Blog entry June 2009

I declare myself done for the day. 

I began inputting the copy-edits at 8:30 this morning, and other than breaks for lunch, the grocery store, carting kid, and dinner, I have worked on it all day.

I want to give many thanks to the two gals who spent so many hours penning in the edits for me... couldn't have done it without you.

The bad news is that I didn't get any further on the rewrite.

The good news is that the first four chapters are polished within an inch of their lives, and the new transition to chapter 5 works a ton better.

I'm getting there.

My heroine looks up at the clock.  And the simple question is: What time is it?

I suppose when I have a book that's 120k words long that all happens in a day, that's a very good question to ask.

Unfortunately, it's not an easy question to answer.

First I have to list everything that happens in the day, then guess at how long stuff takes, then start at my starting time and... oops! lunch is two hours late.  Ummmm.   Okay, how about start at dinner and work our way back.  This is then and that is then, except now lunch is at 11am and the book starts at 10am and about three hours of stuff happens between opening of the book and lunchtime.  **sigh** (Read more)

I just put the two new classes I'm teaching this fall up on the front page.   Go check them out.

Thursday I got some copy edits back for the first four chapters of the story, but I just can't face them today.  My brain isn't working well enough.  Thinking feels like I slogging through mud, and the places where she changed stuff, clearly not getting what I was trying to say are clear indications that I wasn't writing clearly, but I can't put the words together enough to figure out a better way to say it.

Yesterday was shot because I spent 3-hours plus drive time talking to a very nice gal about plotting, then answering a whole bunch of her emails.  I enjoyed it, and I learned from it, or else I wouldn't have done it, or put it off until another day... but it sucked up all the brain usage that was allotted for yesterday, so no editing got done.

Today I'm feeling the pressure to get something edited, so I can get this damn thing out the door, but I can't think, which makes editing very hard. (Read more)

I sent the new 1st four chapters of the book off to get an opinion from the gal who fell in love with it the first time.

And while she doesn't necessarily like the changes, because she really liked it so much the first time, she said I definitely didn't break the story. 

So that's very good news.  It's always a worry that in the process of fixing it that I make it worse than it was to begin with.  To be assured that's not the case is a big help.

And tomorrow dinner is an editing session with a first time reader of the story who is going to have a lot of things to say, so that should prove interesting.

Now I need to work on chapter 5 (old chapter 3), which I think will stay pretty much the same, so I'm hoping a simple and quick edit there.

Then the 1st five chapters will be off to several more people to read to see if I actually did fix the problem.

My fingers are crossed.  :-)

I'm sure I say this at least once a year, but I'm going to say it again... if I liked hot weather I'd have stayed in Texas.  **sigh**

It doesn't help that I live in a house without central air-conditioning.  Yes, I have two window air-conditioners set up on the main floor, which do a decent job at keeping that floor livable.  And the basement is comfortable. 

But the upstairs, even with the furnace fan sucking in basement air and circulating it, is still a mite toasty, which doesn't make for pleasant sleeping.  Yes, there is the possibility of sleeping in the basement or the main floor, but my kids stay up two or three hours longer than I do and between the three of them they take up both main floor and basement, so if I want to sleep the only place left is the mite-toasty upstairs. (Read more)

I actually worked in my office all day today and got words done.  I finished chapter 3, and also chapter 4.

I'm getting out of the hard stuff and on to the easier stuff.  It's kind of strange that what was originally chapter 1 of the previous draft turned into chapters 1 & 2, and what was chapter 2 turned into chapters 3 & 4... and the response from my readers is that it's moving faster... even though it's twice as long.  Good... but strange.  :-)

But, after 8+ hours on chapter 3 and 5 hours on chapter 4, I'm hoping the rest don't take so long or I'm going to be at this edit forever.

Unfortunately, now I have to get to work on my paying job.  Good for the pocketbook, but I'm tired. (Read more)

Today I tried the library, but I was annoyed that I had to wait until 9am before it opened, plus the fact that it wasn't open on Sunday, and to top it off, once I got there, I found it to be a much noisier place than I'd anticipated.  So I came home.

At a loss for what to try next, but determined to do something, I went to my bedroom with my laptop and headphones, and closed the door.  At first, my kids were interrupting me every 10 minutes with phone calls and the neighbor's visit and the other million things they thought they needed me to attend.

Finally I threatened the lot of them with bodily harm if they interrupted me with anything short of blood or fire... which solved that problem.

And I wrote!  :-)  Over 800 new words at the beginning of chapter 3, then I continued on with the old version of the chapter, fixing things, rearranging things, deleting things... and in general doing a massive edit. (Read more)

I ran into the term "Literary Midwife" for the first time yesterday and was tickled to pieces because it explains exactly how I see myself... as a Literary Midwife.  It's so cool to have words for a concept that I couldn't define before. 

The really funny thing was that yesterday morning, the t-shirt I dug out of the bottom of my drawer to wear was the last of my old midwife t-shirts (Midwives: Bringing in the Future).  I hadn't worn that t-shirt in at least a year, and yesterday when I got dressed I pawed past t-shirts I wore much more often because that one t-shirt felt right to wear... and I run across the term "literary midwife" for the first time while wearing my midwife t-shirt.  I was amused. (Read more)

This morning was Experiment #1 in the "Getting Rid of Me" problem (here).  I got up, got my stuff around (except for the one thing that I spent 20-minutes looking for and can't find which I hope I didn't leave at the convention hotel) and went to Panera.

The good news is that I got the first two chapters reviewed and re-edited and have the first new paragraph of the 3rd chapter written.

The bad news is that Panera is too noisy to work.

So, tomorrow I try someplace else... maybe the library.

But, back to the good news... 9,200 words are mostly done.  The first 10 pages still need work, but the next 32 are solid... so no real complaints. And it feels really good to put an editing bar into place. (Read more)

I really hate it when I update stuff and it doesn't work. Sure, they tell me, it's supposed to be so easy. *sigh* Yeah, right.

The good news is that y'all probably don't notice. The bad news is the the upgrade totally broke one of the back-end features I use all the time. Oh, Joy.

I hate computers some days.

(1 hour later)

Okay, it's back.  *sigh* I really hate computers.

Back in May, I sent off a short story to "New Love Stories Magazine" (It's Off), with my fingers crossed, but not really expecting anything.  And today I got:

Thank you for sending your story "Just Kiss Me". We have carefully read your story and it is under consideration. We have had a large number of well written stories submitted so your story may not be considered for publication immediately.

I wasn't quite sure what this meant, so I asked a friend who's written for this magazine for a translation and she said:

YEAH!!! This is good news. For real. Congratulations. They will tell you outright if they don't want your work. They have been swamped with entries.

Oh!  **letting translation sink in**  This means they didn't reject my story....  and this is a real magazine that pays real money. (Read more)

About 1/2 hour ago I kicked #1-son and #3-son out of the house... "Go someplace else!"  Since #2-son is in Texas, and #4-son is with friends, I now have the house to myself for the first time in... (checking calendar)... 7 weeks.

Literally, I've had at least one kid home every moment for the last seven(!) weeks.

No wonder I haven't gotten a damn thing accomplished!

For the last seven-plus years, at the very least, I've had at least one evening a week, plus every other weekend, kid-free.  And during the school year I have school-time kid-free.  Even after my kids blew up at their father, I had the school days kid-free.

But now it's summer, and they haven't talked to their father in weeks if not months (depending on kid)... and I haven't had a kid-free minute in seven weeks!

No wonder I can't edit. (Read more)

I'm back from DucKon 2009 (www.duckon.org) and exhausted... but happy.  Kids had a good time, and I did, too.  I must admit that Jim Butcher is much younger than I expected him to be... or I'm getting old, one of the two. 

And, as usual, I can't leave well-enough alone.  The new head of Writer's track left the room open from 5-7pm on Saturday evening, so I borrowed the room and did an impromptu 2-hour talk on plotting.  The reason being that I'm teaching a 6-hour class on plotting this coming weekend and wanted some guinea pigs to try out my material on. (Read more)

This last weekend marked the 7th anniversary of my move out of the marital house and into my own house.  We didn't officially get divorced until over a year later, but for most purposes, last weekend marked the 7th anniversary of my divorce... the end of my 7th year of raising four sons on my own.  It's very scary how fast time flies.

I look back on what I've accomplished in the last seven years, and groan because outwardly it sure isn't very much.  No book published.  The house still needs massive work. I'm in just as much debt now as I was then, if not more so. No outward professional success...  no outward much of anything... (Read more)

#2-son took off yesterday morning and drove to Texas to spend the summer working for my brother.  Son decided to drive straight through instead of stopping for the night, against Mom's advice, but called my brother this morning and Son made it there, so all is well.  So, I'm minus one son.

And today is #4-son's last day of school, so as of 11:30 I'll have him home full-time.  Oh joy. (Read more)

I went out and took pictures of the newest additions to the family: (Read more)

Well, so much for my last post, if anything I'm worse off than I was.  :-(  Not fun.  And I know I'm being a baby about it, but that's life... I really don't feel good.  I slept crappy last night.  Mostly because I spent most of the previous three days sleeping, but also because I was stressed and not breathing well.  Then, of course, the neighbor's dog started barking at 5:30 this morning, and that woke me up which doesn't help anything at all. (Read more)