The Decade

In 2000, I lived in Miami and worked for a dot com. I made almost as much money freelancing as I did in regular salary. I made some great friends but Miami never really took, and the excesses of the industry were starting to worry me (after growing up in West Texas I was familiar with the boom and bust cycle) so I moved back to Austin in July. Then I had a pretty ugly and (in retrospect) ridiculous break up. I also met Nate and after I relocated to Austin I realized I had moved about a block up the street from him.

In 2001 I was working for another dot com in Austin and feeling like I needed to make a career change. We were firmly in the bust part of the cycle, I knew it, and I wanted to do something different anyway. I began looking into grad school. I wrote the first 50 pages of what later became my first novel as my writing sample for my grad school application. Also I started dating my neighbor, Nate. Three months later he got transferred to Chicago. Eventually I moved up to Chicago with him.

In 2002 I began the MFA in writing program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I kept writing and tried to adjust to life in the frozen tundra. We got engaged.

In 2003 I wrote a bunch of pages and cut many of them. We got married in August and honeymooned in New Mexico. That December we took our “real” honeymoon, or luna de meil 2.0, to Playa del Carmen.

In 2004 I got a great job at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum as a grant writer. I graduated with my MFA. Then Nate got transferred to Dallas. I finished the first draft of my novel (500+ pages) and then I got the worst job I’ve ever had, masquerading as my dream job. We bought a house in East Dallas, near White Rock Lake.

In 2005 I got another job. I tried to acclimate myself to Dallas, but kind of like Miami (and for some of the same reasons, some different ones) it never quite took. I felt a little like the stinky hippie at the fancy lady garden party. I also did not like being lectured about god. I went to Catholic school so I’ve had plenty of lecturing on the subject already, thankyouverymuch.

In 2006 we began doing a lot of cosmetic work to the house (the bones were all solid). We ended up painting almost every room in the house and had a ton of yard/garden work done. We also took a trip to Mexico and Zoe was conceived (we think) in Zacatecas over Labor Day weekend. I started doing a lot of freelance work around this time and completed a few revisions on my novel.

In 2007 we had our Zoe. Almost immediately I felt the severe need to move from Dallas. I tried to talk myself out of this because we had good jobs, a nice house we had finally gotten where we wanted it, and it’s hard to start over. It’s apparently harder to ignore those persistent little voices, too. My novel was now somewhere in the 370ish range and I began submitting to agents.

In 2008 we took an Easter weekend trip to Austin and that sealed it. We decided to make the move to Austin happen somehow, someway. We began applying for jobs and getting the house ready to put on the market. The market imploded right around then. I found a daycare and made the move to Austin in June and began to work at the LAF. Immediately I relaxed. I was back, bitches! Only I was a single parent while Nate was still in Dallas. He found a job in Austin in July. We had some great friends who let us live with them during this transition. When it seemed our house wasn’t going to sell, we rented a small apartment in our old neighborhood, preparing to pay both rent and mortgage. Two weeks after we moved in we got an offer and our house was sold in October. I decided to quit freelancing because it was interfering both with my fitness goals and my personal writing.

In 2009 I continue to make progress on some important goals. We pay off debt, we find a great Montessori school for Zoe, we like our jobs. We also find a rental house in South Austin and finally get out of our small apartment and storage. I lose 14 pounds (yeah!) and have plans to walk/run the Austin half-marathon in February. After several submissions to agents and a few nice notes in response, I conclude that the publishing industry is suffering as much as any other and decide to work on my next project instead of continuing to submit the old one. Right now I’m a little more than halfway through the first draft.

I think 2010 is going to be a good year. Right now the goals are to continue to pay debt, maybe buy a house if the time seems right, finish my draft of my current work in progress and at least start the next project this year. I also have an another big goal that is private for now and a few small ones that I may mention as they come up. All in all, I am so ready for next year. 2009 has been a bear in so many ways.