Just an FYI – I’m now putting something about my completed or almost-there projects on my blog!
(Yes, I am excited about this. Yes, I am a geek.)
Sooner or later I’ll probably have to get my own website, because I don’t think the free WordPress blogs were intended for this many pages and eventually it’ll start to look weird –but for now, voila!
My Projects has become My Books, and has a little more detail, plus links to my finished high fantasy SWORD and my almost-finished (SO very almost) urban fantasy WEAVE. (If that’s really what I end up calling it.) Both new pages have a short description, plus an excerpt. Check it out!
Good morning, cruel world. I’d managed to convince myself that yesterday was Wednesday, so I woke up all prepared to be one day from Friday. Alas, alas. SO I thought I’d start the day out with a random list, because I am crazy like that.
1) I am drinking espresso. This is due to necessity, as I am out of soy milk and cappuccinos made only with water pretty much suck. I am very, very awake right now. I don’t think I’ve blinked in a few minutes here. 
Yes, this is kind of what my eyes look like right now, actually, minus the spoons.
2) This is a piece of awesome. My husband got me one for Christmas, and I am a very happy camper right now. It’s a little difficult to type coherently while it’s working, but I’ve made it happen. It’s all about commitment.
3) If you haven’t run across the genius that is How To Write Badly Well, scuttle on over there right this instant. Warning: it will make you snort beverages out of your nose. Try not to drink anything while you’re reading.
–Actually, the concept is almost as brilliant as the execution: giving earnest examples of what doing it very, very wrong looks like may be more effective than giving examples of what doing it very, very right looks like. (And by doing it I mean writing: I’m not espousing bad porn here.) Gods know there have been plenty of times I read something and thought: “Okay, that’s how not to do it. Check.”
4) I am almost done with my third book. Almost. Almost almost almost.
5) Um. I have to go to work now, actually. So there is no 5.
Happy Wednesday, peoples.
That’s right, folks, it’s time for yet another How The Hell I Got Myself Into this installment. When you’re at a loss for interesting things to blog about (or just waiting for a situation to settle enough to form a complete opinion, as I currently am with the Macmillan-Amazon fiasco), you can always turn to that unfailing fallback, mining the most embarrassing moments of your past for entertainment. At least I won’t run out of material.
I am fourteen, a freshman in oversized tee shirts and torn jeans and worn out sneakers. My hair has finally settled, thank god, but the rest of me looks like it wants to be at the skater park. I have reclaimed HARRIET THE SPY, which was a favorite from fifth grade that is now favored even over my idol Stephen King.
It’s the notebook that did it, you see. How awesome was that notebook? Everybody wanted to read it.
I have my own now, inked all over with random designs that get me through the more boring classes. I mean, I have several, of course, that are actually for classes: but this one is for the short stories I write compulsively, and –now that I’ve reread HARRIET– for random observations about people that I make with flair and scowling fervor, prompting my friends to ask me what the hell I’m doing. I have always had a notebook like this, truth be told: but who knew that carrying it around publicly would make such a stir?
And here I am in the cafeteria on a study break, scribbling madly, knowing half the eyes at the table are on me– and also knowing that there is nothing really worthy of their interest in here, unless you like short stories, rhyming poetry, and irritated comparisons of certain teachers to various flora and fauna. This isn’t the lost notes of Deep Throat. It’s not even HARRIET THE SPY (which is just as well, I think sourly, considering how well that turned out for Harriet). It’s really not very much of anything.
Emily leans forward. So when do I get to read your notebook? she asks. There are mutters of agreement.
I smile, scribble, and try not to panic. This has worked a little better than I thought it would. I just thought it would be an nice image, writer with notebook, you know? Flipping back through with some desperation, I understand that I don’t really have anything worth reading in here. But I’ve scribbled so furiously (and publicly) for so many weeks that there’s no way anybody could believe otherwise.
At the end of the year, I say confidently. Surely that will be enough time to get rid of all the crap in here and come up with something interesting, I think. Also, they might forget.
Did they, you ask? No, of course not.
Did I follow through and edit myself into something worth reading? Um. Not exactly.
Did they find it quirky and interesting anyway, did we all have a good laugh about it, go out for ice cream, learn an important life lesson, and was my path as a writer cemented at the tender age of fourteen?
Oh hell no.
I think there might have been some painfully polite commentary before we all moved on to whatever else was 1000 times more interesting, and I put the notebook away, to be replaced with my usual method of using half my class notebooks for much the same purpose, but quietly.
Lessons learned: 1) revise, for the love of god, revise; and 2) hype only works if the product is worth the advertising.
15K left. Or so. Maybe. Could be 20, or 10, or 30, for all I know. Endings are easier for me in that I know, more or less, what’s going to happen, and I have, more or less, all the tools I need to take myself there: they’re harder for me because all the work I’ve put in so far is put to the test, and every word counts.
Well. Every word counts anyway; I know that. But this 10-15-20-30-whateverK feels like tiptoeing through a minefield. They’re all my mines, but some of them I
don’t remember putting there, and I only want a select few to actually blow up, on my terms, and preferably not when I’m standing near them. Controlled demolition vs. oh-crap-did-you-hear-that? demolition.
(Okay, no more violent metaphors. Sorry. I’m still working on coffee #1.)
Anyway. I read this fabulous interview yesterday –the amazing and witty Hope101’s interview of Laura Kinsale, if you’re interested (and you should be, because it was a really, really great interview)– and one of Ms. Kinsale’s statements struck me:
“What I’ve found is that if I do force myself to write when the pitcher is empty, I go down blind alleys that just get harder and harder to push ahead. Then I have to go back to where it was “working” and start over there. There will always be some “good parts” in the blind alley that I don’t want to let go of, which makes it even harder to start over. Overall not very pleasant or productive. So what seems to work best for me is not to force myself to turn out pages on a schedule, but to keep the book and characters in my mind, to read other books, and listen for that little bell to ring that gives me a sentence or a scene I can start with and keep going.”
(It’s on page two, if you want to go hunting for it)
I do this All. The. Time.
We’re writers. We want to get published. For those of us messing around in particular genres –SF/F, for example, which is definitely where I fall– the ability to produce, and produce regularly, is a not-inconsiderable talent. Even unpublished and contractless, that pressure is still there unless you’ve done little to no research at all about this industry (or, I suppose, unless you’re a much more stable and balanced person than I am). You’ve probably come across at least a few blogs, or posts, or whatever, that paint the picture of a writer in the middle of one novel, editing another, and reviewing galleys on a third.
And if you’re anything like me your first thought upon reading an account of something like that was not Awesooooome! *fistpump*, but Sweet Cartwheeling Jesus, when do they sleep?
No, it’s not always like that (or, I hope, even often like that). But if you’re anything like me, you feel that pressure even though it’s not always like that, and even though you don’t yet have any contractual obligation to write, say, a book a year. I see numbers and scenarios like the above; I know a lot of writers who do, in fact, write that fast or faster; and I worry. Because I just don’t write that fast. Or, not as fast as I feel like I should. I can do a book a year, but it does in fact take the whole year. And I sit here, 20K-or-whatever from THE END, stressing myself out because I’m not going as fast as I think I should be. And you know, stress can be useful and productive, but as far as its influence on an occasionally delicate creative process? –well, not so much. Especially here, approaching THE END, where I’m already neurotic enough to fund the college educations of several psychologists’ children.
So the above-quoted statement is a helpful reminder for me: I’m not racing a clock. And pushing myself when maybe I really need to take a night off, or even (gulp) a week off, probably isn’t going to give me anything I’m actually going to want to keep.
It’s important to me to keep in mind that this is a job, or at least that if I want to get paid for it I’d be wise to treat it like one… but I often forget that it’s equally important to let my brain (and my fingers) have some time off to recharge.
~breathe~
So close. 20K left (I think: I don’t plan to hit a certain word count so much as I do certain plot points, so I usually end up going over and then revising to hit my approximately-100K-goal). Here I sit, eking my way toward THE END, knowing I’ve gone and waxed way too lyrical in the home stretch of this book (I always do, for some reason), wondering if all these interesting revelations happening so close to the climax are even going to be a little bit relevant, wondering why my characters can’t just focus, damn it, and follow a decently drawn plotline instead of smacking one another around and/or spending too much time thinking about sex.
I feel like my high school chaperones must have felt trying to herd my senior class to the beach for the Last Class Trip: scowling at giggling herds of scantily dressed girls, knowing damned well at least a few of the rowdier guys must have come here the night before to bury six packs of Labats in the sand, wondering if those two kids out in the water still have their suits on, because it looks like maybe they don’t. I am the wet blanket, herding all my wayward charges onto the bus and insisting we not take the back roads home: the highway, thank you, driver, and you two in the back stop kissing right now! Detention for all of you if you’re not in your seats, facing forward, and not touching each other in thirty seconds! Stop singing!
Here I sit, looking for excuses not to end this, because much as I’ve bitched here, it’s been fun.
Maybe I should read it from the beginning; I think my voice changed halfway through.
No, idiot, you do that after you finish. That’s why we call them revisions.
But hold on, I think I missed a major plot point back in chapter three that’s becoming important now: if I don’t get that fleshed out nothing after chapter 16 will make sense!
Jackass, the whole point of revisions is to fix stuff like that AFTER you finish. Make a note and come back to it later. Sit! Write!
Look, I’m serious, if I don’t get this theme down NOW I will be a failure as a writer! People will LAUGH! Something might explode! World peace will never happen!
Oh my god, that’s it. You are not allowed another cappuccino until you get in at least 1000 words. Face forward! Stop playing footsie! You’re grounded!
And so on.
*sigh*
I won’t bother to describe it, since the news and the images of this disaster have already made their way all over the world.
I’m just going to borrow a great list compiled by fellow writer Rebecca Burrell. And add that it’s as easy as texting: send a text message that just says “HAITI” to 90999 and your phone will be charged for $10.00 that will go to the Red Cross’s Haiti relief efforts.
Help in any way you can, folks.
Action Against Hunger http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/where-we-work/haiti
American Red Cross http://www.redcross.org /
American Jewish World Service http://ajws.org /
AmeriCares http://www.americares.org/newsroom/news/deadly-earthqua…
Beyond Borders http://www.beyondborders.net/index.php
CARE http://www.care.org /
Catholic Relief Services http://crs.org /
Childcare Worldwide http://www.childcareworldwide.org /
Direct Relief International http://www.directrelief.org/EmergencyResponse/2010/Eart…
Doctors Without Borders http://doctorswithoutborders.org/news/allcontent.cfm?id…
Feed My Starving Children http://www.fmsc.org/Page.aspx?pid=398
Friends of WFP http://www.friendsofwfp.org/site/c.hrKJIXPFIqE/b.502697…
Haitian Health Foundation http://www.haitianhealthfoundation.org /
Hope for Haiti http://www.hopeforhaiti.com /
International Medical Corps http://www.imcworldwide.org/Page.aspx?pid=183
International Relief Teams http://www.irteams.org/index.htm
Medical Teams International http://www.medicalteams.org/sf/Home.aspx
Meds and Food for Kids http://mfkhaiti.org /
Mercy Corps http://www.mercycorps.org /
Operation USA http://www.opusa.org /
Oxfam http://www.oxfamamerica.org /
Partners in Health http://www.pih.org/home.html
Samaritan’s Purse http://www.samaritanspurse.org /
Save the Children http://www.savethechildren.org /
UNICEF http://www.unicefusa.org/haitiquake
World Concern http://www.worldconcern.org /
World Vision http://www.worldvision.org /
Yele Haiti http://www.yele.org /



