If you have a cat, you can sympathize. Too funny. What is with cats, anyway? They want attention, attention, attention. And then they pass out when you're at your wits end and ready to scream. Or, better yet, when you're trying to sleep, they wake you up. They aren't happy until you get out of bed, and then they curl up and go to sleep right in front of you.
This is a cool video. This guy is talented. 🙂 Enjoy.
There comes a point, with every book, when you have to know when to quit. Not quit the book, but quit fixing the book. Quit trying to make it fit an ever-changing vision. When is that point?
Damn if I know. This is where I am today, sitting here after a painful day of trying to revise (the contest winner, no less) and wondering if I've totally gone off the mark. Do I have enough suspense? Does the dead body show up too late? Is the threat to the characters too simple? Not scary enough? Is this book category or single title? Is it too dark for category and not dark enough for S/T?
Truthfully, I do want to quit the book. I want to shove it in a drawer (or a computer file) and forget about it for the next several months. Can't do it, though. It hasn't seen the light of day, other than a couple of contests. I have a request for it, but I can't seem to let it go, can't seem to feel it's right enough to send out.
I have other stories in progress, so I'm not just working on this one. But I can't see this one anymore. I can't discern the pluses and minuses. It's all bad or it's all good. I can't see shades of gray.
So it's the end of the day and I'm tired. I haven't even thought about dinner (thank heavens for that new grocery store, right?). The hubby is on the couch, the cats are bugging me, and it's raining. Hard. Calgon, take me away….
Do you ever reach the stage where you can't see the book anymore? Where it's just a big pile of rubbish you need to sort out? What do you do?
Not, however, in that order. 🙂 Where would the drama be in that?
The not so good: got contest scores back this week that were polar opposites to say the least. One judge hated me, one loved me, and if I'd only had 5 more points difference, my entry would have went for a rejudge. Ah well.
The downright irritating: I redesigned my website. It's lovely, I think. But you're going to have to trust me on that because my webhost is arguing with my OS. The files are there, I can see them, but they are in a subdirectory instead of a main directory and I therefore have NO index file. No index file means no webpage, basically. I don't want to move my webhosting. It's a pain. And I don't want to reload the old pages (they still exist on my Windows notebook, so all is not lost). I want my new pages to work! Waaaahhh!
The good: I got a call last night that my entry won the 2007 Gotcha Contest in the Single Title Romantic Suspense category! Yay!!! News like that makes the pain of struggling through revisions disappear for a while. It's validation, for now. Tomorrow, the same book could get shot down again. But I'm going to enjoy this little high while it lasts. 🙂
Update: The new website is up here. There are a couple of issues I haven't fixed yet, but I'm working on it. Finally, however, it can be viewed. No idea what it looks like in Internet Explorer, so if it looks funny, let me know. 🙂
A new Publix opened yesterday about half a mile from my house. Talk about happy! The closest grocery store was approx. 5 miles away before. Not far, but when you just want to dash out and grab something you forgot for the recipe you're making, it's a bit of a pain to drive across town.
So what's the secret I have to confess? *sigh* I grow science experiments in my refrigerator. Not the pretty truth, but there it is. I tend to forget what's in there, and when things get shoved to the back, they just disappear off my radar screen. I also buy things I intend to use, but somehow I forget I bought them and they go bad waiting for me to remember they're there.
Awful, huh? I am a neat person, I keep a clean house, I wear clean laundry, I make the bed every day. But I can't manage to throw out food before it sprouts green fuzz. Or, worse, liquifies (hello veggies in the drawer).
It's time for a fridge party. The kind where I get the trash can and reach to the back of the fridge, wondering what manner of odd thing I'll pull out. And then I can go to the new Publix and buy new things. And hopefully remember they are inside the gleaming stainless box.
Now, totally off topic, but over at the Writing Playground yesterday, they had three fabulous and successful writers talk about their new paranormal anthology. What cropped up in the comments, however, was a discussion about process and self-doubt. Fabulous advice from Roxanne St. Clair, Allison Brennan, and Karin Tabke! Go read this post and the comments that follow.
Do you have any ugly secrets you'd like to confess? Or have you gotten any fabulous writing advice you want to share? Am I alone in my fridge neglect, or have you made green fuzz too?
Well, I finally got off my posterior and whipped my office into shape. It still needs some things, like a new filing cabinet, and I need to go through some stuff, but it's once again a welcoming space in which to sit at my desk and work. For months, I've been on the couch with my MacBook, while in my office languished a perfectly good iMac (with a much larger screen, duh).
We hung curtains, and swapped out an antique daybed for a couple of chairs. The daybed is gorgeous, but it's going to require a special mattress and I just haven't gotten around to locating one yet (3/4 size, in fact). My idea was to set it up with lots of pillows and make it a cozy place to sit and read (or nap). Maybe later. For now, it's nice to have chairs with a good lamp and a couple of pillows. If hubby wants to play guitar while I write, he can. If I want to read while he surfs, I can. Not that we don't have other rooms in the house, but it's nice to be together. 🙂
Is a welcoming creative space necessary? Probably not. In On Writing, Stephen King tells of buying a huge oak desk that dominated his office. Ultimately, he realized the desk was merely an extension of ego and served no purpose. So he downsized and made his space into something where his family could come and be with him. And then, when he was nearly killed by a distracted driver, he once again found himself writing in a small space reminiscent of the laundry room he'd written in before he made a lot of money.
So no, probably all you need to write is a private space somewhere and an active imagination. I kid myself with my desire for order and pretty curtains, but hey, it works for me and makes me feel professional. I've written at Starbucks, where all you need is a small table and an iPod, and I've written in bed. But I really like sitting at my desk. Thankfully, I can do that again without the clutter and odd desk placement to distract me (yes, this is the third position my desk has been in, the logical one from the start, but one I stubbornly resisted — and it's perfect).
(For a fun look at writer spaces, click here. Scroll down and click on the pics.)
What's your creative space like? Do you like order, or does it matter?
