by Ashley on July 2, 2009
I’m all moved into my new apartment and I love it . Luv. Lub. Love.
It wasn’t love at first site, though. I’d seen pictures, but I’d never been inside (it’s not like searching for a regular apartment since it’s on campus). My first reaction was that it looked, um, institutional. A little dorm-ish. Now that I have all my stuff packed inside, I really like it. It’s newer than my old apartment. It’s much brighter inside. The freezer seems to work decently. The wireless is faster. I have a nice patio. It still looks a little dorm-ish, but that’s to be expected.
By the time I finally finished moving everything late last night, my arms and legs felt like noodles. I don’t think I could bench pressed a pillow. But I wanted to get everything done in one day. It’s the way we do it in my family. We’re expert local movers. Growing up, I lived in 6 different places and they were probably all within a few miles of each other. I’ve now lived in 3 different apartments within about 100 ft. of each other. I have the bruises and sore muscles to prove that despite the short distance, it was still a move.
I got everything put away yesterday. Clothes in the closet. Books on the bookshelf. But, now comes the super fun part of taking my time organizing everything. For the first time in 3 years, I have a bookshelf big enough to hold almost all of the books I have with me (most of my books are at my parents’ house in WA). It makes such a difference to be able to see and grab your books. It’s not the same just to know they’re there in boxes. My first thought when I put them all up on the shelf was that I should record vlogs in front of my books (a la The Vlog Brothers), so that you can all look at them at think that I’m smart and interesting.
My last apartment was a studio and so is this one. After living in a studio for so long, I’m probably going to feel like a queen when I can one day upgrade to a one bedroom. There’s so much strategy involved in living in a studio apartment, because there is just no space. My biggest concern in moving into this apartment was, where am I going to put my giant suitcase? What about my vacuum cleaner? I even had a conversation with my step-dad where we discussed hanging my vacuum cleaner up as wall art or wiring it to double as a floor lamp. I manged to find a place for everything, even if it means my DVDs are now stored in kitchen cabinets.
The most unexpected thing was that when I was moving in, I noticed all these good looking people. I was like, “did I just move into Melrose Place?” I’m not new to this community, but I guess I’m used to my old campus (which can be seen from this one) where the age of the average student is like 40 and a lot of people are married with kids already. Maybe it will be a little like Melrose Place here. Everyone knows I could use some drama in my life.
Scratch that last bit. The most unexpected thing is that the hall outside my apartment smells like chamomile.
by Ashley on July 1, 2009
I did it. I just sent off a draft of my novel to my friend Lisa–my first reader ever. I made the July 1st deadline.
I didn’t exactly sprint across the finish line, but I didn’t trip and land on it either. It’s more like I jogged across the line feeling pretty good, but coming in way short of my time goal. No personal best.
I had this idea that I would make all these revisions–big and small–and today turn over a draft that if not good was at least tight. Like, I would at least be sure it made sense and that events lined up. No one could poke any holes in my plot or question me on any scene I couldn’t defend. It would be solid.
But that’s not the way it happened. I started revisions not knowing how to revise. I found my way a bit, but never sat for hours and hours pouring over one chapter. I’m still not sure whether I had unreasonable expectations or I failed. Probably something in between. I had to reconcile the way I thought it would be with the person I am, the circumstances of my life, and the way I work. I am not a detail person. I’m never going to spend hours trying to find that one perfect word. I’d really rather jump off a cliff.
I wanted this to be it, but when I actually dug into the revisions, I realized how much more there was (and still is) to do. Still, I know this could go on forever and I could easily delude myself into thinking that if I just worked hard enough, it would one day be perfect. But, I’ve never in my life done anything and thought, “yup, that’s perfect,” so I won’t hold out for that now.
In preparation for this post, I went back to the post I wrote last summer when I finished the first draft of my novel. I was hoping to find inspiration there. Instead I found only the words, “The End.” I knew at the time that it wasn’t really the end, but, well, it sounded good. I wrote that post on August 1, 2008. Then I thought July 1, 2009, was really The End, but it wasn’t. Now I think I’ve really got the end figured out: August 1, 2009–one year after completing the first draft. The goal is to have a draft I might actually try to do something with, but that, more importantly, I will let people read. It’s time to finish one project and move on to many more. I could stay here forever, but I don’t want that.
This most recent race to the finish taught me a few more things about writing. First, it’s like riding a bike. I hadn’t written much fiction over the last year. It occurred to me that I might not be able to do it anymore, however little sense that makes. I found all kinds of reasons to hesitate and avoid getting started, but once I did get going, I found myself writing again without much effort at all. I think a lot of what I wrote was actually better than what I’d written before. Second, I find revising really hard and it will always be my habit to try to get things right the first time. But when that’s not possible, I find that pulling out specific scenes and working on them in another document took off a lot of the pressure. If it wasn’t good, then I could simply delete it without having ruined any of what I’d already written. If I found a better way to tell the story, then I could simply cut out the old and substitute it for the new. Third, I relearned the very obvious: the hardest part is getting my butt in the chair and my hands on the keyboard. It’s so easy to avoid writing by, say, talking about what you’re doing like I have done here to a sometimes sickening degree, but there’s no way to complete a novel without just sitting down and writing it.
by Ashley on June 30, 2009
“Shoes in a Suitcase” is either the coolest name for a new band or the lamest. Anyway, those are my shoes there in that suitcase. Something I’ve learned as someone who moves every year or two is that luggage makes moving that much easier. Why? Wheels.
Maybe I don’t talk about it as much as writing or theology or makeup, but you have to know about another major interest of mine: organizing. I thought for a while that I wanted to be a personal organizer, but then I realized I don’t so much want to deal with people’s issues and teach them a new way of life as I want them to let me into their homes and then leave me alone while I work. It’s like art to me. Or, not really, but it is a lot of fun.
This is one of the reasons I like moving. The other reason is that I like new spaces. They’re exciting.
So, tomorrow I move. I’ll probably come back with bruises. But, I’ll have a new place.
How much do we all love my terrible iPhone pictures? If I intended on putting this one up on my blog, I would have put my most fabulous shoes on top and not flip flops and clogs. That’s the only pair of clogs I own, I swear. Stop judging me.
