Back to the unreal world

Today's Mood: Snarky (compliments of Robyn) Today's Music: Maroon 5--Kiwi. Today's Writing: Worked on a chart that will help me write the rest of IFFY. Today's Quote:

You want to write? Write. Don't wait for the muse. Write. Just plant your butt in a chair and write. - James V. Smith Jr. The Writer's Little Helper.

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The week is ending, and tomorrow we are all heading back to our many other roles and responsibilities. I will put on my outfit as mother, and wife, and daughter, and sister, and friend, and housekeeper.... You get the idea. At home I'm not just a writer. But--emphasis here--I am still a writer. Deep down, at the core, where no one can remove it. I am sticking with my get up early and write schedule. I will meet with my small groups, I will blog to you all, and I will write.

Tonight the lake is a mix of rough and smooth, gray and silver. The sky still holds the faint hint of pink; the green hills are shades of blue and purple. I know there are people down by the fire already, but I hate to give up this last little bit of time, so I sit writing while Robyn reads bits of wisdom from a writing book, discussing titles with Carol, who is cooking sausage and biscuits. Try to describe what that smells like! Ah, I'll miss this--but it is never completely gone because I carry my writing with me. And this, and you, are all part of my writing.

Hope you all have a smooth re-entry.

Feels like a Monday

Today's Mood: Tired. Today's Music: The Verve Pipe. Today's Writing: working on chapter 3 of IFFY--except it really might be chapter 2. I got thinking that what I am writing really fits better in ch. 2. Today's Quote:

"Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." Wernher von Braun

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I'm looking forward to going to the winter conference at Khardomah Lodge. To have a few whole days to write is like a dream at this point--and no, not a nightmare, a good dream. I have been so tired that my morning writing session gets started slow. I'm still writing, and am always amazed how much a few sentences can pile up. But to really sink into the story and the characters, it helps to have a bigger chunk of time.

I have started to carry a notebook around with me so that I can jot down ideas or snippets of scenes or dialog as they come to me. I don't know if I'll actually use some of the stuff--but it helps keep the story and the characters alive and talking in my head.

It has been fun reading the blogs of other writers. First off, I find that I'm not all that different from other writers. Second, I find that everyone writes in vastly different ways. But most of all, it gives me a boost when I just don't feel like writing. Look, Sarah, so-and-so didn't feel like writing but she did anyway and so you can too. That kind of thing.

Hope to hear from some of you. Are you writing? Doing basic research? (I must do that a lot since I often don't know what I'm doing--this is in reference to today's quote) Seen any good movies lately? I heard about the Oscars but have to admit I didn't watch--our cable went out partway through anyway.

Post-Submission Depression

Today's Mood: Strangely let down. Music: n.a. Writing: Article for Inklings about this blog. Quote:

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an
illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it. -David Sedaris

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Saturday morning I mailed out my manuscript to the Delacorte Press Contest for a First YA Novel. I should have been dancing. After all, I had spent the last three days in a writing induced coma. Grandpa and Nana had the kids, so I wrote non-stop, either skipping meals or eating leftover lasagna (it was an Italian Christmas on the Sirianni side) at my computer.

But instead of the expected elation, I felt (and still feel--although now it may be the ugh weather) strangely let down. The day was already Saturday--almost the last day of 2006. Things were growing in my refrigerator. The piles of laundry almost obscurred my desk (which is conveniently located between the cat literboxes and the washer and dryer). The children wanted my attention when I got them home--and needed to be fed meals, and bathed, and have their fights referred so that no one got bit or squeezed. It all seemed... anticlimactic.

Now, however, as I sit writing this (the laundry washed, the moldy items thrown out, the children quiet--which probably means a big mess is forming somewhere) I realize that this is the normal way of things. I labored and delivered, but that's not the end. The book (kind of like a child sent off to college) will come back to me (one way or another--although I'm hoping it's in a positive We want to publish this way!) and in the meantime, another story has been growing in me, waiting for the right time to be born. It's getting close, I've already been feeling a few twinges--names, descriptions, a few scenes....

So, as the end of the year rapidly approaches, I make the resolution to accept the labor of writing as on-going. I will never be done. I look forward to another year of writing (even more than in 2006--if I can manage to get out of bed on time!), and submitting, and marketing. Best of all, I go into the new year with a fresh reminder of how wonderful it is to be part of such a great writing community. Thank you so much to all the Peninsula Writers who have labored alongside me, giving me advice, encouragement, and support.

Keep writing!