Weekly Update: 10-16-16 Stress Dreams

an onslaught of waves

tilted roads I cannot drive 

dreams trouble my mind

Even my dreams are filled with anxiety.

It is rare that two of my reoccurring "stress dreams" occur on the same night, but nonetheless, that's what happened. 

In the first, I was attempting to drive a car, but I couldn't seem to control it. I kept missing my turns and forgetting to signal, and I couldn't seem to stop in time. My car kept driving, through red lights, like the brakes had been cut, and all I could do was steer. I tried to make a U-turn, but instead I found myself, much to my panic, headed for the freeway.

As the massive concrete bridge looped down, the road went from straight to tilted at a steep sideward angle, like the sides of a bowl or like a rollercoaster track. It was the kind of road you could only stick to if going at a very high speed. But I was slowing down. Since I couldn't brake, I had to stick out my foot, like a kid on a bicycle. It worked. The car ground to a halt and I burst into tears. There was a passenger in the car who said she'd drive and turned the car around.

Imagine if the camera weren't simply tilted and you had to drive at this angle.

The dream then transitioned to a beach of sorts. It was actually more like a canyon, with two very steep rock walls on either side, and between them was the ocean. I could tell it was the ocean because of the waves.  The waves were moving toward the canyon walls. I was with a mother and daughter and we were walking along the "beach"--a narrow strip of sand between the ocean and the canyon walls. But the waves were coming in more and more aggressively, consuming what little beach there was. We had to climb the canyon walls.

We were perched atop the canyon walls, watching the waves slap the rock and I became more and more uneasy. The mother was calm and the daughter was playing. I wanted to go back, but the problem was that our way back--the beach--had been consumed by water. The tides were consistent. Sometimes the waves would pull back, revealing the beach and we could walk it for a while. But then a huge wave would gather and we would have to climb. Once, I think, I didn't make it and I was suddenly underwater, slammed by a huge wave. 

Waves dreams are some of the scariest.

These sorts of dreams have been reoccurring--the wave one since at least elementary--and they leave me with a lingering sense of anxiety. I call them stress dreams, because they usually signal that I'm feeling overwhelmed. That seems to be the case this week.

I spent all of yesterday working on one assignment for my Tech class. Let me repeat that. ALL of yesterday. (From 9:00 AM to 10:00 PM). One one assignment. (Which you can see here: http://mockingbirdprejudice.weebly.com/lesson-1-lecture.html) And I know what you're thinking, why didn't you work on it sooner. Well, I did! I worked on it for at least an hour on Thursday and at least 3 hours Friday. And this was not some big monthly assignment. We had one week.

Me, at the end of the week.

I've been Beta reading not one, but two novellas. Michelle Knowlden's "Egrets, I've had a Few" is 149 pages and she gave me two weeks to read through it. Sean Hogan's "The Crow Behind the Mirror" is 173 pages and I have one month. And bear in mind that if I see mistakes, I have to try and fix them, because these books are going to be published and I might be one of the last lines of defense between them and paying readers. On Tuesday, I spent upwards of two hours editing one 6-page chapter.

I finished off my 4-day teaching assignment on Monday and Tuesday, but I took the rest of the week off. I felt bad about that, practically hearing my mom scolding me for not making money. I felt really bad because on Wednesday, I didn't get anything done--and by that I mean, I Beta read for a couple hours, researched Counterfeit Diamond for at least 4 hours, and ended the day by re-writing my second chapter of Company.

Yep, research is going well. Have I read anything? Ha, ha, don't make me laugh.

 And that brings me to my poor, neglected writing. I have been steadily brainstorming Counterfeit Diamond for the upcoming National Novel Writing Month and it has been yielding good results. But I've hardly done any work on The Originals and my agent submissions have been dismal and I haven't even looked at Three Floating Coffins.

So, yes, I'm stressed. Stressed, stressed, stressed. Even in my dreams.

Just thought I'd share that with you.

Weekly Update: 10-9-16 A Hectic Week

So once again I

fly frantic from task to task

while wondering why

There's a strange paradox with this blog. I'm more likely to update on weeks when I am a ball of stress bouncing around the tennis court of life than on weeks when I sit sedentary in front of the TV for hours. Case in point, last week, I took no subbing jobs, did no writing, and couldn't be bothered to update. This week, I've worked hard at four subbing jobs (6th grade middle schoolers and high school), got significant work done on three stories, cleaned the kitchen, and am now frantically typing this blog between printing documents and researching agents.

Last week, I was burned out. When I burn out, I burn out hard.

This week, I was recharged. When I recharge, I get things done.

* * *

It finally clicked in my head the difference between elementary school students and high school students while subbing at Valadez Middle School earlier this week. With elementary school, the first thing you do is give them the rules of behavior. With high school students, the first thing you do is give them their assignments.

This may sound silly, but you win or lose the students in the first 5 minutes of class. Elementary school students need a system in place so that they know how to act, what procedures are in place, and what the consequences will be for bad behavior. Without this, they either assume there are no rules and go crazy or they get very anxious about what they are supposed to be doing.

High school students, however, have largely internalized these rules, so going over things like listening to the substitute when she is speaking is largely redundant. They need to know what their assignment will be so that they can get to work on it.

I find these two rules to be indicative of elementary and high school at large. Elementary school is more behavior-focused while high school is more work-focused. Junior high is tricky, because the students are in the process of transitioning from one to the other.

Carmen's Haiku

She finds pixie dust

in corners. In jars she hides

pinches of magic.

All of my fellow Pendragons inspire me. We're a fantasy-based writing club that meets at Panera on Sundays for critiques; but some of us also meet Friday to do additional writing. Today, it was Carmen and me. She was describing how she tried to make everyday people and objects magical. I tried to add that she was able to see magic where others saw dust... and suddenly the poem was born.

Just hope the other Pendragons don't get jealous.

Weekly Update: 9-23-16 Feeling Moody

Like a ship's wreckage,

I float along. It's my right

to be melancholy.

I did warn you. The calm never lasts. Neither do the achievements.

This week I crashed. I could tell by the lack of energy. It felt difficult to gather up the willpower and drive. I did what absolutely had to be done. But I felt blue the whole time. I moved slowly, and I lost the ability to multi-task. I began watching movies.

I don't know why this happens.

If I did one thing right this week, it was to begin my revision of Company, my YA paranormal romance/ mystery about a ghost and an imaginary friend. That meant shuffling through my notes and pictures of Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead (my inspiration for the setting), drawing pictures of the house they haunt, and re-writing huge chunks of the opening chapters. I worked from 8:00-5:30, practically non-stop, all Wednesday.  At the end of the day, I felt bad about all I'd done. I'd accomplished a lot... but it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing.

I think of this as disguised procrastination. Though I may be too hard on myself.

Today I worked at Valadez Middle School, my only job for the week. And if there is one thing about working a junior high, it does get your energy level up.

Maybe this is part of an upward trend. Maybe my bout of melancholy is passing.

Weekly Update: 9-18-16 Precarious Balance

A hurricane's eye

of calm has possessed me.

I doubt it will last.

There was a moment on Wednesday, when I looked at my To-Do list and realized that I was actually ahead of schedule. I'd finished homework in one class, I'd gotten some work done in another, I'd researched agents, I'd kept to my writing schedule, and I'd even gotten some chores done. I was a little bit astounded. I was not running desperately behind schedule.

Had I achieved balance?

The problem was that balance, as I'd defined it, was keeping on top of my To-Do list. Which was great for my sense of accomplishment, but was starting to make me feel extremely tense. On my To-Do List was reading for fun. I attempted it on Thursday, while volunteering for the library. But I couldn't do it. My brain was geared to achieving something; it didn't want to turn off and relax.

Frankly, I didn't like feeling so tense; it didn't feel like me. I knew that soon I'd have to abandon my To-Do List. On Friday, instead of doing my scheduled writing, I started re-reading an old story. On Saturday morning I played around with creating lesson plans for my future English class. This didn't fit my To-Do List mentality, but I was feeling a little better.

Maybe balance is meant to be a temporary state with me.

Weekly Update: 9-3-16 Summer Triumphs and Sadness

Lost summer days are

dew drops evaporated,

stolen by the heat.  

Once again, I apologize for the lack of updates. For me to blog once a week requires discipline and some semblance of a schedule, both of which sort of collapsed somewhere amidst July and August. To be fair, I wasn't just sitting around, binge-watching episodes of Community and Murder She Wrote... at least not all the time. I did accomplish the following:

• I challenged myself to write 25,000 words (100 pages) in the first three days of July, as part of my Camp Nanowrimo goals. By doing almost nothing but writing from wake to sleep, I did this in 2 days.
• I finished up Camp Nanowrimo with 65,000 words.
• I read 10 books for Brea Library's Adult Summer Reading Program.
• I finished my final draft of Three Floating Coffins, which I then sent to Beta Readers.
• I completely re-worked my website: www.rebeccalangstories.com to make it more professional. 

But the strange thing is, although while sprinting toward a goal, I feel obsessed, possessed, can't-stop-addicted-like-a-person-watching-Netflicks-without-a-remote, once I achieve it, I feel... well, empty. Sad. As if all my energy has gone through a colander and now there's nothing left.

This feeling was especially prominent after a finished Three Floating Coffins, a 76,000 word novel I started back in 2012. When I finished, at about 11:00 AM on a Saturday, I felt a moment of elation and did a brief happy dance. And then my chest turned to stone and I started to feel more and more miserable. 

It was over. My story was no longer my own; I was releasing it into the world for judgement. I had to say goodbye to characters I'd been carrying with me for four years. I had no one to celebrate with. Simple "Congratulations!" didn't seem like enough. All the stuff I'd put off to finish story came rushing back to me. I stood alone in a hot, empty, messy house.

By 4:00 PM that same day, I was weeping.

But I talked with my friend and fellow writer Rita, and the next week, I went to my parent's house for the next week and got distracted baby-sitting my nephew. Then I slowly started looking at the writing, projects, and tasks I'd neglected. College started August 20th, so I had to prepare for that.

I think that writers--or at least, certain writers like me--can easily become obsessed with work and achievement. A little obsession can help meet goals, but goals can make you feel empty, so it's important to re-connect with people and go out and do something you enjoy. In a summer of doing stuff, I also:

• Spent the week of 4th of July  in Oceanside with my parents, walking the eroding beach, going to farmer markets, and visiting museums and gardens in or around San Diego
• Actually saw some movies: Zootopia, The Jungle Book, and Star Trek: Beyond. (Coincidentally, they all contain Idris Elba.)
• Attended 4 Shakespeare plays: Richard III (Griffith Park), Othello (Shakespeare by the Sea), Cymbaline (Shakespeare by the Sea), and  The Tempest (Griffith Park). Also saw the Pirates of the Penzance (OC Shakespeare) and heard a free jazz concert by Bria Skonberg (Redlands Bowl). 
• Baby-sat my nephew Tyson and went to a small local water park for his birthday.
• Rediscovered my love of cooking and card-making.

And so, with a roller coaster of events, achievements, and emotions, it was hard for me to sit down and blog. But as summer gives way to fall, I hope it will be easier to recommit to a schedule once again.

Toothy Update: Crowns

From tooth, once solid,
now splinters remain.  Within 
pink gums, a dark well. 

I thought the worst was over.  I thought getting crowns over my root canals would be no big deal.  I was wrong.   Tuesday, 8:30 AM I strolled serenely into the dentist office.  Tuesday, 1:30 PM, I left, shaken to my core.

Up until this point, a substance akin to cement covered the hole in my teeth.  It felt mildly painful and weirdly flat.  I'd run my tongue over it in the forlorn hope of eroding it with my spit.  When the dentist said she had to drill to get the temporary filling out, I thought it would take a few minutes at most.  Well, she drilled and she drilled and she drilled, all the while filling my mouth with ice cold water.  Her assistant attempted to suck it out with some sort of tube but didn't always suceed.  Some trickled into my throat and I'd gag.  The drill's buzz would come to a halt and I'd apologize for my movement.  Four or five times this happened, rubbing my nerves raw.

The worst part, though, was when the drilling stopped and I got to actually stick my tongue into the hole in my teeth.  That was about the time I realized they had taken out the nerve via root canal so that they could put in a new tooth.  It was sort of like finding most of your hair ripped out of your head, seeing that enoromous bald spot, and then having someone stitch extentions back into your scalp.  I felt weirdly deformed.  When the dentist filled my mouth with white powder to take pictures of the hole in my gums and then had me go to the bathroom to rinse the chalky stuff out, I took the opportunity to stare at the damage in the mirror.  The hole was every bit as bad as I imagined, and the powder made it worse by marking out the depth, like layers of limestone on a cavern wall.

I only got a glimpse of the crown before it went in my teeth, but it reminded me of a white mushroom, with a bulbous top and tapered stem.  Snap.  The dentist fit it in my gums like a puzzle piece.  X-rays were taken.  The crown was cemented in place.  Then more drilling, as the dentist customized the ridges in the top of my crowns so that I could bite down perfectly.  By the end, my gums were tender and my mouth tasted like chemicals.  The tooth felt bizarre in my mouth, like I'd been given some bionic implant.

Then the dentist told me I had five smaller cavities that I should take care of as soon as possible.  The receptionist was standing by to make an appointment.  I walked out of the dentist wondering if, after all was said and done, I'd have any teeth left!