Ramblings: February

It's been quite an intense week or so. Actually it has been quite an intense month already and it's only half over, so I really don't know what the next few weeks will bring, but they can only be positive. January was filled with enough negative to last a whole year, so I'm just focusing on completing what I set out to do this year and maintaining some balance and calm in my brain. This means focusing on writing, creating and my family and friends and just removing myself from anything other than that... This city can be severely draining at times, but it can also be immensely rewarding too, have to keep that latter part in mind and just ride through the rest.
After being financially strapped for the past few months I am finally seeing the light AND got another part-time job that I started this week and am really excited about. I am working for an amazing independent book shop in Fort Greene called Greenlight Bookstore, and will mainly be working at their kiosk at the BAM during performances. It's pretty much perfect for me because I love books, I love theater and music and photography and opera and cinema. It's also the perfect balance with the bartending work I do during the week at 200 Orchard. This is all making me super happy and also excited about the next few months.

I feel like I lost most of my inspiration in January but now I finally feel I am back on track with the novel again. I'm about 9 chapters into the second part now, which is both the easiest and hardest part to write. The easiest because I am pulling a lot of it from my own life and the hardest for exactly the same reason. I'm just writing as much as possible and will go back and edit once I am done. I feel like it is going to be a lot more autobiographical than I initially planned it to be, but I'm not going to worry about that part just yet, I really just need to get it written. Once Part 2 is finished I can continue with Part 1 and Part 3. I know it all seems a little backwards, but Part 2 is going to be the main chunk of the novel and the first and last parts will follow from that. I'm still worried about actually showing it to anyone, but I got some good feedback from my little sister, so it can't be that bad, even in it's first draft format... I hope.
There is a lot of music in my head when I am writing and a lot of this is transferred into the words... So this morning I made a playlist to go with it. It really relates to Part 2, music that I listened to between the ages of 10 and 25, some that I still listen to today, others that I had actually forgotten how much I loved. I limited myself to one song per artist, because otherwise there would probably be 260 Cure songs in it... I am sure I will update it as time goes by, but here is the first version:
Part 2 Playlist

I've been going through a lot of old photos and writing and journals and have found some things that I forgot I had written and done... I am naturally a nostalgic person, always a mix of melancholy and happiness, but finding all of this makes me feel like I have accomplished a lot but still have so much more to accomplish, to see, to live. I've stuck this pinboard up on the wall and it is already full of pictures and drawings and things to do and see and remember. I have all of these photos I have had printed recently to sort through and to frame. Letters to write to people and photos to send to them. Things to write about outside of the novel (the list just keeps getting longer and longer). I'll always be at my happiest when I have a million things to do, but only when those million things are what I want to do... And right now they are. I now need to start on the set of articles I will be writing on domestic violence; an article on women in music and about 20 other smaller articles on different things that pop into my head every day. And just keep my focus on what really matters.