status: I'm almost done with the first major turning point in my story. W00t. :)

Over at Romance Divas, LaurenBethany posed an interesting question: Are you a drifter or a rower?

In other words, do you go with the flow or plan your writing career?

I've always been a rower. I've always set goals and went for them. But this year I've lost track of that. I've drifted, letting the currents take me where they may for months.

The biggest part of it was numerous disappointments I've had. They cut me deeper than the rejections I've received during my initial agent hunting phase. Perhaps I've had unrealistic expectations. Perhaps I've failed to insulate myself properly. These things have taken toll on my creativity. It's harder to write, harder to think and harder to stay focused. The more I obsess about the past disappointments, the more impossible it is to do what I needed to do.

If I don't row my boat, it's going to go wherever the currents go. Unfortunately the currents don't care about me. I do.

Now I'm focusing on small things that I can control. I'm learning how to control my pain (physical and mental), how to insulate myself to protect my Muse, yet at the same time how to relax and laugh at myself and have fun. Life is too short to wallow in misery. Though I've wasted a lot of time drifting, I want to grow tougher and prepare myself for whatever insanity life may throw at me in the future. Isn't that all anyone can do?

My left ankle has been bugging me ever since July. The pain kept fading in and out, and it's worst when I wear flats rather than high heels! (Talk about weird, huh?)

On Wednesday I felt the most horrible pain shooting from from my left foot and ankle. It's gotten progressively worse even though I haven't been using it much. I limped my way to the rehab clinic today, which is only two blocks away from my apartment (thank God!). My divine therapist asked me if I'd ever injured my left ankle, to which I answered negative. Guess he thought maybe I didn't rehab it correctly or something. He seemed confused since I don't do any special exercises or anything that could've hurt my foot and ankle. He examine them then massaged and tape them. When I mentioned it to Hero Material, he told me that maybe I have a slight stress fracture.

The only problem is I have no idea what I could've done to cause it. Remember how I said it started in July? Well, the only thing I did a lot in July was shopping. How can shopping cause stress fracture? (Okay, I did walk around for six hours one day at an outlet mall…) Since returning to Japan, I haven't walked much or anything. How can the pain get worse?

If it doesn't get any better soon, I need to see the doctor. I'm kind of dreading it. Not because he's not a nice person; he's fantastic. It's just that every time I see him, I get bad news. Oi.

Random House is giving away free ebooks. Check them out at suvudu.com/freelibrary. The page contains links to multiple ebook vendors so you can download books for Kindle, Sony Reader, etc.

Enjoy!

status: I'm reading Fire in Fiction. It's actually better than I expected, much more readable than Writing the Breakout Novel.

Yesterday Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (which BTW is neither liberal nor democratic) finally lost its grip on Japanese politics. Mind you, it's taken…something like fifty years, but who's counting?

Of course not everyone's happy about it. There have been sightings of angry drunken old Japanese men screaming, “Change in bad! Any country will tell you that!”

Gad, I love this country.

P.S. I'm loving the post-election silence. No more annoying sound cars, just the dulcet tones of construction drills at 9:00 in the morning.

status: I'm feeling more positive since I realized that I can salvage about thirty pages or so out of the eighty plus I've written on the earlier pre-writing draft (WIP).

music: “It's a Fight” by Three 6 Mafia

On today's #askagent, someone asked if agents check a potential client's blog before offering. Colleen Lindsay responded:

Always. And I don't want to see whining about how many times you've been rejected. A huge turn-off.

I'm always amazed at the kind of information people put on their websites/blogs and other public places. Nobody wants to work with someone who is high maintenance or crazy or just doesn't know how to act professionally. Would you put the following on your blog while job hunting?

It's been five months since I sent my résumé to fifty companies. Only ten wanted to interview me. I went to all of them, but they all said no. I hope I get a better result from the other forty.

Writing feels like “art” and therefore some may feel that they're entitled to act like artistes. That's a huge mistake. Creating a story is art. The other aspects are anything but. Treat getting published like a business and you'll have more success.

P.S. My agent read my blog before offering. I was amazed at the amount of information she was able to garner from my posts, including where I lived, my quirks, etc. So beware!

status: I'm still jet-lagged and having a very nasty reaction to Oil of Olay Quench soap. This makes me sad since the soap does make my skin soft, but my arms and legs aren't happy. :(

I just had an epiphany about my WIP as I was fast-drafting. Some part of me knew I had all the right events in the draft so far, but another part of me knew something was totally messed up. I just didn't know exactly what.

Well, as I was working through another scene and another stilted and awkward interaction between my h/H, I realized that I had the dynamics between h/H all wrong. No wonder their romance is going nowhere more than eighty pages into the story.

Now I have to go back and toss out most of the story. Though it's going to be a lot of work to rewrite it, I'm totally excited now. Plus, I'm only on my first draft. Better now than later. :)

I :wub: my Muse.