Bug in Your Eye

I was walking east toward Broadway—a light wind, a rising sun, just minding both my own business and the occasional garden hose washing the beer off the sidewalks—when I turned the corner and had this uplifting moment of clarity. It was about writing, and not. About life, and more. A perfect moment, really, in which [...]

Shopping Excursion

On a lighter note, so innocent pre-rejection, I had to return some clothes yesterday. One item was a black dress that looked like I was wearing a sack. The other a pair of work-shorts. Who wears work shorts? People much taller than me, obviously. So I went to the store to make the returns and, [...]

Fantastical Escape Hatches

The way out is hard to find. The exits shift and move, the doors stay locked. You might want to escape your present reality, but—haha!—you are boxed in on all sides by debts unmanageable, jobs unattainable, and questionable luck. (Also, you’re such a klutz!)
Escape might come in any number of forms:
A win-for-life lotto ticket falls [...]

Saying Yes to a Yes

I am so flattered and surprised by the outpouring of support from my announcement about my tween novel. How can I say thank you enough? Thank you!
I formally accepted my formal offer from S&S* on Friday, so this whole publishing-a-book fantasy is real. (I think. I’m still in shock about the whole thing.) I never [...]

What HAS Happened: I’m Publishing a Book!

Below I expunged all the things that haven’t come my way lately, and do you know why? Because things were brewing for reals and I am—no joke—about to tell you some good news that I was hinting at before:
I just got a formal offer on my first original tween novel from Simon & Schuster!
It’s not [...]

Things That Have Not Happened

I did not get a residency to the writers colony in the old haunted mansion where I would have most likely been unable to sleep for fear of seeing/hearing/feeling the fingers on my face of ghosts, and, besides, I don’t have the vacation time at work to do something like that, and, not to mention, [...]

Stabs at a Writing Life

I’m not thinking about much else but writing these days. Only, I’ve been exhausted—and here I type this with a headache—probably because I’m trying to push myself so hard.
I am under deadline with a freelance writing project—and I am behind, very behind—and the day job is cutting into my time. I try to write every [...]

My New Year

So okay this year I want to: finish this freelance assignment on time, write that other novel that’s in the works, and finish also the first draft of that very exciting other novel, do the next assignment I said I’d do, get a few more stories published, get an agent FINALLY, go to the summer [...]

Older, Slightly Wiser, and Stuffed Full of Blueberry Pancakes

I am one year older today. All the things I’d wanted to accomplish this year didn’t happen, but I’m not beating myself up over them. I thought last year might be “my year”—but now that I’ve been through it, I can tell you it wasn’t. I’m not down about it, though. I think it helps [...]

All the Things I Just Don’t Know

The AWP conference (see the last three entries) was a real jolt to me—in a good way. I felt inspired and energetic, after recovering from my physical exhaustion of course.
But Monday morning, my first day back at work, was also a jolt. I had a nightmare early in the morning that I was about to [...]

A Creative Existence in the Cracks and Corners of Real Life

I have the day job blues. A coworker and I were talking about that fantasy of one day being able to write full-time—maybe you’ll be able to do it soon, I told him. Maybe you’ll be able to do it soon, he told me. But I know I won’t be able to do any such [...]

Lukewarm

Oh, what I wouldn’t give for psychic abilities. I don’t have to read minds. I don’t have to predict natural disasters (though that could sure help). I’d just like a little hint of what’s to come in the future, like a hot potato game with time. I could be leaning in one direction and my [...]

This Year’s Recycled Wisdom: Writing Is Hard

It’s so close to the end of the year, I can reach out and touch it. I feel like I should update my About Me—there’s something a little giddy about that list, blasé, that doesn’t feel like me any longer as I peer ahead into 2008. Also it’s out-of-date. A decision to rewrite a certain [...]

Now You Know My Secret Plan

Actually, I don’t have a secret plan, or a public plan, or any kind of set “plan,” not really. BlogLily wants to see plans, how we sketch our way to a destination, as she put it. What I have is a lot of hope, and a lot of skepticism, a day full of blinding optimism [...]

Adjusting My Goals

I’m not going to finish NaNoWriMo by tomorrow—my word count is hovering around 40,000. That’s a far cry from 50,000. I’ve had to put the manuscript aside to meet some deadlines, applications and otherwise, and I have a sample due Monday and an outline for a new project due next Friday. Today I am meeting [...]

Hours

Sometimes I am astounded at the amount of hours that get drained away by a normal day. I have no time, I think to myself, none left to ever get my life back on track. (Wah-wah.) Then I have a day like today, just two hours early in the morning before work, and I get [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Intentions

I have the best of intentions when it comes to my writing goals. Not that they follow through all the time, but I do mean well. Each night before bed I picture what I will write the next day. And if, come morning, the scene is cloddish and stalls and then falls headfirst out a [...]

Warm Again, and Willing to Admit My Mistake

The heat’s back on, and I am relieved to admit that I was wrong—apparently such things can be fixed on a Sunday. Who knew?
It’s nice to be wrong sometimes. I’d like to be wrong about all my cautious pessimism when it comes to my writing career, too. I’d like to be wrong about work, wrong [...]