When 'Fine' no longer applies

I've reached a place psychologically where I can honestly say I have never been before. When people ask the question 'How are you?' I can no longer respond with 'Fine'. Because I am not fine. No sir, not even close to fine. I've gone so far away from fine that I don't even know how to get back there from here. I hope it is just over the horizon and somehow within my grasp again soon but I'm not sure of that.

Okay, enough of the melodramatics...

My health has taken yet another turn. I thought a pulmonary embolism was the worst thing that could happen - aside from coronary artery disease. But, I was wrong. There I was last week, happily and without complaint following my coumadin regiment and getting my blood tested weekly to monitor my clotting levels, not eating my greens (or at least not cheating too much), not feeling like running yet but expecting it any day now. And I noticed something new. Well, okay, what I mean is that I could no longer ignore something new as insignificant. My legs from the knee down are swollen. And by swollen, think pitting edema (Google it, I dare you). They've been swelling since before Easter now that I think back to the tantrum I had that morning when my cute strappy-sandals from last summer wouldn't go on my swollen feet and I was feeling completely fat and bloated - but I chose to ignore it hoping it would go away. Some things never change I guess.

I mentioned it to the nurse while I was in getting my weekly blood draw and next thing you know I'm having more blood work and urinalysis. Guess what - there IS something else wrong. This time with my kidneys and my thyroid. I feel like I hit the big four-oh and immediately started falling apart. The thyroid thing is apparently unrelated (and hereditary, thanks Mom) but could contribute to why I have had very little energy and don't feel like the coumadin has kicked in as quickly this time around to getting me back on the treadmill/road. The kidney thing definitely is the reason I'm swelling up and retaining so much water. Thank goodness the female part of my psyche that keeps yelling FAT GIRL every time my pants feel tight the last couple of weeks can shut the hell up now. The fifteen pounds of extra weight I've put on the last three weeks is NOT because I'm unable to eat salad and veggies and can't breathe well enough to run yet. So there! *sticks tongue out*

But now I'm back to having more questions than there are answers. Plus more poking and prodding and testing trying to figure out exactly what IS going on with me. Can you say "high deductible met by April"? Say it with me...

Needless to say, I cling desperately to my weekly yoga sessions to reset my psyche. That overworked psyche that is trying her hardest to keep her chin up. The alternative is wallowing in self pity and self-induced panic about what the future holds which I've caught myself doing - very unlike me. I don't feel like myself, I don't look like myself, and some days I have little desire to be myself in this current unhealthy stage of the game. I've grown weary of all this crap and would kill for feeling good with all my energy back. It is a daily struggle to lift myself up and keep myself going. And my family is imploding because the force at the center that keeps it all a smoothly oiled machine is falling apart. But, it is what it is and at least I didn't die. (That's my mantra lately.) While it sucks right now and I'm not fine, I have high hopes that I will be soon.

Camp NaNoWriMo has turned into more shenanigans than writing but I'm still brainstorming and plot outlining whenever the inspiration hits me. Its like going to summer camp and doing the fun stuff like swimming and hanging out by the fire but skipping the hard stuff like cooking and cleaning up. It's enjoyable but it doesn't get everyone fed regularly. My writing can wait while I focus on getting healthy again. And that half marathon I've already paid for? Yeah, who knows if I can even walk 13 miles by June let alone run but I'm still hoping I can participate. We shall see...

If I'm a bit more sporadic on the blog, now you know why. In many ways "I've been better" has become my default where everything used to be "fine". Here's to there being nothing significantly or long-term wrong with me and to a quick recovery back to the land of the healthy! *fingers crossed*

A new project for Camp NaNoWriMo

I've got a new project I'm working on. A new novel. And how lovely of the folks who run the NaNoWriMo website to offer the same online tracking and motivational tools and shenanigans of November in April to help me bang out the rough draft quickly this month. They call it Camp NaNoWriMo, I call it brilliant.

Wait, what? You want to know what happened with my first novel? I'm getting ahead of myself? Sorry... let me explain.

Last time I talked about my writing I was anxiously awaiting critique from my writer's group on the first draft of my first novel and stressing that they weren't going to like what I'd written. Well, turns out they all loved it and wanted to jump in and make it better and polished and pretty enough for submission and hopefully publication. And while I want that someday as well, I decided that wasn't the novel to do it with for several reasons.

First, it's my first novel. There's a reason the majority of first novels never get published - they are learning curve victims left to die along the path to becoming a seasoned author. Of course there are famous (and not so famous) exceptions like Harry Potter (and Twilight). And I truly believe that if a new author wants to write and re-write a first novel until it is just as good as a second or a third, it is possible to learn enough on your first idea to make it happen. My good friend has done that and is well on her way to publication. I also know she has most definitely written that book more than once.

Second, I'm lazy and I want the learning return with smaller investment up front. My first book (working title "Natural Balance") is a fantasy. And after all the time it took me to finish the first draft I still don't have a fully fleshed out world built and there are still holes in my magic system. My goal is to someday be published which means I need to learn how to write a first draft and then how to edit that rough draft into something people want to read. So, I've figured out my process of completing a rough draft. But do I really want to learn how to edit using an idea that I'd honestly bitten off more than I could chew? Not so much.

Third, I've learned that I am not going to write fantasy for a living. While I love reading it, it just isn't the genre niche that I'm going to be great at writing in. Another argument for not editing this one in hopes of publication. Say I worked my ass off for the next months or years and did sell this book. Then I'd (hopefully) have fans who'd want to keep reading my work because they loved my fantasy novel. And I'd have no other fantasy to give them? It was my baby, my first real idea for a book that panned out into a plot but the fact that all the subsequent ideas I've had are NOT fantasy is something I need to fully acknowledge. Perhaps someday I can pull my baby out of a drawer an abandoned flash drive and publish it under my well established name and hope some of the same people like this completely different piece of work. But I'll never build a career out of one fantasy novel.

So, I'm going to practice my new-found skills of completing a rough draft by starting and finishing another idea. One that doesn't require me to invent an entirely different world with culture and religion and magic different than ours. This new idea is mainstream fiction set in the world I live in and know everything about. All I have to do is develop some great characters who have tragic and exciting events happen to them that keep the pages turning. That's the novel I'll learn how to edit with. 

And where I go from there, I don't even know yet. There's a chance there's still pieces of this writing thing I still don't even know I need to learn before I'm successful. We shall see! In the meantime, my goal is 30,000 words and a fully fleshed out rough draft/outline by the end of April. Wish me luck!

Pulmonary Embolism - 4 months later

Remember that pesky trait I have of being an impatient woman? Yeah, it occasionally bites me in the ass. Like now. I like to think that I've been a model patient through this whole pulmonary embolism ordeal by being very involved in my treatment and following all of my doctor's orders. When I got to stop taking Coumadin at the end of January (totally unprovoked with no whining or bitching on my part I might add), my doc told me to come back after a month for some follow-up blood work. I knew Hubby had to go in for his own blood work mid-March so I just planned to go when he went and calendared it without another thought.

I felt great in February, started training for my half marathon, kicked ass with my weekly yoga class and all around felt great. Then March hit and I started making excuses about mid-week runs, started putting off my long runs and just felt run down. I chalked it up to warming temps in Utah and the return of my seasonal allergies and didn't think much more about it. I was still active, just not doing all that I had intentions of doing. It happens to the best of us.

My calendar - the secret weapon of my overachiever behavior - reminded me it was time for my blood draw two weeks ago so I stopped in on my way to work to open a vein. My insurance company has this cool tool where you can access your own health records online as long as your doctor participates, which mine does. Lucky for me since Monday night I was impatient to know the results - weird, I know - and logged on to see if they were back already. They were but I was devastated. My levels were still elevated and my doctor had made a note that he wanted me back on Coumadin. I immediately began stressing about what all this could mean and Googled what else could cause an elevated result on this particular blood test. Bad idea to Google anything health related I think in hindsight but hey, I need data!

The next day, stressing about possible cancer and liver disease and heart disease thanks to my friend Google, I got a call from the doctor's office to schedule an appointment. I continued to stress about the possibility of being required to take Coumadin for the rest of my life on top of whatever else could be going on until my appointment on Thursday. When I finally got there I was reminded again about how amazing my doctor is and how lucky I am to have found him. I told him all the things I'd been stressing about which he was able to dismiss since I had started this whole ordeal with a full blood workup showing no heart disease or liver disease. We decided that we both wanted to know what exactly was going on in my lungs. I was willing to undergo and pay for another CT scan for real answers rather than assumptions that this elevated level was just because I *only* took Coumadin for three months initially. In true Terra fashion, I then negotiated with him on my treatment options. We agreed that if I still had the exact same clots, he'd be okay with only three months of Coumadin and if it turned out they were new clots then I'd give him six months without bitching about it. It was a fair deal that felt win-win for both of us.

Last Monday morning was very unsettling when I had to stop in the middle of yoga class because I was out of breath and wheezing. Considering I've been doing yoga since a month post-diagnosis I was super scared that my test later that day was going to yield far worse news than I hoped. Well, it turns out I've still got clotting in my lungs but thanks to being able to compare both of my CT scans we know for certain they are the same ones I originally had and that they are significantly smaller. YEAH for no new clots!

So, I've resigned myself to Coumadin for the next three months - without bitching about it - and all the crap that comes with it. Goodbye spinach and all my favorite green veggies.  Hello weekly blood testing and bleeding issues again. But truthfully if being on the stuff makes me feel well enough to run like it did in late January and February, it will be a welcome addition back into my life until these pesky clots are for sure gone. Especially since I've already registered and paid for my half marathon in June.

I have one last hurdle to complete from my follow up - my first mammogram this week. Apparently I'm of the age (yippee!) and since malignancy can cause blood clots my doctor says its a good idea to do it. I was hoping that all the recent controversy in the medical field about doing them in your forties was going to get me out of them for a few more years. But no, I'm not so lucky. Unless you count that I am still kicking and didn't die from this insanity that I still marvel about happening in the first place. Here's to the next three months passing quickly so I can finally put this all behind me for good!

Evolution of Fitness

Last week I realized that my personal fitness has evolved, in part because of my irritating pulmonary embolism which still isn't gone as much as I wanted to will it behind me. (More on all that later.) Like all evolution, little things got me to this current place where yoga has replaced running as my mainstay.

I've loved yoga since I first did it by myself in my basement about 5 years ago. At the time I was super self-conscious about "doing it right" and thus didn't do it very often and never in public. Then a couple of years ago I started occasionally doing yoga classes at the gym when it fit into my schedule. I loved it just as much in a class with others as I did alone in my basement so I stuck with it. Remember my friend who I dragged to yoga last summer when I discovered how much I like hydro training? (You can read about it here) Well, she loves yoga - like LOVES it - and does it faithfully at the gym. It turns out she and I have a neighbor who is a yoga instructor and agreed to teach a class in our neighborhood once a week. A class I have faithfully been attending since December even though it happens at the ungodly hour of SIX AM on Monday mornings. Me, the worlds biggest night owl awake and somewhere by six a.m.on purpose and before coffee. It's insane! Last week, this same friend who I introduced to yoga a mere eight months ago agreed to lead the class because our instructor was going to be out of town. She said something at the beginning of that practice that has really stuck with me. "There's just you, your breath and your mat." I think that's why I love yoga so much. Even though you do it in a group it is such an internal and personal thing where you can push yourself to new limits and every time you do it something different happens.

One of the greatest things I've learned practicing yoga with my close friends is the realization that everyone is different and everyone has their own strengths. I tend to be so judgmental toward myself in comparing where I am with where everyone else is and this class spent with the same people week after week has become a full expression of each of us as individuals. Not in a negative sense but in a very positive one. I'm short and have super flexible hamstrings so I'm really good at down dog and I adore flip dog while there are other poses that I can't even begin to get into like crow and hero that others of us excel at. I get to secretly gloat when we are in down dog and my heels are flat on the mat and everyone else is crying out in pain. Then they get to gloat when they do what they are good at and I'm struggling. This morning we had a conversation about finding "our" poses which also keep evolving the more we practice.

Last week I was on cloud nine after I did my first major inversion. It's called shoulder stand and basically you lie on your back with your chin tucked into your chest with your torso and your feet pointing straight in the air. The first time I couldn't even begin to get my torso off the mat let alone perpendicular. I was dejected but did the modified version instead while vowing that I'd keep trying and "someday" I'd be able to do it. Who knew that someday would only take a couple of months when I finally did it a week ago. It was visible and measurable proof of how much my body and all the muscles have changed. My posture has improved, my walking gait, everything.

Our instructor sometimes asks the question "where do you go when it gets hard?" and I've been thinking a lot about that lately. I think the answer also evolves over time. I used to say I wanted my health and my weight to improve but wasn't willing to do any hard work that took me out of my comfort zone. Now I have to keep reminding myself not to push too hard because I'm still healing from that whole almost dying thing. I used to get dejected and simply give up when I couldn't do something, now I keep trying until I'm finally successful. One thing I've learned is that it really is important to find something you love to do to stay active. It doesn't have to be the same thing as the next person as long as it keep you motivated to keep working hard. I may love yoga even more than running since I never considered waking up early to run but am considering adding another couple of early mornings for yoga. It doesn't mean I'm giving up running, but right now I get more joy and less frustration with my limitations with yoga. Perhaps when all the blood clots in my lungs are completely gone things will change yet again. That's the beauty of evolution - you never know where things will end up. Some days you just hold on for the ride...

The stress factor of critique

I sent my entire rough draft off to my writer's group to read and critique late last night. I am so stressed that even in my sleep deprived state of meeting my submission deadline - self imposed so there is enough time for them to read the whole thing before we meet to discuss it - I still couldn't sleep. What if no one likes it? What if they think it is total crap? What if their critique makes me cry? These are the thoughts going through my head.

The reality is, this is a rough draft in every sense of the word. There is at best cardboard cutouts for characters because I haven't added all the layers and depth that need to be there. Description is very lacking in lots of places. But that's because at this stage of the project, all I've done is gotten the story down from start to finish. Now the daunting process of editing for content and pacing and characterization and all the other things that I don't have at this point will begin.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Writing is hard work! Wish me luck that my fellow writers like it enough to invest their time and effort into helping with that editing and revision process so that others may someday read it, too.

I wrote a book... now what?

I wrote a novel. Holy shit! I. WROTE. A NOVEL. Or more accurately, the first draft is finished!!

And it only took me four and a half years...

I started 'writing a novel' back in 2008 when I first participated in NaNoWriMo.And while technically I've been working on the same basic idea I had for that first book, nothing is the same in the finished draft as it was when I started.The character names are different, the character who's point of view the story is written from has changed, even the scope and focus of the story shifted.Then there are my writing skills themselves. I trashed so much writing in the past four years to start all over when I learned another skill in the writing process and realized everything I'd written was now shit.

Let me tell all the aspiring writers out there some basic truths that I discovered along the way to my first completed rough draft of a novel-length work.

Just because you read a lot doesn't mean you'll have an inherent talent for writing. This was a hard one for me. I thought I could just sit down and write a novel. I've only thought about being a writer since I was in junior high. Sure it was going to be a lot of work and sure it was going to take some time. But surely I had what it took because I've been reading novels since I was in elementary school. Then I found all these things that I didn't know - point of view, tense, showing vs. telling, plot structure, character development, voice, narrative voice... The list goes on and on. And all these things have rules that work and things that you can't do and ... and ... and, yeah. It took me several of those first years stumbling around all that unknown territory realizing there was far more in the "things I don't know I don't know" column than there was in the "things I know" one. I still remember one of my very first chapters I ever wrote where the point of view shifted between two different characters as quickly as the dialogue they exchanged. There was a whole lot to learn that I understood subconsciously as a reader but that I had no real idea how to do as a writer.

Writing is hard work. I have a full time job, I'm a wife and I'm a mom to growing girls - one with a schedule all her own to keep up with. Part of me - not the overachiever part of course - wonders if it is even possible to write for a living on top of all that I'm already doing. This past year I've watched my friend and writing group partner sign with a publisher and embark on what comes next in the road to publishing. She doesn't work outside the house and she thought some days it was more than a full time job commitment to keep up with the editing she had to do. Deadlines up until now have been of my own doing and could come and go with zero consequences if I happened to miss one. What happens if I do publish a book and I don't have the luxury of writing at my own pace. If it has demands like a job will I still love it? And would my psyche rebel if someone told me I had to do something I didn't want to do - because that is never a good thing for me. Plus, writing is not the quick way to fame and fortune - you have to sell many many many books in order to make enough to quit your day job. Frightening!

Writing is humbling work. You put immense effort and emotion into creating characters and worlds and this story and you shed blood, sweat and tears to make it the best you can. Then people want to read it. And you want people to read it and tell you how much they love it. And sometimes they do say that. But most often you hear more about the things that don't work or that could be improved. And even when you trust and love these critique partners that you've asked to tell you these things it can hurt to hear them. If you can get past the initial sting and instinct to defend your work to the death, you can learn from what others see. But getting past those things can be very, very difficult. In the four plus years I've been writing *this* novel I think I've let my writer's group see a total of six measly chapters and not even that much of this current draft. I'm both sorry for that and not. They are my biggest supporters and I owe it to them but somewhere deep inside where I don't go very often, I am super scared no one will like what I wrote.

Writing a book isn't the same as publishing a book. The first thing people want to know when they hear I've written a novel (my daughter included) is 'when can I buy it and read it?'. Most published authors write countless novels before they are ever picked up by a publisher. Brandon Sanderson - who is such an amazing writer that Robert Jordan's widow picked him to finish the Wheel of Time series - wrote close to ten novels before he ever got published. (I only know this because my other friend and writing partner is his biggest fan so I might have the facts wrong...) Regardless, there are probably hundreds of unpublished writers for every one that gets a break and gets to publish a book. Then there are even fewer published authors who sell a ton of books and whose names are nationally recognized. Those are staggering odds and I know there is still no guarantee on where I go from here.

Writing a first draft isn't the end, it's only the beginning. I didn't even take two nights off from writing to celebrate before I was busy with revising. Key parts of the story morphed in the middle to make the ending work which then made the beginning inconsistent with the ending. And since I have a submission deadline for my writing group to read and critique the entire thing, I have to fix it right away. After they get a crack at it, there will be edits and revisions based on what they give me feedback on. At some point I need an editor to go over it and figure out all the things none of us have seen. Then beta readers for a look with fresh eyes, more revisions. And THEN I can hopefully find an agent who likes it enough and thinks he/she could sell it through the querying process which I haven't even wanted to look at details of because it is like having a full time job, plus a writing job PLUS a querying job until you find an agent. In the meantime, I will move on to the next idea and write another first draft and start the complete process over from the beginning. I've heard of published authors who are editing two books at the same time they are writing a third. Another argument in the 'writing is hard work' area.

While I know this is one of the more important steps - finishing a story all the way to the end - I know I am still on a journey of discovery. I'm having a blast and learning new things all the time. For today, I'm trying not to be overwhelmed by everything there is still left to do and instead taking this time to revel in the fact that I have done what I set about to do all those years ago. Or the first step of it anyway.

The Lost Art of Organization

One of the keys to being an overachiever is being able to juggle a million responsibilities and commitments. After not having the energy or the drive to keep up with my life for a couple of months while I was recovering, I'll never take this skill for granted. This week I've attempted - again - to instill this skill in Big Sister.

At eleven, she is failing miserably to keep up and meet commitments. She dances three nights a week and fifth grade homework is far more brutal than any year prior. She - again - is missing so many assignments that with two weeks looming before the end of the semester she's in danger of failing fifth grade. Even with the looming threat motivation of knowing if she can't keep her grades up she doesn't get to keep dancing competitively, she struggles.

This must be one of those parenting lesson things because I'm at a loss. How can my kid - MY kid - not get it? She has a planner provided by the school and part of her grade this year is based on how much she uses it. Yet days go by that it doesn't even make it home, let alone have notes in it to remind her of what she needs to do. Worse, I'd been lulled into happily believing everything was under control. After all we nipped this in the bud last semester and she's been getting her math finished at school so there's much less to do at night. Imagine my distress when I checked her online grade book - just to be sure - to find nineteen missing assignments. NINETEEN. Half of them math.

In true analytical style, I took a step back from the yelling mommy ledge and wondered if there was something bigger at play. Using a planner effectively assumes there is a foundation of organization already in place. And as much as it pains me to admit it, my kid is not organized. Her room looks like a tornado unless I've been mean mom and locked her in it for days and told her she can't play with BFF until it's clean. And then it only lasts for a couple of hours. Partly I blame myself and my OCD where until I got pregnant with Baby Sister I cleaned up after her and when the mess in her room got too big for me to handle I helped her by telling her where everything went. It was very hard for me to admit that I have anything to do with this issue but there it is. The queen of organization never taught it to her kid. *sigh*

So, we had a great talk - she cried a lot and I yelled less - and I explained the nuances of being organized. Where you have to find your own system of keeping track of things and your own little tricks to remind yourself to use your system until it gets ingrained. Reinforced by the knowledge that homework never goes away and as much as she cries and says 'I wish there wasn't such a thing as homework' now is the best time to figure out how you're going to manage it. Six words I fear I don't say enough really hit home to her: 'I know you can do it.' I'm sure there's a whole series of posts I could do on how I'm motivated to action by the exact opposite of my kid but that's for another day.

Amazingly, I think at least part of it sunk in. I just looked up and saw her checking off a missing assignment on the list in the front of her binder after she filed it in the folder she's decided is where completed work goes. Of course she's been at the homework for two and a half hours with only two assignments completed because I have to keep reminding her that she's supposed to be doing homework and not daydreaming/complaining/chatting/eating. But I'll celebrate the baby steps and try to overlook the rest. This parenthood thing is hard!