Blog entry May 2009

Thursday I was feeling great and doing wonderful on my new commitment to doing more of what I need to be doing.  But Friday... I woke up, took the kid to school, then was so exhausted I went back to bed.  Mid-afternoon, I woke up long enough to tell #2-son to go pick up his brother, then slept rest of the day and through the night.  Saturday I felt some better and managed to get up and be coherent for my first TV interview.  Which was fun, and more on that later.  But came home and crashed again.  Woke up long enough to get #3-son from boarding school (which is actually here in town). I stayed in the car while he carted stuff to the car.  Got back home and slept the rest of the day and night away. Read more

The flight down was wonderfully uneventful, as was the flight back, so many kudos to Southwest for that.

The wedding was beautiful, as was the bride.  The remainder of the wedding story is a good-news/bad-news scenerio... it was an outdoor wedding.  The bad news is that the tent resevation was screwed up so they didn't have a tent, and of course it sprinkled rain all through the ceremony.  The good news is the storm-front dropped the temperature from 95 down to a quite pleasant 80, and the rain stopped in time for the outdoor reception.  So all of us northerners were quite happy to be a little damp given the alternative of stifling heat.

It was really nice to see all my family, brief though it was, and I'm now trying to figure out how to get back down there for a longer visit with my kids.

But for now, it's back to work time.

I'm off bright and early tomorrow morning (or bright and dark considering I'll be leaving the house about 4:30am) to go to my niece's wedding.  I have three little brothers, and this is middle-brother's daughter getting married.  It'll be a fast trip.  Flying in Saturday morning for a Saturday evening wedding, then leaving very early Monday morning.  I'll be nice to see family, although longer would have been nice.  But with kids still not talking to the Ex, I have to be back in time for school Tuesday.

Have a great Memorial Weekend.

Once the realization of the previous post settled into my psyche, I began to have mental cows. 

Sure, most of the first 10 pages were backstory, but those pages were actually frontstory because they were what the character was actually thinking and feeling as the story began.  The experience and story of the first 10 pages were true to who the character was, they were true to her life, they were true to her past, they were true to her experience and to the unfoldment of her day.

You see, Sarah has been a real person to me since I began writing her story over three years ago.  She came to me as a whole person.  Yes, along the way I've discovered more about her, but the essence of who she is, her personality and her aliveness, hasn't changed a bit. Read more

I picked up the first two chapters of Sarah's book day before yesterday and started reading them through in preparation for working on the next chapters and getting this revision done. 

This is the first time I've really looked at this draft of these chapaters since I got them done in November... so they've sat a while.  And as I began reading the first chapter I was marking things up as usual, tightening this, fixing that... and I got to page 11 and the whole tone of the story immediately changed... it was suddenly interesting!

Having one of those this-is-a-clue-that-something-is-wrong flashes of inspiration... I pondered... I read back through the beginning pages... I pondered some more... and then I realized:

Almost the entirety of the first 10 pages are backstory!!

Oh!

So THAT's what's wrong with it.

Duh!! Read more

Had a fun coincidence happen with the writing of Kelsey's short story.  I needed to know what Kelsey's condo looked like, so I wandered the web looking for condos in Chicago's loop.  I happened onto a site that had floor plans for several of Chicago's residential high-rises, so I happily wandered that site for a while, and found the perfect condo.

Two-story penthouse, glorious view, only a few blocks north of the loop, perfect room set-up... all-in-all it's exactly what Kelsey would be living in... and I had a floor plan!  I couldn't ask for anything more.

Yet, for the fun of it, I wanted some more pictures to see if I could get a better idea of the view.  So I wandered the condo for-sale sites looking for condos in that building that might be for-sale and might have better pictures of the view. Read more

I had a nice Mother's Day.  I had two kids home, #2 and #4.  I took them out to lunch at my favorite restaurant, California Pizza Kitchen, then we all went to "Star Trek".  It was a great movie, and a good time was had by all.  An excellent way to celebrate Mother's Day.

My short story has been reviewed (thanks everybody) and edited, and I just hit "send" on the email submission.

Scary, yet exciting.  :-)

They say 10-12 weeks before I hear, so it's hurry-up-and-wait time.

But I think it's neat that I finally got something done and sent out, even if it's just a short story.

I feel like my muse has finally returned, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I can get my novels moving again.  But tomorrow and Friday are work days, which needs to come first... at least for a while.

I've been stuck on Sarah's book for quite a while... well... I hate to admit it, but it's been since Nov 17, 2008, that I've been stuck.  On that day I wrote:

Done with the edit of chapter 2.  But can’t get into chapter 3.

But part of it is [the last time I edited this book] also that I fought the transition from the last scene to this scene for… I just checked… _4_ months. Last time it took me _four_ months to get this transition to work.

The good news it that the lessons I learned then were well-learned, and I now know how to make scene transitions work. I guess that’s good news.

Sigh.  And just for the fun of it, I went back to check and see what was up with the last time I fought with this scene transition.  On August 1, 2007, I wrote: Read more

It may seem like much for a supposed author to have finished a short story, but considering how long it's been since I've written anything new (October for those of you who are counting), this short story is big to me.

And, as soon as my beta-readers approve, it's going to be submitted to a real live magazine. 

Which will be my first submission in... well... it'll actually be my only first real submission.  My only other submission was to submit chapers of my 1st manuscript so I could get rejected so I could get my RWA PRO pin.  I don't feel I actually submitted that manuscript because I knew it needed more work.

So... big deal for me.  And my first reader has come back and says it's a great story and made good suggestions, so I'm looking forward to see what the rest say.