The Year End Post

The next time someone talks about pain killer addiction, I’m not going to laugh hysterically and say, “Yeah, rock ‘n roll baby.” Mostly because without realizing it, I experienced a very bad low when I got off my pain medication and did at one point enthusiastically think, “Ooh, I have a slight headache. That means I can take a painkiller tonight!” I didn’t. But yeah, scary.

This is going to be the last blog entry for the year. I have three deadlines to finish before the end of this week and then I’m going to try and take it easy until the end of the year so that I can decorate my office (I’ve decided I need to spruce it up for 2011), get the accounts in order and just wind down with family and friends before really getting back into the groove on January 2.

A merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all from the Khullar Relph household. See you in 2011!

It’s All Good

I knew it was going to be a good day the moment I walked into my office this morning, and one of my favorite songs came up on iTunes.

I opened up my to-do list with anticipation instead of dread for the first time in weeks. Then three overdue payments arrived and I found a check that I had forgotten to deposit, an editor e-mailed with an assignment I’d been waiting on, and my best friend, who’d been missing from my life for months called to say she’d be coming by, and informed me that she’s just won “manager of the year” at her company. And that’s all just before 2 p.m.

Tomorrow’s my birthday. I turn 29. And while this usually makes me stop to consider all the good things that have happened in my life in the past year, this year my life looks so totally different from what it was in 2009, that it seems almost unrecognizable. So many incredibly wonderful things have happened, both big and small, that any list I made of the positives this year would have no fewer than fifty or sixty items. Consider that I got married this year (to a wonderful, amazing guy who puts up with all my quirkiness), got a new byline, adopted a cat, got a dog, met my best friend from back when I was eight who I haven’t seen since, visited London for the first time in 20 years, became an aunt twice over, won two awards,  wrote my first book, got my first ghostwriting project (yes, yes, details to follow), and even managed to get the Government of India to give me a bloody marriage certificate.

A year ago, I was a single gal who had moved back in with her parents. Now I’m married. With RESPONSIBILITIES. And I absolutely love it.

Sleepwalking

It feels like I’ve been sleepwalking my way through the last one month, both during our holiday in the UK, and since my return to India. My toothache saga continues– the root canal is still not finished because the tooth in question continues to remain infected– and I’ve been taking a cocktail of painkillers that do more than simply knock out the pain. They’ve been knocking me out as well. Which means I’ve been sleeping fourteen hours a day and struggling through most of the remainder of it. There is an end in sight though, so hopefully you’ll be hearing more from me once I’m off these crappy meds.

In the meantime, I have been working, meeting deadlines, submitting invoices, and getting random stuff done. Slowly, but surely. The book is on hold at the moment, but I do have other bits and pieces of news to report, which I’ll get to once the contracts are signed and I’m allowed to talk about them.

On a more positive note, our new puppy is as cute and adorable as a puppy can possibly be. He’s about as sweet and good-tempered as our cat is bad-tempered, which leads to hours of entertainment as he thinks of the cat as his best friend, while the cat, all jealous and territorial can’t believe we brought this evil into his life. And yes, you noted that correctly: there is, indeed, a lot of testosterone in this house. If we ever have kids, I’m hoping they’ll be girls!

I’m feeling a bit low on motivation currently and hence haven’t gotten around to doing my yearly ritual of goals, accomplishments and disappointments, but I’m sure I’ll get to that soon. In the meantime, tell me, what have you been up to lately?

The Writing Life in Numbers

I’m a numbers gal. Thoroughly Type A and left-brained, I need organized bits and pieces, tangible goals, and daily quotas to keep me working efficiently. I can’t just sit down in front of a blank page and let creativity take over. No siree. I need outlines with sections, sub-sections, and further sub-sections and only when I have my notes in order does the muse agree to come out and play.

Now that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is over and novelists from around the world are tallying up their totals to see if they hit the 50,000 sweet spot, I have some numbers of my own to share.

This month, I’m starting revisions on the first draft of the book that I finished up in October. I already had 30,000 words that I slapped on at the end, so I had a target of 70,000 words. I didn’t have an end date in mind, though I did have a daily goal of 1,000 words. I kept it low because I had a lot of work on my plate, but if I were doing it full-time, I’d try to keep the daily word count to a minimum of 2,500 words.

There were days when I wrote as few as 300 words and days when I hit 7,200 (my personal best). I started writing mid-July, didn’t write a single word during August and then stepped up my game in September and October. There were several days when I didn’t write (weekends, holidays, busy workdays, etc), and I’ve just tallied up the days I did write (because I’m a geek) and the total is 33 days, which means I wrote an average of 2,100 words per day on the days that I sat down and wrote. Not bad.

Why am I sharing all this with you? Because it just wasn’t that hard. Yes, it took me a few months to get that first draft on to the page and I’m still looking at three more rounds of revisions (at least) but once I calculated what I really needed to do and how much time it actually took me to do it, I realized it was a very simple process. The hardest part of it for me was interrupting my work day to focus on the book, but when I did get around to it (with the help of a friend, which I’ll talk about later), I realized I needed about one hour to write 1,000 words. Sometimes in that one hour, I wrote as many as 3,000.

Think about it for a minute. Every day, you will sit down and write 1,000 words and it will take you no more than one hour. Sometimes, you’ll write even more. (Pretend you’re writing for Demand Studios; don’t worry about the quality, just the quantity.) Within three months, you’ll have a finished first draft for your book.

Still think it’s impossible to write a book and that you simply don’t have the time?

The I’m-Back-From-Holiday Post

I should have written this blog post before I got back to work so that I could happily tell you all about my holiday, what it entailed, and how my first trip to London in 20 years went. Instead, I’m absolutely exhausted (you’ll see why in a minute) and can’t work up the motivation to get anything done. I usually return to work missing it and raring to get back, but I have to admit, this time I just wish I had a few more days of holiday left.

Diwali: As always, Diwali in the Khullar household was a fun affair and Sam and I went to stay at my parents for the day. It was our first Diwali as a married couple, my niece’s first Diwali ever, and Sam’s first Diwali aiming fireworks at buildings and people. There was, of course, the traditional gambling (and we stayed up all night doing it) and because I’ve been practicing my card skills since I was a child, it was no surprise that I was the only one who walked away with any cash. Rs 1,000 thankyouverymuch.

Root Canal: The day after Diwali, on Saturday, my tooth started hurting. As is customary, I ignored the pain until it was too much to bear. On Sunday, I woke up with a gum swelling so bad, you could see it on one side of my face. After desperately hunting around for dentists on their one day off, I finally found someone who informed me that I needed emergency root canal surgery. On Monday evening, I had the surgery. On Tuesday morning, I got on a plane.

There are times in your life when you go online looking for advice and find people talking about the worst pain they’ve experienced in their lives and think, boy, do people like to exaggerate. Then you get on a plane less than twenty-four hours after a root canal. When arriving in the UK, you find that while you can get decent painkillers over-the-counter in your own country, the only stuff that’s available in UK chemists and pharmacies wouldn’t work on a child let alone your by-this-point-exploding tooth. Over the next week, you realize the folks on the Internet weren’t lying about the pain. You clutch on to the few pills from India that you have left, only having them once a day in case you run out too soon. You run out too soon.

England: Despite the tooth, the trip was a lot of fun! We moved around quite a bit, dividing our time between London, Brighton and Herefordshire. I spent my childhood (ages 5-9) in London and haven’t been back since so it was a real high not only to go back to the city, but also to visit my childhood home, the library where I fell in love with books, and meet my best friend from when I was there (who I haven’t seen in twenty years!) Sam and I walked down the streets, past my infant school, through the markets, and while a lot has changed, I found myself seeing and remembering things that haven’t. It was an intense, emotional experience, and I’m so glad I got to revisit that part of my past. Of course, we also managed to meet many of Sam’s (and my) friends as well.

In Brighton, we stayed with Sam’s best friend and her kids, in Herefordshire, we stayed with Sam’s sister and my lovely parents-in-law came to visit. I love that we went around the country meeting and staying with people because it gave me a glimpse into the country and lifestyle beyond just London. I love being able to do that, and having family in a country allows you to explore it on a much deeper level.

Wales: My sister-in-law, who lives in Herefordshire, conveniently lives right next door to Hay-on-Wye, the book capital of the country and a book lover’s dream. I went twice even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy too many books. The ones I did buy I couldn’t bring back (because I actually had no space left in my bags). It’s been a dream of mine to visit the Hay-on-Wye festival, but for now, just visiting the place was good enough. I’ve informed Sam that if we ever move to the UK, Hay-on-Wye is where we’ll live. (He nodded his head to humor me– a characteristic husband trait that can be found in husbands anywhere in the world).

Visa: The reason we were in England in November instead of over Christmas (which was our original plan), was due to Sam’s visa. It was expiring in mid-November and because the Indian government has changed some of the rules for visas and it’s a bureaucratic procedure that could have caused problems, we decided to renew it in England instead. Of course, nothing is that simple. Instead of two days, we waited five. And when the visa was still not forthcoming, we started freaking out. For a few days it seemed that Sam would not be able to return to India, a real possibility that we had started planning for, and we were both stressing out substantially because that would mean that we would be in different countries for at least three months, maybe more. Eventually though, the visa came through and we, along with our families and friends, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Early Christmas: We celebrated an early Christmas with Sam’s family and you’ll know how well they know me by the presents I received: book lights (you’ve heard me complain about my reading at night while the husband wants to sleep), a handbag (MADE by my wonderful mother-in-law), a Snuggie (I have wanted one forever) and a photo frame with a picture of my gorgeous nephews. I was hoping we’d get some snow while I was in the UK and was told repeatedly not to expect it because it wouldn’t snow until January where we were. Well, would you believe it: ONE day after we left the country, it was blanketed by snow.

Award: So I mentioned before I left that I was nominated for an award and had been invited to Tokyo for the award ceremony. Since it was basically a free trip (and I’ve never been to Tokyo), there was almost no question of saying no, but then Sam’s visa troubles started and we decided to go to the UK, and long story short, it came down to the decision: did I want to accompany Sam to the UK or go to Tokyo for the award ceremony? Well, award ceremonies are no fun if there’s no one cheering you on and I didn’t want to cut out on the UK visit since I’ve been looking forward to meeting the rest of Sam’s family since the wedding and this was essentially our Christmas holiday. Plus, what if Sam didn’t get his visa? So off to the UK we went.

Well, as it turns out, I did win the award. The organizers e-mailed me while I was in Herefordshire to let me know that I had I won the overall award and was named Development Journalist of the Year. This is now the second award for the story on wastepickers that I worked on so passionately last year. And of course, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t matter, because it does. It’s wonderful to have your work recognized and rewarded. And the cash prize doesn’t hurt either!

New Addition: The day after we arrived back in Delhi, we went to the market to get some cat food. We came home with a six-week-old puppy. We’re calling him Nubi. (And currently he’s taking up every spare moment of my life and leaving me completely exhausted by the end of the day.)