Good and Bad

But maybe good?

Good: I want to revise the first draft more than I'd wanted to write it. Sort of jumping out of bed in the middle of the night, am impatient sitting through dinner, kind of WANT.

Bad: I think I'm coming down with a bad cold, the yucky head cold + fever kind.

Bad: I think the shelter won't let us bring Iggy Pudd home, as we have no other dog already to show him the doggy ropes.

(I disagree--maybe he needs some quiet top-dog down time, but hey, they're the experts)

Good: uh... I want to fix my book instead of ditch it? er...

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

For the last eight months, I've been wallowing in the online moat of the Jindo Dog Rescue world. Living so far away from home, and realizing what a state they're in, in the US, made me want to help.

I sign up to the mailing list, look around if I can bring home help, correspond with a couple of the members. They seem helpful, kind, DOG RESCUE PEOPLE. Another of the group is a bit stompy, jumps all over some members, and is pushy, but hey, I figure that's how you get when you're faced with an impossible situation. ( though, when one woman worried about her family and her dog not getting along, this person did attack her viciously and personally about being a whiny Asian woman who gives the rest of "us" a bad name. Whoa)

Her tagline is: "now is not the time for me to leave." *roll eyes*

Now, I know every time I have something big to do, I get caught up in wanting to do something for other projects. FOR FREE. This is a stupid habit of mine. I got into trouble with this in Uni, when overwhelmingly positive about the world, I took on mentorships and writing workshops. Because I felt like being a part of the WORLD and HELPING. (Hold the tomatoes. Pollyanna wises up, though quickly forgets)

So, I jump in again. Blind and grinning. Seeing that this person's low-traffic dog information site is going down, I offer free bandwidth from the uni. She says, no, she's moving to another site. And we talk about the translation of a Jindo book she's meant to do for a while, but was prohibited because of the cost of getting someone to translate.

Hey! This is something I can help with! I know the translation market! I'm GOOD at this in my sleep! I'm overqualified! My CV scares people with the shiny. People BEG me to do this. (Okay, ask nicely, and with lots of flattery)

So, excitedly, I offer to do a part of it. Because it would help the Jindo Dog community.

Nothing. Nada. Not a "no, thanks," no brush-off. Just a snub. A nothing complete drop of pleasantries ignore. Because, obviously, I am a scam.

Yes. Moral of the Day: Don't offer to help out of the blue because you think a good cause needs help. You'll get suspected as a weird scam artist (I figure), and they'll diss you. Why shouldn't they? I just liked Jindo dogs. I think they're misunderstood, and misrepresented outside the country, and I wanted to do something. Looking back, I guess I was naive.

And I have to remember, whatever good I want to do when I feel an Outburst of Generous, stuff it. Just shut up and donate.

And remember Kirk Cameron. When you think you're at the top of your field, prematurely, arrogantly, (Hello, Tiger Beat!) and look around for more "MEANINGFUL" work to fill your life, you botch your fledgling talents and end up doing weird Christian movies (Left Behind, anyone?).

NaNo WriMo 2008

For the first time, I'm doing NaNo. That's 50,000 words in the month of November. Writing's not all about word count, but word count is something that gets you started.

Two years ago, when I was starting out, 2500 words a day (fiction) was not big deal. Easy. Then I got more and more careful, until my internal editor nitpicked at every single word as soon as it was laid down. This time last year, 500 words a day drained me. I was terrified of writing. It took quite a while to recover from that.

The bean-counting aspect of NaNo requires 1667 words/day to add up to the final 50K, but the best part is that THEY (not the wishy-washy being I like to call my inner editor/self-motivator) tell you to keep going, and not stop to micro edit what you will end up convincing yourself is a crappy draft. Above all, no throwing it all away after the first week.

So, whatever I end up with I'll have a good chunk to work with at the end of the month. First day: not bad at all: 1800+



([ETA] I realized on the second day, that this widget updates with the most recent number, as the days go by, and won't be a reliable day-by-day record for a blog.)

[ETA2] The hard part is not going back to tweak the bits that are now plaguing my mind. Written fast, what seemed to resonate on some emotional level seems all over-wrought, now. Which is why I am going to sit on my hand for the rest of the evening and NOT TOUCH THE WRITING.

And also, SHALL LEAVE IT ALONE TOMORROW, TOO.