Nattering

Having Written O’Clock

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Pick101

I've never been a morning person, and though I have dabbled with writing early in the day over the years, only in the last six months or so have I actually been able to execute it on a regular basis. This morning I went back to my morning writing schedule (up at or before 6 a.m.), which I plan to stick to for the duration of this revision.

I think the switch is a combination of factors:

  • The knowledge that things are just too busy many days to delay it and still have writing happen and knowing the angst cycle that results when the writing doesn't get done.
  • The loss of regular lunchtime writing time (again: see busy).
  • My journey away from the perils of procrastination.
  • The fact that I'm really and truly in love with the world and story I'm working on right now, so it actually ranks above that extra 45 minutes of sleep.

I have always been one of those people who can write through hurricane or hailstorm, and not a diva at all about the specific conditions necessary to get to work. But I do really like my sleep. And I do really hate getting up early. So it's no small thing to be able to pry my eyes open these days and do the thinking and typing. There is something to be said for the hidden quality of time before the world intrudes. And, as expected, I feel a lot better about the State of the World once some production time has been done. I actually don't hate writing, but don't we all have a smidgen of the Dorothy Parker Disease*? Having written is even nicer.

The thing I'm most addicted to now though, is an unanticipated side effect of this schedule. I tend to make more overall progress, because any writing session later in the day is icing on a pragmatic cupcake. Also, because the early morning never feels fully real, writing later in the day doesn't necessarily feel like the second hour. It feels like another first one. Perhaps that means the real lesson is that achieving things is all about mental trickery–or good scheduling habits.

*Offered without comment. Dan Brown cannot be destroyed.

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In Which I Am ALIVE

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Deadly Bouquet
Originally uploaded by gwenda

It's true, I've returned from the land of the incredibly-grouchy, cold-beleaguered, fatigue-ahoy types. At least, it seems likely that I have. It rains here all the time now, and so these giant mushrooms grew in our front yard. Aren't they pretty?

I don't want to skip over a little chatter about Blue Heaven though. I managed only a handful of photos, but Holly McDowell and Bill Shunn have lots more in their sets (note: do not ask why I have a napkin on my head). I'd like to thank all my fellow workshoppers–Holly, Bill, Toby Buckell, Chance Morrison, Sandra McDonald, Greg van Eekhout, Rae Carson Finlay, Paolo Bacigalupi, Heather Shaw, and most especially Charles Coleman Finlay for inviting me in the first place. It was an incredibly generous and insanely talented bunch, and you'll be seeing lots more from all of them and I recommend you seek out their work. Also, they were nice to me, even though I was the lone BH newbie this year. I feel really lucky to have been there, and so much more set to dive into the revision of the new book. Now that I'm not dying of plague.

Anyway, I keep meaning to do a larger post about the workshop process and not getting around to it. One thing I've learned is that workshopping can give you different things at different points in the process (and, yes, of course just as important the feedback you get is listening to what other people have to say about a piece of work and thinking about the work of others and how it can be better) on any given project. I don't think this could have come at a better time for the new book, a new title for which I haven't quite settled on yet. This was the first time I've ever workshopped a whole novel–at least in such a formal way–and now I think I will want to try and formulate some version of this forever on. My first drafts are very much raw materials, at least in some sense (although I did choose the right story this time, more or less = progress), and being able to sit in a room with incredibly smart people bringing a fresh eye to those materials and bounce around new ideas and refined ideas and then come up with even better ideas about how to make the book, well, better… It was awesome. That's what I'm saying. It didn't hurt that I already had some really great notes from generous people to start the rethinking process, either.

So I guess I'd better get to work then, and finish a more presentable version of this sucker. I will try not to anger the handless guardian of the mainland.

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Attack of the Dust Bunnies

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I feel like I'm fighting tumbleweeds of sparse content around here lately*, and this may be crazy, but I'm off for a week to hang out with a bunch of other writers and focus on improving our books and assorted hijinks and although I still have lots of reading to do: I will post something here every day. 

Assuming there's wireless. 

What's life without daring yourself to fail?

*For generous values of lately.

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We Be Here

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Photo039

Read the first of Lilith Saintcrow's (writing as Lili St. Crow's) new YA series, Strange Angels, and highly recommend it. Good stuff. 

Now to eat some food and read some manuscripts and write the fiction and try not to have too much altitude swimmy-head. I miss the dogs and the kitty.

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The Dark Side of Crafting

Nattering / By /

That's right, friends, for today's BEDA entry I'm going to take you on a little tour of one of modernity's most sinister evils: the craft store. 

While running some errands today (shoes! a pair even named "the Gwenda," which I had to buy), Christopher needed to procure some supplies for a–supremely manly–project he has underway in his lair (work bench area). I decided to accompany him, but, almost immediately upon entering the store, we were cruelly separated. What follows are the actual texts and photos documenting the seedy underbelly of craftdom.

…

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Idealology

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This has been exactly the weekend I've needed for a few weeks now (at least two), and I greatly appreciate the universe finally getting its act together and cooperating. (Has Mercury been in retrograde or something? Not that I believe in that. Just that I like to have something concrete TO BLAME.)

I never thought I'd have a lovely dinner that involved Ruby Tuesday's, but we drove up to Elizabethtown on Friday evening to see the one and only Kathi Appelt, who was in Kentucky for a few days doing various book events, and did just that. Not finding anything online that comforted me about dinner at a local establishment, we chose to play it safe. I also managed to successfully lure the fabulous Jess Leader (whose debut novel Nice and Mean will be out next year from Simon and Schuster, and I can vouch for the awesome quotient because I read it in manuscript) and her fiance Adrien out to meet us as well. Much Vermont College gossip and other writing talk ensued, and we got to toast Kathi's much-deserved success this year for her instant classic, The Underneath. AND discovered she'll be in Taos at the same time we are, for a different workshop/retreat, and so we get to see her again relatively soon. This makes me happy.

I slept in shamefully late on Saturday, then spent most of the day reading the new Mercy Thompson novel. Don't judge or start arguing with me about these, or I will have to whap you. The world-building, especially where the fae are concerned, just makes these utterly cracktastic. Not perfect, but CRACKtastic. Briggs can plot like nobody's business. And we finally got around to watching Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, which I hearted almost as much as the book. Mainly, it made me want to reread said book, and also construct a YouTube Theatre Production where drunken Caroline wanders into The Thin Man and everyone is all, "Oh, she's in color! Is she magic?" and then they're all, "But she's just as drunk as we are. Give the little birdie a cocktail!"

All this, of course, setting the stage for Actual Productivity today. I've worked diligently on le novel since this morning AND don't want to stab myself in the eye. (If only you knew the amount of private whining over how little time I've had to work lately. Shameful, really. Send condolence cards to Mr. Rowe. Who made me lentil soup and fresh bread earlier. YUM.) The weather is springlike and the dogs are barking with great feeling at imaginary dogs on the end of a Korcani Orkestar remix.

Anyway, everything seems back on track. I'm going to do a bit more, and knock off. E-mail catch-up tomorrow? There is much TV awaiting on the DVR and I need to finish watching Let the Right One In, since I no longer have to be paranoid about the power going off during the middle again.

Hope y'all had nice weekends, too.

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