Blog Archives - Fourth Quarter '06

December 06

Friday December 29th - New Year's Revolution

Gonna start a revolution inside me next year.  Hackneyed, I know, and particularly uninspired for a writer, but I always make New Year's Resolutions.  Keeping them is another thing.

Last year I made only two.  The first was to do something about my appearance.  I've become particularly drab and frumpy, with my granny bun and my generic company logoed shirt.  I promised to wear makeup to work every day, even if it's just mascara, eyeliner and lipstick.  I even went out and bought the crap.  I promised to buy a new outfit every month when I got paid.

I wore makeup for 3 days and then fell into my usual unattractive, dumpy rut.  I bought new clothes for about 3 months and then decided I hate shopping, and besides, I couldn't afford it.

I can't remember my second resolution, so obviously I haven't kept that one, either. 

So, helooo 2007.  What say we take this bull by the horns and kick some ass in the new year?  Here's how I plan to handle it:

• First off, I will deliver a smackdown to anybody over the age of 10 who says "See you next year!" anytime after midday on December 29th, especially when they laugh at their own stupid joke.
• I will take better care of my hair.  I have very nice hair, actually; it's just my fault that rats like to play in it.
• I will remember that just because somebody acts like an asshole to me, I will not take it personally.  I am not an asshole, therefore their behavior has nothing to do with me.
• I will make a determined effort to prepare myself for the time when my writing will become self-sustaining.
• Somehow, somehow, I will try to write more.
• I will make my website more interesting, post more often, and put more photos in my blog.
• I will stop neglecting my dog.
• I will try to get more sleep.  This resolution, however, is in direct conflict with most of the above.

Things I know I can't do:

1. I won't be able to stop crying or losing sleep every time a child is hurt or an innocent person is kidnapped or killed in the cesspool that this country has become.  To do that, I will need to shut off my humanity, and I don't think I can do that.
2. I cannot, cannot, can not give up chocolate.

Now, let's see how long these last.

[Wednesday December 27th] Schrödinger's fish

You know the story about Schrödinger's cat, right? The cat in a sealed box with a device that may or may not explode and kill it at any second?  Well, the theory goes that since the only way to find out whether the cat is alive or dead is to open the box and look inside, while the box is sealed the cat is both alive and dead.

Intriguing concept.  Well, let me introduce you to Schrödinger's fish.  I bought myself a small aquarium for my desk on Wednesday, and put two small goldfish in it.  The next day the water looked like someone had tossed in a dash of milk.  I was very disturbed, even though the fish looked fine. 

I called the pet shop and they told me the water should clear up in a few days.  Problem was, I was out of office for 5 days over the Christmas weekend.  I left them a weekend feeder, turned the pump on and the lights off, and wished them well.  Then I worried about them all weekend.  What if the water didn't clear up?  What if I came back this morning and found them dead?  I couldn't even sleep last night, I was so worried about them.  Every time I closed my eyes I saw two scenes, myself coming into the office to floating fish, and myself coming to see a pair of happy healthy fish.

Schrödinger's fish.  Both alive and dead in my mind.  But God be praised, I walked in, and not only were they alive and kicking, but the water is crystal clear!  So here they are, my friends, Fluffy and Uranus.  (Named after the two teddy bear personal assistants in the Duckman Cartoon.  Remember them?)

[Thursday December 21st]  Have I lost my edge?

My old editor from the Guardian has asked me to take up my old Sunday column. I asked her to hold that thought for a while. I need to think it through. I enjoyed my column for two years, although I can't say how many other people did.

For practical reasons, it might be hard; I have my new romance due in July, and I'd like to get back into the literary game, and I haven't even started on that one. Where would I find the time to turn out something weekly?

But that's just half of it, and the smaller half to boot. The thing is, I don't have enough confidence in myself to make that leap. What if my columns are no good? What if I've lost my edge? Did I ever have an edge?

[Monday December 18]  Whale sperm.  Bleech.

Just went to the hairdresser to deal with my dry, tangled mop of messy hair.  Haven't had much time to deal with it, what with the whole kit and caboodle of my life.  Her solution?  Whale sperm.  No, not sperm whale, whale SPERM.  Surprisingly enough, it feels great.  My hair is almost soft and silky enough to audition for a shampoo ad.  The damn thing works!  Eat your heart out VO5.

[Thursday December 14th] Eternal Optimist

You know you're an eternal optimist when you get your royalty statement for this half year and you turn the envelope upside down and shake it, hoping that a check will fall out. 

Zip.

Nada.

Oh well, there's always June.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've sent up my proposal for my new romance to my editor.  I hope she okays it, 'cause I'm moving full speed ahead.

[Friday December 1st]  Wasted time

I think the evidence of true obsession comes when I find myself thinking that, apart from time spent with my children, any time I spend not writing is wasted.  I'm working, and thinking about my book.  I'm eating, and writing lines in my head.  I don't mind doing the dishes or the laundry, because my busy hands leave my mind clear for plotting.  The sad part comes when I'm so busy I don't stop to jot it down, and then it melts away like hand-whipped cream.

Maybe it's an artistic thing.  Maybe I just need to get a life.  But the reality of the situation is that I've spent my entire life surrounded by imaginary people, and I worry about them more than I worry about real people.

Man I'm gonna be fun when my Alzheimer's kicks in.

November 06

[Tuesday November 28th] Missin' my peeps

Oh, how I miss my peeps on nights like this.  My characters, that is.  With Dorian and Rita off to that great big Harlequin in the sky, I've turned my attention to my new couple, Kendra and Trey.  they haven't been around for long, so they're fresh and new in my mind, and I'm excited.

But it's 10:23 at night and the kids have been asleep for over an hour.  I've cleaned up their mess and done the dishes, put away the leftovers and packed the lunch bag, put in my second load of laundry and fed the dog.  The kitchen floor is drying and I have beef pies in the oven. 

And I'm exhausted.  My back hurts, my eyes are droopy, and I still need to feed the fish.  Not exactly the right time for writing.  And that's so sad, because I've been thinking about them all day, the way you think of dear friends when you'd rather be with them than be doing whatever you're doing.  I want to get back into their world and pick up where we left off.  I wonder if they miss me, there in suspended animation, waiting for me to get back to them.

Oh, I miss my peeps.

[Monday November 27th] And she's off!

Sent the copy for Dear Rita off to Harlequin today!  Hooray! I'm sooo chuffed.  but not resting on my laurels.  The proposal for my next romance is due on the 15th of December.  So I'm still in the salt mines. 

[Monday November 20]  Disorienting

I tried to write at my desk for the first time today since I'd been back.  It was odd, awkward, trying to eke out a paltry 45 minutes of writing among the din, the ringing phones, people passing by and asking "Are you busy?"  Me wanting to scream "Doesn't it look like I'm busy?" 

This after growing accustomed to pounding out a good three hours every day.  No wonder it took me 15 months to finish Dear Rita!

[Thursday November 16th]   Just so you know

Just in case you were wondering why I'm scowling, fun's over. I'm back at work.

Didn't do too badly, though.  Fifteen days as a full time writer.  40 1/2 hours of writing (just a few hours short of my target of 45 hours.)  I coulda done worse. 

[Tuesday November 14]  Crabby

I realise why I've been so morose and crabby lately.  Just one day of vacation left, and that pretty much kills it.  You know your brain has slipped into work mode when you start dreaming about the office.  And not in a good way, either.  More like the oogy dreams about petty squabbles and back-biting, and the tiresome conversations with tiresome people.

But enough of that.  I did okay, right?  I promised myself I'd get 45 hours of writing under my belt.  So far I've managed 38 1/2, so I'm not hating on myself for it.  I didn't do as much blogging and internet work as I wanted, but then again I was without a phone line for 2 weeks. 

So, I'm proud of myself.  I had a good innings.  Now let me wrap this up and go to bed before I get tearful. 

[Sunday November 12th]   Slouching Toward Civilisation

Well, the gig's almost up.  Three more days left of my all too short vacation, and I'm none the more rested than I was when I left the office that last day. 

If there's one thing that this little experiment has taught me, it's that the writing life ain't gonna be easy.  I don't think I have ever been this exhausted.  Some days, I don't think I was able to move a muscle.

I enjoyed the long stretches of time in which I was able to concentrate on nothing but writing, though.  I've been writing in sips for so long that a long cool drink almost choked me.

do I have what it takes to write full time?  I don't know.  Maybe next year, on my next vacation, I'll try again. 

By the way, Dear Rita... is finished!  All done!  What a wonderful thing that is.  I think I'll post an excerpt up here soon.  Would you like that? 

[Wednesday November 8th]  Still no phones

Don't know how I'm ever going to get this to you, as we have had no phones for 9 days now.  Maybe tomorrow if I have the energy to drive down to an internet cafe and upload this.

I miss being online!  How did I ever survive more than 30 years without the Interweb?

In the meanwhile, my mother returned the draft I asked her to copyedit for me.  (It's an odd thing to have your mother minutely peruse your hot sex scenes for grammatical errors).  I got the thumbs up from her; she says Dear Rita... is one of my better books.  Funnier, and with a smoother finish.

Thanks, Madre.  That means a lot to me.

Back to my copyediting tonight.  It's very careful and precise work, so it's going very slowly.  but if I do say so myself, this one is one of my better ones too.  Hooray!

[Friday November 3rd]  Vacation half done

You know, I have this candy-coated fantasy of the writing life.  Full of vanilla scented days in which I pack my kids stuff, drive them off to school.  Maybe take Tabby (the dog) for a leisurely half hour's walk.  Then I settle in for an hour or two of writing, in my sunlit studio, and every word I write is genius.  I take a nap, and make lunch.  Bang, two more hours of writing, half an hour on the treadmill, or, even better, an hour at a nearby gym.  Its off to pick up the kids.  They come home to a clean orderly house and a meal.

Glamorous.

Bullshit, probably.  There simply aren't enough hours in the day.  As it is, I am barely making it through the day, and I'm supposed to be on vacation.  I'm exhausted, and my back is in excruciating pain.  I've got scoliosis; my spine looks like Uri Geller was staring at it so hard.  So these hours of writing sitting up at the table have been murder on it.

And hello, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!  When I'm done for the day I have to lie down with my hands on pillows.  I've considered voice recognition software, but don't know if I can make the switch.  I think with my hands.

So, that said, the practical side of me wonders, can I do this full time?    The literary side of me asks, how can I NOT do this full time?

[Thursday November 2nd] Delirium!

This morning, I printed the first draft of Dear Rita.  Oh, joy, joy!  The only thing that beats that is holding a newborn. 

I'm not out of the woods yet, though, as the editing part comes next.  First, I'm going to hand it over to my mother, and English teacher.  She's always my first reader.  She usually catches the gaffes that would shame me (and her) if they made it into print.

Then, maybe next week, I'll sit with the manuscript and a pen and start slashing.  But I feel good about it.

While she has it, though, I'm going to start getting that plotline down for my next Kimani (it never stops) while it's still there.  Wouldn't want it to slip away from me when I'm not looking.

That new technique of writing a screenplay to get the story down, and then upgrading to a novel, really worked for the last 3 chapters of Rita.  Wonder how it will do with a whole book? 

Hope I can get this uploaded to you.  The feelthy steenking copper bandits struck again.  They've gone with our telephone wires.  I haven't had a phone connection in two days!

October 06

[Tuesday October 31st] First full day home!

My first day home all day - if you don't count the half hour it took to walk the dog.  In just four days she's become so much more cheerful.  I really must keep up with the walkies when I get back to work.

Had an epiphany last night.  Ooh, we writers love those!  I was breastfeeding Megsie after midnight, when all of a sudden, totally out of the blue, I saw the plotline of my next Kimani romance.  I was so excited that I wanted to jump up and write it down immediately, but Megan was on me like a limpet and Riley was asleep beside me.  If I'da budged an inch, one or both of them would have set up such a caterwauling...

So I bided my time until she fell asleep, hopped out, found an old envelope and pen in the dark, and jotted down some notes.  Hope I can read my handwriting when I get back to it.

[Monday October 30th] Getting the ball rolling

Got up so tired it's a wonder I didn't set the kitchen on fire while I was making the kids' breakfast.  Weekends are always hairy 'round my house, more so this one.  Just to give you an idea of how it went, my 3 year old took a dump in his potty without any assistance from me (V. Good).  Then he emptied it into the tub.  (Not V. Good at all.)  Considering that the tub is ankle deep in bath toys (this child has more rubber duckies than any other kid in Christendom) you can imagine the frenzy of sterilisation that took place thereafter.

By about 11 p.m. last night I was seeing double.  He'd been to the circus with his grandma, and came back all wired from excitement and hopped up on sodas.  Infected his sister with his enthusiasm, so she was too busy mastering this new walking trick (on the bed, oh God) to sleep.  At 11:10 I threw them into separate bedrooms and yelled at them to go to sleep or else.  I love my kids, but the minute you start thinking about Andrea Yates, you need to put them in a safe place and have a Mommy Time Out.

Which brings me to the writing today.  Not bad, given that I gave up after an hour or so and went inside for a nap.  I needed it.  I was going so nutty from exhaustion I could feel my hair grow.  Later in the afternoon, though, I redeemed myself and did a few hours more.

On the domestic side, I have 3 trays of Parmesan breaded chicken in the oven.  Hope I can stay awake long enough to take it out.  Freezer's looking gooood.

[Friday October 27th]  Out of the starting gate

Got up feeling like an old rag.  Had been awake half the night, unable to go back to sleep.  Worried about money, anxious about my writing, feeling certain that I'm not going to hack it.

Packed the kids off with real food this time.  Gave the baby real juice.  Hooray for mommy!  Walked the poor, depressed, neglected dog, deep conditioned my poor, neglected hair.  Then I settled down to write.

Got three hours first time out of the starting gate!  Hooray for Simona!  I've been trying a new technique from the Fiction Writer's Brainstormer.  Smith suggests you write a screenplay first, to get your story down, and then convert that into a novel.  That way you have it clear in your head how the story's going to turn out. For people like me who write by the seat of their pants, that's a godsend.

I've finished my screenplay, or at least the last 3 chapters or so of the book, since I wrote all the rest by the tried and true seat of the pants method.  It's Friday, and I'll be with the kids all weekend, so we'll see how it goes on Monday, when I try my hand at converting that screenplay.

Oh, on the domestic side, I did a pork roast, rotisseried a chicken, and fried up a whack of hamburgers.  That freezer will be filled in no time.  I also did a few loads of laundry that was beginning to take on a life of its own, but the less said about that, the better. 

[October 26th - 5:11 p.m.]  Day One - no writing

Know how every writer secretly dreams of writing full time?  How they say "Don't give up your day job", except that, if you really get lucky, writing is your day job?  I've decided to spend the next three weeks, my precious, precious vacation, finding out what the writer's life would be if I was home all day, writing full time.

It'll be illuminating.

My goals are simple:

1) Write at least 3 hours every day.

2) Keep website, blog and Amazon Plog up to date.

4) Cook, package and freeze enough food to feed us all for a month when I get back to work

5) Get some exercise

6) Rest and enjoy my vacation.

Let's see how I did today, shall we?

Decided that today was for decompressing and decontaminating from the office.  Got up, too dazed to work, lay around in bed for a bit.  Updated website after and absence of 6 weeks.  Took an hour and a half.  Went to the supermarket.

Here's where it gets really interesting.  I hadn't been to the store in such a long time that we were down to our last pack of diapers for each child.  This morning, when I was packing lunch kits, I was faced with the dilemma of what to feed them from such an empty kitchen.  Used the last three eggs and fed the baby syrup and water.  Yeah, I really needed to do some shopping.

Three hours an two supermarkets later, I'd spent a whopping $2,500 (That's about US $400, a huge sum for us) and brought home 54 shopping bags of stuff.  (There was a 2-for-1 sale on diapers, so I bought 2 months worth.)  I'm exhausted, and my back aches, and my bank account is kaput.  Thank Satan for credit cards.  What's worse, I actually sat down and folded all those plastic shopping bags into neat little origami triangles so I can use them as garbage bags later.  Took me half an hour.

No writing done for the day, but I have a leg of pork, a whole chicken and a bowl of shrimp in the fridge waiting for me season.  Tomorrow, I'll rotisserie the chicken and put the pork in the crock pot.  We'll be eating food again, rather than scrambled eggs!

[Thursday October 26th] Damn lazy

I'm a bad person.  And a lazy one.  How, how, how did I let my site fall by the wayside for a month?

Am I nuts?

Well, I promise it won't happen again.  I'm going to clean it up now, and get the lead out and get back to my regular update schedule.  Which should be easy for the time being, as I'm on vacation.

i actually took some time off to finish Dear Rita, which is due (Augh!) on the 30th of November.  AND my proposal for the next romance is due on the 15th of December.  I'm flattered that harlequin seems to think I'm superhuman.

So here I am at the start of a writing orgy, which will go on for about 3 weeks, or until I collapse.  Whichever comes first.

I'll keep you posted along the way.

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