I woke up feeling especially melancholy—for no real reason. I feel like I’m waiting for something. Like I’m counting on lightning to strike, and the chances of that are one in a million. Yet I’m still looking up, hoping to see a flash, wondering why it hasn’t yet come. (Note: Actually the chances of being … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: July 2006
Outlined
I finished the outline for the YA assignment and emailed it to the editors an hour ago. “Finished” is a funny word. I could have worked on that outline all weekend. For weeks, really. It’s establishing a whole new cast of characters and although I know them better than I did some days ago I … Continue reading
Burned Again?
Maybe I should say singed again. About a month ago I had sent a query to an agent who had encouraged me—only she wanted to see a revised, and I wasn’t sure exactly how revised and how interested she’d be upon receiving it, if, theoretically, she ever did. I never heard back. So I did … Continue reading
How to Know When You’re Going Overboard
Your outline is nearing 30 pages (single-spaced!) and you still feel no closer to knowing the heart of your story than you did before. That instead of making a nice orderly list with bullet points as you have here, you have almost entire scenes sketched out, bits of dialogue, asides into outer space, name-dropping like … Continue reading
Body vs. Mind
Why is it that whenever I am working seriously toward a deadline (and in this case, multiple deadlines) my health falters? I don’t see what I’m doing differently except less TV and less sleep, but in reality not really that much less sleep. And then when I don’t feel good I am less inclined to … Continue reading
Oh, Oh, Oh
You’ll be disappointed in me. I am. I wasn’t able to finish the outline by this morning—my super-ambitious self-imposed deadline that I told the editors I’d meet because I always think I am capable of finishing things before I can… it left me in a ditch. It wasn’t even a matter of the “done” versus … Continue reading
The Novel in My Dreams
I keep dreaming about my adult novel, the one I’ve decided to send out to indie publishers but wanted to make a few character tweaks to before doing so. In the daytime I don’t have even a moment to think about that novel—with all these freelance writing assignments I said yes to, I’ve booked myself … Continue reading
