Fall 2008 Playlist - Anna

I know, I know, three posts in one week. Actually, while I was writing the last post I was already planning to write this one.

I love playlists. I make one for every season, and damn if I don't go back to previous playlists and totally REMEMBER what it was like during those months. There are memories encoded in those mp3s, y'all.

Anyway, I just got started on Fall 2008 and I thought I'd share with you what's on it so far. Anyone else who does this, feel free to share as well.

1. Dispatch - The General
2. Adele - Tired
3. Adele - Chasing Pavements
4. Fort Minor - Remember the Name
5. Shakira and Beyonce - Beautiful Liar
6. Pink Martini - Sympathique (note: this song is in French)
7. Korn - Word Up!
8. M.I.A. - Paper Planes
9. Pink - So What
10. Amy MacDonald - This Is the Life
11. Little Jackie - The Stoop (note: this is a free iTunes download until Tuesday, October 7!)
12. Christina Aguilera - Keeps Getting Better
13. The Killers - Human
14. Lady Ga Ga - Beautiful, Dirty, Rich
15. Vampire Weekend - Ottooman
16. The Jerk Offs - Screw the Man
17. Lady Ga Ga - Just Dance
18. Neil Young - Long May You Run

The Procrastination Station

That is what my desk has become. I told myself I was going to finish editing Murder Burger, my second book, by tonight. I really want to send it off to my agent so that she can read it (or at least some of it) before I see her on Friday (unlike most agents, who live in New York, Joanna lives in Chicago), when we're having lunch with my editor and drinks after work. It'll be easier to talk about it if she's seen it, and anyway I'd like her feedback so I can address any major issues before sending it to my editor to look at at the end of October.

Seriously, I really planned to edit it this weekend. But as of now, I'm 140 pages in to a 288 page manuscript, and so far I haven't made any big changes. I don't know if this is because the book is so much better than All Unquiet Things, or if it's just because AUT was so complicated (two narrators, two chronologies, mystery elements, etc. etc.) and by comparison MB is so simple (one narrator, no flashbacks, etc.), or if it's because I didn't actually do a detailed synopsis of AUT before I wrote it and spent a lot of time smoothing over inaccuracies or changing plot points but I DID do a detailed synopsis for MB. MB just seems...better somehow? But I don't know, I could be totally, totally off.

Anyway, yesterday I did everything but edit. I watched three episodes of Dexter and an episode and a half of Pushing Daisies (Netflixed, natch). I fucked around on the Internet. I read some of The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I did a load of laundry. I downloaded music (the Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist soundtrack, which is amazingly awesome especially the new Vampire Weekend song "Ottoman", and a couple of songs by Lady Ga Ga, who everybody should check out). EVERYTHING BUT WRITE. Then I went out to watch the USC game with Cambria, Nikki, Jenny and Eric at a bar and got wasted and didn't get home until 2. Because I'm a class act.

Today I did do a little bit of writing, but I also finished up the disc of Pushing Daisies I have and read some more and downloaded some more music (actually, I just imported the Titanic soundtrack and Jenny Lewis' first solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat, from CDs my coworkers had made me) and fucked around some more on the Internet. Then I went to NEW JERSEY FOR GOD'S SAKE to have Chili's with Jenny and a sadly hungover Cambria, who was more wasted than I was last night and didn't get home until 4:30 AM. What crazy New York lives we lead! Ahem, not really, we are losers.

So now I'm thinking I might not finish editing by tonight, which is really too bad. I poorly prioritized this weekend. But at least USC beat Oregon! Which should've been a foregone conclusion, really, but you know what happened last week with Oregon State, so...Also, I saw Chris March, the big lovable guy from Season 4 of Project Runway (the same season as Christian "Fierce" Siriano), again last night! He just walked right past us while we were standing outside Galway Hooker, the USC bar on 36th Street. I wonder if he lives nearby. I saw him a week ago at Cognac on 55th and Broadway when I was having lunch with my editor--he was eating with a friend right behind her! I think he's stalking me.

Sigh. Here's hoping I get my revisions done by tonight. Also, I just ate my Chili's leftovers, which I really should've saved for later in the evening. Oh well. Welcome back, thirteen pounds I lost over the summer--I have not missed you, and you are not welcome here.

I miss YOU GUYS though. So excited for Thanksgiving. Holla!

Nobody reads these blog post titles anyway, right?

So, as Carrie rightfully pointed out in her last post, things have been a bit...shall we say quiet around here as of late? And the funny thing is I think we actually posted more when there weren't a ton of things going on in our lives. Navel gazing is funny like that.

Anyway, big things have been afoot! I was just glancing at my goals list, that "25 things to do before I turn 25" thing, and I've actually managed to complete some of them, especially the big ones. Observe:

1. Read 80 books (I'm at 51 right now; I don't know how many I'll actually get to, it being October, but, well, we'll see.)
2. Redesign my blog (Eric is "working" on this, and when I say "working" I mean "not working on it at all because Jenny is visiting")
3. Get an agent
4. Get a book deal (ha!)
5. Finish my next book
6. Go on a date
7. Go to California
8. Go on an interview
9. Get a review published in Contrary (I'm pretty sure this is never going to happen, because the editor of Contrary blew me off months ago.)
10. Go to Chicago (Sadly, this will not happen before my birthday, but it will happen right afterwards if I have my way.)
11. Save $300 (The advance will pretty much make me go way beyond this.)
12. Pay off half my credit card debt (I'm planning on paying off all of it with my advance money.)
13. Send birthday cards to all my close friends before their birthdays! (fugged this up, maybe next year)
14. Write 1 letter a month and actually send it (again, maybe next year)
15. Get a raise (I'm hoping this will happen on my jobiversary in November)
16. Volunteer for Seeds of Peace (I just submitted a volunteer form online today)
17. Go to Boston (I guess not this year, no time)
18. Attend a concert
19. Attend a Broadway musical
20. Do at least one thing in each of the boroughs (Well, I've done this if you don't count Staten Island. If you do, I probably won't make it this year)
21. Lose 10 pounds (to start!) (YAR! 13 pounds and counting!)
22. Go to Atlantic City (did you know all the properties in Monopoly are named after Atlantic City streets?) (I, uh, don't even really want to do this anymore. AC is expensive!)
23. Cook real meals (I do this sometimes)
24. Go to a book signing for an author I really love (I'm going to give this to myself right now, since I'm planning on going to John Green's October 16 signing in New York)
25. Um, I guess this one's for me? Because I'm a lemming? (To tell you the truth, I have no idea what this one is. Whoops!)

Now, perhaps I should back-back-back it up a little. Book deal? "Ha!" as I said. Except that actually happened a few weeks ago. My lovely agent was able to sell my graduate school thesis (a young adult novel) in a two-book deal to Delacorte, an imprint of Random House. Very exciting, I know. I've already got a second book done, but now I have to edit it so my editor can see it and make a decision of which book to debut with (I'm going to take bets right now, and my money's on the first book, AUT). So I'm hoping to finish that this weekend and then send it to my agent on Monday so that she can read and comment so that I can incorporate her changes and then send it off to my editor in a few weeks. I'll probably get my editorial letter from my editor on the first book by Thanksgiving, so I'll probably be really frantic and ridiculous at Thanksgiving. Get excited!

So that's my news. Anyone else have any? MAGGIE PERHAPS?!