July 30, 2007: Inway Ethay Dodmay Orfay Ovelay
I'm done with my revise of another manuscript and looking forward to revisiting it in September for a polish. It's been submitted before and hopefully this time it has that spark editors are looking for. If not, oh well. That leaves me free and clear to concentrate my August on making sure Missed Connections sparkles. It's a very sweet story, at least I think so, and a big departure for me as it has to do with love--the mushy kind--so I'm planning on watching a lot of inspiring movies in the next couple of days to get in the mood.
July 25, 2007: Humpy Hump Day
Despite the sounds of sledgehammers breaking concrete and the ranchera radio station the worker guys listen to right outside my window, I've been able to enjoy my time away from Missed Connections even if I haven't gotten away from my desk. As planned, I'm forcing myself to wait until August 1st to begin the revise and polish (and glory will it need a polish) and filling my time with reading, blogging and browsing. I'm also using the time to work on another project that's been put on the back burner for too long and I hope to have it in pretty good shape by the end of my MC vacation.
July 23, 2007: Not Ready for Monday
An activity packed weekend has left me feeling like I wish it were Friday all over again just so I could manage my time better (see today's blog post for more bitching). One big and good development is I'll be participating in sormag.com's free online writer's conference at the end of August. I'll be on the Debut Authors panel on Sunday August 26th and Tuesday, August 28th I'll be on the Readercentric author panel talking about mainstream fiction. And I don't need to even get out of my pajamas to do it and neither do you!
July 18, 2007: Busy, Busy, Busy and Done!
I'm happy to write I've cleaned up the last third of the rough for Missed Connections (current word count: 48,758) and I should be done with the first draft by early next week, almost five days ahead of schedule. That'll give me most of August to get into shape and depending on which day it's due in September I may have a couple of more weeks and will be able to fit in a second pass. Actually, I'll make a point of giving it a second pass because I'm a professional and that's what we do.
Afternoon Addendum: I'm done, done, done, done! At least with a skeleton of the first draft. I'm so happy, I've given myself a headache. I'm taking a few days off from Missed Connections and going back to it on August 1st with a due date of September 1st, which is a Saturday so I'm going to assume it's really September 3rd, that first Monday. All this and the official deal notices hasn't even gone out.
July 16, 2007: The End is Near
I met with my wonder writing group this weekend and they were full of words of encouragement so I'm geared up to make some major inroads on getting done in the near future with not only my sanity intact, but with a genuine feeling of accomplishment. I've finished outlining the last third of the book (just now) and I can see an eventual end to the whole first draft process. I'm actually pretty excited about it since the work part of it is now cut up into manageable writing chunks and when it's time for me to start the revise and polish I can enjoy immersing myself in the details and drawing out characters and situations. For instance, I've discovered that the main male character's sister is a potty mouth pregnant doctor who really doesn't seem to like people that much. Fun!
July 13, 2007:
Sophismata
Confido
It's Friday and even though I'm looking forward (not really) to a busy weekend full of obligations that'll take me away from my desk, I'm going into the next two days knowing I made a good dent in my first draft of Missed Connections. With a word count of around 45,000 and some change and a good idea on how I'm going to approach the polish after I'm done with the first draft, I feel pretty good with where I am. I don't expect to hit anywhere near my final word count on this draft, I'm thinking I'll end up in the mid-60 or low 70k range when all's said and typed, but that'll give me a great base to round out the story, move things around, and yes, even cut entire sections out. No one said writing was a pretty (or interesting) business.
July 11, 2007: Progress and Procrastination
I've finally transferred over the last chunk of the Missed Connection screenplay into the Missed Connection manuscript hoping that'll give me some structure to work my way through to the end of the story. I'm not sure if it's harder to write this one because I do have something complete to base it on, but it has been a lot harder than just sitting down and letting the story take me where it wants to go. I've also nixed the idea of doing AmazonShorts. I'm sure the program might be great for some writers, but like my friend Heather says, why sell work piecemeal when I can get a fun book out of it.
July 09, 2007: Monday, Wonderful Monday
I'd spent five consecutive days with either the kid, the husband or both and by yesterday evening I was one raging bitch. It took me until this morning when I could finally notice how nice and quiet it was to realize why. Too much together time is no fun and hell on my working schedule. I like my space and even though I didn't get as much writing done as I'd planned (Missed Connections word count 38,870) today, I got stuff done. I revamped the Books page, mailed out advance copies of LIFE OVER EASY to people I hope will read it for purely professional reasons and blogged about my fashion issues. So all in all, a very good day and I expect Tuesday to be much more productive. My aim is to finish a super rough draft of Missed Connections by the end of the month and, damn it, I'm going to do it or else.
July 05, 2007: Familia
Interventoris
The kid stayed home today from camp with a cold but I still managed to give my Mrs. Mayor short story a scrubbing and revise. (Is she still working on that? Yes, she is!). Missed Connections has plumped up to something over 36,000 words but aside from some work on it this morning, I haven't been able to get cracking on it all day. So hard to do when I'm wiping a runny nose and feigning interest in Yugio (spelling?) cartoons--that's one DVD we won't be returning late. The plan for tomorrow is to get up extra early and get some writing done before the kid wakes up and I can gauge how infectious he is--and he is--so even if he does stay home, I'll be able to make get all the closer to 40k. Then I'll be at peace since 40k is halfway done on the first rough draft of Missed Connections.
July 03, 2007: Software Success
Well almost. I demo'd I don't know how many programs and came close to buying one (if I had a Mac I'd so be all over Storyist) but I'd resigned myself to living with a bulky table of contents when I discovered the wonderful world of Word thumbnails under the View tab. From there it was a hop, skip and a couple of hours to reconfigure all my headings so they'd work as a Document Map that now lives happily off to the right of my screen. OK, so I can't drag and drop sections from chapter to chapter, but it works well enough for me. But still, a Mac is looking mighty tasty now.
July 01, 2007: Organization is Key to Not Going Crazy
Life Over Easy takes place over a space of three or so months in 1998 so I had to keep in mind dates and events so they made sense but Missed Connections is turning out to be a book and half where organization is concerned. I've investigated software options that'll let me organize my chapters into scenes but I'm a creature of habit and can devote only a limited amount of brain power to learning new tricks, so I've stuck with Word but am using a table of contents to keep track of things. I know there is a better way but for now, this will have to do. Current word count? 33,500.
