I’m taking every Wednesday off for the month of May to push forward and finish my novel. I’m at 52,000 words out of a projected 75,000 so far. I’ve also started three short stories set in the same world to build up interest.
It’s always been about the writing for me. That’s half the reason I started this blog: To keep my web skills up, and to keep on writing. The Jblogging? Well, that just happened.
Trying to get back into the writing world is a difficult transition. Ten or fifteen years ago, I had a ton of contacts in the publishing world, from being a copy editor myself as well as being in a writers group and attending conventions, not to mention being a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop. I’ve got almost no contacts today. Well, except for Neil, whose online science fiction and fantasy magazine you should definitely be reading. I’ve been reading a host of writing blogs, doing research, playing catch-up, discovering that yes, copyediting now gets double the rates I used to get when I was one and no, I don’t think I’ll be using a freelance copy editor after all, not when I have a friend who is an editor and copy editor in her professional life and is offering to copyedit my novel. Since she also happens to have been a member of The Waverly Writers Workshop (that’s what we called ourselves; three guesses where we met in Manhattan), I think I’ll be taking her up on that offer. Now, a proofreader I’ll pay for. I have someone in mind.
Today was a lovely day. I got up knowing that while I had to keep an eye out for urgent projects from work, the day was mostly mine. After breakfast, I took the manuscript and a boatload of 4×6 index cards down to the dining room table and wrote out every chapter’s plot points, chapter by chapter, then set them along the table. I’m trying to make sure every chapter has something interesting as well as vital to the overall story. Of course, some things are less exciting than others. That’s how writing works. But I’m pretty happy with the balance so far.
Then I spent some time on The Outline Board, pulling off all the old index cards that I’ve already written up, and putting up the new plot points I created yesterday and today. Then I stared at the board for a while before I sat down to write. I thought I’d be writing the Halloween chapter. Nope, the muse wants what it wants, and it had me working elsewhere. Halloween is an important night. There’s a party, a break-in, a shooting, and an escape. Oh, and costumes and candy and dancing. That’s one chapter I didn’t have to worry about on the index cards.
Another thing I spent some time on was looking at new themes for the blog. We’re going to have a major makeover here. The writing is going to come first, but Yourish.com will remain. I’m not sure if I’ll be posting much about politics, but let’s face it–the JBlogosphere got very big since I was one of the founding members of it, and it doesn’t need me so much anymore. Which is not to say I’ll ever stop being a Zionist. Just that I probably won’t be blogging as much about Israel.
I know I still have a few thousand readers out there. You rarely say anything, but the hit counter keeps going up. I hope you stick around for a little while after the makeover. The snark won’t disappear. You’d have to have it surgically removed, and I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any Board-certified Snarkologists. But how cool would that look on a business card? “Dr. U. Ahole, Snarkologist.”
If you want to see where I’m getting much of my writing news, check out The Passive Voice. Passive Guy is a pretty smart cookie with a lot to say about the publishing world. He’s been an excellent springboard for me. And, of course, there’s a level of snarkiness from time to time.
It will never go away.