The Very Busy Caterpillar

I’m at the annual Association for Psychological Sciences conference in Washington, DC. It’s a huge, busy conference, but it’s also a huge, busy venue especially during Memorial Day weekend. And I want some writing time, and I want to go to the zoo, and the botanical garden (I’m saving the Mall for another administration) and I have homework to do.

I’m beginning to long for a staycation.

Honestly, my summers aren’t usually this busy. I still have to (religiously) schedule my one hour writing/editing daily just for the discipline.

But look at this presentation panel title!
“Tension, Conflict, and Paradox: The Science Behind Creativity”. Talk about dovetailing two interests — psychology and creativity!

Well, off to — well, one of the gazillion things that’s on my calendar.

Discipline in a time of busyness

I might write irregularly over the next few days, as I am traveling to a conference in Washington DC to present a poster. This is for my day job, being a professor of human services and the internship coordinator for the department.

This summer is proving busier than I had counted on. Evidence:

Richard and I have two moulage gigs this summer, one in August and one right around the corner on June 4-5th.
I have twenty interns to supervise; next week I’m spending an overnight in Kansas City to visit two or four of them.
The garden! It’s not quite done yet; I’ll be spending next Tuesday finalizing it.
The summer class I’m taking (Management of Disaster Mental Health, which is more interesting than I thought) rolls right along like a Mack truck, and I’m working hard to keep it from rolling over me.

Writing? Writing! I almost forgot about that! I will write any chance I get — if nothing else, I’ll write in the blog at least once.

It’s all about discipline. I am a writer because I keep the discipline to write. I write at least the half-hour a day it takes to maintain this blog, and hopefully at least an hour of writing/revising a day.

I notice myself improving, and that’s a good thing.

wheee! pain meds!

Yesterday’s plans went to hell fast.

I stopped at the dentist to have what I thought was a minor crown issue and came out with an extracted tooth. And really good pain meds.

The really good pain meds make work impossible. My reaction to pain meds is to stare at things (my gardening, my writing) and poke at it without actually accomplishing anything.

This morning I’m still a bit groggy and wondering what to do with myself. I finished my homework due today and am hoping to wake up enough to garden or write. Maybe a nap will help.

Rewriting another novel

I finished my rewrite of Apocalypse, and currently I don’t have enough distance from it to look at it objectively anymore, which is why it will go back to dev edit shortly.

So where does that leave me relative to writing? I can either start a new book, figure out what to do with the idea for Gods’ Seeds (I’m struggling with that — there’s so much I want to do that it could be two books, my usual problem) or I could look over the post dev edit on Gaia’s Hands and see if I can feel better about it.

I’ve decided to work on Gaia’s Hands. If (when?) I get Apocalypse published, Gaia’s Hands would be a prequel. As such, I’d like to get it polished while I have the time to and before I come up with any other bright ideas. Whose Hearts are Mountains, which still needs a developmental edit, would be the next novel after that.

Yes, I have a plan. All I need is for the stars to align so that I can actually get something published. If you pray, put in a good word for me.

Every which way

I’m sitting on my couch, before the day’s meetings and errands and editing (and no gardening as we’re on a flood warning with rain expected. My mind is going every which way:

So much to do these next couple days — meet students, prep for conference, plant stuff, write, prep for conference …

I am in a holding pattern for Making Things Happen. I don’t want to requery Prodigies until my dev editor has another shot at it (in June), I don’t know if I want to requery (this is now a word) Voyageurs at all (don’t know if it’s viable), can’t get re-written Apocalypse to the dev editor till June … when I send queries out, I get out of my funk because of this concept of possibility. I’m not really looking at any possibilities right now except for one big long shot.

I think I’m going to be rejected by TSA precheck. I don’t know why, unless it was those anti-war protests I participated in during the Gulf War or the guy I dated, equally long ago, whose father was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Or the fact that I’m a Quaker, or that I have a metal bar in my left leg that guarantees I’ll be patted down like a terrorist. The website says “Eligibility Determined” but does not give me a code number.

I’m pretty sure my last query out is going to be rejected. As I said, I shot big with that one.

I’m not feeling good about my writing lately. I hear this happens.

It’s just feeling like an unlucky day. My mood needs to be kicked in the butt, I’m sure, but not sure how to do that. The problem with feeling down is that feelings are so vivid that they take on the weight of truth.

In Praise of Dev Editing

I’m almost ready to send Apocalypse to dev edit again.

Almost.

That’s not saying it’s flawless, just that I will get to the point that I can’t find any flaws myself. That’s why I need editors — because they’re new eyes on my work. Because they can see things I don’t. Because they’ve read enough that they know what the shape of a novel looks like. Because I want to be read.

I am about at the place where I need to send Prodigies out for queries again, but my dev editor wants to work with me first to find a new angle.

So I prep and I wait till June, when she’s ready to work with me on my books again.

I’ve learned so much about myself and my writing since I found a developmental editor. Here’s to improvement!

My Brain is FULL!

I need to get back to regular journaling. It’s been tough lately, what with planting the garden (Asian vegetables! Weeding! Cherokee purple tomato and lots of basil!), editing Apocalypse to make my dev editor proud (and to be ready for another edit), taking my online class (with a 187-page reading for the first assignment), getting ready for professional conference travel, fielding emails from interns …

My brain has been quite full. And it’s summer! It’s not supposed to be this full!

It’s a good thing. I don’t like sitting still. I like making things happen. And I have time to do it. Do I have the energy? Not so sure, but …

I have edited Apocalypse down to 70k words. Not that I want it to have fewer words, but I did have to cut out things that meandered (and as this document had been written five-six years ago and squished together from two different novels and — you get it. I will try to add some back.

I go from feeling really good about the document to wallowing in despair. I wish I could get more words in it, but I (and my dev editor) would rather it be tight than verbose (and I excel at verbose, my friends.)

So today’s tasks: I’ve already written a response to Assignment #1 (#2 is due Thursday) and written this blog entry; other tasks include writing for a while (starting at 11) and a little planting (this evening).

Wheeeeeee!

Lack of Sleep

Bad things happen when I get only three hours of sleep.

I view life looking through the telescope backward, and the world is a tiny pinpoint surrounded by black. My body feels like it is wavering in space, like heat shimmers on the road. My brain gets overwhelmed by my ears ringing, and my emotions heat up for a confrontation.

That’s where I was yesterday, on a trip to Kansas City. I didn’t feel tired, or even exhausted — I simply didn’t feel anything inside my cocoon. My words were variations on “how dare you not see that we shouldn’t have come down here?”

Lack of sleep is a dangerous condition for me, because it kicks off hypomanic attacks, where I drag myself through life trying to accomplish everything, sleeping little while watching words and phrases put themselves together like train cars in a railyard. I will probably not be going there thanks to my medications and a twelve-hour nap last night. Still, I fear that place enough that I take care of myself and follow instructions.

This morning feels better — I overslept for an extra hour and I still feel groggy, but it’s time for me to wake up and write.

A Productive Day

I spent a productive day yesterday editing Apocalypse.

My task was to take away all the filler (of which there was quite a bit, because I wrote the originals about three years ago when I didn’t know as much as I do now) and to get rid of some of the gazillion points of view, because my dev editor said it’s not a good thing to follow that many characters, even in third person omniscient. So I guess third person omniscient isn’t that omniscient?

I’m not done yet. I need to ratchet up some of the suspense. I need to add back a couple things I took out. I need to see if I’m going to put back the Amarel/Batarel/Natalie subplot. (I’m not. No matter that it completely guts another novel I wrote. It isn’t a good turn of plot, although it made a good philosophical point.)

So I’ll be busy writing, in-between bringing the dead bat to Public Health and writing to my new teaching assistant.

The Flow Is Not Happening

So I made my summer schedule nice and neat — only to have to revise it already.

Rain, of course. A visit to the acute care clinic. Best intentions gone to hell.

I wonder if my schedule’s too strict. I wonder if it’s just me being reluctant to follow a schedule. At any rate, the flow is not happening.

I’m second-guessing my schedule just like I’m second-guessing my editing.

I’m editing the bulk of Apocalypse, trying to cut out what isn’t necessary, and I’m struggling between “burn it to the ground” and “I can’t kill my darlings!” Some good quality time writing should solve that quickly — or perhaps slowly. If I get the hang of what should stay and what should go, I should be done by June 1 because the story has good bones.

I guess the motto is to try for excellence and not perfection. Perfection has me chasing my tail and getting nothing done.

Flow doesn’t happen when I’m nitpicking details.