Be afraid...

I've been quite tired lately. And no, it's not because I'm up all night rewriting Carrie.

It all started a few days ago.

On that fine day, I woke up in the guest bed in my parents' house and my reality-meter kicked in. Mine is hardly a sustainable lifestyle. I am 32 years old, I live with mom and dad in the suburbs, and my shopping habit is being fed by handouts from the unemployment agency. (And I take this opportunity to thank everyone who pays, or has ever paid, French taxes. Much appreciated.) Moreover, my novel (all 30% of it) is probably terrible. Even if it's amazing, no one else might think so (which would probably mean it's terrible after all). And even if other people do think it's amazing, it's likely to take years for anyone to pay me any kind of money for it.

So, I bit the bullet. That's right folks. I applied for a job. A legal job. In a big, scary company. A legal job that is in fact, freakishly perfect for me. Which means I may even get it.

And that's where my problems began. Remember how I said I had been feeling really tired recently? It's because of the nightmares. I kid you not. Actual, honest-to-God, wake you up at night feeling sweaty and needing your mother nightmares. About working.

And by working I mean setting the alarm at 7 every morning - taking an overcrowded metro - sitting in an office all day - getting yelled at by people - being way too tired when you get home to do anything - living with a blackberry attached to your hip like some kind of tumor. That kind of working. The kind that comes with a paycheck.

Fortunately, I have simultaneously discovered melatonin.

And next week I'll be in Namibia.

So then I can dream about lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!

The Other Steve

First, an apology for not having posted in a couple weeks.

On second thought, no. I've been trying to write a book, and dealing with jet lag, so sue me (speaking of jet lag: melatonine, go get some, it works). In fact, not posting on the blog is a really good sign, when you think about it. It means I may finally be making the transition from someone who writes for fun (and therefore spends lots of time blogging instead of doing things like powerpoint diagrams) to someone who writes for work (and therefore cannot be bothered to blog after she has already spent all afternoon trying to hammer out half a crappy chapter).

So there.

Speaking of writing (because, let's be honest, I'm hardly able to talk about anything else these days), I've just finished reading Stephen King's "On Writing." And I would like to thank Steve for making me feel bad. Here's why.

1. Steve reads 70 books a year. He says that's a minimum if you're serious about being a writer. I read about 25, and until now I always thought that was pretty good going.

2. Steve writes 2000 words a day. 6 days a week. He scorns anyone who writes less than a 1000. It takes him three months to write the first draft of a book. It took me three months just to churn out the first 50 pages.

3. Steve says adverbs are the hallmark of the bad writer. I now seem distressingly incapable of writing anything else. I'm afraid my entire book reads like one impossibly long string of adverbs.

4. Steve says only pussies actually bother thinking about plot before they start writing. The characters and the situation dictate the plot. Not the writer. Duh.

So thank you Steve. I now want to go crawl into a hole somewhere, eat my miserable first fifty adverb-filled, plotted pages and suffocate under a pile of all the books I haven't read.

Take Two

It's alright. We've had a slight hiccup. These things happen. When great things get started, sometimes there's a bit of a fumble at the beginning. Like at NASA, for example, they're doing that countdown and then they realize they've forgotten to check one little widget or turn one button-doodah and so they have to take a break and fix it before they can get to the really cool launching the rocket part. This is just like that.

I have bronchitis. And writer's block. But we shall not panic. These are leftovers from 2009, that's all. 2010 hasn't really started yet, obviously, since 2010 will be awesome and not contain anything like illness or blocage of any sort. At all.

It will, however, contain lots of travelling. Starting this week, with a trip to my beloved New York.

Updates will follow.

Now I have to go cough up a lung.

Are we there yet?

So this is it. 2010. The long-awaited one. Check that. The Long-Awaited One (there are just some things that deserve capitalization).

Doesn't really feel different yet. Even though my horoscope or numberscope or whatever that damn thing was at the back of my Elle magazine said that my entire life was going to change this year. Considering it's already changed quite a bit in the past few months, that sounds rather daunting, possibly ominous. But so far, not much to report.

It's still cold. I'm still living with the lovely people who conceived and raised me and still check whether I'm wearing a warm-enough sweater. And I'm still struggling with the book.

Although on that note, Stephen Fry (if he wasn't already capitalized, I would capitalize him) has brought me great comfort. In his latest blog post, he has announced that he is ceasing all communication with the outside world because he needs to get some writing done - apparently he's been having a bit of a tough time with this latest installment. Stephen Fry is having a tough time with the writing! Can you imagine how much better that makes me feel?! As Wentworth would say: heaps!

So, who cares that I appear to have stalled somewhere in the middle of Chapter 8. That I have spent the last three days seriously re-thinking a major element of my plot-line. That I may be meeting (informally) a literary agent in New York in less than two weeks and for the moment there's absolutely nothing that I would be happy to show her.

Who cares about any of that? Because Stephen Fry and I - well, we're bonding.

2009: The Cliff Notes

Jan/Feb:
The Boy leaves. He puts in cameo appearances a couple times over the next few months, which just makes it worst. My cats try to distract me from the sudden emptiness of the flat. I get staffed on the Nightmare Banking Project, where I have the great privilege of getting yelled at by my client on a daily basis. It's cold in Paris.

March/April:
Turns out my cats (along with my lifestyle, my cigarettes, and Pluto) have been making me sick and I end up in the emergency room. After an extended hospital stay, I'm forced to give up my cats and my cigarettes, and Pluto is no longer a planet. I go back to work. Bad move. I get a haircut. Good move. I'm still staffed on the Nightmare Banking Project. I start using this blog as an escape mechanism.

May/June:
I go to New York and cry through most of it (despite N's best efforts). I go to OBT training and cry through most of it (despite Buddy's best efforts). Apparently it all has something to do with my lungs but I don't remember what.

July/August:
I go to work in London. I get much-needed rest and medical attention. I get even-more-needed time with fabulous girls, a Pilates instructor obsessed with my "horizons", and an old "friend". I get very little sunshine. Michael Jackson dies and all of a sudden "Smooth Criminal" is cool again.

September/October:
I make the important decision to leave consulting. I make the even more important decision to start writing a novel. I fall in love. I run a lot. I make long road trips in a Twingo. And some in planes and trains, too.

November/December:
I get my heart broken (I guess some things go full circle). I realize I have very, very dear friends and it's important to spend as much time with them as possible. I keep running. I wonder if the shoe-obsession-thing may actually become a problem. I leave my beautiful apartment. I reach the 50-page mark on the novel. I make lots of travel plans for 2010.

***

So there you go. My year in a nutshell. Good things, bad things, attempts at greater self-awareness, life-changing moves, boys, shopping, words and champagne. I dedicate a far better 2010 to Houston Hottie, Ozzie Chick, N, and the rest of you who made me smile in 2009 when I didn't want to (and yes, also to the Boy and Wentworth).

Snow falling on Paris

I moved out of my haven today. In the snow. (Two sights that made me smile on this otherwise painful occasion: teenagers sledding in front of the Pompidou and a snowman on the Boulevard Sébastopol).

To commemorate comme il se doit this sad day, please allow me a moment of melancholy and maudlin sentimentality as I list the top 5 things I will miss about my apartment (half a David Letterman ode to the dearly departed, if you will).

1. The 600 year old wooden beams above my head, for making me feel so young by comparison.

2. The flashes from tourists' cameras outside my window, for making me feel like a movie star.

3. The pencil height markers the Boy and I put up there ages ago as if we were kids (mine about halfway to his) for making me feel... well... tiny.

4. Diana, the very affectionate English bulldog from the shop around the corner, for making me feel cuddle-worthy.

and

5. The stunning, gritty imperfections of the neighbourhood, for making me feel like I was home.

Hello world, it's me, Res

You know when you get that craving for chocolate? Try as you might to take your mind off it - pop the TV on, re-read that paragraph you've been going over for the past 20 minutes, scrub your kitchen floors (actually, I never do that) - the craving just won't go away. It follows you around, nagging, it consumes you, you become tense, tetchy, close to actual, physical pain.

It's been happening to me lately. But not chocolate (I almost wish it was chocolate, at least I could damn the waistline and give in to the supermarket to make myself feel better). No, it is contact I crave. With humans. Who are not on my television. Or in my book.

Physical contact, for one. I'm a touchy-feely kind of gal (there's that American side, again), and I need to hug, hold hands, cuddle, kiss, play little-spoon-big-spoon, anything to make me feel like I'm connecting with someone. Diana the dog from the shop downstairs is obliging with the occasional embrace, but she belongs to someone else. I'm worried I may start molesting people in the metro soon. Which would be unseemly, and I'd probably get arrested. Or my ass kicked. But I suppose that's contact...

And I also crave virtual contact. Phone calls. Mail (bills and advertisements don't count). Emails. From anyone, really, I don't mind. It would be nice if the people I sent flatshare requests to wrote back to me. Or if someone sent me a Christmas card. Or just called to say hi and to see how I'm doing.

Don't get me wrong. People do call. They even drop by sometimes. Some friends have been particularly good at keeping me connected to the outside world while I procrastinate here alone in my apartment, living the "writer's life". But the problem is, the craving has gotten so intense that five minutes after one phone call, I'm already waiting for more. I click refresh on my email account over and over again. I check my mailbox three times a day. Every hour I look to see if my phone is still working. I try to make friends with people in the supermarket.

No wonder writers have a history of losing their minds. It's only a matter of time before I become once of these crazy old women you see wandering the streets all dressed up in their finery with crazy hair and makeup accosting Christmas shoppers. If one of those shoppers is you, I beg you, won't you stop for a chat?