Frustrations – Page 11 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Why am I so #$%! unproductive?

I don’t know why, but it’s a lot harder for me to write the first draft of something than it is to revise it. Finishing my last novel was much, much harder than any of the projects before it, and my productivity is still suffering because of it.

The root problem, I suppose, is procrastination. While I was writing my last novel, things got really tough towards the end, and I found myself procrastinating much more than I should have. That led me to develop a dangerous habit. Right now, as I move into the fourth revision of Mercenary Savior, I find that I’m still procrastinating even when the work is much easier (and more enjoyable).

Or is that really it? Maybe I wasn’t procrastinating when I was writing my last novel–maybe I was taking frequent breaks to “fill the well.” Except now, those breaks have turned into full-scale procrastination, and I’m finding it very hard to get back on a regular schedule.

I’ve been doing about 1k to 3k words per day this past week, but I feel like I should be doing around 4k or 5k. A lot of the time, I put off even starting until around 5pm, and stay up until late hours of the night when I should be sleeping. It’s not a sustainable schedule, and I know it.

Part of it might have to do with the fact that I’m back at my parents’ house right now, taking a short break before returning to Utah. I guess I should just stop worrying and enjoy my time here–I’m still doing well, overall, and there’s more to life than writing all the time. Still, it’s maddening to feel unproductive. Blarg.

Other than that, things are going great. I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with my dad, as well as relaxing and taking time off from other pursuits. Saw Inception and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and loved them both. Read a couple of good books, too. Life is good.

In unrelated news, my sister is about to have a baby. Everyone in the family is WAY excited. We love you, Kate and Danny!

Am I an “emerging adult”?

I read a fascinating article in the New York Times today about “emerging adulthood”– basically, the modern trend of twenty-somethings (such as myself) who aren’t growing up and settling down. Says the article:

It’s happening all over, in all sorts of families, not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall. It’s a development that predates the current economic doldrums, and no one knows yet what the impact will be…we’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.”

The debate goes like this: on the one extreme are those who claim that the age range of 18 to ~30 represents a distinct stage of life, similar to adolescence, in which people are still developing their goals, plans, and worldviews, and should not be expected to take on the full weight of adult responsibilities. They use neurological studies to back this up, showing that the brain is not fully developed until roughly the age of 25.

On the other extreme are those who basically argue that such a definition would give twenty-somethings just another excuse to postpone growing up–that they need to stop leeching off of others and face the real world. They point to the fact that those who skip this phase, starting careers and families in their early twenties, don’t miss anything “universal and essential” for their development.

Of course, the debate is much more complex than these two extremes. I won’t describe it in depth here: do yourself a favor and peruse the article for yourself.

My own views on this issue are mixed. I tend to think that most of my peers are putting off adulthood more because they’re scared or lazy than because of anything else, but at the same time, I do believe that there are others who would like to grow up and move on, but don’t feel like they have a secure footing on this slippery thing we call the “real world.” I’d put myself in that category.

As an example, let’s examine how I’m doing with the transition to adulthood. The five traditional milestones of the transition, according to the article, are:

1) Completing school
2) Leaving the home
3) Achieving financial independence
4) Getting married
5) Having a child

How am I doing with each one?

1) Completing school

I graduated in April of this year with a bachelors in political science and a bachelors in Middle Eastern studies & Arabic. If that’s sufficient schooling to consider my education complete, then I’ve passed this mark.

In today’s world, however, many career paths require an advanced degree. Political science especially is considered little more than a stepping stone, either to law school or a masters in public administration or public policy.

Middle Eastern studies is the same; most students go on to study Arabic at a graduate level, or else work in Washington DC for a while before getting a masters. The only path that bypasses further education is the military, though I’m not sure if you can start working at the State Department with just a bachelors. I doubt it.

None of those paths appeal to me, so as far as education is concerned, I’m basically stranded on a stepping stone in the middle of the river, unsure where to go. I could get a generic job that only requires that you have a bachelors, but without an advanced degree, my career possibilities at this point are extremely limited.

Of course, in terms of my writing career, the educational requirements aren’t quite so stringent–you just need to write well. However, I don’t think my creative writing is going to pay the bills anytime soon. Eventually, I hope, but not yet.

2) Leaving the home

This is one I can solidly say that I have achieved. I officially left home in 2003 and I have never stayed there for more than a couple of months since. I have my own apartment and don’t plan on ever moving back in with my parents.

This is a very important thing to me. When I was nineteen and preparing to leave on my two-year LDS mission, I remember thinking distinctly to myself that I was ready to leave home and set out on my own. Saying goodbye was tearful and emotional, but I never struggled with homesickness on my mission (except in one apartment where I couldn’t bring myself to use certain silverware because it was the exact same kind we had at home). In college, I never experienced homesickness at all.

I love my parents, but I will never move back in with them. If I did, I would consider myself a failure. That’s not that I consider others who move in with their parents to be failures–their circumstances are not mine–but I would never do it. I’d go to an old family friend who occasionally takes in transients before I went to my parents.

3) Achieving financial independence

This is a milestone that I’m working to achieve. For the past three months, I’ve been living completely independent of my parents, but I’ve just barely been able to make ends meet. I have yet to find a mid- to long-term job, and a significant portion of my income currently comes from donating plasma.

In absolute terms, however, I am currently 100% financially independent. I graduated from BYU with no debt whatsoever and a significant sum of money in the bank. Right now, I’m paying for my own car and health insurance, my own rent, my own groceries, and from month to month I’m not losing any money.

Of course, I’m also living in a 6-person student apartment in Provo, which (hopefully) isn’t going to be the case a year from now. When I move on, will I still be financially independent? That’s certainly the plan, but only God really knows.

4) Getting married

Ha. Ha. Ha. Definitely not there yet.

Not that I don’t want to be there. Finding and marrying the right girl is definitely on the agenda, but it generally requires three things: 1) another person, 2) finding that person, and 3) winning that person over.

Historically, I have a remarkably poor track record on the “winning over” variable of the equation–it’s one of the reasons why Chloroform by Flickerstick is my favorite love song. However, I think the faulty variable in this case is the “finding,” and that’s totally my fault. Here in Utah, there is no shortage of girls my age willing to get married–I just haven’t been putting in the effort to find them.

Why? Because I’m lazy? Because I’m scared? Because I don’t know what I want? Because I’m naturally independent and don’t feel a compelling need for an intimate relationship? Probably some combination of all four.

The truth is, I just can’t see myself in a married relationship yet. I can’t envision it. How can you set goals when you lack any kind of vision?

I don’t blame anyone but myself for any of this. Regardless, marriage is a milestone that I have yet to reach.

5) Having a child

To my knowledge, I haven’t done this yet. Considering certain laws of biology, as well as the fact that I’m saving myself for marriage, it would be extremely disturbing (to say the least!) if it turns out that I have.

But even if I were married to a female of the human species capable of assisting me in accomplishing such a thing, is this something we would really want to do at this stage of our lives? Raising children requires a lot of time, energy, maturity, and money. The first three, we could probably manage, but is it really a good idea to start a family when you don’t have a steady, well-paying job?

Regardless, this milestone is so far ahead on the map that I haven’t given it hardly any thought. The last time I tried to imagine what it would like to be a father was probably on my mission or shortly thereafter.

Is that a bad thing? A sign of immaturity? Maybe. I don’t know.

Conclusion

I suppose, if there is such a thing as “emerging adulthood,” I would fall squarely in that camp. Does that mean I just need to stop being irresponsible and grow up? No–it’s much more complicated than that.

So many factors in the transition to adulthood depend on outside factors over which I have little control. Financial independence, for example, hinges on getting a steady job. Marriage depends on the right person saying “yes.” Responsibly having children requires both a spouse and financial independence.

At the same time, there is more that I could be doing–indeed, more that I should be doing. The danger of society treating emerging adulthood as a legitimate stage of life is that it will inadvertently create a comfort zone that keeps otherwise capable adults too sheltered to deal with the real world.

I don’t want to be sheltered. I want to do battle with this elusive “real world” on its own terms and kick its backside. But am I ready to settle down? I’m not sure.

I suppose the only thing that can be said for certain is that according to the five milestones, my younger sister Kate is more of an adult than me. Ouch. But if she can do it…I’m not even going to finish that statement.

One of these days, I’ll get there. In the meantime, I’ve got a long way to go.

The biggest scare of my life

I just had the biggest scare of my life.

Moments after finishing Worlds Away from Home, I opened the spreadsheet with my daily wordcounts and noticed that it was missing all the data from the last week. All the data. Not sure what to do, I saved Worlds Away, closed it, reopened it…and found that everything I’d written in the last week was lost.

I almost had a nervous breakdown. I had just finished the last scene, written the last sentence, brought the story to an emotionally poignant ending–and it was all gone.

I freaked out. Searched through all the temp folders, found the backup path for openoffice and searched that–it was all gone.

Not sure what to do, I plugged my flash drive into my other computer, brought up the document, and THANK GOD it was all there. Everything down to the very last line that I’d written only moments ago.

Oh man, you have no idea what I was feeling right then. I collapsed to my knees and promptly saved a two backups, one of the document, the other of everything on my flash drive.

Now I’m scared to plug my flash drive back into my desktop computer, though. What happened? Will I lose all my data again?

Maybe this will help: While I had my novel open, I plugged in another storage device to a jack next to the one my flash drive was plugged into. You know the tone that windows makes when you unplug a USB device? It made that noise twice, as if I’d just unplugged my flash drive. Later, I unplugged the second device, I think it did the same thing, but I’m not sure.

Also, when I opened up the documents I’d been working on on my other computer, I noticed that while my novel (which I’d had open prior to plugging in the second device) had its most recent save, the other documents only had the data from my save on the previous night. In other words, while everything I’d written in my novel tonight was saved, anything I’d written in anything opened after plugging in the second USB device was not saved.

Clearly, this must be a hardware problem of some sort. Perhaps something on the motherboard isn’t fully plugged in? Dang, I’ve got to fix it–I can’t afford to have another scare like this.

Sorry I haven’t posted much recently–I’ve been very busy with this novel. Expect a post sometime tomorrow about finishing it.

End in sight

Things are winding down for my current work in progress, Worlds Away from Home–or should I say winding up, since I’m just a chapter or two from the major climax? In any case, by the end of the week, inshallah, the rough draft will be finished. <crosses fingers>

It’s been tough, but I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll be able to salvage it, probably sometime after World Fantasy 2010. Drafting is not my strongest point; I’m much better at revision. My goal is to have a fully polished draft before the end of 2011.

As far as the real world goes, things are starting to come together as well. I’m going home at the end of the month to get my teeth checked before my Mom’s insurance no longer covers me, and when I get back this temp agency should have a warehouse job lined up for a while, if I can’t find anything else. I’m cautiously optimistic that my sister will help me get a job at the residential treatment center where she works, which would be awesome, and of course there’s always the possibility that BYU will lift the hiring freeze (pretty soon, they’ll have to).

So here’s my plan for the next few months: quit my job at the call center and go home in two weeks, then either work through the temp agency through September/October or find something better. The wilderness job I was looking at has their training in November, so I’ll start the application process now in order to have that option in case everything else falls through. And if all else fails, I’ll go teach English in Asia for a year.

Meanwhile, I hope to stay in Utah until at least February, preferably until April. There are a lot of good resources here for writers, and I hope to take advantage of them. After I finish the rough draft of Worlds, I will throw everything behind Mercenary Savior and get it polished in time for World Fantasy 2010.

And then? Who knows. I’d kind of like to try my hand at a fantasy novel; I’ve got the start of an idea for a magic system, and enough knowledge of Middle Eastern history to throw in a sweet medieval Arab flavor in the mix.

In terms of the real world, my plan is to reteach myself Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus using some excellent resources my Dad is sending me, then go back to school in a hard science…probably. Still not sure what I want to do school-wise, but hopefully I’ll figure that out in the next year or two and head back soon.

That is, if I don’t get published and launch my writing career by then.

So that’s what my life is looking like right now. If you’re still reading and aren’t bored stiff (or if you just skipped to the end of the post, which is what I would have done), here’s an excellent song from one of my favorite Celtic bands, The Rogues:

If it kills me

I will finish this novel if it kills me. At the rate things are going, it just might.

Things are kind of tough for me right now. I desperately need a new job–the one I’ve got is slowly sucking away my soul without even paying enough to get by–and job rejections are way worse than rejections from publishers (I’ve been getting a lot of both, by the way. Not that I’m looking for pity, but yeah.).

As if that weren’t bad enough, my current novel, Worlds Away from Home, is turning out to be a train wreck. There are all sorts of problems with character motivations, improper foreshadowing and plot set up, etc etc. That makes it REALLY hard to get motivated to write each day. Yesterday, I wrote only 245 words (youch). Today, I did about 2.2k, but that’s still way less than I need to be doing.

The thing that worries me the most is the thought that the audience for this particular story may be slim to nonexistent. It’s solid space opera, but with a romantic element that challenges a lot of the mores of our modern, sex-saturated society, as well as many of the conventions of romance within science fiction.

The main female protagonist is something of a pushover–but she has to be, in order for her growth arc to have any umph. The main male protagonist is an orphan on a quest to discover his own origins, kind of like a cross between Mogli and Pip. His quest, combined with her parents’ manipulative attempts to get them physically intimate too soon, are the main things keeping them apart.

But in a genre where physical intimacy usually marks the romantic climax, how do you make it out to be the obstacle against that climax? Will science fiction readers go for that, or will they hurl my book across the room because of it?

Well, if they hurled my current draft, I wouldn’t blame them one single bit. So many plot holes and awkwardly written scenes–ugh. I’ve got to seriously rethink so much about this story. But a later draft? I don’t know–maybe it would work. It would probably need other hooks to keep them engaged, such as cool world building elements, but I think I could make those work.

Anyway, I suppose it’s nothing unusual. For every book I’ve written, I’ve come to a point in the rough draft where I thought the story was completely unworkable and should be scrapped. It’s a tortuous, masochistic process, but I suppose it’s normal. That’s some comfort, at least.

My goal is to finish this abomination by August 15th, then move on to polish Mercenary Savior and make it really shine.

Another goal is to get a decently paying job (at least $8/hr at +25 hours per week) in order to afford to go to DragonCon in September. Another goal is to reteach myself algebra and calculus through the math books my dad (who is a geometry teacher) is letting me borrow. Another goal is to actually get a social life. BLARG.

Slogging through to the bitter happy ending

Oh man. I was hoping to hit 5k words today, and even though I must have spent five or six hours writing, I only managed half of that. It’s progress, I know, but it’s not as much progress as I’d like; the words just aren’t coming, no matter what I do. Blarg.

The worst part is that I know that most of these words are just crap. I’ll get to the end of a chapter and think “oh yeah, shouldn’t these characters be doing/thinking this?” And I’ll make a couple of notes in the revision guide, or touch up what I’ve written just a little bit, but one thing compounds on another until everything’s got problems.

But you know what? I’m almost three quarters of the way through, so it’s probably better just to write on through these problems and finish the @#$! thing. At this point, I’ve got a good enough story that I can carry things through to the end, as horrible as it may be, and just fix everything in the next draft.

It’s frustrating, though, because I know that most of the changes I’m going to make will seem obvious. Why can’t I just get it right the first time?

Is it because I failed to outline things enough? I know from experience, however, that outlining too much can be fatal for me. Is it because I didn’t take the time to immerse myself in my story? But then again, I’ve been spending so much time on my writing, everything else seems to be suffering, including my social life…

BLARG.

I’m probably just missing the forest for the trees. Once I get out of these woods, though, I’m sure things will fall into place. One way or another, in two weeks this abomination will be FINISHED! …at least until the next draft.

Looking for work (and possibly an adventure)

Ever since graduation in May, I’ve been doing my best to support myself and be 100% financially independent. I haven’t gotten a steady, well-paying day job yet, but fortunately summers in Utah are cheap and I’ve more or less been able to make ends meet.

That’s not to say it’s been easy, though. I’m operating under an extremely limited budget, and things are only going to get worse in August. My current employment is more or less a dead end job, and I’m going to need to find something else if I want to stay in the black (and keep myself mentally sane).

Here’s what I’m trying to do to change that, in order of priority:

1) Apply for full/part time positions at BYU. My ideal job at this point would be to use my writing/editing/mentoring skills as a BYU employee in some capacity. Not only would I be able to stay in Utah Valley where all my writing contacts are, I’d be able to take classes at BYU for free! Besides, BYU is an organization behind which I can completely throw myself. Having graduated from there, I believe 110% in the university’s mission and the value of a BYU education.

The trouble is that there are probably hundreds of other graduates in my position trying to do that right now. More spots might open up quickly if the economy improves, but the competition is still going to be fierce.

2) Apply for a bookstore job in Utah Valley. Working in a bookstore might mesh very well with my aspirations to become a full-time writer. It would give me a chance to see a useful side of the publishing/bookselling industry, as well as opportunities to network with authors, readers, and booksellers. The pay might not be great, but as long as it’s full time and pays at least minimum wage, it would be enough.

I hear that a lot of local venues are going to be making hiring decisions later in August, as the summer term at BYU comes to an end and the students start moving back to Provo. For that reason, I’ve been holding out contacting places like Chapters (formerly Pioneer Books) and Barnes and Noble–the last thing I want is for my resume/application to get swamped under a huge pile of other applicants.

3) Apply for a Wilderness Therapy job. There are a lot of these in Utah, and I hear that they’re always looking for new staff. The work is strenuous–one to three weeks out in the wilderness with a bunch of troubled teens, living in survivalist conditions–but the life experience may well be worth the extended time commitment. Besides, considering how much it will cut down my living expenses (since I won’t be spending money in the wilderness), the pay should be pretty good. I may be able to save up a sizable amount.

The main reason I’d want to do this is because of the adventure. I feel that at this point in my life, I need to do something big–something I can look back and point at as a major milestone or accomplishment. For this reason, I almost want to take a wilderness job more than a BYU or bookstore job, but the tradeoffs are pretty serious. My social life will probably suffer, as well as my daily writing schedule.

Redcliff Ascent has their next staff training session in September. If I’m still looking for work by then, I’ll probably take it.

4) Try to find some opportunity in the Middle East. When I came back from Washington DC in April, I decided to hold out for a year before returning to the Middle East to see how the tensions between Iran, Israel, and Lebanon play out. While I still think there will be a war, however, I’m less worried about getting caught up in a bad situation if I’m in, say, Jordan or Egypt.

This would also be an awesome adventure. The trouble, though, is how it may cut into my writing career here in the states. I’ve already bought tickets to World Fantasy 2010 in October, so I probably won’t be leaving before then. Besides, most Middle East jobs only pay enough to cover living expenses–not enough to save up, or even buy a ticket back. Getting stranded in a developing country might not be so fun.

5) Take any part-time retail/labor job I can find in Utah Valley. This is the last option, because I don’t want to end up with a job that, for all intents and purposes, isn’t going to lead to anything bigger and better. If it pays the bills, though, might as well take it.

That’s what I’m currently trying to do to improve my employment situation. In the meantime, I’m looking up part time jobs and gigs on craigslist and trying to be as resourceful as I can. It’s not fun being poor.

Inshallah, though, something big will come my way. I have every confidence that things will work out for the best, whatever happens.

Image courtesy Postsecret.

Braving the unexpected rough spots

Right now, I’m going through this unexpected rough spot in my novel, where I know what’s supposed to happen (or at least I have enough of an idea to wing it fairly well), but the writing just isn’t coming. This happens every time I hit the two thirds mark, and it really sucks.

Currently, I’m using two methods to get through it: 1) keep a running chapter-by-scene outline of the next few scenes, and 2) use a loose adaptation of story theory models (such as the hero’s journey) to keep perspective on things. Right now, this is what my chapter-by-scene outline looks like:

Chapter 14
14.1: Jalil
Jalil meets LARS, who with Michelle shows him the ship. Jalil learns that Lars has a connection with the Farlen family and that the Stewarts are from his parents’ home.
14.2: Mira
Mira returns home an outcast. Sheila rails at her for failing to seduce Jalil, while Sathi pulls her into his quarters to tell her that he’s arranged for her speedy marriage.
14.3: Jalil
The Bridgette launches from GN-2 using a gravity whip maneuver. The ship heads out for the L2 point, using a second gravity whip around GN-2b. Jalil realizes this is goodbye.

Chapter 15
15.1: Mira
While Mira prepares herself to get ready to meet her cousin Ibrahim, Tiera approaches her in private to apologize for calling her a whore. Tiera advises her to stand up for herself.
15.2: Mira
IBRAHIM’s convoy arrives. As Sathi and Ibrahim’s father conduct negotiations, Mira meets him and is surprised to find that she’s attracted to him.
15.3: Mira
Mira, Surayya, Amina, and Tiera discuss Ibrahim in the women’s quarters. Tiera advises Mira not to pursue him, but Surayya and Amina convince her to go ahead with it.

Chapter 16
16.1: Jalil
Lars and Michelle tell Jalil about the Colony. They show him pictures, and he has flashbacks.
16.2: Jalil
While making maneuvers around GN-2a, the Bridgette receives news of Hameji movements near Karduna. Jalil learns a bit of the Hameji.
16.3: Jalil
The Bridgette arrives at the L2 station and enters the starlane. Jalil’s first experience as an adult making the jump.

Chapter 17
17.1: Mira
???

As you can see, I’ve broken down each chapter by scene, with the viewpoint character indicated as well as a short one or two line description of what happens. When a new character comes along, I mention them by name in ALL CAPS. I use the auto font color for story that I’ve already written, and the stuff that remains to be written in red. Also, I only outline a handful of scenes ahead of my current position.

That’s the method that works for me. I have no idea if it will work for you, but feel free to give it a try or let me know what methods you’re using.

I’m finding that even though I’m more of a “discovery writer,” certain methods of outlining give me much greater flexibility to discovery write than simply winging it all on the fly. In particular, I find that outlining my characters and keeping a running scene-by-scene map for the next couple days helps to keep me on track.

I ran into this problem earlier in the week: without any kind of outline, and no previously written material to fall back on, I had no idea what to do. Instead of sitting at my keyboard doing nothing, though, I plotted out the next few scenes to give me some idea what to do.

That helped me out for a while, but now…man, it’s still rough. I did 3,251 words yesterday, but today I only hit 1,555. It’s a lot, I know, but with all my free time, I should be hitting more. Much more.

I suppose the only way out of this slump is to write–and write I certainly must. I seriously need a real job, and right now I’m looking into the field staff position at Wilderness Quest. If they hire me, I’ll need to finish this novel before I start work, since I’ll be out in the wilderness for three weeks at a time and the last thing I want is to pick up a half-finished project after it’s gone cold–especially when I’ve got to rewrite Mercenary Savior for World Fantasy 2010.

So that’s what I’m looking at right now. Three weeks, inshallah, and Worlds Away from Home 1.2 will be finished. Hopefully by then, I’ll have a real job too.

To close, check out this awesome version of the Corridors of Time song (Zeal theme) from the Chrono Trigger soundtrack. I’ve heard maybe twenty or thirty different arrangements of this excellent composition, and this one takes the cake. Beautiful.

Forward to new ground

A couple days ago, I finished writing through the material I’d written for Worlds Away From Home back in 2008 before I dropped the project. For the first time since March, I find myself drafting entirely new material.

It’s a little bit unnerving; I’m a much better reviser, I feel, than straight up writer. Revising is awesome because I know that the book is getting better, whereas drafting is frustrating because the written story never turns out as awesome as it was when it was in my head.

At the same time, it’s really fun to play fast and loose with your book. Need a new character? Throw him in! A new romantic subplot? Go for it! A new planet for the characters to visit? Sure, why not?

I will say, though, that it’s much harder to keep up a steady writing rate when you’re drafting new material. My daily word count has fallen to about 2k, give or take a few hundred words. In order to finish this by August 15, I just need to do 2.2k per day, but I’m sure something will come up and I’ll find myself in a crunch by the end.

One thing that might throw a kink in the works is getting a new job. Being underemployed really sucks, and I want to move on to a new job by the beginning of August. Easier said than done in this economy, right? Well, there are some options open to a young, single college grad in my position: namely, a wilderness job. I’ve been holding out on that because eight days in the wilderness for every six days off seems like a lot of time away from other pursuits, but the more I look at it, the more appealing it seems. Six days completely off, with no money problems…hmm…

Which reminds me: would it be lame to put up a donate button on this blog? One that said “buy me a (non-alcoholic) drink” or something like that? I don’t want to ask for money, but if you guys feel like throwing it at me, who am I to hold you back? I don’t expect it to earn much, but something is better than nothing, especially these days.

Utah drivers are jerks

They really are. Yesterday while I was biking up to campus, a young woman (probably a college freshman) pulled out of a driveway to make a right turn and failed to look both ways before turning. As a result, she struck my bike, bending my rim and forcing me to replace it.

I got her name and phone number, spent about an hour (and $54) fixing the thing, and gave her a call. She didn’t answer any of my calls that day, but she called up the next morning to tell me that she’d talked with a policeman, that I was at fault, and that therefore she wasn’t going to pay me anything.

Of course I was frustrated at all of this, seeing as 1) I was a PEDESTRIAN on the SIDEWALK, and therefore not at fault, and 2) she had failed to look both ways before turning into traffic. What if I hadn’t braked? What if she’d hit me full on? I could have gotten seriously hurt due to her negligence!

So I told her “look, whether you pay me or not, will you promise me to look both ways before you enter traffic?” And her response–I kid you not–was “have you taken a defensive driving course? If you had, you would know that drivers making a right turn aren’t required to look right before entering traffic.”

WTF. Seriously?

Apart from the $54, which I figured she wasn’t going to pay for (jerk), this last comment profoundly bothered me. I only came out of this with a damaged bike–what if the next guy isn’t so lucky? So I sent her the following text:

As a driver, it is your responsibility to look both ways before turning. I don’t want you to injure the next guy.

To which she replied with the following:

As a cyclist, it is your responsibility to be on the correct side of the road and to give the right-of-way to who it belongs to. This mishap happened because of your own wrong doing- not mine. I’m choosing to look past the damage you’ve done to my car, which I could very easily require you to pay for (and it would cost much more than your rim that was “damaged” because you a)were on the wrong side of the road and b)failed to yield the right-of-way. That’s my way of being kind to a disrespectful person such as yourself (you hung up on me in mid-sentence). There is no reason to call or text message me anymore because the issue is over with. Any other text messages or calls I receive from will be considered harassment, and I will file charges against you.

A few things:

As a pedestrian, the right-of-way was mine–that was what the Provo police told me when I called them today;
While I shared some of the blame for riding on the wrong side of the road, she violated the law by failing to yield the right of way when crossing from private property onto a public street (again, taken from the officer I spoke with);
I seriously doubt her car received any more damage than a few scratches, whereas I have the bent rim to prove that the “damages” to my bike were very real;
I hung up on her mid-sentence because she kept pushing me to admit that I was at fault and that she was not in the wrong–instead of calling to apologize and work things out, she called to seek validation for shafting me.

What a jerk. She’s lucky I’m not taking this to her insurance company and trying to resolve it with them. While I’m sure that she fully deserves the rate hike and the stain on her record, I just don’t want to deal with the hassle.

The next time this happens, though (and I’m sure it will, because Utah drivers act as if pedestrians don’t exist), I’m going to call the police and resolve the issue with the law. I no longer trust Utahans to be honest and forthright in settling issues like this civilly. If you’re on the road and they can screw you, believe me, they will.