Baby how you feeling? Good as hell.

I had an entire post ready to publish from last week, but it took me a little longer to edit and I keep adding more details. The more I think about the job interview, it completely derailed my post from what I wanted it to be. I also realized that it was more of a rage post, which shouldn’t be published, almost like a letter to myself, I will keep it saved as a draft. These days you have to be careful with what you write, because of the people out there, assuming what you mean without even reading the post how you meant it, they are getting offended more than ever. I don’t want this blog to be about job interviews and how hard it is to be yourself these days, you probably know that by now.

Adapting in Austin is easier than it has ever been. I don’t have a car yet, so I mainly use public transportation, it is not as efficient as Chicago, but it works. Crazy people on the bus are a constant thing, but I enjoy trying to imagine what kinds of lives these people live, either before or after they get into the bus. Sitting on a bus for 40 minutes really allows you to let your mind wonder and your imagination run free. That is how long it takes me to get to downtown, or the library. Yes, I found a library and I feel accomplished. Being a writer and reader, libraries are what usually bring me comfort.

Last week I got into my writing heavily. I have a few prompt books and I decided it was time to put them to use. I started writing a short story about this girl, who was raised by her single mom in a white house by the lake. She makes friends with a girl from her school that has some type of schizophrenia disorder. I’m not sure if this is what I want write as her friends’ disease or if I should do a little more research. I guess the second would work better. As time passes, the house is up for sale and the girl has to come back to her city and find out what happened to her friend. The story is based on the 60’s era.

The second writing project is a story I have been writing since before I started writing school in 2017, about a girl who was adopted from Latvia at the age of 5, by a woman who took her to be a beauty pageant contestant in the deep south and filled her up with Adderall. As she grew up, she decided to move to Hollywood in order to become a star, secrets from her past starts erupting, she meets new people and her personality starts to change.

Writing comes out differently as I try to express myself on paper.

The third and last project so far, is a children’s book, that I would like to call “The Alien next door.”  It is about an immigrant kid (yes, that is my world and my voice), who was brought by her mom to live in the states.  As she is navigating through this new world, she will meet friends, that besides being American, like she wished to be, are also treated different because of their religion or skin color. That’s by far the one I’m most excited to work on, due to the fact I have some of my friends of color helping me out and expressing their point of view to me.  We need to tell these kids from early ages that is ok to be different. It is a joy! I have been learning how to draw on SkillShare, because I would like to illustrate this myself. It is fun, until I start crying and hating myself because of the difficulty of it. By the way, if you would like to try SkillShare for free for two months I will share a link on twitter https://twitter.com/JoanaGracio

These are some of the projects I want to work on for the next year. Of course, more and more will be added to the list but for now that is what I have for now.  I found a job, not with writing, as they keep saying I need more experience, but to have experience I need a job, its and endless loop. The job is with a luxury charter bus company, it’s like being a flight attendant, but on the bus, it is an auto-attendant. Great, because I hate flying anyway and the bus is always the most logical choice for me.

See you next week! If I don’t Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

J.Snelly