An Almost Perfect Day

When I made my new years resolutions for 2012, one of the things I wrote was that I wanted to start spending my day as a writer. That is to say, I want to treat this like a real job, and not do things during the work day that a boss wouldn’t approve of. That includes spending hours on Facebook, but it also means not doing laundry or working on my baby’s photo album, or spending three hours on the line with the f**king people at Wage Works to try to get our health insurance to work.

Well, the health insurance people win, because we need what they’ve got and they only answer their phones during business hours, but other than that HUGE time suck, I’m getting pretty good at keep my writing days focused on writing.

Today is a great example. I spent the first three hours of my day working on the novel. Sweet sweetness.

Then I finished up some work for a client, revised a proposal for another client, finalized a contract for a big job and now I’m going to spend some time on the final bits of work that still needs to be done on the Northern California book.

A little art, a little paid work, a little lining up of paid work for the future and then some non-fiction writing. That is a pretty nice day of writing. It’s very encouraging.

In truth, my actual perfect day of writing goes like this:

Work on my novel (for which I have been paid a huge advance)

Break for lunch with a friend at a nearby cafe.

Read for an hour or so while sitting in my garden (which is bursting with veggies, even though I hardly ever pick up a shovel)

Work on the novel for a few more hours

Cook dinner for the family and play with the kids until I tuck them into bed.

Read until I fall asleep.

Ahhhh….

But until I’m a world famous novelist, I’ll settle for the day job of writing, writing, writing.

For Daniel

It may seem like I haven’t been blogging much the past two weeks, but really I’ve just been cheating on you.

My other blog, The Digging Deep Campaign, has been going through some big changes. We added 6 new writers and I’ve been managing their posts, making myself dizzy with editorial work. As I’ve been getting used to the new schedule, I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting my own blog here. So sorry. I think I’ve got it under control now. If you haven’t checked out the Digging Deep blog in a while, you should stop by. We have new content EVERY DAY now, and it’s all good.

As for my own writing, I’m finishing up the polish on my Northern California book before sending it to the publisher. I’ve integrated the notes I got from my writing group, and am working on the fun intro material (basic history of Northern California, writing a personal preface, that sort of thing). The best part so far was dedicating it. I’ve never dedicated a book before. I’m giving this one to Daniel.

I thought about making the dedication read: “For Daniel, can we go home now?” We’ve been talking about moving back to Northern California since we got to LA, but somehow that didn’t seem right.

I opted instead for: “For Daniel, who loves Northern California almost as much as I do.”

It makes me wonder who I will dedicate my novel to. When I finish it, in like 30 years.

And Then One Day…

My girl loves stories. Not just before bed, but any time of day, all day. As we march up the stairs for breakfast each morning she usually says “momma, will you tell me a story?”

I usually respond that I need coffee first, but she will eye me like a hawk, and as soon as I’ve got that mug in hand she will repeat the request (and repeat, and repeat), until I start spinning the morning’s yarn.

Lately, my stories have all been about carrot and sandwich. They have had some great adventures. They hitch-hiked across country to visit our friend Jacqui in Virgina, they opened a dry cleaning shop, and fought pirates for treasure on Carrot’s private island (that he bought with his riches earned through dry cleaning).

It’s a fun ritual, even if sometimes I don’t feel up for it first thing in the morning, but the thing I love the most is what I’ve learned about my girl’s sense of story. When I’m setting up the story sometimes I get to rambling. I’ll tell what carrot is wearing, or what trouble sandwich is having with his wife, or whatever, and when it’s gone on too long my girl will say in a loud voice “and then one day…”

Brilliant.

I know she’s just bored and wants me to get on with it, but really, she is illustrating one of the core principals of story telling. You open on a world with a status quo, and then one day something upsets that status quo and viola – you’ve got a story.

Even kids get this, and yet, I feel like a lot of writers struggle with it. I’ve heard young writers talking about telling a “true” story where nothing contrived happens, or worse yet, where nothing at all happens because that’s life, man.

Bah, I say. If that’s life, then my four year old is living it better than you.

Maurice Sendak is Cool

As I’m busy today with some freelance work I’m just going to share this and say how very cool I think Maurice Sendak is. Sometimes I wish I were a cranky, old, (highly successful) writer. It’s good to have goals.

Is it Really Only Wednesday?

Both my kids seem to have some sort of stomach thing going on. I’ve been thrown up on so many times that I might stop showering afterwards and just wait til the end of the day when I can wash it all off at once (okay, not really). I’ve changed sheets 3 times in the last 8 hours, and the washing machine can’t keep up. The whole hose stinks of stomach acid. I’m exhausted, cranky, and slow. So this is parenthood.

I kept my girl home from school and am waiting for the doctors office to open so I can call and ask when I should worry. Hopefully this will all pass quickly. She’s watching Ice Age while I try to get a little work done, and frankly, I think she’s loving being sick. I remember loving it when I was a kid – stay home with mom, eat lots of yummy soup, watch movies – what’s not to like? Being (or acting) sick always seemed like a small price to pay.

Anyhow, assuming I can find any time, I’m plugging away at the novel today. I’m trying to look at it scene for scene. What I’m finding is that as I wrote it, I put scenes in some places that aren’t really scenes. That is to say, nothing happens. Still, as I look at the overall structure, I think my instincts were right, there needs to be SOMETHING in the places I put those scenes. Now I just need to figure out ways to bring in conflict and or revelation so that the scenes aren’t just place holders, but actually serve to move the story along.

I’ve been dying to re-read Winter’s Bone, but I can’t find my copy. I hate that. I remember the structure of that book being really satisfying. No long flashbacks or rumination, and yet you get the sense that you really know the main character. I want to look again at how he did that.

Anyhow, I’m rambling. Check back Friday when I have (hopefully) gotten some sleep and can present my thoughts in a more organized fashion.

All Weeks Should Be Like Last Week

It was a great week. If you follow my Facebook page you were privy to the final count down as I wrote the last pages of my Northern California book. I finished up the first draft on Wednesday night and celebrated with my guy over a dinner of take out burritos and champagne. Ahhhh, victory.

As I was toasting, an email arrived asking me to write a piece for Yes! Magazine. It’s just a few hundred word assignment, but it’s on a topic I’m passionate about (organic farmers battling Monsanto), and I was just really psyched to have and editor contact me about writing a (paid) piece.

Then Thursday night I met with my writing group. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – they’re awesome. There were two big take aways that night. One was the idea of Admin Mondays. One of my group members more or less devotes Mondays to taking care of crap that builds up (like scheduling appointments or following up on that credit card fraud thing, or blah blah blah). That way when those things come at you during your writing week you can just put them aside until Monday. Love it.

The other inspiration was a member of our group who is working on her first novel (as most of us are). Her new years resolution is to write every day, even if it’s just a little. Her book is really coming along, and talking with her just reminded me that it’s so important to keep moving on big projects. So Friday I pulled out my own novel and read it front to back. It’s at about 190 pages now, but I haven’t touched it since August.

Even though reading it was encouraging (it’s not half bad), I’m finding it so hard to get back into it writing it. Like so many times before I’m reminded how writing is like exercise and if you don’t do it for a long time, it’s really hard to get back to it. But it’s not like I haven’t been writing. I just haven’t been writing on that project.

It was an awesome week, and I’m way ahead of my new years goal of finishing the Nor Cal book by the end of January!

Now if I could just get back into the novel…