Yeah me! I finished my first novel, finally. "Texas is a state of mind", the novel I started in November 2003 with Nanowrimo is complete. So what, that's like 2 years and 8 months to finish a novel of 77,740 words or 138 pages single spaced. Talk about slow production.

I went to a seminar last Monday called "Stop Dreaming and Start Writing" at The Learning Annex given by Ivory Madison, creator of The Red Room, and Ivory said that a typical first novel is 75,000 words. I guess my novel is typical then. Her contention was that a person could write 1,000 words in one hour and that if you had that kind of production, you could finsih a novel in 75 hours. That's kind of like two weeks of work or 8 hours a day for two weeks.

If I had written one hour a week for 75 weeks, my novel should have taken me 18 months to write. Instead it took me 30 days to write 50,000 words and 31 months to write about 28,000 words. And this is just my lousy first draft!

There is seriously something wrong with my motivation to be a writer. Writing the first draft is supposed to be easy part. It's the editing that is going to be the hardest.

So I'm doing the math in my head and if I had written one hour a day, say five days per week and my word count was about 5,000 words, I would be able to finish a 75,000 word novel in about four months.

I've always wondered how people can take the time to get so many degrees. Now I know. The time just goes and you might as well do something useful with it like get another degree or my case, write my novels. And I only need to dedicate maybe 5-7 hours a week to write 5,000 words a week. It doesn't matter if I do it in 5 days with 1,000 words a day, or a I have a marathon writing session on the weekend, as long as I stick to the 5,000 words a week production rate, I should be able to finish my novels quicker.

Well, at least I have a fnished novel under my belt. Now there are the other two novels to finish that I started, "The Crow Priestess" and "Changing Timelines". I haven't forgotten about my first novel attempt "Following in the Dark", but I decided that I was going to write that novel for my own pleasure and never let anyone else read it. The Texas novel is the third novel I started.

""Following in the Dark" was the first, started in 2001. "The Crow Priestess" was started in 2002. "Texas is a State ofMind" was started in 2003, and "Changing Timelines" was started in 2004. I did some writing in 2005 when I started working on my second screenplay, "Silicon Valley Gold Diggers Anonymous." I never finished it, but at least I outlined a fairly decent plot from beginning to end for the story.

This is what happens when you watch reruns of MTV's "The Hills" ... you fall in love with songs from the show. Like this one - "Unbelievable" by Kaci Brown.

I Wish you didnt love me I wish youd make this easy It was love that caught me Now it's fear that keeps me with you I want to be by your side So I can close my eyes To the growing emptiness inside that kills me When I'm with you You try to break me Try to hate me So you can fall out of love You want to make me believe that I'm crazy That I'm nothing with out you

It's unbelievable but I believed you Unforgivable but I forgave you Insane what love can do That keeps me coming back to you You're irreplaceable but I'll replace you Now I'm standing on my own Alone

I feel you in my shadow My heart feels cold and hollow No matter where I run I see Your eyes always follow me You try to hold me Try to own me Keeping something that's not yours You want to make me Believe that I'm crazy Make me think that you're the cure

It's unbelievable but I believed you Unforgivable but I forgave you Insane what love can do That keeps me coming back to you You're irreplaceable but I'll replace you Now I'm standing on my own Alone

You're still haunting me In my sleep You're all I see But I can't go back Cause I know it's wrong For us to go on And I'm growing strong To confront my fears

It's unbelievable but I believed you Unforgivable but I forgave you Insane what love can do That keeps me coming back to you You're irreplaceable but I'll replace you Now I'm standing on my own Alone

I am having a glorious four day weekend. We didn't get today off, but we got Tuesday off, so I'm like that doesn't make sense to come in to work on Monday and then take Tuesday off. So I decided to take Monday off and here I am watching reruns of "The Hills".

I got so much done on Saturday and Sunday. I got the oil changed in my car, which was kind of disturbing because I just had my oil changed in December and the oil change place said I didn't have any oil on my stick. What was that about? I think what happened is that when my dealer ran my air conditioning to dry out my car from the flooding, for a day they burnt thr0ugh all my oil, but I didn't realize it because it didn't register on my car as mileage. Thank god I'm on this plan to change my oil every six months regardless of the mileage on my car. It's just better for my car I think. But then the person at the oil change place said I could come in three months from now to get my car topped off with fluids, so I felt better but I think I'm going to have to check the oil in my car every month because it's so not good for my car to run out of oil like that. It scares me because I wonder how much I damaged my engine by not having oil in the engine like that.

I can't believe my car eats so much oil because it's only five years old, but the oil change person said that VWs burn through a ton of oil. I just googled about VW Golf oil consumption and it's a problem with all VW cars. Most webpages I've read said it's normal for a VW to burn through a quart of oil every 1000 miles. Damn! That's a ton.

I love my little german car to death, but I'm like I am getting a japanese car the next time. I was going to get a BMW, Saab or a volvo but I don't know about these european cars. You get a heck of a luxurious ride but they are so high maintenance. My friend says her BMW has given her nothing but problems.

What else? I did laundry and some handwashing and then I went grocery shopping and went to the vitamin store for some stuff. I think I got more accomplished this weekend than I normally do.

I think I know why I've become such a freak at my current job. Most of the people here don't have anything else in their life other than this job. This job is their life and some of them went to school and put themselves into debt because they are passionate about healthcare.

I could care less about healthcare. I stumbled into it and I stay in it because I can make a decent income in a job that is relatively stress free work wise and easy for me. Yes, I'm a good at my job and have become something of a subject matter expert in the two years I've been here, I mean some people think I'm a nurse which is such a laugh for me, but it's not my life and it's just a way for me to make money. I have a pretty good work ethic, so of course I try to do well at my job, but healthcare isn't my life, isn't my "mission".

I want to write novels and screenplays for a living. I am passionate about writing books that commuters like me want to read, a book that makes transports them to a different world and makes them forget for a few minutes the horrible job that they are in. I love books that make me forget about my commute, forget where I am so much that I miss my stop. Books that make me forget the freaks on Muni I come into contact with every day are rare, but when I find them it's a joy. I never want the story to end, and when it does end I am bummed out, so bummed out that I end up reading all the books that the author has written just to recapture that feeling again.

I love movies that do the same thing to me, movie make me forget my horrible life for a couple of hours.

I admire people who are passionate about healthcare, or at the very least can pretend very well to be passionate about their job. A friend of mine says people who are that enthused about their job are just faking it, and that every0ne is feeling the same way I do only they're better at hiding it than I am. I wonder about that. I think if you go out and get hourself a masters in healthcare, that must mean you are passionate and want to work in the field.

I wish I could afford to work in a bookstore or some other dead-end job, anywhere but here in healthcare where I am a freak and not a happy freak at that.

What else am I doing these days besides kvetching about my job. I am currently undergoing some aryuvedic treatment from a friend of mine who is studying to be a practitioner, and needed 10 volunteers to practice on.

She told me I was 48% kapha, 28% vata and 24% pitta. I am what they call a tri-dosha. I am on this new diet because she diagnosed me with a vata and kapha imbalance. I cannot eat cold foods, which is weird because this means no salads or cold sandwiches. This makes lunch very difficult for me since I usually eat a salad or a sandwich for lunch. I also am supposed to give sticky rice, but I can eat barley and basmati rice. I made barley rice last week and was surprised how much it tasted like regular rice. It's just hard to find barley rice at restaurant in downtown San Francisco.

For grains, I can also eat amaranth, brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa and wild rice. My friend thinks I might have a wheat allergy, which would suck because wheat is in everything. She told me I don't have to avoid it completely because I think that would be impossible. I knew someone who had a severe wheat allergy, and she basically couldn't eat out at a restaurant without freaking out because there wasn't anything there for her to eat. At Trader Joes I found two wheat free breads, spelt and kamut. Kamut is very dense, but spelt is not too bad. I'm not really supposed to eat oatmeal, but my friend said I could eat hot oatmeal for breakfast because it was better than eating cold cereal or the Balance bars I've been having for breakfast these past four years. I'm supposed to avoid corn flour as well, which bums out because this means no corn or flour tortillas!

The other food I'm supposed to be concentrating on is veggies. I cannot eat raw veggies. They have to be cooked. I can eat artichokes, beets, carrots, cauliflower, fresh corn, green beans, leeks, mustard greens, potatoes and tomatoes. I have to avoid my favourite veggie which is eggplant, which is okay because I haven't been in an eggplant eating mood for awhile. But no asparagus, sweet potatos or yams. I really like yams.

My friend says once my body gets back in balance I will be able to eat whatever I want, but until then I have to try to follow the new diet as best I can. I'm hoping the aryuvedic treatment will lead to some weight loss. My friend's first client lost 70 pounds, but she was very strict about her new eating rules. I am finding it hard to eat hot meals at lunch. I am so craving salads right now. But I know I have to change my eating habits. I feel so fat and all my clothes are tight, and I don't want to buy new clothes again.

But it's so hard to be healthy when I feel stressed out, and being in a job I don't like is a big stressor in my life right now. I am so whiny and unhappy these days.