Wishing all of you peace and joy whatever holidays you celebrate. I’m in a cabin in my Christmas pajamas enjoying the fire in the fireplace. Richard has gone out to get coffee.
Tomorrow the festivities will be over and we will drive the seven hours back to Missouri, and there will be work to do. But I will carry with me the feeling of comfort in this moment.
Sleepy Sunday — and boy, do I need it! I spent the better part of the week running from here to there, with a long train ride taking longer than expected, no time to compress before the semester started, and with two computers (home and work) to be repaired, I got through that admirably.
As I sit here in front of my new computer with horribly coffee that we ourselves did not roast, I think the secret to my calm about writing lately has three sources:
Driving myself, I’ve noticed, doesn’t get me any closer to success, but it does make me grumpy. But at the same time, I can’t let it go completely.
In a trance last night, my mind told me to live as if I’ve already been published.
That’s an interesting concept. My rational self wonders what it really means, though.
There are ways in which I can’t live as if I’ve already been published. For example, I can’t show off my writing to my friends. I can’t plan a book publishing party or a book tour. I can’t try to sell the nonexistent book at writers’ or readers’ conferences.
So what does living as if I’ve already been published mean? I can take the pressure off myself; I don’t have to prove anything. I don’t have to believe myself inferior to those authors who have published books. Technically, I am an author, having published a few professional articles in my field, one opinion piece in the local newspaper, several personal essays for progressive religion publications, one short story and one flash fiction. So I can call myself an author even if I haven’t published a book.
I don’t have to prove anything. I’m already published. I’ll keep trying to publish a book, but I don’t have to anymore. I’ve accomplished my original goal.
Sunday morning at Mozingo Lake. I’m sitting on the couch swathed in blankets in front of the fire, recovering from my decision to turn the heater down for the night. The main room temperature was 57 degrees this morning; the bedroom, without its own heat, probably hit the low fifties. So I’m now pampered on the couch while Richard makes hot chocolate.
I’ve decided to do one more editing pass of Whose Hearts are Mountains, suspecting that I concentrated too much on the “was is where have had has” and not enough on other aspects that need smoothing out. And I have one more novel that needs editing after that.
I’m postponing writing another novel, and I know it.
Like I said, I have an idea for a new novel that I’ve been sitting on for a while. The name of the novel is (tentatively) God’s Seeds; I’ve talked about it in these pages. It might help me to do what I usually do when I write — pay attention to the relationships between characters. The themes come first, the plot I create in the outline, but in my books, the relationships between characters create the dialog and the unfolding of the story. The main relationship in this novel is between Baird Wilkens, a half-human Nephilim and Leah Inhofer, a young adult with a startling gift. The story is in the Archetype universe, taking place a year or so after the Apocalypse. (Note to readers — the Apocalypse doesn’t turn out like you think. Look up the origin of the word)
It’s just hard to write right now because of my failure to get something accepted. I’ve already fulfilled my goal of writing a novel several times over, so another novel isn’t a tantalizing new goal. I haven’t gotten published or even found an agent yet, and so that goal seems daunting enough that I’m becoming avoidant.
What do I need right now? A clear path — an idea of what to do next. Give up? (I don’t feel like I’d have closure if I did this.) Self-publish? (I’m still scared of landing into obscurity, and it wouldn’t feel like closure.) Keep plugging away? (Insanity is doing the same thing over and over with the same results). Pray? (I’ve been doing this. No answer, my friends. No answer.)
At this moment, I guess it doesn’t matter, because I’m parked in front of a warm fire in a pine-paneled cabin, Outside lies a snowy landscape and iced-over lake. All is fine.
I have been participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this April, pledging 60 hours to editing a book (which turns out to be all five) by the end of the month. I can only edit as much as my writing knowledge and my fallibility let me, and my husband and co-pilot looks at them afterward (more slowly than I do). I MAY HAVE TO PAY SOMEONE TO EDIT.
The fun part, though, is that I get to revisit some of my favorite people — the thoroughly modern psychologist Lilith (yes, that Lilith) and her consort, the fey Adam (yes, that Adam); Lilith’s father Luke, a 6000-year-old supporter of humanity and suspected Serpent in the Garden; Adam and Lilith’s daughter Angel, the iconoclastic creator of immortal cats; the practical botanist Jeanne and her younger and mystical lover Josh and their relationship with Gaia; Amarel, who was born on the point between human and Archetype, old and young, and male and female.
If you’ve read the previous paragraph, you will catch some of the issues that may prevent me from getting published — subverting the Garden of Eden to find a different message; a young transgender individual (who will fall in love); an exploration of No One True Religion; an older plump woman in a relationship with a much younger man.
Other issues stay hidden: a battle plan without bloodshed; corporate plots to bury opposition; liberals that act in opposition to their morals; no vampires, werewolves, or over-the-top sex scenes.
I worry that this isn’t “marketable”, because it’s not urban fantasy, romance, or sword and sorcery. It’s not what the Sad/Rabid/Dead Puppies want to see. I write about the Peaceable Kingdom and our failures in getting there. If you know of someone who will publish this (not self-publishing yet) let me know.
Words Like Me 