fred_chan

I've lost almost 20 pounds in the last year or so. My secret is...I don't actually have one. My eating habits haven't changed much really. I started cooking more (dinner 2-3 times a week), and eating a little less, but nothing drastic. When I buy frozen or pre-packaged food, I make sure that the calories from fat make up less than 30% of overall calories, and I always try to get products with as little saturated fat as possible. Otherwise I don't pay attention. And when I cook I never use low fat ingredients. Recipe calls for 1/4 cup of butter and a cup of sour cream? No problem! xP

I think the real reason I'm losing weight is because I'm a LOT less stressed out than I used to be. I have a job and a boss I don't hate and that don't drive me crazy. I'm not as worried about the direction of my life because I'm really okay with where I am right now (except for a few small motivational problems and lack of time lately). But over all...yeah, a lot less worrying on my end. The less weight thing is just a pleasant side effect of not feeling insane all of the time. Hopefully I can keep it up for a while. xD I wouldn't mind losing another 5-10lbs.

To whoever wrote that movie Joel and I tried to watch last night (and any writer who thinks like he does):

1. Decomposing corpses really are not romantic.
2. You can't have the one (already only vaguely) sympathetic character in your story randomly rape a woman and expect your audience to still give a shit about them.

Seriously. I don't know why you thought that was a good idea.

I've always sort of envied artists and writers who say that they found inspiration for their work in their dreams. Sure, I have fantastical dreams (where weird stuff happens), and they often have random made-up people in them, but pretty much all of my dreams happen in the "real" world, and nearly all of them are about things that are going on in my life. Even the weird ones. If I've been stressed about work, I'll dream about my boss. If I feel neglected by my friends, I dream about them giving me the cold shoulder, and so on. I've never ever had a dream about the story or the characters in my book(s). Not even when I was in the middle of writing and literally thinking of them all of the time. The second I woke up I would be thinking about them, but I never dreamt about them.

The only reason I bring this up is because last night--for the first time ever--I had a dream that was a narrative. I wasn't the main character. It was set in a fantasy world. There was a love interest and an artifact and in the end everything worked out.

I thought it was worth noting.

Work has become work. I don't hate my job--it's still much, much better than any other job I've had, and I plan on doing this for at least another year or two--but I don't absolutely love it either. I only work part time, but I feel like the job still eats up a lot of my life. I never have time for anything. I'm even starting to dream about work, which bugs the hell out of me.

I liked writing...

Ah, alone time. My best friend and worst enemy.

In the process of working for a recruiter, I think I have come to understand the job of a publishing agent more. That might sound strange, but recruiters and publishing agents aren't really that different when you think about it. Recruiters and agents both have to cultivate and maintain relationships with big companies who are in need of talent, and they're both constantly searching for people to fit those companies' needs--and sometimes they both find really good candidates who the company might not initially realize they're looking for, and sell that person to them. And they both only make real money if they place their candidates. They're also very similar when it comes to rejection.

I've sent out a lot of rejections now, and I know that when I send out an "After reviewing your resume..." email, I'm not doing it because I have anything against that person--I'm doing it because they don't fit with what my boss and his clients are looking for. I've known that the same is true for publishing agents too, but sending out rejections has made me really understand where they are coming from. They don't reject you because they have a personal beef with you or your work--it's just not what they're into, and it's not what their publisher contacts want either. It's business, plain and simple, and there's really no reason to take it personally when they don't take you on. After all, there are lots of other agents with ties to lots of different publishers. A no--or even several--is not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination.

Now I just have to get back in there and make a yes happen.

I would like to ask forgiveness from all those I have knowingly or unknowingly wronged or hurt in the past year. It doesn't matter what my intentions were or whether I felt justified--it was wrong, and I am truly sorry.

So the first agent I submitted to and the first to request sample pages from me is also the first to pass on my manuscript. I'm having a hard time pinpointing the feeling I'm experiencing at this news. xD There's disappointment in there, surely. But it's not exactly the soul-crushing despair I might have guessed it would be. There's probably a little bit of fear in there too--fear that no one will like it, but that's just a small part of this overall feeling. It's less a passionate emotion than just an overall stillness. Time to start over with more agents.

Now I just need to finish that synopsis.

I have written about four synopses of my book of varying lengths (getting shorter every time), and now I'm at a point where I think I've just been doing it all wrong. I've been writing it like a summary of everything that happens in the book--which it is--but I've found that I've sacrified a lot of the tone and the themes in order to give a narrative of everything that happens in less than 1000 words. So I need to start all over, and I need to make it interesting and emotional and less flat and I still need to do it in less than 2 pages. And it's going to be difficult. But I can do it. I wrote a pretty good blurb for my query letter yesterday in one try (after many). I can do the same with this damn synopsis too.

When I am reading a discussion in a forum and I come across a post with obvious spelling or grammatical mistakes in it, the poster automatically loses all credibility in my eyes. Even if the rest of their post is thoughtful and well-written, I will still think they are an idiot for their one mistake. Case in point this morning:

"Are you suggesting that her limited political experience out ways her batshiat craziness..."

Sorry, I can't read the rest of your argument now, because you're obviously an idiot.

(Also for the record, "shiat" is the result of a forum filter, not the poster)

As some of you may know, Jiko (our cat) had to have surgery yesterday in order to remove a hairball stuck in his system that had been making him very sick for several days. He made it through surgery and the doctor says he did very well overnight and that the prognosis is good. :) Tonight they are going to try feeding him and see how he does.

It's really interesting to see how money literally becomes no object when a member of your family becomes ill. The bill for his surgery and everything else comes out to be somewhere between $6-7,000 (more than a third of our life savings) and Joel and I feel pretty much no remorse over spending that money. It's not even really money anymore. It's just numbers. We paid the animal hospital a $3000 deposit yesterday without even flinching. And we are, for the most part, cheapasses. xD

Not to say that we aren't feeling the hit it took to our savings. At the current rate it would take years of saving every last penny to make that money back. And yes, I did ask for help from friends (if they wanted to help, of course), because it really is a LOT of money and huge step backwards for us financially. But we can pay it and we will pay it with help or not, because it's so completely worth it. There are some things that are just priceless. If his care had cost a million dollars I would still think it was worth it to have him back home and happy with us again. (In our current situation of course a million dollars would have been prohibitively expensive, but that's not the same as "not worth it.")

Thank you so, so much again to all those who have helped out. :) You are some of the best people in the world and I am really am eternally grateful to you all. :) The next time I see you you are all in for a really big hug. xD

Livejournal had taken sort of a backseat to Facebook these days. So... news:

- I finished book one finally. Several people have copies of it to read and let me know what they think. It's ~114,000 words. Yesterday I printed out a hard copy for Joel's grandma to read (I'm giving her a copy because I know she'll tell me it's the best thing she's ever read xP which will counter-balance the brutally honest reviews I hope to be getting form everyone else).
- I'm studying for the LSAT now. Planning to apply to UCI's new law school come October.
- Looking for part time work. I'm starting to think maybe I'll have to work retail again. Hm. :/ I'm thinking maybe I'll try to find a specialty store (i.e. clothes, shoes, etc) rather than a general store like Target.
- Car's A/C is out and I'm putting off fixing it because of money.
- Joel and I have nothing planned for our anniversary (a week from Thursday) and that makes me sad. :(
- Money is stupid.

And that's about it.

Last night I dreamt that I was diving into water I wasn't sure was deep enough.

I found out this morning from a friend that my website had been marked as an attack site by Google, so naturally I went to go check that out. Turns out that some hackers got my FTP password (probably through packet sniffers) and injected a bunch of javascript into most of my html files, creating invisible iframes that download malware. Grr. Webhost says that this problem is totally not on their side (all modifications are done by "users" via FTP, so it couldn't possibly be their fault), and that it's probably because of a virus infecting my FTP software. I boot up in safe mode and run Norton.

It took more than EIGHT HOURS to run the full scan. Norton found a couple of trojans, one of which was really, really old (and I have no idea if it's been active or not, although I've never had trouble before :/). Everything got quarantined and then deleted. I cleared out my temp files. I restarted. Installed an FTP client that uses secure FTP protocols.... Discovered that my webhost DOES NOT ALLOW people to FTP in securely unless they pay for premium hosting (not their fault my ass!! If they allowed users to FTP in securely, packet sniffers would not steal FTP passwords and corrupt websites on their servers!). So I have to use the web interface (which is slow and cumbersome) to fix my website (which is large). In the process of fixing, I accidentally pulled up an invalid URL and viewed the 404 page, which had apparently been infected. So now I get to run all my antivirus software AGAIN.

I hope that all hackers everywhere DIE IN A FIRE!!!

Oh yes I also forgot to mention that when I opened a support ticket to have my FTP password reset (they do not allow me to reset it myself for some reason) I got a lecture from the customer service rep about how my account was compromised because my password was not strong enough and that I need to make a more secure one in order to stop this sort of thing happening in the future. The only problem with this logic is: I have always used the RANDOMLY GENERATED password that THEY assigned me! Also, they have to know as well as I do (or at least as well as I do now) that FTP transfers passwords in plain text format!!! There is no decoding required! Password strength is irrelevant if the hacker doesn't NEED to break it!

ARRRGH!

FML -.-

I feel a little bad saying it, but out of the whole Rhode Island trip (including staying in cute little bed and breakfast, historical colonial town, wedding, etc.) the best part was curling up with Joel in the middle of the king-sized bed at the Comfort Inn right next to the airport in Providence and watching reruns of The Deadliest Catch while eating seafood subs delivered by chain pizza joint Papa Gino's.

Last night Joel and I tried to watched the movie adaptation of The Man of LaMancha, and it was horrible. The acting was good, but it turns out that Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren couldn't sing to save their own lives, and apparently by the 70s studios had given up on overdubbing actors who can't sing. And I'm sorry--even amazing actors can't pull of a musical if they can't sing. It's part of what makes the movie adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera unforgivable (although that film has several problems, from awful acting to completely unnecessary story changes). But anyway... We turned it off about 20 minutes in. Loren's Aldonza is so flat that it's actually painful to listen to, especially when I'm used to hearing Joan Diener sing it with so much emotion. And it's not that I'm married to the original broadway voices (although everyone in the original is amazing)--I'd happily listen to anyone who could sing like they actually had a soul while performing it.

The worst part about fixing a plot hole (in my experience) is cranking out a chapter and a half of content and then suddenly realizing that something else should have happened (i.e. "Wait----this would be way better if instead of doing x here, she did y and if character C wasn't there--holy shit that's epic, why did I not think of that before?!") and then you have to re-write that 50 pages or whatever. Again. For like the fourth time.

Why can't I have all my epiphanies at once?! That would make this a whole lot easier!

But unfortunately free writing is the way I come up with good story devices. D:

Ah well, I think I finally got it right this time. Finally.

Now I just have to write it out.

A Blagborne is a rate of damage over time. 1 Blagborne = 70dmg/rnd (OR 35penguins/rnd OR 1.52 Smedbergs/rnd)

There's a song in Avenue Q called "I Wish I Could Go Back to College." It pretty much sums up all my feelings over the last couple of years (except for the living in a dorm and meal plan part, cause I never did that :p). When we saw the show on Wednesday and they sang this I actually teared up.

Joel and I went to see Avenue Q on Wednesday (Joel's birthday). We really enjoyed it. I would rank it the second best musical we've seen (because face it--it's hard to top A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum). Big set pieces like The Phantom of the Opera are cool and everything, but I've found that I tend to enjoy simplistic shows more. The staging in Forum and Avenue Q are pretty similar, and they both have small casts. They're also both hilarious, so maybe I just enjoy comedies more than dramas. :p I also really enjoyed Kiss Me, Kate when we saw that in Denver and it had large set pieces, a relatively large cast and was a comedy so... (but it was also about Shakespeare, so...). :p

We're planning to see Fiddler on the Roof later this year and I'm really looking forward to that. (But if Topol has an understudy the night we go I will be very sad! D:<)

And for anyone who is even slightly interested: the worst musical I ever saw was Cats. Just buy a copy of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot. It's cheaper and you won't mistakenly expect the poems to have any sort of overarching plot to tie them together (and be disappointed when you find out they don't).