Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Me Mind's been Elsewhere!

You know, I really miss having a book to work on! It's becoming increasingly (and surprisingly!) apparent to me that I have a somewhat obsessive personality. Without my Daily Dose of Sheep to keep me on the straight and narrow these days, I've been completely obsessed with 2 things:

1) POLITICS. I've been more politically active this year than I have been my whole life! First I wrote to my congresspeople about the Orphan Works Bill. Then, last week I went door-to-door in Pennsylvania for my candidate, another first for me. Not wanting to make this a political blog, I will refer to my candidate by the code name BARACK OBAMA. I was partially inspired by this posting by Cheryl Klein, and sufficiently pleased with the canvassing to do some phone bank work before the election!

2) ROLLER DERBY. Another obsession shared by a pillar of the YA/KidLit community, author Maureen Johnson. Check out her post on the subject here. (her blog also has some fantastic political pieces, including this great one on teen pregnancy, making it the perfect trifecta). I am going ahead and making my announcement to the world here, first: I have signed up for the Gotham Girls Roller Derby tryouts on Dec. 6th. I am attending a skating lesson tonight, and have signed up for their official Skillz Nites- first one next Tuesday! It is all I can do not to pull my lovely new helmet out & look at it all day long. I'm preparing myself for both the physical bruises of body checks, and the mental bruises of probably not making the team, both sure to come in my near future.

Despite the abundant time that I have spent worrying about these two things, I DID manage to paint an author photo for Bea Rocks the Flock:


This was the me of 3 weeks ago, of course. My new author photo would be of me, with matted fleece, hunched over CNN.com.

2 comments:

Al said...

It's when hobbies become jobs, that's what it is! you miss your evening hobbies, because that's you writing and illustrating your books, which is now your job.

For the past year since quitting the day job, I've been totally lost. And, I'm even following the US election as closely as I would our own! I'm just not partaking in Roller Derbies.

Gah! You need to get on with another book. That's the only answer. It's a neverending life of books from now on.

Vicki said...

Yah- I definitely need to get on with a new project. At first I enjoy my free time, and then I start to get itchy & irritable- which is the stage I'm at now.

And BTW, Roller Derby is quite the international phenomenon, you may just have a league near you! If so, I recommend viewing a game- Highly entertaining!