It's Going to Be a Long Fall (Season)

  It's going to be a busy fall season! If you hadn't realized, it's already the second week of October, which means National Novel Writing Month is coming up in about 3 weeks.

    I am wrapping up one novel--with the goal to finish it before November 1, planning for my NaNo novel, also due November 1, preparing to edit a story I wrote a couple years ago--something I'd like to finish by the end of 2012, as well as continuing marketing for my recently published book through social media, guest blogs, review requests, etc.
    This marketing process will be ongoing until either A) it does so well I don't need to spend as much time telling people about it, B) it starts getting such bad reviews that I won't be able to recover, C) my next book is ready to release and I will have to devote more time and effort to promoting that one.
    And all of that is just the stuff on my "book/writing" to-do list! This is on top of my marketing work for my friend's website that I've been doing, as well as searching for a new job.

    However, I have an ace up my sleeve this year: I recently bought (with my awesome NaNo winner discount) the software program Scrivener. If you haven't heard of it, it is a writing software that can help you organize and lay out writing projects more easily. It features outlining, pinboards, keyword assignment, and too many other things to name. I've started using it with my current book, and I can't tell you how much easier it's been for me to figure out what I need to do next, which sections need to be added to, where previous characters appeared, and refer back to my outlines, character descriptions, maps, and other planning documents.

    Granted, I had to spend some time getting all those things in order first--uploading files and separating them out, adding the keywords,  etc., but since then, it's been so much easier to go back and work on chapters that need additional scenes or find any anachronisms in my timeline.
    Once I get to the editing process, I think this program will be even more helpful, rearranging scenes, matching up subplots, organizing the timeline, and catching any plot mistakes.
    Last year, I did a post on why you should do NaNoWriMo (make sure to read the comments!). This year, I'm going to go over how to do NaNo when you have a schedule as busy as mine or busier. You know what my schedule looks like for the remainder of the year--this is all on the schedule regardless of whether I get a part or full time job in the meantime. Check back tomorrow for the follow-up, "How to Do NaNoWriMo Next Month."

Ain't no rest for the wicked.

NOW I Know Why I Became a Philosophy Major

  Marketing is hard work. Philosophy was hard too, but in a completely different way. I had to think my way out of things. I'm fine with that. I like thinking. I'm good at it. Marketing requires talking. It requires enthusiasm. It requires time. These are all things I am not great at. I can write marketing copy, but ask me to do a sales pitch at a meeting or send compelling Facebook status updates, and I can't promise it'll be as good as a short story or an essay on morality I might write.
    I would much rather try to understand why we make decisions based on impulse rather than reason than try to understand which marketing phrase or button color is going make somebody click on a link to buy something.
    I love learning, but learning about marketing doesn't feel learning. It feels like Einstein's definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. While I consider myself both a creative and logical, I don't feel like those qualities help me at all with marketing. It's like you can try ten different methods and they all work, they just only work about 1 percent of the time, so you only get about 10 percent ROI (new term I learned--Return on Investment--learned something, at least!).
    I don't like trying to sell people stuff they don't want. I know most of my family and friends don't want to learn qigong (the freelance project I'm helping my friend with), and most of them don't actually want to read my books either, no matter what they say. That's ok. I don't expect them to. But what would be better is if they share at least some of these ridiculously salesy tweets and links I keep posting to my guest posts and my blogs and my books so that even if they're not interested, maybe someone they know is interested and will stumble upon it with interest.
    One thing I've learned about marketing is to Pay It Forward. If you help Deb out, she'll help Jack out and maybe eventually some of that good karma will come back to you. That is what I'm looking for. A little pay-it-forward. If it really doesn't interest you, and you really don't think the people you know would be interested, then don't share that link. I'm not supporting blind endorsement. That is basically spam. You're probably right if you think the people you know wouldn't be interested. But if it might be interesting to some of your friends, or if there was something about it you liked, then please, share it!
    I'm not afraid to admit that marketing/social media is not my strong suit. I'm ok with that. I'd much rather be a better writer than a better salesperson. In any case, I'm glad I spent my time in college learning philosophy. I would have been miserable trying to understand marketing, economics, or social media for business for four years.

The beat goes on.

A Writer's Work Is Never Done

  What a week! I helped my friend relaunch his site, with press releases, social media, and other marketing stuff; I launched my new book (!) and have been doing marketing for that; I got a Google Adwords credit when I set up my custom domain hosting, so I set up an ad campaign through Google; I created a new landing page for my book to send the ads to, and added a couple more thousand words to my new writing project.
    Now, all I need to do is find time to write a couple essays and guest blog posts, on top of my regular weekly blog posts. And write my new story. And edit one I already wrote. And come up with a topic for NaNo this november. And so on. And so on.
    The story's still the same--I'm busier now than I was when I was working, but it's all good work--fun, challenging, interesting, and creative--so it hardly feels like work. Which is probably why I've been "working" such long hours! I set up my calendar differently so that all the "work" stuff gets done within 8 or 9 hours and all the other tasks that are more personal to-dos and fun to-dos, like catching up on my personal emails and writing my new story, happen after that 8 or 9 hour window.
    Still, I'm on my computer pretty much all day, so it doesn't really seem like there's much of a shift.

    In funner news: the fall television season starts tomorrow (NBC's first season premiere night) and I'm going to pick up a new blog entirely on television reviews and commentary. I actually started it last fall on WordPress, trying to get in the habit of writing every day to gear up for NaNoWriMo, but I gave up on it as soon as Nano started. This year, I'm going to try to keep up with it a little better.  I moved it over to Blogger so everything will be in one place for easy posting, and did a fun, if a little cliched, new design for it.
    Visit HappyToEntertain.blogspot.com starting Wednesday, 9/12, to follow the new fall shows, returning and new, on CBS, Fox, ABC, NBC, and FX and USA when a couple of my returning favorites come back in the next couple months.
    I'm going to have a hard time picking which ones to watch this year! Long list of new shows and old shows on new nights to pick from! Hulu and I will become best friends again for a few weeks while I weed out the decent shows from the crappy ones as well as the ones that are unfortunate enough to run in the same timeslot.

Turn on the boob tube: I'm in the mood to obey. 

-Jack Johnson

On Meeting An Icon: Elmore Leonard

  Last weekend, I had the unique opportunity of attending a discussion/book signing with one of my favorite authors: Elmore Leonard. Author of Get Shorty, Rum Punch (better known as the film Jackie Brown), and several books and stories featuring Raylan Givens, the main character on the FX TV series Justified, the man is a legend. He was in Lone Tree out by Park Meadows mall to promote his new book, Raylan, along with his son, Peter Leonard--also promoting a new book. I was a a little surprised he hadn't drawn a larger crowd, but then again, he was at a Barnes and Noble way in the hell out of the way, and he is a writer, not a rock star. In fact, there were probably only 20 or so people gathered around the table he and his son, also an author, sat at.
     I was amazed to be sitting so close to a man whose books I've been reading for years, whose characters and sense of humor I've gotten to know so well. Once I start one of his books, I usually can't put it down, and I'm finished reading in a few weeks or less.
    During the discussion portion, I felt like I was in school again, where the teacher is at the front and nobody is brave enough to ask a question. Peter Leonard was the one leading the discussion, asking his father questions, talking about his own book every so often. In the end, the focus ended up being more on interesting memories, like meeting Charles Bronson and George Clooney, rather than on Raylan.
    When a few people finally put forth some questions, I was surprised again that the conversation was on writing tips rather than on Elmore Leonard's books. There are dozens of novels and short stories to pick from, especially the numerous ones that have been made into movies that people are more familiar with, and still, people were more focused on his 10 Rules of Writing and screenwriting in general.
    One of the things he said about screenwriting stuck with me: Peter mentioned how he showed a script he'd written to his father and asked his opinion, to which Elmore replied that wanting to be a screenwriter was like wanting to be a copilot. While I have always loved the movies, and I have always loved writing, I always enjoyed writing novels and stories more than screenplays. So, I thought his comment was pretty funny, and made a lot of sense, though I suspect he may have hurt the pride of the person who asked the question...
    Another thing I really enjoyed about the discussion was character names. Elmore Leonard says he spends days, even weeks, trying to choose the right name for a character in his books. I do not do this when I write. I hit up a names website (for whatever reason, I like BabyNames.com despite the bright colors and weird fonts) for anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours making notes about names I like, until I narrow it down to a few. The ones I still like that don't make onto the list of main characters I keep on file for secondary characters as the story goes on.
    Elmore and Peter were saying how people buy names to be featured in their books. The money is donated to charity, but I was surprised that people spend thousands of dollars just to get their name in a book. Elmore Leonard was saying how he didn't always use the names, and he still had quite a long list of names to use in his books because they weren't right for the characters he was writing. If a person has a weak name or a boring name, "You can't shoot someone with a name like that," he said. And as fans of his books know, someone almost always ends up getting shot. That remark resonated with me as a writer. A WASP-y character can't have a modern sounding name, and a cowboy can't have a name that a dancer would have. It just doesn't fit. It won't be believable.
    What surprised me most about all this was not even how much people spend to have their names published in a Leonard book--it was more that Elmore keeps letting people have auctions where people can buy a name in one of his books when he doesn't use them very often. The man is 86 years old. He can't fit that many names into that many more books, something he realizes as well.
    One thing no one saw coming, not even the authors, was a surprise guest: during the discussion, a woman in the second of three rows of chairs raised her hand and asked a question about Rum Punch. Neither Peter nor Elmore recognized that it was Pam Grier, the star of Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown. Once she identified herself, there was general surprise and awe that she had shown up. I knew that she lived in Colorado at one point, but I didn't know she was still here! Considering Jackie Brown is my second favorite Tarantino movie, I was quite starstruck myself.
    At the end of the discussion, everyone lined up and Elmore Leonard signed books. While most people were buying new books, copies of Raylan, I had brought a book from home. I meant to bring The Hot Kid, Riding the Rap, or Glitz, one of my favorites, I forgot when I left my apartment and I had to ask my dad for a book. Fortunately, he happened to have a copy of City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit that I took. I think I was the only person that brought a book from home.
    When I walked out of there that afternoon, I read the note he'd written when he signed my used copy of the book--"Take it easy." You too, Mr. Leonard. You too.

Must start campaign to get Stephen King to Colorado...

Oh, The Weather Outside Is Delightful

  Hello Dear Readers! I had to take a bit of a break for a while, and if you are wondering why you couldn't get in to read Insistent and Persistent the past couple weeks, I temporarily changed my privacy settings due to a breach. (Post coming soon: 10 Reasons Not To Friend Your Mother On Facebook--just kidding. But seriously, don't do that. Even if you get along well with your mother.)
    Without further ado, this is why I opened the blog back up and wanted to write today: I've been dreaming of a white Christmas since about July, and in Colorado, we rarely get a real white Christmas. "Real" being defined as snowing on the day or the day before, preferably overnight. This year, once again, it looks like I will be robbed of that dream once again, but on the plus side, IT'S SNOWING!! I wasn't sure if it was actually going to happen--but almost the minute the winter storm watch went into effect up here, it started snowing on my drive home from work.
    Funnily enough, it smelled like rain rather than snow, but there was also a smell of static electricity in the air. I never listen to the weather people when it comes to precipitation in Colorado--they have a nasty tendency to disappoint in terms of accumulation. But sometimes, they underestimate the storm and it dumps a few inches more than expected. As much as I hate scraping car windows and driving near so many crazy people (most of whom are from out of state and have never driven in snow before or just suck at it), I still love the snow.
    My cat (affectionately known as "the furball" received his Christmas present in the mail today--a catnip toy squirrel--another furball. He doesn't love it as much as I'd hoped, but he does like it, so that's good. (I'm hoping this might give him something to do during the day so he will consider leaving the furniture alone.)
    I got most of my shopping done online this year, for the first time. It is quite convenient. And I expect to still have money left over from what I budgeted, which means I may buy myself a rather sizable Christmas present... Or early birthday present. Or early anniversary present. Whatever. It seems like everyone is being a little lean this Christmas, compared with last year, but I think I've spent more than ever.
    I also get to go up skiing this weekend--hopefully this time I will not fall on my face again. Hoping to make great strides in my ski skills so that I won't have to stay on the Bunny Hill for the rest of the season.
    Aside from my blog, I have been getting the opportunity to write for real at work (real this time means I am actually credited!). I cannot tell you how positively tickled I am to be able to do that. I am probably spending way more time on it than i should be, but it's important to me. I want the stuff I'm writing to be good, worthy, sort of. All the other writers on the site are professional writers or journalists and have been for several years, so I feel like I need to write well enough so that I seem like I belong among that group. If you know me, you can find that stuff on Facebook. If you don't, you'll just have to wait until I decide to use my real name around here.
    Remember how I once said bad things happen in threes? I had one of those this past week. My brother got some bad news which meant I got some bad news; I got my FIRST EVER speeding ticket which I am still super-pissed about; and one of my co-workers was let go earlier this week. That one hit hardest. We're a small company, and whenever something like that happens, it affects everyone because we're all pretty close. I think what bothered me most about it was that it happened one week before Christmas.
    Not to put a damper on the holiday spirit, I discovered a new cocktail: gin and ginger ale. I received an excellent bottle of gin from a local craft distillery a couple weeks ago, and I was amazed at how clearly I could still taste the flavors through the ginger ale.
    I am also currently editing my novel that I abandoned the blog for during November. I made all the edits by hand, so now I am transferring all those changes to the document on my computer. Next step will be to revise it. What's the difference, you say? Editing: typos, spelling, grammar, syntax, vocabulary--the nuts and bolts of the writing. Revision: rewriting scenes, adding scenes, deleting scenes, removing or adding characters, etc--the heart of the story. I'm hoping not to do too much revision, because I think after going through it once now, it actually turned out quite well. But, we'll what happens when I really look at it with that in mind.
    Sorry for being out of the loop. I just had to recover a bit from my privacy scare before I was ready to come back here and start sharing again. I welcome you back, and I hope I didn't scare everyone away by changing the security settings for a couple weeks.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

5 Reasons To Do NaNoWriMo Next Month

  For anyone who even remotely considers themselves a writer, and who doesn't know already, November is National Novel Writing Month. This means that for 30 days, crazy people all over the world will be fiendishly writing into the wee hours of the morning to finish 50 thousand words by midnight on the thirtieth.
    I have done this, twice now (and won, I might add), and it's a lot of fun. Not the way that going to the movies is fun or playing pool is fun, but it's fun in that it's a challenge. It breaks down to about 1,667 words every day. When you think about it, that's not that much. It's like 5 double spaced pages of whatever you want. It doesn't have to be Shakespeare, and it doesn't even have to have all the commas. (You won't find me as Constant Writer on the Nano website, though. I was doing Nano long before I was doing Insistent and Persistent ;)

    The purpose of all this writing is to crank out a draft of a novel that you've been thinking about without worrying so much about getting it perfect. No first draft is perfect (you may know this as pretty much anyone who's taken a writing class will have read "Shitty First Drafts" or parts of it), but for some reason, we all manage to convince ourselves that it has to be. And this fear of writing something that isn't totally mind-blowing and amazing right out of the gate is what prevents us from actually writing something.
    So, what keeps you motivated for thirty days to actually keep writing? Stats. If you have any competitive streak, you can make friends through the forums and battle each other with your word count. One of the important things to the process is that word count matters, not page count. So it doesn't matter how big you make your font or how wide you make your margins, it's the number of words that count.
    This isn't just a numbers game, though. There comes a satisfaction that is indescribable when you cross the 50k mark. Even if you have more to say, once you hit that point, the pressure is off and you have such a wonderful sense of accomplishment.
    If you like to write, or if you're just feeling a little crazy, check out the Nano website and sign up (they help you track your stats) and get ready for one wordy month!

Word Nerds Live Here.

**UPDATE** SOOOO I totally forgot that I had put "5 Reasons" at the top of this when I started it and realized driving home that there may or may not be 5 separate reasons. I will try to enumerate them in the comments, but it wasn't a completely thought out plan, so, apologies, dear readers ;)

Have you written a novel? A short story? Some piece of writing that you're proud of?
What's your favorite part about writing?
Share in the comments below.

Commute or Telecommute - That Is The Question

  If you haven't noticed, and the only way you couldn't have is if you read Insistent and Persistent in an RSS reader rather than directly on the site (though I hope if you do that, you at least visit the site occasionally...), I put a new header at the top of the home page.
    I know the design quality is poor, but what do you expect from a philosophy major with only MS Paint as a tool instead of Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator? My hope is that it will bring a little color to the page :)
    In other news, I got to thinking about working from home today after I read an article on Thought Catalog about the topic. I don't think I'd want to work 40 hours a week from home, because, honestly, I would start buying cookies and ice cream and I'd probably gain another five pounds every month or so. But the thought of working a few hours a week from home is appealing. Maybe two half days or one full day. I wouldn't be interrupted with meetings or drama or crises, and I wouldn't have to drown out my coworkers with my Walkman.
    On the other hand, I wonder whether that is really a good solution to whatever stress or overwhelmed feelings I have, and I know that it probably isn't. Working from home might help relieve some stress, but there are other, better ways to deal with it.
    One is to stop eating so much crap. We eat out so often at work that the only motivation I have to eat out less is financial. I am desperately trying to either eat yesterday's leftovers for lunch or to bring a sandwich and fruit for lunch at least two or three times a week. Also, I really need to quit drinking so much soda, and probably stop having more than the occasional beer (though after the infamous tequila shots incident, I've been damn near abstinent with almost all alcohol).
    The main thing I need to do is stop interneting so much! Of course, I wouldn't cut back on my blogging, but I spend way too much time reading and researching online when I get home, especially considering I spend a lot of my workday online doing the exact same thing. TV is a de-stressor, and reading books are a de-stressor, and writing is a de-stressor for me, but reading news and ads and polls online are all probably doing my mental state more harm than good.
    The last thing I need to do to help my stress levels is to be more active. I'm not a runner or a bicyclist or a tennis player or even a stairmaster user. Because those suck. They're painful, they're not fun, and they make me feel worse, not better, about myself after. Usually because my lung capacity fails me almost immediately. Yoga is the only form of exercise I can stand, but I always give up on it after a while, usually due to time constraints (or since I left school, financial constraints for going to classes). I just have to keep reminding myself that I don't hate it and then make time to do it, which is always hard. Especially with all the interneting.
    My eventual goal was always to be a writer, one that makes money from her writing and can actually make a living at it. But working from home seems to me right now to be just another way to become a recluse. And I like people. Some of them, anyway.

Write More. Read More. Plan More. Critique Less.

Would you work from home if you could? Would you miss anything about going to a workplace?

Discuss it in the comments below! 

These Vagabond Shoes

  I was torn as to whether I should write about the quandary of an apartment search I'm still having, or whether to write about a piece of nostalgia I experienced recently. Since I think I will probably manage to wax a little more poetic with the latter, that's where we're headed.
    The little piece of nostalgia I experienced happened at the movie theater last weekend, where I saw 4, count 'em 4, movies. One of which was Friends with Benefits, which takes place in New York City. I had no idea of this as I entered the theater, considering they played up the Hollywood sign scene in the previews so much, but I was elated when I discovered it took place in Old New York. While it doesn't evince the "New York State of Mind" quality that some movies do, When Harry Met Sally or pretty much any Ed Burns directed movie, it prickled at my nostalgia nonetheless. A few years ago, though now it seems much more distant than that, I was going to move to new york. I was going to move there after I finished high school, go to college there, become a big-city girl, find my dream job, fall in love, and publish one of my damn novels if it was the last thing I did.
    Obviously, things didn't quite pan out that way. I stayed in state for college. I have a good job, but not the job I imagined having once I was college-graduated and big-dream bound--publishing, advertising, law office, basically somewhere where you wear a suit and high heels and carry a briefcase and drink martinis after work at happy hour. I live in what I would classify as a large town, as opposed to a world-renowned metropolitan city. I fell in love when I was seventeen (it was a very good year), and I am still unpublished, except for the musings and ramblings I post here at Insistent and Persistent.
    The world sure looks different now compared to when I was 15. I can't imagine having such a competitive job and wearing high heels every day. But I still imagine what my life would be like if I had done what the 15-year-old version of myself wanted me to do. I would probably be living in a crappy apartment, making more money than I am now--but because of the housing costs in Manhattan, it wouldn't really feel like I was making more money. I would probably be reading and watching a lot of movies, which is much of what I do in my spare time here. I would be alone, because I'm afraid of going out by myself to meet people. I wouldn't be friends with my neighbors, or hanging out and getting to know the bartenders and the regulars at a local watering hole. I'm way too shy for that. And considering the types of neighbors I might have, not getting to know them might be for the best.
    It's interesting to think about where you thought you'd be and where you ended up by that age. Things definitely don't work out the way you expected them to. Ever. But I always wonder if that's because life gets screwed up and derailed from time to time, throwing a wrench in your perfect, if not perfectly thought out, plans, or if it's really because you never had the balls to try something terrifying like moving to a city where you don't know anyone and trying, not just to survive, but to succeed.
    I think it's probably a little bit of both--we all know how indecisive i can be, and this is no exception. I think if I put the effort into looking for a job there, I could get one. It might take me a while, but I think I could do it. The apartment might be tougher, but I'd figure something out, even if it meant, god forbid, living in Jersey for a few months. But, we come to the "if it ain't broke" adage in which we reason that: I already have a job, I have a place to stay even if it isn't ideal, I have a relationship, and I'm making it on my own, for the most part. Why would I give all this up for a shot at some pipe-dream nostalgic fancy that's lingered on for eight years? (Eight--god that makes me feel old.)
    The fact is, I wouldn't. Not now. If one of those things seriously fell into disarray, I might revisit the idea. But my life, despite all the complaining I do, is actually going pretty well. The "grass is greener" ideology only applies when the grass on this side of the fence is no longer green, as opposed to when it's green, but not as lush and deliciously deep green as the grass on the other side of the fence.
    So, New York, you'll have to wait. Maybe someday I will meet you again and take you by storm, dazzling you and all your big-wig, pompous, New-Yorker-reading, nicotine-saturated echelon with my brilliance. But for now, I will daydream and write and imagine that you are still as beautiful and chaotic and interesting as you were the last time I saw you all those years ago.

If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere.

Write Through the Pain

I have a headache right now. But, I insist on putting another post up tonight since I have little to no homework to deter me from writing. Writing when you have nothing to say can be painful. You feel like nothing is making sense, or nothing is relevant, or your choice of a slew of other self-deprecating criticisms. But sometimes, if you power through the pain of churning out crappy writing, then the good stuff gets a chance to resurface. For those who have forgotten this tenet, hopefully this discussion will be therapeutic. (And yes, I managed to equivocate a bit on the word "pain" in this paragraph. And yes, I now use big words like equivocate because I've taken so much logic this semester. Hazard of the trade, I suppose.)
    When the words get stuck, they need a little coercion and a little patience to make them come back out. Sitting down and writing when you think you have nothing to say is exactly the time when you MUST sit down and write. Write about having nothing to say (somewhat like I'm doing...), and whatever else may pop up; the asshole who cut you off in traffic this afternoon, or the ridiculous Birthers and how they need to get a life, even the speck of carpet fuzz on the floor next to your desk. Any of these are excellent ideas if you're stuck but need to do something to unstick the words from your brain. They may seem trivial or pointless, but you never know: the asshole driver could be the flawed hero of your next plotline, or the carpet fuzz could have some very interesting insights into what people carry around with them on their feet or what the room looks like from the floor.
    "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men." [Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka] And don't you forget it. Write the drivel, the nonsense, the tomfoolery; write it until you're all driveled and nonsensed out. Maybe it'll help the brilliant words come forth and make themselves known in the beautiful and excellent prose you believe yourself capable of. Or maybe it'll just remain blather and you'll feel like you wasted your time writing about a piece of carpet fuzz. But, dear readers, writing is never a waste of time for people who love writing. Even when it's difficult, even when you feel like you'd rather do anything but write, there's always that blissful memory of the 3 AM frenzy when you managed to crank out 10, 20, or even 30 pages in a single night, and getting back to that feeling of accomplishment, of excitement, of ecstatic, if punch drunk, enjoyment, is the reason we writers write in the first place. Unless you're one of those writers who writes for the money. If that's the case, I'm not talking to you.
    So the next time you get the dreaded W-R-I-T-E-R-S B-L-O-C-K (that might have been cuter had I been speaking rather than writing--oh well), expel the babble and incoherent gobbledygook, and maybe you'll be able to get back to the good stuff. What started out as a rambling piece of trash could turn out somewhat interesting. We can dream. Be not afraid. Write all the boring out of your brain and make way for innovation!--or at least something you can say is less sucky than the last.

A few words to take with you: hogwash, twaddle, poppycock, rot. 

No Regrets

Most things seem to happen for no apparent reason at all. But some things work out perfectly every once in a while, as if by design. People who have regrets don't believe this. People who have regrets are also people who blame someone else for what happened to them.
    It may be childish or fantastical, but I think it's nice to think that some things happen for a reason, even if they don't work out the way you originally had in mind. We're only human and sometimes our design isn't fully thought out or doesn't take certain things into account. But the universe, whether you want to call it that, or God, or destiny, can see things from every angle and see the game 20 moves ahead. For this reason, the universe can arrange things to play out perfectly from time to time. Sometimes, it takes us some time to realize that it was for the best that things happened in such a way.
    Pessimists and regretful people have a tendency not to see things as having worked out for the best. Maybe it's self-importance, wanting things to go their way or the highway, or maybe it's just closed-mindedness, that if things didn't go a certain way, they went the wrong way. It's unfortunate, because if you only look at the world from that perspective, you end up missing out on some of the beautiful and amazing, if unexpected, things that happen.
    I find regrets to be a waste of time. Regrets mean that you focus on something that happened in the past, and if that is still eating away at you, weeks or months or years later, part of you is being wasted and consumed by something that shouldn't matter anymore. It only still has bearing on your life because you allow it to. While my life has certainly not gone according to any plans I made at any point--eight years ago, I was going to move to New York when I was 18 and be a writer, and that didn't happen--I can't say that I regret anything that's happened to me or that I've done.
    Other people, were they in my shoes, might regret some of the things in my life. I spent three and a half years on a degree that didn't help me get a job very easily. But I did get a job. A great job that I really enjoy. It has absolutely nothing to with my degree, but I never expected to go into philosophy after all. I expected to have a bachelor's degree, some more knowledge than I started with, and to be a more well-rounded person, and that's all true. So how can I possibly regret something that put me in a good place in my life, even if it took a little longer than expected? Answer: I don't.
    There are plenty of other things that could have thrown me off track and made me regret that they happened or changed me in a way I didn't want to be changed. But even all the bad things that have happened, all the things that went wrong thus far in my young life, put me where I am today and prepared me for other things I would face. They made me stronger, and for that, I can't really regret those things either. Even if they sucked when they happened, I can't really blame anyone for what happened, even if a person was the catalyst that caused that particular event to happen. Blame is a by-product of regret, and if you don't regret anything, you can't blame anyone for where you are today or what has happened to you up until now.
    As they say, you can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, and sometimes the things that don't go according to plan are the eggs that the universe breaks to help you make your omelet. (That came out so much cheesier than I meant it to, but oh well.) Next time something goes wrong, give it a chance to work itself out before automatically writing it off as the universe being out to screw you over again. That seemingly unfortunate, unexpected event may lead to something great.

Sing in the rain.