And the Long Night Begins

So I've got two midterms tomorrow afternoon. One in International Security, and the other in Russian Literature. Neither of which I'm ready for. I didn't happen to make it to most of the Lit classes, and so I'm at present re-reading the books (which is what I'll spend most of the night doing) in the hope that I'll be able to put together sensible answers for tomorrow's exam. The International Security one I'm less worried about; I've paid attention and can sum up the most important concepts. The only thing that's going to be an issue is the time constraints (3 essays in an hour). But I write pretty fast, so here's to hoping that I'll manage a pass in both of them. I deserve it after that 43/100 in my cognitive neuroscience exam (thank god it's best 2 out of 3 exams!).

But aside from that, I'm quite proud of myself in the getting-things-done realm. I managed to talk to the undergrad advisor in the political science department, and as soon as I find an advisor, I'm set for the major. And amazing...I have weeks to go before it actually had to be done! And, just a few minutes ago, I finished my housing application for next year. Fingers crossed I get a room and don't have to fuck around with off-campus housing.

I'm just hoping I don't fall prey to the I'll-just-nap-for-10-minutes syndrome that tends to get me so very well at about dawn whenever I try to pull an all-nighter.

At least I don't have classes tomorrow, so I can just come home from the midterms and crash for the next day or so (though I do have to be up for work at 10...blech)

A Break

Funny that I talk about a break in the middle of midterms. I should actually be doing some last-minute cramming for my comparative politics exam that starts in 40 minutes. But after going to the recitation this morning, I think I know what I'm doing, so instead, I'm going to waste my time productively. Heh.

Anyway, I've not done any writing since Sunday, I think. We're now on Wednesday (Gah! are we really?) and so that's 3 and counting days without writing. Of course, knowing how far behind I was even on Sunday (about 75000 words, I think), I'm getting progressively more and more behind with each day that I decide to put my college education over enjoying myself and writing. (And, for the record, I AM enjoying what I've written of the second novel. Not a fucking clue where it's going, but that's half the fun).

I think that it might be the first genuinely sensible decision I've made in ages.

See, I'm the kind of person that blows off classes on a whim because I'm really in more of a writing mood than a going-to-class mood. I confess that I've done it a couple times already this semester. But when it came to Monday night and I'd realized that I'd not started studying for either of my 2 midterms, nor had I started on the 5 page paper due Tuesday, that it might be a good idea to close down Word for a couple days and try and focus on something that my parents might care a bit more about.

Yeah, it'll put me about 100k words behind. Yeah, that's even less of a fun number to make up between now and the rest of the year. Yeah, that's a FULL NOVEL behind schedule. Yeah.

But I might just pass my midterms if I do it this way.

End of Week 1

Where I am: 25,518
Where I should be: 40,000 (as of Jan 8)


Damn.


Incidentally, classes start tomorrow, and I'm sitting up at 1:43 in the morning, because I'm on an awful sleep schedule and so I'm sure that I'll miss at least one of my two classes tomorrow.

What a wonderful start for the new semester!

Coffee and Exams and Writing and Such

I'm so high on caffeine I'm practically shaking right now as I type this, and I've been awake for 24 hours, studying for my psych final, which I just got home from. It's a 2-hour final, 66 multiple choice questions, and I finished it in just under half an hour. Why? Cuz it's on personality disorders, which frankly interest the hell out of me, and so I knew it, even though I'd not slept.

I think I'm going to go to sleep now, because sooner or later I'm just going to go SPLAT and I'd rather be in bed when that happens.

Of course, there's the nagging little bit of me that wants to sit here and gnaw away at my hook for the crapometer for the next 10 hours, which would be hugely unhealthy and ridiculously unproductive because who can work when they've not actually slept?

Not sleeping is good for some things, though. I came up with the most utterly fantabulous first line for my novel at about three this morning. What is this sparkling gem of caffeine and sleep-deprived brilliance? "You know, the Gestapo went out of fashion ages ago."

Amused me, anyway. We'll see what I think about it when I wake up.

Partly terrified of the thought that I'll somehow manage to sleep the next day and a half and miss the crapometer entirely, which would suck.

And I'm rambling now. Time for Kate to clear off the bed and go to sleep.

Done with School

Well, today was the last day of classes. I survived another semester. Almost, anyway. I still have 2 exams and 2 papers, by the 20th. After that, though, I'm free until January 8. Except for the fact that I may have a job over winter break. In which case, my writing will likely get neglected again.

I can sit down and force myself to write every day, no problem. I'm not saying that the quality of it is very good. Most of it's pretty crappy, to be honest. But first drafts are supposed to be, which is something that took me a long time to learn. I can write crap, because I know that it'll all get edited into something that doesn't resemble verbal vomit.

Therein lies the problem, though. If I tell myself that I have to edit a part of it everyday, or that I have to sit down for half an hour, or an hour, and edit...I'll never get it done. It's not that I don't think my stuff needs a good hard edit, because I guarantee that it does. I've got a couple glaring plot inconsistencies in my draft, which has adopted a new title "a mortal god", which I reeaaally like. But the plot inconsistencies need to be worked out. I've also got a list of new scenes which I intended to put in the first time, but they never got in.

Oh, and I did something silly. I sent off a query letter, because I was proud of my hook. Of course, the danger is if they like it and want to see the first couple of chapters. Fortunately, the first couple chapters are (I think) some of the best in the book, so hopefully IF the agent likes the query then I'll have enough time to put the thing through a proper edit. I've always worked better under pressure, and yes I KNOW this is a bad idea. But I console myself with the thought that I sent out 11 (something like that) queries over the summer, and got a uniformly negative response. So maybe this agent will hate it as well. Hurrah.

A New Month

It's going to be a busy month for me. I promised myself that I was going to get a start on editing my novel, with the hope to have it edited by mid-January, so that I can start putting the finishing touches on it and have it ready to send out to agents by the spring. Of course, we'll have to see if that actually happens, or if I procrastinate my way through the month, as I'm so good at.

Of course, I do have some excuse. Classes end next Friday, and I've got 2 exams and a 12 page paper due by then, and then another 2 exams and another paper by the 20th of December. So when I don't work on my novel, I'm justified, right? Right???

But at this moment, that's not what's bothering me. I'm a really lazy person, and I...I won't go as far as to say that I don't care about my classes, because that's absolutely not true, it's that some days, I just wake up and I just can't convince myself that it's worth going to class. For most of my classes, this is not a problem. Most of my classes are either too large for the professor to notice whether I'm there or not, or too impersonal for them to care. That, however, is not the case for Russian. Technically, you're only supposed to miss 3 classes a semester, and every one after that loses you a grade point, or something like that. Thing is, our Russian dept is really small, and so in their endeavor to keep students, they don't like to fail people. That bad attitude towards going to class has lingered through three semesters of Russian now.

But today when I got to class, she told me that I'd missed too many classes, and asked what I thought we should do about it. I never got a chance to answer before class started. I have to go see her tomorrow for part of my exam, and I know the subject is going to be brought up, and I have nothing to say in my own defense except that I'm lazy. I don't know what she's going to suggest. I'm thinking at this point that I'd probably be lucky to get off with a C. I've never gotten a C before. But even worse than that, I'm thinking she might fail me and I don't know how I would face myself or my parents with that. Really, I don't. There's nothing I can do at this point, though, there is no case that I can make, no excuses. I have decided that if she says something like that, I will ask what I can do to change that, and if nothing, well, then there's nothing that I can do.

I'm trying to convince myself that this is all just a worst-case scenario, but...I can't. I'm a worrier by nature, and I just don't know what I'll do if she fails me.

But it's my own stupid fault, and I'm not blaming anyone else for it.

I hope that it comes up tomorrow. If not, it's something I'm going to worry about until I see my grades in January, and that would be awful (though probably no more than I deserve).