According to my email, on this day last year I finished Chapter 21 of The Red Queen. I sent it to Morgan, who had been bugging me for it, and my mom. In addition to the book, I was also in the early stages of a life crisis. The book was getting close to finished. And that meant what exactly? I briefly debated getting a job as an office administrator at the community college down the road, then very glamorously decided to be a middle school chauffeur instead. My mom's school doesn't utilize buses, so a lot of parents employed young, jobless college grads to ferry their kids home. I ended up driving three pretty awesome kids, made some pocket money, and actually left the house daily, which was a big deal for me. When I started driving the kids, I didn't have much of anything. By the time I picked them up for the last time in June, I was doing it with a book deal and a movie option. Safe to say, those kids were my good luck charm.
This past summer was pretty great, to say the least. Not stress free, because I am a ball of anxiety and cannot chill for my life, but as close to it as I get. And I was being an adult, which is weird for me. I had important phone calls and meetings with people who very graciously ignored my wide-eyed ineptitude. Now it's winter time, I'm sitting in the chair I wrote the majority of TRQ in, and it's snowing again, like it did for many dark writing days. I feel the same, but nothing is the same. And though I innately fear change, I'm pretty happy with what's changed in my life so far.
In 2013, I:
- Finished my first novel
- Did not break or sprain anything (big for me)
- Saw two movies in the theater a total of FOUR times (Frozen and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug)
- Bought my own car
- Drove across the country
- Followed a grizzly bear into the woods because my dad, brother, and I are not smart humans
- Moved back to Los Angeles and participated in many games of beer pong with weird but wonderful idiots
- Had to park in the goddamn Galaxy lot on the Fox studio lot (I hate that thing with the heat of 10,000 pots of wildfyre)
- Talked about Game of Thrones more than a human should
- Attended my first film premiere (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) and saw Benedict Cumberbatch in the flesh (he is quite thin and well-dressed)
- Vined Morgan too much, for which I will pay a terrible price one day
- Finished a screenplay that was just plain fun
- Bought too many books
- Seriously, the Barnes & Noble people keep asking if I want a membership and audibly sigh when I say no
- Found out I have the same taste as Morgan's mom (same bedspread and same car and same outlook on life in general)
- Met and befriended so many awesome people through the lit world and twitter especially (Emma, I expect you to house me when I visit the beauty that is Canada and let me steal your cat)
- Was not allowed to get a cat
- Decided that Jennifer Lawrence wins everything and we should all just quit now
- Got really good at airport security lines
- Rushed a football field (USC vs. Stanford) and received a spectacular bruise from climbing down stadium seats
- Debated getting back into Pokemon but decided I couldn't balance that and real life
- Experienced the phenomenon of pure hate turning into pure love (Goddamn you REIGN)
- Visited four national parks, Instagrammed all of them like the stereotype I am
- Was actually snowed in, like could not get out of the driveway, if you need to go somewhere, you're doing it on skis snowed in
- Got my first pedicure because I lead a glamorous life
- Assembled a bookshelf NOT FROM IKEA
- Still have never been to an Ikea
- Ate real sushi or sashimi or whatever, it was a raw slab of fish and I liked it
- Got thrown not one but TWO surprise parties (never had one before)
- Got a nice haircut
- Experienced all four seasons for the first time in four years
- Assembled my dream desk space, complete with framed photos of Grand Teton and Kate Middleton
- Still didn't get new glasses, the one thing I want in the world
- Got fingerprinted (for a contract, calm down)
- Started writing the sequel to my first novel
- Frequented Target because its white fluorescence and DVD deals calm me
- Warmed up to Los Angeles
- Had very few bad days and many good days!
