-
day 4 of Writing Month in the bag. 911 words added to the first draft of my second novel…Now to go spend some time working on a blurb for book 1 so I can start querying…
-
Today’s edition of Sir Dingus Vs. The Couch has a clear winner.
Sir Dingus has succumbed to the overwhelming power of a move I call: The Trench.
-
Finished reading: No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. š
-
Day 3 of Writing Month in the bag with 905 words.
I may not be cruising, but I’m right on target and that’s just fine by me right now. I’m writing again, that’s what matters the most to me.
-
Seriously, dude? He’s stuck, and he 100% did this to himself. Do I need to explain how he earned the nickname Sir Dingus?
-
I can’t tell if these constitute a win for Rufus or the Couch in the ongoing saga of Sir Dingus vs. The Sofa.
-
Ready to get stuck into Writing Month (a last-minute, yet quite well done, alternative to NaNoWriMo). I’ve set a goal of 25,000 words as I have a lot of other draws on my limited focus at the moment (job hunt, freelance work, querying agents for my first book).
-
A line I’m particularly fond of from my manuscript:
“It even smelled beige, sort of a damp mix of whiteboard cleaner and boredom.”
-
I don’t even know anymore.
The battle of Sir Dingus vs the Couch continues.
-
Currently reading: No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. š
-
Finished reading: The Way of Zen by Watts, Alan š
-
Currently reading: Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman š
-
My novel is back from the beta readers. That means I’m one final read-through away from being ready to start querying agents and bringing book 1 of From the Case Files of an Intuitive Investigator (tentative subtitle) to life.
GULP.
-
I see the battle between Dingus and Sofa is heating back up.
-
Offered without comment. Or caption.
-
Truth in advertising.
-
Sunday morning tree time. Desperately needed that.
Gate is at Talus Rocks on Tiger Mountain. Middle photo is my friend Brian and his ‘trail dog’, Arlo. Last one is a dry waterfall on West Tiger, near the rocks.
-
Sometimes writers just canāt, you know, write
Heads up: not an upbeat, feel-good piece. Not terrifying, either. Just life.
Iāve been absent. Again. From all my writing projects.
Itās been a slog of a year since being caught up in a round of tech layoffs (the company has gone on to a total of 5 rounds of them, so Iām not expecting them to be around much longer) last October. And when things get sloggy, my anxiety kicks up and invites depression along for the ride.
Then, just for funsies, I got hit by that car in March. Which reignited old back injuries along with creating some all new ones.
So now my empathetic Cattle Dog thinks he needs to protect me from, you know, the poodle down the alley so he yanks on my janky back. Now the anxiety flares up, reinforcing his opinion that I need protectionā¦and you can see how this cycle isnāt going anywhere good.
Shockingly, not really the headspace one would prefer when conducting revisions on ones first novel. Or drafting a new short story for a prompt contest. Or writing an essay for the newsletter you keep swearing youāre going to get off the ground before it flounders around pitifully and ultimately dies like the last one.
And now to bring you all back from the edge of the pit Iāve been resting comfortably on, I have a new therapist Iām seeing early next week. My sister is helping me find, and pay for, a trainer to work with Rufus (aka Sir Dingus McSplootypants). And I had an interview this afternoon that went rather well (at least I think it did, see above comments about headspace, etcā¦). It turns out I worked with the hiring manager at a previous gig, so she already knows my work, and working style.
Anyway, fingers crossed (and eyes, actually, but Iāve already got a new prescription for that) Iāll be feeling more like writing again in the near future.
Thanks for reading.
-
I was looking over my reading for this year (I use Storygraph for tracking) and was initially disappointed in my total. Then I realized that I’ve also read my book-in-progress ~6 times while revising. Adding that to the number in Storygraph brings me to a number I like much better (26-ish)!
-
One of *those days, I see.
-
Triggered by a recent question from @KimberlyHirsh and the great responses she got, I thought I’d dig out my notebook covers for a group portrait.
From bottom to top:
Rustico (defunct)
Little Mountain Bindery A5 tri-fold
-
Whew.
I just finished revisions, round…something, on my first novel!
I’ve alerted my beta readers and a handful of sensitivity readers (one of my characters decided she was trans, so I want to be sure I handled it OK).
Now I wait.
Then I start compiling a list of potential agents.
GULP šµāš«
-
Currently reading: The Way of Zen by Watts, Alan š
-
Watching QI and they’re discussing colonialism. Then this line:
“Give us your land and we’ll give you an itch in an uncomfortable place.”
-
Write What You Knowā¦until, you know, you donāt know anymore.
Isnāt that what they always say? Like it somehow helps get past the writerās block. Or the imposter syndrome. Or the aching desire for someone, anyone to acknowledge that you sit in a non-ergonomic chair day after day, throwing words into the void.
Where was I? Right, writing what you know.
Iām wondering if you can take this too far? At least too far to still call the resulting narrative fiction. At what point does what you know become what you do? Or did? Or are?
Let me back up.
Iām writing a novel. I started drafting back in November ā22, had my first complete draft a year later, and now Iām working on a final round of revisions before I start querying agents. That means Iāll have what is to me a final draft that Iāll be sending out the first chapter of along with letters asking agents if theyād like to represent me and my nascent authorial career.
I love how that sounds, āauthorial career.ā Anyway.
My protagonist is a middle-age Seattleite, who happens to have a salt-and-pepper beard, bald/shaved head, and be a few pounds (coughā¦coughā¦) overweight. Oh yeah, and he happens to be both an HSP and am Empath. Sound familiar? If you havenāt met me, heās me. His name might be Alex, not Jesse, but otherwise, heās me. I made my main character me.
Iām not the first author to do so, and Iām unlikely to be the last.
Our backstories differ, of course, I didnāt literally make his bio my bio, but in broad strokes we grew up similarly. We experienced similar issues around our sensitivities as young men, and neither figured out our status as Aces until nearly middle-age.
Whatās worrying me is thisāAt what point does writing what you know become the lazy option?
Iām about to start drafting the second book in what I hope will become a wildly successful series featuring said protagonist. Heās an intuitive investigator, using his innate sensitivitiesāslightly embellished for effect, of courseāto solve what I guess youād call cozy mystery-style cases for his clients. That means no murders, no gory discoveries, and no gratuitous sex scenes. The former because of my own sensitivities around even reading emotionally-charged stories, and the latter because of the above comment about us both being Ace.
I wouldnāt know where to begin writing a sex scene.
In this new draft, one of the characters seems to want to be a writer. So now Iām writing about myself, with extendedā¦powers(?). I mean, I canāt actually see energy trails like Alex. That would be awesome, though, right? And now heās going to take a case for a couple, one of whom is a writer.
Like me.
Whereās the line? At some point, surely my creativity will, I donāt know, branch out? Start including details that are pulled out of thin air, rather than out of my own archive?
Right?!
subscribe via RSS