Mon. May 12, 2014: Reading, Writing, Contest Entries

Monday, May 12, 2014
Waxing Moon
Mars Retrograde
Saturn Retrograde
Sunny and pleasant

Busy weekend. Friday was a good day at the library, albeit a busy one. Got a bunch of reports done, some new books on the shelves, prepped for today’s board meeting, dealt with all the little issues that come up to help patrons.

After the day was over, I headed to a different library, where a colleague and I culled entries for the third contest I’m working on — making sure the payments and entries matched, and then making sure that they followed the submission guidelines. Not able to follow directions? Gone! This is the real world, people. If you’re so arrogant you think you’re too good for “guidelines”, guess what? You’re wrong.

Came home, cooked dinner, went back to work on contest entries for the second contest.

Up early Saturday morning. Did some work on the TRACKING MEDUSA edits and the next two Big Script Episodes. Two trips to the dump with recycling and yard waste.

By 10 AM, I was headed to Osterville LIbrary to hear Patry Francis speak about her new book THE ORPHANS OF RACE POINT (which I ordered for our library –and it’s on the shelf). We’ve been communicating on social media since THE LIAR’S DIARY came out, but this is the first chance we got to meet, and it was fun. My boss was also there, and we had a nice chat.

Came back, worked all day, mostly on contest entries.

Sunday was Mother’s Day, so we had a nice day, doing whatever Mom wanted. I also finished the contest entries, finished the write-ups, and sent them off.

Did a lot of work sitting outside on the deck — it was so lovely out.

I did some reading for myself, too: Donna Leon’s latest release, BY ITS COVER (which is set against a library, which makes me happy). She’s trying something very post-modern with her last few books, and, much as I hate to say it, it’s not working for me. She’s stopping just before the climax. We KNOW who did it, and what happens next, but it actually happens offstage and there’s no breath of resolution or how that particular case changed Brunetti. I’m struggling with it. I respect her choices, I understand closing the blind on a life still in progress, but I’m getting frustrated with these abrupt endings.

Also reading Ann Patchett’s book of essays, THIS IS THE STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE. Love it. She spent some time at P-town’s Fine Arts Work Center. She talks about people who say they want to write and don’t, and says, “I believe, more than anything, that this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers.” (p.30). She’s very generous, and, based, on my own experience, I heartily disagree. What I have seen, in workshop after workshop after workshop over the years, is that people don’t write out of a combination of laziness and lack of commitment. They like the idea of being a “writer”, but they don’t actually want to sit down, put in the work, or learn the craft, and I have no patience for that.

Patchett also talks about people who come up and tell you they have a great story that YOU (the writer) must write, and how she struggles to be polite to them. I’m done with being polite to these insulting asshats. If I’m feeling generous, my response is, “Here’s my agent’s number. If there’s a first contract offer and a check for ten thousand dollars on her desk by 10 AM tomorrow morning, we can START negotiations. Anything less than that, forget it.” When I’m not feeling generous, I say, “No, I don’t HAVE to write YOUR story. I’m busy working on my own.”

I’m done with these people who think writing is easy and they’d do it “if they had time”. It’s about more than time. It’s about work ethic and talent and commitment and craft. It is a specialized skill, in the way that brain surgery and plumbing are highly specialized skills, and the better we are at it, the easier it looks.

Disagreeing with her in these particular essays doesn’t make me love the book any less, and I certainly appreciate her generosity of spirit.

Today’s focus is all on the TRACKING MEDUSA edits, the next two episodes of the script, and revising the first two.

The inspector is coming for his yearly making-sure-we-renters-are-following the rules. Put in fresh batteries for the smoke detectors, even though I changed them all on the Equinox.

I have some new story ideas spinning, on which I jotted some notes, and there’s a Mermaid Ball meeting this evening in Buzzards Bay.

Back to work!

Devon

Mon. Feb. 24, 2014: A Writing and Researching Weekend

Monday, February 24, 2014
Waning Moon
Jupiter Retrograde
Mercury Retrograde
Sunny and cold

Good news! My western novella, ELUSIVE PRAYERS, has been accepted by Amber Quill Press. This is a tie-in novella to my previous WIDOW’S CHAMBER serial. It had been accepted by the WC publisher, who went out of business on release day. I’ve rewritten it substantially in the interim, and it will now come out in late July. Re-working it, I liked the characters, situation, and depth of research, so I’m excited.

I have four releases coming out between the end of March and the end of July. So I’m pretty excited. It means I’ll be gearing up for some serious PR soon — watch out! 😉

Busy weekend. Friday was frustrating, but I got through it. Saturday, I worked on the novel I’m going to write in tandem with a friend who’s also working on a novel. We’re brainstorming and exchanging chapters, which is fun. I’ve read her outline and the first three chapters; she’s now got my initial fragment, my character notes, and the ideas for some major turning point scenes that I have to flesh out into my Writer’s Rough. In two weeks, I’m going to give her the first chapter. That’s longer than I usually take to write a chapter (I usually have to cough up one or nearly one a day), but this is a different kind of book and is not on a contract schedule.

I also wound up my course work for the Environmental Law and Policy Class. Got 100% on my final quiz, and 100% on my research exercise. I love, love, loved this class, and definitely want to get more involved in this type of work. It also made me understand some of the policies in place at the National Marine Life Center more completely.

I did some reading over the weekend. My next two books for review arrived, and I’m excited to dig into them. I started a couple of novels from the library, was frustrated with them, returned them. I read one novel I really enjoyed, THE TWISTED THREAD, by Charlotte Bacon. I wanted to shoot her an email to let her know how much I enjoyed it, but couldn’t find contact information online, and realized how spoiled we’ve all become at being able to locate anyone we want instantly! Good for her for not playing the always-available game!

Did a lot of research for the Sparkle & Tarnish series on Victorian dining. Since food plays a big part in the books, I want to make sure I get it right. I found THE SECRET GARDEN COOKBOOK filled with lovely historical tidbits, and I’m reading FANNIE’S LAST SUPPER, about a chef researching and recreating a meal from Fannie Farmer’s 1896 cookbook.

The current Garrett POV chapter I’m working on in TRUE HOME is set in Boston in 1886, so I’ve also been doing extensive research on geography, et al, of the time in order to properly write the chapter. Now, I have to cross-check some information, because I’d like to use some food info that is in books about Boston at the time, only I want to use them in NY chapters, but have to find out if similar places were in existence in NY at the time.

I see a trip to the Massachusetts Historical Society in the not-so-distant future for a day’s research.

Saturday night, I stayed up way too late watching NOW YOU SEE ME. The movie got lukewarm reviews, so I wasn’t expecting much, and I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it a lot. I figured out the big twist, but then, that’s what I do. I understand structure, and that choice made the most sense within the structure and the clues dropped in. I watched it again on Sunday, to pick up some details I’d missed.

Sunday, I researched, wrote, and scheduled articles for the wine blog all the way into mid-March. Took a break for more research, and then spent the afternoon at the Osterville Library, at a talk by author Paul Kemprecos, who writes a detective series set in this area, and also wrote several books with Clive Cussler. A colleague from the Writers Center was there, and they had a nice spread of wine, cheese, etc. It was a fun, lively afternoon.

Watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics — pretty, but I didn’t have the context for much of the symbolism. Although I appreciated the tribute to writers, the performance didn’t make much sense, and where were the women writers?

This will be a very stressful week for me, not to mention that I have to finish the revisions of the play.

Got an intriguing job offer that I need to investigate more closely. I think it would be fascinating, if we can work out the time/money part of it.

The expected overnight storm missed us, and now they’ve downgraded Wednesday’s storm from a foot of snow to only four inches. Phew!

Back to the page.

Devon

Tues. Dec. 17, 2013: Writing, Baking, Meetings

Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Full Moon
Jupiter Retrograde
Cloudy and cold

Check out the interview about Killion Slade’s new release on A Biblio Paradise here.

Busy day yesterday. Got some work done in the morning, some writing done on a script. Headed to the Writers Center, where we had sort-n-shred day, going through the archival boxes, deciding what to keep, what to toss, and learning a lot.

I’d made mac and cheese for lunch, which was a nice break.

We did some more sort-n-shred in the afternoon, then I hopped over to Osterville Library to work for a bit before heading home.

I had barely time to catch my breath and do some yoga before heading out the door for the Executive Committee meeting in Sandwich. Nearly got lost in the dark, but the full moon helped, and I found where I was going, eventually.

Meeting was good and lively. We have a group that’s active, rather than passive. We want to get things done, not talk about doing them some day.

But I’ve got a long list of things to get done!

Home, baked spice cupcakes for tonight. Fell into bed, exhausted.

Up early this morning, yoga, worked on a short story. Headed out to Wheldon Library to work, then have some errands to run, then back home to frost cupcakes and head out to the NMLC party.

Picked up a book I hoped would be an entertaining mystery, but it was dull and badly written, so back it goes. Don’t have the time to waste on badly written books unless I’m being paid to read them.

Started reading Kathryn Hughes’s biography of George Eliot. Very interesting, and makes me eager to get going reading and re-reading, in some cases, her work.

Off to work.

Devon

Wed. Jan. 16, 2013: Rain and webinars and work

Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Waxing Moon
Jupiter Retrograde
Rainy and cold

Yes, Jupiter’s been retrograde for a good, long while now, but I’d hoped if I ignored it . . .didn’t work! 😉

I like the rain, though — I like being all warm and cozy inside and hearing it patter out there. I LIKE variations in weather! 😉

Got some decent work done yesterday, got out a few pitches, worked with students, got out the next of the Topic Workbooks up on Smashwords:

The Series Bible: Creation and Maintenance

It’s a great little book with ways to set up a series bible to track details, arcs, setting, clothing, furniture, quirks in the series, so that if there’s a deviation, it’s a choice rather than a mistake. I hope you enjoy it!

I also added one more workshop for February, again a short one, running Feb. 11-14: “Journal into Fiction”. It deals with different types of journals, and how to transform entries into viable fiction. It also has tips on keeping a travel diary with an eye to mining it for stories, articles, and essays in the future. Details and registration here, under the information for the Graveyard of Abandoned Projects.

Both February workshops are at the beginning of the month, because I’m going into rehearsal for the new play and that will be my life for most of February and into March. I’m waiting to find out the date the venue is booked, because that’s what I will work backwards from.

Dropped off some books at the Centerville Library, and picked up some books at the Osterville Library. Read Sheila Bender’s KEEPING A JOURNAL YOU LOVE, which was interesting, and some of the writers quoted make me want to read them! Now reading Nancy Slonim Aronie’s WRITING FROM THE HEART — good info and encouragement for those in the early stages of their creative exploration, although she advocates writing in the present tense, and there’s nothing that gets me to put down a book faster than an author using the present tense. To me, it’s not a sign of immediacy in the work — it’s the author calling attention to himself, a twee “look at ME!” rather than letting me enter the character’s skin. I can take it in non-fiction and essay, but in fiction — just makes me want to throw the book across the room. I agree with a lot of Aronie’s suggestions, but this is one where I respectfully disagree!

I’m always reading new-to-me books about writing, to see what’s useful to add to the list for students.

I’ve got to get some work done on the play this morning, and work with students this afternoon. At 11 AM, I’m attending a webinar that sounds pretty interesting, about marketing strategies. So I need to clear everything possible off my desk before that.

Spent some time with both my Cosmology and Astronomy homework — amazing how much the greenhouse effect comes up in Astronomy class!

I’m coughing and have a scratchy throat — will use one of my herbal remedies, but I’ve been feeling so run down the last couple of weeks, I hope I’m not tipping into full sick.

Devon