Kira Disapproves

 Write-a-thon Progress*

• 5,000 + words off the new novel draft
• one-half chapter edit of Perfectly Average
• Nothing sent out. Eep.

…is a show on TLC. They film people who are going to undertake do-it-yourself home renovation and then intercut the disastrous results with snarky subtitles. (Sampe line, as two young homeowners nervously examine an electrical line and say “is this a gas line?”: “No, ladies. It’s an electrical line. At this point, TLC suggests you call an electrician.”

It is not smart to watch this show the day before your kitchen is demo’d. It IS smart to have someone else do your renovation. Dasha from Design Today designed my IKEA kitchen and Serge from ikeakitchens.com is installing it. They’re both awesome and I’ll post pictures soon. But I left my camera cord in Virginia. And I cannot deal with finding another way to post pics while my kitchen is a giant, dusty hole in the wall (although one that looks more like a new kitchen every day!)

*Another “construction project” I’m undertaking right now is a bit more do it yourself. I’m currently writing in the 2009 Clarion West Write-a-thon. The Write-a-thon raises funds for the writer’s workshop that I attended last summer. CW was a life changing experience for me, both personally and professionally as a writer. Over six weeks I learned from six different instructors (Paul Park, Mary Rosenblum, Cory Doctorow, Connie Willis, Sheree Thomas and Chuck Palahniuk) and seventeen classmates in an intense, focused, supportive environment. I wrote five new stories, one of which was the start for a novel. Since then, I have written more stories than ever before and completed a novel draft. I want others to have this experience, and the Write-a-thon helps make that possible. CW, a non-profit, offers financial aid to anyone who needs it, and provides full merit scholarships as well.

I know it’s hard to stretch right now to donate money. I’d love it if you could just offer me some encouragement and support in the comments. However, if you do feel the need to part with even a small amount (maybe a dollar a week?) you can visit my page at: http://www.clarionwest.org/events/writeathon/KiraWalsh to support me, or any of the other awesome writers, including, at my last count, at least seven of my 2008 classmates. You can sponsor me at any time, or you can wait til I meet my goals. I will also provide a PDF of the three stories I send out for publication (most likely CW stories) to anyone who wants it (or will take it without me paying them.) (Just a friendly note (hi, Dad!): I am writing 4-6 hour days. Don’t do anything valiant like offer my a penny a word unless you’re some strangely wealthy friend I never knew about. I’m planning to report my word count up to 5,000 and then just 5,000+. I’ll do the final tally Week Six.)

My goal is to write 5,000 words per week, edit three chapters of my completed novel draft, and send out three stories for consideration at various publications. Goal one is a big one, but its the most fun. I love to write, especially in the summer, and I’m hoping that the 30,000 or so words I emerge with will be the start to another novel draft. I am taking a French class this summer and doing some other work thinking about my dissertation, but I still have more time to write than during the school year, so having some novel drafts to revise next semester would be awesome. The bigger issue is the revision and the sending stuff out. I’m bad about that. I have only sent one thing out since CW ended. I need to be brave and consistent with trying to find a place for my work. I’m hoping the Write-a-thon will give me a push.

So, thanks for any support you can give, and sorry about the lack of kitchen pictures.

Location: Decatur, GA

Status of Kitchen: Giant Hole in the wall where kitchen used to be. To all that have witnessed the fit I throw when I see furniture on my wood floors without protective fuzzy feet, just imagine my mood NOW. (But I am excited about the new kitchen!)

Status of Write-a-thon: ~2,200 of my 5,000 words for this week. Plus half a chapter edit.

(See http://www.clarionwest.org/events/writeathon/KiraWalsh if you want to sponsor me!)

Status of Dog: see www.rexandroxys.com and click “webcam”

Status of Life in General: frazzled but slightly optimistic

In honor of Shane’s funny letter series on his blog (www.longstraighthighway.com — links still not working on this site), here is one of mine, sent to the Washington Post in December 2006.

Dear Editor,

During a holiday season where our country is at war, many issues fade to the background and appear trivial in comparison. I am not as concerned with receiving the right Christmas presents this year; I am simply happy that my family will be joining me for the holidays. Additionally, I chose to wrap the gifts I am giving this Christmas in old issues of The Washington Post (decorated with paint and stickers) to be environmentally friendly. My 20-year-old brother derisively called it “Kira’s Al Gore Christmas.” However, I was dismayed today by a problem that may initially seem trivial, but that I have decided, after much consideration, is off great importance. I am writing to you to express my heartfelt dismay and dissatisfaction at my Friday horoscope in The Washington Post. It read:

When it comes to love, there is no reciprocity in your

stars today. Someone loves you, you love someone

else, and that person loves a dog.

Seriously. A dog? What kind of horoscope is that?

Please, do not stop reading…allow me a moment to explain. I am a senior in college, and the real world is staring me in the face. Due to a refusal to acknowledge said real world, I am spending my holiday applying to graduate school. Personal statements, resumes, and other application paraphernalia can make an individual feel nearly worthless despite their academic and personal achievements. A difficult job market means a difficult market for graduate school. Speaking of the job market, I was recently informed by the Washington education firm where I have interned for the past two years that I would not be invited to return this holiday due to unspecified “budget issues.” I’ve been in Washington long enough to know what that means.

With all this weighing on me, I decided to turn today to the friendly advice of your horoscope advisor, Holiday Mathis. In my experience, horoscopes are either encouraging, or at least refreshingly dispirited. As a psychology major, I know that they normally subscribe to the so-called “Barnum effect” rather than the movement of the stars. Basically, this effect–named for the famous circus family–alludes to the fact that astrologists utilize general, vague, but well-written and clever statements to create information that could apply to many people. In turn, people project their own experiences and feelings onto the information and consider it to be accurate. I know this. I turned to my horoscope for comfort.

I got unrequited love, and a dog.

Please, dear editor. Speak to Ms Mathis and to the stars. Let her know that there are plenty of twenty-somethings out there dealing with the real world. There are plenty of middle-agers with unhappy love lives and dead end jobs. There are all kinds of people who turn to the horoscopes and the surrounding comics for a well-needed break. All we ask is for a horoscope that does what it is meant to do. Something like Aquarius got (”Whatever you do, your popular appeal makes it a hit”), or even Taurus (Just when you’re motoring on, troubling thoughts about the past could slow everything down.”) I can take gentle prodding to think positively. I can take vague assurances about an (admittedly non-existent) love life. But I cannot, will not, and should not have to take a love triangle that includes a canine.

Thank you for your kind attention, and happiest holidays to you and your own.

Sincerely,

Kira Walsh (Virgo)

Isn’t it cool when someone tells you that you look like a celebrity? I mean, you’re just walking down the street being your usual, not-famous but not-so-bad self, and someone goes “hey, it’s [insert winning celebrity here]!” And then of course they realize it isn’t that famous person, but still, celebrities are, as a rule, attractive, so it still must be pretty nice.

I don’t know. Is it? It’s never happened to me.

Well. Not exactly.

It turns out that I don’t exactly look like a celebrity. Instead I have a peculiar talent for looking like LOTS of celebrities. It’s not always as desirable a comparison as you may think. But it is pretty funny. And so I present to you my top three  mistaken-for-a-celebrity moments:

Beakerface

(Also known as “Kira Dissaproves.” Thanks to Flickr used Scurzuzu for sharing this photo with a CC license. I’ve cropped it for my purpose.)

 Then there’s…

Weekend at Bernie’s

(I couldn’t find a good comparison photo for this one. Plus I’ve never seen the movie.)

And finally…Kira as Javier Bardem in….

No Kira for Old Men (Thanks, Kyle!)

I thought about throwing in a picture of me as a Disney princess to make myself feel better. But some of those were taken so embarrassingly recently (think high school chorus concert more than four-year-old birthday party) that it might not really help.

“It’s mine,” said Cassie, flipping her hair over one shoulder. “I have excellent taste.”

“Yeah,” said Penelope. “Except in men.” Penelope giggled so hard at this that she slipped off Alex’s lap and dipped under the water. Alex promptly fished her out.

Cassie looked less than pleased at Penelope’s comment, but she ignored it, instead swimming to the edge of the hot tub and lifting herself part-way out of the water to look over the edge. “Oh!” she said. “Good. There’s Liz and Church.”

Liz and Church being together didn’t strike me as so “good.” What was I really doing here? If I had really needed to talk to Church about everything that was going on, I would have done it and left. Instead, I had somehow ended up pretending I belonged at some kind of exclusive party. Maybe I could just sneak back into the guest room, put my clothes on, and go home.

Ever since Clarion West, I’ve been a lot better about writing regularly, setting writing goals, and completing stories. One of the kind of side effects (benefits?) of this has been that I’m starting to notice patterns in what I write and get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. For example, I really do believe what Mary Rosenblum told us about how what you write on what feels like a “bad” writing day tends to be just as good as what you write on a good day. A good or bad day also isn’t an indicator of whether I’ll end up throwing a lot of words out, which I’m also getting better at.

One weird quirk I have noticed over the past almost-year is that I tend to start writing about clothing, appearances, and accessories whenever I’m about to hit a writing wall. There my characters will be just wandering along, doing what they’re supposed to do (discovering magical powers, rescuing their best friends from dragons, discussing their teenage angst) and all the sudden someone will suggest a fashion show. Or everyone will realize that they need to wear different shoes if they’re all going to go hiking. Or people will break out the swimsuits. Usually, these scenes and details appear to have a purpose at the time. But then they’ll start going on for pages and pages and pages…

Tonight it was bathing suits, as you can see. I realize that the above excerpt is probably very confusing. It contains about sixteen names, something that is probably a problem. Just remember, it came about after a six hour writing day. And that it will probably be cut. As it is an excerpt from the third of four pages about, well, mostly bathing suits.

An avocado from the photo archives. I think this little guy ended up on a tostada.

I had a cautiously good writing day today. This evening, I drove to Reston Town Center to have dinner with my Godmother. It’s about thirty minutes from my house, and I found myself dwelling on how crappy I have felt about my novel lately while I was driving. I had been kind of playing around with an idea that would be a big change, and during the drive I got more and more excited about the possibilities that a new direction would provide. The biggest thing is that this change kind of turns the novel from a non-speculative one to one with fantastic elements. However, in this case I kind of realized that the story was perfect for some magic because I could really use it in a way that highlighted the real stuff I was concerned about, in this case mostly friendship and feeling un-special issues for the main character. So far, writing with the new plot ideas in mind has been really fun.

Of course, by tomorrow I’ll be in crisis again.

Another thing that kind of started working better just tonight was the use of objects in the story. For example, I had one character who I wanted to call the main character by a nickname. The nickname needed to indicate that the character wasn’t taking MC seriously, but I couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t make the other character sound stupid, too. I finally hit open a way to use a song that comes up in the story as a ring tone and as a whistle. Now the nickname connects to the song and I have a kind of object that can come back in to the story. Doesn’t sound very exciting, but this hardly ever happens in a way that feels suitably deliberate.

As I said, tomorrow could be a whole different story. I am once again cautiously pessimistic.

A while ago, I tried making bread for about the fourth or fifth time. Every other time it had gone pretty well, and I had this new flour that Cyd suggested from the Dekalb Farmer’s Market with extra gluten. What Cyd neglected to tell me (not that I would EVER blame anyone else for my mistakes or anything) was that this particular flour rises much faster than the regular stuff. So I let it rise the usual four hours and it got huge a scary looking. Harold wouldn’t even go in the kitchen after he saw it. Nikki laughed at me.

Well, I decided to try to bake it anyways, and when I went to check on it about fifteen minutes in, this is what I found:

It had grown so large, it actually got stuck in the oven. If you look closely, you can see that the shelves above and below are actually bending with the weight of the ridiculous bread.

At the time, I was kind of discoragued because it was the end of the semester and I just wanted some fresh bread. But now I’m totally over it and I didn’t feel like I could move on without sharing this picture.

So, I’ll let you know how it goes the next time. Which probably won’t be until I have my new kitchen. With my new, tough oven that will be hard to bend (I hope!)