Eliza Scott

So, when I write fanfic, I have a pretty decent outline of the story, but I only write a handful of chapters – at most – ahead of time before I post. Mostly because I have a low level of patience and an obsessive need to edit ad eternum if I don’t get something published as soon as possible. My major struggle in novel writing has really been pushing myself to move ahead to the next chapter even…

Losing that Nano momentum…

So, I purposefully took the week after NaNoWriMo ended off of writing – partly to give myself a break, and partly to let the story percolate in my brain a bit more before getting to the rewrites (there’s going to be hell of a lot of rewrites!).

The plan was then to start re-outlining and nailing down my plot points this week, so that I can jump into writing again next week. But, then, of course,…

A decade in review

I love this idea from Jenny Trout of making a list of important stats from the past decade…not necessarily all positive or life-changing, just a simple, unbiased look at the past 10 years. So, in no particular order, here’s mine:

Tropical storms lived through: 2

States lived in: 2

Cities lived in: 3

Jobs held: 5

Jobs rage-quit: 1

Jobs fired: 1*

Kittens rescued: 1

Times downstairs neighbor has…

Life update – 12.03.19

I came home from visiting family for Thanksgiving with a terrible head cold. I’m so mad – this week is super busy, plus it’s the toughest week in my RunBet game, and I’m resigned to the couch with a blanket and a cup of tea. I don’t even like tea, but it’s the only thing that feels good to my throat right now…

But in happier news, I finished NaNoWriMo! (There’s no name or date on the…

I feel like I’ve lost an entire week…and I’m not really sure how. I spent Friday-Sunday doing ship stuff, and alternately freezing/burning because the weather can’t decide wtf it wants to do. Then I technically had Monday off for Veteran’s Day – except for an 8am conference call with a client. After the call, I went home, fully intending on spending the entire day writing…and spent it napping…

Today is already one of those days…my grand plan to wake up at 5am and get my 2000 words knocked out first thing failed utterly. I woke up at 7, which actually isn’t too bad – until I remember that the time changed this weekend so my body still thinks it’s 8am. Whoops.

I spent half an hour checking work emails and setting up meetings (the joys of juggling multiple time zones…); then I went for my…

Until this morning, I had every intention of staying up til midnight to get my first 2000 words in; now it’s 10pm, and….I’m tired. I have no excuse for being tired, except that it’s cold outside. But I can’t deviate from my plan on day 1, hour 0; what kind of tone would that set for the month? Midnight it is, I guess.

The one good thing about this awful cold front is that the camping trip I had…

My favorite thing is waking up early when it’s raining, then just lying in bed listening. This morning I woke up at 530am – pouring rain, and the temperature was finally dropping below 80. So, I stayed in bed, and fell back asleep.

That’s the time of night/morning when I always have the most vivid dreams. This morning I dreamed I was in some sort of sailing context, but we had to use inflatable…

I finally conquered the blue route at the climbing gym!

Okay, so it’s a V0 (i.e. easiest level there is), and I’ve been working on it for two months, and there’s no reason why it should have taken me this long. But I don’t care, I did it!

It turned out to be mostly a mental block. I could get to the second-to-last hold, and then I’d be stuck; because the last hold required a long reach with my…

I was having serious flashbacks to my postdoc yesterday. I had a call with a client and his former mentor to discuss the results of their last grant proposal; if I hadn’t already known that they were mentor-mentee, I would have guessed by the way Dr. L was constantly talking over him, contradicting him, and saying things like “I’m not saying no, I’m just asking you to think about why…”.

Dr. L was…

October 3, part 2

That feeling when your client (who hasn’t paid yet) sends out a press release announcing the award of their new NIH grant (that they wrote with the help of a different company) and gets told off by the program officer for 1) not running the release by the NIH press office first; 2) spelling the name of the NIH awarding component wrong; and 3) using the new name for their company which is not the…

One thing I love about working remotely is that if I don’t want to see a single person all day, I don’t have to see a single person all day. The downside is that it makes connecting with coworkers a little challenging.

I had a meeting scheduled for 8am this morning – at least, I thoughtI did. I woke up at 730 (it’s my rest day, shut up, I’m tired), showered and coffee’d, signed on to the web…

It’s 330pm, and my focus took an absolute nosedive…about 90 minutes ago. I’m going to blame it on the fact that I’ve gotten up before 6am two days in a row now, which I think might be the second time ever?

I did some quick yoga followed by a 5.5 mile run in a fancypants neighborhood that I haven’t tried out yet. There were lots of little side streets to explore; the only problem was that the main…

Day in the life

When your sales team is comprised mostly of non-scientists, you end up having to write bios for startup founders that have a degree in Theater. The NSF might find that amusing, and overlook it to focus on his entrepreneurial experience; the NIH is going to laugh us out of the building….

I was listening to an older episode of The Bestseller Experiment while on a run the other day, in which one of the hosts was sharing the story of his wife’s battle with cancer. He said something that really caught me off guard, and really hit me. I’m paraphrasing, but it was along the lines of We only have a finite amount of words in us, so we have to write them while we still have the time.

I…

It is risen (it is risen indeed)

Today is my first Saturday off in a long, long time, the weather is gorgeous, I’m full of pent-up energy…

…and there’s not much I can do about it, because I have a 1.5-inch slice on the back of my neck and sutures that I don’t want to tear.

It’s at that super tricky stage – it doesn’t hurt anymore, so I wantto turn my head and do an hour of yoga and go for a hard run. But I can’t, because sutures.