First post of the New Year

I'm sorry it's been such a long time since I've written. I've been busy since the year began.

First of all, I got a temp job. I'm working at Univision 40--the local Spanish-language channel. Basically I'm working the control booth, making sure the local commercials air at the proper time. They're planning on automating this process within the next month or two, so in the meantime they need a temp to do it.

I'm glad to be working, even though I work the night shift (4-12), which means that I'm tired all the time and don't seem to be able to cram everything else I need to do into the day. It's also a little sad... whenever I'm getting ready to leave work for the night, I think of Dave. I think about how it would be if he were here with me, how he would probably leave something on the stove for me to eat when I came in or if he was awake he'd have a show on I like for us to watch together. I miss him the most on the way home from work at midnight.

I work five minutes from my house, which is much nicer than the 3o min commute I had when I worked at Kinko's. When I lived with Dave, I hurried home to be with him. Now I hurry home to watch Scrubs.

Anyway...

So in between work shifts I'm writing the third draft of my novel. I also have an idea for another novel, which I've barely started. I'm not happy with what I've written so far, which doesn't surprise me, because 1) I've been reading a lot of "light" stuff--mainstream romance novels and the like--so I'm sure my voice is influenced by what I'm reading and 2) this new project is so ambitious that I'm not going to be happy with it until I've worked and worked and worked.

My new novel is called Chasing Ghosts. It's a generational story told in bits and pieces... some parts will be from the point of view of a young single mother, and others will take place 20 years later and be from the point of view of her daughter. The mother's story is about her attempt to forge a relationship with a guy she knew only briefly as a child, and how difficult it is for her to create a new relationship because she's still in love with her husband, who passed away. The daughter's story is about her attempt to create a new life for herself in the city her mother moved them from after her father's death. She's moved there in order to start over again after being found guilty by association of shoplifting, but she can't seem to free herself of her past.

I'm excited about it... if only I can write it.

Some other news:

1) One of my teaching classes started today. I have to write a "literacy autobiography" detailing my experiences with learning to read and write. It's slow going because I taught myself and my main experiences in elementary school were of being told, "You're too young to be able to read like this." I don't think a bitter essay about how stupid my teachers were is quite the point of the exercise.

2) I found out that Zach Braff has a myspace page. He encourages his fans to add him as a friend. I've been procrastinating because I want to write him a fan e-mail and also because I have this fantasy he'll actually look at my page before he adds me, which I'm sure he's way too busy to do. In any case, I'm way too busy to make some changes to my page I want to make before anyone of consequence looks at it. Unfortunately time is ticking, as always... he says on his blog that he'll read all fan mail for now but if enough people contact him he won't be able to anymore... and so far there are 10000+ people added to his page. On the top of his friends list is his brother, who is apparently a writer and gives aspiring writers advice in his blog.

I've been spending way too much time on the Internet looking at all this stuff.