Fighting the Letdown

Yes, my friends, I'm fighting some letdown. And that's really a shame considering the good news that I recently received.

For those of you who don't know already, I sold my first story to Bold Strokes Books (details: http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/Bios/DLLbio.html). Wow! That's big news and it makes me really happy. Apparently, so happy that I haven't managed to write a word since then. I'm hoping that writing this will help, but you never know. As far as the story goes, it's in a holding pattern until we start editing and fixing things. There's also the Olympics on TV and I find myself glued to most of the events. I've also been knitting a little as well as dogsitting. Whatever. Lots of things are on hold for the moment, so I'm hoping for a flash of inspiration soon. I do have lots of ideas brewing, but nothing seems to want to make me sit down and work. I can't call it writer's block because I basically don't believe in that, but there's something at work here that I don't understand.

To my friends who are writing and posting stories: I'm reading your work. Really, I am. It's just been hard to find new, wonderful things to say about those stories. Heck, it's been hard to find anything to say about anything. Maybe blogging will help. I sure hope so.

Hey! Look! I'm writing something!

What's that you say? Diane is writing? What the fuck?

Yes, my friends, it's true. I'm actually blogging.

In all honesty, I haven't had a lot to write about lately, but I had an epiphany today. A lot of things hit me at the same time, and every one of them stung in one way or another. Weird stuff from friends, loved ones, and even a couple of people who don't know me. In my haze of menopause, I came to the decision to remove a bunch of my writing from places where it was posted on the internet. Why? Because it's just sitting there. Quietly. Doing nothing. I think people are reading. I even see the numbers as they rise on my hit counter, but nobody ever says anything. So I said to myself, "Listen, Bozo, it's time. Just take 'em down." And then I wrote the emails to start the ball rolling.

I know it seems like a small thing, but it wasn't. It was cathartic and I really think that I feel better. Add to that the fact that I should have a decision on the book within the next week, and I feel pretty good at the moment. Actually better than I did an hour ago.

Yay for me!

Not doing a darn thing.

Yes, that's right.

This is a blog about writing and publishing. The problem with that is that I'm not writing at the moment and I'm still waiting for an answer about the publishing. So, with that in mind, here's something totally random that I wanted to share.

Matthew (aka Dudie) has mad ninja skills and I can record videos on my phone. Sounds like fun to me.

The Deed is Done

Yes, my friends, the deed is done. "Files," with it's new working title "Leap of Faith" (no pun intended), is now uploaded and in the hot little hands of the lovely people at Bold Strokes Books.

Chris and I spent the weekend tweaking and reading. Actually, Chris tweaked and read while I fretted and bit my nails. It's like that frequently around here. We wrote the cover letter, my author bio, and the synopsis as outlined in the submission guidelines. And then, at 12:24am on April 7, 2008, I sent my baby out into the world. It was a strange sensation, kind of like panic mixed with joy, and once the send button was clicked, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders.

Ahhhh....

Anyway, it's out there now. I should receive a submission receipt within 48 hours, and I should have either a yay or nay within 12 weeks. Cross your fingers for me... I'm going back to biting my nails now.

Totally Random

Tales for a Rainy Day

Hey!

I spent most of yesterday, up until midnight last night, tweaking the story to send it away. Both of the original scenes have been written, pov issues repaired, all of the oks changed to okay, lots of other small points. Here's the worst part. I draft in block format, no first line paragraph indent and double spaces between the paragraphs. But the publisher doesn't want it that way; they want it exactly the opposite, so I had to reformat the damn thing paragraph by paragraph because either MS Word won't do that or I'm a complete moron. Either is possible, believe me.

So, after running an errand with a friend, I'm back at it again, tweaking and obsessing. It's just what I do. Chris will be giving me the final run-through tonight and then I write my cover letter and kiss the whole thing good bye. Hopefully, within twelve weeks, I can declare myself published and ready to party. Granted, it will be close to a year before there's actually a book in my hand, but I can wait for that.

Still scared, nervous, excited, and still a little under the weather, but it's all good.

Taking the Big Step

Well, I made the decision a while ago that I wanted to publish a novel. So, I started working on that this week. My first book-length story, The Rosenberg Files, needs some tweaking, so that's the plan for this week. I do have some new stuff to write to make it complete, but for the most part, it's just correcting a couple of shifts in point of view and some awkward places. Of course, I had to change the names of the main characters, but that was a simple find and replace command to MS Word.

The basic work will remain exactly the same. We (Chris and I) came to the decision that I should leave it intact, including the sweaty, naked stuff, but if the publisher wants it removed, I'll do that too. I think it will be fine.

Anyway, I'm doing the revisions and trying to ignore the fact that I'm scared to death of the whole process, but I have to do it to prove something to myself. If I'm going to call myself a writer, I have to do this, despite my fears. The worst thing that can happen is that I get rejected, and I'm about as prepared as I can be for that. No one wants to hear that something that they did isn't good enough, but I have to swallow that fear and throw the work out the front door.

Wish me luck!

Slacking Off

Wow, I guess I haven't been here for a while. That's not good.

Everyone in my house has been sick, so I've been into caregiver mode, which usually means I don't get much writing done. I was finally able to rectify that in the past two days, and now I'm getting work done, actually finished chapter 5 of my collaboration and wrote 1300 words for chapter 6. I'm hoping for some similar success for today, but I got the buckets for my spring gardening project, and it's really nice today...sunny and warm, so I just might need to take this outside today.

I love the idea of having a day loaded with possibilities. Makes me happy.

A High School Musical Made My Day

While this blog is supposed to be about writing, tonight it's not. I should amend that to say this morning, but no one really cares, do they? Great!

Earlier this evening, Chris and I attended her daughter, Emma's play, Grandmother in tow. To say that I was dreading the evening would be an understatement. I've had to listen to Emma for the last month, dragging in late every night from a rehearsal or a production meeting or something else related to her school's performance of "Peter Pan." Ugh! Emma's complaints were varied and numerous, so I won't get into all of them, but suffice it to say, she set me up to expect nothing short of a total train wreck of a musical.

Joy of joys, such was not the case.

Now, I'm what you might call a "musical queen." Except, you know, that lesbian thing. But "musical butch" just doesn't work. Anyway, I like musicals, a lot, but not this one. It's just, well, random. There's not much to the story, and the music isn't great, but once I saw those kids, Emma included, flying through the air over the stage, I was done for. Hokey, yes, but there was something about watching that beautiful young woman as she sailed in from the wings, landing in a display of grace in the middle of the stage, all alone, that almost knocked the wind out of me. She didn't have a lot of lines, she really didn't have much to do at all, but the quiet elegance of that simple landing made my night.

And if that wasn't enough, I opened the program to the cast biographies and found this: "Emma wants to thank her Mom, her Diane, and her boyfriend Tommy for all of their love and support." Needless to say, I was a goner.

So, I guess what I'm really trying to say is this: To Emma, I know we've had a rough patch or two, and have said some really unkind things to one another, but you made me so proud tonight. You're such a lovely young woman, and your love and support mean just as much to me. Thank you.

Everybody needs a little downtime

Everybody, even those of us who basically just hang out and write, needs a day off. I took one today. No email, no new writing, even though I did take about an hour to tweak some earlier stuff from the collaboration.

What I did do was take Chris to work, go to the grocery, baked a cake and made lasagna for a friend's birthday, put gas in the car, picked Chris up from work, went to the yarn store, bought yarn and a water cooler for the kitchen, went to Lowes, had dinner with friends, stuff like that. All in all, a pretty full day.

Just for fun, here's the cake:












Much fun was had by all, and it was nice to get some things done. I'll be back at the real work tomorrow. I got a really good idea for a character for the collaboration tonight, so I may have to bring him in for the next chapter. Should be fun.

Oh, and I just found out that my ex is going to be a Grandma. Wow. Congrats to Lin and Matthew. She just had to let me know that that makes me a Grandma-to-be-once-removed. Holy shit! Wow.

Dropping the ball

Since it would seem that I am dropping the ball and not keeping up with this blog, I decided to do something about that. Thanks to Deb for the kick in the butt.

Actually, I haven't been blogging because I've been writing so much. Sometimes the muse just won't shut up (thanks to Jen for that one). I've been banging away on the solo portions of my collaboration, and the results have been a lot of fun. The story is coming together, the setting is pretty concrete, and my challenges to write a convincing Russian accent are apparently landing with the desired effect. The story is becoming what I would define as a romp, with lots of action, goofiness, and some pretty "toothy" smut.

I also spent a lot of time today working on email responses. I spent close to an hour preparing a rather wordy in-service on writing mechanics for a friend who actually considered my offer of assistance to be a nice thing and not a slam. I've been doing that a lot lately, and it's nice to know that I hang out with mature people who understand that criticism is not a bad thing, but a sharing thing. If only the younger generation understood that.

I write as a way to share my issues and ideas, and if I just want to help, I appreciate the opportunity to do so.

I'm at it again

Well, here I am again. It's raining, it's 6 o'clock in the morning, two of the three kids are staying home because they have nasty colds, so I'm up working now. Well, not working yet, but I'm writing here, so that's good. My toe is owie, but I think that's the rain, so I'm trying to ignore it.

I've let the third story in my FBI series go for the time being to work on my collaboration. Things are going well with that. I'm over 10,000 words and well into the third chapter of my six solo chapters. My characters are finding their groove, my locations are settled, and there have been points where the story almost wrote itself. It's been fun to play with a story that is set in the past, especially my past. It's been really fun to revisit 1985 and some of the ridiculous things that we did back then. What the hell were we thinking with the jeans that were so tight that you had to lay down to zip 'em up? Weird, but it's what it was. Oh, and who ever thought leg warmers were a good idea? Besides Jennifer Beals and Olivia Newton-John, of course.

We had a small production meeting last night (I say that 'cause it makes me feel important, like a big stud Hollywood director), and got some stuff worked out regarding the aspects of the story that D and I will be writing together. I'm really excited about the project because it's coming together so nicely. I hope that it continues that way, and I have no reason to believe that it won't, so things are looking good. But then I ask myself why wouldn't it? It's a great idea (thanks to D for that), it's a romp complete with a really hot Russian spy babe, guns, KGB goons, chase scenes, and more than a couple of surprises. It's right up my alley. My dark little alley with bad guys waiting at the end.

No distractions today

Well, today was a good day, especially in terms of writing.

I managed to hammer out over 4,000 words for the collaboration that I'm working on. I finished chapter 1 and got a really good running start into chapter 2. All good stuff and I was really happy to be able to work today. Through the writing today, the story has changed slightly from the original plans, but it really has no effect on the overall planning that went on with my collaborator last September. Just little things here and there, so it's all good. I'm eagerly awaiting Chris' return from taking the kids' friends home so she can do her editorial magic with today's work. Then I can send it off to my writing buddy and I do so hope that she likes it. I think she will.

Chris asked me a pretty important question about the story last night. She was wondering how D and I would compensate for the differences in our writing styles, but I think since we've created a story with two heroines, that it only makes sense that their respective points of view would read with a different kind of voice. I hope that's what will happen anyway, and I refuse to believe that it will become a problem. Paragon of optimism here, remember?

Anyway, that's the good news. Here's the not so good news:

Yep, it hurts. It hurts in a pretty special way, but I'm not going to worry about it too much. There's no sign of infection...just lots of bruises, so whatever. I went to the medicine cabinet today to see if we had any arnica gel, but alas, there was none, so I'll just keep my sock on and try not to obsess about it. Nothing I can really do, right?

Anyway, the kids have the day off school tomorrow, so I don't expect to get much done. I may have to go take a nap in a while so I can stay up late tonight. I'm rolling now and I'm eager to keep going.

Also, Chris just returned with the mail, really nice birth announcement from a good friend. She has the cutest kids and I'm so happy for her and her partner and their adorable new baby. Congrats, ladies...well done.

More Distractions

Let's continue in the same general direction as yesterday and discuss a specific kind of distraction that can submarine one's efforts to write. This is a big one, and while it may not be familiar to a lot of younger people, it's basically the only thing on my mind right now.

Pain. The pain that comes from a really stupid injury. Here's what happened:

Last night, somewhere in the general vicinity of about 9:00 pm, I decided that it sounded like a good idea to go down to Neighbor's (the Exxon station/convenience store close to our house). The six wooden steps that lead down from my front porch to the gravel walkway below were icy. Like a skating rink, that kind of icy. The first thing I remember thinking as I stepped onto the front porch was, "Easy, Diane...the steps look pretty icy." The next thing I thought was, "Oh, shit... I'm falling," followed shortly thereafter by, "Okay, I'm not falling anymore, but I'm pretty sure I broke something." Turned out that it was my toe that was broken. The orange Croc on my right foot flew off and out into the snow when I started to fall, and about three steps down, I managed to somehow hook my toe onto one of the vertical supports for the handrail. Needless to say, my toe stopped while I continued to fall. It was one of those physics lessons where momentum was stopped by an immovable object, and the only variable reaction that could take place was the breaking of a bone in my foot.

Ouch!

So, this morning, my foot looks as if someone smeared it with a whole palette of bruise-colored paints, mostly purple and dark red. While it may fall into the category of too much information, there is a similar collection of bruises elsewhere, mostly on my lower back and butt. I'm not sure how it happened, but I did managed to cut my finger too, but that seems pretty insignificant in the whole collection of injuries. Fortunately, Emma (Chris' daughter) and her friend Ryan, were right behind me, and quickly went inside to get help. Ryan later declared that I was "badass, like you were so calm and all. I would have been all (insert all of the gutter, truck stop colorful epithets that you know), but you were just like...." Well, more just like that. Ryan has somehow decided that I'm the coolest thing around, and it was important to me to be cool for him. Believe me, every colorful epithet that I knew swirled through my brain in that instant, but I just gritted my teeth and asked Emma to go inside to get her mother to help me up. Once inside, Chris pulled the sock off my right foot, and I was greeted to the sight of toe number three, as it pointed decidedly toward the east while my other, uninjured toes pointed happily to the north. That's when I almost lost it.

Anyway, here's what greeted me this morning:

Yes, it's still pointed the wrong direction, but more toward the northeast than true east now. And yes, it hurts like hell. As does my lower back, but I'm grateful that my injuries weren't more severe. I'm lucky that my knee didn't blow out or something to that effect. I didn't go to the hospital, because broken toes usually require little care, and I didn't want to pay for an x-ray to tell me that, yes, my toe was broken. I think you can clearly see from the picture that it's broken.

So, to sum it all up, I might or I might not write today. I'll most likely sit in my big comfy chair and watch football with my foot in a bucket of ice water and take lots of ibuprofen. We'll just have to see what the day brings.

Distractions

Distractions... part of the process.

I suppose that I'd never really stopped to think about it, but distractions and how we deal with them are as much a part of the process as anything else.

First, a couple of things about me. I have Attention Deficit Disorder. Full-blown, diagnosed at the University of Michigan Medical Center, used to take Ritalin for control, the whole shebang. Great. So I deal with it. I took the medication for something close to six years, and I was the picture of pay-attentionedness (I know...I made it up). I was a dutiful little pharmacy tech, filling medication carts in two different hospitals with an efficiency rate over 99 percent. I also quit writing, stopped being a musician, and basically gave up my creative side in order to make a living. Then I moved to Virginia and decided that, regardless of the fact that I might lose that medication-induced power of control, my creativity was too important to me to continue to squash. So I stopped. I haven't had a dose of Ritalin for over six years now, and I've written two books and several short stories. I've also become a musician again, so it's all good.

Well, it has often been said that you must take the bad with the good. So here's the bad.

Distractions. They stop me like the proverbial freight train. I can't write with a TV or radio turned on. I can't write if there is anyone else in the room. There are two words that once made me the happiest kid on the planet, but now only fill me with dread and anxiety. Snow day. A house full of the teenaged members of my family, sometimes their friends, always accompanied by the sound of the television, phone conversations, iPods and the inevitable, "Turn that down, before you rupture an eardrum." Even if they're quiet, they're here and I can sense their presence. I love them all dearly, but they create a situation in which I cannot write.

Why am I telling you this? Because that's part of my writing process as well. I try to find ways to compensate. I managed to bang out 300 words yesterday. Managed? I should have said struggled. I tried working with my own iPod stuffed in my ears, but as ridiculous as it sounds, I found myself singing along with the Latin text of the Mozart Requiem. And then, I turned off the music and went as far as to put on a pair of earmuffs. Not your usual fluffy, keep-your-ears-warm earmuffs, but the hard black plastic earmuffs that I wear with my brother when we go to the pistol range to shoot guns. Did it help? Sort of. Did I feel like the biggest dork on the face of the Earth? Definitely. Is it a solution? No, it's not.

So here's where I am now. Since my last post, I've written very little. It's nice to be home, but there really is little progress on the book. I've talked about it a lot. I've worked out some story details. I know where I want it to go, but until I get a little peace, or until I get an office with a door that I can close, I'm pretty much stuck. Chris made a really interesting observation last week, in the midst of my trouble, that I was basically a solitary person. Unfortunately, I'm a solitary person who hates to be alone, so I take the good with the bad, the peace with the distractions, and do what I can.

I guess I'm a blogger now.

Wow... took me long enough, but I'm here now, so let's just see how this works.

My major reason for starting this blog was to journal the process of writing a book. I've written two already, and we're getting the first one ready to send out, hopefully to find a publisher. I have high hopes for success, but the process is still a little scary. I'm not sure that I'm ready to send my baby out into the world and be told that it's not good enough, not "what we want." I'm not good at rejection, but it's time to bite the bullet and shoo it out the door.

I have started the third book in the series, and that's what I want to document here. It's an interesting process (to me, anyway), and it might be to someone else as well. I hope so anyway.

On Sunday, I started the process anew. Main characters are pretty easy because they're already established from the first two stories. There are a couple of new characters, so I have to, for lack of a better way of explaining it, take pictures of them in my mind and give them cool things to say. It's like playing "The Sims" in your head. I'm also introducing a new location, which conveniently happens to be about 30 miles from where I grew up in Southwestern Ohio. I've done some of the basic research, including looking at maps of the area, checking out the schools and how they relate to the characters, and I've even checked the area code just in case someone needs it to identify the source location of a phone call.

The next step is then to create an outline of chapters. I have that set up through chapter 5, of a proposed 20 chapters. It's a start. I also have about 1,000 words written for chapter 1. Again, it's a start.

I'm also starting another work, this one a collaborative effort with a good friend. I have high hopes for this as well. We did a lot of the preliminary "hashing out" of story ideas and stuff late last summer, but it's time to get to work. Taking me out of my own comfortable set of characters is proving to be a little scary to me, but it's a step I need to take.

Wish me luck!