Category Archives: Writing

Hearthcraft Book Update

Total word count, hearthcraft book: 15,600
New words today: 2,161

Better. Much better. This was all done by transcribing some notes I made in bed the other night, and running away with ideas (ha, I originally typed ‘ides’) that needed to be explained or explored. If I can manage to do one or two longhand pages of notes before each writing day, things should stay this good. It was nice to sit down and work out things I’d thought up two nights ago; it felt like I’d already done the work, although a couple of pages of longhand notes do not directly equal eight pages of writing, of course. It’s more like I laid the groundwork.

Just looking at how parts of the manuscript are expanding, I can see that I’m going to end up cutting or reducing other areas that were going to be entire chapters. Them’s the breaks. The good thing is I can cut a handful of sections that I was including for the sake of completion. Instead, I can point to them and say, “This is worthy of exploration but outside the current scope of this book. I recommend researching it to further support your own work.”

Hearthcraft Book Update

Maggie just sat on my mouse and moved, managing to highlight and cut a huge chunk of the manuscript.

Then she knocked over a glass of water when I frantically tried to get her off.

Am currently running damage control, trying to figure out exactly how much got cut by looking at the last saved version of the document. If only it were as easy as clicking the button combo to paste.

ETA: Fixed, salvaged, all good. That was a very bad moment, there.

Total word count, hearthcraft book: 13,439
New words today: 1,041

Wow. I am so out of practice. This was like pulling teeth.

Off to get the boy.

2007 In Review

Things I Did In 2007 That I Have Never Done Before:

– bleached my hair (slipped that one in under the wire, on Dec 31!)
– signed a contract for my fifth book (there is only one number five, after all)
– played a gig on a real stage in a real bar (I am such a rock star)
– worked as a writer/editor on not one but two video games
– made a counter-offer on a contract instead of just accepting what was offered
– introduced my son to his great-gran in person
– bought a fretless electric bass
– submitted unsolicited fiction to a publisher

Things I Did in 2007 That I Am Proud Of:

All of the above, plus:
– stood up for myself in two very uncomfortable and potentially self-damaging situations
– said goodbye to one bad situation (although this ostensibly happened in January, it dragged for me through till mid-November when I privately took the final step, admitting to myself that it was over. Now I need to stick to this, and it’s going to be hard because it involves other people.)
– accomplished a specific wish I made for 2007: spending more time with two specific individuals. Interestingly enough, this was accomplished through two separate writing jam commitments.
– reviewing my writing records, I’m surprised at and proud of the amount of novel and short story writing I did in 2007
– sitting second chair in the celli at orchestra
– finding even more ways to ecologically streamline our lives, and reducing our impact on the environment
– less posting, more living

Good Things About 2007:

– discovering Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective novels
– acquiring a Nintendo DS and beginning to play video games
– making it out to see the Once Upon a Time Disney exhibit at the Beaux-Arts museum
– an awesome and excellent Vernal Equinox ritual, led by t!
– fabulous spiritual retreat at the Autumn Equinox
– cooking an entire meal over an open fire outdoors
– indirectly working with t!, lunching with the gang
– meeting Fearsclave and Carolyn
– HRH’s new job
– the existence of the credit line (thank all the gods)
– resolution of financial challenges (now, to pay off that credit line!)

There’s more, of course; a lot of this year was good. But these are what surface in my memory.

Not-So-Good Things About 2007:

– Knick-Knack going to the Summerlands
– contract negotiations
– the financial challenges (and that debt we incurred on the credit line)
– the ongoing tension with the downstairs neighbour

(I am very happy that I had to actually look for bad things to list here.)

How Did I Do With My 2007 Wishes?

– Less self-inflicted head trauma for Liam.

Yes! Yay!

-To regain some sort of interest in food.

This hasn’t been wholly successful, but in general I have become more interested in food again.

– The re-initialising of enjoying being with people.

Not bad. At least I didn’t hate being around others this year, which is an improvement.

– Spending more time with certain people.

A complete success.

– For the emotional burnout to stop.

I handled this a lot better this year than I have in the past. Quite simply, I cut down on the time spent with people who drain me.

– Rediscover the joy in music in general, and classical music in particular.

Hmm… not as much of a success as I wanted it to be. I wanted to rediscover my CD collection, and I haven’t. My music-purchasing has dropped to almost nil as well. This is a wish to carry over to 2008.

– Rediscovering the joy in playing the cello.

The better I get, the more fun it is. But I’m still not at a place where I can just play for the enjoyment of it (although the Resident Fan Club may argue with me). I am still lazy and don’t practice enough (you could almost leave the latter word off and have it be true).

Look at that; no wishes about writing and/or career. Things are pretty okay there. Sure, I wish my fiction would take off the way my non-fic has, but there’s time aplenty for all that.

Submitting the unsolicited young adult novel to a publisher has certainly been a huge, huge step towards this not-a-wish.

Wishes for 2008:

– Rediscover my CD collection
– Make time for practising my spirituality in a more aware fashion
– Make a stronger commitment to practising the cello
– Let up on the second-guessing of the decisions I make, and the self-doubt I feel about my work
– Remember frequently that I am a wonderful, kind, talented person
– Focus my time so that I don’t waste as much of it
– Take up formal study of another spiritual path to complement the ones I already practise
– Take care of my body so that the chronic pain thing doesn’t negatively impact my life, as it’s beginning to once again (I’m hoping it’s the damp and the cold that’s made it increasingly bad over the past month)

If I had to assign a value to 2007, I’d say that overall it was a good year, even though there were moments where it was not good at all. And the end of the year has seen us in a better place than we began it. That’s one of the best things to work out in a year-review, and something for which I am very, very thankful.

May 2008 be even better!

Whee!

This is one of the best parts about publishing books: seeing the confirmed cover for the first time.

One more step towards it being real! Yes, I’ve gone through this three times. No, this step never gets any less exciting.

Seven months to go before it hits bookstore shelves!

In Brief

Lovely party last night. Missed those who couldn’t make it, and those who I didn’t get to talk to for more than a fleeting moment. I think it went well. I am very bad at evaluating these things because I use my own experience as a yardstick, and I spend most of my time rushing around taking care of people, then suddenly it’s over and I don’t remember most of it beyond pouring drinks and passing hors d’oeuvres.

That vaguely ill feeling I’ve been having for a week finally handed me its calling card last night. I am now the not-so-proud owner of the flu. Or rather, I seem to be waving goodbye to it; perhaps this morning’s horrors were its last gasp. I’m currently in the throes of the oh-ye-gods-I’m-starving-but-don’t-dare-eat-anything-other-than-a-few-soda-crackers stage of the excitement. It’s nice to feel positive about food again after a week of caring nothing for it (a particularly horrible experience around the holidays in our house, all the more poignant if you know anything about my mother’s holiday baking).

Apart from the sick bit, this holiday week has been a good one. It’s been nice not working, although I’m just as exhausted in a different way. There have been a couple of work queries, one a very interesting invitation from a large self-publishing corp looking for editors, that I will address in January. Well, except for the downstairs neighbour verbally abusing the boy this morning; that was not so much fun. It will be dealt with. But we used book gift cards a few days ago and came home with things for everyone to read, saw The Golden Compass and had a lovely lunch out on Friday (sans boy, of course — Not A Kids’ Movie), and checked out some sales. The tailored red wool winter coat I have been privately coveting was a hundred dollars off, but no longer available in my size, so that was the end of that. A good week in general, yes.

Two more weeks and we’ll know if HRH has the permanent position at the college. My advance payment for the hearthcraft book should arrive around that time tool. And I’m actually chipper about getting back to the writing of the hearthcraft book after the hiatus while I finished the edits on the YA submission. I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to an early January this much.

Hope: ‘a desire with an expectation of accomplishment’

It may come as a surprise to learn that I have never submitted unsolicited writing before today. I’ve always sold partials for my non-fiction, the idea for a book based on a detailed outline, sell sheet, and writing samples.

I mailed off my first YA novel this morning. I wanted it out of my hands before Christmas, even though it will be stuck in the mail over next week and then will likely sit on an editor’s desk unopened until early January. I printed it out on Wednesday in twenty-page increments, watching it to make sure it didn’t go haywire somewhere along the way. The cover letter was finished and as good as I could get it. I checked and double-checked the submission guidelines and squared it all neatly, slipping an elastic band around the inch-high stack of paper.

This morning I bought a padded envelope, slipped it all in, addressed it, and mailed it off. Twelve dollars’ worth of postage. One customs form: just paper of no monetary value, only immense sentimental value. Also, lots of hope. It’s a good thing hope doesn’t weigh very much. Here is your tracking number, good only until the envelope itself is delivered, no further for the manuscript itself as it makes it way through various piles on various desks. The SASE must make do for the beginning of that journey, and beyond this, darkness and the unknown.

I’ve mailed proofs and manuscripts back and forth with my NF publisher before, so a lot of this was mechanical. Nonetheless, I was almost paralysed with anxiety as I wrote the sender’s and recipient’s addresses, despite knowing that the things I was worrying about — presentation, am I doing things the right way, can ‘send cover letter with plot synopsis’ be any more vague? — didn’t really matter as much as I felt they did. What matters is the writing. And still, as I was sealing the envelope I was thinking, It’s not too late to take it home and shred it because it is awkward and clumsy and dull in places and I think my message is too pedantic and did I mention clumsy?

But I didn’t. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I made a promise to myself this past January that I would get this novel out, come what may. And I did.

I like that the first day of its journey takes place on the day of the longest night. From here, it only gets brighter. A nice symbolism, I think, and completely unplanned. Consciously, at least.

And so it is gone. Have a safe journey, little YA novel. And a successful one.

Five Things

1. The scent of fresh pine in the house.

2. Making homemade bread.

3. Surprise money in the mail. (The gods provide.)

4. The MS currently printing out, in prep for submission. I love you, little YA novel. (Also: no printing foul-ups so far!)

5. Waking up at oh-gods o’clock last night to pull the notebook into bed and write the final scene of the Pandora book. (Now I just need to write the missing climax of the novel. Details, details…)