Some NaNoWriMo Confessions

Full disclosure:

I do not know if I can do this.
But I’m doing it anyway!
I do not have an outline beyond the first chapter, and ideas for two more chapters scribbled in a notebook while I was preoccupied here.
So I will have to wing it.
Which is daunting.
And exhilarating.
And possibly possible?

I’ll stop there because I don’t like [...]

Unaccomplishments

The new novel has been on my mind. Other things have been happening, but all along there’s been this unsettled feeling in me: I haven’t accomplished enough; I’m not where I wanted to be; it’s time to change that; how long have I been saying that?; is it too late?; it can’t be too late. [...]

Limbo

No answer yet, and none expected for one, two, three (?) days. As a writer, I am all too familiar with this state of waiting. Someone says they have an answer for you, but they don’t know when. It could be good, they hint, but they don’t say it outright, which brings to mind the [...]

Waiting…

This afternoon members of the Antioch College community are expecting (hoping) for a decision from the university Board of Trustees announcing that the college can stay open past the spring of 2008. The Alumni Board has raised more than $18 million to that end.
We want a yes.
As you can see, signs have been put up [...]

Ohio, Here I Come

Please please please let Antioch College stay open. I’m headed to Ohio now. (Pictured here is an image I remember from my admissions brochure.)
I’ll be on campus shortly, to return to the place where I:
had my eyes opened • had my ideas and views challenged • found inspiration • found my voice • studied harder [...]

The Giddy Stage

I’m at that point when you’re writing a novel when you’re not even actually writing the novel but still you think you’re gold. You know: The ideas shimmering… Your words poised to come out… Not a single line on the page, but the whole thing seems finished somehow, in your mind.
I bet there are tens [...]

5 Writing Strengths, Minus 1

I have to take #1 back.
I said I could handle revision. I cannot. I can handle revision only when I am facing my own notes or only when I don’t care so much anymore, which takes time, loads and loads of time. In order to handle revision, I need some amnesia. It comes, but not [...]

NaNo:: In Fact…

…I’m afraid it might not be YA at all. Which does make it harder.
The latest advice from my patient other half—after the movie, while walking through Washington Square Park at night through the crowd of revelers listening to the Beatles cover, passing them dancing, passing the fountain, passing the rat, which runs across the path, [...]

NaNoWriMo Begins in Less Than 2 Weeks

My feelings about making the decision to participate in NaNoWriMo this year—for the first time ever—vacillate between dazed shock, giddy excitement, and of course my signature bucketloads of doubt. I wouldn’t be me if not for that. Still, unless something happens to make it impossible for me to keep writing through to the end of [...]

Decisions, Decisions

Why is it necessary to make decisions in life? Can’t I carry around a Magic 8-Ball? Flip coins (two in each hand)? Ask perfect strangers to decide on my behalf and thank them later?
I just waver back and forth between things, unable to settle on just the one.
Just today, I have *seriously* mulled over these [...]

14 Years Today

14 years together with e today! How is it possible to be in love (more in love each year) with the same person for 14 years? I have no idea how it turned out this way, but I can tell you it is possible. E and I grew up together. We would not be who [...]

Simultaneous or Bust

My submissions have been sent out into the world.
Yesterday, I tried four Kinko’s copiers until I scored and found a decent one. Last night I printed cover notes, stapled, sorted, SASE’d, and addressed envelopes. There was a satisfying stack at the end of this—made smaller by the few magazines that now accept online submissions—and I [...]

Submission Avoidance

I am trying not to think about the pages I sent off in the mail this morning. To whom. For what. To what end. I can’t let my thoughts linger on them because I have been known to get swept up, up, and away, and then the fall is that much harder. I won’t talk [...]

Collecting Short Stories

I have two pitches to complete in order to answer two separate, and exciting, invitations. I have other projects awaiting my attention. A novel brewing. An old novel wondering after its fate. Yet… I keep getting pulled back to my short story collection. I tell myself it’s so totally impractical and can’t I do something [...]

Ever Been to the AWP Conference?

Wow.
The annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference is in New York this year!
And I was just out at lunch talking about how we can’t afford NYC anymore and maybe it’s time to leave.
Anyone ever been to this conference? I want to go—but of course I have to request the days off [...]

5 Writing Strengths

Both sognatrice at bleeding espresso and the individual voice tagged me for a meme to list my five writing strengths. If you know me at all, you know it would be so much easier if I had been tagged to list the top five reasons why I suck, but! But I’ve been wrestling with this [...]

To Try, or Not Try

Lately I’m afraid of opportunities. Reluctant, really, to put myself out there—again.
Pros:

“You never know unless you try.”
“Third (fourth? fifth?) time’s a charm.”
What could it hurt? (See Cons.)

Cons:

It could really, really hurt.

My problem is I get my hopes up. Sometimes I think I’m better off without thinking so much. I need to relax.
The thing about me, [...]

Contest for Novelists

In case you haven’t yet heard of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award I thought I’d mention it—if interested, send in your manuscripts now; it looks like only the first five thousand submissions are accepted.
Someone at Penguin forwarded me the first link above; it was kind of her to think of me. But my own novel [...]