Becoming a Writer (getting to know myself)

There were a couple of summers, once I realized I wanted to be a professional writer, when I spent a significant chunk of time each day for a matter of weeks or months, working on writing projects. And, in this way, I got through a couple of drafts that didn't work, but became a bit discouraged that I didn't get any closer than I did to anything publishable. (But at least now I know that I CAN blitz my focus like that, which is indeed useful to know.)

The problem was, I became so discouraged that I stopped writing regularly, which was a problem. Finally towards the end of 2016 I decided to address it, so for 2017 my writing goal was to write for ten minutes a week-- and I made it! And I often wrote a lot more than ten minutes. It felt really good to be able to set an achievable goal and to feel the sense of accomplishment from meeting it over and over and over.

In December of 2017, a friend found out that I was trying to become a writer, and that I was writing for ten minutes a week, and she said what I had been thinking all along: that's not enough! You have to write more than that! Which wouldn't have been helpful in 2016, but in 2017 it hit me just right. Thus, a couple of weeks ago, I set a new, too-small-but-still-not-happening-regularly goal: I work for an hour a week on my writing.

Before I did that, though, I had to sit down and decide what I wanted to work on. In the past, remembering that in college I had done better during spring and summer terms (block classes) than fall or winter term (regular-length, and more of them) I had cut down the number of writing projects I was working on to one fiction and one nonfiction. And I don't regret this. I made real progress on both of these. But in late December (as in, last month), as I considered expanding my writing time, I realized that I really wanted to start something fresh, while not abandoning the old projects. And I remembered that there was that one term when I took 19 credit hours and got straight As-- so, sometimes it's a good idea for me to try a lot of things at once.

So here's the plan. I'm still working on my dad's biography; I have no idea what I'm doing, and therefore no idea when I will finish, but at the moment I'm still getting new information from interviewing him, his brothers, and his sisters-in-law, among others, so I figure I'll work on what to do with it once I have it all down. I'm also working on the fantasy novel I've been working on FOR.EV.ER. I've seriously wondered if I should abandon it, but again, even though I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing or when I will be able to finish, I'm still making progress at making it a better story, so I'm just plugging away (but not very fast).

I'm also blogging again (obvs.) and also starting a new non-fiction project, which I'm afraid to write about here because I've talked it up to so many people already, and I'm a little afraid that I won't get it done and that I will disappoint all the people. But the weird thing about it is, all that advice about "turn off your internal editor"? Yeah, it's actually relevant for this one. (I tried it for the fantasy novel last time I blitzed it and wrote 40,000 words of which I hated about 30,000 words, so it isn't always good advice.) In this case, my internal editor is saying kind of stupid things like, "you'll never finish," or "You're just blathering on and on; no one wants to hear what you have to say about this." THAT's the kind of internal voice you need to ignore.

Which is not to say that I wouldn't be deeply embarrassed if my first draft were to see the light of day. It's just that I know from experience that listening to stupid voices like that will lead to never getting said first draft finished, which is the absolute requirement for being able to get to the later, better drafts.

And here's the last thing. I'm a little extra-weirded-out by this, but it looks like having more projects to work on is motivating me work more on each one, which means that so far I'm not working an hour a week on writing; I'm working, like, four hours minimum. (It has helped that the weeks thus far have included vacation and/or snow days). Notwithstanding how very weird I find this, I'll TAKE it.

I'll let you know how it goes. :)

The parable of the book tape

So, there had not been a library media assistant for two years before I came into the job (the school board had decided that they weren't necessary, for budgetary reasons, but then later reversed their decision). And that means, among other things, that book repair had been done only on a very irregular basis for the last two years, and sometimes when it was done, it was done inexpertly.

Being addicted not just to books, but to learning, I of course had to do some internet research on book repairs.

Just for the record, my very favorite is called "tipping in a page," wherein you glue along the very edge of a page which has fallen out of a book, stick it back in (carefully!) and then, once this special glue has dried it's like the page never fell out. WOW.

Also just for the record, my least favorite repair at the moment is called hinge repair, wherein you smear glue on a thin little piece of wood, and then try to get the glue into the narrow space where the endpaper and the cover of a book are coming apart from each other. It's messy, it's hard to see what I'm doing, and I'm always afraid that I'm going to get glue where it should not be. But I am firm in my belief that I will cease to hate this repair once I have more practice and feel more confident because I am in fact more competent. And, I make myself do this repair anyway, because I know both from reading about it and now from experience, that it prevents much worse damage (like the book and the cover coming apart completely).

Anyway. Book tape. Besides the cloth book tape I have pictured below, you can get some really thick, super-strong tape called (amazingly enough) book tape, which is thick-ish plastic film with adhesive on one side. And you would think-- or someone would think, because someone actually did this-- that it would be a good idea to use this somewhat expensive, extra-thick tape to tape pages back in if you didn't feel like messing with the glue, because then the pages would stay in place extra-well. But you would be wrong. True, the tape doesn't come undone, but the pages are so much thinner than the tape itself that on at least one of these repairs, I can see that the pages are starting to have crease marks where the edge of the tape is, and will eventually rip off entirely.

So what do I use? I use packing tape-- which is like book tape, but much thinner, so at least I'm not damaging the pages by using something that's way too heavy for them. There exist better products for this job, I'm 100% sure, but this is the best I've got available at the moment. Book tape I use for covers, both hard and soft, which need reinforcement.

(I've pasted a picture below of some cloth book tape. Most tape is sticky on one side these days, but the tape in the picture below needs to have glue put on it before it can be used.)

This is single-stitched book tape, of which a roll was supposed to be ordered with our other book repair supplies, but somehow it didn't get ordered. Which made me sad, but it isn't like I don't have plenty of other things to repair. *sigh*

And why is this the parable of the book tape? Well, every time I pull out either the book tape or the packing tape, I inevitably think about Jesus, saying that you can't mend old clothes with new cloth, which is true, because the new cloth will be so much stronger than the old that it will rip the old cloth. It's like using book tape on a paper page. And he also said that you can't take old cloth and mend something new with it, and this is also true: the old cloth will just rip out, and there is no point in making a mend like that. So I always feel a bit surreal, sitting at the table where I do my repairs, thinking about what would it be like if Jesus had been speaking to a bunch of book conservationists: "Neither do ye take book tape and put it on pages..."

Christmas and babies

You know how the angels sang for Jesus' birth, and how it was such an honor and privilege, and probably they were standing in line and/or employing some kind of extra-dimensional jiggery to fit everyone in who wanted to sing in the choir? How cool it would have been to be one of those angels?

That's how I feel about all babies. Seriously.

Hence the name of the blog...

State of the Cornelia

I'm working at the same middle school I have for the last four years, but in the library this year.

Yes, I do love it. No, it isn't... quite... a perfect job, but it is very fun, many days, and at the moment, it is by all means perfect enough.

I applied to librarian school (to be a school librarian).  It's an all-online program, which I can do the work for IN the library itself. Perfect! Now I'm just waiting to see if I got in...

This year in the middle school, we got fifty, yes, that's five zero student library volunteers. And if we'd had five, ten, maybe even fifteen or twenty student volunteers, I might have tried to train them to shelve in person, one by one. But for fifty... well... I came up with a shelving-certification program, with four separate levels, videos, games (NOT designed or programmed by me), and of course TESTS.

More of this anon. For now: I'm doing pretty well, overall. I wish I were further ahead in my life, but I'm used to wishing that, and excepting for that, life is pretty good. :)

What Jane Austen and John Grisham have in common

I sat down the other night and watched the second half of The Pelican Brief. (I had meant to watch the whole thing, but the DVD I had only had the second half on it, and that was entertaining enough for me in the end.) I enjoyed watching this utterly satisfying relationship between reporter and informant, how vicariously safe it feels to have someone totally on her side, willing to believe her, able to back her up.

And when it was over, I realized that this reporter reminded me of the Aunt and Uncle in Pride and Prejudice, and Admiral and Mrs. Croft in Persuasion. I realized that Grisham puts his characters both in physical peril and emotional peril, but Austen's characters are also often in emotional peril; she is one of the best authors I know at writing emotionally unsafe families.

And, in the end, they (each of the characters-in-peril) get away; they end up safe. SO satisfying. Not quite sure, yet, what I can learn and apply to my own writing, but it was nice to be able to figure this little thing out.

So small it's ridiculous

I've been keeping this new year's resolution since January, JANUARY did you hear me? And it's the middle of July, and I've missed exactly one week since I started, and that was the week of girls' camp when I was gone for five days and came back and slept for two more.

And the goal is: write for ten minutes per week, per project. Which is twenty minutes total. That's the basic goal; that's the one I've only missed exactly once this whole time.

It is SUCH a ridiculously small goal that I have been pretty embarrassed to tell anyone about it-- and yet, it has brought me so much happiness that I've sort of not been able to help myself.

Thus, my new rule of thumb: if a goal is so small that it's embarrassing, but is still not happening in my life yet, that is a great candidate for a goal for me. Ridiculous.

Just, you know, some news

A little news. I'm easing back in to this.

One of the toddler nephews carries a postcard around with him at all times. Mom (my mom, his grandma) says that it has a picture of a cityscape on it, she thinks. She found a birthday card for his younger sister, with some pretty butterflies, and sure enough, she now carries hers around, too.

In Primary yesterday (Primary is Mormonspeak for Junior Sunday School), we learned that one of our new adult leaders loves to eat Beef Wellington. None of us (except her) knew what it was, but she explained, and it sounded yummy, and the teacher ended by telling the children that maybe they could ask their parents to fix it for them. One of the four-year-olds' mother teaches the three-year-olds, and right then and there leaned forward and asked her mom if her mom would fix it for her. Her mom turned around and came right back with, "Does this mean you are willing to try new foods?"

And I found out that Dad used to have a grownup to sit by him in Primary. THAT was interesting. It means, at the very least, that my brother came by his hyperactive ways honestly, but it also adds more evidence (like I needed any; I'm pretty biased at this point) that children with extra energy can turn out very well indeed. :)

About this picture: I have no idea if it looks like the card Mom gave to my niece or not, but it WOULD  be a cute card for a two-year-old, would it not?