Year of the Dayna

Some people's year begins January first. Some people's end December 2012. My year begins on the 24th, when classes start back up.

I seem to live my life as if my entire year were condensed into one month of competing in NaNoWriMo. In the first three months (week one on NaNo time), I get really excited about all the new projects I want to start and all the cool things we will be doing in classes this semester. I generate some new work and many, many lists of further things to generate. By month four (week two), I'm cruising along at a nice clip, confidant and reassuring myself that yes, I can do this writing thing, yes I can do this being-social thing, yes I can poop and eat a sandwich at the same time and not feel too bad about it. Then month six or seven hits (week three). Oh the dark, dark days of summer, where all my buried thoughts of self-loathing spurt up into the sparkly recesses of my brain and start setting fires. In response, I develop a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality and allow the procrastination (which has always been there but in a slightly subdued form) and lethargy to take over my body, mind and sleep schedule. And Chris Baty isn't even here to talk me up! Only once I've completely given in, to the point of disgusting even myself, do I begin to start to commence to initiate to engage in an active role in my own life. Thus, by the final few months (week four) I have bounced back into a caffeinated delirium of optimism and multitasking, finishing projects and creating others, taking the world by the balls as long as it means never leaving my house. I feel accomplished! I feel like an Adult! I feel like sleeping, jesus I am fucking tired. I collapse and wake up three hours after midnight, crying into my worthless hands as I realize I have missed the deadline yet again. Wait, that happens in NaNo time. In Me-time, it's pretty similar except I don't cry. I'm a man, dammit!

The point is, here is a list of projects and other things to which I may try to apply myself this year:

1. Do homework the day it's assigned. Usually, I do all my homework the night before it's due and then I feel really shitty when I'm underprepared in class, and feeling really shitty about something I'm perfectly capable of preventing causes me to blame society and my mother and all these effing delicious drugs for all of my short-comings, and oh look a mouse! Anyway, do your homework, Dayna. It's fun! (Holy shit, I believe you! Now sign over that lease for my beachfront property in Arizona.)

2. Make my dog fat. I will begin with human treats such as donuts and twinkies, and move on to the fatty meats like beef and bacon. Ice cream topped with straight-up lard for desert. Absolutely no moving except to pee and poop, which will be excreted into tubes that run over the balcony and deposit into the neighbor's living room. Two birds, one stone! 

3. Engage online writerly communities. A blog is not enough! I must read other blogs, and make comments, and promote others who in turn can promote me. Because everything, in the end, is about me. And sharks.

4. Devote time/monies to reading more independent/small press/self-published/online-only authors. Most of the big-name and mainstream authors everyone reads today are disappointing. Time to think outside the bookstore. Plus then I can interact with the authors (maybe) and again get that wheel of reciprocal reviews-promotion thing going.

5. Punch a random stranger in the face or stomach. I mean, what would they do? Not talking some huge guy or a junkie or a homeless man with nothing to lose, I mean more like a soccer mom or, better still, her ten-year old child. What would they do? I bet it's cry and run away, maybe pee a little if it's a stomach hit. We shall soon see!

6. Finish dormant writing projects. In the pipeline are: first draft of a novel, a book of short stories set in a Nevada brothel, and a short story about an endless staircase (stolen idea? whose stolen idea?).

7. Experiment with self-publishing. It gets kind of a bad rap, as many people think self-published titles are those that weren't good enough to be chosen by publishers to back in the market. But there are many factors that can lead to rejection from traditional publishing means. I plan to use Amazon's Createspace to publish my Senior Project manuscript. More about this in the coming blogs.

Notice how nowhere on this list is the item Blog More.  Suckers.