this makes me feel smug and proud

"Easier graphed than done," captioned my friend Dave when he recently posted this image. But we did it! We really did! The "no" then "yes" path of this chart totally visualizes the basic structure of our thinking when we plotted this trip and we are now quite a great deal happier.

I can't believe it's almost over though. Must work harder. We can't let down the optimistic early-'09 versions of ourselves who actually managed to have such thoughts. I'm at 100 pages but my first chapter is all wobbly; Dan's latest song is so incredible it makes me want to do aerobics, but he's still uncertain about his singing. In other words: our momentum is strong, and that is good, because here comes the hard part.

status update / it's late

I hit 85 pages sometime last week, followed immediately by a brick wall of work. I have several paying gigs over the next while, then a break, then a serious descent back into marketresearchland for part of November and early December. I'm not stressed, though; that urgent need for vast amounts of writing time has faded. I know the characters, I know how they talk and how they behave, I can even see their town perfectly in my head (it no longer looks quite like Hope). I'm fairly confident that I can pick up my laptop at any point and jump back into that world, which honestly makes this trip already sooo worth it, just to have arrived at that place. A friend tweeted this Woody Allen quote yesterday: "It's a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want." I'm pretty sure I've only ever felt like that, as a writer, exactly three times in my life: once during the summer between grade 9 and 10 when I started and completed a collection of (unintentionally hilarious) linked stories; once during grad school when I wrote my (unintentionally obnoxious) novel; and now, during a sabbatical. All times when the world wasn't asking much of me.

It makes me want to find a more appropriate outlet for all those times when the world *is* asking. Because obviously this can't last forever. I described my current creative state to my dad on the phone a couple nights ago and he was intrigued -- he knows well that home-free feeling when you're onto something good and the distractions don't bother you as much, but his art forms (haiku poetry and songwriting) are, well, shorter. They don't require world-creation, at least not in the same way. It's a bummer I've never been able to write poems, because I do think they would fit much better into the realities of daily life. Anyway, for now, I'm loving this feeling of having this world waiting patiently at the edge of my mind, ready for me to jump back into whenever I get the chance. So fun. Hopefully this one ends up seeming intentionally, um, something. (Hah).

OKAY OKAY WHAT ABOUT DAN, you're probably asking. He's ruling, suddenly! We've realized we have very different creative challenges, now that the challenges are becoming more nuanced than finding time and motivation. Dan's is finishing things. So starting last week, he set up a strict schedule for himself: every Wednesday, he has to show me 2 songs. (Lyrics can be "scrambled eggs" if absolutely necessary). He just showed me his first Wednesday 2 and they are, expectedly, ahhhhmaaaazing, and now he feels like finishing things isn't so hard after all, and he won't come to bed even though it's two a.m. because he's in his music room making more.

He also got a pair of jeans. I got so excited in the store I texted Giovanni.

What else. Fall is still raging and awesome. I have some pictures from Grandma's bazaar but I'll post them next time because my camera is downstairs and I'm upstairs and it's a big house.

reality i accept you

My week has been all work. I'm preparing the analysis of the research I did in NY/SF, plus I have another freelance copywriting assignment. Dan too has had some requests from the home office, although he's still finding time for music, whereas it's been over a week since I've opened the looming "MY BOOK" folder on my desktop (named to distinguish it from the $$ folders, as in BARB'S BOOK and BARTENDER'S BOOK). It sucks, sure; this isn't what I came here to do. But at the same time, the role of reality in our vacation is part of what makes the whole plan so great. It's not just a fantasy. Money is necessary, obvs, and the fact that we're still making it even with all this flexibility gives us hope that this lifestyle can possibly be, to some degree anyway, sustainable.

Dan's not in the same omg zone I described last week -- he seems to have good days and so-so days -- but on the whole he seems upbeat about what he's creating. And he's eating so well! We're cooking vegan meals and doing yoga and just generally being retardedly Californian. But Dan, as is his style, is taking it all the way. He's entering his third week of hardcore Fuhrman eating, and DAYUMN he looks good. As for me, well, Pat just ordered two cases of It's-Its from San Francisco, which arrived in a rather dramatic presentation of smoking dry ice, so my diet has been vegan + It's-Its. I recommend it!