‘Fess Up Friday
She tried her hardest, but Curtis Sittenfeld did not dissuade me from writing this week. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy American Wife. I did, but I also finished it in just three days.
Writing: Going well. Of course, I’m now on project number three since this ‘fess up series began. That’s three novels started and I think I need to work on actually finishing one of them before starting something else. Focus is a bit of an issue. And I welcome all suggestions for how to focus on just one project at a time.
Submissions: Why hello, rejection letters. Got three back this week. Nary an ink stain on them, all carbon copy slips of paper, most of which were smaller than the envelope they came in. The lowest of the low. Two of them came back last Saturday and getting dual rejection letters kind of sucks. I may have been a little down and self-pitying, but that seems to have shifted.
As for today, I’d be much more productive if I didn’t feel like half of my face was about to explode. Stupid sinuses. . .
‘Fess Up Friday: Distracted
Writing/Revising: I’m officially combining these categories for the remainder of my current project. The novel I’m working on was born out of a story, so I’d doing equal parts writing and revising. It’s only going okay this week. I’ve been distracted and most of my concentration has gone right out the window. I’m taking drastic steps to fix that this week. For instance, I’m kissing LJ reading and Twittering good-bye. I’m even cutting back on a lot of blog reading. My internet activity will mostly be reduced to this blog and my email.
The reason for this forced isolation is because I’ve spent a lot of last week and this week angry, sad, and upset. The fact that this coincides with the DNC and the GOP conventions is no surprise. Simply put, I can no longer tolerate the mean-spirited snark and trash talk that both sides seem to spew forth daily. There’s a lot of “we’re right, you’re wrong” out there. It’s odd, I thought the reason we were all so disillusioned with the current administration was because of this kind of black and white thinking. Shouldn’t the answer to it be to try to be open-minded? Isn’t unity about reaching out to others instead of alienating them? I whole heartedly believe that this is the intent of both Obama and McCain, I’m just not seeing it from either of their supporters.
Ugh. Okay, so political rant through. Point being, I’m closing down part of my internet access until November 6. (Yes, I’m aware that the election is Nov. 4 and this should all be over on Nov. 5, but with things as divisive as they are now, I expect the day-after commentary to be worse.) I will not be talking politics on this blog. PERIOD. Exclamation point.
I will, however, be talking about how much I am loving YA right now and how reluctant I am to return to literary fiction (though I really do want to read Joshua Henkin’s Matrimony and Andrew Sean Greer’s Story of a Marriage). And how adding a shitzu (no matter how temporarily) to a two-cat household is nothing short of chaos. And how our house hunt continues, though with less force than before. Oh, and writing. Hopefully, lots and lots of writing.
Happy weekend!
‘Fess Up Friday
Writing: . . . Aaaaaand we’re back. I finally put the real estate stuff aside and got back to writing this week. I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked, but I am back in the drafting stages of a novel. Cool.
Submissions: Got two back this week, including a rejection from a market that held on to my submission for 286 days. No personalization, no anything. Just a form letter that was 200 days overdue.
Etc.: The running continues to go well. The reading for the magazine has come to an end. The cats are both happy and healthy. In short, everything’s great.
‘Fess Up Friday
For today only (I hope!) a special edition of ‘Fess Up Friday called “What I have been doing instead of writing my novel.” It goes a little something like this:
Doing the real estate thing. We’re looking at houses and this an incredibly time consuming task. You’d think that it might be limited to a couple of hours on the weekend or something, but you would be wrong. There is the general house looking thing that can stretch into three or four hours (ugh), then there is the sorting through emails about properties, then there is the speculating about this neighborhood or that neighborhood, and then there’s all the thinking about houses and comparing houses and the list goes on and on and on.
In short, it has taken over my life.
And I am not terribly happy about it right now.
But enough about that. I have also been cleaning out our house just in case we find our dream home and need to sell this place. I made some mighty fine progress on the hall closet last week. It turns out that we actually have a floor in there. Unfortunately, that is only a small dent in our clutter-filled home, but since we have no dream home on the horizon, I’d say we’re doing okay.
I took the boy cat to the vet this week. I have to brag on him for just a moment. Anyone who knows me or has read this blog has been subjected to the saga that is Mr. B’s health problems. The short version is that he had IBD. The treatment for the IBD gave him diabetes, which we treated with diet and insulin. That eventually gave him hyperglycemia and indicated that he was diabetes-free. But he still had the IBD. For a while there, we were making vet trips pretty much every month.
On the last visit we settled on a food trial plan for Mr. B. The food was expensive, but worth it. Especially since Mr. B has been puke free for about a month now (knock wood). The vet says that this kind of progress may indicate that we can stop the food trial and just keep him on the special diet. I’m very excited about the prospect. I love my vet and the staff, but I’m perfectly happy to not see them monthly. Keep your fingers crossed for continued kitty health.
Anyway, that’s some of what I’ve been doing instead of writing. At least, that’s the more interesting portion of it. Running continues to go well. And I’m slowly but steadily working up to a 9500 Singstar score for “Torn.” Achieving that may be my biggest accomplishment this summer.
Happy weekend!
‘Fess Up Friday: The Late Edition
But better late than never, right?
Writing: Much better than last week. I managed to get some writing in every day and increase my word count in small bursts. However, I’m reaching a point where I feel the novel spinning out of control. It’s suddenly not about what it is supposed to be about. The characters are changing, and I’m having trouble deciding whether to go with the changes or backtrack, erase, and restart. I know there are a lot of people who glamorize the whole “let your characters do what they want” approach to writing. I think if that works, go for it. I’m not so sure it works for me, though. I may need to rethink my main character and maybe do a little character sketch to find out what she’s really about.
I’m also fighting the urge to move to something else. It’s a pretty familiar feeling for me. As soon as I begin to get mired down in one project, I look for more attractive ones. Stories that are fresher. Newer. Never mind that 9,000 words in, I’ll probably be just as mired and exasperated.
Revisions: Not applicable.
Submissions: The mail void continues. I sent off another story for kicks, so I can expect to not hear from that market as well.
Other things: I’ve been regularly doing my Couch to 5K workouts and I’m seeing a noticeable improvement in my endurance. After upping my running time again today, I came home from the gym and browsed local 5Ks for the fall. I feel very good about this.
I’m currently swooning over Emily Carter’s Glory Goes And Gets Some. It’s scary good. I decided that I had to put it away for a little while because her writing just sparkles and mine does not. It’s intimidating as Hell. But it’s good. Go read it.
That’s it for this ‘fess up. Have a good weekend!
‘Fess Up Friday
Um . . . Yeah.
I did nothing this week. Seriously, there’s not even a point to breaking it down into categories because I didn’t accomplish anything. On any of them.
Today, I’m not even going to try to write. I didn’t sleep until 4 this morning and the house is something close to a disaster. So I’m going to straighten the house, do some reading, and hope to God to take a nap this afternoon. I am planning to shut myself in my office sometime this weekend with only the novel to work on, so maybe I’ll make some progress this weekend.
Happy weekend all.
‘Fess up Friday: The Whiny Edition
Writing: Got in two good days of writing. I spent the rest of the week frustrated because I still have no freaking clue where this novel is going. I have no plan, no outline, no nothing. So on Thursday I decided to hell with the outline and the plan, there’s always revision. So my new plan is not to have a plan. I’m just going to write instead. And once I came up with this plan, the writing started going a lot smoother again. Still, not such great progress for the week.
Revisions: Zilch. I really, really need to get back on this.
Submissions: Thirty five markets are holding two of my stories hostage.
What I’ve been doing instead:
- Reading submissions for a magazine that will launch in the fall. That’s time consuming, but not all bad. I usually set aside four hours one day to work on this and so far it’s been a lot of fun.
- Taking kitty to the vet. Earlier in the week there was some drama with our tabby cat. It seems once we get one of our cats healthy, the other decides it’s their turn for some attention and so off to the vet we go.
- Seeing Mamma Mia! I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. It’s a romp. I don’t recommend seeing it if you are looking for greatness. A lot of the cast cannot sing and it delves to a level of cheesiness that is only possible by combining ABBA and musical theater. However, it’s so much fun. I smiled throughout the movie and I can’t remember the last time that happened.
Happy weekend!
‘Fess Up Friday
The week in one word: Ugh.
Writing: Well, maybe I do my best writing on the weekend. I’ve only managed about a thousand more words since Tuesday, bringing the non-tome to somewhere around 6,000. I feel a little direction-less. I’m wary of outlines, but I finally sat down and wrote out a rough one this morning around 4:00 a.m. (Yay, insomnia!) There are still lots of blank spaces in the outline and other vague notes (my personal favorite being “something bad happens”), but I have to leave some mystery for myself, don’t I?
I’m employing all sorts of tricks to get myself through this process. The first trick is convincing myself that no one will ever read this. In all likelihood, that’s not a trick, but a truth. On the other hand, if I honestly believe that *I’m* going to be the only audience, then what’s the point? It’s an interesting balancing act, and one that makes me more neurotic by the day.
Revision: Didn’t do any.
Submissions: Still nothing. What the hell, universe?
Overall: I feel really discouraged this week. I’ve come to terms with the fact that, unlike a lot of my former classmates, I have no interest in writing Great Literature. I want to write books that people enjoy reading, but I’m even questioning my ability to do that. Add in a handful annoying reviews and a general fatigue with literary elitism and you have my week in a nutshell.
On a completely unrelated note: I started running again a few weeks ago. I still swear that the only thing that got me through the first two years the MFA program were the nightly runs with my friend Tara. She was a marathoner and managed to get me from not running at all to running 3+ miles a night. It was a very peaceful time for me. It was a chance to clear my head from the day and focus on my silly daydreams. In those days, it was my chance to think not about what I should be writing but about what I wanted to write.
I still run from time to time, but haven’t done so on a regular schedule since I got my first desk job. I want to build my endurance back up, so I’m trying the Couch to 5K running program. I’m hoping running brings back that sense of inner peace.
‘Fess Up Friday
Le w00t! This entry marks the one month anniversary of ‘fessing. It’s the little victories that make me happy.
Writing: Better than last week. I had three days of productive writing this week. (Today is looking good as well.) As announced, I’m working on something bigger than short stories for a while and I’m actually kind of enjoying it. Also, being that this big thing is a first draft, I’m allowed to write whatever kind of crap I’d like and not think about it. This is harder than you’d think. For one thing, as I’m going along typing, mostly I’m thinking “OMG that sentence sucks.” and “Seriously?! Three years of writing workshops and that’s the best word you can think of?” But I have to tune those suckers out and just keep writing. And so far, that’s going well.
I am disappointed that I’ve completely slacked off on my freewriting. I need to find a way to do both.
Revision: Not happening. Too much energy going into writing.
Submissions: Still nothing. One market has currently held my manuscript hostage for 240 days. I have every intention of querying them next week to see whether or not they even got my story, but this market lists no email address. Hope their mail situation isn’t totally screwed.
‘Fess Up Friday: The Week of FAIL
Writing: Zilch. Nothing. Not even freewriting. Things I did instead: went to deep East Texas with my mom, came back, joined a gym and worked out, took a photography class, finished reading Jennifer Weiner’s Good In Bed and went to a swim party. I wish my routine wasn’t so easily broken, but next week I hope to force myself back into it.
Revision: The one productive thing I did this week was work on the short story that I was revised last week. Ugh. Something that I wish they’d teach in grad school is when to finally just give up on a story. How do you decide whether to press on with it or just stick it in a drawer and ignore it for the next eleven years? If you’ve figured this out, please let me know. I think I’m going to give this story one more shot, then let a few readers let me know if it should be shelved or improved.
Submissions: Heard nothing, sent nothing. Sigh… I’d like to blame the postal service, but I’ve used Forever stamps on everything. So it’s still a waiting game. Another round next week, I think.
Overall: uber-FAIL. Next week, no excuses.
