Friday, August 27, 2010

Project

Oh yes. My, my yes.
Thank you to the brilliant Levni Yilmaz for summing it all up, and to Patrick Rothfuss for posting it, and Stephanie Perkins for sending me the link. That is a lovely chain of brilliant: Levni Yilmaz, and two of my favorite writers, Patrick Rothfuss and Stephanie Perkins ;-)

By the way, Pat had a FABULOUS post on revision lately, in which he tries to explain, at the request of a non-writer, just what exactly it is we writers DO when we are "revising." So good. So so good. As much of a pain as revising can be, I am YEARNING to be there. There is little that I can think of (in the realm of work, that is) as pleasurable as sitting down with a big fat freshly printed manuscript, a new pack of post-its, and a good pen. Oh, the love, the love. And I am nearly there. Salty tears of joy, my friends, are soon to be streaming down my face. But now, I am still something like the above video.

Yesterday was not the most productive of days. It was more of a getting lost in my own storytelling day, trying to get some things to come together just right and feel like they happened that way inevitably, elegantly, like nothing else could possibly have happened but that. (That is the trick, because, you know, at any moment in writing a story, literally anything could happen, and choosing the thing that does happen and making it seem REAL, that is a big part of this gig. So. I am still working this particular thing out. I'm getting it. Yesterday it felt kind of like I had just dropped a handful of pickup sticks and was staring at them in dismay, knowing I needed to get down on my knees and start gathering them up again, but, you know, not wanting to. You just have to do it.)

Anyway. What should I NOT be doing?
a) watching videos.
b) blogging videos.

(Thanks a lot, Steph. No really: thanks. That was awesome. Steph, by the way, is blogging every day right now, which is not easy. Go cheer her on!)

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Upside-Downside

Upside:

A really solid writing day! The end of the book so close I can taste it. A self high-five for a bad-assitude at the close of a chapter. Yay!

As a bonus, baby falls asleep in car on the way home from parents', who have babysat and fed us so I could squeeze in another precious writing hour. I have it made, I think: sleeping baby at 7:30, without having to even try.

Ahem.

Downside:

Baby wakes up and stays up. Resists all tricks and efforts and sleep-induction. Husband not home. Baby wide awake. Book not getting finished.

More coffee is consumed against the certainty of a post-midnight workday extension.

Baby still awake at 10 pm; husband still not home to take over. I decide I might as well put the dishes away while baby plays. Something catches my eye just as I'm sliding a bowl into a stack of heirloom Italian ceramics on a tiptoe shelf. I drop the stack, terrify the baby, and break almost every dish. (Mom, if you're reading this, breathe.)

Comfort scared baby, who decides it's high time to fall asleep. About five-minutes post-disaster. Of course. Husband returns home two minutes after that, finds the cataclysm, wonders what happened.

Razzle fratzen.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

hello!

Hi! I miss you, blog people! I am living in the shadow of a deadline right now (eeeep!) but I will return. Possibly very soon. Likely very soon. Certainly very soon.

Cheers!

Monday, August 09, 2010

Happy Birthday, Clementine Pie!

One year ago today:
And now:

We love you so much, our little pie. Thank you for a beautiful year, and many more to come.

We never knew that babies were so

a) easy
b) fun

Really and truly. At least, you are.

(More later. xo)

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Harried check-in

Blog? I have a blog? Oh yeah :-) Little check-in here. I have been writing away, and there's not much to say about that but things I've muttered in tweet-form, such as how the story stretches ahead of me, seeming to grow, the way the horizon recedes in dream sequences and you can keep running and running and never get there, ha ha. But I'm not discouraged. I'm totally moving through narrative, it's just that the more it develops, the more there is to write! Still on track for my deadline, though. Whew!

Also, Clementine turns one a week from yesterday! Wowza! Thinking how to celebrate it in some mild way, with a minimum of presents, and a small number of people so she doesn't get too shy or overwhelmed. I'm excited. I have plans for a trunk of "artifacts" I want to collect for her for each year of her life, starting with, this year: her tiniest first onesie and pair of hand-knit booties (with pictures of her wearing them). I want to get some kind of cool antique chest to keep it all in (each year in its own little box inside), but I may hold off on that because it is looking likely that Jim and Clementine and I will be heading to ... and exotic location ... in the next few months, an exotic location known for its shopping, I might add. Not that that appeals to me, ahem. It's not for sure; I haven't planned a trip overseas in quite a while. When you haven't done it in a long time, it gets to seeming really insurmountable and improbable, as if you could just ... fly away to, say, India, or North Africa. Like: who does that? But then you do it, and you see: it's easy! (Well, so long as you can afford the freaking airfare.) So I'm just going to say here: we are GOING. Definitely. To an exotic place that shall remain nameless. Within a few months.

Anyway, the trunk of "artifacts." Along with letters to her, to read when she's grown up. I think it could be lovely. If/when I manage it, I'll post photos, of course! Gift-wise for now, I'm not big on oodles of presents for wee ones, but we have gotten her one of her favorite books (Homemade Love, by Bell Hooks) that so far we've had on a kind of permanent loan from the library. (The library can finally get their book back!) and one paperback that has been destroyed by love, in a more durable hardcover edition (Duck on a Bike, by David Shannon). I suppose some sort of toy will also make an appearance, but that's probably all. Someone suggested: wrap up a couple of her favorite things. It's not like she knows, and there's something so dispiriting about watching young children rip open gifts and toss them aside, isn't there?

I think my teenage niece and her friends are going to play guitar for us and sing and do some Polynesian dances, so that will be fun!

Anyway, I am perched in my cafe now, and I am on the brink of a Major Thing Happening in the story, so sayonara, Mrs. Kackleman!