Category Archives: Writing

Head, Meet Desk

Remember when I said The next time I see this should be when the Fed Ex delivery person hands me the box of page proofs?

The project manager separated the overall editor-review-edit from the copy-edit. I have to handle the copy-edit in two weeks.

I have a book to hand in a month and a half from now, a book that is going very slowly due to circumstances that are pretty much beyond my control. I may have to add an extra day to Liam’s daycare schedule every week instead of every two weeks if I’m going to lose a week to handling copy-edits.

On the somewhat more optimistic side of things, I can see the manuscript beginning to come together in some sort of odd way. It’s almost as if different portions of it are filling out or inflating into a somewhat recognisable shape, while other parts are still dead and flat. I need more of it to be alive so that I can connect more dots and deepen the exploration.

It’s not alive yet. That’s the problem. And I don’t know how to fix it. At some point it will magically happen, and then things will flow and connections will spider through the manuscript of their own accord, but until then every day is a slog uphill, pushing a ball of jumbled words and loose letters.

Friday Morning

HRH took the car today and dropped the boy at the caregiver’s for the stroke of eight, then drove to work. He’ll reverse the process tonight and pick Sparky up around the time I usually do. This is a test to see if I can get more done in a day, as my most productive time is between three and five-thirtyish. It also conserves my energy, allowing me to pour more into work instead of expending a lot of it getting the boy ready to go, doing the car thing, and coming back again. When you have a limited amount of energy before fatigue knocks you flat, toddler-wrangling and the drive takes a lot out of you. It may sound easy on paper, but living it is different. I also get into the proper headspace to write a lot faster when HRH takes the boy to his grandma’s every second Friday, so we theorized that it ought to work this way too. The main concern at the moment is how long it takes HRH to drive to work and home again afterwards. It’s against traffic both ways, but one never knows. It means an hour longer at daycare for the boy, though. We may do this two days a week and I’ll handle the other two.

So here I am, a batch of bread rising, at the computer already. This is good on my end, so far.

I did end up bowing out of rehearsal Wednesday night; I was just too exhausted. My body still hasn’t completely adjusted to the medication, so on top of the bad fibro day I was knocked out by eight o’clock. Unfortunately I woke up at midnight because Nixie was trying to dig her way out of my office, the door of which gets closed at night, and she’d accidentally been shut inside. I lay awake for two hours trying to get back to sleep, which was not good, and slept too lightly the rest of the night. I was low-key in Thursday as a result, but as Curtana and Arthur came to play it was a good relaxed morning that didn’t require too much of me. I made excellent scones (whole-wheat and honey!), the boys had a rip-roaring time together, and Curtana and I even got to talk about not-mom-things things before Liam hit his must-lunch-and-nap-now-or-never time. I slept badly last night, too. So far, the medication has given me five awesome days followed by one ungood day and a neutral day, and those last two days were mainly a result of being woken up out of the blessedly deeper sleep the medication grants me (which in turn helps alleviate some of the fibro problems). I’d say that’s a decent scorecard.

Right. To work!

Hearthcraft Book Update

Total word count, hearthcraft book: 28,038
New words today: 1,866

Morals, ethics, values, the home as sacred space. A good work day, but not such a great fibro day, I really, really hurt. I’m considering staying home from orchestra, except I know we’re missing a lot of the section today for various reasons. I’ll assume I’m going right up till the time I’d have to call the secretary. Who knows, maybe going out to get the boy will revitalize me. (Ha. I can dream.)

Hearthcraft Book Update

Total word count, hearthcraft book: 25,049
New words today: 2,048

That’s more like it. Now I’m where I want to be: past 25K and a day’s yield of 2K. I’m happy.

Having three days in a row to work really helps keep me focused. Adding the extra day at the caregiver’s every second week when the boy spends Friday with his grandma was brilliant. On these Fridays, HRH takes the car to work and drops Sparky off en route. This helps me immensely, as all I have to do when I get up is make tea, have some toast, help get them out the door, and then sit down to work. I get to the computer around two hours earlier than I usually do on this day because I don’t have to head out to the caregiver’s and run whatever errands need to be run on the way home, and the workday is longer because I don’t have to stop writing at four-thirty, when I’m on a roll.

I’m feeling a lot better about the project. I can see that it will really start to coalesce over the next couple of weeks. I’ll feel even better once it’s vaguely recognizable as a book, instead of a collection of unconnected thoughts and uneven sections.

Yay me.

Reissue News!

I just received a message from my editor at Provenance Press. She told me that The Way of the Green Witch is selling steadily (hurrah!) and that they’re reissuing it with a new cover!

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this. Hearing that a book is selling steadily is always good news, but to hear that the cover is being redone made my week. I am less than fond of the Way of the Green Witch cover; I was disappointed with it when they showed me the final version and suggested several other possibilities, including some of the very different original cover they proposed for it, but without success. The new cover is being finalised right now, and as soon as I have a picture of it I’ll post it. I’m so excited!

My editor is also pushing for a reissue of Solitary Wicca for Life with a new cover. Updates as events warrant!