Category: Writing

On my mind

Concerts:

Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers are coming to town. Not to be confused with Santa Claus coming to town, although both events could cause the same amount of frenzy around here.

 

Andrew likes the Jonas Brothers. Kyra likes/loves/reveres Hannah Montana/Mylie Cyrus (yes, the offspring of Billy Ray Cyrus for those of you not up on your pop princess factoids–and honestly, I don’t blame you).

 

I’m not worried about content. I know this will be a kid-friendly venue. I took Andrew to the American Idols concert a few years back (the Carrie Underwood/Bo Bice year) and he had fun. It was good, clean fun.

 

The problem: it is also good, clean, LOUD fun. Kyra has very sensitive hearing, which I don’t want to damage. But I did a massive Google search on earplugs and that might be the answer. For all of us, since I’m not wild about the whole head ringing, slightly punch-drunk feeling I have after concerts.

 

Clearly, this is an all or nothing deal. I either take them both, or we don’t go at all. Besides, Kyra already has a concert outfit: “rock star” jeans, a Hannah Montana t-shirt, and hot pink cowboy boots.

 

Revisions:

These are definitely on my mind. Saturday I was, quite honestly, a little scared. It was silly really, because if we make a change and it doesn’t work, we can change it back or do something different.

 

Darcy and I chatted (via IM) on Sunday and that helped. Well, when we weren’t chatting about other things and I wasn’t fielding questions from Kyra (who spent part of that time on my lap–yay wireless keyboard), such as:

  • Do raccoons pee? (Yes.)

  • Does Darcy have a baby in her tummy? (No.)

We went to the dentist yesterday, so Darcy can anticipate questions related to her dental hygiene. (D., you’ve been warned.)

 

One thing I’ve really been thinking about is back story and the when, where, why, how of it. If you’ve read any fiction writing books, spent time near any fiction writing workshop, you’ve heard the conventional wisdom: delete/delay back story.

 

Conventional wisdom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

 

Our (!) agent has asked us to not only move some back story closer to the start (!) of the novel, but add some in as well. I know. Color me surprised. But I’m starting to see the real possibilities in this. Anyway, by Sunday evening I was in that writing mode where you rub your hands together and cackle gleefully in delight. Kind of scary for those around you, but them’s the breaks.

Revision Weekend

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book? It took me years to write, will you take a look?  ~Lennon and McCartney

We have perfect revision weather here. Rain, sprinkles, drizzle for the past twenty four hours or so. The kids have been pretty understanding about the whole Mommy working on her book thing.

Kyra played with a beading set for a while. She’d remove a bead, set it on the table, and a moment later, the bead would roll off the table. Then I’d get up (not that I was looking for an excuse to procrastinate) and get the bead. At last I told her to set the beads in the lid, which has a little lip around it.

“Oh, Mommy,” she said. “You’re a genie-us!”

Acknowledged at last.

Andrew’s been a roller coaster tycoon. He finally lost the distinction for “most disappointing amusement park” and earned instead “most beautiful” park. He was crushed there for a while. We also have a deal going that involves room cleaning, but we haven’t made much progress on that.

I’m working in Vista and Word 2007, which adds an extra layer of excitement to the process. I admit to liking the gadget sidebar. I’m not wild about some of the things Windows insists on doing for me that I used to do on my own. Or renaming well-known functions. Add software? Now it’s “hidden” under “Programs and Features.”

Word 2007 has a completely different look. I’m still undecided about it. But there is one thing I like. The status bar now displays your word count, like so:

wordcount.jpg 

Obsession — It’s seldom pretty 

Which leads me to wonder: how many word-count obsessed people are there?  

The day after

I did actually use a fork today to eat my lunch. Improvement all around.

 

I do confess I was pretty taken aback by the email from the our (!) agent. I anticipated a quiet evening of setting up a new computer. (Andrew gets my old one; I get to be the family Vista beta tester.)

 

I was taken aback because the first email on my new computer was from the our (!) agent.

It was downhill after that. Because clearly, I did not:

  • Call my own mother (!)

  • Call my sister (!)

  • Email Marianne (!)

I. Am. Remiss. Forgive me. Last night was swimming and football. Andrew has words of  wisdom on the importance of wearing a cup, but I’ll save those for later.

 

Yesterday, I discovered a SASE with a rejection in it in the mailbox. I found this highly entertaining.

 

Today, I found out one of my tech writing haikus made the short list in the Haiku Buckaroo contest.

 

Marianne and Judy have been working very hard on their new review site: The Long and the Short of It. They have contests and prizes and a grand opening. Visit their sites for more information.

Super secret double probation hotdish project

The hotdish, she has an advocate.

For those of you who haven’t been playing along at home–and for those who have, I can be cryptic–I’ve been referring to a “secret” project, code name: hotdish, pretty much all summer long.

And now, I can tell all.

Okay, not really. I can tell some.

The hotdish is actually a revision of The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading, a book I wrote, revised, and nearly shelved.

It was clear from agent feedback I received earlier this year, that for the book to be marketable, it needed to be in first person. I was ready to shelve it. According to Darcy, all it needed was a little gloss and glitter, and could she give it a shot putting it into first person.  

She did all the grunt work of putting it into first person. To make a long story short, I went back through for a final edit, and after getting over the initial weirdness of my story in a different voice, something magical happened.

It wasn’t my story. It wasn’t Darcy’s. Somehow, we’d managed to capture Bethany’s story. When I read it now, I don’t know what she wrote and what I wrote anymore.  

And really, it’s been our book all along. She urged me to write it in the first place. She read the craptacular first draft (and it was beyond craptacular), offered advice, a shoulder to cry on, and all the rest. That we’re now writing partners makes total sense.

 

Yesterday, we received an email from a NYC agent wanting to represent the book. At some point, I’m sure I’ll shout her name from the rooftops, but for now, I’m being discreet. We need to do some revisions. This is only one step in the entire process, although, admittedly, it is a pretty big step.

 

I posted to the Noodler email loop that I was weirdly calm. I am. Sort of. Of course, at lunch, I tried to eat my salad with a spoon. And I’m both calm and jittery, like I’m regretting chasing that venti latte with a Red Bull.

 

I’ll post more on our query stats later this week, because they’re interesting (well, if you’re a writer, they might be). But for now, I’m brainstorming new spicies (Kyra’s word for spices) for the hotdish.

Impatience and the writer

Sometimes it takes writing to figure out what you are writing about and then you must go back and start all over again.

My instructor for the children’s writing class said this the other day (I’m paraphrasing slightly).

I have a friend (no, this isn’t me in the guise of friend–for real) who claims to hate writing “under the burden of previously written scenes.” This person is a good writer (but look at how deftly I avoid revealing gender). But I’ve never seen this person (more gender-avoiding waltzing) do more than a rough draft of a novel. In a strange paradox, this person hates “wasted scenes” but has walked away from (by my count) four novels.

Oh, and I’m not talking about anyone who reads this blog. If you thought “That’s me!”

You. Thought. Wrong.

But I’ve been thinking about this. My instructor referred to it as impatience. When you write, it simply doesn’t all come at once. I suppose it could, for some people. I know my brain can only handle so much at a time. When I started the revisions for my current project, I was all about voice. So much so, I forgot about structure. Structure flew out the window, ran down the street, and I’m still calling her name, trying to get her back.

Actually, this week, I’m all about structure. You might say the Hard-looking, Eye-looking is courtin’ structure.

Let’s hope she’ll want to be my steady gal.

Hard looking eye looker

Last night, I was praising the kids for swimming so hard at their lessons. Andrew will be moving up a level, yet again, and Kyra is oh-so close but her progress has been tremendous this session.

We made our standard joke of working hard/hardly working (cuz you know, it never gets old). Then Kyra insisted I work hard at swim lessons too. She groped for words to describe exactly what it is I do there and came up with:

Hard looking eye looker.

What I think she means is I watch their lessons closely with, of course, my eye. I love the sound of it, though. Sounds like something from the Old West (Hollywood version).

“Sure, I know the Hard Looking Eye Looker,” the barkeep said, polishing a whiskey glass with a bit of homespun. “Lives in the caves up behind the old abandon gold mines. Lives all by her lonesome, too, expect fer Pete, the one-eyed parrot. Mean sommabitch. Nearly took out young Nat’s eye last week. Jealous, you know. You best be travelin’ some other direction.”

And for writers, filed under the: if you only read one blog post on writing today, read this one from Stef’s (almost) Daily Dish. I didn’t realize that Stef was dishing it out almost daily lately either. I must get out more. Like Trish Milburn who sold a while back, Stef is another Noodler who sets the gold standard as far as persistence goes.

You might even say she’s a hard looking eye looker.

Tech Writer Haiku

I found Leslie’s Haiku Buckaroo Contest! via Jen. I wrote these a while back, but you know, there just isn’t a market for tech writer haiku. I can’t imagine why.

 

Technical Writer Haiku

 

 Code cutoff, rejoice
But wait! It will not install
Tears drench your keyboard

 * * * 

There will be changes
Content, timeframe, uncertain
Revisions endless 

* * * 

New program feature
Two Subject Matter Experts
The delay is long 

* * * 

Release tomorrow
“We forgot to tell you . . .”
Endless night of words 

* * * 

Documentation
Seven hundred pages
A tech writer weeps