Conversations about the author–the characters being conceived almost as actors in a green room, let’s say–are not unknown in the writing world. (A thunderstorm just popped up on top of us. Blame all typos on my instinctive twitch when a close strike hits.) So here’s a conversation between characters from some of my stuff…all of Read More…
Tag: the writing life
Done
Well, probably. Sortakinda done. At 1:30 this afternoon, I made my final staggering plunge through the muck and mire to the finish line, having untangled various tangles and discovered yet more typos. I’d been up until 2:30 am Friday morning (NOT, mutter mutter, going out to photograph peak bluebonnets and plains nipple cactus, mutter mutter) Read More…
Fossils
In the previous post I blithely announced that I was finished, done, absolutely and finally done with the structural revisions. This morning, working on temporal nits (the book has day-by-day notation in some places, and Editor had found some of them to be either confusing or obviously wrong–fossils of earlier drafts), I found a great Read More…
Step One + Snippet
Saturday, April 2, I finished the structural parts of the revisions. Now I’m going over the other comments. Stuff has been taken out. Stuff taken out was partly at the request of Editor and partly my initiative, as the changes in structure up to that point made the stuff taken out less organic to the Read More…
Writer Self-Care, Part One
A recent discussion online on self-care for scientists in academia (@realscientists and #AcademicSelfCare on Twitter) prompted this post. Writers–that is, fiction and nonfiction freelance writers–often have mental/emotional/physical problems that can be helped–if not entirely prevented or cured–by some judicious self-care. But we can forget that when deadlines are knocking on the door (loudly) or the Read More…
This Writer’s Saturday
I stayed up until after midnight Friday, working on the rewrites, and then was later than usual getting up today. More work on rewrites today, now working front to back to shape toward the new ending. In amongst the computer sessions came the other stuff. As soon as the light was bright enough picked up Read More…
Whirlwinds…
Working on the rewrite of Cold Welcome. On Monday, I sent Editor the latest draft of the new ending, and in light of Editor’s comments worked on it some more, then started in on front-to-back run (actually crawl!) through combining her original letter, the marked up manuscript line edits, and the changes that would be Read More…
Progress Report
The new ending that used to be somewhere else entirely has been grafted onto the old one, and though it looks a little strange now (“What is that crocodile head doing on that sheep?” the observer might ask) it’s all coming together. Once I saw the legs off the sheep, stretch it lengthways, paint the Read More…
Hardware
Back when I was young (and dinosaurs roamed the earth) writers used very limited hardware. A pencil and some paper. A pen and some paper. Both writing instruments had been somewhere improved since earlier times–there were fountain pens, so you didn’t have to dip and write a few words and then dip again, and the Read More…
The List
Every construction project comes with a list of remaining things to do before the owner signs off on it…this one too. Getting the browser tab to show anything is…being difficult. Some interior links are being constructed (separate issue.) And larger on my list than this are the book revisions, so I’m signing off for awhile. Read More…