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.

I honestly don’t “get” blogs. If I have free time, I would MUCH rather spend it working on a novel rather than anything else. I like YOU–very much — it’s just the whole concept of “blogging” that is problematic to me and has been for years. It seems narcissitic to me and reeks of self-promotion over production. No one needs to know what you’re thinking every day. They just need to read your work. And to do that, you need to be focusing on the WORK not your “writerly image.” 

She goes on, but that’s the gist. And in some ways I agree. No one needs to know what I’m thinking every day. But I also have to take her comment with a grain of salt. See, this is a woman who produces a book about once a year. She is prolific, to say the least.

Unfortunately, not all writers can work on their novel all day every day. I wish I were one of those people, but honestly, if I’ve worked on my novel for four hours in a day I’m pretty happy with that. The rest of the time I’m exercising other writerly muscles, like my freelance work or my blogging (which I really only spend about an hour on every week).

I think blogging can be promotional, but it really only works in that capacity once you’re a big enough celebrity that people want to read what you have to say, at which point, do you really need the promotion? No. For me blogging is more about discipline and expression. The discipline of writing something regularly (for me it’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday) and the expression of myself in my writer community.

I’m pretty sure most of the people who ready my blog are my other writer/artist type friends, so I see this as a way to talk about what I’m working on, how I’m feeling about it, etc. I also like to share little things I discover that make my life easier as a writer. Certainly nobody’s under any obligation to read it, but I enjoy writing it. And I enjoy reading my friend’s blogs and knowing what they’re up to (I’ve listed some of my favorites on my blog roll in the right hand column, btw).

So maybe it is a waste of time, and narcissistic, but I like it.

Excuse me, I need to go spend some time gazing loving into the mirror now.

An impressive share, I just given this onto a colleague who was performing just a little analysis on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast because I discovered it for him.. smile. 

Or

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Or my favorite so far

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All these comments are posted by different names, but from the same url: scam.com/member.

What is the deal? For a while I was also getting a ton of (inane) comments from someone who consistently linked back to their Ugg online retail shop.

I’m glad to be getting more traffic, but dealing with all this blam is time consuming and annoying. Any WordPress geeks out there have any suggestions? Can I block certain urls from commenting? I would very much appreciate some advice.

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.

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.

Some of the toughest communication I do is with my own clients, trying to figure out exactly what they want and or need. With some clients it’s very straight forward, while with others there is an extensive whittling process. The tricky thing about us writers is that we tend to be a sensitive, artistic lot. Sometimes it can be hard to take feedback. Even the simplest suggestion (“maybe more adjectives”) can feel like a dagger striking our very core. 

One thing I’ve learned in my years as a writer is that  I have to be thick skinned when it comes to feedback. This serves me well in both my fiction and my business writing, but honestly, it’s a lot easier to practice what I preach when I’m writing for someone else.

As a writer for hire, I’ve gotten damn good at taking feedback. If a client isn’t thrilled with what I’ve put together, I’ll start over from scratch and not even think twice. I rewrote an entire article this morning because the editor I was writing it for was on a tight deadline and wanted to focus on a different angle. Done. Then I had a conversation with a client who wants a project rewritten with a certain style. No problem.

Is my ego a little bruised that I didn’t get it all perfect the first time? Yes. But I think the reason I continue to build my client base is that I’m not a diva about it. I’m not always going to hit it out of the park on my first try, but I am always going to listen to a client who wants changes and do my best to make the copy perfect through the revision process. As writers we are communicators first and foremost. If we can’t communicate with our clients, we’re pretty much doomed from the start, and if we can’t put our egos aside for two minutes it’s hard to hear anything from anyone.

I described it to Daniel last night like this: it’s as if I was training for a marathon (writing the novel). Then I switched to sprints (the Nor Cal book, written in 200 word segments). Now I’m ready to run that marathon, and I set out to run each morning and I’m tired so quickly.

Yesterday was a little better. I actually managed to write a whole scene, but it took me all day. And many, many times throughout the day I thought “I’ll just go do (laundry, facebook, anything but this),” but caught myself trying to avoid the task at hand and forced myself to work a little longer.

This was a good week to jump back in, as the freelance work was light (just that short magazine assignment), but Monday I have a meeting with a client that will hopefully bring on a new wave of work. So I’ll just try to enjoy today, lounging (battling) with the fiction.

The good news is that I’m actually not too far from the end of this draft. All the basic parts are in the right place, I think. I still need to develop some of my subplots, but all in all I feel like it’s coming along.

Here’s hoping.

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…

With any luck I will finish the last four pages of my Northern California book today!

I’m so excited to actually, finally, finish something!

Can’t blog. Gotta go write like the wind.