jessica_shea

Steve, last week: Aren’t you excited for our trip to NYC? It’ll be an adventure!

Me: No. I do not like adventure.

This is true. I would love to be an impulsive, spontaneous, adventurous person, but I have come to accept that I am not. I like routine and home and knowing where things are. On the Meyers-Briggs, I am very, very J (INFJ). Travel, with its myriad uncertainties, is very anxious-making for me.

But our trip to NYC was great. We took the Bolt Bus, which I highly recommend. On the way up, I edited two chapters. On the way back, I took a nap and then caught up on my Google Reader. Buses with extra legroom and wireless FTW! Once in NY, we managed to navigate the subway without too much difficulty. It is totally different from the DC subway—older and grungier, but also cheaper!

My three favorite things about our trip were:

1) The Strand. I spent two hours browsing the YA section and ended up buying a dozen books, which Steve graciously carted around for the rest of the night. I bought a few Christmas presents, some $4 Francesca Lia Block books to add to my collection, and a few Debs books that I’ve been meaning to get, including Jackson Pearce’s As You Wish and a signed copy of Neesha Meminger’s Shine, Coconut Moon! Ooh, and I snagged a former review copy hiding in the basement of Kate Messner’s The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z! So excited to dive into these.

2) Our tour guides/resident NY friends, Rob and Meg. Rob took us to the hilarious hipster zoo of Williamsburg for brunch. Plus he took us out for amazing Thai food with mock duck and to Barcade, where I played my very first arcade games at the ripe old age of 29. I sucked it at Ms. Pacman but I had a lot of fun. It was just generally fab to see Meg, whom I miss and am trying to convince to move back to DC. She stayed out with us until 4:30 in the morning even though she had to work a triple the next day at the Blue Man Group.

3) The show! That’s right, the 5-hour play that I bitched about having to see? It was actually awesome. I have been to 2.5 hour plays that have seemed longer; I left feeling more energized than when I arrived. If you are in NY, check out The Lily’s Revenge at Here Arts Center. It's gotten great reviews. It contains feathers, zombie flower girls, a nightmare ballet about marriage, amazing heels, ukulele songs, an evil stepmother wedding dance, a curtain striptease by the god of nostalgia, and lots of sparkles. It is also a thought-provoking allegory about gay marriage that explodes gender roles. And did I mention that during the three intermissions, you can go downstairs and join the dance party in the dressing room?

Moral to the story: adventure will not kill me.

I’m working on the sequel to Inheriting Garolass. I don’t know if it’s the smart thing to do. I’ve read advice from authors not to waste time working on a sequel for a book that hasn’t sold yet. I do have a few other projects on the backburner, things I'm excited to write about at some point, but the main flow of ideas is still for Molly and her friends and enemies. So that’s what I’m going with.

I’m still waiting for edits from my new agent, which has been a challenge in terms of patience. I’m so excited to hear in detail what he thinks of the book and where I can make it better and what his plan is. If I am this eager to hear from him—my heart rocketing into my throat whenever I get a new message in my inbox--I shudder to think how crazy-nervous I will be when the book does eventually go out to editors.

Anyway, I’m working from an outline for the first time ever and it’s been incredibly helpful. I have added a few unplanned scenes, but I like being able to look ahead and balance family vs dangerous politics vs romance. It's like working with a puzzle. Also, I’ve found that when I get stuck, unexcited about writing the next bit, it’s usually because I’m planning to write the wrong thing. That has happened twice now with a Molly-Bree conversation that I think will actually have maximum impact later.  

Ooh, and I found out something new about one of my minor characters this week! There’s a line about Claire that has stayed through five revisions in Garolass, an observation I thought was totally random. It turns out it’s quite telling, and the secret behind it provides her with a major motivation in the sequel. It was an exciting moment. My subconscious is so smart!

I have to admit, we haven't bought any Halloween candy yet. I was afraid if we bought it last weekend it'd be gone before trick or treaters arrive tomorrow. Especially if it involved caramel or peanut butter and chocolate. But in that spirit:

Pumpkin pie OR apple pie?

Pumpkin soup OR butternut squash soup?

Pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, OR banana bread?

Pumpkin spice latte OR gingerbread latte?

Roasted pumpkin seeds: yay OR nay?

What other pumpkin-themed treats am I forgetting?

Are you carving a pumpkin this year?

• For shiny new words. Last week I was at 3K. Now I'm at 10K. I'm trying to get into the habit of writing at least 1000 words a day most days.
• For Dr. Wicked's Write or Die writing lab. I am so easily distracted by Gchat or Facebook or using the online thesaurus. I'm forever tempted to get up and fetch some more Coke Zero or some hand lotion or whatnot. And I will polish a paragraph to death--before I even know whether it's going to make sense and even stay. I've been setting Write or Die to Kamikaze for an hour and it's been really helpful in keeping me focused.
• For my brilliant husband, who just read a pivotal ten pages for me. And then he grinned and I was all, "What's wrong?" and he said, "I think this is my favorite chapter you've written. It does exactly what you want it to do perfectly." Um. I wait for his feedback with squirmy nervousness because he really is critical, and he will not hesitate to tell me if something's not working. That is a highly-coveted compliment.
• For Lady Gaga. I know I'm a little late to this, but seriously. I can't stop listening to this album. "Boys boys boys. We like boys in cars. Boys boys boys. Buy us drinks in bars. Boys boys boys. With hairspray and denim. We love them! We love them!" I can't stop! 
• For my job. It's been kind of frustrating this week as I do a bunch of accounting, trying to reconcile book subventions and payments to translators from 2006. But I'm lucky to have a job in this economy.
• For cheese. Yeah. I know, a little random. But I had a cheese danish this afternoon and cheesy risotto for dinner. Nom.