Today was a strange day for me. I went to bed feeling strange, had strange dreams (dolphins, what else), and I woke up feeling strange, spent most of the day feeling strange, went to rehearsal feeling strange, ended the rehearsal feeling strange, and am now going to bed feeling strange again.

Strange.

It's been a good year so far. One week in and a lot has happened.

Socially, my friend Charlie, who was my childhoodbestfriend Other Maggie's friend from college and then happened to my life stayed with me and it was awesome. I've talked to Natasha via phone several times and I'll be seeing her in the city later this month, which is wonderful to know. A little (teenager now, as of today - Happy Birthday, Sarah!) girl I've known since she was five years old was in NYC and brought me to see "Annie" on Broadway with her -- which was super cute, considering that I played Miss Hannigan (age 15-16?)  when her older sister played Annie (age 9). I ran into an old friend of mine from work, Tom, who was there at the closing night of "Annie" because . . . he wrote "Annie." Right. He was SUPER sweet as always, gave me a huge hug, and his wife said she loved my Anthropologie dress. Success.

As an actress, I've been good about submitting for projects. I need to read a script for an audition I theoretically have this week. I started rehearsals for my first Acting Job since "Electra" at the very end of September. It's my first musical in a long while and the first time I'll be playing an instrument in a show - Delphi, my stunning ukulele. I can't wait.

At my big girl job, I did really well at being a Real Human Person and my manager was Very Pleased With Me because I tried Extra Super Hard to act like I wasn't new at my job and knew what I was doing after lessthanorequalto three months, even with three trips back home . . . but it's not just about me being new There, it's about me Never Having Had A Job Before and being new to the whole concept from bottom up. I'm proud of the fact that I haven't been fired yet, not to mention actually gotten promoted, and Kimberly was happy with me and I made really good money in Bubbles and all in all it was great.

As a human, I bought new sheets/pillowcases that I'm like ODDLY excited about. I cooked some eggs. I cooked some vegetables. In the year + of living in my Westeros Apartment, this is the first time I've done that. Yes, pathetic, but it made me happy, so whateva, haters gonna hate. I've done some yoga. I've battled some insomnia. I've survived.

As a writer . . . well, there the canker g-naws. I've worked on the things I'm supposed to . . . editing Daddy's screenwriting book, working on Screenplay 1.3, Book 5.4, and I've even started a few new projects, including one I'm particularly excited about (but aren't I always when I'm first starting out?) We'll go ahead and call it Short Story Collection 2.0 for now. We'll see where it takes us.

The point is, it's been just over a year since I completed Book 5.1, and over ten months since I got my editor's assessment back on the manuscript. Sometimes I get frustrated that I'm still not done with the editing/incorporating her notes, but that's when I have to put things into perspective (especially considering MJ's New Year's Resolution 2014). I have to take things into consideration - like the fact that I spent a month in Europe (10%) and a cumulative two-and-a-half months in LA where I actively chose (with no regrets) to spend more time with my family and friends than working (25%) plus working a TON as an actress and a playwright/lyricist/librettist and getting my Big Girl Job and making friends and having rats . . . etc, etc. 

No regrets, no regrets. I've done a lot of learning (I almost said - gasp! - Growing Up! NEVER!) and it's all been important and necessary and helpful.

Besides, the crux of my editor's notes was that the book needed a completely different tone and perspective in order to be marketable to a specific target audience that she and I changed . . . which meant basically re-writing the entire thing without re-writing any of it. Which was a lot. And a very interesting exercise. And I'll hopefully soon see whether or not it worked. But it was a lot to do, and it took the time it took to figure out how I was going to execute that and what was going to happen and what would stay the same and what would change and how far I was willing to go. It was an amazing learning experience and it took almost a year and that's that. I don't have a TARDIS (well, I do, but it's a pen. And a bird feeder. Two separate ones. Not one that's a pen and a birdfeeder). I don't have a Time-Turner (again, just realized I totally do, but it's not in working order). I'm here in 2014, to bastardize a quote from "Clueless," an unpublished virgin who can't drive.

S'all good. 

That being said . . . there's a publisher who said they'd be interested in reading a full of my manuscript. That's sorta making me Excited And Scared and causing me to Spiral Syndrome like crazy. But if I'm going to be all excited and tingly and determined and optimistic and not caring if they reject me (which I really have become quite good at, at least in theory) then I really, REALLY do need to Finish This Book, which I've been So Close to Doing for honestly Quite Some Time now. I just need to buckle down and do it. It just has to happen.

I need to understand that it's possible that stretching this out and waiting for the lightning to strike as it so often does is not practical or feasible. I haven't been doing it intentionally, but I think it's probably been subconsciously my driving force in delays and inability to focus.