little bit productive.

But all this craziness has me wondering how in the world I’m going to get back into a writing a grove after having it disrupted for the last few months. What project do I work on?  How do I make myself sit in the chair and write when all I want to do is collapse in my bed and sleep? How do I shut my million mile per hour brain down long enough to focus on writing? How do I get excited about writing again? And where do I even start?

I have a lot of anxiety about jumping back in when I should be enthusiastic about shiny new ideas. I know I have some painful writing sessions ahead of me, and I’m honestly dreading them. But I will get back into it if it kills me. And for the moment, I have a shiny shiny manuscript I’m ready to send out into the world, that I’m super and I mean SUPER excited about it. For now that is what is keeping me going.

Inflection Points

In my involvement with women in engineering, we’ve recently been talking a lot about inflection points. In calculus, an inflection point is when a curve on a graph changes from negative to positive or vice versa, i.e. the curve is essentially changing direction. So in life, an inflection point is a time of great change, where things are about to change direction. And for me, I am currently in one of the biggest inflection points I've ever experienced.

I never imagined that when my boyfriend, Andrew and I decided to move into together that it would be the start of a massive amount of change in my life. Yes, selling both of our condos and buying a house together is a HUGE deal, and I knew it would mean lots changes, but I didn’t realize it was the start of so much more.

Around the time we got our condos ready for the market, I attended leadership training through work. I wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to pursue management, and if I did, I wasn’t sure I was ready yet. And when asked what would make me ready, I couldn’t give a logical explanation. I just needed time. That class changed a lot of things for me (see previous post). I not only learned to step outside my comfort zone, but also finally found the drive to be emotionally ready to take that next step. Ultimately that was what was missing, feeling emotionally prepared to take on that responsibility.

But as that awesome week ended, I was pulled onto a short fuse work project with a strict deadline. And even better, they wanted to train me to manage the whole thing. It has been a great opportunity but work exploded, and I’ve been running around like a crazy person. I watched days wiz by where I didn't get to stop for lunch until 2pm. Even worse, I often felt like I had no clue what I was doing. People would say oh by the way did you do this? And I’d just sit back and think, no one ever told me about that. Then I’d scramble around trying to find the right people to help me make it happen. In addition to all this, wrangling engineers is a difficult. We are smart, sometimes almost too smart for our own good. And management is a lot of knowing when to put your two cents in. But it’s even more so knowing when to sit back, shut your trap, and let the experts do their thing. It’s also a lot of chasing people down and getting them to do what you need in a timely manner. And in the midst of all that you have to balance people's emotions and feelings and try not to step on any toes.

During all of this at work, at home. Andrew and I were scheduling meetings with real estate agents, getting pictures taken of our condos and finally getting them up on the market. That was one slight reprieve. It lasted three days. We put our condos up on the market on a Tuesday and by Friday everything was radically different.

Friday at work, the interns started. I’m helping mentor one, which is something I’ve always loved doing. But getting them started is always hectic. There’s training, software installing, and whole lot of explaining that has to happen. And to top it off, I was still working the time sensitive project and Andrew was acting weird… like mega MONDO weird. He planned something for Friday night, and he NEVER plans. And even worse, he wouldn’t tell me what it was. And I hate the unknown… HATE HATE HATE IT! I don’t do surprises, so the fact that I knew something was coming was stressing me out. Even though I knew EXACTLY what that something was.

Rewind a week. I was tired, from all the crazy and didn’t want to do anything… but Andrew insisted we go out. Like wouldn’t let it go insisted. And even though I was content with staying in my pajamas and being a complete couch potato, I put on real clothes and we went to dinner. (If that's not love I don't know what is :-P) He mentioned walking around the restaurant after or possibly going home and walking the dog. I said let’s go home and walk the dog because I knew she’s appreciate that and honestly I was wiped. So we did. 

Fast forward to 5:30 am the next morning. The dog wants out. I stumble out of bed and find this thing in the middle of my floor. It's dark and at first I think it’s a dog bone, but as I pick it up I realize it’s a jewelry box. I start to wonder what one of my jewelry boxes is doing in the middle of the floor, how my dog had managed to find it, and why she was playing with it the night before.

Out of curiosity, I opened it. Inside was a diamond. The diamond. YEAH THAT! I closed that box so fast and freaked… WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH IT??? I wasn’t supposed to be seeing this. I swear I was instantly in an episode of Friends. I went to put it in Andrew’s backpack out of the reach of my nosey little dog, but realized it had come from somewhere in the bedroom and his backpack was in the living room. So I put it on the nightstand and pretended I never saw it. Like that would really work, but I did it anyways. Awesome sitcom logic I tell you! And Andrew knew I saw it because that obviously wasn’t where it was before. But I was intent on pretending it never happened.

Okay so fast forward back to Friday, June 6, 2014. I just had a long day of chasing people around, wrangling a technical document for the project deadline, training the brand new intern, and came home to a very strangely acting Andrew. He showed up at the door with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I put them in water and then we headed out for dinner. After a snag at the first place, we ended up at The Fountain which is a cute restaurant with an old soda fountain and awesome milkshakes. It’s also the place where we went on one of our very first dates. After dinner we drove around looking for parking downtown, and then Andrew took me to The City Garden, which is this cute garden that spans a two square blocks. There’s a lit up fountain built into the concrete that kids play in and lots of cool sculptures. I’d never been there before and Andrew was insistent on making me aware of all the awesome stuff downtown.

We sat down on a bench where we could partially see the fountain through the trees. Next to us a woman yelled at her kids playing on a giant white bunny sculpture as she tried to take their picture. Romantic RIGHT? Especially since I knew exactly what was coming. I silently wished the woman would stop ruining the moment! But finally she shooed her kids away and we quietly sat on the bench. 

And I waited…

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and waited…

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and waited...

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and WAITED…

Neither of us said anything and then finally Andrew spoke. And I honestly have no idea what he said until the words “will you marry me” came out of his mouth. Without much hesitation, I said I will. Not sure why I said that instead of yes, but I did. And then he said the sweetest thing he’s ever said to me, that he knew I was the right one, but when we went to comic con this year and he finally saw me completely own my nerdy side, that cemented everything.And that right there is our relationship in a nutshell, a giant, awesome ball of nerdiness!

Back in the car, the million phone calls to friends and family started. Happy news! Everyone is excited. And then everyone starts asking when the wedding is. WORST QUESTION EVER! HELLO DON’T YOU PEOPLE KNOW IT HAPPENED FIVE SECONDS AGO?  (Why do people do that? Just wondering? I know it annoys people, many have been in that situation and thoroughly annoyed, and yet they ask anyways like you should have had the wedding planned before the engagement! Anyway I digress.)

On Friday night my mom was offering her help planning the wedding if I wanted it and by Sunday we were counting number of possible attendees and talking photographer and venues. So now in addition to all the crazy listed above, I’m planning a wedding.  And let’s not forget for a second that before any of this started I was writing and editing books as well as searching for an agent.

So here I am today, drowning in crazy: selling 2 condos, house hunting, working a crazy project deadline, mentoring an intern, applying for management jobs, engaged and planning a wedding, and still trying to find time to write, edit, and query agents. To say my head is spinning the understatement of the century.

But going back to where this all started, with inflection points, I’d say this is one hell of one! And even though there's been ups and downs, I’m really excited to see how things end up. Sure I’m stressed and unsure where I’ll be living, heck I even find myself lying sideways in my bed at 12:30am with my light on and my contacts still in wondering how I got there. All that aside, I know these are the kind of events that really show us what we are made of, show us what we are capable of. And yes, I’m anxious to get past all the crazy, but not too anxious. I want to enjoy it, learn from it, and ultimately see what awesome change is about to transpire from it all.

Celebrating 32 and so much more!

Today I turn 32. It’s not really a birthday milestone by any of the normal standards, but for me it is quite a milestone. It’s taken me thirty two years, but I’ve finally learned some important things. Many are as a result of one big thing, I’ve learned to become confident in my own skin and not worry about what other people think.

You might say big deal, but for me this really is a big deal, and let me explain why.

Growing up, I quickly learned that people can hurt you for the things they think they know about you. Whether that be something you said, did, or even something they came to their own conclusion on. So my method of dealing with this was keeping my mouth shut as much as possible. Letting things roll off. Letting people say horrible things about me and just letting it happen. I was a bystander pretending like none of this affected me. Let me tell you, even though I pretended and probably wasn’t very good at it, this all affected me very deeply.

So good, bad, or ugly, I rarely talked about myself, the things I was interested in, what was going on in my life. I hid pretty much anything other than superficial crap, because I was afraid of what people might think of me. Even worse I was afraid of what they might say and/or do to me.

I spent the better part of thirty years walking around afraid to do or say anything. Not knowing what might set people off, what might make people hate me, what might make them say nasty and horrible things to me and about me. And one day I looked up and realized I was completely miserable with my life. And the worst part, no one knew how miserable. They knew I wasn’t happy but not to what extent. No one knew that I had bottled up everything wonderful about myself, buried it in a trunk, locked it up, and threw away the key. I couldn’t be myself because what if people didn’t like me? What if what I said left me with no one? I couldn’t take that kind of rejection.

And you know what? I didn’t get any rejection, because I’d completely taken myself out of the game of life. I was getting worse than rejection from others, I was rejecting myself. And one day I looked up and wondered how I got to where I was and it seemed like an utter mystery.

And yet I had no idea how to fix it, or any idea if I even wanted to. I was perfectly content hiding from the world, and I wasn’t, all at the same time. I was a mess.

And then I started burying myself in books. Finding magical worlds I could hide in. And somewhere in that span of time, I found others who enjoyed those magical worlds too. I talked to those people, and they didn’t think I was crazy. I slowly started to open up. Let little bits of myself sneak out, but never so much that it might come back to haunt me. And never in real life, only online, with the protection of a computer screen and a million miles between me and the people inside that crazy place called the interwebs.

But this was just the beginning of my transformation. As I started to throw little bits of my real self out online, I still was very much closed off to the real world. I wasn’t ready to test it out in public. What if it backfired? I wouldn’t be able to hide what it did to me. My shell was much too thin. It would break far too easily.

With so much bottled inside, I still didn’t have an outlet for my feelings. I was buried in the pages of imaginary worlds, and between the pages of internet forums where I could only leak little pieces of myself.

And then one day I started writing. Not because it was an outlet, but because I was bored. I needed something to do, and writing worlds I could escape to seemed like a good idea. It was just messing around with names and symbolism at first, but it quickly transformed into ideas, lots of them. Crazy ones that would take over my brain and force me to put them on the page. And even though I never intended for writing to be an outlet, somehow it became exactly that. The emotions I couldn’t share with anyone else, came out in these characters that spilled onto the page.

And then something totally insane happened. I decided I needed to share my work, decided I needed to find out if I was wasting my time. See if I was onto something. And for some reason sharing my characters and their stories was a lot easier than sharing my own.

Honestly, I wanted someone to tell me I was awful, that I should give up and not even bother. That I was wasting my time. And at a time in my life when I tried more than anything to sabotage myself, I got the exact opposite. Okay well not the exact opposite, but I found a ton of encouragement. While many people in my life, my family and closest friends, had always been encouraging of what I did, this was the first time I’d gone into the world (or in this case the glorious interwebs) and gotten it from complete strangers. People didn’t jump down my throat and find things to make fun of, they built me up without even knowing it.

So I went back to the drawing board. I started to learn how to write. I took classes, I joined writing groups, and I worked toward finishing the book. I was all in. People saw my mood shifting. They saw how busy I was. They started asking what I was up to. Because I was on this new high, I told them. I’m writing a book. And the weirdest thing happened. People not only thought it was awesome, they supported me, they rooted me on. They took interest in me and started coming to me periodically to ask how things were going.

I slowly started to realize that maybe letting the world know who I really was, wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It wasn’t so bad, because not only were there people out there who cared, there were also people out there just like me. People who also enjoyed the same things I did. People that wore their nerdom proudly, like a badge of honor. And I wanted to be just like those people. So I pinned the nerd badge to my lapel and began to wear it proudly as well. And the more I did, the more people stood with me. The gravitated to my genuine sense of self.

Then this wonderful thing happened. Comic Con came to St. Louis last year. And I realized that there were proud geeks just like me that celebrated that out in public. That it was more than okay for me to do the same. I could not only be myself online, but I could be myself out in the real world. 

And even more amazing, last year at Less than Three, I found a similar experience. People just like me who were often afraid because they'd been beaten down as well. They'd been told they weren't cool and they'd shut themselves down too. And others had found ways to open back up. We all talked about how to stand up to people who beat others down, how to band together, not only to sympathize but to start making a difference. To start the seeds of change.

And in those two events I realized, I’d found my people. Found a world where it was okay to just be me. I’d arrived. And I’d found my confidence. The walls came crumbling down. I was finally me. I didn’t hold anything back. But beyond that, I stopped caring what other people thought because I knew there were people out there like me. There were people that liked me for me. And more importantly, for the first time in my life, I liked me as me.

But I didn’t stop there. Because there came a time when people started to challenge me. It was my childhood all over again. Just because I was an adult didn’t mean I was immune to bullying. It sucked. I was tired of being beat down. I was done keeping my mouth shut. Done letting things just roll off. I decided to let people know that what they were saying hurt, and it wasn’t okay. That the things they were saying did more than just hurt. They were detrimental because they were contributing to the stereotypes in the world. That what they said was preventing the world from changing and moving forward. Preventing the world from accepting others as they were. That there are infinite forms of wonderful in this world, and just because they are all different, doesn't mean one is any better or worse than another. And I wanted to help let the world know that.

Somewhere in learning to speak up for myself and others, the bad conversations began to end and the good, productive ones began. People started looking at what could change instead of who they could beat down. They stopped to think before they spoke. They wondered how the things they say might affect others. And that is a world I’m proud to live in, and a life I’m proud to have.

In all this, I’ve finally learned to be me and be happy with it. And I’m so much richer for it. So this birthday I celebrate all of that, the confidence, the ability to speak up, my nerdery, my writing, my life, and all the wonderful people in it that have been rooting me on along the way. I celebrate the person who finally found herself. Who finally came out of the shell and joined the world. I celebrate the emergence of me!

PitchWars Mentee Bio

Here's me

No that's not my real car, I actually drive a blue Prius with a license plate holder that says my other car is a Tardis.

I live in the city with the big giant magnet.

With my fiance Andrew.

Yeah we're both nerds!

And my dog Sophie

I love to read and write YA and MG. In fact the only place I buy my books is in the YA and MG section of the bookstore.

And meeting authors is one of my favorite things to do!

Andrea Cremer

Ally Condie

Maggie Stiefvater

James Dashner

Holly Black

 

Cassandra Clare

 I am a giant geek!

Yes I'm holding a Zat Gun!

But I'm incredible!

To me.... this is funny....

And I wish I had somewhere to put one of these...

The shuttle not the sign, I actually own the sign :D

I wear t-shirts like this....

And this....

And this...

Yes I'm a Ravenclaw.

I'm addicted to twitter!

@Rockets2Writing

And anything Sci fi, fantasy, or paranormal on TV, at the movies or in books.

For me...

Oh and did I mention that I'm a Rocket Scientist?

And that's ....

Now go check out the other #PitchWars participants.