Return to the Scene of the Crime, But Free!

I’m back at my morning writing spot, the place where my laptop’s hard-drive died, peeking at the table where it happened. I’m not being all doomsday, or even nostalgic—someone else is sitting in the table: a man charging his cell phone and drinking something out of a paper bag. So I can’t sit there even [...]

After Revision

I turned in the revision yesterday morning before work. The weekend was spent doing only that; on Sunday I think I worked at it for 11+ hours. There were moments when I felt sure I couldn’t finish, but somehow I did finish, looking back I don’t know how. Then, after it was all over, I [...]

Deadline vs. Life

My deadline for the revision of my 40,000-word work-for-hire manuscript is this coming Friday, April 25. Even if I tried to keep working on this all day today (Saturday), and then all day tomorrow (Sunday), and then all through the week—keeping in mind I leave for my day job at nine in the morning and [...]

The Revisions Are Coming, the Revisions Are Coming!

You heard right: the revisions on my last work-for-hire manuscript are coming my way. They will be messengered to me tomorrow. Sounds daunting that they must be messengered rather than emailed, no? I’ve also been warned I have to cut 7,000 words.
Guess what I’ll be doing all weekend?

Writers Helping Writers, Assumed Rejections, and Cake!

Good things first: e got me a “Happy Book Deal” cake this weekend and even as I type this I want another slice. (No, really, where is it? I want another slice.) I asked him if I would get a cake for every book deal and he said yes. Isn’t he wonderful? I hope this [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Distract Me

Truth be told, I’ve been depressed. Just a smidge. I’ve got that dull film over my eyes that makes everything seem soggier and uglier than usual—nothing to cause alarm, nothing to write home about. Still, I’m not in the mood to skip down the street or anything.
I remember I’m maybe-depressed when I have nothing much [...]

All Pages and Scenes Accounted For

Can it be? Oh, yes. I reached the end of the manuscript. Easily, swimmingly—actually it went pretty fast and I even did line edits this morning and, turns out, the thing’s not as bad as I thought.
I think.
Seeing as I already asked for, and was granted, an extension until Monday morning I will sleep on [...]

A Little Less Heavy

I am no closer to the imminent end to the endless manuscript that will be holding me hostage through the weekend.
But today was a better day, even still. Yesterday I got my revision notes on my Alice manuscript—one that I thought would surely carry through into October. But the revisions were much simpler than I [...]

Heavy

This latest deadline is really weighing on me. I have to force the pages out—and then, once out, I’m afraid to look at them again. I’ve never had this much trouble with a project before.
I’m thinking it’s not really about this project at all, is it? It’s about what comes after the project. It’s about [...]

Stopping Point

Page 50.
That’s all I’m gonna get today.
You know it; I know it; we all know it.
I have to be happy with page 50…
Okay, so page 50.
Will someone carry me home now? I’ve reached page 50 and I’m too tired to walk.

Invasion of the Ice-Cream Song

I am high up on the twelfth floor, banging out these pages at a laborious pace that is killing me slowly on the inside, down in there where it counts the most. And yet for some reason all I can hear, from the street twelve floors below, is the ice-cream truck. It’s blaring its song, [...]

Saturday Struggles

I have a proofreading job that I left till the very last minute. I have the first draft of a short story I want to finish. I have a new book I want to read. Who will win this tug-o-war?
JOB: I realize I bore you silly, but I am due Monday morning and you [...]

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 [...]

No (No. 968)

The spec sample I wrote over the weekend wasn’t chosen.
I don’t have much else to say beyond that except that I’m disappointed, though not horribly so, though two days have passed and I’m still trying to shrug it off. Any kind of rejection tends to sting me, even if it’s for a project I didn’t [...]

A Writing Black Hole

I was swallowed.
I wrote, and kept writing, and didn’t make it home till close to nine o’clock. Poor E was starving—is starving—he was waiting for me to get home so he could eat, and dinner hasn’t arrived yet.
But in terms of choices, I picked the possible paying gig over the short story. Sell-out? Just for [...]

Unforgettable

All this talk of stories and wishing on workshops (perhaps it’s just chatter in my head?) has got me lamenting the cold shoulder I’ve given one of my stories-in-progress. It really wants to be finished, and yet I had to put it aside for these recent deadlines.
I spent all weekend on a freelance copyediting project—I [...]

Catching Up

That crash writing project left me reeling—I am very, very behind in posting here and reading all my favorite blogs. But what happened, you may wonder. Did I finish? I did. I did! So, yes, I would now like a lollipop.
In the past week, a scattering of things happened.
* A story of mine in a [...]

Overboard!

Feedback from samples of what I wrote over the weekend came back with this response: Too long. Waaaaaaaay tooooooo looooooong. Have I ever mentioned how I can’t shut up? Like when I write posts here and I can’t stop whining and I drive everyone away? Like right now?
Oh, yes, I knew the manuscript was too [...]