Sadly, you cannot be a professional fanfic writer. :’(

So instead, I watched Julie & Julia (hey, it’s about a writer!). And worked on Twenty-Somewhere. And read my friend Irene’s poignant yet hilarious new blog about leaving LA and returning to Austin. (She’s an actress/comedienne.) It’s called Les Grandes Changes. Read it.

Julie & Julia was cute, and I’m glad I watched it, but it’s a little long and I probably won’t watch it again. I will, however, play this scene repeatedly until it comes true for me:

That scene happens to take place in NY, but much of the movie is set in France. Do you know what else is set in France? The latest episode of Twenty-Somewhere! Check it out — “Episode 32: Paris, City of Fights”:

The plan is simple: Sophie will use the invite from Forward Fashions to fly Claudia and herself to Paris for Fashion Week. MJ will join them from England. Then the 3 best friends will spend 5 fabulous days together — together! in person! for the first time since graduating! — and it will be a perfect little holiday.

Perfect. That is the plan.

Unfortunately, the reality is anything but.

Somehow in the midst of this NaNo craziness, I’m also working on the next episode/s of Twenty-Somewhere. That is COMING SOON. Ish.

In the meantime, here are some great tips/thoughts on being a writer:

“Big Ass Advice Post” – aka 10 tips for aspiring writers (via moonrat). In particular I think I need to take #1 to heart:

There’s a difference between the craft of writing and the business of writing. At the beginning, your job is to learn everything you can about craft. Don’t obsess about the business until you have an actual product to sell. Educate yourself but don’t get sidetracked from the job of learning how to write well.

“A posteriori” looks at “craft” (Glimmer Train):

So, what then is craft? I might say a distraction, the discourse of the deconstructionist. Writers should work with the original matter, not the tools of the critic.

John Irving talks about his writing process at Big Think, a GREAT new website (a bit similar to TED?) that I stumbled upon today:

I never begin a first draft until there is a plot, until I do know what happens to all of the characters, you might understand why those first drafts are pretty quickly forthcoming, but the rewriting process slows me down and I like everything about the writing process that compels me to slow down, to keep it slow. I write all my first drafts in long hand because you can only write so fast in longhand. And on a keyboard, you can cover too much ground in too fast a time…

And the longer the book you write, the more times you must pass through it because writer’s voices change within a four, five year period of time, you’re actually liking a different kind of sentence five years down the road, than you were four years ago. And one of the tasks of revising a novel of any length is to go back and make the whole thing sound as if it were spoken in one breath, as if your sentence style, your preference for the semicolon or the parentheses or the dash, just was constant, and you got to make it look that way, even though it wasn’t spoken in one breath, it was spoken in very halting little bits, it’s supposed to sound like it’s coming right off the top of your head.

And also from Big Think, Jonathan Franzen talks about what writing should be:

A piece of writing’s not interesting or worth doing if there’s not some personal risk, if it’s not dangerous in some fashion, whether you’re exposing some part of yourself you’d rather not talk about or whether you’re trying to be sincere about something that would be much more comfortable to be ironic about or vice versa, if you’re being sarcastic or ironic about something that people take seriously.

Yesterday, 6 PM: Oh crap, I haven’t written anything? I better get on that!

Yesterday, 6:03 PM: Dinnertime!

Yesterday, 7:30 PM: Okay, time to write for real. I mean, look at Erin. Erin has… NINE THOUSAND WORDS?! WTF?

Yesterday, 7:35 PM: Breathe, Kristan. It’s okay. You don’t have to write as fast as Erin or anyone else. You just have to write 1,667 words a day.

Yesterday, 7:36 PM: 1,667 WORDS A DAY?!

Yesterday, 7:37 PM: Oh shut up and just do it.

Yesterday, 8:30 PM: Does my story suck? I think my story sucks.

Yesterday: 8:35 PM: Nooo, it doesn’t suck. I’m just scared.

Yesterday: 8:40 PM: Wait, no, maybe it really does suck. I should ask somebody. But I don’t want to talk too much about my story is because then I might lose interest in it…

Yesterday, 9:40 PM: Wow, that’s stupid. Also, I am really bad at fantasy football.

Yesterday, 9:45 PM: I’m supposed to be writing!

Yesterday, 10:15 PM: Oh, but I still can’t tell if my story sucks. I really ought to ask somebody…

Yesterday 11:15 PM: Yay, my story doesn’t suck! And now I can write!

Today, 12:15 AM: Poop, I’m tired.

Today, 6:55 AM: Poop, time to wake up so I can vote before work.

Today, 1:30 PM: I wonder if I have ADHD…

Today, 1:35 PM: Internet says, “Mild ADHD Possible.” Doh.

Anyone else doing it? (Les? Zara? Pseudo?) If so, friend me at NaNoWriMo.org! Username is kristanhoffman, or here’s a link to my profile.

I had a decent morning session (970 words), but football cut me off in the afternoon. Now let’s see if I can get in another good session while Andy watches Game 4 of the World Series…

(Yes, our house/life is ruled by sports. As my mom likes to say, Andy is a “ball junkie.”)

Random factoid: I’m finding techno/electronica very good for writing music right now. Something about the heavy beats and simple lyrics (or lack of lyrics), I think. It stimulates without distracting.

Edited to add: Shano is a perfect example of the kind of music I’m talking about! Thanks to Angie for linking me to this free download.

2nd: Yes, I am back from Ireland. The trip was great. Since Andy had to work the first couple days, I spent that time by myself, mostly walking the streets of Nenagh, a small town in County Tipperary. (Interesting anecdote about that in my travel stories…)

This was my first trip out of the US since my summer in Spain, and I think that once again, the alone time in Europe did my soul good. I feel refreshed, ready to be a better me. It’s like New Year’s in my head: lots of resolutions and plans and optimistic ideas.

(Fortunate timing, since NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday.)

Anyway, here’s a little bit of my trip. Maybe I can impart some of my new Zen mentality on you via the internet. And if not, I can at least show you some of Ireland.

The Emerald Isle is as green and rainy and beautiful as promised.

What was nice was that you never really needed an umbrella. It was more of an on-again, off-again drizzle (or mist). Made for some nice rainbows.

Note: That’s Martin, our driver. He’s legendary within Andy’s work group, probably because he tells such great stories. People get sad when Martin has to send another driver to get them instead of him.

Nenagh was very cute and quaint and, presumably, Irish.

Dublin was everything I love about European cities: a mix of old and new architecture, very walkable, with a river running through it.

Due to our limited time, we only did touristy things. But I’ve never understood what was so wrong with that anyway. Aren’t they touristy for a reason?

We visited several museums (including the Dublin Writers Museum — yes, I am that nerdy) and shopped on Grafton Street. We saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College. We even went to the infamous Temple Bar area, although we got gelato instead of Guinness.

(You can see my full set of Ireland photos on Flickr, if you like.)

I think my favorite thing was our visit to Kilmainham Gaol, the old jail. The tour gave a great overview of modern Irish history (like 18th-20th centuries). Also, I’ve always had a morbid curiosity about jails and life in prison, but I’m too much of a goody goody to do anything that would get me incarcerated.

Doesn’t look SO bad, right? Well, each cell was meant to hold 1 person. Usually it held 8 or 9. Yeah, life in Kilmainham was not fun. But during the Great Famine, people would TRY to get arrested, because at least then they were guaranteed 1 meal a day!

:(

Of course, what is a trip to Europe without beautiful churches? We visited Christ Church (seen below with two weirdoes in front) and St. Patrick’s Church (seen even more below) where writer Jonathan Swift is entombed.

As much as I might not love organized religion, I do think old religious art and architecture is absolutely stunning.

My second favorite attraction was the Dublin Zoo. Probably because they give their tigers Red Bull — at least, that’s my guess. They were SO active and playful. Look, this tiger cub is coming over to say hello!

I wanted to snuggle it, but Andy said it might eat me.

Last but not least, this pic is for Angie. Apparently Dublin is known for its doors.

And if you ignore the blurriness, that pretty much sums up how I felt about my Irish vacation.