We’re fighting the doldrums here in the word-mines this week, trying to bully my work ethic into something resembling its normal state after house-guests, cons and the furious rush of getting a new book into existence. Such lapses are not unexpected, but they are unacceptable, and so I’ve deployed the Spokesbear into his advisory position […]
And lo, I am back. Going to buy groceries, then get some writing done (Note the new project du-jour in the Metrics below). ________________________________________________ Current Writing Metrics Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 0 New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30 Rejections in 2010: 19/100 Claw Word Count (Finish Date: 15th November)
And last night there was Write-club with the inimitable Angela Slatter and Ben Francisco, whereupon many words were written and we ate our body-weight in sugar. I was also mocked (albeit politely and deservedly) for my insane approach to rewriting, for I have real trouble letting go of a scene when I know that *something […]
And rejection 16 for the year arrived in my inbox this morning, which means there’s an outside chance that I may hit 20 rejections before the end of August. I like those numbers, . They mean things are starting to pick a bit on the writing front, especially since eleven of this year’s rejections have arrived […]
And so I have hit the point where I need to tackle that debacle that is my writing desk, which has been looking like this since I got back from my cat-sitting adventure: The irony of this is that I rarely spend much time writing at said desk, even when it is cleared off. I […]
Yesterday I sat down with the Spokesbear, a bunch of e-mail, my copy of Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife, and a notepad to construct my to-do list for the rest of the year. It’s a habit I fell into a few years back (well, sans the Booklife part, but I suspect I’ll be rereading it often in […]
Act One: Yesterday’s Short Story Idea Peter sits at Fritz the Laptop, planning his writing time for the day. WIP: Oooo, I haz a title. Peter: Go away, I’m meant to be working on my novel right now. WIP: “The Unicorns of Suffragette Three” Peter: … Peter: No. I will not be lured. Aroynt. WIP: […]
This phrase has been running through my head for two days now, often borrowing David Bowie’s voice and intonation from a bit in Labyrinth where he says something very similar. It just sits there, repeated over and over, refusing to go away. This doesn’t become dangerous until I start listening to Suffragette City and pondering […]
The tenth rejection of the year came in this morning. After doing some quick research and resending the story, I went in to update my submission tracker (hint number one for writers: always update your submission tracker. Yes, right now). Then I spent about an hour making this face at the computer: Afterwards I went […]
Today I’m having a running conversation with my brain where I say “time to work now, buddy” and the brain says “dude, you’ve taken industrial strength antihistamines, why don’t you just sod off and let me sleep, yeah?” Fortunately I once spent three or four years living with a girlfriend who had cats, so I […]
And lo, the edits are sent back to the editor and the novella once titled Cold Cases is going through the various transmogrifications it goes through to become a book titled Bleed instead. Various things contribute to the feeling of done-ness – seeing concept sketches for the cover art, finally settling on the new title, […]
I’ve been writing a sequel to Horn, one way or another, since February 6 of 2009. I suspect I’d started even earlier than that with ideas scribbled down in notebooks and such, but Feb 6 is the first time it migrated to a computer file that’s usually the start of my writing process. Since then […]
